• Lifestyle

by Cedric 'BIG CED' Thornton

June 2, 2021

Black Bourbon Society and Maker’s Mark Collaborate With Spirits Network to Introduce ‘Barrel Select’

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Black Bourbon Society (BBS) has collaborated with Maker’s Mark® Bourbon in a partnership with Spirits Network, to launch Spirits Network’s newest original program, tilted Barrel Select, which also introduces the latest custom barrel between the companies.

Spirits Network is a community of spirits enthusiasts creating meaningful connections through original, shoppable video programming. The latest program is tilted Barrel Select and is hosted by Samara Davis, who is the founder of Black Bourbon Society (BBS), and her husband and BBS partner, Armond Davis. The show was filmed at the Maker’s Mark Distillery on Star Hill Farm in Loretto, Kentucky. It documents the creation of their second custom barrel from Maker’s Mark Distillery, Black Bourbon Society’s Maker’s Mark® Private Selection: Recipe 2, which is a follow-up to their award-winning selection in 2019.

“Armond and I are thrilled to showcase the process of creating another Private Selection with Maker’s Mark,” exclaimed Davis in a written statement. “We are forever grateful for our brand partnership, which has been solid over the years, and fervent support for our advocacy work to influence a more diverse and inclusive spirits industry. We are also grateful for the Spirits Network who has extended their platform to showcase our experience with like-minded spirits enthusiasts around the globe. We look forward to creating more unique content from a diverse lens perspective for the network in the future.”

RELATED CONTENT: Special Spirit Released by Black Bourbon Society, in Addition to Short Documentary

Black Bourbon Society’s Maker’s Mark Private Selection: Recipe 2 was made through the Maker’s Mark® Private Selection program. This program allows retail partners to “make their own Maker’s®” by finishing fully-matured cask strength Maker’s Mark Bourbon in a single barrel featuring a custom selection of oak staves inserted for additional finishing. The first collaboration with Maker’s Mark won Double Gold at the 2019 San Francisco World Spirits Competition, where it was up against 3,000 other spirits that were presented in front of more than 40 judges.

“It’s been a privilege for Maker’s Mark to continue supporting the Black Bourbon Society, especially on this latest program,” said Rob Samuels, 8th-Generation Whisky Maker at Maker’s Mark. “The new Private Selection that Samara and Armond Davis created is nothing short of spectacular. However, even more important than this unique whisky is our partnership with them and Southern Glazer’s to provide meaningful support for Diversity Distilled this year and beyond.”

Barrel Select launched on the Spirits Network on May 20. The latest bourbon offering celebrates Diversity Distilled, a nonprofit organization founded by Samara and Armond. The organization advocates and crafts strategies to address the diversity, equity, and inclusion of brands, with a focus on the world of distilled spirits, packaged beverages, and the alcohol and service industries. Maker’s Mark® and Southern Glazer’s Wine & Spirits was instrumental in the establishment of Diversity Distilled’s job fair and apprenticeship programs, which allow them to focus on advancing people of color throughout the industry.

“Spirits Network is thrilled to partner with the Black Bourbon Society, Samara and Armond Davis, and Maker’s Mark to share the story of this groundbreaking custom bourbon creation. We’re continually in awe of Samara and Armond’s dedication to the Black Bourbon Society, and the important work that they do to bring diversity, equity, and inclusion to the spirits industry,” states Nick Buzzell, chairman and CEO of Spirits Network.

• Diversity, Equality, Inclusion

by Derek Major

June 2, 2021

Virginia Theological Seminary Is Paying Reparations To Descendants Of Slaves Who Built Campus

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The Virginia Theological Seminary has begun paying reparations to descendants of slaves and Black Americans who built the campus during slavery and Jim Crow.

The Seminary began making cash payments in February worth $2,100, which will come annually from a $1.7 million fund tied to the school’s endowment. According to the New York Times, 15 people have received payments so far, but more will likely be added as genealogists dig through the seminary’s records to search for living descendants.

“When White institutions have to face up with the sins of their past, we’ll do everything we can to prevaricate, and we’ll especially prevaricate if it’s going to have some sort of financial implication,” Rev. Ian S. Markham, the president and dean of the seminary, told the Times. “We wanted to make sure that we both not just say and articulate and speak what’s right, but also take some action—and we were committed to that from the outset.”

The seminary’s reparations program will provide the payment to members of the generation closest to the original workers. If that generation includes people who have passed, the money will go to their children. If someone passed away with no children, the money would be split up among the eldest generation.

RELATED CONTENT: Students Call For Colleges to Atone for Slavery Ties Through Forms of Reparations

Leaders of the seminary acknowledged it can be hard to determine who will receive money and how much but added it will take the issue head on. One example is Carter Dowling, an enslaved Black man who escaped from the seminary and built a life of his own. Dowling was Black but his grandchildren and their descendants identify as White.

Located about a half an hour outside of Washington D.C. the Virginia Theological Seminary graduates about 50 students a year and has a $191 million endowment. The expansion of the reparations program will coincide with the seminary’s 200th anniversary in 2023.

The seminary’s reparations program could jump start reparation programs as universities begin to acknowledge that enslaved Black Americans built their campuses. Harvard University and Georgetown University have acknowledged their connections to slavery. The Princeton Theological Seminary, located in New Jersey, promised to spend $27.6 million on scholarships and other educational initiatives to address its historical ties to slavery.

In April, 80 percent of Brown University students voted in favor of reparations to descendants of slaves affiliated with the school and its founders.

• Technology

by Derek Major

June 2, 2021

President Joe Biden To Meet With Republican Senator Shelley Moore To Discuss Infrastructure Bill

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Reuters – President Joe Biden will sit down for one-on-one talks on Wednesday with Republican Senator Shelley Moore Capito aimed at a breakthrough on a bill to revitalize U.S. infrastructure — though the two disagree on what that word means.

Biden and Senate Republicans remain hundreds of billions of dollars apart in their proposals, largely because the Democratic president has a more sweeping definition of infrastructure that includes funding for schools and home health care in addition to roads, bridges and other physical assets.

The two parties have been inching closer together in recent weeks, most recently when lead Senate Republican negotiator Capito last week unveiled a $928 billion counteroffer https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/republicans-vs-biden-whats-their-infrastructure-plans-2021-04-22 to Biden’s $1.7 trillion proposal.

Today’s meeting, scheduled to take place at 2:45 p.m. ET (1845 GMT) in the White House Oval Office, comes as the Biden administration faces pressure from some of Biden’s fellow Democrats in Congress to move forward.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican, said he had spoken to Capito on Wednesday ahead of the meeting and that she would be suggesting Biden embrace a Republican idea that some of the money Congress appropriated for COVID-19 relief should be repurposed for infrastructure.

Speaking in Shelbyville, Kentucky, McConnell said state and local officials nationwide would be overwhelmed by “massive” amounts of money from the latest COVID-19 aid bill, passed earlier this year without Republican votes. Some of this money could be used “to plug the gap between what the gas tax raises, and what we would like to do on infrastructure,” he said.

“I think that’s the key to getting a bipartisan agreement,” McConnell said. “I hope we can get there.”

RELATED CONTENT: Republicans Infrastructure Bill Falls Well Short Of President Biden’s Package

Biden’s Democrats hold narrow margins of control in both houses of Congress and could try to pass a measure without Republican support through a process called reconciliation that circumvents Senate rules that require 60 votes to pass most legislation. Even that approach is uncertain, though, as at least two Senate Democrats have raised concerns about the maneuver.

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg has indicated time is running out for negotiating a bipartisan deal.

Aside from the overall cost and scope of the plans, the White House and Senate Republicans remain far apart on how to finance infrastructure projects.

The White House wants to pay for infrastructure projects by hiking taxes on corporations and wealthy individuals, which the Republicans say is a red line for them. Meanwhile, Republicans have proposed user fees, which the Biden administration has rejected.

The White House hopes to conclude bipartisan talks in the next week or so, according to a person familiar with the negotiations.

(Reporting by Makini Brice; editing by Jonathan Oatis)

Germany is giving reparations to Namibia, a country in southern Africa, after formally recognizing that its colonial troops committed genocide at the beginning of the 20th century.

Reported by The Wall Street Journal, it took a little more than six years, but Germany admitted that its troops murder tens of thousands of Herero and Nama people in Namibia to push their White supremacy.

Between 1904 and 1908, before there were Nazis, Germany colonizers fought native Africans defending their homes from being taken over.

German empirical forces, which were better equipped, killed or drove Herero and Nama people into the desert without water or food. Thousands died in concentration camps, where inmates were starved, beaten and worked to death.

It is estimated that third quarters of the Herero and half of the Nama tribe were wiped out, DW News reported.

In 2004, a 100 years later, former Developer Minster Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul, talked about the incident, asking the tribes for forgiveness. Back then, the German government clarified that Wieczorek-Zeul was voicing her opinion independently.

Related stories: GERMANY TO RETURN STOLEN BRONZE ARTIFACTS TO BENIN, “WE ARE CONFRONTING OUR HISTORIC AND MORAL RESPONSIBILITY.”

Today, German will pay 1.1 billion euros or $1.3 billion to developing projects and reconstruction as a “gesture of recognition of the immeasurable suffering that was inflicted on the victims,” Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said in a statement.

A spokesman for Namibia’s president told the Wall Street Journal said the payment exceeds compensations paid by other countries for colonial atrocities. Germany says that the payments don’t constitute reparations.

“They never sat down with us. We never had a chance to speak to the Germans,” said Tim Frederick, great-grandson of  a legendary Nama fighter named Cornelius Frederiks. Cornelius died in a concentration camp in the colonial port of Lüderitz in 1907. Cornelius’ head was severed, It, along with hundreds of others head, was shipped to Germany for white supremacy research.

• Arts and Culture

by Cedric 'BIG CED' Thornton

June 2, 2021

A$AP Rocky Becomes Investor in Swedish Fintech Company Klarna

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The history Rakim Mayers has with Sweden is one he probably wants to forget. Mayers, known to the fashion and hip-hop world as A$AP Rocky from the hip-hop collective A$AP Mob, was jailed nearly 2 years ago in Sweden for a misunderstanding on the street that led to an alleged assault on a fan.

Two summers later, A$AP Rocky is collaborating with a bank and shopping service that was started in Stockholm, Sweden, back in 2005!

Klarna, which is a leading global payments provider, bank, and shopping service, has recently announced that A$AP Rocky is currently a shareholder and had assumed the role of company CEO for a day on June 1.

. @klarna X @asvpxrocky 🔥🔥 MORE TO COME!!! https://t.co/q9PSO80v7V

— LORD FLACKO JODYE II (@asvpxrocky) June 1, 2021

“Klarna is a company that looks ahead and challenges the status quo, which makes partnering with them so appealing to me,” said A$AP Rocky in a written statement. “I’m excited to begin working with Klarna in a number of ways, including jointly creating a space for people to rediscover style as we emerge from a global fashion hibernation.”

A$AP Rocky will curate exclusive content in the Klarna shopping app that will focus on upcycling and vintage fashion.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski, CEO and co-founder of Klarna has said: “A$AP Rocky defies categorization; a musician, actor, philanthropist, an opinion leader in style, and fundamentally someone who understands what the public wants from so many vantage points. He challenges the status quo each day. As the consumer experience in retail now demands discovery, curation, and sustainability, we at Klarna have a lot to learn from him. Besides, after sixteen years since founding Klarna, I think I deserve a day off (in reference to A$AP Rocky being CEO on June 1).”

A$AP Rocky will join Klarna’s GiveOne sustainability initiative as he has pledged 1% of his investment to impactful planet health projects focusing on climate and biodiversity. Rocky has personally chosen to give his support to the Miti Alliance in Kenya and its founder Michael Waiyaki. This particular initiative is fighting to slow down the effects of climate change due to deforestation. The impact of his contribution will be tracked on his behalf in the coming months and years.

• Diversity, Equality, Inclusion

by Derek Major

June 2, 2021

Black-Owned Whiskey Company Announced $50 Million Venture Fund For BIPOC-Owned Spirit Brands

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Uncle Nearest Premium Whiskey, a brand honoring Nearest Green, the enslaved distiller who taught Jack Daniel how to make whiskey, announced the creation of a $50 million venture fund to invest in spirit brands owned by people of color.

The fastest growing whiskey brand in the country is helping to support other BIPOC- and female-owned spirit brands trying to create their own space and legacies in a white-dominated industry. CEO Fawn Weaver, who started Uncle Nearest in 2017, made the announcement on the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre.

“On June 1, 1921, an entire community of wealthy and successful African Americans was wiped out in a matter of hours. We are talking about 35 square blocks known as Black Wall Street,” Weaver said in a press release. “As an African American, learning about that history broke my heart because we, as a people, were really onto something in Tulsa, Okla. We were lifting one another up and creating wealth within our own community, and then showing others how to do it for themselves. We cannot go back and undo the past, but I do believe we have full power over our future, and that re-creating a Black Wall Street of sorts within the spirits industry is a great place to start.”

The venture fund has already picked its first two investments. London-based Equiano, the world’s first Afro-Caribbean rum named after writer and abolitionist Olaudah Equiano and Jack From Brooklyn Inc., the first-known Black-owned distillery in America post Prohibition and the maker of the bartender-beloved Sorel Liqueur. Each company will receive $2 million in initial funding.

The fund is accepting applications and Weaver added Black-owned spirit brands will be the first investment priority, but the fund will consider any brand founded or led by a person or woman of color.

The Uncle Nearest venture fund will be controlled by a committee of seven including Weaver; Carolyn Feinstein, the former chief marketing officer of Dropbox; and Mark McCallum, the former chief brand officer for Brown-Forman, the company that owns the Jack Daniel Distillery.

• Business

by Christian Spencer

June 2, 2021

Sign Posted at a St. Louis Popeyes Denies White People of The Good Chicken Service

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A Popeyes in St. Louis, Mo., is being investigated by the police after a sign was posted outside of its drive-thru lane that refused service to white people.

“Effective 6-1-21, this restaurant is under new management and will reserve the right to refuse service to white people. We apologize for any inconvenience. Signed, general manager, Mason,” KMOV, a local affiliate reported.

An image of the sign was shared on social media last week and resulted in backlash, which caused the restaurant to close last Wednesday.

However, surveillance video shows that the sign was not posted by a Popeyes employee; police and management think it was done by pranksters and the situation got accelerated.

“‘The manager did not post this sign and the business is not ‘under new management’ as alleged per our investigation,” said Chief Chris DiGiuseppi of the Lake St. Louis Police Department, according to USA Today.

People, outraged by the sign, told KMOV that they came to the location to verify the sign.

Related stories: R&B LEGEND EDDIE LEVERT SCOLDS BLACK FOLKS OVER POPEYES CHICKEN SANDWICH

“I came up to verify it for myself,” one resident said. “When I went to the drive-thru, you could see where the sign had been ripped off from the duct tape.”

“I was thinking, surely this is not true. What is this world coming to?” another resident said.

Because the situation is being investigated, Popeyes can not comment on the matter besides its prankster theory.

“It is good that the Popeyes did not do that, but that is not good for the community,” one male resident said. “You should not do anything like that. It is going to stir up problems.”

The Popeyes has also been a target of vandalism, and the authorities will be looking to see if there is a connection with the sign.

• Technology

by Black Enterprise Shop

June 2, 2021

Enjoy Superior Audio And Noise Cancellation With These Headphones On Sale

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No workspace would be complete without quality headphones.

Listening to podcasts and your favorite playlists can help make an excruciating workday more tolerable. But wouldn’t it also help if your headphones shielded you from distractions? Noise-canceling headphones are the best solution.

The TREBLAB Z2 Bluetooth 5.0 Noise-Cancelling Headphones, are capable of delivering excellent sonics, impressive battery life, and superior comfort. For a limited time, you can grab them on sale for over $150 off their original retail price.

The Z2’s earned its name due to the massive upgrade from its predecessor. Named an Amazon’s Choice Product, these feature twice the sound, battery life, and convenience of competing headphones. This updated version of the original Z2s comes equipped with an all-black design, making it a great addition to your workstation. 

Check it out:

With aptX technology, high-performance neodymium-backed 40mm speakers, and T-Quiet™ active noise-cancellation, you can enjoy immersive audio while drowning out background noise. They’re also designed to fit ergonomically and securely for comfortable all-day wear; the incredible 35-hour battery life lets you listen for longer.

With Siri and Google Voice support and Bluetooth 5.0, you can enjoy seamless connectivity and hands-free control, too.

A pair of the TREBLAB Z2 Bluetooth 5.0 Noise-Cancelling Headphones would normally set you back $259, but for a limited time this Memorial Day week-long sale, you can grab them on sale for $71.97.

• News

by Cedric 'BIG CED' Thornton

June 2, 2021

Pennsylvania Police Chief Pleads Guilty to Civil Rights Violation After Threatening to ‘Make Up a Fake Arrest’

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A police chief in Pennsylvania has been charged with a civil rights violation after he allegedly made a threat to a man. He informed him that he could “make up a fake arrest” and have him placed in jail after the man wrote social media posts criticizing the police chief and the department he heads.

The United States Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Pennsylvania had announced late last week that 45-year-old Police Chief Brian Buglio, of Lattimer Mines, Pa., has been charged in a criminal information with a civil rights violation.

According a press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office, “Criminal Informations are only allegations. All persons charged are presumed to be innocent unless and until found guilty in court.”

Acting U.S. Attorney Bruce D. Brandler stated that the information alleges that Buglio, the Chief of Police for the West Hazleton Police Department, had previously threatened someone with criminal charges, to retaliate for social media posts the person had created which criticized Buglio and the work of the West Hazleton Police Department.

According to WNEP, Buglio has pleaded guilty to the charge. The man he threatened, Paul DeLorenzo of East Stroudsburg, Pa., says he wrote on Facebook that Buglio was slow to make an arrest in a case he was involved with.

RELATED CONTENT: White Woman Who Falsely Accused Black Teenager of Stealing iPhone Has Been Arrested