Thank you, John Legend
Commentary by Black Kos Editor Denise Oliver-Velez
It’s important to applaud our celebrities when they use their enormous social media platforms to fight for us — and to admonish those who don’t (we see you Stephan A. Smith). OSCAR and GRAMMY award-winning singer, songwriter, pianist, record producer, and actor John Legend deserves his flowers not only for speaking out for the voiceless in jail, but for his long term commitment to social justice and for issues like women’s reproductive rights.
He was just interviewed by MSNBC’s Jen Psaki, and in case you missed it, here is the full, almost 22 minute sit-down. Legend talks about how his own family history and personal experience got him involved in criminal justice reform, and he doesn’t hesitate when speaking his mind about former President Trump.
Matt Young wrote about the interview, for The Daily Beast:
Appearing on Inside with Jen Psaki to discuss his work in criminal justice reform, Legend began by talking about his personal connection to the issue, telling viewers that while growing up in Springfield, Ohio, he had an early introduction to the criminal justice system. His mother, along with other family members, he revealed, had spent time in jail. “I know what it feels like to have a family member in jail, I know what it feels like to wonder when they’re going to come home, I know what it feels like to feel that disruption and dislocation that happens to families and communities... it makes this issue very real to me,” Legend said.
Legend then began to use the former president as an example of pre-trial freedoms that not all accused are so lucky to afford. “You watch the life and times of Donald Trump, every trial that he’s a part of, you notice he’s not spending time in jail before he goes to trial, he’s innocent until he’s proven guilty, and we all know that, but what happens with folks who can’t afford bail; they have to languish in jail before their case,” Legend said. “All kinds of negative things happen because they don’t have maybe $500 to buy their freedom. That’s not keeping us safer, that’s saying, ‘we have a separate system for people who are poor versus people who have the means to pay this cash bail.’”
[...]
Legend added Trump was not an “ally” for his cause, claiming “he’s made it clear throughout his life that Black people are inferior, he believes that to his core, in his bones... but also when you hear some of the stray comments he makes, he clearly believes in a genetic hierarchy of humanity and is racially determined, so he is a tried and true, dyed-in-the-wool racist. In the core of his being, he’s a racist. “So, I don’t want to hear what he says to say about what he’s done for Black people. He’s done very little for us and he is at his core, truly, truly a racist.”
Here’s the clip of him eviscerating Trump:
Legend wrote this op-ed for Time, back in February:
Bail Funds Are Essential to Democracy. A Georgia Bill Threatens to Stifle Them
On Feb. 1, the Georgia legislature passed Senate Bill 63, a law aimed squarely at stifling democracy and dissent. Contrary to what some would have us believe, the law would also undermine public safety. If signed into law by Governor Brian Kemp, the bill would cap the number of times that people and groups can pay bail, purposefully targeting community bail funds, churches, and any group pooling resources for those in overcriminalized communities. The bill also introduces a new misdemeanor offense for anyone posting bail contrary to the ban and narrows the list of offenses for which release without bail may even be an option, which would increase the number of people in jail pretrial.
Last year, officials in Georgia began targeting the Atlanta Solidarity Fund, an organization that posts bail for arrested activists and protesters whose charges are often later dropped. Three organizers from the fund were arrested and prosecuted, charged with charity fraud, money laundering, and conspiracy for the acts of posting bail for people who were protesting “Cop City,” a controversial proposal to raze forest land and build in its place a new police training center. The pending legislation, SB 63, escalates these attacks on bail funds and their critical roles in enabling poor people to advocate for themselves and their communities.
Similar attacks are gaining traction in other states. In recent weeks, anti-bail-fund bills have been introduced in state legislatures in Kentucky, Tennessee and Virginia. Indiana has had such a law since 2022. Whether aiming to restrict the use of bail funds, introducing new regulations, or banning them outright, the outcomes of these laws are to muffle community voices while more people remain locked up simply because they are too poor to pay bail.
When we talk about social media platforms, Legend has a strong presence and very large following: Twitter- 13.2 million, Instagram- 16 million, TikTok- 2.7 million, Facebook-16 million.
I admire the fact that he is a Black man who is openly supportive of women’s reproductive rights.
A quote: “I am a feminist. Women are discriminated against in so many ways, and they make up half the population.
In case you don’t know his history — here’s some of his bio. Dave Simpson at The Guardian wrote:
Legend was born John Stephens in Springfield, Ohio, the son of a seamstress and a factory worker who spent two years in the National Guard. He had a happy childhood, taking up the piano aged four and getting a taste for performance in the church choir. However, when he was 10, his parents divorced and his mother had a breakdown.
"She had a time when she couldn't be around us," he says. "She was kinda ... gone for a while. Mentally, physically, and spiritually." He won't expand further, calling himself a "bottler of emotions".
It's perhaps not coincidental that at around this time he began pouring his suppressed hurt into songs. He started listening to classical, gospel, MC Hammer and his father's soul tunes - similar ingredients, give or take Hammer, to those that make up his songs now - and his mates dubbed him "Legend" because of his similarity to old-school soul acts. Back then, he says, his musical goals were no different. "I try to make it transcendental," he says, "but structured. I have a very mathematical, systematic mind."
Otis Alexander at Black Past continues his story:
Legend attended Springfield North High School in Springfield, Ohio, graduating salutatorian in 1995, He then receiving an Ivy League education at the University of Pennsylvania with Bachelor of Arts degree in English and African American Literature magna cum laude in 1999. While at Penn he was president and musical director of an A cappella group called “The Counterparts.” Upon graduating, he worked in New York City with a Boston Consulting Group and was recognized in the nightclubs circuit as a pianist and singer. In 2001, Live at Jimmy’s Uptown was his first album, and he decided to change his name to “John Legend.”
I’ll repeat — Thank you, John Legend.
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News round up by dopper0189, Black Kos Managing Editor
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When Washington state opened some of the nation’s first legal marijuana stores in 2014, Sam Ward Jr. was on electronic home detention in Spokane, where he had been indicted on federal drug charges. He would soon be off to prison to serve the lion’s share of a four-year sentence.
A decade later, Ward, who is Black, recently posed in a blue-and-gold throne used for photo ops at his new cannabis store, Cloud 9 Cannabis. He greeted customers walking in for early 4/20 deals. And he reflected on being one of the first beneficiaries of a Washington program to make the overwhelmingly white industry more accessible to people harmed by the war on drugs.
“It feels great to know that I’m the CEO of a store, with employees, people depending on me,” Ward said. “Just being a part of something makes you feel good.”
A major argument for legalizing the adult use of cannabis was to stop the harm caused by disproportionate enforcement of drug laws that sent millions of Black, Latino and other minority Americans to prison and perpetuated cycles of violence and poverty. Studies have shown that minorities were incarcerated at a higher rate than white people, despite similar rates of cannabis use.
But efforts to help those most affected participate in — and profit from — the legal marijuana sector have been halting.
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When rapper Kendrick Lamar’s famed guest verse on “Like That“—a song on the album We Don’t Trust You from rapper Future and prominent hip-hop producer Metro Boomin—catapulted onto the charts in early April and instigated a massive fight among some of the biggest names in hip-hop, fans of the genre knew that the coming beef would be sizzling hot. But, in the time since Lamar used the hit song to call out his peers Drake and J. Cole, we have found ourselves in the throes of an all-out rap war among some of the genre’s most prominent titans. “Like That,” which has topped the Hot 100 for three weeks, has instigated a heap of drama so wayward and sprawling—complete with red-herring A.I.-formulated diss track leaks, random interjections from an A-list actress, and confusing claims about Drake and Brazilian butt lifts—that even those familiar with hip-hop might have trouble making heads or tails of it all. For all the pettiness and ridiculousness involved, the conflict has actually touched on some evergreen questions about rap culture—mainly, what constitutes it and what doesn’t—that everyone from journalists to online commenters to prominent Twitch streamers have attempted to weigh in on. If you’re lost in the sauce, don’t worry: Below, we present our best attempt at explaining the Infinity War–like fight that has seemingly captured all of hip-hop.
So, how did this all start?
Let’s go back to Oct. 6 of last year, when Drake released his eighth studio album, For All the Dogs. On “First Person Shooter,” one of the album’s hit songs, featured rapper J. Cole makes some complimentary nods to his fellow MCs Drake (whose real name is Aubrey Drake Graham, nickname Drizzy) and Kendrick Lamar (aka K-Dot): “Love when they argue the hardest MC/ Is it K-Dot? Is it Aubrey? Or me?/ We the Big Three, like we started a league/ But right now, I feel like Muhammad Ali.” Ah, the beauty of friendship.
Except, apparently, one of the “Big Three” didn’t like being put in that company. Fast-forward to March 22, when Future and Metro Boomin (who also goes by Metro) released their collaborative album We Don’t Trust You. The breakout single of the album, “Like That,” features Lamar putting down any insinuation that he’s a part of the aforementioned triumvirate with the lines: “Motherfuck the Big Three/ N****, it’s just Big Me.” Lamar then goes on to make digs at Drake’s album title—“’Fore all your dogs gettin’ buried/ That’s a K with all these nines, he gon’ see Pet Sematary”—among other small jabs. Additionally, plenty speculate that some of Future’s slights on the album are also of the anti-Drake variety.
Wait, why did Kendrick Lamar do that? J. Cole’s mention was complimentary, and I thought J. Cole and Kendrick Lamar were friends?
You hit on a very important piece of this confounding puzzle, which is that all of the rappers in this controversy have a long history of collaborating with each other (though some also have a history of beefing with each other). This is a part of what makes this whole mess slightly bewildering.
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Whether it’s discriminating in mortgage lending, destroying vibrant Black neighborhoods with interstates or providing fewer trees for shade and healthier air, America has a history of limiting land use for Black people. Those decades-old practices, in some cases centuries-old, affect Black children to this day.
In Black neighborhoods, parks are half the size of parks in white neighborhoods and nearly five times as crowded. As nations recognize Earth Day, an event meant to promote protecting and sustaining the planet while enjoying nature responsibly, it’s apparent that Black children lack equal access and freedom to experience nature regularly.
Minorities in low-income neighborhoods across the nation struggle to find open and high-quality park and playground spaces in their communities. As a result, kids of color face higher risks of physical health issues such as obesity, as well as mental health struggles like anxiety, depression and a lack of concentration.
“When you think about what kids need in order to thrive, kids learn through play,” Lysa Ratliff told theGrio. Ratliff is CEO of KABOOM, a nonprofit organization that works with communities to build playgrounds for children. “Kids experience and navigate life through play and not having access to great places to play is detrimental to their full development. If you’re in a community that is full of nothing but concrete and abandoned buildings, that environment affects the development and behavior of the kids that live there.”
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As the sun sets, a burly man bellows into a megaphone while a curious crowd gathers around him. Next to him is a small cardboard box with several banknotes worth 10 Haitian gourdes — about 7 U.S. cents.
“Everyone give whatever they have!” the man shouts as he grabs the arms and hands of people entering a neighborhood in the capital of Port-au-Prince that has been targeted by violent gangs.
The community recently voted to buy a metal barricade and install it themselves to try to protect residents from the unrelenting violence that killed or injured more than 2,500 people in Haiti from January to March.
“Every day I wake up and find a dead body,” said Noune-Carme Manoune, an immigration officer.
Life in Port-au-Prince has become a game of survival, pushing Haitians to new limits as they scramble to stay safe and alive while gangs overwhelm the police and the government remains largely absent. Some are installing metal barricades. Others press hard on the gas while driving near gang-controlled areas. The few who can afford it stockpile water, food, money and medication, supplies of which have dwindled since the main international airport closed in early March. The country’s biggest seaport is largely paralyzed by marauding gangs.
“People living in the capital are locked in, they have nowhere to go,” Philippe Branchat, International Organization for Migration chief in Haiti, said in a recent statement. “The capital is surrounded by armed groups and danger. It is a city under siege.”
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