I keep telling people Dr. Ben Carson is an idiot savant and he keeps going out of his way to prove it. While speaking to department employees Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson referred to slaves as "immigrants". I am not making this up, you can watch video of him making that ridiculous statement below.
THIS IS WHY BLACK PEOPLE DON"T LIKE BEN CARSON
Fan favorite Cedric McMillan finally turned potential into reality and won the 2017 Arnold Classic open bodybuilding championship. After his victory he invited the other competitors on stage and gave arguably the best victory speech ever in bodybuilding. Check out that speech below.
Congrats to Candace Lewis Carter for winning the 2017 Arnold Classic Women's Figure International competition. She beat out the former Olympia champion Latorya Watts who finished third behind Cydney Gillon. After so many 2nd and 3rd place finishes in other shows it's great to see Candace finally breakthrough and turn potential into reality. Check out an interview with the champ below:
A Louisiana congressman has apologized for making a crude joke about White House adviser Kellyanne Conway.
Democrat Cedric Richmond made the joke during a comedy routine at last week's annual Washington Press Club Foundation congressional dinner. Citing the picture of Conway kneeling on a couch in the Oval Office, Richmond said Conway looked "kind of familiar there in that position."
The joke fell flat as the room full of journalists, congressional staffers and politicians audibly groaned.
Richmond initially defended the joke, saying his use of the word "familiar" simply meant that Conway looked too comfortable.
But Sunday night he issued a statement apologizing for the joke.
"After a discussion with people I know and trust I understand the way my remarks have been received by many," said Richmond. "I have consistently been a champion for women and women's issues, and because of that the last thing I would want to ever do is utter words that would hurt or demean them. I apologize to Kellyanne Conway and everyone who has found my comments to be offensive."
F.B.I. Director James B. Comey has called on the Department of Justice to reject President Donald Trump‘s claims that Barack Obama, while in office, called for an illegal wiretap of Trump Towers during the 2016 Presidential election.
Comey has stated that the highly charged claim is false and must be corrected. In addition, Trump’s accusation implies that the F.B.I. would have broken the law should the allegations be true. Comey has also been working with the DOJ to knock down Trump’s claim as there is virtually no evidence.
A statement by the F.B.I. invalidating the president’s claims would be a huge blow to the office of the presidency, essentially putting the nation’s top law enforcement officials in a position where they could question the truthfulness of the nation’s highest government official.
Read more: Comey Asks DOJ to Reject Trump’s Wiretap Accusations
Flint has been mired in a devastating water crisis for nearly three years, and it may be another two before it's resolved.
Mayor Karen Weaver wrote to EPA officials earlier this week to inform them that the Michigan city will not be able to treat its own water for lead and other contaminants until 2019, citing a lengthy construction and testing process for a new water treatment plant.
"To expedite completion of the project and minimize cost, a design/build project delivery method is proposed," Weaver wrote. "Based on this approach, an August, 2019, completion date is anticipated for the treatment plant improvements."
In 2014, officials implemented a cost-cutting plan to switch the city's water source from Lake Huron to the Flint River, which is 19 times more corrosive, according to researchers from Virginia Tech. That caused lead to leach from pipes and into the city's drinking water.
Read more: Flint mayor: City needs 2 years before it can treat its own water
Two Delta A320/319 pilots made history over the weekend, flying Delta's first mainline flight with two African-American female pilots in the flight deck.
Atlanta-based First Officer Dawn Cook learned that Detroit-based Captain Stephanie Johnson, Delta's first African-American female captain, would be flying out of Detroit last Sunday and reached out to Johnson to help facilitate the historic flight. Afterward, Cook posted the above photo to Facebook to commemorate the flight.
Among his first actions in his new role, Secretary Carson plans an ambitious listening tour of select communities and HUD field offices around the country, beginning in his native Detroit.
"I am immensely grateful and deeply humbled to take on such an important role in service to the American people," said Secretary Carson. "Working directly with patients and their families for many years taught me that there is a deep relationship between health and housing. I learned that it's difficult for a child to realize their dreams if he or she doesn't have a proper place to live, and I've seen firsthand how poor housing conditions can rob a person of their potential. I am excited to roll up my sleeves and to get to work."
For nearly 30 years, Secretary Carson served as Director of Pediatric Neurosurgery at the Johns Hopkins Children's Center, a position he assumed when he was just 33 years old, making him the youngest major division director in the hospital's history. Dr. Carson received dozens of honors and awards in recognition of his achievements including the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor. He is also a recipient of the Spingarn Medal, which is the highest honor bestowed by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).
Dr. Carson has written nine books, four of which were co-authored with Candy Carson, his wife of 41 years. Together, they co-founded the Carson Scholars Fund, which celebrates young people of all backgrounds for exceptional academic and humanitarian accomplishments. The Fund has recognized more than 7,300 scholars, awarded more than seven million dollars in scholarships, and installed more than 150 Ben Carson Reading Rooms throughout the United States.
Apple touts its commitment to diversity, but its shareholders don’t seem to care all that much about it.
On Tuesday, Apple investors overwhelmingly rejected a proposal that would have urged the company to ramp up its efforts to hire African Americans, Latinos and other people of color for its board of directors and senior management positions. As is the case at many tech companies, members of such groups have been underrepresented at Apple compared with the general population.
The vote marked the second year in a row shareholders have rejected the proposal, which called for Apple to have an “accelerated recruitment policy” to diversify its leadership ranks. Because it received less than 6 percent of shareholder votes this year, Apple can block it from appearing on its proxy ballot next year, supporters noted.
Read more: Apple investors reject diversity proposal
Trump made a big deal about the photo-op, oops I mean meeting he had with the Presidents of HBCUs from across the country this week. He made an even bigger deal of the executive order he signed to help HBCUs ( one that doesn't give any additional funding to the schools). The executive order itself isn't that much different from President Obama's order on HBCUs (yes he had one too), except in one way involving the White House Initiative on Historically Black Colleges and Universities.
From HBCU Digest:
The Trump executive order officially moves the White House Initiative on Historically Black Colleges and Universities from the US Department of Education to the White House, where it will function under the supervision of a presidentially-appointed executive director. The new order also mandates that federal agencies identified as active or potential funding matches for HBCU programs will have 90 days to submit reports to the White House on how they will leverage public and private resources to build capacity at black colleges.
The order maintains an advisory board on HBCUs, which will meet twice yearly to brief President Trump on trends among federal agencies relative to funding and industrial challenges. HBCU presidents were particularly critical of President Obama for declining to attend any of the advisory board meetings or the annual national conference on HBCUs throughout his eight years in office.
Much of the order mirrors the guiding document issued by President Obama, which similarly called for increased advocacy on behalf of HBCUs by way of agency liaisons, annual reports and increased communications between the government and institutions.
But the order does not outline specific goals sought by an advocacy coalition comprised of the National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education, the Thurgood Marshall College Fund and the United Negro College Fund; most notably, an aspirational goal that HBCUs be awarded five percent of total federal grant, internship and cooperative agreement funding; and 10 percent of total federal contract funding awarded to colleges and universities, which supporters say would nearly double federal support to HBCUs.
A Georgia judge sentenced a man and a woman to spend years in prison on Monday for their roles in a 2015 Confederate flag display that disturbed a group of black people attending a child's birthday party, prosecutors said.
Defendants Jose Torres, 26, and Kayla Norton, 25, were convicted earlier this month of charges that include making "terroristic threats" during the confrontation in Douglas County near Atlanta, which occurred at a time of heated national debate about a flag that many consider a symbol of racism.
Georgia Superior Court Judge William McClain sentenced Torres to serve 13 years in prison, and Norton to serve 6 years in prison, Douglas County District Attorney Brian Fortner said in a phone interview. Both face probation after their release, and were banished from Douglas County.
Attorneys for Torres and Norton could not immediately be reached for comment.
The sentences were a year longer than prosecutors had asked for, said Fortner, noting the crimes went beyond disagreements over the battle flag used by the pro-slavery South during the U.S. Civil War, which some defend as part of its heritage.
"This was a case where these people pulled out a shotgun and threatened to kill people at a party, including children," he said.
Read more: Georgia pair sentenced to prison over Confederate flag confrontation
Google is handing out $11.5 million in grants to organizations combating racial disparities in the criminal justice system, double what it has given so far.
And, in keeping with a company built on information, the latest wave of grants target organizations that crunch data to pinpoint problems and propose solutions.
"There is significant ambiguity regarding the extent of racial bias in policing and criminal sentencing," says Justin Steele, principal with Google.org, the Internet giant's philanthropic arm. "We must find ways to improve the accessibility and usefulness of information."
Among the organizations receiving funds from Google.org is the Center for Policing Equity, a national research center that collaborates with police departments and the communities they serve to track statistics on law enforcement actions, from police stops to the use of force. In addition to the grant of $5 million, Google engineers will put their time and skills to work on improving the center's national database.
"It's hard to measure justice," says Phillip Atiba Goff, the center's co-founder and president. "In policing, data are so sparse and they are not shared broadly. The National Justice Database is an attempt to measure justice so that people who want to do the right thing can use that metric to lay out a GPS for getting where we are trying to go. That's really what we see Google as being a key partner in helping us do."
Read more: Google pledges $11.5M to fight racial bias in policing, sentencing
Newly elected DNC chairman Tom Perez started off his term with a show of party unity by appointing Keith Ellison as DNC deputy chair. In the interest of full disclosure I supported Ellison but am now fully behind Perez because party unity is the ONLY way forward. Congratulations to both men and I believe that both will be successful in leading the Democratic Party back to prominence.
From thehill.com
Tom Perez used his first motion as chairman of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) on Saturday to appoint his top rival for the position, Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), as deputy chair of the DNC.
"I would like to begin by making a motion, it is a motion that I have discussed with a good friend, and his name is Keith Ellison," Perez said during his acceptance speech, announcing the appointment.
"Did I hear a second?" asked Perez, the former Labor secretary during the Obama administration.
"Second!" the DNC audience shouted.
Ellison and Perez embraced. When Ellison took to the mic, he congratulated Perez for "successfully passing his first motion" and called on his supporters to back the new DNC chairman.
“We don’t have the luxury to walk out of this room divided,” Ellison said during his speech. “If we waste even a moment of going at it over who supported who, we are not going to be standing up for those people."
Here's a message to Republican congressmen and senators who are refusing to hold town hall meetings because they don't want to face angry crowds.
A state government building that once served as headquarters of the “Massive Resistance” campaign against racial integration of Virginia’s public schools was renamed Thursday in honor of Barbara Johns, a student activist who played an important and often overlooked role in the civil rights movement.
Johns was only 16 when she led a student protest that would one day become part of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1954 landmark decision in Brown v. Board of Education.
Like most segregated schools at the time, the all-black high school Johns attended in Farmville, Virginia, was overcrowded, underfunded and dilapidated in comparison to the white schools in the Prince Edward County. On April 23, 1951, Johns persuaded all 450 of her classmates to stage a strike and march to City Hall in protest of the school’s substandard conditions.
“When she took a stand like that, it was a dangerous time, and I was the one who was worried about what might happen to us. She didn’t seem to have any fear at all,” said Barbara Johns‘ sister, Joan Johns Cobb, who marched alongside her.
Johns enlisted the help of the NAACP, which filed a suit on behalf of 117 students against Prince Edward County, challenging Virginia’s laws requiring segregated schools.
“This was before Little Rock Nine, this was before Rosa Parks, this was before Martin Luther King. This was a 16-year-old girl who said that we will not tolerate separate but not equal,” said Gov. Terry McAuliffe, who announced in January that the newly renovated Ninth Street Office Building would be renamed in Johns‘ honor.
[SOURCE]
During last night's CNN Democratic National Committee Chair debate Keith Ellison made a provocative comment in which he stated hat he believed Trump had already committed impeachable offenses. Listen to that comment below:
A World War II veteran who is the last-known living Buffalo-area resident to have served in a segregated unit has received six long-overdue medals.
U.S. Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer and Rep. Brian Higgins, a Buffalo Democrat, presented George Watts with the medals during a ceremony Wednesday at a city fire station.
Watts was a sergeant assigned to an all-black Army engineer unit that served in the Philippines campaign. He was honorably discharged in 1946. Two years later President Harry Truman integrated the U.S. military.
Among the belated decorations Watts received was the Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal and the World War II Victory medal.
Schumer and Higgins say racism likely kept Watts and many other black soldiers from receiving the military honors they earned with their service during the war.
[SOURCE: http://www.syracuse.com]
