• Criminal Justice Reform

by Derek Major

July 16, 2020

Bristol, England, Removes Black Lives Matter Protester Statue After One Day

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The statue of a Black Lives Matter protester that appeared on a plinth formerly occupied by a statue of a slave trader has been removed after just one day.

According to CBS News, Bristol’s mayor, Marvin Rees, said the statue of a female protester with her fist raised to the sky, which appeared early Wednesday morning, had been put up without permission.

“We have established a history commission which will help us tell our full city history,” Rees said in a statement. “As we learn this fuller history including the part played by Black people, women, the working class, trade unions, and children among others, we will be in a better position to understand who we are, how we got here, and who we wish to honor.”

A statue of Edward Colston, a former slave trader, sat on the plinth from 1895 until June 7, when protesters pulled the statue down before throwing it into the River Avon.

The moment #BlackLivesMattterUK pulled down the statue of merchant slave trader Edward Colston in #Bristol

Epic. pic.twitter.com/fU0BToyLNI

— Sam (@SamuelLiddell) June 7, 2020

The statue of activist Jen Reid, who was part of the group that pulled down the Colston statue, was secretly installed by artist Marc Quinn’s team at dawn on Wednesday. Both Quinn and Reid said the installation was always meant to be temporary.

“When I was stood there on the plinth, and raised my arm in a Black Power salute, it was totally spontaneous, I didn’t even think about it,” Reid said in a statement about the work. “It was like an electrical charge of power was running through me. My immediate thoughts were for the enslaved people who died at the hands of Colston and to give them power. I wanted to give George Floyd power, I wanted to give power to Black people like me who have suffered injustices and inequality. A surge of power out to them all.”

Quinn added the statue was meant to keep the conversation on race going.

“Jen and I are not putting this sculpture on the plinth as a permanent solution to what should be there,” Quinn said. “It’s a spark which we hope will help to bring continued attention to this vital and pressing issue. We want to keep highlighting the unacceptable problem of institutionalized and systemic racism that everyone has a duty to face up to.”

New Orleans Pelicans guard Jrue Holiday will donate up to $5.3 million in game checks to start a social justice fund, according to NBA.com.

Holiday and his wife, Lauren, a former star player on the U.S. women’s national soccer team, said they will use his remaining game checks for the upcoming NBA restart of the season, which was shut down due to the coronavirus pandemic. The couple has launched the Jrue and Lauren Holiday Social Justice Impact Fund to help aid communities in New Orleans, Indianapolis, and the Los Angeles area. The Holidays said that up to $1.5 million will go to New Orleans.

“Honestly when it came down to it, it was me and my wife talking about what we could do to kind of further this movement and progression and being able to help out our community and just being able to help,” Holiday told ESPN.

“We were just kind of sitting in the house, in the bed, thinking about it, and my wife said, ‘I think you should do this and you should do the rest of your salary.’ That’s a great idea. Because we want to make an impact. God has blessed us with so much. We know a couple of things that are important are time and money, and right now, we have both. To be able to give away our money to help further this movement and Black-owned businesses that have taken a hit in COVID-19, to us, it felt like the perfect time and opportunity.”

Most of the money from his game checks will be donated toward nonprofits, Black-owned businesses, and citywide initiatives that seek to assist Black and Brown communities in New Orleans (up to $1.5 million), Los Angeles, and Compton, California (up to $1.5 million), and Indianapolis (up to $1 million). An additional $1 million will go to Black-owned businesses in more than 10 other cities. $500,000 will go to institutions of higher learning, including historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs).

Successful comedian and entrepreneur Kevin Hart has partnered with Nailah Ellis by making an investment in her Black-owned Ellis Island Tea company, according to a press release. 

The company brews its beverage in Detroit with a recipe inspired by Ellis’ Jamaican roots. The company’s Jamaican Sweet Tea and Jamaican Herbal Tea are already sold in select Sam’s Club stores, Costco, and select airport concessions around the country. Starting this month, the beverage will be distributed in Walmart and will soon be in CVS and Target.

The cat is out of the bag! Ellis Island Tea is now officially partnered with @kevinhart4real! 🥳🎉Thank you for your belief in us, Kev! Now I need y’all to go buy some tea because I gotta pay him back 😥😂#EllisIslandTea #KevinHart #entrepreneur #hibiscus #tea #free pic.twitter.com/s9dk7tY29s

— Ellis Island Tea 🌺 (@EllisIslandTea) July 14, 2020

“There were a lot of people pulling for Nailah,” said Hart. “Her name just kept coming up and coming across my radar. So, I figured there had to be something to it.”

That something is Ellis Island Tea, an all-natural beverage handcrafted from a recipe inspired by Ellis’s Jamaican great-grandfather, who came to America through Ellis Island more than 100 years ago. The tea is made with hibiscus, which makes it rich, red, smooth, and flavorful.

Ellis started at the age of 20, brewing tea in her mother’s kitchen and selling it from the trunk of her car around Detroit. Ellis now has her own Detroit beverage production facility and is the largest Black female beverage manufacturer in the United States.

Ellis says she owes her success to the man who inspired the recipe for Ellis Island Tea—her great-grandfather Cyril Byron.

“Cyril’s story is one of a true risk-taker. He came here with nothing but his dreams,” Ellis said. “He went on to become a head chef on Marcus Garvey’s Black Star Line and then the owner of Byron Caterers, one of the most successful Black-owned catering businesses in the Bronx.”    

Hart, no stranger to starting from nothing to become successful says, “You’re supposed to set up for the next generation…if you’re not doing that, you’re not doing your part.” 

“We all need opportunity,” Ellis said. “I’ve been given mine and now I’m paying it forward and providing that for others.”

• Arts and Culture

by Cedric 'BIG CED' Thornton

July 16, 2020

Jay-Z, Rihanna Among Celebs Seeking Justice For Black College Student Killed By Police

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Luminaries in acting, hip-hop, and sports, have sent a letter to U.S. Attorney General William Barr and the U.S. Department of Justice urging them to reopen an investigation into the death of Pace University student Danroy “DJ” Henry, according to People.

Henry was killed by a White police officer in 2010.

The letter, signed by Robyn “Rihanna” Fenty, Shawn “Jay-Z” Carter, Pharrell Williams, Charlize Theron, Taraji P. Henson, Odell Beckham Jr., Michael Williams, Kerry Washington, Mary J. Blige, and Gabrielle Union, was sent to the U.S. Attorney General on Monday, July 13th.

“This agonizing case remains an unhealed wound for the Henry family and the people of New York,” the letter states. “DJ, a young Black youth with a bright future ahead of him, was killed for no apparent reason inside his own vehicle.”

“The facts of the case reek of local conflict of interest, racial bias, and even false testimony,” it went on. “But like so many other unarmed and innocent young, Black men who find themselves guilty of being at the wrong place at the wrong time, DJ, too, lost his life for no good reason and with absolutely no good explanation—to this very day. Justice, it appears, has been denied.”

Just last month, DJ’s mother, Angella Henry, spoke to CBS News about the case. “Ten years ago, we lost our son in the street—handcuffed. And here we are, 10 years later, George Floyd dies in the street, being handcuffed,” Henry said. “And it’s heartbreaking to see that nothing has changed.”

“We sent him off to college to play football, and he never came home,” Dan Henry, DJ’s father, said. DJ was a junior playing football for Pace University in New York.

In October 2010, it was reported that DJ was at a sports bar celebrating with his teammates when other bar patrons got into a fight. The police stated that DJ was parked in a fire lane out front and when asked to move, he sped toward police officer Aaron Hess, propelling him on the hood. Police said Hess was forced to shoot DJ.

A new professional baseball team may go to Nashville and, if it does happen, it could become the first Black-owned franchise in Major League Baseball history, according to USA Today.

The group that would make such a reality happen is led by three-time World Series champion Dave Stewart. Stewart is on the board of directors and advisory committee of the Music City Baseball group that is leading the effort. If it does take place, they could be looking to acquire a Major League Baseball team, either through expansion or relocation, and bring it to the city of Nashville.

The baseball team will be called the Nashville Stars, which is named after a Negro League team, honoring the teams that played in Nashville before baseball’s integration. They are counting on becoming the first team in baseball history to have Black majority ownership, which would also put them in line to be the second team in men’s major sports, joining basketball Hall of Famer, Michael Jordan who owns NBA’s Charlotte Hornets.

Last week, during Thursday’s installment of “Nothing Personal with David Samson,” former MLB front-office executive David Samson weighed in on the possibility of a potential Nashville expansion team and believes it would be a great idea if it’s able to happen.

“If you go to 16 and 16, obviously that makes scheduling easier. Expanding to two teams would be smart,” Samson said, according to CBS Sports. “Also it would bring in money. Let’s say that there’s a billion-dollar expansion fee. Each team could use $35 million and expand twice, that’s $70 million. Bringing in these expansion fees would be smart and all owners would want it. But you can’t expand to 32 teams until you’ve got 32 teams and their stadium situations taken care of.”

“This is what baseball should do,’’ Stewart tells USA TODAY Sports. “They should open the doors to Black ownership, diverse ownership. This is the time for baseball to do something they’ve never done. For what this country is going through, and what baseball is going through, there will be a residual effect. This is history.

“Think about it, we’ve never had Black ownership in baseball. There’s Magic [Johnson] and [Derek] Jeter, but that’s not real Black ownership because their stakes are so small.

“This is real. And now is the time.’’

• News

by Derek Major

July 16, 2020

North Carolina City Votes Unanimously To Give Its Black Residents Reparations

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In an unprecedented and historic move, the city council of Asheville, North Carolina, has apologized for the city’s historic role in slavery and voted to provide reparations to residents and their descendants.

According to the Citizen Times, the council voted unanimously 7-0 Tuesday night.

“Hundreds of years of black blood spilled that basically fills the cup we drink from today,” Councilman Keith Young, one of two African Americans on Asheville’s council told the Citizen Times. “It is simply not enough to remove statutes. Black people in this country are dealing with issues that are systemic in nature.”

Residents will not receive direct payments as a result of the resolution. Instead, the City of Asheville will make investments in areas of the city where Black residents face racial disparities.

“The resulting budgetary and programmatic priorities may include but not be limited to increasing minority home ownership and access to other affordable housing, increasing minority business ownership and career opportunities, strategies to grow equity and generational wealth, closing the gaps in health care, education, employment and pay, neighborhood safety and fairness within criminal justice,” the resolution states.

The resolution will also push Asheville to create the Community Reparations Commission. The commission, which the council is inviting community groups and other local governments to join, will brainstorm concrete recommendations for programs and resources to be used.

Councilwoman Sheneika Smith said the council received emails in response to the resolution from citizens asking, ‘Why should we pay for what happened during slavery?'”

“(Slavery) is this institution that serves as the starting point for the building of the strong economic floor for white America, while attempting to keep Blacks subordinate forever to its progress,” said Smith.

Before the vote, the council allowed an hour of public comment on the measure. However, many residents were not able to speak before the vote and waited for another hourlong comment period afterward. Most were in support of the move,

Several speakers did express anger against reparations, with one linking it to a Venezuelan government plot and others saying Black Lives Matter was Marxist, according to the Times.

“My white privilege is I grew up on a farm, we milked cows, we bailed hay. That was my white privilege,” a man identifying himself as Eddy from West Asheville said at the meeting.

The state of North Carolina has a dark history with slavery and racism that still exists today. The city of Wilmington, which is about five hours southeast of Asheville, served as a port for the delivery of slaves to the Lower Cape Fear region.

As we are approaching the restart of the 2019-2020 NBA season down in Orlando, Florida, at Disney World, doctors are having concerns about the lingering effects of COVID-19 if a player tests positive for the virus, according to ESPN.

“Everyone needs to understand that if someone were to test positive, it’s quite likely that they won’t return to the court for a minimum of two weeks—minimum,” said John DiFiori, the NBA’s director of sports medicine, who is also the chief of primary sports medicine and attending physician at New York City’s Hospital for Special Surgery. “It may be even a little longer than that, depending on the individual circumstances, and then you need some time to get reconditioned.

“Anyone who’s been out of training for two weeks is going to need time to recondition,” DiFiori stated. “These things are important for everyone to understand. The players, the coaches, the medical staff, understand that if a player tests positive, they’re going to need time to clear the infection management, they need additional time to recover, and then to begin reconditioning for their sport.”

There is a plan to incorporate a multi-step process for any player or personnel who gets a positive test result. That includes two weeks, either from the first positive test if the person remains asymptomatic or from the resolution of symptoms. The physician will decide on whether isolation can end. The player will then take a cardiac screening in accordance with criteria outlined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Matthew Martinez, a consulting cardiologist for the National Basketball Players Association, said that rest is key after a confirmed positive test because doctors believe that “the amount of cardiac damage can increase if you continue to exercise in the face of an active infection.”

Martinez also said, “So you’re somebody with a low-grade fever, and you have a little bit of symptoms. And, a week later, you’re fine. Do you have cardiac involvement? Now, if you’re a regular person, like me, and you’re going to go do your [two- to three-mile runs] every day … that’s a different discussion than if you’re a professional athlete.

“So that’s the reason why we worry about it that that high level of exercise intensity can increase your risk of having an adverse event when there’s cardiac damage related to a virus.”

• News

by Dana Givens

July 16, 2020

NAACP And CBS Television Studios Agree To Multi-Year Content Partnership

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CBS Entertainment will work with the NAACP on a new multi-year content partnership to produce more diverse programming. Under the new agreement announced this week, the two entities will develop and produce projects — including documentaries as well as scripted series — to increase the visibility of its Black talent.

“In this moment of national awakening, the time has never been better to further tell stories of the African American experience,” said Derrick Johnson, president and CEO of the NAACP, according to Variety. “Programming and content have the power to shape perspectives and drive conversations around critical issues. This partnership with CBS allows us to bring compelling and important content to a broad audience.”

The news comes after CBS Television Network said that the company is committed to devoting 25% of its script development budget to Black and people of color within the field for its 2021-2022 development season.

The partnership would allow the network to develop projects for CBS Television Network but also to sell shows to outside entities. The company hopes to have a minimum of 40% BIPOC representation by the beginning of next year and increased that to 50% by 2022. In the past, the network has been called out for its lack of diversity. Its 2016 fall season only consisted of shows that were all-led by White men with White executive producers.

“An important way to diversify and grow our storytelling is to expand our horizons beyond the traditional studio-producer system,” George Cheeks, president and CEO of CBS Entertainment Group, told Variety. 

“There is no better partner than the NAACP–the preeminent civil rights organization in our country–to help us find, develop and tell these inclusive stories,” Cheeks added. “At the same time, this is a strategic opportunity for CBS to build upon as well as re-imagine our pipeline for existing and emerging creative talent.”

• News

by Cedric 'BIG CED' Thornton

July 16, 2020

15-Year Old Michigan Black Girl Sent to Juvenile Detention For Not Doing Online Homework

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A 15-year-old Black girl in Michigan was sentenced to a juvenile detention center during the coronavirus pandemic by a judge who reprimanded her for not completing her online homework, thus violating her probation, according to ProPublica Illinois.

The Black teenager has been in custody at the Children’s Village juvenile detention center in the Detroit area since May. The young girl, Grace, reportedly has ADHD and was having difficulty keeping up with the online schoolwork. She, along with many students across America, was following a stay-at-home directive instituted by the state due to the coronavirus pandemic.

“Who can even be a good student right now?” said Ricky Watson Jr., executive director of the National Juvenile Justice Network. “Unless there is an urgent need, I don’t understand why you would be sending a kid to any facility right now and taking them away from their families with all that we are dealing with right now.”

A letter from Grace (below), which you can read in its entirety in the ProPublica story, shows the girl’s ordeal.

Grace was placed on probation after being involved in two incidents last year. On Nov. 6, she bit her mother’s finger and pulled her hair over a dispute in which the cops were called. A couple of weeks later, she was captured on surveillance footage stealing a cellphone from a school locker room.

Judge Mary Ellen Brennan, the presiding judge of the Oakland County Family Court Division, found Grace “guilty on failure to submit to any schoolwork and getting up for school” and called Grace a “threat to (the) community,” citing the assault and theft charges that led to her probation.

“She hasn’t fulfilled the expectation with regard to school performance,” said the judge. “I told her she was on thin ice and I told her that I was going to hold her to the letter, to the order, of the probation.”

A petition has been by started Kavalon Gilliam at Change.org to drum up more support to get her out of jail.

“Grace a 15 year old girl was sent to a juvenile facility for not doing online homework.

“I understand holding kids accountable, but this was an overreach. The judge should have found a different method for her to be at home. We have a pandemic going on and the best place for this child to be is with her mother. Being in the facility for a minor reason is not fair to her. It also will make her feel more caged in (as article state[s] she was having cabin fever, due to the pandemic). From the article [sic] seems as if she is feeling lonely, depressed, not motivated[,] and an outcast.

“During this time with the pandemic we have been releasing adults. But we are going to lock up a child for something minor, when it [sic] was a different way to deal with the issue.”

• Politics

by Derek Major

July 15, 2020

Sen. Kamala Harris Announces Bill To Give Health Providers Bias and Anti-Racism Training

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U.S. Senator Kamala Harris (D-CA) announced a bill Wednesday ensuring health providers and other individuals involved in COVID-19 testing, treatment, vaccine distribution, and response receive bias and anti-racism training.

The COVID-19 Bias and Anti-Racism Training Act will address the racial and ethnic disparities that have emerged during this pandemic.

Specifically, the bill would create a $200 million grant program for hospitals, state, local, Tribal, and territorial public health departments and nonprofits to establish or improve bias and anti-racism training programs for health care providers treating COVID-19 patients and for individuals participating in other response efforts, like contact tracing.

The act also prioritizes funding for entities in communities with high racial and ethnic disparities in COVID-19 infection, hospitalization, ICU admission, and death rates. The bill also introduces the COVID-19 Racial and Ethnic Disparities Task Force Act, which calls for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to improve the collection and public dissemination of COVID-19 demographic data.

The COVID-19 pandemic has disproportionately affected African Americans in infection and death rates due to the lower quality of health and healthcare African Americans receive. Harris said the bias in the healthcare system has made it harder for African Americans to get the treatment they need.

“People of color are being infected and dying from COVID-19 at disproportionate and astounding rates,” Harris said in the release. “This is, in part, due to persistent bias in our health care system. We must take action to address this issue, especially as our country continues to face an unprecedented health crisis. I’m glad to partner with Representative Adams on this bill which is a critical step toward ensuring people—especially people of color—receive comprehensive, culturally competent care.”

Representative Alma S. Adams (D-NC) will introduce companion legislation in the House of Representatives.

“The COVID-19 Bias and Anti-Racism Training Act would help healthcare providers, state and local public health departments, and health professional schools to implement or improve bias and anti-racism training for health care professionals working on the COVID-19 response,” Adams said in the release. “The bill would prioritize solutions for communities with high levels of racial and ethnic disparities in COVID-19 rates and outcomes, including our hardest hit communities.

The legislation also requires the Secretary of Health and Human Services to collaborate with healthcare professionals, policy experts specializing in addressing bias and racism within the healthcare system, and community-based organizations to develop requirements for evidence-based, ongoing bias and anti-racism training.