• News

by Cedric 'BIG CED' Thornton

May 3, 2021

New York City Council Passes Bill to Make Open Streets Program Permanent

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In New York City, a popular program entitled Open Streets, which was originally a temporary initiative, is a step closer to becoming a permanent fixture for the streetsin the five boroughs.

According to AMNY, the New York City Council has voted to pass a bill that will make the Open Streets program a permanent part of New York City. Last week, in a vote that favored the change, the tally was 39-8 and the legislation is now headed to Mayor Bill de Blasio’s desk, where he is expected to sign it into law.

The bill, brought to the council by Councilwoman Carlina Rivera, will create a process in which organizations in their respective communities, can apply to manage open streets with approval from the city Department of Transportation. They will provide resources to about 20 sites in the five boroughs.

“I think we can all acknowledge the important role Open Streets played at the height of the pandemic when we were desperate for more space for social distance, recreation, and rest both mentally and physically,” Rivera said. “But places like Avenue B, 34th Avenue in Queens, Vanderbilt Avenue in Brooklyn, Dykman have gone beyond that initial goal… This becomes a permanent, successful staple of our city where it’s appropriate.”

According to CBS NY, the Open Streets program was started last April, at the height of the coronavirus pandemic. The program was started to allow adults, kids, and pets more space to enjoy the open outdoors instead of being cramped in their apartments. The program was set to expire in the fall of 2020 but was then extended. Some streets were repurposed for outdoor seating at restaurants.

Mayor Bill de Blasio had already earmarked funds for the program in the upcoming fiscal year 2022 budget with $4 million stashed away for expenses such as signage, barricades, moveable street furniture and, financial assistance for groups involved in management.

“We also learned new ways of approaching our streetscape, Open Streets, Open Restaurants, huge successes,” de Blasio said. “Here, we put the resources in place to keep those programs moving forward, to allow that beautiful re-imagining of our streets, and to make sure that all communities can participate. The resources are there along with resources for bike boulevards and new bike lanes and pedestrian promenades on the Brooklyn Bridge and the Queensboro Bridge.“

• Business

by Derek Major

May 3, 2021

Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sues Biden Administration Alleging Aid to Black Farmers Discriminates Against White Farmers

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Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller is suing the federal government, claiming the aid to Black farmers as part of the Biden administration’s COVID-19 relief plan discriminates against White farmers and ranchers.

Miller, a conservative Republican, is suing as a private citizen and not on behalf of the state of Texas. The suit against the United States Department of Agriculture states the definition in the program fails to include “White ethnic groups that have unquestionably suffered” because of their ethnicity.

“Indeed, throughout American history, many White ethnic groups have been subject to “racial or ethnic prejudice because of their identity as members of a group without regard to their individual qualities,” including Irish, Italians, Germans, Jews, and Eastern Europeans. Members of these ethnic groups unambiguously qualify as members of a “socially disadvantaged group,” and as “socially disadvantaged farmers or ranchers,” the complaint states

Miller’s suit is being sponsored by America First Legal, a group founded by Former Trump administration advisor Stephen Miller. The group describes itself as one determined to fight back against lawless executive actions and the radical left.

In March, the Biden administration earmarked $10.4 billion for America’s farmers and ranchers. However, $5 billion went specifically to Black farmers who have endured decades of racial discrimination by the USDA.

Black farmers have dealt with less access to credit and technical support, which made it harder for them to update equipment, purchase seed, operate their farms and buy more land. They’ve also had to deal with racial bias at almost every level of government that has pushed them off their land.

Black farmers made up 14% of the U.S. farming population in 1910, but today they make up just 1.4% of the population. Discriminatory practices within the government are to blame.

Sid Miller believes locking out White farmers that have never had trouble getting the assistance they’ve needed, including from the Trump Administration, is unfair and is asking the court to declare benefits to Black farmers unconstitutional.

The suit has been assigned to to U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor, who was appointed by George W. Bush and has sided with Republicans in stripping protections from Obamacare and fighting against bills that expand protections for transgender Americans.

• Diversity, Equality, Inclusion

by Christian Spencer

May 3, 2021

MSNBC Host Tiffany Cross Called Sen. Tim Scott ‘Tap Dancing’ Slave of The Republican Party

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MSNBC host Tiffany Cross essentially agreed with social media regarding Sen. Tim Scott’s comment on America not being a racist country – his name ought to be  “Uncle Tim.”

Cross did not hold back on her Saturday program, The Cross Connection, where she called the only Black Republican in the Senate a slave to the Republican Party who is “not only on the wrong side of the aisle … but you’re embarrassingly on the wrong side of history as well,” in a way, theGrio reported.

Related stories: BLACK REPUBLICAN TIM SCOTT SAYS AMERICA IS NOT RACIST, THEN IS SHOCKED AT BEING CALLED UNCLE TIM

“Tim Scott does not represent any constituency other than the small number of sleepy slow-witted sufferers of Stockholm Syndrome who get elevated to prominence for repeating a false narrative about this country that makes conservative white people feel comfortable,” Cross said. Images of Candace Owens and Pastor Derrell Scott appeared when she spoke about “Uncle Tim’s” Stockholm Syndrome.

Her insults got deeper as she further implied that ‘Uncle Tim,’ a reference to “Uncle Tom,” a happy slave, rose to Republican prominence from cotton picking to eventually become a “clown” along with “tap dancer” and “token.”

“Please, senator, say more about how un-racist the country is, while you trot out that tired line about going from cotton to Congress to clown,” Cross said.

“Perhaps, this was merely Sen. Scott’s audition to be Sam Jackson‘s understudy in the film Django because, as a descendant of the enslaved and damn near a daily survivor of institutional racism, I can assure you the question, ‘Is America a racist country?,’ is one that has been asked and answered many times over, yet we still love America not for what it was but for what it could be,” Cross said.

As BLACK ENTERPRISE reported, Scott gave a 15-minute speech in response to President Joe Biden’s first address to Congress, calling him a good man but one who is dividing the country by pursuing major legislation. Scott also gave credit for the coronavirus recovery to former President Donald Trump.

BLACK ENTERPRISE also reported how Vice President Kamala Harris said she agrees with Scotts’ remarks but with reservations.

In addition to serving a 10-year prison sentence for abusing a mentally challenged Black employee  Bobby Paul Edwards has to pay to him $546,000 in restitution.

John Christopher Smith, a former buffet cook since the age of 12 at a J&J Cafeteria in Conway, South Carolina, was managed by Edwards who abused him, Blavity reported.

Related stories: BLACK DOOR DASH DRIVER, WORKING WITH HER CHILD, CHASED BY A RACIST MOTHERF***ER’

The courts originally ordered Edwards to pay Smith $273,000 in 2019, but the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Smith is owed compensation for his overtime, doubling the amount of money, The Post and Courier reported.

″(W)hen an employer fails to pay those amounts (regular and overtime pay), the employee suffers losses, which includes the loss of the use of that money during the period of delay,” the ruling stated, according to Blavity.

From 2009 to 2014, the time when Edwards started managing the restaurant, Smith worked seven days a week, tallying 100 hours a week without any pay.

In addition to missing wages, Smith endured racial epithets and beatings from the then-53-year-old manager, who reportedly used belts, pots and pans. and hot tongs to torture Smith.

Edwards would abuse Smith to make him work faster or to punish him whatever mistakes were made.

“This abusive enslavement of a vulnerable person is shocking. The FBI is always vigilantly searching for these offenses and stands ready to bring perpetrators to justice and help victims reclaim their lives,” FBI agent Jody Norris said in a statement. “We understand human trafficking takes many forms and we encourage anyone with information related to these crimes to contact the FBI.”

Social workers found out about Smith’s abuse in 2014. Edwards soon pled guilty to state charges of assault and battery.

Edwards got officially sentenced in 2019, with U.S. Attorney Sherri A. Lydon saying, “The U.S. Attorney’s Office will not tolerate forced or exploitative labor in South Carolina and we are grateful to the watchful citizen and our partners in law enforcement who put a stop to this particularly cruel violence,” Blavity reported. In addition to serving a 10-year long prison sentence for abusing a Black employee, Bobby Paul Edwards has to pay him $546,000 in restitution.

As we’ve been saying for many years now, racism is alive and well and has not dwindled over the years. Even after the last presidential term, it was quite evident that the racist mindset was elevated to a point that there were many who actually felt comfortable not hiding it anymore.

Well, Faheem Rasheed Najm came across several while playing a popular online game and he used the tools of the game to eradicate his racist opponents. Najm, better known as T-Pain, the artist who made auto-tune a staple in popular music over the years, was playing Call of Duty, when according to Entertainment Weekly, he heard other players spewing the N-word and making snide remarks about the Black Lives Movement. In typical revenge fashion toward these ignoramuses, the singer and rapper started annihilating his racist rivals until he eradicated all of them.

@tpainShutting down some racists in Call of Duty♬ original sound – T-Pain

According to TMZ, Activision, the company behind the popular online game, Call of Duty, released a statement pertaining to the incident.

• Money

by Christian Spencer

May 3, 2021

Atlanta Cops May Have Parents Pay Traffic Citation for Their ‘Water Boys’

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Atlanta police might give citations to parents of “water boys,” children who sell bottled water on busy intersections during the hot season.

With summer approaching, some Black children make use of their allowances, buying bottled water to resell them for a profit. However, the commotion it causes for busy drivers is a subject for debate, which law enforcers want to prevent.

The solution for handling reckless water boys without the need of arresting them is to attack their primary source of income–their parents.

RELATED CONTENT: A GROUP OF TEENS IN BALTIMORE LAUNCH THEIR OWN BOTTLED WATER BRAND

As reported by Atlanta’s WSB-TV, some water boys are said to have been aggressively targeting drivers, which could lead to accidents.

A day in a life of a water boy is a lucrative and, technically, a legal side hustle in Atlanta despite growing concerns for public safety. An individual boy could make between $100 and $500 a day.

However, the job is admittedly dangerous: children have to quickly advance toward stopped cars on the highway, make a sales pitch, and hastily collect their money and goods before the light turns green.

Some altercations do occur, leaving some teens killed in the process. Jalanni Press, 18,  was gunned down in June 2020. His mother, Tomeke Press, started an online petition to ban water boys in Atlanta, 11 Alive reported.

As of right now, citing parents is a police suggestion, but talks about prohibiting boys from selling water have been in the works.

Some board members of Georgia’s Community Improvement District (CID), such as Herbert Ames, the CID treasurer and senior vice president in the Southeast for the retail real estate company EDENS, have voiced their concerns.

“I would love any clarification on selling water illegally in the streets of Atlanta: how that is not classified as illegal behavior?” Ames told Reporter Newspapers. “It is a matter of time before someone is killed, either by people being hit, one of these kids shooting someone, or a passerby in a car who’s carrying a weapon firing upon them. It is unacceptable this continues…and to say it’s not criminal for them to be doing this in the middle of the road, it’s unacceptable.”

• News

by Jeroslyn JoVonn

May 3, 2021

New Jersey Man Sues Donald Trump for Foul-Handling of COVID-19 Pandemic

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Donald Trump is no stranger to lawsuits. But the former commander-in-chief has been hit with a class-action lawsuit regarding his controversial handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. The suit comes from an elderly New Jersey man who spent over 20 years in prison and knows firsthand what wrongdoing looks like.

The former inmate, 71-year-old Arnett Thomas, used all the reading and research he did during his time in jail to write a 29-page class-action lawsuit that includes more than 75 co-plaintiffs, NorthJersey.com reports. “The former president literally became the very domestic enemy to the Constitution he swore to defend,” Thomas said in the suit.

After being released from prison back in the year 2000, Thomas spent a few years working before suffering an injury that left him disabled and living in a government-sponsored housing complex in Orange, New Jersey. Thomas watched as a number of his friends passed away from COVID and his community suffered while the virus raged on and prolonged an international health pandemic that put millions out of work.

“The point of all of this is how Trump dealt with the pandemic,” Thomas said in an interview. “He drove people to dying.”

His lawsuit is seeking $1 trillion from Trump as restitution for the hundreds of thousands of Americans who lost their lives as a result of the airborne virus, NJ.com reports The lawsuit also calls out the depression many Americans suffered due to being confined to their homes and out of work.

“Trump allowed the disease to spread,” Thomas said. “What he did was politically motivated. If Trump would have handled this pandemic in a proper way, he would have been elected [again]. Trump got kicked out because of the way he handled it.”

The lawsuit goes on to blast Trump as “responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people across the expanse of America, by deploying and unleashing a natural herd immunity experiment which would contribute to five million reported COVID-19 cases and five hundred thousand deaths.”

If the lawsuit leads to a court trial, the proceedings could take years. But it’s a fight Thomas thinks is well worth it. “Trump is a gamer,” he said. “Some people can see it and some people can’t.”

• News

by Jeroslyn JoVonn

May 3, 2021

Kamala Harris Makes History With First VP Wax Figure At Madame Tussauds

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For far too long, American presidents have been the center of attention and praise with their vice presidents often ignored or overlooked by the public. But all that changed when Kamala Harris secured her seat in the White House as Joe Biden’s VP. Not only did she become the first woman to hold a vice president title, but she’s the first African American, and the first South Asian American to do so.

Now to add to her monumental accolades, the Howard University alum became the first vice president in American history to receive a wax figure at the popular Madame Tussauds Wax Museum.

“Careful, there’s glass on the floor again…@KamalaHarris will be the FIRST vice president to be immortalized by Madame Tussauds Wax Museum!,” the museum announced in a tweet. They also made sure to add a #GlassCeiling hashtag as a nod to all the history-making feats Harris has been a part of throughout her political career.

The tweet included a short video that showed Principal Sculptor David Burke and Sculptor Vicky Grant adding some of the finishing touches to Harris’s new wax figure alongside President Joe Biden.

Careful, there’s glass on the floor again…@KamalaHarris will be the FIRST vice president to be immortalized by Madame Tussauds Wax Museum! #VP #VIP #Achievements #president #politics #GlassCeiling pic.twitter.com/7t4tFUN1X0

— Madame Tussauds USA (@TussaudsUSA) April 28, 2021

“Kamala Harris made history when she was sworn in on January 20th becoming the first woman, first Black person, and first Asian American vice president,’ the museum said in a statement, as noted by Pix11. “Madame Tussauds New York is adding another first to Harris’ list of achievements by creating a wax figure in her likeness; an honor that has never before been extended to a vice president.”

The two pieces took six weeks to complete with the bodies still being worked on in a process that can take another four to six months. Once completed, the wax figures will be on display inside the “Oval Office Experience” at Madame Tussauds New York in Times Square. The two figures will be designed to have on their Inauguration outfits. Good thing Kamala came to slay that day!

One thing Ciara and Russell Wilson are going to do is remind us how much they love giving back. The superstar couple recently extended their philanthropic efforts even further by donating $35,000 to help the youth secure their financial futures.

The NFL champion and his entertainer wife recently made a surprise virtual visit to the students at Denny International Middle School in Seattle to teach them about the importance of money management, The Seattle Times reports.

The Wilsons donated over $35K to get each student from the West Seattle public school started off with a savings account containing $40 in seed money, Q13 Fox reports. The charitable move was in partnership with the Wilson’s Why Not You Foundation, a Financial Literacy Month partnership with the NFL Players Association, and the financial tech company Goalsetter.

“Financial literacy and building wealth is so important,” the Seattle Seahawks quarterback said. “Ciara and I really wanted to talk to you all because we didn’t come from much and we had big visions, we had big goals, big dreams.”

The couple made the surprise visit while Goalsetter CEO Tanya Van Court taught the students about building financial wealth in a lesson that used rap mogul Jay-Z as an example. While speaking to the students, Wilson referenced Amazon CEO Jezz Bezos who worked hard to secure investors while maintaining 53 million shares of his company stock.

“All these things can pay back tremendously if you invest in them in the right way,” Ciara said. “Investing is very powerful and it will also allow you to create an opportunity to build legacy for your family.”

After an eighth-grade student asked Wilson which companies the young scholars should invest in, the NFL player told them to pay attention to the trends within the tech industry. “It’s about finding the next up-and-coming thing,” Wilson said. “I wish I had invested in Facebook when I was young.”

Cheers to the Wilsons and the Seattle youth they’re helping to steer on a path to financial freedom.

It’s been 100 years since singer Mamie Smith became the first Black American woman to debut an album recording. In celebration of the centennial of Black American women in music, a group of musicians came together to produce a live album highlighting the history that’s been made over the last century.

Singer Kanika Moore of synthwave outfit Doom Flamingo and powerhouse soul band Motown Throwdown took to the Charleston Music Hall to record an album that chronicles the history of Black women in American music, The Post and Courier reports.

“This project is a celebration,” Moore said. “If it weren’t for these women, I would not be the same type of professional musician that I am today. But even more important, music would not have nearly the richness and texture and life and passion without Black American women musicians.”

Moore teamed up with musicians Reggie Sullivan who played stand-up bass, JT Rollerson of Black Noyze and A$AP Rocky who both played the drums, and Jonathan Lovett of Terraphonics on piano. The song renditions on the album start from the 1920s and include one song from each decade until now.

The album, titled “100 Years of Black American Women in Music”, has a tracklist that includes Mamie Smith’s “Crazy Blues,” Billie Holiday’s “Strange Fruit,” Ella Fitzgerald and The Inkspots’ “Into Each Life Some Rain Must Fall,” Sarah Vaughn’s “Misty,” The Shirelles’ “Will You Love Me Tomorrow,” Aretha Franklin’s “Day Dreaming,” Whitney Houston’s “Saving All My Love For You,” Mariah Carey’s “Hero,” Esperanza Spalding’s “I Know You Know,” Beyonce’s “Love On Top” and ends with an original song by Moore.

As a fan of so many different Black women in music, Moore found it difficult to get the tracklist down to include one song per decade. The singer reportedly had to leave out songs by some of her favorite singers like Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Nina Simone, Patti Labelle, and Erykah Badu.

Along with the album, Moore and the album’s coproducer Brian Compton have hopes of getting a documentary attached that includes their recording process and clips from the singers who helped Black women reach 100 years in American music. “The main goal is to create a timeless and permanent piece of art that is heartfelt and meaningful,” Compton said.