Hairstylists Are Saying Social Distancing Is Crushing Their Industry
by Dana Givens

May 28, 2020

Hairstylists Are Saying Social Distancing Is Crushing Their Industry

Many industries are dealing with seismic changes in the wake of COVID-19, or the novel coronavirus, pandemic. With states beginning to slowly reopen for the summer season, many businesses have to develop new strategies and procedures under the new reality and to continue to protect both workers and customers from spreading the infection.

The hair industry is among those severely impacted by the public health crisis and stringent social distancing procedures. According to a report done by Business Insider, many businesses including hair salons have been forced to add surcharges to their fees to maintain overhead costs because many establishments have had to cut their customer capacity by half. In addition to extra supplies for sanitation reasons, it’s become the only way they can keep costs done.

“The cost of reopening includes all the extra supplies that we need and all the cleaning supplies that we need,” Rachel Gower, owner of Houston-based Upper Hand Salon, said to local news station KTRK. The salon is adding a $3 “sanitation charge” to guests’ checks.

While many hair salon owners are adjusting to the new reality brought by the public health crisis, they have also had to find creative new ways to stay afloat as hairstylists count as freelancers who often are not eligible for unemployment benefits and rely heavily on customer tips.

“It’s been a financial adjustment, what I receive in unemployment for a week, I can make in a day or two,” D.C.-based hairstylist, Cierra Curenton, told ABC News. “I’m single, so I have no one to help carry the financial burden.”

This has led others in the industry to extend a helping hand to stylists who have been severely impacted by the viral outbreak. Diishan Imira, CEO of Mayvenn Hair Extensions, decided to offer those in need help by starting a GoFundMe campaign to help hairstylists struggling with their expenses amid the public health crisis.

“It feels good to be able to do something when helplessness consumes our world right now,” Imira told ABC News. “Black salons and barbers are the backbone for black entrepreneurship and an integral part of our communities.”

by Derek Major

May 28, 2020

Less Than 40% of African American Businesses Are Still Operating: Report

The economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic on African American businesses has begun to raise concerns that the damage will be long-lasting.

According to The Washington Post, less than 40% of African American business owners in the U.S. are still operating, the furthest decline of any race. Overall active business owners have dropped 22% since the coronavirus pandemic hit the U.S.

“We already have disparities. African Americans have the lowest business-ownership rate in the population. …And so here we’re creating a situation of closures that’s hitting the groups with the lowest rates even harder,” Robert Fairlie, an economics professor at the University of California at Santa Cruz told The Washington Post.

According to Fairlie, 450,000 African American business owners have closed their stores since the pandemic began. One of the reasons for the steep decline is because beauty salons, barbershops, daycare centers, taxi services, and clubs make up a significant portion of African American-owned businesses. All of these industries have either had to completely shutdown or have had to operate at a highly reduced capacity.

Celebrities such as Mark Cuban, Earvin ‘Magic’ Johnson, and Sean ‘Puffy’ Combs have all made efforts to help minority businesses during the coronavirus pandemic

Additionally, the lack of financial relief from the Paycheck Protection Program has affected African American businesses. Forbes reported earlier this month just 12% of African American and Latino businesses that applied for PPP funds reported receiving what they asked for. Nearly half of those individuals said they will be forced to close permanently by the end of the year.

Heidi Shierholz, policy director at the Economic Policy Institute told the Post all recessions hit African Americans and Hispanics harder, but the coronavirus’ effects could last for years after the pandemic is over.

“All recessions exacerbate existing inequalities by race and ethnicity—and always hit black and Hispanic workers harder—but this one will be worse. It will be an absolute nightmare.”

by Dana Givens

May 28, 2020

MIT Elects The First Black Female Student Body President In The School’s History

Diversity in higher education has always been a social issue within the United States when it comes to who gets access to the country’s most elite schools. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is considered one of the most elite schools in the country and around the world. This week it made history by electing its first black student body president.

Danielle Geathers is a college sophomore majoring in mechanical engineering but she’s already making school history after her recent win in the school elections for student body president. Geathers’ win makes her the first black woman to lead the undergraduate association. Her running mate, Yu Jing Chen, represent a population in the school that often goes overlooked.

“Someone asked if the UA president was a figurehead role [during the debate]. I think no, but minimally, a black female in that role will squash every perception that MIT is still mostly white and male,” Geathers told the school’s paper, The Tech, according to Because We Can. “Minimally, the immediate image of that will make MIT a more welcoming and inclusive place.”

According to The Tech, 38.5% of the undergraduate population voted in the election compared to just 14.4% in last year’s election and 18.3% in the 2018 election.

On their website, Geathers and Chen state that their mission gives a platform and voice to minorities within the student body. “Our leadership increased accessibility to student resources on campus and levied student concerns to administration, ranging from the Burton Conner transition to the search for the new Institute Community and Equity Officer,” they wrote in a statement.

“Our impact spans from creating MIT’s first and only black women recruiting initiative to pioneering MIT representation at America’s largest Asian American student advocacy conference.”

by Justin Barton

May 28, 2020

‘Close Them Down’: Donald Trump Threatens To Shut Down Social Media Platforms

By Jeff Mason and Nandita Bose

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump will sign an executive order on social media companies on Thursday, White House officials said after Trump threatened to shut down websites he accused of stifling conservative voices.

The officials gave no further details. It was unclear how Trump could follow through on the threat of shutting down privately owned companies including Twitter Inc.

The dispute erupted after Twitter on Tuesday for the first time tagged Trump’s tweets about unsubstantiated claims of fraud in mail-in voting with a warning prompting readers to fact check the posts.

Separately, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington on Wednesday upheld the dismissal of a lawsuit by a conservative group and right-wing YouTube personality against Google, Facebook, Twitter and Apple accusing them of conspiring to suppress conservative political views.

In an interview with Fox News Channel on Wednesday, Facebook’s chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, said censoring a platform would not be the “right reflex” for a government worried about censorship. Fox played a clip of the interview and said it would be aired in full on Thursday.

Facebook left Trump’s post on mail-in ballots on Tuesday untouched.

The American Civil Liberties Union said the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution limits any action Trump could take.

Facebook and Alphabet’s Google declined comment. Apple did not respond to a request for comment.

“Republicans feel that Social Media Platforms totally silence conservatives voices. We will strongly regulate, or close them down, before we can ever allow this to happen,” Trump said in a pair of additional posts on Twitter on Wednesday.

The president, a heavy user of Twitter with more than 80 million followers, added: “Clean up your act, NOW!!!!”

Republican Trump has an eye on the November election.

“Big Tech is doing everything in their very considerable power to CENSOR in advance of the 2020 Election,” Trump tweeted on Wednesday. “If that happens, we no longer have our freedom.”

 

STRONGEST THREAT YET

Trump’s threat is his strongest yet within a broader conservative backlash against Big Tech. Shares of both Twitter and Facebook fell on Wednesday.

Last year the White House circulated drafts of a proposed executive order about anti-conservative bias which never gained traction.

The Internet Association, which includes Twitter and Facebook among its members, said online platforms do not have a political bias and they offer “more people a chance to be heard than at any point in history.”

Late on Wednesday, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said Trump’s tweets about California’s vote-by-mail plans “may mislead people into thinking they don’t need to register to get a ballot.”

Separately, Twitter said Trump’s tweets were labeled as part of efforts to enforce the company’s “civic integrity policy.”

The policy document on Twitter’s website says people may not use its services for manipulating or interfering in elections or other civic processes.

In recent years Twitter has tightened its policies amid criticism that its hands-off approach allowed fake accounts and misinformation to thrive.

Tech companies have been accused of anti-competitive practices and violating user privacy. Apple, Google, Facebook and Amazon.com face antitrust probes by federal and state authorities and a U.S. congressional panel.

Republican and Democratic lawmakers, along with the U.S. Justice Department, have been considering changes to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a federal law largely exempting online platforms from legal liability for the material their users post. Such changes could expose tech companies to more lawsuits.

Republican Senator Josh Hawley, a frequent critic of Big Tech companies, sent a letter to Dorsey asking why Twitter should continue to receive legal immunity after “choosing to editorialize on President Trump’s tweets.”

(Reporting by Jeff Mason and Nandita Bose; Additional reporting by Susan Heavey and Doina Chiacu in Washington, Katie Paul in San Francisco, Supantha Mukherjee and Shubham Kalia in Bangalore; Elizabeth Culliford in Birmingham, England, and David Shepardson in Washington; Editing by Howard Goller, Grant McCool and Himani Sarkar)

Twitter Fact Checks President Trump’s Claim About Voter Fraud
by Derek Major

May 27, 2020

Twitter Fact Checks President Trump’s Claim About Voter Fraud

For the first time since being elected, Twitter has fact-checked a claim President Trump made on the social media platform.

According to Vox, Twitter placed fact-check links below two of Trump’s tweets, which allegedly shared misinformation and lies about mail-in voting. The links lead to a fact page on mail-in voting.

Twitter released a statement on its decision Tuesday night.

“These Tweets contain potentially misleading information about voting processes and have been labeled to provide additional context around mail-in ballots. This decision is in line with the approach we shared earlier this month.”

Republicans were quick to react, calling the decision suppressing freedom of speech. President Trump’s 2020 campaign manager, Brad Parscale, shared a statement expressing the administration’s frustration.

“We always knew that Silicon Valley would pull out all the stops to obstruct and interfere with President Trump getting his message through to voters. Partnering with the biased fake news media ‘fact checkers’ is only a smoke screen Twitter is using to try to lend their obvious political tactics some false credibility,” Parscale said in a released statement. “There are many reasons the Trump campaign pulled all our advertising from Twitter months ago, and their clear political bias is one of them.”

Trump also responded, accusing the social media platform of “interfering in the 2020 Presidential Election” and stifling free speech by adding the label.”

Although many are proud of the stand Twitter took, many are watching to see if the social media platform will start fact-checking other significant people. Venezuela’s Nicholas Maduro, China’s Xi Jinping, and Iran’s Ruhollah Khamenei have also made misleading statements on Twitter.

Twitter has already said it won’t be able to fact check every tweet by a world leader. However, in the past, it has deleted tweets from Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro and Venezuela’s President Maduro in which they endorsed unproven treatments for the coronavirus.

Earlier this month, Twitter suspended the account of Republican pundit Candace Owens after she instructed Michigan residents to defy the governor’s stay-at-home directive to help slow the spread of the coronavirus. Twitter also suspended the account of Trump favorites Diamond and Silk after spreading misinformation on the coronavirus outbreak.

 

Hertz Awards $16 Million in Bonuses to Executives Days Before Filing For Bankruptcy
by Derek Major

May 27, 2020

Hertz Awards $16 Million in Bonuses to Executives Days Before Filing For Bankruptcy

Hertz, the car rental company, paid its top 340 executives an average of $47,709 a few days before it filed for bankruptcy, a federal filing said.

According to Business Insider, Hertz distributed a total of $16.2 million on March 19 before filing for bankruptcy protection on March 22. CEO Paul Stone, received $700,000, though he took the role days before Hertz’s bankruptcy filing. Hertz’s Chief Financial Officer, Jamere Jackson, received $600,000, and Chief Marketing Officer Jodi Allen got just under $190,000.

Retention bonuses are typically given to executives for bankrupt companies in order to prevent their management from abandoning ship. However, it does leave the company open to public ridicule as it pays executives millions while acknowledging it will lay off hundreds, if not thousands, of employees.

The car rental company gave four reasons for the bonuses:

  1. Hertz employees are facing “financial and operational uncertainty” thanks to the coronavirus pandemic, which has had an “adverse impact on the global travel sector.”

2. The “key employees” have undertaken “substantial additional efforts” with “a reduced work force in response to an extremely challenging business environment.”

3. Because of the bankruptcy filing, top executives have lost out on their annual bonus plan.

4. There’s a risk that “key employees” may leave Hertz when the company needs them.

According to a recent annual report, the rental company employs more than 38,000 people worldwide, but the company has announced in April that it will lay off 10,000 workers.

Other executives at large companies have received large bonuses days before filing for bankruptcy. JCPenney, which filed for bankruptcy on May 15, gave CEO Jill Soltau a $4.5 million bonus and three other top executives a $1 million bonus before the company announced its bankruptcy filing.

Average Americans are struggling to stay afloat financially during the coronavirus pandemic. A report by the Small Business Roundtable and Facebook shows more than one-third of respondents (31%) reported their business is not currently operating. Additionally, low-wage and essential workers, the majority of which are minorities, are dying at a faster rate than others who are telecommuting.

 

Minneapolis is Starting to Look A Lot Like Ferguson After Protests Erupt Following George Floyd’s Death
by Lydia Blanco

May 27, 2020

Minneapolis is Starting to Look A Lot Like Ferguson After Protests Erupt Following George Floyd’s Death

Last night, people took to the streets in Minneapolis to protest the killing of George Floyd, an unarmed black man, who was killed by police officers on Monday. Not long after people gathered, they were met by officers wearing riot gear and reportedly using excessive force and tear gas to disperse protesters. CBS Minnesota was first to share user-generated content from social media and local reporters. When viewing the footage from the scene, Minneapolis resembles Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014 after the shooting death of Michael Brown Jr.

Over the past month, news broke about the shooting deaths of black women and men on a regular basis. In April, two months after the incident, America learned about the death of Ahmaud Arbery. Soon after, Breonna Taylor’s name began to trend on social media as a hashtag after she was killed in her home by a Kentucky police officer. Now, black America, and allies, are responding to the death of Floyd with outrage.

Related: When America Opens Its Doors Again, Will Black People Be Welcomed?

As protests erupt in Minneapolis, people are taking to social media to express their anger and grievances with the killings, brutality, and harassment of black people.

Here’s what people are saying, sharing, and responding to following the news of Floyd’s death:

Black Lives Still Matter 

 

 

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A post shared by @blacks.united on

As America responds to what feels like another open season on black people, it is difficult to gauge what justice will look like for those who have had their lives stolen.

 

The ideas and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author’s and not necessarily the opinion of Black Enterprise.

Florida Mother Who Claimed Her Son was Kidnapped by 2 Black Men is Seen On Surveillance Video Trying to Drown Him Before Later Killing Him
by Cedric 'BIG CED' Thornton

May 27, 2020

Florida Mother Who Claimed Her Son was Kidnapped by 2 Black Men is Seen On Surveillance Video Trying to Drown Him Before Later Killing Him

A Florida woman, who said that two black men abducted her son, actually drowned the boy herself, according to ABC News.

Patricia Ripley reportedly told police that two black men abducted her son last week but the police found inconsistencies in her story and discovered she actually killed her son. A surveillance video shows the mother initially shoving her 9-year-old, autistic son, Alejandro Ripley, into a canal in an attempt to kill him. But, when neighbors heard the boy screaming, someone went to his aid and saved him. Police say that an hour later, Patricia took him to a different canal and completed the task of killing him.

“An hour later she brought him to a different canal, this time, unfortunately, there was no one there to save him,” said Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle at a press conference Saturday morning. “The tragic loss of a 9-year-old boy here and the loss of any young life, leaves us grieving. This boy’s senseless, senseless death will stay with us.”

Although Alejandro, who suffered from severe autism and could not speak, was killed by his own mother, the public was enraged that his mother filed a bogus report with Miami-Dade Police that two black men kidnapped the boy. She told authorities that two black men took the boy after running her off the road.

According to a Miami-Dade County police report, Ripley allegedly told police that while she was driving with her son on Thursday evening, she was ambushed by two black men, one armed with a knife, who demanded drugs.

“After stating she didn’t have any drugs, he then stole her cellular phone and abducted her son, fleeing southbound in the unknown vehicle,” according to the police report.

“The only voice in his life that he depended on to get through this world was his mom’s, and to think that that voice would be the one to harm him the most,” said Miami-Dade Deputy Director Freddie Ramirez.

Ripley is being held without bail on charges of attempted first-degree murder, first-degree premeditated murder, and first-degree murder. She is facing life in prison without parole or she could be sentenced to death.

Gayle King Tearfully Reacts To Videos Of Racial Violence: It’s “Open Season” on Black Men
by Dana Givens

May 27, 2020

Gayle King Tearfully Reacts To Videos Of Racial Violence: It’s “Open Season” on Black Men

This week, a video of a white woman named Amy Cooper calling the police on a black man, Christian Cooper, for asking to put on her dog on a leash during a walk in Central Park went viral. A wave of public outcry and criticism ensued against Cooper’s volatile actions against an unarmed black man. The controversy led to Cooper losing her job and her dog.

As social media continues to react to the recent racial incident, Gayle King of CBS This Morning discussed the recent video with co-hosts, Tony Dokoupil and Anthony Mason, after they talked about the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis by a police officer. King was visibly shaken with the overlapping stories of racial violence.

“She’s practically strangling her dog, strangling her dog to make these false accusations against another black man.” King said.  “I’m still so upset by that last story where the man is handcuffed underneath a car where people are pleading that he can’t breathe, and we are watching a man die.

“…This story where she falsely accuses a black man on television. I don’t even know what to do or how to handle this at this particular time. I am speechless. I am really, really speechless by what we are seeing on television this morning. It feels to me like an an open season and that it’s not sometimes a safe place to be in this country for black men and today is too much for me.”

Amy Cooper has since told CNN on Tuesday that she wanted to “publicly apologize to everyone” for the incident.

Sen. Kamala Harris Warns President Trump Against Attempt To Supress Vote
by Derek Major

May 27, 2020

Sen. Kamala Harris Warns President Trump Against Attempt To Supress Vote

Sen. Kamala Harris scolded President Donald Trump for threatening to withhold federal funds from states over absentee ballots, warning such an act would be illegal.

“Mr. President, it is a federal crime to withhold money from states with the purpose of interfering with people’s right to vote,” Harris told MSNBC host Joy Reid. “So, you may want to talk to your lawyer, Bill Barr, about that.”

President Trump has been fighting every attempt for mail-in voting, saying the idea is ripe for fraud and it will ruin his chances at reelection. However, support for mail-in voting has been growing. A poll from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, shows Democrats are more likely than Republicans to support their state conducting elections exclusively by mail, 47% to 29%.

On Tuesday night, Trump again tweeted about his displeasure in mail-in voting saying “there is NO WAY (ZERO!) mail-in ballots will be anything less than substantially fraudulent.”

However, Twitter highlighted two of Trump’s tweets falsely claiming mail-in ballots would lead to widespread voter fraud, adding a link providing facts about mail-in voting.

Trump did not react to the link positively. The president accused Twitter of “interfering in the 2020 Presidential Election” and added, in another post, that it was “completely stifling FREE SPEECH.”

Last week, Trump tweeted Michigan sent its residents absentee ballots “illegally and without authorization by a rogue Secretary of State.”

“I will ask to hold up funding to Michigan if they want to go down this Voter Fraud path!” wrote the president, who has railed against efforts to expand mail-in-voting in response to the coronavirus pandemic.

Hours later, Trump deleted the tweet after multiple media outlets reported that the state sent absentee ballot applications to all residents, giving them the option to receive a ballot in the mail to vote in the Aug. 4 primary and Nov. 3 general election, instead of going to a polling place.

Michigan governor Gretchen Witmer, who has also been fighting Trump as he pushes for states to reopen, criticized the president’s actions.

“To have this kind of distraction is just ridiculous, to be honest,” Whitmer told CBS This Morning last week. “Threatening to take money away from a state that his hurting as bad as we are right now is just scary. And I think something that is unacceptable.”

Democratic nominee Joe Biden said in April that he believes President Trump will try to delay the presidential election. Mail-in voting will also help African Americans as voter suppression tactics in the South are widespread.

 

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