Commentary: African American Scientists and Inventors
by Black Kos Editor, Sephius1
Earl S. Bell, is an inventor, building designer, and architectural theorist. He was born in 1977 and raised in the Boerum Hill section of Brooklyn, New York. Earl’s passion for science and design began at a very young age. Earl would often filter his concepts and ideas through his imaginative uncle Virgil Bell Jr. to gain insight and encouragement. It was noted by his family that young Earl possessed a unique gift and through the nurturing of his passion Earl presented his first invention at the age of nine.
(con't.)
He first began to document and patent his inventions after meeting a fellow student Troy-Moses K. Panton who taught him the procedures and importance of the Patent process while attending Pratt Institute's Architecture Program in 1998. Earl holds 3 US patents and 1 International Patent (South Africa). He is the sole inventor of
- Charge Ring: Transportation energizer
- Charge Exo Structural Panels: Structural Energy Technology
- Sasu Technology: liquid hydraulic electrical display for showing information
- Slide Skin Technology: ergonomic chair system
- Qet Ambit Technology: internal electrical mechanical mechanism for Quantification
As well as others that are currently being reviewed by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.....
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News by dopper0189, Black Kos Managing Editor
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An open letter to Gary Knell, new chief of National Public Radio, on the diversity problem he faces by Joel Dreyfuss. The Root: NPR Has a Diversity Problem.
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I appreciate your efforts to set a new tone on this volatile topic after the nasty fallout that followed the clumsy exit of commentator Juan Williams early this year. The highly publicized incident left NPR with a tarnished image, seen by many as hypocritical in its tolerance of a variety of voices, and questionable when it came to giving people of color a significant role.
NPR created a powerful enemy with a public platform in Williams. Since his departure, he has lambasted NPR as a bastion of liberal ideological rigidity. He's written a book (Muzzled: The Assault on Honest Debate) and even shot a commercial for AOL extolling freedom of speech. While Williams was clearly hurt by his firing, Fox News rewarded him with a reported $2 million contract -- partly, I suspect, for his public apostasy.
But don't mistake the fiery exit of Williams as just a nasty personnel matter gone nuclear. His departure was a sad commentary on the monochromatic vision of many liberal institutions -- a disease that NPR has not escaped. Sometimes a conservative gets attention for saying or doing something that is obvious. Richard Nixon decided it was silly to pretend that communist China and its 1 billion people didn't exist. Gerald Ford admitted our defeat in Vietnam and cut our losses. And Williams says that National Public Radio has treated blacks poorly.
In my opinion, Ellen Weiss, the woman who fired Williams and later resigned for her poor handling of the incident, was a powerful example of the profound challenge you face at NPR. I only met Weiss once, about a decade ago, but I never forgot our conversation. We were chatting over hors d'oeuvres at a convention of the National Association of Black Journalists, the organization I helped create. "So what do you think of All Things Considered?" she asked, referring to the flagship NPR show she produced for many years. "I love the show," I admitted. "But why does it have to be so white?"
"But we have Juan Williams," she replied defensively. I almost choked on my stuffed mushroom. But since she was paying for the canapés, I politely let the discussion move on to other topics. How ironic that, a decade later, the symbol of her liberal credentials would cause her departure from the network.
Even back then, I immediately recognized the chasm between Weiss' classic liberal worldview and mine as a black journalist. For Weiss, having one visible black commentator, anomalously conservative, on NPR confirmed her liberal credentials and made her immune to questions about her commitment to diversity. It's a common form of arrogance among liberals, so sure of their ideological purity that they could not possibly be racist -- even if they manage institutions that are overwhelmingly white and where people of color have little clout and few decision-making roles.
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A good chess match can be hard to find for an international grandmaster, so Maurice Ashley has spent most of his career growing his own competition. Washington Post: Grandmaster Maurice Ashley in D.C. to promote chess for children
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Since becoming the first African American to win the elite title in 1999 according to the U.S. Chess Federation, the Jamaican-born New Yorker has traveled the country to promote the game of kings as a game for children.
He came to Washington this week to square off against 30 young chess players simultaneously on 30 chessboards in an exhibition organized by the District-based U.S. Chess Center.
“It’s great to see these kids who think they have a chance,” he said before heading in to face anxious students in school uniforms lined up in front of checkered boards. More and more kids do, he said. “I don’t give them any games, though. They have to beat me.”
Thirty-seven percent of U.S Chess Federation members are younger than 13, reflecting the strong interest of the elementary school set.
“Like a lot of sports, it’s a younger man’s game,” said Chuck Lovingood, who oversees national tournaments for the Tennessee-based federation. “You run a little faster when you are young and you probably calculate a little faster.”
Children — unburdened by grown-up responsibilities — have an added advantage, he said: the ability to empty their minds and achieve “total concentration on the game.”
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It's ironic that, just as people of African and Caribbean heritage become comfortable with Britishness, the UK itself is in question. The Guardian: Black Britons may be the last defenders of the union.
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There was a time when black identity in Britain was a comparatively simple matter. The wave of Caribbean migrants who arrived in Britain from the late 1940s to the first immigration acts in the early 1960s continued to regard themselves as Jamaicans, Trinidadians etc who were living in Britain, rather than "black British", or indeed any sort of British at all.
In the 1960s, influenced by their experience in Britain and events in the Caribbean and the US, the more politically conscious began to consider themselves as "black" first and foremost. Any temptation to toy with the idea of a British identity was soon brought up short by the attitude of mainstream society, which was equally firm that black people couldn't and shouldn't be British.
In this, of course, the Caribbean community was following the traditional pattern of migration. In that classic fictional representation of the migrant experience, The Godfather, Vito Corleone refers to his son's "American" girlfriend, despite the fact that both he and his New York-born son are supposedly Americans themselves. It was to be several generations before Italians found a way to be American while at the same time remaining true to their heritage from the old country. And this is the way things usually work.
Since the 1960s, black academics, artists and pundits have been grappling with notions of "Britishness", together with its historical baggage, and have been debating what "black British" might actually mean. In the meantime, social, cultural and economic change has, as usual, been doing the real work and, for a younger generation, there's no contradiction between their ethnicity and their nationality. We'll have to wait for this year's census results to see how many people define themselves as black British, but it's fairly safe to guess that it's going to be a high proportion.
But in a rich irony, just as people of African and Caribbean heritage become comfortable with being British, it seems the rest of the population might be going the other way. The future of the UK itself is being questioned, and there are many who feel increasingly Welsh, Scottish or English (even if they support the union) rather than British. Still others think the nation state has had its day anyway and that European integration is the way forward. And it doesn't stop there; some from the north of England think that the south-east might as well be a different country and their relationship with it is verging on the colonial. So what might this loosening in bonds or even the winding up of the UK mean for "black Britain"?
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Colorism (colourism) isn't just a phenomenon in the US and Latin America Toronto Sun: Darker skin linked to poorer health: Study
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Black Canadians with darker skin are more likely to report poor health than lighter-skinned black Canadians, suggests a new study that blames the problem on "colourism."
The University of British Columbia study surveyed 1,500 people from Vancouver and Toronto about their racial identities and health.
Black Canadians were more likely to report high blood pressure and Asian Canadians were more likely to report poor mental health -- both findings in keeping with previous research.
But the study also found that black Canadians with darker skin were more than four times as likely to report poor overall health than lighter-skinned black Canadians.
Gerry Veenstra, a UBC sociology professor and lead author of the study, said the reasons are complex and entirely social.
"The research about colourism in the United States has found that darker skinned people of colour in relation to lighter skinned people of colour have all sorts of negative experiences and encounters with institutional racism and racism and discrimination in everyday life," he said.
This, he explained, is connected to the fact that darker-skinned African Americans tend to make less money, have lower levels of education, marry low-income partners and live in low-income neighbourhoods. These socio-economic conditions, in turn, affect things like stress levels, access to healthy food and medicine and lifestyle choices.
"All of these phenomenon are of themselves really strong determinants of health. Income and educational status are extremely strong determinants of health in Canada as they are in the United States," he said.
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I must not be the only one who missed this story. The LRA is one of the world's most evil groups but we have troops there now? Talking Points Memo: Obama Sends 100 Troops To Central Africa To Help Fight LRA
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President Obama is sending a total of 100 troops into central Africa to help a resistance movement fight the Lord's Resistance Army, a rebel group known for committing atrocities across the continent.
The first troops left Wednesday and in the next month additional forces are set to deploy, including a second combat-equipped team, as well as communications and logistics personnel, Obama informed Congressional leaders in a letter sent Friday afternoon. The mission's goal is to remove LRA leader Joseph Kony and his top commanders from the battlefield, according to the letter.
The U.S. troops will be there to "enhance regional efforts against the LRA" and will not engage LRA forces unless its necessary for self-defense, Obama wrote.
"In furtherance of the Congress's stated policy, I have authorized a small number of combat-equipped U.S. forces to deploy to central Africa to provide assistance to regional forces that are working toward the removal of Joseph Kony from the battlefield," Obama wrote. "I believe that deploying these U.S. Armed Forces furthers U.S. national security interests and foreign policy and will be a significant contribution toward counter-LRA efforts in central
Africa."
Leader of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), Joseph Kony
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Poor college applicants struggle as strapped schools recruit those who can pay full freight. The Root: College Recruiting: Blacks Squeezed Out
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Several years ago, Louisiana State University nixed an open-enrollment rule that had granted admission and ample financial aid to any applicant who was a state resident. Eliminating that rule was the prudent thing to do, given the tally of remedial students who entered the university but never got up to par academically, said Mary Alice Baszile, a former assistant vice provost at LSU's flagship campus in Baton Rouge.
Dropping that special allowance didn't bother Baszile much. What did alarm her were the changing rules governing a state-funded scholarship program reserved for Louisiana natives that resulted in fewer and fewer low-income black students getting fewer and fewer of those dollars.
"It means that [LSU] heavily recruits the African-American kids who have good ACT scores, good grades and, very often, come from families with some resources," she said. "The other kids can hardly get in; they often don't have a chance."
That merit-based aid has been outpacing need-based aid is but one sign that low-income blacks -- and poor students in general -- are having a harder time paying for a college degree. Now comes the news that, at a time when colleges and universities are especially cash-strapped, many schools are deliberately recruiting students who can fully finance their own education. More than half of admissions and enrollment administrators at 462 universities who were recently surveyed by Inside Higher Ed magazine admitted to recruiting students -- foreign-born and homegrown -- on that basis.
"Colleges, especially public [ones], face enormous pressure to replace lost state revenues by seeking more full-paying and out-of-state students," said Rodney Morrison, associate chancellor for enrollment management at Rutgers University. "With the loss of state and federal financial-aid support, we are rapidly eroding access for future students."
Digital Vision
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En Vogue - Hold On - Music Video (1990)