Three years ago, girls from the Hockey in Newark youth program were invited to meet the Princeton women’s hockey team.
During the visit, the girls, many of whom are members of minorities, were drawn to defender Kelsey Koelzer. Like them, Koelzer, who is African-American, played much of her youth in secondhand equipment and was raised by a single parent who struggled to accommodate the costly expenses of hockey.
The girls peppered Koelzer with questions. Koelzer was struck by the encounter, too; her mother, Kristine, still remembers her daughter talking about the effect the visit had.
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Sarah Nurse
Koelzer’s influence is expanding in her senior season at Princeton. In June, she was selected first overall by the New York Riveters in the National Women’s Hockey League draft. Koelzer is believed to be the first African-American player taken No. 1 by a top-tier American professional hockey league. Shortly after the historic pick, Sarah Nurse of Canada, who is also black, was selected in the second round by the Boston Pride.
Koelzer and Nurse, a forward at Wisconsin, are two of college hockey’s top players and rising stars in their national-team programs. With increased visibility, they recognize their capacity to motivate a generation of young girls from similar backgrounds.
Head Not The Tail Productions (HNTT Productions) is excited to announce the forthcoming screening of its important and timely documentary titled Invisible Women: Being a Black Woman in Corporate America. The film, directed by Melody Shere'a and executive produced by Monica Simmons, is a powerful and inspiring documentary that is the result of a year-long research study interviewing black professional women in the San Francisco Bay Area and New York City. Invisible Women uncovers and addresses issues around racism that profoundly affect black women in the corporate workplace. The women share respective experiences of disappointment and rejection when simply trying to earn a living and/or compete against white, Asian and women of other races for a higher step on the corporate ladder. Invisible Women will screen Wednesday, October 12, 2016 from 6 to 9 p.m. at Valley Center for the Performing Arts, a unique performance facility that exists in the Oakland Hills on the scenic campus of Holy Names University (3500 Mountain Blvd., Oakland, CA). The evening will encompass the film viewing, reception and panel discussion. Tickets are $20 through Oct. 2; $30 thereafter.
"For the production of Invisible Women, we interviewed black women of varied professional levels who generously shared their previously untold stories and feelings around race-related issues on the job," said Shere'a, HNTT Productions founder and CEO. "In conducting the research, we found the corporate practice of discrimination to be a common harsh reality faced by countless women of color. We also interviewed experts who provide employment reports and statistical data on this topic."
Shere'a, the film's director and executive producer Simmons are talented sisters. They have each personally experienced workplace race and gender discrimination throughout their corporate careers, which is how they conceived the idea to develop this documentary.
HNTT Productions partnered with non-profit organizations BlackFemaleProject.Org and Center for Talent Innovation to dig into the issues, look at the facts, explore the reality of working in corporate America as a black woman and delve into ways to improve the environment for tomorrow's young black corporate professionals.
While there is certainly lobbying at local, state and federal levels for gender equality and diversity in the workplace, women's discrimination remains a troubling issue that as yet has not been adequately addressed. Though numerous entities address the issue by hiring and promoting more women into management positions and corporate executive roles, a considerable recognition/advancement gap still exists for black women.
The playing field isn’t level and well-qualified black women are too frequently denied the opportunity to explore similar career growth opportunities as their white and other female counterparts. The facts and details you will learn from this documentary will surprise you.
About News noted in a May 2016 report that although black women only make up 12.7 percent of the female population in the country, they consistently make up over 50 percent—and sometimes much more—of the number of blacks who receive postsecondary degrees. Percentage-wise, Black women outpace white women, Latinas, Asian/Pacific Islanders and Native Americans in the education arena. However, a recent study found black women make up just 8% of private sector jobs and 1.5% of leadership roles.
Shere'a has a passion for empowering and mentoring young girls, and is a "Woman of Impact" member for Girls Inc. Alameda County. A portion of the event proceeds will be donated to the following organizations: Black Female Project, Girls Inc Alameda County, Girls Who Code and Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. To contribute directly to the fund, visit IndieGoGo crowdfunding page.
ABOUT HEAD NOT THE TAIL PRODUCTIONS (HNTTP): HNTT Productions, founded in 2016 by Melody Shere’a, is located in the heart of Oakland, California. The company creates, develops, produces and invests in film, television and documentary projects. The entertainment industry veteran possesses more than 10 years acting, print modeling and voice-over experience. She is a member of the Screen Actors Guild (SAG). Shere’a graduated from Cal State Hayward, where she earned her Bachelor’s degree, and later pursued an MBA in Finance at Holy Names University in Oakland.
Monica Simmons is the Executive Producer of the documentary and head of production and film development for HNTT Productions.
Shere'a, HNTT Productions CEO states, "For too long our stories have been left behind. It is HNTTP's goal is to bring forth the change needed in the entertainment industry by becoming the 'Head and Not The Tail' in this business". HNTTProductions.com
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton spoke at the Black Women’s Agenda Symposium in Washington D.C. on 09/16/2016, an event which Donald Trump declined to speak at (so much for that black voter outreach). Clinton addressed creating jobs and criminal justice reform among other topics. Watch her speech below.
* The Black Women's Agenda, Inc. is comprised of 21 national collaborating women's organizations, sororities, civic, service, and faith-based – representing millions of women worldwide.
New research suggests certain scalp-pulling hairstyles may underlie gradual hair loss.
Hair can be a touchy subject. It’s considered an essential part of overall identity: especially for women, that’s why many of us try our best to care for and manage it. However, while most of us know that moisture and trimming split ends are essential for hair growth and strong, healthy hair, how we style our hair could also be detrimental to its health. A new research review published in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology found a strong association between certain scalp-pulling hairstyles — many of which are common among black women — and gradual hair loss. Their research assigned a level of risk to a number of popular hairstyles, from straightening to tight ponytails.
Traction alopecia, a form of gradual hair loss caused by constant strain or tension, affects an estimated one-third of African-American women. Fortunately, unlike others, this form of alopecia can be easily stopped and reversed. Still, the current study’s researchers urge dermatologists to better educate themselves about hairstyles that can contribute to this condition, including tight ponytails, braids, knots and buns.
"Hair is a cornerstone of self-esteem and identity for many people, but ironically, some hairstyles meant to improve our self-confidence actually lead to hair and scalp damage,” Dr. Crystal Aguh, assistant professor of dermatology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, said in a statement.
Black Girls Vote (BGV) is a grassroots organization that seeks to uplift the Black community by educating and
inspiring voting age Black women to understand the public policy decisions affecting their families and communities.
The organizations goal is to empower Black women to change policy through the electoral process
Vision
To improve the lives of Black Women
one vote at a time.
Mission
To inspire a community of women to use
the democratic process to address issues
that impact Black women.
Goals
To close the opportunity gap focusing on family, community and country and lending our collective voice to policies that support BGV, Inc. vision, mission and strategic goals to:
Advance education
Advance economic development; and,
Advance quality health care while improving outcomes
Geneva Reed-Veal, the mother of Sandra Bland addressed the newly formed Congressional Caucus on Black Women and Girls. She spoke on behalf of black women who die in prison and her belief that her daughter did not commit suicide. Watch her speech below.
From the pulpit of an African-American church in Detroit not long ago, Bishop Corletta Vaughn offered a rousing endorsement of Hillary Clinton that went far beyond politics.
With a smiling Clinton sitting a few feet away in the purple-walled Holy Ghost Cathedral, Vaughn said she had seen Clinton "take a licking and keep on ticking." Alluding to Bill Clinton's past infidelity, she added: "I'm not talking about politically. I'm talking about as a wife and a mother. That's when I said: I love that woman. She taught so many of us as women how to stand in the face of adversity."
During a primary season in which she has faced surprisingly strong competition and been bombarded with criticism of her trustworthiness, Clinton has maintained a strong bond with one significant bloc of Democratic Party voters. Black women, part of President Barack Obama's winning coalition in 2008 and 2012, have locked arms behind Clinton, hailing her as a Democratic standard-bearer, survivor and friend.
Black women's groups said Wednesday they feel President Barack Obama jilted them by choosing someone other than a black woman as his newest nominee for the Supreme Court.
Obama chose federal appeals court Chief Judge Merrick Garland, a white man, to replace deceased Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. Garland is the third Supreme Court nominee of Obama's presidency.
"The fact that he would once again look over black women for this specific appointment is an absolute slap in the face to his top supporters," said Avis A. Jones-DeWeever, founder of the Exceptional Leadership Institute for Women.
Minority voters have been the most devoted supporters of Obama's two presidential campaigns. Black women, in particular, had the highest turnout among all racial and ethnic groups in the 2008 and 2012 presidential elections, and they had hoped Obama would nominate a black woman to the high court.
Besides Garland, Obama's short list included federal appeals court judges Paul Watford, who is black, and Sri Srinivasan, who would have been the court's first Asian-American and the first Hindu.
White House press secretary Josh Earnest said Obama selected Garland "for one reason and one reason only, and that is simply that he believes that Chief Judge Garland is the best person in America to do that job."
The president of the ABC Entertainment Group is departing amid low ratings, to be replaced by the first African-American to head a broadcast TV network.
Paul Lee's successor is Channing Dungey, who has been ABC's executive vice-president for drama development, movies and miniseries, the Walt Disney Co.-owned network said Wednesday. Dungey shepherded ABC hits including "Scandal," ''How to Get Away with Murder" and "Quantico."
Dungey is both the first black network programming chief and a rare female executive. Change has come faster for women than minorities in the TV executive ranks, with Jennifer Salke serving as NBC's entertainment president and, at Fox Television Group, Dana Walden sharing chair and CEO duties with Gary Newman.
Dungey, a graduate of UCLA's School of Theater, Film and Television, has been with ABC since 2004, starting with ABC Studios. Previously, she worked at production companies and as a production executive at Warner Bros., handling films including "Bridges of Madison County" and "The Matrix."
Did you know breast cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death among black women?
Although breast cancer is diagnosed more often for white women, African American women are more likely to die of breast cancer, according to a recent study by the Journal of Clinical Oncology. Specifically, in women under 45, breast cancer is more common in African American women than white women.
Here are a few more facts about breast cancer and the action you can take today:
In 2015 alone, an estimated 231,840 new cases of invasive breast cancer are expected to be diagnosed, along with 60,290 new cases of non-invasive breast cancer, according to SusanGKomen.org. Many studies indicate these decreases are due to the result of earlier detection through screening, treatment advancements, and increased awareness.
The breast cancer death rate for women aged 45–64 years was 60% higher for black women than white women, according to the CDC National Vital Statistics System.
The median age at diagnosis in African American women is 54 years, compared with a median age of 58 years in white women.
A new report is showing that black women mean business – literally.
Since 1997, the number of companies owned by African-American females shot up by 322 percent, far outpacing the growth rate of women owned-businesses in general and making black women the fastest-growing group of entrepreneurs in the US today, according to the 2015 State of Women-Owned Businesses Report, commissioned by American Express Open.
“We attribute the growth in women-owned firms to the lack of fair pay, fair promotion, and family-friendly policies found in corporate America,” Margot Dorfman, CEO of the US Women’s Chamber of Commerce, told Fortune magazine.
“Women of color, when you look at the statistics, are impacted more significantly by all of the negative factors that women face,” she added. “It’s not surprising that they have chosen to invest in themselves.”
The result: Women now own 30 percent of all businesses in the US, or about 9.4 million companies, having grown by 74 percent since 1997. Together these firms generate about $1.5 trillion in revenue and employ nearly 8 million people, the report found.
African-American women own about 14 percent of those firms, accounting for 1.3 million businesses, or half of all businesses owned by African-Americans in the country. Latina women follow close behind them, comprising 12 percent of all women-owned firms, or about 1 million businesses.
[ SOURCE] About 20 prominent black women arrived at the ornate office suites of McConnell Thursday morning, asking to meet with him—even if for only a few minutes in the hallway—over the delay in confirming Attorney General-designate Loretta Lynch. They were told McConnell was too busy. The women did meet with McConnell's chief of staff for about 20 minutes.
The group that arrived at his door included Williams-Skinner; attorney Barbara Arnwine, president of the Lawyers Committee on Civil Rights; Melanie Campbell, president of the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation; Sheila Tyson, a city councilwoman from Birmingham, Ala.; and Marcia Dyson, CEO of the Women's Global Initiative.
They asserted that the treatment of Lynch was a double standard rarely if ever applied to any other nominee for attorney general. Lynch, a career prosecutor who earned a degree from Harvard Law in 1984, has already been confirmed by the Senate twice before. If confirmed currently, Lynch would be the first African-American female attorney general of the 82 individuals who have been confirmed over 225 years.
Lynch has now waited longer for confirmation than any other attorney general nominee in 31 years, and longer than the last five nominees combined. The average wait time for an attorney general nominee is 18 days. Lynch, who has nominated by President Barack Obama Nov. 8, has now waited 138 days.
Mothers who give birth in areas with higher concentrations of African-Americans are less likely to get breastfeeding support on maternity wards than mothers in other communities, a new study shows.
Breastfeeding provides well-documented health benefits to infants and their mothers. But African-American women are about 16 percent less likely to nurse their newborns than white women, according to research from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
The study of 2,727 American hospitals and birth centers sought to uncover the reasons for the racial disparities.
More than 200 African American men, ranging from a taxi driver to university professors, sent a letter to President Obama on Tuesday urging him to expand his Black male initiative to include Black girls and women, saying they were “surprised and disappointed” that the president had sought to include only half of the race to tackle community-wide issues.
After praising the president for saying that addressing the needs of those left behind is as important as anything else he is undertaking, authors of the letter wrote, “So we were surprised and disappointed that your commitments express empathy to only half of our community – men and boys of color. Simply put, as Black men we cannot afford to turn away from the very sense of a shared fate that has been vital to our quest for racial equality across the course of American history.”
The letter continued, “As African Americans, and as a nation, we have to be as concerned about the experiences of single Black women who raise their kids on sub-poverty wages as we are about the disproportionate number of Black men who are incarcerated. We must care as much about Black women who are the victims of gender violence as we do about Black boys caught up in the drug trade.”
[ SOURCE ] The military is reviewing its new regulations involving soldiers' appearance following criticism that the hair requirement is racially biased.
Pentagon spokesman Navy Rear Adm. John Kirby says Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel will make whatever adjustments to the policy are appropriate after the review.
The Army earlier this month issued new appearance standards that ban most twists, dreadlocks and large cornrows. Those are all styles used predominantly by African-American women with natural hairstyles. Sixteen female members of the Congressional Black Caucus wrote to Hagel calling the changes "discriminatory rules targeting soldiers who are women of color."
Kirby says Hagel will have the deputy secretary of defense "work with the service secretaries and military chiefs to review their respective policies" over the next three months.
The Army earlier this week issued new appearance standards which included bans on most twists, dreadlocks and large cornrows -- but some black military women feel they have been singled out.
New Army regulations meant to help standardize and professionalize soldiers’ appearance are now coming under criticism by some black military women, who say changes in the hair requirement are racially biased.
The Army earlier this week issued new appearance standards, which included bans on most twists, dreadlocks and large cornrows, all styles used predominantly by African-American women with natural hairstyles. More than 11,000 people have signed a White House petition asking President Barack Obama, the commander in chief, to have the military review the regulations to allow for “neat and maintained natural hairstyles.”
Some black military women, who make up about a third of the women in the armed forces, feel they have been singled out with these new regulations.
“I think that it primarily targets black women, and I’m not in agreement with it,” said Patricia Jackson-Kelley of the National Association of Black Military Women. “I don’t see how a woman wearing three braids in her hair, how that affects her ability to perform her duty in the military.”
I must have been under a rock for a few days. Today when coming online to sites like Facebook and Twitter I have just learned that the state of Blue Ivy's ( Jay Z's and Beyonces baby girl ) hair is now an issue. Really?
To everyone talking bad about the baby's hair. To everyone criticizing Blue Ivy's lack of a hairstyle. To everyone who appareantley doesn't have enough important sh*t going on in your own life that gives you the time to talk about a baby's hair.
F*CK YOU!
Blue Ivy is a pretty baby as most babies are and her hairstyle is not important. Adults should not be putting their pscycholgical bullsh*t about THEIR hair onto our children. That's your f*cked up way of thinking. Do everyone and every little black girl a favor and keep that sh*t to yourself.
Being women of color our little girls will have enough challenges throughout life. Let's not put a bogus one on them.
