[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
JULIETTE W. PRYOR
COMPANY
General Counsel & Corporate Secretary, Albertsons Cos.
BOARD
Genuine Parts Co.
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
by Derek Major
July 8, 2021
Black Women Are Fighting For Those Suffering From Long-term COVID-19 Infections
Black women are speaking up about the effects of long term COVID-19 infections and how Black men and women are treated by doctors.
Chimére Smith, a 39-year-old Baltimore woman who addressed Congress in April spoke on her experience with long term COVID-19, which forced her to leave her job and spend her savings on finding healthcare as she was sick for more than 400 days after contracting COVID-19.
“I am now a poor, Black disabled woman living with long COVID,” Smith said according to US News.
Smith, a middle school teacher in Maryland, added she felt ignored and disrespected by doctors who didn’t believe she was sick and drove hours to find a doctor who would accept her as a patient and listen to her concerns.
Long term COVID-19 infections are ones where those infected by COVID-19 don’t fully recover weeks or months after being infected. Long-term COVID-19 infections can infect anyone who has had the illness even if they have mild or no symptoms while infected.
Smith’s symptoms included impaired vision, diarrhea, gastrointestinal issues and a feeling of paralysis in her face. The teacher said she was treated so poorly by doctors that she hasn’t returned to a hospital since last year.
The coronavirus pandemic has killed more than 600,000 people and infected more than 34 million residents since last March.
Ashanti Daniel did not contract long-term COVID, but in 2016 she was diagnosed with an unrelated respiratory infection. She ended up in the hospital for a week, but she recovered, or she thought so.
Several weeks after her infection, Daniel noticed the fatigue she felt after her night shifts were different from anything else she experienced. It took another nine months before she was diagnosed with myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), a respiratory illness similar to long-term COVID-19.
The similarities pushed Daniel to get involved in COVID-19 advocacy, especially to help other Black people who are struggling with long-term COVID and ME/CFS, which primarily affects White women, which prevents some Black people from getting diagnosed.
Time Magazine also reported on the struggle Black men and women have faced when trying to get diagnosed with long-term COVID-19. STAT News also reported in May that researchers believed long-term COVID disproportionately affected Black people.
According to the Centers For Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), when compared to White people, Black people are more likely to catch COVID are 2.9 times likely to be hospitalized and two times likely to die.
by Jeroslyn JoVonn
July 8, 2021
Wendy Williams’s Ex Sends Subliminal Shots After Her Failed Relationship Advice to Tabitha Brown
Kevin Hunter is still firing off subliminal shots following his divorce from daytime talk show queen Wendy Williams.
After the gossip talk host’s recent unwarranted advice to actress and social influencer Tabitha Brown, Hunter seemingly responded to Wendy’s shade with a cryptic message of his own.
His post came amid his ex-wife being a trending topic for issuing out a warning to Brown after The Chi actress bragged about being able to retire her husband and allow him to follow his dreams.
Williams referenced her own failed marriage when telling Brown to be careful about allowing her husband to retire from his job with the Los Angeles Police Department.
But instead of ignoring the unsolicited shade, Brown took to Instagram to respond with a smooth soulful clap back and made sure to tell Wendy “God bless you.”
Keep God FIRST! This is my word and prayer for @wendyshow and anyone else that doesn’t understand this type of love and support❤️. God bless y’all,” Brown said in the caption.
View this post on Instagram
Brown’s soft-spoken response garnered her more fans and had the internet making a mockery of Williams and her long history of issuing out negative criticisms.
Hunter hopped on the opportunity to take shots at his ex and posted an Instagram Story caption that appeared to be in response to Wendy’s comments on their failed marriage.
“I’m coming to realize that being ungrateful is a disease that only God can heal,” Hunter said. “That’s why you receive blessings regardless of a person’s actions…He doesn’t forget nothing!!!”
Williams and Hunter were married for 21 years when she decided to finally file for divorce after learning he fathered a child with his mistress. Hunter is still dating the woman he was having an affair with.
STEPHANIE PLAINES
COMPANY
Former CFO, John Lange Lasalle Inc.
BOARD
Nielsen Holdings plc
APRIL MILLER BOISE
COMPANY
EVP & General Counsel for Eaton Corp
BOARD
Trane Technologies plc
by Jeffrey McKinney
July 8, 2021
Atlanta, Houston, and New York City Top List of Cities With Large Number Of Black Businesses Opening During Pandemic
In respect to small business owners, several recent reports have shown that Black entrepreneurs were rethe hardest hit by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Yet a new analysis disputes those findings to a degree, suggesting that there were several areas nationally where Black Americans opened businesses briskly despite the crisis.
Relatively fresh research from university economists disclosed that several cities with predominantly Black populations saw their rate of new businesses take off during the pandemic, occurring more so than cities with lower Black populations, CBS.news.com reported.
The discovery came as black businesses have been walloped by the crisis. Many of those firms continue to face ongoing challenges of raising capital and operating with less revenue than generated before the pandemic.
Among their findings, researchers learned that major cities including Atlanta, New York City, Miami, and Houston led other cities in entrepreneurial growth, often in ZIP codes with Black populations earning higher than the average U.S. income. Startup growth in those neighborhoods topped their statewide averages and occurred when the nation faced extensive joblessness and tumbling corporate profits.
The research showed new businesses in Atlanta grew 56% relative to 2019, mainly in predominantly Black neighborhoods of College Park and East Point. In that timeframe, Georgia’s overall rate grew 36%, based on U.S. Census data including all ethnicities.
In the nation’s fourth-largest city, Houston, startup rates rose by 32% in the Black neighborhoods of Sunnyside, Missouri City, South Acres, and Kashmere Gardens. In comparison, the Texas rate was 10%.
A 45% growth in business registrations in New York City in July 2020 from the year-earlier period was led by the minority-majority boroughs of the Bronx and Queens, where new businesses rose by 32% and 26% respectively. The state’s growth rate was 10% in 2020 and entrepreneurship in predominantly White Manhattan declined that year.
CBSnews.com reported one of the study’s authors, Boston University business professor Catherine Fazio, said it’s unclear why there was such a boom in entrepreneurship last year, particularly in wealthier minority neighborhoods. She added her best guess is some Americans living in communities of color used the stimulus payments from Congress last year to file business-formation paperwork, choosing to do versus paying bills.
“Many people lost their jobs in the wake of the initial lockdown, so they turned to other avenues, which included starting new businesses.”
The growing number of new businesses started by people of color came as the Black Lives Matter movement and cases of police brutality drew national attention to Black-owned businesses, researchers noted. Fazio said it’s likely that even more new companies than her research captured were started in 2020, as some entrepreneurs may not have filed business formation documents in their state.
While the study did not precisely state what type of new businesses are being opened, CBSnews.com reported Black entrepreneurs nationwide are starting up establishments ranging from restaurants to data science firms.
DEIDRA MERRIWHETHER
COMPANY
SVP, North American Sales & Services, W.W. Grainger Inc.
BOARD
Weyerhaeuser Co.
Google made a pledge to boost the number of Black workers in senior roles and while it has increased Black employment, rising departures show it’s having trouble retaining its workers.
Google announced last June it will improve the number of Black workers in senior roles and fill at least 30% of its leadership roles with minority talent by 2025. The tech company added that 8.8% of its U.S. hires this year were Black compared with 5.5% in 2020.
However, according to Bloomberg, attrition has also increased among Black employees and other racial groups within the company. The highest jump in attrition comes from Black women, Native American women, Latino and Asian men according to Google’s diversity report.
Google was one of the first technology companies to begin compiling and releasing diversity reports, but it’s also struggled in changing the racial and gender diversity of its staff. Overall, Google’s U.S. workforce is more than 50% White, 42% Asian, 6.4% Latinx, 4.4% Black and 0.8% Native American.
Melonie Parker, Google’s chief diversity officer, said in a video Thursday, Google wants to show the areas where they’ve been successful and where they need to keep working.
“We recognize the platform that we have and the brand position that we have, and we know that there are other companies that are watching us, looking at us,” Parker said according to Bloomberg. “And we want to make sure that we don’t just show our successes, but that we show the areas that we need to get better as well.”
Google has also donated millions of dollars to boost Black participation and employment in the tech industry from outside its offices.
Last October, the tech giant donated more than $2 million to Black-owned tech companies based in Atlanta. That same month Google also started a partnership with the Thurgood Marshall College Fund to teach digital and tech skills to 20,000 HBCU students.
It also donated $50 million to 10 HBCUs including Howard University, Morgan State University, Xavier University of Louisiana and Spelman College to address the diversity gap in tech.
“Google’s generous gift to create pathways in STEM for HBCU students will propel them into roles and opportunities that prepare them to be 21st-century change agents,” Spelman College President Mary Schmidt Campbell, Ph.D, said in a statement. “Having hosted Googlers from the Google-in-Residence program, and having seen the outcomes of our students who have interned at Google and alumnae who are now employed by Google, we are grateful for their comprehensive approach to building equity in computing education.”
by Jeroslyn JoVonn
July 8, 2021
Brooklyn Mother And Son ‘Turned Coach to First Class’ With Viral Seafood Boil Soiree on Airplane
A Brooklyn mother and son duo have gone viral after showing off how they “turned coach to first class” with their inflight seafood soiree.
Kmail Pratt was in for a surprise after seeing a photo of him and his mother enjoying a seafood boil in the air go viral. Kmail and Suzie Pratt were en route to Las Vegas on Spirit Airlines back in March when they snapped the pic, Bronx News 12 reports.
They were traveling with family and friends and caught the attention of other passengers and the flight attendant who snapped the photo. Neither was expecting the unique shot to go viral nearly four months later.
“They was just smiling and it was just a lot of positivity, like people was running up taking their photos. We felt like stars,” Kmail said.
Suzie is amused by the new social media fame. Eating seafood boils on the plane is something she and her family have been doing since she was eight years old.
“I’ve never flew without my seafood…I never had a seafood-less flight,” Suzie said. “I would bring seafood into water parks for my daughter’s birthday.”
While many people wondered how the family got so much food through TSA, Suzie says the airport security is known for allowing food through, just no liquids.
“TSA lets anybody in with food, it does not matter what your food is,” Suzie said.
Where’s the air marshall? pic.twitter.com/Zbnr2MvrdD
— Hueless P. Newton aka Shaun Scheme (@MrsGeotech) June 29, 2021
After the photo was shared by Twitter user @Notsonewlywedpc with a caption asking, “Where’s the air marshall?” the photo was flooded with a number of mixed reactions. Some of the criticism struck a nerve with Suzie because she didn’t see the practice as “ghetto.”
“’Ghetto’ was disturbing to me, because nothing about me and my son was ghetto,” Suzie said. “We take pride in being classy. And it was more of classy thing than anything because I wasn’t even in first class and I turned coach to first class.”
The family owns their own Brooklyn-based seafood restaurant called KClaws and hopes the new publicity will help them get the chance to cook for the likes of Wendy Williams, Yahoo News reports.
“I love making seafood, the flavor, the fun,” Suzie said. “It brings out the happiness in everybody.”
Now don’t be mad because Suzie thought of it before you. Let her family enjoy their inflight seafood parties in peace.
by Andrea Blackstone
July 8, 2021
Prominent Leaders Launched an Initiative to Embed Financial Literacy Into the Culture
Increasing financial literacy can lead to improving money management.
Prominent leaders who hail from the business, sports and entertainment industries recently committed to advancing the Financial Literacy for All movement, through their organizations, according to a press release.
Financial Literacy for All is a movement led by prominent leaders who seek to improve the financial literacy of Americans. Per Financial Literacy for All’s website, leaders made “a 10-year commitment to reach millions of youth and working adults, providing them with the necessary tools and life experience to become confident in making financial decisions that unlock greater well-being for themselves, their families, and their communities in general.”
The focus of the movement will partially entail making financial literacy easier to understand, and raising financial literacy awareness for students, young adults, and working adults. Walmart’s CEO, Doug McMillion, and John Hope Bryant are co-chairing the 10-year commitment which is intended to reach the demographic, per the announcement.
Bryant is the founder and CEO of the nonprofit, Operation HOPE. It provides financial empowerment programs and economic education for “low-income or moderate-income youth, individuals and families in underserved communities,” according to LinkedIn.
“I believe we are sitting in a moment in history right now, but history does not necessarily feel historic when you are sitting in it. It just feels like another day. What we do now can make all the difference, and we consider financial literacy to be social justice through an economic lens,” Bryant said in the announcement.
“Mastercard, BlackRock, TIME for Kids, Nextdoor, FICO, U.S. Bank, Truist, First Horizon Bank and Santander” and others “joined founding members Walmart, Disney, NFL, NBA, Delta Air Lines, Walgreens, Bank of America, Khan Academy and Ares Management as part of this first-of-its-kind coalition,” according to additional details.
Reggie Jackson — who is a baseball Hall of Famer — is serving as a celebrity ambassador.
55 years ago today, the @Athletics drafted @ASU_Baseball star Reggie Jackson with the second overall pick. Steve Chilcott, the No. 1 pick, would never play a major league game – but @mroctober was ticketed for Cooperstown. pic.twitter.com/L362hbOXmj
— National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum ⚾ (@baseballhall) June 7, 2021
The initiative’s first challenge grants were provided by David Riley — who is an investor and philanthropist – in addition to his wife, Nextdoor CEO Sarah Friar. According to a press release, they provided a “150,000 challenge grant from their family foundation, with the goal to spur other leaders from tech and finance to take similar action.”
Friar is also on Operation Hope’s Global Board of Advisors.
“Operation HOPE is driving important changes within our neighborhoods and empowering entrepreneurs at the local level,” Ms. Friar said in another announcement. “I am impressed by how John and his team are committed to building community and look forward to working alongside this great group of advisers to help more small businesses thrive.”
Click here to learn more about Financial Literacy for All.