A Black, female-owned marketing firm has switched gears to help companies and organizations acquire Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) to help during the coronavirus pandemic.

Impact Consulting Enterprises announced Wednesday that it has changed its focus from marketing, website design, and development to temporarily join the PPE network. President and CEO Cheryl McCants activated her supply chain to begin helping organizations in New Jersey, where Impact is based.

“When I learned of the many challenges that procurement officers faced in identifying legitimate suppliers for masks, gloves, and other types of PPE, we instinctively jumped in to help,” McCants said in the release. “While we are not doctors, grocery workers, or first responders, Team Impact consists of great researchers and crises managers. We put our skills to use and shored up a portion of the PPE supply chain for those in need. It only made sense. We did what we could to help others save lives.”

Beginning in March, East Orange, New Jersey-based Impact Consulting began looking for reliable national and international suppliers to help deliver supplies during the coronavirus outbreak. Impact quickly acquired masks, gloves, hand sanitizers, and wipes for hospitals, schools, utility companies, and other organizations in need.

So far, Impact’s effort has led to 50,000 masks going to New Jersey’s University Hospital. Another 12,000 masks were sent to the Eden School for Autistic Children. 10,000 gloves were sent to Massachusetts’ Veterans Administration Hospital, and nearly 300,000 sanitizing wipes went to utility companies.

Team Impact believes in leveraging our resources for good. See how we pivoted our work to help others during #COVID. https://t.co/VpzZZDo7zx pic.twitter.com/evYM7JwODR

— Impact Consulting (@ICEBranding) June 25, 2020

Robert Sharbaugh, University Hospital’s acting director of supply chain management, said the PPE it received from Impact Consulting was a huge assist.

“We had an immediate need for additional PPE supplies. Impact’s Newark office is located less than a mile away from University Hospital,” Sharbaugh said in the statement. “So working with Cheryl and her team was an easy, trustworthy and close-to-home solution for the hospital.”

Impact Consulting is still working to provide PPE for organizations in New Jersey. As the need for PPE sourcing settles down, McCants wants to resume her team’s focus on marketing.

Others have also contributed to help as the coronavirus pandemic continues to affect the U.S. A teen in Georgia secured an international PPE deal last week. In March, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo personally thanked musician Rihanna for her donation of PPE equipment to the state.

• Entrepreneurship

by Dana Givens

June 26, 2020

How This Black-Owned Delivery Service Is Giving Back To Restaurants Amid COVID-19

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With social distancing and quarantine restrictions still in place amid the COVID-19, or the novel coronavirus pandemic, many restaurants are relying solely on takeout and delivery orders in order to stay afloat during the public health crisis.

Recently, apps like GrubHub and UberEats came under heavy scrutiny when restaurant owners came out about the high surcharges the app charges for their deliveries. Many of these small locally owned restaurants rely on these third-party apps to expand their customer area. One company is empowering black-owned restaurants with a new delivery service that help restaurants earn more profits from their orders.

Mo Sloan is the founder of EZ-Chow, an integrated online ordering application that lets customers place orders directly with restaurants to help streamline deliveries without the use of third-party delivery apps. The online ordering solution would help restaurants increase their takeout and delivery revenue. Sloan founded his company after he grew tired of small business owners being taken advantage of and becoming frustrated with working in corporate America. 

“I realized I had reached a glass ceiling in my position in corporate America, but I believed that I had the potential for more,” said Sloan in an email interview with BLACK ENTERPRISE. 

“I wanted to solve a problem for an industry so I tapped into my restaurant experience with Papa John’s International and started thinking of how I could help restaurants, specifically small and medium-sized hospitality organizations. I started EZ-Chow to help restaurants and hospitality organizations control their own digital channel. I wanted to democratize technology for smaller organizations and give them the tools and tech capabilities to compete against the larger, national chains.”

“Our service is different from companies like GrubHub or UberEats, because we are true merchant partners.  We help restaurants pivot and become e-commerce businesses. We help them own direct digital customer engagement with their customers,” he continued.

“We eliminate the reliance on third-party menu aggregators or marketplace business models. By giving the restaurant a platform to engage directly with their customers, the restaurant takes control of the process. EZ-Chow allows restaurants to own customer data, the customer experience, their own brand, and the transaction itself, at a fraction of the expense of third party aggregators. It also simplifies the process as orders are injected directly into the merchant’s existing point-of-sale system. [It’s] a win-win-win scenario. It’s a win for the customer (they pay less), a win for us (we make revenue), and most importantly a win for the merchant (they get the order with all the benefits of direct ordering).”

Sloan went on to say that his software is needed now more than ever amid the COVID-19 outbreak where restaurants are doing all they can to stay afloat. “COVID has helped our business because we are the most efficient way for restaurants to generate off-premise dining revenue,” he said. 

“With COVID shutting down dining rooms around the country, restaurants and hospitality organizations are turning to us to provide them both short-term and long-term assistance with both surviving the pandemic and thriving in a post-pandemic world where consumers expect convenience.”

In addition to her voiceover work, Slate is a popular stand-up comedian who has also acted in a number of movies and television shows, most notably Parks and Recreation and the critically acclaimed comedies Obvious Child and Landline. Her best-selling collection of personal writings, Little Weirds, was released last year.

• COVID-19

by Derek Major

June 25, 2020

IRS, Treasury Department Sent $1.4 Billion in Stimulus Checks To Dead People

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The Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report Wednesday saying the IRS and Treasury Department delivered $1.4 billion in stimulus payments to dead people.

According to the New York Times, the GAO report said the Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service pumped a chunk of money to people no longer alive in a race to deliver more than $270 billion in stimulus payments at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic.

“The agencies faced difficulties delivering payments to some individuals, and faced additional risks related to making improper payments to ineligible individuals, such as decedents, and fraud,” the report stated.

The report, titled Opportunities to Improve Federal Response and Recovery Efforts, added the although the IRS typically uses death records from the Social Security Administration in order to prevent improper payments, that did not happen with the first three rounds of stimulus payments.

The report said it was due to a legal interpretation of the legislation authorizing the payments.

Additionally, the report said IRS lawyers “determined that IRS did not have the legal authority to deny payments to those who filed a return for 2019, even if they were deceased at the time of payment.”

The GAO wrote the IRS should develop methods to notify ineligible recipients of the payments and how to return them. The agency also recommended Congress ensure the Bureau of Fiscal Service, which distributed the payments, gain full access to the Social Security Administration’s death records to prevent the situation from happening again.

Separately, the report attacked the Centers for Disease Control’s coronavirus testing numbers. According to the agency,  the CDC combines tests for an active infection with those that detect antibodies. The practice is inflating the percentage of Americans who have been tested for COVID-19 and gives an unreliable picture of the way the virus is spreading around the country.

A diverse coalition of more than 50 civil rights and labor groups have come out against the nomination of Anthony Tata for undersecretary of defense for policy.

A press release from the NAACP, signed by more than 50 other organizations Wednesday, states, “All of our communities have been directly harmed by Mr. Tata’s words and actions. We believe that the bigotry and discrimination he has perpetuated over this career disqualify him from any federal appointment and especially one of this importance. He is one of the most openly and brazenly bigoted nominees in recent memory.”

Tata, a retired Army Brig. General, is being considered for the third-highest position at the Pentagon, an agency with more than 3 million employees. He’s made many controversial statements in the past, including calling veteran Congresswoman Maxine Waters a “vicious race-baiting racist” for her defense of Rodney King.

Tata also invoked plantation slavery to criticize an African American news anchor and repeatedly invoked the “birtherism” conspiracy theory about President Barack Obama. In 2018, Tata called Islam “the most oppressive violent religion I know of.”

He’s also repeated false claims—based on bigoted narratives about Islam—that Obama was a “Muslim,” and a “terrorist leader” with “Islamic roots” who sought “a weaker America.”

Following the June 12 publication of a CNN story on Tata’s tweets, the retired general deleted several other controversial tweets. Two retired generals have already pulled their support of him for the post.

Additionally, the NAACP noted in 2010, Tata was hired to lead the Wake County, North Carolina, school system and immediately dismantled a nationally lauded desegregation program. The Wake County School System was mired in controversy during Tata’s time there, including allegations of violating various civil rights laws for refusing to provide Spanish-speaking parents with information related to special education services.

Tata was nominated for the post by President Donald Trump in June and isn’t the first Trump nominee to have a checkered past. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh was accused of sexual assault. The same goes for Air Force General John Hyten, now the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs.

The NCAAP statement was co-signed by the Arab American Institute, the Asian Americans Advancing Justice, the Black Alliance for Just Immigration, the Center for Disability Rights, the National Association of Human Rights Workers, and the National Center for Transgender Equality.

Gentrification has changed the social and economic demographics of major cities around the United States, causing many low-income native residents to be forced out of their homes. African Americans are often the ones who feel the worst effects of gentrification as higher-income earners drive up real estate values, pricing residents out of the neighborhoods they made famous. For one entrepreneur based in Houston, the solution to combating the problem is through a new initiative empowering residents to invest in their communities.

WeBuyBlack reported that Southern University graduate Christopher Senegal recently acquired two blocks in Houston’s historic Fifth Ward known for its African American roots and dubbed Houston’s “Black Wall Street“. He started a new initiative called “Buy The Block” to help native residents invest in their properties so they can stay in the neighborhood for the long-term future.

Senegal’s journey started back in 2013 when he purchased a block no one wanted due to issues with drugs and crime. He was turned down by 23 lenders before eventually receiving funding.

The young entrepreneur was able to use crowdfunding to allow everyday people to invest as little as $250 to own a piece of his company’s real estate portfolio. The first project consists of 14 townhome developments worth $3.9 million focused on bringing successful, native Black professionals back to the neighborhood. The other development package consists of 18 homes and two commercial buildings worth $1.3 million. He has managed to amass $700,000 through crowdfunding to protect his long-term, fixed-income residents from displacement.

Senegal hopes that the new initiative will encourage others to invest in their communities rather than move out when they reach a higher income bracket.

 

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Built in 1925 this house has witnessed greats like Tina Turner, Aretha Franklin, and Stevie Wonder on the porch, in the house, walking down the street. Now we own it and are bringing it back to its peak potential. #buytheblock #LyonsAve #fifthward #houstontx

A post shared by Christopher Senegal – Investor (@_invstr) on May 27, 2020 at 7:59pm PDT

• News

by Cedric 'BIG CED' Thornton

June 25, 2020

New York City To Display ‘Black Lives Matter’ on Street in Front of Trump Tower

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The city of New York is about to make a statement to a former resident.

The Big Apple plans to have a “Black Lives Matter” street mural painted outside of Trump Tower in midtown Manhattan–Fifth Avenue between 56th and 57th Streets, to be exact–sometime before July 4, according to The New York Post.

The new mural is one of the seven that has been planned throughout New York City’s five boroughs. Three are intended to be in Manhattan: the one slated for midtown; another in Harlem, along Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard; and the final one in lower Manhattan along Centre Street, in the shadow of the local and federal courthouses.

The Post has reported that Mayor Bill De Blasio devised this plan after a June 7 meeting with Black community leaders and activists, including the Rev. Kevin McCall and Gwen Carr, the mother of Eric Garner, sources said.

“The mayor doesn’t think Black Lives Matter is a stunt. Nor does he think it is just a social issue,” De Blasio spokeswoman Freddi Goldstein said. “The request to paint BLM on streets throughout the city came from leaders within the movement. The president needs this helpful reminder.”

Another spokeswoman for the mayor explained the motivation that drove de Blasio to have the slogan painted in front of Trump Tower.

“The President is a disgrace to the values we cherish in New York City,” Julia Arredondo said. “He can’t run or deny the reality we are facing, and any time he wants to set foot in the place he claims is his hometown, he should be reminded, Black Lives Matter.”

Told that @NYCMayor Bill de Blasio wants to paint the fabled & beautiful Fifth Avenue, right in front of Trump Tower/Tiffany, with a big yellow Black Lives Matter sign. “Pigs in a Blanket, Fry ‘Em Like Bacon”, referring to killing Police, is their chant. NYC Police are furious!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 25, 2020

The New York City mayor came up with the idea after Washington, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser had “Black Lives Matter” painted along a street leading up the road to the White House, according to a second source. The plan for the murals and their locations were finalized last week.

• Technology

by Dana Givens

June 25, 2020

NASA Names Headquarters After ‘Hidden Figure’ Mary W. Jackson

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The movie Hidden Figures showed the world the black women in NASA behind some of its most important findings and research. This week, NASA announced that it has named its headquarters in Washington D.C. after one of the women who inspired the film, Mary W. Jackson, the first Black American female engineer at NASA.

“Mary W. Jackson was part of a group of very important women who helped NASA succeed in getting American astronauts into space,” said Administrator Jim Bridenstine in a statement.

“Mary never accepted the status quo, she helped break barriers and open opportunities for African Americans and women in the field of engineering and technology.”

“We proudly announce the Mary W. Jackson NASA Headquarters building. It appropriately sits on ‘Hidden Figures Way,’ a reminder that Mary is one of many incredible and talented professionals in NASA’s history who contributed to this agency’s success. Hidden no more, we will continue to recognize the contributions of women, African Americans, and people of all backgrounds who have made NASA’s successful history of exploration possible.”

Jackson started her career at NASA in a segregated West Area Computing Unit of the agency’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. The aerospace engineer would eventually go on to lead programs that would create new opportunities for women in the company. She was posthumously awarded the Congressional Gold Medal in 2019.

“We are honored that NASA continues to celebrate the legacy of our mother and grandmother Mary W. Jackson,” said Carolyn Lewis, Mary’s daughter, in a press statement. “She was a scientist, humanitarian, wife, mother, and trailblazer who paved the way for thousands of others to succeed, not only at NASA, but throughout this nation.”

 

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👩🏾‍🔬🚀🌟 Mary Jackson never accepted the status quo.⁣⁣⁣ ⁣⁣⁣ Today we announced that our headquarters building in Washington, DC, will be named after engineer Mary W. Jackson, who overcame barriers to become NASA’s first Black woman engineer. ⁣⁣⁣ ⁣⁣⁣ Jackson started her NASA career in 1951 at what is now @NASALangley in Virginia as a human computer – a mathematician who performed hand calculations for NASA missions. After two years working in the West Area Computing unit, she received an offer to work in Langley’s Supersonic Pressure Tunnel, where she conducted extensive aeronautics research and authored or co-authored over a dozen research papers. She was promoted and, in 1958, became our first Black woman engineer.⁣⁣⁣ ⁣⁣⁣ In 1979, Jackson made a final career change, leaving engineering to become the program manager for NASA Langley’s Federal Women’s Program. She would dedicate the rest of her career to the hiring and promotion of the next generation of women mathematicians, scientists, and engineers. She was posthumously awarded the Congressional Medal of Freedom in 2019 and was portrayed by @JanelleMonae in the Oscar-winning film #HiddenFigures.⁣⁣⁣ ⁣⁣⁣ Our Administrator @JimBridenstine noted, “We know there are many other people of color and diverse backgrounds who have contributed to our success, which is why we’re continuing the conversations started about a year ago with the agency’s Unity Campaign. NASA is dedicated to advancing diversity, and we will continue to take steps to do so.”⁣⁣⁣ ⁣ #MaryJackson #BlackinStem #womeninSTEM #nasa

A post shared by NASA (@nasa) on Jun 24, 2020 at 3:23pm PDT

• News

by Derek Major

June 25, 2020

Study: Uber, Lyft Algorithms Charged More For Rides in Non-White Neighborhoods

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A recent study shows the algorithm used by ride-sharing companies Uber and Lyft may discriminate against customers taking trips to or from predominantly non-white neighborhoods.

According to Salon, the study, conducted by Aylin Caliskan and Akshat Pandey at George Washington University, assessed whether there was a racial disparity in how much passengers were being charged based on their destination.

The study analyzed transportation and census data in Chicago and the data set included more than 100 million rides between November 2018 and December 2019. Sixty-eight million of those rides were trips by a single passenger.

The study shows Uber and Lyft charged a higher rate per mile for trips where the destination or pick-up point was in a neighborhood with a higher percentage of non-white residents and low-income residents.

“While demand and speed have the highest correlation with ride-hailing fares, analysis shows that users of ride-hailing applications in the city of Chicago may be experiencing social bias with regard to fare prices when they are picked up or dropped off in neighborhoods with a low percentage of individuals over 40 or a low percentage of individuals with a high school diploma or less,” the authors wrote.

In 2016, a study found widespread racial and gender bias among Uber and Lyft. Male customers with African American names were more than twice as likely to have a driver cancel a ride (11.2% to 4.5%). Women with African American names also were more likely to have a driver cancel a ride (8.4% to 5.4%).

Additionally, female researchers in Boston reported drivers were more likely to force a conversation with them. Researchers also found drivers with female passengers were more likely to take a longer route, even though participants made a point of choosing destinations less than a mile or two from where they were picked up.

A representative of Lyft responded to Salon in a written statement:

“This analysis is deeply flawed. The researcher acknowledges that the study was not based on actual demographic data of rideshare users,” the representative wrote. “In fact, the study makes clear that speed and demand have the highest correlation with algorithmically generated fares and that individual demographic data is neither available to rideshare companies nor used in the algorithms that determine pricing. We appreciate the researchers’ attempt to study unintentional bias, but this study misses the mark.”

Both Uber and Lyft have made an attempt to help African Americans during the coronavirus pandemic. Lyft offered free rides to members of the NAACP, National Action Network, National Urban League, and Black Women’s Roundtable. Uber delivered free meals to first responders and healthcare workers.