Commentary: African American Scientists and Inventors
by Black Kos Editor, Sephius1
William Cordozo born in Washington, D.C. on April 6, 1905, came from a prominent family of educators and politicians; his father, Francis Cardozo, Jr., was a high school principal and his grandfather, Francis Cardozo, was a prominent D.C. area politician and educator. Cardozo attended the public schools of the District of Columbia and then went to Hampton Institute in Virginia.
(con't.)
He later earned his A.B. (1929) and M.D. (1933) degrees at Ohio State University. Upon his graduation in 1935, Cardozo was awarded a two-year fellowship in pediatrics at Children's Memorial Hospital and Provident Hospital in Chicago. This was the beginning of his research on sickle cell anemia. With the aid of a grant from Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, he published a pioneering study "Immunologic Studies in Sickle Cell Anemia" in the Archives of Internal Medicine.
Cardozo’s findings in sickle cell anemia concluded that the disease was largely familial and inherited. In addition, he discovered that it was found almost exclusively among people of African descent. Further research concluded that not all people having sickle cells were anemic, that sickle cell disease wasn’t always fatal and that no successful treatment had been found. His findings are still valid to this day.
In 1937 Cardozo started his private practice in Washington, D.C. In the same year he was appointed part-time instructor in pediatrics at Howard University College of Medicine and Freedmen's Hospital. He would later be promoted to clinical assistant professor and clinical associate professor of pediatrics.....Read More
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News by dopper0189, Black Kos Managing Editor
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Goooooaaaaaallllll CNN: Inner-city girls inspired by women's World Cup
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India Barnes charged a makeshift goal during Friday's soccer practice. The 9-year-old's blue and white uniform flapped at her back as she dodged past her teammates through a patch of dirt.
She tried to score and was stopped short by a defender, before hustling downfield to try again.
Following in the footsteps of her older brother, Barnes started playing soccer when she was 4 years old, for Coach Walter Stewart.
"I want to grow up and be a professional soccer player," Barnes gushed.
Barnes and her teammates got together Sunday to watch the women's World Cup finals with their coaches, who doled out pointers to their players over boxes of pizza.
Huddled on an oversized couch, the girls cheered on the U.S. team -- covering their faces during the infamous penalty kick phase.
Stewart started coaching the all-girls team in 1998 with only eight players at the Marian Anderson Recreation Center in South Philadelphia.
He began first as a volunteer boys' baseball and soccer coach before launching the girls' soccer club.
Stewart oversees the urban program, whose players are mostly African-Americans competing against suburban teams and elite clubs.
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From the recognizable sounds of the O'Jays to the lesser-known art of Thornton Dial, this year's National Black Arts Festival in Atlanta offered a little bit of everything. The Root: It's the Mother of All Black Arts Festivals
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There is a magic to almost any arts festival. You can feel the joy and affection flowing through the eager crowds of like-minded people who have come together to revere beauty, creativity and vision. For African Americans, there is no grander celebration of the community's talents than the National Black Arts Festival in Atlanta, which ended on Sunday. While the music pulses every year at the Essence Music Festival in New Orleans, the words are onstage at the Harlem Book Fair and the drums can trigger thrilling movement at DanceAfrica in Brooklyn, N.Y., the National Black Arts Festival is an amazing amalgamation of each of these art forms, and much more.
From music to visual arts, writing to drama, dance to film, it's a 10-day feast of black talent. Not only can festivalgoers revel in their favorite forms of creative expression, but at NBAF, which began in 1988 and became an annual event in 2003, they also get introduced to new artists and art that can change the way they see the world. Indeed, this year's festival was titled "Unexpected Encounters."
Every year the festival honors some of the most important performers the black community has ever produced. This year the centerpiece of the 2011 Legends Celebration was the O'Jays, who for more than 50 years have provided the sound track to African-American life with hits like "Back Stabbers," "For the Love of Money" and "I Love Music." Like comfort food, these are the songs that warm our insides and remind us that we're surrounded by love. Music is always a highlight of the festival, and the O'Jays were part of a slew of outstanding musical artists, in genres ranging from the blues to gospel, jazz to R&B.
The O'Jays; Thornton Dial
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A year to the day after Shirley Sherrod was ousted from the Agriculture Department, the former government employee is still seeking vindication. The Grio: Shirley Sherrod's case against Brietbart to begin
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On July 19, 2010, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack ordered Sherrod's resignation from her job as a Georgia rural development official after learning about a video of Sherrod making supposedly racist remarks. On Tuesday, the U.S. District Court will hold the first hearing in Sherrod's defamation case against the conservative blogger who posted the video.
The video on Andrew Breitbart's website turned out to be edited, and when Sherrod's full speech to an NAACP group earlier that year came to light, it became clear that her remarks about an initial reluctance to help a white farmer were not racist but an attempt at telling a story of racial reconciliation. Once that was obvious to everyone, Sherrod received public apologies from the administration -- even from President Barack Obama himself -- and an offer to come back to the USDA, which she declined.
Sherrod is now suing Breitbart, his employee Larry O'Connor and an unnamed "John Doe" defendant for "defamation, false light and intentional infliction of emotional distress." Sherrod's lawyers say the unnamed defendant is the person who they believe passed the video on to Breitbart.
The suit asks for damages but does not specify an amount. The complaint says the incident has affected Sherrod's sleep and caused her back pain. It contends that she was damaged by having her "integrity, impartiality and motivations questioned, making it difficult (if not impossible) for her to continue her life's work assisting poor farmers in rural areas" even though she was invited to come back to the Agriculture Department.
Lawyers for Breitbart and O'Connor have called the suit an assault on free speech and charge that Sherrod is seeking "revenge" on Breitbart because she does not like his politics. In one brief, they quote Sherrod saying on CNN shortly after she was ousted that Breitbart is "one person I'd like to get back at."
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I'm sure some of her best friends are black The Root: Michele Bachmann Hits Aid to Black Farmers
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Is Michele Bachmann serious?
The Associated Press is reporting that Bachmann said that a multibillion-dollar settlement awarded to black farmers is wasteful government spending.
The charge surfaced after Bachmann and Republican Rep. Steve King of Iowa inspected flooded areas along the Missouri River, the AP writes. After the tour, the pair answered a question about whether farmers affected by the flooding should be concerned about proposed cuts to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the report shows.
The pair responded by criticizing a 1999 settlement in what is known as the Pigford case, after the original plaintiff, North Carolina farmer Timothy Pigford, the AP writes. "Late last year, President Barack Obama signed legislation authorizing a new, nearly $1.2 billion settlement for people who were denied payments in the earlier one because they missed deadlines for filing," the story says.
King compared the settlement to "modern-day reparations" for African Americans, saying that large percentages were paid out in fraudulent claims. Bachmann agreed, adding that "when money is diverted to inefficient projects, like the Pigford project, where there seems to be proof-positive of fraud, we can't afford $2 billion in potentially fraudulent claims when that money can be used to benefit the people along the Mississippi River and the Missouri River."
Bachmann outdoes herself every time she speaks about the African American-community. Surely she is joking.
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A dozen historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) have formed a consortium to help rebuild the earthquake-damaged State University of Haiti, the Caribbean country’s largest institution of higher education. Bay State Banner: Black colleges help rebuild State University of Haiti
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Led by Florida A & M University, the consortium hopes to raise $12 million to construct a classroom building equipped to receive telecourses taught by the faculty from the black colleges.
The group also plans to raise money so the State University of Haiti can hire replacements for professors who died in the earthquake last year and to provide scholarships to 1,000 Haitian students to attend the public university, which has reopened despite extensive damage to its buildings in Port-au-Prince, the capital.
In the shorter term, the consortium intends to share faculty expertise to boost the university’s academic programs in agriculture and entrepreneurship, and research into renewable energy and alternative medicine. Administrators from the black colleges will help establish a campus office to generate donations from prosperous alumni.
“It was thought that black colleges have the resources and talent and were advanced enough in their own right they could offer assistance to higher education, particularly the State University of Haiti, to help them get back on their feet,” says Frederick Humphries, former president of Florida A & M and the consortium’s coordinator.
While most of the dozen black colleges participating are public universities, including South Carolina State and Morgan State, federally-supported Howard University and private Miles College are also members.
The consortium has been in the making for a year and has drafted a well-developed plan for action, after asking Rector Jean-Vernet Henry and other top administrators of the State University of Haiti to identify needs.
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Insights for the U.S.? Race-Talk: Brazil’s new racial reality
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Brazil has been a long-standing place of interest for many scholars due to its fluid racial categorization that focuses on phenotype rather than hypodescent. With the release of Brazil’s 2010 census data, the newly-minted[1] “minority-majority” country only further piques the interest of many in the U.S. as our country quickly approaches its own “racial tipping point” in approximately 2042. What insights can the U.S. gain from Brazil and its experiences with this demographic transition thus far? While the two countries possess similar yet distinct racial histories, some possible parallels are worth considering.
Non-white birth rates outpacing those of white women is one of the key factors in the U.S. demographic transition, as twelve states and the District of Columbia already have white populations below 50% among children under age five. Seven additional states are poised to also attain a “minority majority” designation among children within the next decade.
Similar to the U.S., one of the drivers behind the numeric rise of nonwhites in Brazil has been the rise of the non-white birth rate. Moreover, experts also cite an increased willingness of Brazilians to self-identify as black or pardo, a Brazilian term akin to mestizo or mixed race. Among the reasons attributed to this include: a period of economic growth that is helping to dispel associations between poverty and skin color; increased presence of blacks in high-profile positions, including the appointment of a black judge to Brazil’s Supreme Courtand the country’s first black actor in a leading telenovela role; and a sense of hope that is permeating the country.
While Brazil’s common designation as a racial paradise or (post-)racial utopia represents an overly romanticized misnomer that masks inequalities, the feeling of racial tolerance and optimism contrasts with the often subtle yet consistent racial tensions that continue to plague U.S. society. Many of the current signs in the U.S. are not encouraging. Accusations of reverse discrimination, such as the highly publicized New Haven firefighters case, are becoming increasingly common. Recent research claims that anti-white bias has actually surpassed anti-Black bias, thus reflecting whites’ zero-sum mentality on racism. Other large-scale manifestations of continued racial tensions can be seen through the veiled racism of the Tea Party Movement, the plethora of political cartoons about President Obama and his family that incite racial anxieties , and the “birther” movement’s relentless questioning of President Obama’s citizenship. As unequivocally asserted by Los Angeles Times columnist Gregory Rodriguez, “Forget the melting pot or the salad bowl; the metaphor for how we balance diversity and unity is becoming the fighting cage.”
Actor André Gurgel first black in a lead role on a Telenovela and Supreme Court Judge Joaquim Benedito Barbosa Gomes