COMMENTARY: AFRICAN AMERICAN SCIENTIST AND INVENTORS
By
Black Kos Editor, Sephius1
You don't have to be a rocket scientist to be successful—unless, like Aprille Ericsson-Jackson, your goal in life is to be an aerospace engineer. Ms. Ericsson-Jackson, the first African American female Ph.D. at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, delivered the Library's 2001 Women's History Month keynote address on March 6.
"Read, read, read, and learn, learn, learn," she advised the audience, which included third-grade students from Watkins Elementary School in Washington, D.C.
In addition to building satellites, delivering motivational speeches, mentoring young people and participating in a wide variety of sports, Ms. Ericsson-Jackson has made the time to read and learn about the technological contributions of women and minorities.
"If I'm a 'giant in science,' it is only because I stand on the shoulders of my forefathers," she said. "We must go back and reclaim our past so we can move forward."
Undeterred from her goal of becoming an astronaut, Ms. Ericsson-Jackson earned a master's degree in engineering from Howard University in 1992 and accepted her current position as an aerospace engineer at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland that same year. In 1995 she became the first African American woman to receive a doctorate degree in mechanical engineering from Howard University. She is currently among the 10 percent of applicants (350 of 3,500) who have made it through the first round of interviews for NASA's astronaut training program.
By her own admission, Ms. Ericsson-Jackson is on a crusade to reach out to the largest population of math and science underachievers—young girls.
"It's not that they're incapable," she said. "It's just that they have been unwittingly discouraged from succeeding in these fields."
She cited studies that show that through the fifth grade girls and boys score nearly identically in these areas. In the sixth grade, girls' scores plummet, perhaps in response to the social pressures they experience in middle school.....Read More
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News round up by dopper0189, Black Kos Managing Editor
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As the nation waits to see if Brett Kavanaugh will be seated on the Supreme Court, a new survey finds that the majority of voters are against him and in support of legal abortion access, one of the hot button issues surrounding his nomination.
Last week, between September 5 and 7, Axios conducted a survey of 2,033 adults and found bipartisan support to keep Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 SCOTUS decision that said that a constitutional right to privacy means a woman has the right to make her own medical decisions—including whether or not to have an abortion. According to New York magazine:
In a new survey by Axios and SurveyMonkey, when asked “Would you like to see the Supreme Court overturn its Roe v. Wadedecision?” 71 percent of respondents said no. That was the case for a majority of respondents in each of the given subgroups, including rural voters—who make up a large contingent of Trump’s fan base—and “Never Hillary” independents, who Axios says are the most crucial swing voters in this year’s midterm elections. In fact, the resulting numbers among those independents were equal to those of African-American women, 79 percent of whom were against overturning Roe. Meanwhile, 80 percent of suburban White women wanted to keep our current laws, and 71 percent of respondents between the ages of 18 and 34 agreed. Even among rural voters, a majority—59 percent—said they would not want SCOTUS to overturn the decision.
As Jamila Taylor wrote last month in an op-ed for Center for American Progress, Black women have the most to lose if Roe is overturned. “Despite the gains made since the legalization of abortion, the promise of Roe v. Wade has not been fully realized for many women of color,” she wrote. “A rising wave of restrictive abortion laws is affecting women across the country, and women of color are more likely to live in states with the most restrictive abortion laws.”
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An attorney for Botham Jean—the 26-year-old innocent black man who was shot and killed inside his own home—is looking to set the record straight. Despite several stories that Jean and his attacker, Amber Guyger, knew one another, attorney S. Lee Meritt claims that the two were merely neighbors as Jean lived directly above Guyger.
“The only connection we have been able to make is that she was his immediate downstairs neighbor,” Meritt said during an appearance on CNN, Tuesday. “And there were noise complaints from the immediate downstairs neighbors about whoever was upstairs, and that would have been Botham. In fact, there were noise complaints that very day about upstairs activity in Botham’s apartment. Botham received a phone call about noise coming from his apartment from the downstairs neighbor.”
According to the police affidavit, Guyger claims that she accidentally parked on the fourth floor of her building after working a 15-hour shift and walked to what she thought was her apartment to find the door ajar. She claimed in the affidavit that the lights inside the apartment were off and that she gave verbal commands before firing her service weapon, killing Jean.
Merritt told CNN that the official account in the arrest documents doesn’t make sense.
“Much of the affidavit just simply doesn’t comport with common sense,” Merritt said. “Typically I have some sort of theory as to what happened in this case, here I have no idea. I do know that certain statements within this affidavit are demonstratively false. For example, that door being ajar, those doors close automatically. Unless Botham propped it open because he was expecting a guest or something—and I’m making up excuses, it wouldn’t have been open. What the family knows, what all the friends know, what everyone I’ve talked to about Botham knows is that he wouldn’t have propped that door open.”
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Even though Colombia is home to the third largest population of Afro-descendants after Brazil and the U.S., flicking through local TV channels or the pages of magazines, you probably wouldn’t get that impression. Everything from television to billboard ads depicts mono-ethnic, Eurocentric images.
Cartagena — estimated to be 70 percent afro-latino, is an interesting juxtaposition of picturesque tourist lore and striking poverty. From the colonial streets of the Old City to the garbage-filled barrios that travelers tend to avoid, everywhere you look in the city, there are brown people. Still, many of the darker-skinned Cartageneros work low-paying jobs and the socio-economic state of the city is very telling of how Afro-Colombians are prioritized in society. Although the U.S. is far from a paradise of racial acceptance, it's an environment that, even with its faults, seems to have produced a larger presence of black public figures. As I reflect on being able to relate to the young black girl woes of characters like Moesha, being exposed to prominent TV families on the Cosby Show and Fresh Prince of Bel Air, or seeing myself in the beauty of trailblazers like Iman, Naomi Campbell and Tyra Banks — all coupled with a cultural sense of "blackness" in America — I believe the lack thereof might be why many Afro-Latinos feel forced to choose between two identities — black or latino.
In Colombia, the black demographic often feels tucked away in a social system and culture where ingrained casts and colorism make the opportunities for upward mobility very limited. It seems even the idea of discussing racial injustice is shunned. People are quick to deny racism as a factor but will easily do a double-take if they see an Afro-Colombian in an expensive establishment. I've experienced this first-hand while shopping in pricier stores, and being watched closely until answering my phone in English or until my "gringa" accent calmed the fears of store attendants.
As a black American, typically the first question I’m asked after stating my nationality is “Where are your parents from?” Of course, this assumption that all black people from the States have immigrant roots is nothing new. It’s similar to what goes on in the ethnic pool on college campuses across the country, where suddenly just being black or African-American becomes odd or inadequate. Dealing with this questioning abroad is often due to a lack of awareness of American history. Afro-Colombians, having a similar relationship to the Trans-Atlantic slave trade as black Americans, go largely unrecognized or celebrated in mainstream Colombian culture. Yes, people might mention or brag about San Basilio de Palenque (a town outside of Cartagena settled by escaped slaves in the early 1600s) being the first free town in the Americas or maybe even detail how much they encanta Celia Cruz. But outside of grassroots efforts, you get the sense that black Colombians are still left out of a lot of historical contexts and social discussions.
Standing in downtown Cartagena with a woman from Palenque vending candied goods. The awkward pause when people ask for my nationality and then wait for me to explain with “…but my parents are from….” has become predictable. It emphasizes the invisibility that many Afro-Latinos express and how those of other ethnicities and racial identities tend to see blackness as “other” — even when our roots in the Americas run deep.
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From the 1960s on, China supported anti-colonial and anti-apartheid movements across Africa. When countries like Algeria, Sudan, and South Africa fought for liberation, Beijing supplied financial assistance and logistical support. As the decades passed, ideological ties morphed into shared economic, security, and strategic interests, resulting in one of the world’s most complex, and controversial, arrays of international partnerships.
Today, some see China as a neocolonial power eager to plunge African nations into debt, stripping their resources and their sovereignty. They point to cases such as Djibouti, where China owns about 80 percent of its public debt, which, in turn, has exceeded 86 percent of GDP, or Zambia, where some reports suggest unsustainable lending will soon lead to a Chinese takeover of the public electric company, ZESCO. (The Zambian government has refuted the claims.) In August, 16 U.S. senators voiced their concern about China’s efforts to “weaponize capital” in Africa and Asia in a letter to U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
Others, especially African leaders, see China as a flexible partner willing to engage, with parity, where no one else will. Chinese loans for infrastructure projects, a significant part of overall financial ties, have historically come with interest rates far lower and repayment terms far more flexible than those offered by the International Monetary Fund and other multilateral lenders, to whom many African countries owe the bulk of their public debt. Through Chinese lending, construction, and project management, Africa has gained bridges, roads, railways, dams, hydropower plants—the kinds of large-scale projects that can jumpstart industrialization and invigorate economies for years to come.
But two decades of financial data, evolving business and cultural ties, and the latest news from the just-concluded Forum on China-Africa Cooperation in Beijing suggest that the China-Africa relationship defies simple characterization. There may be an overarching Africa policy. But on the ground, China is engaged in a diverse set of bilateral ties, with the benefits for African countries driven in large measure by how well their leaders defend national interests.
And there’s good reason to be concerned about whether those interests have been well served. Opaque deals, reports of large-scale corruption and mismanagement, doubts about project feasibility, and a stark trade imbalance raise serious questions about how well African leaders are managing the opportunities they receive.
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Makeup is big business, lingerie is big business, and Rihanna is a force of nature rocking both worlds. That much was clear on Wednesday night, when the singer and entrepreneur staged a show for her lingerie line, Savage x Fenty, at New York Fashion Week.
It was a lush, surreally Edenic performance piece, in which dancers and models prowled, whirled, and ran, laughing, across a grassy set strewn with fountains, plants growing under fluorescent lights, and geodesic domes. All 17 minutes, which you can watch on YouTube, are mesmerizing.
Runway shows are an odd tradition. They cost a ton of money, but their appeal is fairly limited to fashion wonks. Much of the clothing doesn’t even go into production. It sometimes seems like a fashion show evaporates the second it’s done.
But this Savage x Fenty presentation is worth paying attention to because Rihanna has emerged as a leader in the world of consumer products, and has made diversity part of her brand’s DNA, rather than deploying it as a one-off marketing tactic. Her Fenty Beauty collection became a smash hit in large part because it launched with 40 shades of foundation — something that should be standard, but isn’t, as many makeup brands ignore women of colorwhen formulating products. Just a few months later, a slew of major makeup brands had followed her lead.
And with this particular fashion show, Rihanna accomplished a few things. She put inclusivity front and center, by hiring a group of performers and models that was diverse in terms of race and, notably, size. And she offered an alternative to the cheery, homogenous vision of female sexuality put forth by the best-known lingerie brand in America, Victoria’s Secret.
Savage x Fenty pushes fashion in a more inclusive direction
For too many years, fashion shows looked like this: A stream of very thin, very young, very white women solemnly marching in a line. Designers and casting directors have been slow to increase diversity on the runway — despite many calls to do so — but recent years have shown progress. Yet keeping in mind fashion’s spotty track record on diversity historically, not just in fashion shows but on magazine covers, some have wondered how sincere the industry really is, particularly when it comes to race.
Representation of different body shapes is a particularly weak point for brands that show at fashion week. For the fall 2017 season, plus-size models accounted for only 0.43 percent of castings, according to a Fashion Spot tally. Even when brands do put plus-size models on the runway, they don’t always manufacture clothing in sizes that those models could buy.
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A new report from Nielsen—the global analytics and data company that lets me know that in the year of our Lord and Savior, Flamin’ Hot Cheetos, black people are still out here watching the NFL—has revealed some very interesting things about the digital lives of black America.
From Consumers to Creators: The Digital Lives of Black Consumers is a detailed analysis of black consumers, including their spending habits, market share and how they are changing the face of technology, popular culture and the entire online economy.
While we have long recognized the power of the black dollar, when we see major corporations introduce marketing campaigns that look like a Benson & Hedges ad from a 1980's issue of Jet magazine, it highlights the fact that black consumers have become one of the most sought-after segments of the consumer population.
“African American influence has long resonated cross-culturally, and now it’s being delivered directly from creator to consumer. Give talented, creative people unobstructed access to the world stage and, inevitably, they will shine,” said Cheryl Grace in a press release. She’s Nielsen’s senior vice president of U.S. strategic community alliances and consumer engagement, who might be the only executive with a title longer than Omarosa Manigault Newman, who served as the White House senior black person in charge of surreptitious recording and secretary of line dances.
The study estimates that black spending power is currently at $1.3 trillion and will reach $1.54 trillion by 2022, halfway through the Kanye West presidency. Even though the report has a glaring lack of data on black consumers impact in the seasoning salt industry, the report contains a few interesting factoids including:
- With an average age of 34.02 years, black consumers are the youngest segment of the population, second only to Hispanics (30.82).
- African Americans are 14 percent of the U.S. population but make up 28 percent of Twitter users.
- Through the first half of 2018, 7 of the top 10 Billboard artists are black.
Although the exhaustive report revealed a lot about black consumers, it left me with a few questions that we need to discuss:
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