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A bust of Nefertiti on display at the Neues Museum in Berlin in December 2012, during an exhibition marking the 100-year anniversary of the item’s discovery.Credit...Michael Sohn/Agence France-Presse, via Pool/Afp Via Getty Images

King Tut Died Long Ago, but the Debate About His Tomb Rages On

By Franz Lidz
Published Oct. 30, 2022
Updated Oct. 31, 2022

More than three millenniums after Tutankhamun was buried in southern Egypt, and a century after his tomb was discovered, Egyptologists are still squabbling over whom the chamber was built for and what, if anything, lies beyond its walls. The debate has become a global pastime.

At the center of the rumpus is the confrontational enthusiast Nicholas Reeves, 66, who shares a home near Oxford, England, with a nameless house cat. In July 2015, Dr. Reeves, a former curator at the British Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, posited the tantalizing theory that there were rooms hidden behind the northern and western walls in the treasure-packed burial vault of Tutankhamun, otherwise known as King Tut.

It was long presumed that the small burial chamber, constructed 3,300 years ago and known to specialists as KV62, was originally intended as a private tomb for Tutankhamun’s successor, Ay, until Tutankhamun died prematurely at 19. Dr. Reeves proposed that the tomb was, in fact, merely an antechamber to a grander sepulcher for Tutankhamun’s stepmother and predecessor, Nefertiti. What’s more, Dr. Reeves argued, behind the north wall was a corridor that might well lead to Nefertiti’s unexplored funerary apartments, and perhaps to Nefertiti herself.

The Egyptian government authorized radar surveys using ground-penetrating radar that could detect and scan cavities underground. At a news conference in Cairo in March 2016, Mamdouh Eldamaty, then Egypt’s antiquities minister, showed the preliminary results of radar scans that revealed anomalies beyond the decorated north and west walls of the tomb, suggesting the presence of two empty spaces and organic or metal objects.

To much fanfare, he announced that there was an “approximately 90 percent” chance that something — “another chamber, another tomb” — was waiting beyond KV62. (Dr. Reeves said: “There was constant pressure from the press for odds. My own response was 50-50 — radar will either reveal there’s more to Tutankhamun’s tomb than we currently see, or it won’t.”)

Yet, two years and two separate radar surveys later, a new antiquities minister declared that there were neither blocked doorways nor hidden rooms inside the tomb. Detailed results of the final scan were not released for independent scrutiny. Nonetheless, the announcement prompted National Geographic magazine to withdraw funding for Dr. Reeves’s project and a prominent Egyptologist to say, “We should not pursue hallucinations.”

Zahi Hawass, Egypt’s onetime chief antiquities official and author of “King Tutankhamun: The Treasures of the Tomb,” said: “I completely disagree with this theory. There is no way in ancient Egypt that any king would block the tomb of someone else. This would be completely against all their beliefs. It is impossible!” (Dr. Reeves countered by pointing out that every successor king was responsible for closing the tomb of his predecessor, as the mythical Horus buried his father, Osiris. “This is even demonstrated in what we currently see on the burial chamber’s north wall — as labeled, Ay burying Tutankhamun,” Dr. Reeves said.)

Kara Cooney, a professor of Egyptian art and architecture at the University of California, Los Angeles, noted the fraught scholarly terrain. “Nick’s work is evidence-based and carefully researched,” she said. “But few Egyptologists will say it on record because they are all afraid of losing their access to tombs and excavation concessions. Or they are just plain jerks.”

Despite the setback, Dr. Reeves soldiered on. In “The Complete Tutankhamun: 100 Years of Discovery,” a freshly revised edition of his 1990 book to be published in January, he draws on data provided by thermal imaging, laser-scanning, mold-growth mapping and inscriptional analysis to support his fiercely debated scholarship. The provocative new evidence has bolstered his belief that Tutankhamun was given a hasty burial in the front hallway of the tomb of Nefertiti.

“Much of what Tutankhamun took to the grave had nothing to do with him,” said Dr. Reeves, who spoke by video from his home office. He maintained that King Tut had inherited a suite of lavish burial equipment that had then been repurposed to accompany him into the afterlife, including his famous gold death mask.

The father of Tutankhamun was Akhenaten, the so-called heretic king whose reign was characterized by social, political and religious upheaval. The 18th-dynasty pharaoh rejected Amun, Osiris and Egypt’s traditional gods in favor of a single disembodied creator-essence, Aten, or the sun disk. In the space of a generation, Akhenaten had created a city from scratch at el-Amarna for his new god, and prepared royal tombs for himself, his children and his wives, including Nefertiti.

After Akhenaten came an obscure pharaoh named Smenkhkare, whom Tutankhamun succeeded directly. Dr. Reeves has long held that Smenkhkare and Nefertiti were the same person, and that Akhenaten’s queen simply changed her name, first to Neferneferuaten, during a period of co-rule with her husband, and then to Smenkhkare following his death, navigating a period of sole, independent rule. To the boy-king would fall the burial of this rare woman pharaoh.

During King Tut’s decade-long reign, he appeared to have been largely occupied with rectifying the chaos bequeathed to him by his old man. But it would not be enough: Shortly after his death in 1,323 B.C., a new dynasty chiseled his tarnished name into dust.

Pyramid scheme
Dr. Reeves has conducted research directly in the tomb on several occasions over the years. He came to his theory about Tutankhamun in 2014 after examining high-resolution color photographs of the tomb, which were published online by Factum Arte, a company based in Madrid and Bologna, Italy, that specializes in art recording and replication. The images showed lines beneath the plastered surfaces of painted walls, suggesting uncharted doorways. He speculated that one doorway — in the west — opened into a Tutankhamun-era storeroom, and that another, which aligns with both sides of the entrance chamber, opened to a hallway continuing along the same axis in form and orientation reminiscent of a more extensive queen’s corridor tomb.

“I saw early on, from the face of the north wall subject, that the larger tomb could only belong to Nefertiti,” Dr. Reeves said. “I also suggested, based on evidence from elsewhere, that the perceived storage chamber to the west of the burial chamber might have been adapted into a funerary suite for other missing members of the Amarna royal family.”

To support his radical reassessment, Dr. Reeves pointed to a pair of cartouches — ovals or oblongs enclosing a group of hieroglyphs — and a curious misspelling painted on the tomb’s north wall. The figure beneath the first cartouche is named as Tutankhamun’s Pharaonic successor, Ay, and is shown officiating at the young king’s burial carrying out the “opening the mouth” ceremony, a funerary ritual to restore the deceased’s senses — the ability to speak, touch, see, smell and hear. The key, Dr. Reeves said, is that both of the Ay cartouches show clear evidence of having been changed from their originals — the birth and throne names of Tutankhamun.

Dr. Reeves suggested that the cartouches had originally showed Tut burying his predecessor, and that the cartouches — and hence the tomb — were put to new use. “If you inspect the birth-name cartouche closely, you see clear, underlying traces of a reed leaf,” he said in an email. “Not by chance, this hieroglyph is the first character of the divine component of Tutankhamun’s name, ‘-amun,’ in all standard writings.”

Beneath Ay’s throne name may be discerned a rare, variant writing of Tutankhamun’s throne name, “Nebkheperure,” employing three scarab beetles. This is a variant whose lazy adaptation provides the only feasible explanation for the strangely misspelled three-scarab version of the Ay throne name “Kheperkheperure” that now stands there, Dr. Reeves said.

He deduced that the scene had originally depicted not Ay presiding over the interment of Tutankhamun, but Tutankhamun presiding over the burial of Nefertiti. There are two visual clinchers, he said. The first is the “rounded, childlike, double underchin” of the Ay figure, a feature not present in any image currently recognizable as him, implying that the original painting of the king must have been of the chubby, young Tutankhamun. The second is the facial contours of the mummified recipient — until now presumed to be Tutankhamun — whose lips, narrow neck and distinctive nasal bridge are a “perfect match” for the profile of the painted limestone bust of Nefertiti on display in the Neues Museum in Berlin.

“There would have been no reason to include a depiction of this predecessor’s burial in Tutankhamun’s own tomb,” Dr. Reeves said. “In fact, the presence of this scene identifies Tutankhamun’s tomb as the burial place of that predecessor, and that it was within her outer chambers that the young king had, in extremis, been buried.”

Rita Lucarelli, an Egyptologist at the University of California, Berkeley, said she had been following Dr. Reeves’s old and new claims with interest. “If he is right, it would be an amazing discovery because the tomb of Nefertiti would be intact, too,” she said. “But maybe even if there is a tomb there, it’s not that of Nefertiti, rather of another individual related to Tut. We simply cannot know it unless we dig through the bedrock.”

The problem, Dr. Lucarelli said, is finding a way to drill through the decorated north wall without destroying it. “This is also why other archaeologists do not sympathize with this theory,” she said.

Dr. Reeves’s unsympathetic colleagues are legion.

“Nick is flogging a dead horse in his theories,” Aidan Dodson, an Egyptologist at the University of Bristol, said. “He has provided no clear proof that the cartouches have been altered, and his iconographic arguments as to the faces on the wall have been rejected by pretty well every other Egyptologist I know of who is qualified to take a view.”

The politics of heritage
Dr. Cooney, whose book “When Women Ruled The World” argues that Nefertiti may have been Tut’s grandmother, is one of Dr. Reeves’s few champions. “I am not one of the many scholars laughing behind their hands,” she said. “Nick’s theory is brilliant but easily discounted in a very political and nationalistic Egypt that has refused to give permits to Western scholars who disagree with the party line. Maybe there’s nothing beyond the north wall of Tutankhamun’s tomb. Maybe it’s Al Capone’s safe. But if there is something there, this could potentially be the discovery of the millennium.”

At least part of the backlash against Dr. Reeves’s ideas can be traced to the politics of heritage. The narrative that Tutankhamun’s tomb was unearthed by the heroic English archaeologist Howard Carter has long been openly challenged by Egyptians, who took the discovery as a rallying cry to end 1920s British rule and establish a modern Egyptian identity. Among Egyptologists today, the hot topics include the decolonization of the field and more inclusive and equitable accounts of Egyptian team members involved in archaeological excavations.

“Sure, some in Egypt take a different view from me, which is easy enough to understand,” Dr. Reeves said. A weary expression spread over his face. “Archaeologists in the U.K. would, I am sure, look askance at some foreigner sounding off on who might be buried in Westminster Abbey. But my sole interest as an academic Egyptologist, my intellectual responsibility, is to seek out the evidence and report honestly and as objectively as possible on what I find.”

Nefertiti’s burial is what the raft of new facts points toward when considered altogether, he said, and inevitably Nefertiti plus Tutankhamun is a big ask. “I can understand the skepticism with which my proposals have been greeted in some quarters,” he said. “And I initially shared it; I would spend a year testing and retesting my conclusions before feeling comfortable enough to publish.”

That was back in 2015, and Dr. Reeves believes the evidence now is stronger than ever. “Indeed, with the discovery that both cartouches of Ay overlie original cartouches of Tutankhamun, we have the veritable smoking gun,” he said. “To simply deny the evidence is not going to make it go away.”

ARTICLE
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/30/science/tutankhamen-nefertiti-archaeology.html

MY THOUGHTS

I am a Nefertiti fan. Considering Akenaton is known as a radical leader of the nile, in that he went against the heritage and formed a new culture, i imagine his wife is radical in thinking as well. I can see her preparing for her son's time. The white man miscomprehends. He doesn't realize that the damage of his community, that being white scientist in africa is so vast that he is not trusted he is not wanted. He wants to be viewed as content of character but that is something anyone native in egypt must have a hard time doing based on an extensive negative past. It is that simple, the individualism some in the scholarly community want demands ignoring human history or specifically, interracial history, which is mostly or overwhelmingly negative in humanity.
 

An illustration of the Union prisoners’ cemetery in Charleston, published in Harper’s Weekly two years after the May 1865 celebration.
© Alfred R. Waud/New York Public Library

Black people may have started Memorial Day. Whites erased it from history.
Story by Donald Beaulieu • Yesterday 6:00 AM

On May 1, 1865, thousands of newly freed Black people gathered in Charleston, S.C., for what may have been the nation’s first Memorial Day celebration. Attendees held a parade and put flowers on the graves of Union soldiers who had helped liberate them from slavery.

The event took place three weeks after the Civil War surrender of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee and two weeks after the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln. It was a remarkable moment in U.S. history — at the nexus of war and peace, destruction and reconstruction, servitude and emancipation.

But the day would not be remembered as the first Memorial Day. In fact, White Southerners made sure that for more than a century, the day wasn’t remembered at all.

It was “a kind of erasure from public memory,” said David Blight, a history professor at Yale University.

The contested Confederate roots of Memorial Day
In February 1865, Confederate soldiers withdrew from Charleston after the Union had bombarded it with offshore cannon fire for more than a year and began to cut off supply lines. The city surrendered to the Union army, leaving a massive population of freed formerly enslaved people.

Also left in the wake of the Confederate evacuation were the graves of more than 250 Union soldiers, buried without coffins behind the judge’s stand of the Washington Race Course, a Charleston horse track that had been converted into an outdoor prison for captured Northerners. The conditions were brutal, and most of those who had died succumbed to exposure or disease.

In April, about two dozen of Charleston’s freed men volunteered to disinter the bodies and rebury them in rows of marked graves, surrounded by a wooden, freshly whitewashed fence, according to newspaper accounts from the time.

Then, on May 1, about 10,000 people — mostly formerly enslaved people — turned out for a memorial service that the freed people had organized, along with abolitionist and journalist James Redpath and some White missionaries and teachers from the North. Redpath described the day in the New-York Tribune as “such a procession of friends and mourners as South Carolina or the United States never saw before.”

The day’s events began around 9 a.m. with a parade led by about 2,800 Black schoolchildren, who had just been enrolled in new schools, bearing armfuls of flowers. They marched around the horse track and entered the cemetery gate under an arch with black-painted letters that read “Martyrs of the Race Course.” The schoolchildren proceeded through the cemetery and distributed the flowers on the gravesites.

Other attendees entered the cemetery with even more flowers, as the schoolchildren sang songs including “The Star-Spangled Banner” and “John Brown’s Body.”

“When all had left,” Redpath wrote, “the holy mounds — the tops, the sides, and the spaces between them — were one mass of flowers, not a speck of earth could be seen; and as the breeze wafted the sweet perfume from them, outside and beyond, to the sympathetic multitude, there were few eyes among those who knew the meaning of the ceremony that were not dim with tears of joy.”

In 1865, thousands of Black South Carolinians signed a 54-foot-long freedom petition < look after the first image below >

The dedication ended with prayers and Bible verses from local Black ministers, followed by speeches from Union officers and Northern missionaries, a picnic on the racecourse and drills by Union infantrymen, including some African American regiments. The observance didn’t end until sundown.

And then, Blight said, the event was forgotten. Not right away — but within a few decades, any recollection persisted merely as rumor, in verbal anecdotes.

The reason, he said, is that “by the middle and end of Reconstruction, the Black folks of Charleston were not creating the public memory of that city.”

The Southern generals who stuck with the Union in the Civil War
The portrayal of the Civil War and its aftermath was controlled in the South by groups such as the United Daughters of the Confederacy and the Ladies’ Memorial Association, as well as Confederate veterans, Blight said.

“The Daughters of the Confederacy were the guardians of that narrative,” said Damon Fordham, an adjunct professor of history at The Citadel, a military college in Charleston. “And much of that was skewed toward the Confederate point of view.”

Blight chronicled the 1865 Charleston ritual in his 2001 book “Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory,” based on evidence that Fordham helped him uncover. Blight had been researching the book in 1999, in an archive of the Houghton Library at Harvard University, when he found a collection of papers written by Union veterans that contained a description of the May 1, 1865, events in Charleston.

If the description was accurate, Blight said, he knew that “that event in Charleston deserves its own full commemoration, just because of the poignancy of it, the sheer scale of it.”

But first he had to corroborate it. One of the first places he contacted was the Avery Research Center for African American History and Culture at the College of Charleston. “I called up the curator there,” Blight recalled, “and I said, ‘I just found this in a collection of veterans materials. Have you ever heard of this story?’ And the guy said, ‘No. That never happened.’”

The “guy” was Fordham, who at the time was a graduate student at the college and a research assistant at Avery. Despite his doubts, Fordham knew the center had microfilm of the Charleston Courier, a daily newspaper from that time, so he checked it.

“About two hours later, he called me back, and he said, ‘Oh my God, here it is,’” Blight said. It was a Courier article from May 2, 1865, “describing this extraordinary parade on the old planters’ racecourse.”

Blight went on to find more proof, including an illustration of the fenced cemetery that was published in Harper’s Weekly in 1867. “Pretty soon I had all these sources that no one had ever bumped into, so one thing kept leading to another,” he said. “But even people in Charleston said, ‘No, never heard of it.’ That shows the power of the erasure of public memory over time.”

In the book, Blight describes a 1916 letter written by the president of the Ladies’ Memorial Association in Charleston, replying to an inquiry about the May 1, 1865, parade. “A United Daughters of the Confederacy official wanted to know if it was true that blacks and their white abolitionist friends had engaged in such a burial rite,” he wrote. “Mrs. S.C. Beckwith responded tersely: ‘I regret that I was unable to gather any official information in answer to this.’”

In the 1880s, the bodies of the Union soldiers, the “Martyrs of the Race Course,” were exhumed and moved to Beaufort National Cemetery. The horse track closed shortly after that, and the 60 acres of land became Hampton Park, named for Wade Hampton III, a Confederate general and Charleston native who became governor of South Carolina in 1876. Hampton enslaved nearly 1,000 people before the war, and his governorship was supported by the Red Shirts, a White paramilitary group that violently suppressed the Black vote.

After slavery, Black people desperately searched for family through newspaper ads <look after second image below>
By the end of the century, no vestige of the racecourse, the cemetery or the 1865 parade remained.

More spring graveside memorials followed the one in Charleston. Several occurred in towns across the country in the spring of 1866, and many of these places — such as Columbus, Miss., whose commemoration became annual — claim to have held the original Memorial Day observance. Officially, the nation recognizes Memorial Day as having started in Waterloo, N.Y.

In Charleston, the freed people didn’t have the power to develop an annual tradition after 1865. But the city now recognizes itself, regardless, as the holiday’s birthplace.

“On May 1, 1865, a parade to honor the Union war dead took place here,” reads a state historical marker erected in Hampton Park in 2017. “The event marked the earliest celebration of what became known as ‘Memorial Day.’”

URL

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/black-people-may-have-started-memorial-day-whites-erased-it-from-history/ar-AA1bPFSs?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=07a93f22676c4438d2e3eafde7baa12e&ei=5

This 54-foot-long petition bears the signatures of hundreds of men who participated in the State Convention of Colored People of South Carolina in 1865. (Gwenanne Edwards/Library of Congress, Conservation Division)

In 1865, thousands of Black South Carolinians signed a 54-foot-long freedom petition
It goes on display Friday for the first time at the African American history museum in Washington.

By Michael E. Ruane
September 23, 2021 at 7:43 p.m. EDT

In November 1865, eight months after the end of the Civil War, a group of African Americans formed a convention in Charleston, S.C., drew up a petition demanding their civil rights and sent it to Congress in Washington.

“We the undersigned colored citizens of South Carolina, do respectfully ask … in consideration of our unquestioned loyalty [that in the] re-establishment of civil government in South Carolina, our equal rights before the law may be respected,” the handwritten document begins.

What followed were 3,740 signatures, then-Sen. Jacob M. Howard (R-Mich.) told his Senate colleagues after receiving the petition — on a document that was 54 feet long.

It was a striking appeal from the newly freed, and previously free, African Americans, asking that they not be forgotten in the country’s postwar reconstruction. Never displayed publicly before, it goes on exhibit Friday at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture.

“The petition is a real touchstone for the expectations and the will of … African Americans …[who saw] this moment in the county’s history as a new beginning,” said Katy Kendrick, exhibitions curator at the museum. It’s a “very powerful and very direct claiming of full rights of citizenship.”

The petition is part of a new exhibit of 175 objects at the museum entitled “Make Good the Promises: Reconstruction and Its Legacies.”

The exhibit covers the turbulent postwar era of Reconstruction as the vanquished Southern states sought to recreate prewar racial oppression, and African Americans fought, ultimately in vain, to prevent it.

And it examines the legacy of that struggle today.

It includes a frightening Ku Klux Klan head mask with horns, made of cloth and animal fur, owned by a Confederate army officer in North Carolina and used to terrorize Black residents.

It includes a document from the Freedmen’s Bureau, the federal agency set up to help the 4 million people newly freed, that tells of a mother’s attempt get her two children back from their former enslaver.

Caroline Atkinson went to the bureau’s office in Vicksburg, Miss., in September 1867, two years after slavery had been abolished in 1865.

But her daughters Elizabeth, 10, and Mary Jane, 11, were still in the hands of one William Atkinson, who had refused to return them unless he was paid $100 — roughly $1,600 today.

She signed the document with an X. The bureau investigated and ordered the children returned to their mother, according to the museum.

There’s an old pew from a former Black church, as well as the stained glass windows picturing Confederate generals that was removed from Washington National Cathedral in 2017.

The Cathedral announced Thursday that the windows would be replaced with racial justice-themed windows created by Black artist Kerry James Marshall.

The exhibit also includes a Bible and nine-page Bible study guide loaned by a survivor of the massacre at Charleston’s Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, where nine African Americans were murdered on June 17, 2015.

That church is across the street from the site of the old Zion Presbyterian Church, where the freedom petition was drawn up 150 years before. (Zion Presbyterian was demolished in 1960, according to a study by the College of Charleston.)

“Reconstruction was a pivotal moment … when the nation had an opportunity to make amends for the injustices of slavery and rebuild itself on a new foundation of racial equality,” Kevin Young, the museum director, said in a statement.

“While some gains were made, this was also a period of voter suppression … violence and unlawful incarceration,” he said. “Because of the work left unfinished … and the decades of discrimination that followed, the struggle … continues in society today.”

The signers of the petition to Congress met at the “State Convention of the Colored People of South Carolina” over six days in late November 1865 at Zion Presbyterian, according to an account of the proceedings printed by a local newspaper. At the time, Zion Presbyterian was the biggest church in Charleston and a center for the Black community.

In addition to the petition, the convention issued a number of resolutions, including:

“That in the death of the late President of the United States, ABRAHAM LINCOLN, this nation has sustained an irreparable loss and we, as a race, deprived of a noble friend. We sympathize with his afflicted family and will ever hold his name in grateful remembrance.”

Lincoln had been assassinated the previous April.

The convention resolved: “That we hereby object to a ‘negro code’ [of law]. … In our humble opinion a code of laws for the government of all, regardless of color, is all that is necessary for the advancement of the interests and prosperity of the state.”

Oppressive state laws restricting the lives of African Americans, called “Black Codes,” soon became a grim hallmark of Reconstruction.

The convention issued an address to the people of South Carolina:

“Heretofore we have had no avenues opened to us or our children — We have had no firesides that we could call our own. … The laws that have made white men great have degraded us because we are colored. …

“But now that we are free, now that we have been lifted up by the providence of God … we have resolved to come forward, and … speak and act for ourselves.”

And it resolved:

“As the old institution of slavery has passed away … we cherish in our hearts no hatred or malice toward those who have held our brethren as slaves, but we extend the right hand of fellowship to all and make it our special aim to establish unity, peace and love amongst all men.”

URL

https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2021/09/23/african-american-freedom-petition-museum-reconstruction/

Mary Bailey searches for her children. Her ad ran Nov. 24, 1866, in the Daily Dispatch newspaper in Richmond.

‘My mother was sold from me’: After slavery, the desperate search for loved ones in ‘last seen ads’

By DeNeen L. Brown
September 7, 2017 at 7:30 a.m. EDT

Ten months after the Civil War ended, an enslaved woman who had been ripped away from her children started looking for them.

Elizabeth Williams, who had been sold twice since she last saw her children, placed a heart-wrenching ad in a newspaper:

“INFORMATION WANTED by a mother concerning her children,” Williams wrote March 17, 1866, in the Christian Recorder newspaper in Philadelphia. Her ad was one of thousands taken out by formerly enslaved people looking for lost relatives after the Civil War.

Those ads are now being digitized in a project called “Last Seen: Finding Family After Slavery,” < https://informationwanted.org/ >which is run by Villanova University’s graduate history program in collaboration with Philadelphia’s Mother Bethel AME Church.

In four column inches, the mother summed up her life, hoping the rich details would help her find the children. She listed their names — Lydia, William, Allen, and Parker — and explained in a few words that she last saw them when they were “formerly owned together” by a man named John Petty who lived about six miles from Woodbury, Tenn.

She explained how her family was split apart when she was sold again and taken farther south into captivity.

“She has never seen the above-named children since,” the ad said. “Any information given concerning them, however, will be gratefully received by one whose love for her children survives the bitterness and hardships of many long years spent in slavery.”

The “Last Seen” ads started appearing around 1863. By 1865, when the Civil War ended, they were coming out in streams. Black people torn away from family members by slavery placed thousands of “Information Wanted” notices in black-owned newspapers across the country, seeking any help to find loved ones.

In the ads, mothers looked for their children; children looked for their mothers; fathers placed ads for lost sons; sisters looked for sisters; husbands sought their wives; wives tried to find their husbands. The ads showed in real time the destruction slavery wrought on black families, tearing people apart and scattering generations like leaves in the wind.

The ads often gave detailed physical descriptions of the missing, names of former slave owners, locations subscribers “last saw” family members and sometimes maps, tracing how many times they were sold from one owner to the next until they so far from family members all they had to cling to was sketchy memories.

Many of the Last Seen ads, dating from 1863 to 1902, were placed in the Christian Recorder, the official newspaper of the African Methodist Church. Others ads were placed in the Black Republican in New Orleans, the South Carolina Leader in Charleston, the Colored Citizen in Cincinnati, the Free Men’s Press in Galveston, Texas, and the Colored Tennessean in Nashville.

Judy Giesberg, the graduate program director at Villanova’s History Department, began noticing the newspaper ads while researching the story of Emilie Davis, a free black woman who lived in Philadelphia during the Civil War and kept a diary while there.

“Emilie Davis would write about a lecture she would see or some event in Philadelphia,” Giesberg said. “If she said she went to see Frederick Douglass, we would look in the newspaper to see where he was. It was hard to overlook these ads.”

Sometimes the ads took up columns and columns that would make up whole pages, which captured the weight of the missing and the desperation of subscribers to find them.

Giesberg started collecting the ads with the intention of one day making them available to people online. “I started with the AME Church newspaper,” Giesberg said. “It was the first place I noticed the ads. When I started looking in other black newspapers, I found this was a common phenomenon to include ads taken by people who were one step out of slavery.”

Last August, Giesberg created the “LAST SEEN: FINDING FAMILY AFTER SLAVERY” website, where genealogists and other researchers can search for specific names and locations. Two graduate students — Margaret Strolle and James Byrd — read microfilm to find the material. The site uses volunteers to help transcribe the ads. There are now more than 2,000 ads on the site, of which 1,500 have been transcribed. Since January, the site has been visited by more than 1 million unique visitors.

“There are comparable projects that have collected runaway slave ads,” Giesberg said. What is unique about Last Seen ads, she added, “is they were taken out from the other perspective. They were taken out by the enslaved people.”

The Last Seen ads break down what genealogists and researchers call the “1870 Census Wall.” Before the 1870 Census, there were very few official records of black people.  Enslaved black people were often listed as property, by a check mark, a number or by a gender. They were often listed on bills of sale, like chattel. When researchers try to get information on enslaved black people, they often hit a brick wall when searching for information before 1870.

“What the ads do is reach from the other side of the 1870 Census Wall,” Giesberg said. “The ads place people together in a time before 1870.”

The ads tell real stories of real people with real names, humanizing enslaved people, something slave owners often tried to prevent.

“Slave owners often painted a portrait of enslaved people as part of a happy family in which white men were patriarchs,” Giesberg said. The ads go “beyond that myth, the myth of the benign slaveholder who believes he was a good slaveholder and all the slaves belonged to him. These ads are where real truth lies.”

Enslaved people lived with the constant fear that they or a family member would be sold.

“Slave owners’ wealth lay largely in the people they owned, therefore, they frequently sold and or purchased people as finances warranted,” according to a report by the National Humanities Center, a nonprofit that collects primary historical resources. “An enslaved person could be sold as part of an estate when his owner died, or because the owner needed to liquidate assets to pay off debts or because the owner thought the enslaved person was a troublemaker.”

An exhibit entitled “The Weeping Time” at the Smithsonian’s African American Museum of History and Culture explains the circumstances that often split families apart.

“Night and day, you could hear men and women screaming … ma, pa, sister or brother … taken without any warning,” according to a witness account in the exhibit. “People was always dying from a broken heart.”

Another witness described an emotional scene at a slave auction. A mother clings to her baby while being whipped with a lash because she refused to put her baby down and climb an auction block.

The woman pleaded for God’s mercy, Henry Bibb recounted.

“But the child was torn from the arms of its mother amid the most heart rending-shrieks from the mother and child on the one hand, and the bitter oaths and cruel lashes from the tyrants on the other,” Bibb recalled. “Finally, the poor child was torn from the mother while she sacrificed to the highest bidder.”

In a “Last Seen” ad placed on April 17, 1902, in the Christian Recorder newspaper in Philadelphia, a woman seeks information about “my people.”
“My mother was sold from me when I could but crawl,” the woman writes.

Since the sale, “I never saw any of my people. I was about 39 years old last March and am married and living at Panama, Vernon Co., Mo. My name is Mary Delaney; it used to be Mary Long. Address me at Post office: Panama, Vernon county, Mo.”

In a “Last Seen” ad placed on April 17, 1902, in the Christian Recorder newspaper in Philadelphia, a woman seeks information about “my people.”
“My mother was sold from me when I could but crawl,” the woman writes.

Since the sale, “I never saw any of my people. I was about 39 years old last March and am married and living at Panama, Vernon Co., Mo. My name is Mary Delaney; it used to be Mary Long. Address me at Post office: Panama, Vernon county, Mo.”

Some of the ads were intentionally vague, masking details, and  mysteriously leaving out specific names and locations. These ads showed mental calculations of a people one step out of slavery. Even after Lincoln declared enslaved people in Confederate states to be freed, they were suspicious about the terms of that Emancipation, fearing that at any time they could be pulled back into slavery.

In a June 7, 1883, ad placed in the Southwestern Christian Advocate in New Orleans, an unnamed man searched for his son. The ad is brief: “Mr. EDITOR,” the man wrote, “I desire to hear from my son. His name was Tony Jones. I have not seen him since the war. He lived with Thomas Jones. His mother was Julia Jones.”

If anyone should know Tony Jones — the enslaved man with the same name as his “master”— he asks them to write to him care of P.P. Brooks in Shelbyville, Tex.
The ad is unsigned.

Other ads gave insight into how people lived, their aspirations and successes.

In an ad placed June 28, 1883, in the Southwestern Christian Advocate newspaper in New Orleans, Betty Davis inquires “for my people.” Davis explained that she was separated from her mother when she was three years old.

“I am now 55 years of age,” she wrote. “I learned how to read when I was 50. I take and read the SOUTHWESTERN, it is food for my soul. I am anxious and would be glad to hear something of my mother or my brother Henry. Someone help me.”

Sometimes, the ads led to happy endings.

In an Aug. 26, 1886, ad that ran in the Southwestern Christian Advocate newspaper, which did not charge for publishing letters from subscribers, Alcy Boone wrote a letter to the editor saying she found who she was looking for:

“I have found my mother through the dear SOUTHWESTERN. God bless you and your paper; it resurrects the forgotten, the lost can be found.”

URL

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/retropolis/wp/2017/09/07/my-mother-was-sold-from-me-after-slavery-the-desperate-search-for-loved-ones-in-last-seen-ads/

Michelle Yeoh and opportunity

Silicon Valley Bank and risk in fiscal capitalism

Tiktok and the war over who owns the internet

Maternity Deaths in the usa

Londonium, the roman name for london

The live streaming former elected official in japan

Michelle Yeoh with her historic trophy. She has roles lined up but no starring ones.Credit...Sinna Nasseri for The New York Times

After Her Oscar Win, Will Michelle Yeoh Get to Lead Again?
The historic victory should mean opportunities to star again, but too often after such milestones, Hollywood doesn’t find central roles for women of color.

By Kyle Buchanan
Published March 15, 2023
Updated March 17, 2023

We’re conditioned to think of an Oscar win as the endpoint to a journey. For some actors, holding that trophy is the realization of a dream held since childhood. For others, it’s the culmination of a well-deserved comeback.

But what happens after that win? In our eagerness to treat Oscar victories as career capstones, do we pay too little attention to the opportunities that are supposed to come afterward, yet often don’t?

I’ve been mulling that over since Sunday night, when Michelle Yeoh took the best actress Oscar for “Everything Everywhere All at Once.” It happened at the 95th edition of the Academy Awards, the kind of big, tantalizing milestone that prods you to contemplate what has come before, and Yeoh’s win proved especially historic: The first Asian star to win best actress, she was greeted onstage by Halle Berry, the first Black woman to have pulled off that feat.

Asking Berry to announce the winner with Jessica Chastain (the previous year’s winner) was a gamble twice over. If Yeoh had lost to one of her four competitors — all of whom were white women — the ensuing photo op would have served as a stark example of a best-actress category that has been hostile to women of color for 95 years. And though Berry has returned to the Oscars several times since her 2002 win for “Monster’s Ball,” it has always been as a presenter and never as a nominee. To see her there is to be reminded that an Oscar win carries no guarantees when an actress is already liable to receive fewer scripts and career opportunities than her white counterparts.

So though Yeoh’s triumph was a long time coming, and I teared up as she addressed “all the little boys and girls who look like me watching tonight,” I also found myself worrying that it won’t be enough. The people in the Dolby Theater looked awfully proud of themselves after Yeoh’s win, but if they really want to do right by her, they have to keep writing lead roles for 60-year-old Asian actresses; otherwise, it’s just empty back-patting.

That, after all, was the real breakthrough of “Everything Everywhere,” Yeoh told me in October. We were at an awards event where, flanked by the “Everything Everywhere” directors Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, she reminisced about a Hollywood career that had mostly been filled with supporting parts.

“Look, I’ve been very blessed — I’ve continuously worked, and I’ve worked with great directors,” she said. “But for the first time, I’m No. 1 on the call sheet, thanks to these guys. I do meaningful roles, like in ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ and ‘Shang-Chi,’ but it was not my movie.”

Yeoh said she hoped that “Everything Everywhere” would not be a one-off, but more than a year after the film’s release, it’s unclear when, or if, she will have another lead film role. Coming projects — including the big-screen musical “Wicked,” the third “Avatar” movie, and the ensemble mystery “A Haunting in Venice” — all consign her to supporting parts. Though she is a headline-making superstar who led the hip studio A24 to its biggest ever worldwide hit, Yeoh is still too often treated as additional casting rather than the main event.

“Even you, Michelle Yeoh — on the top of the world — has struggled to find the right roles,” Kwan told her when we met in October. “I think that has taken a lot of people by surprise.”

Yeoh laughed ruefully. “I read scripts and it’s the guy who goes off on some big adventure — and he’s going off with my daughter!” she said. “I’m like, no, no.”

Few Hollywood movies are conceived with a woman over 50 as the central character, and the ones that are greenlit tend to offer those leads to a triumvirate of white women: Meryl if she’s older, Cate if she’s younger and Tilda if she’s weirder. To ensure that Yeoh can be first on the call sheet again, filmmakers must think more creatively, as Kwan and Scheinert did when they revamped “Everything Everywhere” for Yeoh after conceiving the film as a Jackie Chan vehicle. (And while they’re at it, can they find something juicy for last year’s best supporting actor, Troy Kotsur, similarly a boundary breaker — with “CODA,” he became the first deaf man to win an acting Oscar — who has been seen in little since?)

As momentum in the best-actress race swung from the “Tár” star Cate Blanchett to Yeoh over the last few weeks of awards season, I kept hearing a common refrain from voters: While Blanchett already had two Oscars and would surely be nominated again — she has eight nominations overall — this could be Yeoh’s only chance at gold. Though I understand the practicality of that argument, I hope those voters understand that their job isn’t done simply because of how they marked their ballot. Yeoh’s Sunday-night win is a big one, but the real victory will come when the lead roles that had long eluded her grasp start to become commonplace. If Hollywood can make that so, then instead of an endpoint, Yeoh’s historic Oscar will serve as a long-needed new beginning.

Kyle Buchanan is a pop culture reporter and serves as The Projectionist, the awards season columnist for The Times. He is the author of “Blood, Sweat & Chrome: The Wild and True Story of Mad Max: Fury Road.” @kylebuchanan

ARTICLE
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/15/movies/michelle-yeoh-oscars-next.html

A bank official trying to reassure worried depositors in 1933. Credit...Associated Press

The Silicon Valley Bank Rescue Just Changed Capitalism
March 15, 2023

By Roger Lowenstein

Mr. Lowenstein is a financial journalist and author of “When Genius Failed: The Rise and Fall of Long-Term Capital Management.”

After a career of writing about bank failures, I wound up in the middle of one when my bank, Silicon Valley Bank, was seized by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. On Saturday, when I tried to pay a bill online, I was greeted by this not very reassuring missive:

“This page will be unavailable throughout the weekend, but will resume next week in accordance with the guidance provided by the F.D.I.C.” I wasn’t truly worried; small depositors like me had long ago internalized the rule that it made no sense to worry about your bank’s condition, since the risks of failure were borne by the F.D.I.C.

Federal deposit insurance was introduced 90 years ago during the heart of the Great Depression. Ever since then, small depositors within the F.D.I.C. limit of coverage have slept soundly. Now, in light of the bank failures of the last few days and the F.D.I.C.’s extension of coverage, why will any depositor worry about risk? Having bailed out depositors of two banks in full, how will the government refuse others?

Established as part of the landmark Glass-Steagall Act of 1933, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation initially provided deposit insurance up to $2,500, supported by premiums from member banks. The act was written by two Democrats, Senator Carter Glass of Virginia and Representative Henry Steagall of Alabama. Steagall wanted to protect rural banks, which had many small depositors, from contagious panics.

In that era, banking “progressives” were centered in the heartland. During the 1920s, low farm prices led to waves of bank failures. Various states adopted insurance, but the statewide systems failed. Scores of bills for federal insurance were also introduced.

The idea was controversial. The president of the American Bankers Association protested that insuring deposits was “unsound, unscientific and dangerous.” It was opposed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt and by his Treasury secretary, William H. Woodin. Roosevelt opposed insurance because he thought it would be costly and also encourage bad behavior. If there was no need to mollify depositors, then banks would be free to take all sorts of risks. Today we call this “moral hazard.”

In 1933, an estimated 4,000 banks failed. Roosevelt took office in March, and declared a national bank holiday to prevent more failures. After a pointed debate, in June Roosevelt signed the Glass-Steagall Act.

The F.D.I.C. definitely prevented panics. From its creation until America’s entry into World War II, banks failed at a rate of close to 50 per year, not bad considering the economic depression in most of that period. And most of the banks that failed were small.

By the postwar period, deposit insurance seemed to have been created for an era that no longer existed. Bankers schooled in the 1930s tended toward prudence, and the industry was risk averse. The failure rate was exceptionally low. That all changed in the 1970s and ’80s. A combination of financial deregulation, revived animal spirits on Wall Street, and rising inflation led to financial instability and swings in interest rates. Voilà — bank failures returned.

In recent days, many have been reminded of 2008 and ’09 (165 banks failed in those two years alone). But for the most part, that crisis was not the result of depositors pulling funds. Bear Stearns, Lehman and others failed or sought bailouts because overnight funding from professional investors disappeared. It dried up for two good reasons: Banks like Lehman had too much leverage, and they were overexposed to a very weak and widely held asset, mortgage securities.

That was not the case with S.V.B.

This panic was a classic bank run, and it bears an echo to a different historical episode. In the 1980s, lenders known as savings and loans had invested their funds in long-term mortgages paying a fixed rate of interest. When the Federal Reserve, under pressure of rising inflation, began to jack up rates, S.&L.s had to pay higher rates to attract deposits.

The mismatch between the cost of their money and the (lower) rate that their mortgages earned sank the industry. Many switched to riskier assets to juice their returns, but as these investments soured, their problems worsened. Roughly a third, or about 1,000, S.&L.s failed. The F.D.I.C. was not (luckily for it) involved, because the S.&L.s were covered by a separate federal insurer. This agency, known as F.S.L.I.C., became insolvent, and the subsequent bailout was estimated to have cost taxpayers more than $100 billion.

Silicon Valley Bank’s failure looks a bit like an S.&L. crisis in miniature. Like its 1980s counterparts, S.V.B. grew extremely rapidly, had many assets parked in fixed, long-term bonds, and was done in when inflation caused the Fed to raise interest rates, raising the cost of keeping deposits.

Like the S.&L.s, Silicon Valley Bank was heavily concentrated. It catered to start-ups for whom an S.V.B. account was a matter of status. One tech savant who had recently changed jobs (aren’t they always switching jobs?) told me that in his experience, roughly two thirds of start-ups banked with S.V.B. (the bank claimed that nearly half the country’s venture capital-backed technology and life science companies were customers).

These crises provoked a widening of the federal safety net. Until the 1970s, the F.D.I.C. limit on deposit coverage increased only slowly. But in 1980, as banks came under pressure from soaring inflation, Congress raised the cap to $100,000, over the objections of the F.D.I.C. itself. In the 2008 crisis, the limit was raised to $250,000. And after the failure of IndyMac in 2008, the F.D.I.C., when possible, quietly protected uninsured depositors.

In the rescue of S.V.B. on Friday and of Signature Bank in New York two days later, the F.D.I.C. overtly ignored the cap and rescued all depositors, irrespective of size. This is a breathtaking leap.

Rescued seven-figure depositors were primarily venture companies steeped in the ideology of investing. The first plank of capitalism is that it entails risk. You cannot sensibly invest without assessing the chance for loss. If venture firms relied on groupthink rather than financial due diligence, that was their doing. In the case of Signature, which was exposed to the crypto industry, the rescue probably bailed out gamblers on speculative assets.

Federal officials have seized on a technicality to claim that it is not a bailout: Any required rescue payments will come from a special assessment on (private) banks, not the public. Prudent banks, which hedged their exposure to interest rates and suffered a competitive cost for doing so, will be hit with the added expense. Most likely, banks will pass along the rescue costs in the form of higher fees to consumers.

Strictly speaking, President Biden’s assurance that taxpayers are not on the line was accurate. However, in the sense that banking customers are a pretty big group, the “public” will be affected.

Moreover, the hazardous effect on behavior will be the same.

The regulators clearly failed to monitor S.V.B.’s unhealthy mismatch of assets and liabilities. Their job will be more difficult in the future, as risk taking on deposits has effectively become socialized. What if a bank opts to attract more funds by raising its interest rate on deposits? Can the regulators permit it? Wait a second, this is what all banks do.

Once you take risk out of a part of a bank’s operations, it is hard to let market principles govern the rest. We should expect, at a minimum, tougher standards on bank capital (as now exists at the biggest banks), more regulation and higher costs. As this newspaper’s DealBook newsletter has predicted, more loans will move away from F.D.I.C.-member institutions to so-called shadow banks such as hedge funds, outside the purview of regulators.

In past bank failures, uninsured depositors did not lose all — 10 to 15 percent was typical. And in this episode, there wasn’t any systemically bad asset à la mortgages in 2008. Given that the risk was contained, and that the Federal Reserve provides liquidity to banks facing runs (and provided emergency liquidity this week), allowing uninsured depositors of banks that fail to suffer a haircut might have been healthier for the system in the long run.

And the bailout does nothing to address the condition that fostered financial instability: inflation. It may even exacerbate it. This is not what Henry Steagall had in mind.

Roger Lowenstein is a financial journalist and the author of “Buffett” and, most recently, “Ways and Means:Lincoln and His Cabinet and the Financing of the Civil War.”

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.

ARTICLE
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/15/opinion/silicon-valley-bank-rescue-glass-steagall-act.html

TikTok’s chief executive, Shou Zi Chew, in the ByteDance offices in Singapore. The White House is hardening its stance toward the Chinese-owned video app.Credit...Ore Huiying for The New York Times

U.S. Pushes for TikTok Sale to Resolve National Security Concerns
The demand hardens the White House’s stance toward the popular video app, which is owned by the Chinese internet company ByteDance.

By David McCabe and Cecilia Kang
March 15, 2023
阅读简体中文版閱讀繁體中文版
WASHINGTON — The Biden administration wants TikTok’s Chinese ownership to sell the app or face a possible ban, TikTok said on Wednesday, as the White House hardens its stance toward resolving national security concerns about the popular video service.

The new demand to sell the app was delivered to TikTok in recent weeks, two people with knowledge of the matter said. TikTok is owned by the Chinese internet company ByteDance.

The move is a significant shift in the Biden administration’s position toward TikTok, which has been under scrutiny over fears that Beijing could request Americans’ data from the app. The White House had been trying to negotiate an agreement with TikTok that would apply new safeguards to its data and eliminate a need for ByteDance to sell its shares in the app.

But the demand for a sale — coupled with the White House’s support for legislation that would allow it to ban TikTok in the United States — hardens the administration’s approach. It harks back to the position of former President Donald J. Trump, who threatened to ban TikTok unless it was sold to an American company.

TikTok said it was weighing its options and was disappointed by the decision. The company said its security proposal, which involves storing Americans’ data in the United States, offered the best protection for users.

“If protecting national security is the objective, divestment doesn’t solve the problem: A change in ownership would not impose any new restrictions on data flows or access,” Maureen Shanahan, a spokeswoman for TikTok, said in a statement.

TikTok’s chief executive, Shou Zi Chew, is scheduled to testify before the House Energy and Commerce Committee next week. He is expected to face questions about the app’s ties to China, as well as concerns that it delivers harmful content to young people.

A White House spokeswoman declined to comment, as did a spokeswoman for the Treasury Department, which has led the negotiations with TikTok. The Justice Department also declined to comment. The demand for a sale was reported earlier by The Wall Street Journal.

TikTok, with 100 million U.S. users, is at the center of a battle between the Biden administration and the Chinese government over tech and economic leadership, as well as national security. President Biden has waged a broad campaign against China with enormous funding programs to increase domestic production of semiconductors, electric vehicles and lithium batteries. The administration has also banned Chinese telecommunications equipment and restricted U.S. exports of chip-manufacturing equipment to China.

The fight over TikTok began in 2020 when Mr. Trump said he would ban the app unless ByteDance sold its stake to an American company, a move recommended by a group of federal agencies known as the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, or CFIUS.

The Trump administration eventually appeared to reach a deal for ByteDance to sell part of TikTok to Oracle, the U.S. cloud computing company, and Walmart. But the potential transaction never came to fruition.

CFIUS staff and TikTok continued to negotiate a deal that would allow the app to operate in America. TikTok submitted a major draft of an agreement — which TikTok has called Project Texas — in August. Under the proposal, the company said it would store data belonging to U.S. users on server computers run by Oracle inside the United States.

TikTok officials have not heard back from CFIUS officials since they submitted their proposal, the company said.

In that vacuum, concerns about the app have intensified. States, schools and Congress have enacted bans on TikTok. Last year, a company investigation found that Chinese-based employees of ByteDance had access to the data of U.S. TikTok users, including reporters.

Brendan Carr, a Republican on the Federal Communications Commission, said the administration’s new demand was a “good sign” that the White House was taking a harder line.

“There is bipartisan consensus that we can’t compromise on U.S. national security when it comes to TikTok, and so I hope the CFIUS review now quickly concludes in a manner that safeguards U.S. interests,” Mr. Carr said.

The White House last week backed a bipartisan Senate bill that would give it more power to deal with TikTok, including by banning the app. If it passed, the legislation would give the administration more leverage in its negotiations with the app and potentially allow it to force a sale.

Any effort to ban the app or force its sale could face a legal challenge. Federal courts ultimately ruled against Mr. Trump’s attempt to block the app from appearing in Apple’s and Google’s app stores. And the American Civil Liberties Union recently condemned legislation to ban the app, saying it raises concerns under the First Amendment.

David McCabe covers tech policy. He joined The Times from Axios in 2019. 

Cecilia Kang covers technology and regulation and joined The Times in 2015. She is a co-author, along with Sheera Frenkel of The Times, of “An Ugly Truth: Inside Facebook's Battle for Domination.” @ceciliakang

ARTICLE
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/15/technology/tiktok-biden-pushes-sale.html

Tammy Cunningham with her son, Calum. She gave birth while hospitalized with severe Covid-19.Credit...Kaiti Sullivan for The New York Times

Covid Worsened a Health Crisis Among Pregnant Women
In 2021, deaths of pregnant women soared by 40 percent in the United States, according to new government figures. Here’s how one family coped after the virus threatened a pregnant mother.

By Roni Caryn Rabin
March 16, 2023
KOKOMO, Ind. — Tammy Cunningham doesn’t remember the birth of her son. She was not quite seven months pregnant when she became acutely ill with Covid-19 in May 2021. By the time she was taken by helicopter to an Indianapolis hospital, she was coughing and gasping for breath.

The baby was not due for another 11 weeks, but Ms. Cunningham’s lungs were failing. The medical team, worried that neither she nor the fetus would survive so long as she was pregnant, asked her fiancé to authorize an emergency C-section.

“I asked, ‘Are they both going to make it?’” recalled Matt Cunningham. “And they said they couldn’t answer that.”

New government data suggest that scenes like this played out with shocking frequency in 2021, the second year of the pandemic.

The National Center for Health Statistics reported on Thursday that 1,205 pregnant women died in 2021, representing a 40 percent increase in maternal deaths compared with 2020, when there were 861 deaths, and a 60 percent increase compared with 2019, when there were 754.

The count includes deaths of women who were pregnant or had been pregnant within the last 42 days, from any cause related to or aggravated by the pregnancy. A separate report by the Government Accountability Office has cited Covid as a contributing factor in at least 400 maternal deaths in 2021, accounting for much of the increase.

Even before the pandemic, the United States had the highest maternal mortality rate of any industrialized nation. The coronavirus worsened an already dire situation, pushing the rate to 32.9 per 100,000 births in 2021 from 20.1 per 100,000 live births in 2019.

The racial disparities have been particularly acute. The maternal mortality rate among Black women rose to 69.9 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2021, 2.6 times the rate among white women. From 2020 to 2021, mortality rates doubled among Native American and Alaska Native women who were pregnant or had given birth within the previous year, according to a study published on Thursday in Obstetrics & Gynecology.

The deaths tell only part of the story. For each woman who died of a pregnancy-related complication, there were many others, like Ms. Cunningham, who experienced the kind of severe illness that leads to premature birth and can compromise the long-term health of both mother and child. Lost wages, medical bills and psychological trauma add to the strain.

Pregnancy leaves women uniquely vulnerable to infectious diseases like Covid. The heart, lungs and kidneys are all working harder during pregnancy. The immune system, while not exactly depressed, is retuned to accommodate the fetus.

Abdominal pressure reduces excess lung capacity. Blood clots more easily, a tendency amplified by Covid, raising the risk of dangerous blockages. The infection also appears to damage the placenta, which delivers oxygen and nutrients to the fetus, and may increase the risk of a dangerous complication of pregnancy called pre-eclampsia.

Pregnant women with Covid face a sevenfold risk of dying compared with uninfected pregnant women, according to one large meta-analysis tracking unvaccinated people. The infection also makes it more likely that a woman will give birth prematurely and that the baby will require neonatal intensive care.

Fortunately, the current Omicron variant appears to be less virulent than the Delta variant, which surfaced in the summer of 2021, and more people have acquired immunity to the coronavirus by now. Preliminary figures suggest maternal deaths dropped to roughly prepandemic levels in 2022.

But pregnancy continues to be a factor that makes even young women uniquely vulnerable to severe illness. Ms. Cunningham, now 39, who was slightly overweight when she became pregnant, had just been diagnosed with gestational diabetes when she got sick.

“It’s something I talk to all my patients about,” said Dr. Torri Metz, a maternal fetal medicine specialist at the University of Utah. “If they have some of these underlying medical conditions and they’re pregnant, both of which are high-risk categories, they have to be especially careful about putting themselves at risk of exposure to any kind of respiratory virus, because we know that pregnant people get sicker from those viruses.”

Lagging Vaccination
In the summer of 2021, scientists were somewhat unsure of the safety of mRNA vaccines during pregnancy; pregnant women had been excluded from the clinical trials, as they often are. It was not until August 2021 that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention came out with unambiguous guidance supporting vaccination for pregnant women.

Most of the pregnant women who died of Covid had not been vaccinated. These days, more than 70 percent of pregnant women have gotten Covid vaccines, but only about 20 percent have received the bivalent boosters.

“We know definitively that vaccination prevents severe disease and hospitalization and prevents poor maternal and infant outcomes,” said Dr. Dana Meaney-Delman, chief of the C.D.C.’s infant outcomes monitoring, research and prevention branch. “We have to keep emphasizing that point.”

Ms. Cunningham’s obstetrician had encouraged her to get the shots, but she vacillated. She was “almost there” when she suddenly started having unusually heavy nosebleeds that produced blood clots “the size of golf balls,” she said.

Ms. Cunningham was also feeling short of breath, but she ascribed that to the advancing pregnancy. (Many Covid symptoms can be missed because they resemble those normally occurring in pregnancy.)

A Covid test came back negative, and Ms. Cunningham was happy to return to her job. She had already lost wages after earlier pandemic furloughs at the auto parts plant where she worked. On May 3, 2021, shortly after clocking in, she turned to a friend at the plant and said, “I can’t breathe.”

By the time she arrived at IU Health Methodist Hospital in Indianapolis, she was in acute respiratory distress. Doctors diagnosed pneumonia and found patchy shadows in her lungs.

Her oxygen levels continued falling even after she was put on undiluted oxygen, and even after the baby was delivered.

“It was clear her lungs were extremely damaged and unable to work on their own,” said Dr. Omar Rahman, a critical care physician who treated Ms. Cunningham. Already on a ventilator, Ms. Cunningham was connected to a specialized heart-lung bypass machine.

Jennifer McGregor, a friend who visited Ms. Cunningham in the hospital, was shocked at how quickly her condition had deteriorated. “I can’t tell you how many bags were hanging there, and how many tubes were going into her body,” she said.

But over the next 10 days, Ms. Cunningham started to recover. Once she was weaned off the heart-lung machine, she discovered she had missed a major life event while under sedation: She had a son.

He was born 29 weeks and two days into the pregnancy, weighing three pounds.

Premature births declined slightly during the first year of the pandemic. But they rose sharply in 2021, the year of the Delta surge, reaching the highest rate since 2007.

Some 10.5 percent of all births were preterm that year, up from 10.1 percent in 2020, and from 10.2 percent in 2019, the year before the pandemic.

Though the Cunninghams’ baby, Calum, never tested positive for Covid, he was hospitalized in the neonatal intensive care unit at Riley Hospital for Children in Indianapolis. He was on a breathing tube, and occasionally stopped breathing for seconds at a time.

Doctors worried that he was not gaining weight quickly enough — “failure to thrive,” they wrote in his chart. They worried about possible vision and hearing loss.

But after 66 days in the NICU, the Cunninghams were able to take Calum home. They learned how to use his feeding tube by practicing on a mannequin, and they prepared for the worst.

“From everything they told us, he was going to have developmental delays and be really behind,” Mr. Cunningham said.

After her discharge from the hospital, Ms. Cunningham was under strict orders to have a caretaker with her at all times and to rest. She didn’t return to work for seven months, after she finally secured her doctors’ approval.

Ms. Cunningham has three teenage daughters, and Mr. Cunningham has another daughter from a previous relationship. Money was tight. Friends dropped off groceries, and the landlord accepted late payments. But the Cunninghams received no government aid: They were even turned down for food stamps.

“We had never asked for assistance in our lives,” Ms. Cunningham said. “We were workers. We used to work seven days a week, eight-hour days, sometimes 12. But when the whole world shut down in 2020, we used up a lot of our savings, and then I got sick. We never got caught up.”

Though she is back to work at the plant, Ms. Cunningham has lingering symptoms, including migraines and short-term memory problems. She forgets doctor’s appointments and what she went to the store for. Recently she left her card in an A.T.M.

Many patients are so traumatized by their stays in intensive care units that they develop so-called post-intensive care syndrome. Ms. Cunningham has flashbacks and nightmares about being back in the hospital.

“I wake up feeling like I’m being smothered at the hospital, or that they’re killing my whole family,” she said. Recently she was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.

Calum, however, has surprised everyone. Within months of coming home from the hospital, he was reaching developmental milestones on time. He started walking soon after his first birthday, and likes to chime in with “What’s up?” and “Uh-oh!”

He has been back to the hospital for viral infections, but his vocabulary and comprehension are superb, his father said. “If you ask if he wants a bath, he’ll take off all his clothes and meet you at the bath,” he said.

Louann Gross, who owns the day care that Calum attends, said he has a hearty appetite — often asking for “thirds” — and more than keeps up with his peers. She added, “I nicknamed him our ‘Superbaby.’”

ARTICLE
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/16/health/covid-pregnancy-death.html

Two skeletons that were found last year as part of an archaeological dig in northern England.Credit...West Yorkshire Joint Services

A 1,600-Year-Old Coffin May Shed Light on Roman Britain
A lead-lined coffin that was discovered in northern England could offer clues about the area’s transition from the Roman Empire to its Anglo-Saxon period.

By Jenny Gross
Published March 15, 2023
Updated March 16, 2023
LONDON — British archaeologists have uncovered an ancient coffin in a 1,600-year-old cemetery in northern England, a discovery, they said, that could shed light on the end of Roman Britain and the establishment of Anglo-Saxon kingdoms.

Discovered during an archaeological dig in Leeds, the lead-lined coffin contained the remains of an aristocratic woman who most likely lived in the fourth century.

Archaeologists also found the remains of more than 60 people who lived in the area more than a thousand years ago. Some bodies were buried on their backs with their legs straight out, in accordance with late-Roman customs. Others adhered to the Anglo-Saxon tradition, within which burials often included items such as clothes fasteners and knives.

The archaeological dig was part of a consultation process for a company applying for permission to build on the site. Archaeologists had previously uncovered late-Roman stone buildings and a number of structures in the Anglo-Saxon architectural style in the area.

“Very quickly, we started finding burials,” said David Hunter, the principal archaeologist of the West Yorkshire Archaeology Advisory Service, which works with the West Yorkshire planning authorities. “The potential is there to give us much better information on how this transition from the Roman population to Anglo-Saxon England happened.”

Mr. Hunter said that the presence of both late-Roman and early-Anglo Saxon people on the same burial site was unusual. Whether the use of the graveyard had overlapped between the two eras would determine the significance of the find, he added.

The Roman occupation of Britain, from 43 A.D. to around 410, transformed the culture, as settlers from Europe, the Middle East and Africa arrived. Around the third century, market towns and villages were established, and Roman objects became more common even in poor, rural areas, according to English Heritage, which manages prehistoric sites, medieval castles and Roman forts in England.

After the Romans retreated from Britain, society became much more insular and parochial, Mr. Hunter said. A lot is unknown about the period, including how the area transitioned from being part of the Roman Empire in the early fifth century to part of the English nation in the 10th.

“Different people have different theories as to how this could have happened: It could’ve happened by cooperation, it could’ve happened by aggression,” he said.

These findings may add to knowledge about an era that is largely undocumented, Mr. Hunter said. Radiocarbon dating could help determine exactly when the remains were buried. Chemical tests could reveal the diets and ancestry of the people.

Researchers would also like to understand why there were a number of instances in which two or three people were buried in the same grave, as well as why there were multiple burial styles in the same cemetery.

Mr. Hunter said that the two different burial styles could be for reasons of practicality; Since the area was already recognized as a burial place by Roman Britons, it would have been easier for subsequent groups of people to have used the same site.

While the discovery was made in February 2022, the findings were only announced on Monday, in order to keep the site safe and conduct tests on some of the findings, the Leeds City Council said in a statement. The discovery of a lead-lined coffin is rare, with only a few hundred having been discovered in Britain, said Kylie Buxton, on-site supervisor for the excavations.

The council has not released the exact location of the dig. After the analysis is completed, the lead coffin may be displayed at the Leeds City Museum, in an exhibition on death and burial customs, officials said.

A correction was made on March 16, 2023: An earlier version of this article referred imprecisely to English Heritage. The organization manages prehistoric sites, medieval castles and Roman forts in England, not in the rest of Britain. (Other groups manage such sites in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales.)
When we learn of a mistake, we acknowledge it with a correction. If you spot an error, please let us know at nytnews@nytimes.com.Learn more

Jenny Gross is a general assignment reporter. Before joining The Times, she covered British politics for The Wall Street Journal. @jggross

ARTICLE
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/15/world/europe/uk-roman-burial-leeds.html#:~:text=By Jenny Gross March 15%2C 2023 LONDON —,Roman Britain and the establishment of Anglo-Saxon kingdoms.

Mr. Higashitani, seen on a computer monitor, celebrating after winning his election to a seat in the House of Councillors in July 2022.Credit...Kyodo News, via Getty Images

How to Get Kicked Out of Parliament: Livestream Instead of Legislating
The upper house of Japan’s Parliament almost unanimously voted to expel an eccentric YouTuber who won a seat last year. The reason: He never showed up for work.

By Tiffany May and Hisako Ueno
March 15, 2023
Since he was elected to Japan’s Parliament in July, Yoshikazu Higashitani has spread celebrity gossip on his YouTube channel, explored the sights of Dubai and handed out snacks to children displaced by an earthquake in Turkey.

One thing he has not done is show up for work.

On Wednesday, he was expelled from Japan’s upper house of Parliament, the House of Councillors, making him the first elected lawmaker in the country to be removed from office in more than seven decades.

Before his short-lived career as a lawmaker, Mr. Higashitani, 51, was well-known for his lengthy livestreams during which he dished out salacious celebrity gossip under the alias “GaaSyy.” He ran for Parliament from Dubai, claiming that he could not return to Japan because the police were investigating him for fraud. While in self-imposed exile, he campaigned and promised to expose dozens of celebrity scandals.

To the surprise of many, he won — running as the candidate of the single-issue NHK Party, which is dedicated to making changes to how Japan’s national broadcaster is funded. But he has missed every session in the House of Councillors since then.

In the meantime, he has maintained diverse interests, balancing his lengthy rants about celebrities with breezy posts about touring La Sagrada Familia in Spain and playing water sports in Thailand, using the hashtag “#endlesssummer.”  Last week, he said he traveled to Turkey, and in videos posted online was seen distributing snacks to children in areas devastated by a February earthquake, in front of a camera crew.

The founder of the NHK Party, Takashi Tachibana, told reporters in January that the police had asked Mr. Higashitani, a fellow party member, to cooperate with investigations related to accusations of defamatory comments and threats he had made in his videos, and that the YouTuber would return to the country in March. (The police declined to comment.)

In February, the House of Councillors demanded that Mr. Higashitani apologize in an open session, a disciplinary act second only to expulsion. He had agreed to do so, only to backtrack on that decision last week, saying that he did not feel safe enough to return, despite having immunity from arrest as a lawmaker.

Mr. Tachibana said last Wednesday that he would step down as head of the party. “As party leader, I will take responsibility for GaaSyy’s failure to keep his promise that he would come back to the upper house to make an apology,” Mr. Tachibana said at a news conference.

He added that the party would be renamed “Seijika Joshi 48 To,” which translates to Politician Girls 48 Party, and that the actress Ayaka Otsu would replace him. Mr. Tachibana said that the party would broaden its goals and would also recruit only female candidates to run for upcoming local elections.

Koichi Nakano, a professor of comparative politics at Sophia University in Tokyo, said that the party’s rebranding was a response to a movement to increase the number of female candidates in elections.

“NHK Party must have thought that they can poke fun at that in a right-wing, misogynist way, by treating female candidates as if they were teen pop idols like AKB48,” Professor Nakano wrote in an email, referring to a popular female pop group.

He added that Mr. Higashitani’s notoriety and what he characterized as the populist appeal of his party got him elected. “It’s unusual, to a degree, but Japan has had its own share of media-celebrities who are complete amateurs of politics, including comedians, actors and pop singers, though none was as unserious as GaaSyy,” Professor Nakano added.

Jeff Kingston, a professor of Asian studies at Temple University’s Japan campus, wrote in an email: “The NHK party, despite rebranding, has achieved little except to register discontent with the establishment and unhappiness with the mandatory fees every household has to pay, even if they don’t watch NHK.”

Muneo Suzuki, who heads a key disciplinary committee in Parliament, told reporters on Tuesday that Mr. Higashitani had already been given ample time to correct his behavior, but that he had ultimately undermined the electoral process. “GaaSyy doesn’t understand what democracy means in principle,” he said.

Dozens of protesters, mostly members of the Seijika Joshi 48 Party, rallied in front of the legislature before lawmakers cast votes over whether to expel Mr. Higashitani. Among the 236 lawmakers who attended the session, all but one voted in favor of his ouster.

Mr. Higashitani could not be immediately reached for comment, but in a statement read on the House floor by Satoshi Hamada, a fellow lawmaker, Mr. Higashitani said that his removal was unjust.

“There will continue to be people like me running for office. If you do not want the world you have made to be destroyed, please exclude those people from candidacy from the very beginning,” he wrote in the statement. “I wish the same punishment upon lawmakers who leave their seats immediately after propping up their nameplates and ones who are asleep and don’t show up like myself.”

Tiffany May covers news from Asia. She joined The Times in 2017. @nytmay

Hisako Ueno has been reporting on Japanese politics, business, gender, labor and culture for The Times since 2012. She previously worked for the Tokyo bureau of The Los Angeles Times from 1999 to 2009. @hudidi1

Article
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/15/world/asia/japan-parliament-youtuber-expelled.html
 

Review: Chris Rock’s ‘Selective Outrage’ Strikes Back
A year after Will Smith slapped him at the Oscars, Rock responded fiercely in a new stand-up special, Netflix’s first experiment in live entertainment.

Kirill Bichutsky/Netflix

By Jason Zinoman
March 5, 2023
Selective Outrage

One year later, Chris Rock slapped back. Hard.

It was certainly not as startling as Will Smith hitting him at the Oscars, but his long-awaited response, in his new Netflix stand-up special “Selective Outrage” on Saturday night, had moments that felt as emotional, messy and fierce. It was the least rehearsed, most riveting material in an uneven hour.

Near the end, Rock even botched a key part of one joke, getting a title of a movie wrong. Normally, such an error would have been edited out, but since this was the first live global event in the history of Netflix, Rock could only stop, call attention to it and tell the joke again. It messed up his momentum, but the trade-off might have been worth it, since the flub added an electric spontaneity and unpredictability that was a drawing card.

At 58, Rock is one of one of our greatest stand-ups, a perfectionist whose material, once it appeared in a special, always displayed a meticulous sense of control. He lost it here, purposely, flashing anger as he insulted Smith, offering a theory of the case of what really happened at the Academy Awards after he made a joke about Jada Pinkett Smith’s hair, and in what will be the most controversial part of the set, laid much of the blame on her. This felt like comedy as revenge. Rock said he long loved Will Smith. “And now,” he added, pausing before referencing the new movie in which Smith plays an enslaved man, “I watch ‘Emancipation’ just to see him get whooped.”

One of the reasons Netflix remains the leading stand-up platform has been its ability to create attention-getting events. No other streamer comes close. Through a combination of razzle dazzle and Rolodex spinning, the streaming service packaged this special more like a major sporting event than a special, a star-studded warm-up act to the Oscars next week.

It began with an awkward preshow hosted by Ronny Chieng, who soldiered through by poking fun at the marketing around him. “We’re doing a comedy show on Saturday night — live,” he said, before sarcastically marveling at this “revolutionary” innovation. An all-star team of comics (Ali Wong, Leslie Jones, Jerry Seinfeld), actors (Matthew McConaughey) and music stars (Paul McCartney, Ice-T) hyped up the proceedings, featuring enough earnest tributes for a lifetime achievement award. As if this weren’t enough puffery, Netflix had the comedians Dana Carvey and David Spade host a panel of more celebrations posing as post-show analysis.

This was unnecessary, since Netflix already had our attention by having Rock signed to do a special right after he was on the receiving end of one of the most notorious bad reviews of a joke in the history of television. Countless people weighed in on the slap, most recently the actor and comic Marlon Wayans, whose surprisingly empathetic new special, “God Loves Me,” is an entire hour about the incident from someone who knows all the participants. HBO Max releasing that in the last week was its own counterprogramming.

Until now, Rock has said relatively little about the Oscars, telling a few jokes on tour, which invariably got reported in the press. I’m guessing part of the reason he wanted this special to air live was to hold onto an element of surprise. Rock famously said that he always believed a special should be special. And he has done so in previous shows by moving his comedy in a more personal direction. “Tamborine,” an artful, intimate production shot at the BAM Harvey theater, focused on his divorce. This one, shot in Baltimore, had a grander, more old-fashioned vibe, with reaction shots alternating with him pacing the stage in his signature commanding cadence.

Dressed all in white, his T-shirt and jeans hanging loosely off a lanky frame, and wearing a shiny bracelet and necklace with the Prince symbol, Rock started slowly with familiar bits about easily bruised modern sensibilities, the hollowness of social media and woke signaling. He skewered the preening of companies like Lululemon that market their lack of racism while charging $100 for yoga pants. Most people, he says, would “prefer $20 racist yoga pants.”

If there’s one consistent thread through Rock’s entire career, it’s following the money, how economics motivates even love and social issues. On abortion, he finds his way to the financial angle, advising women: “If you have to pay for your own abortion, you should have an abortion.”

A commanding theater performer who sets up bits as well as anyone, Rock picked up momentum midway through, while always hinting at the Smith material to come, with a reoccurring refrain of poking fun at Snoop Dogg and Jay-Z before making clear it’s just for fun: “Last thing I need is another mad rapper.” Another running theme is his contempt for victimhood. His jokes about Meghan Markle are very funny, mocking her surprise that the royal family is racist, terming them its originators, the “Sugarhill Gang of racism.”

On tour, his few jokes about Smith were once tied to his points about victimhood. But here, he follows one of his most polished and funny jokes, comparing the dating prospects of Jay-Z and Beyoncé if they weren’t stars but worked at Burger King, with a long, sustained section on the Oscars that closes the show. Here, he offers his theory on Will Smith, which is essentially that the slap was an act of displacement, shifting his anger from his wife cheating on him and broadcasting it onto Rock. The comic says his joke was never really the issue. “She hurt him way more than he hurt me,” Rock said, using his considerable powers of description to describe the humiliation of Smith in a manner that seemed designed to do it again.

There’s a comic nastiness to Rock’s insults, some of which is studied, but other times appeared to be the product of his own bottled-up anger. In this special, Rock seemed more raw than usual, sloppier, cursing more often and less precisely. This was a side of him you hadn’t seen before. The way his fury became directed at Pinkett Smith makes you wonder if this was also a kind of displacement. Going back into the weeds of Oscar history, Rock traced his conflict with her and Smith to when he said she wanted Rock to quit as Oscar host in 2016 because Smith was not nominated for the movie “Concussion” (the title that he mangled).

That her boycotting that year’s Oscars was part of a larger protest against the Academy for not nominating Black artists went unsaid, implying it was merely a pretext. Rock often establishes his arguments with the deftness and nuance of a skilled trial lawyer, but he’s not trying to give a fair, fleshed out version of events. He’s out for blood. There’s a coldness here that is bracing. Describing his jokes about Smith’s wife at the ceremony in 2016, he put it bluntly: “She started it. I finished it.” But, of course, as would become obvious years later, he didn’t.

Did he finish it in this special? We’ll see, but I think we’re in for another cycle of discourse as we head into the Academy Awards next week.

At one point, Rock said there are four ways people can get attention in our culture: “Showing your ass,” being infamous, being excellent or playing the victim. It’s a good list, but this special demonstrates a conspicuous omission: Nothing draws a crowd like a fight.

A correction was made on March 6, 2023: An earlier version of this review misquoted part of Rock’s joke about high-priced yoga pants. He said most people would “prefer $20 racist yoga pants,” not $25.
Jason Zinoman is a critic at large for The Times. As the paper’s first comedy critic, he has written the On Comedy column since 2011. @zinoman

A version of this article appears in print on March 6, 2023, Section C, Page 1 of the New York edition with the headline: Rock’s Revenge: Live and Imperfect

ARTICLE URL
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/05/arts/television/chris-rock-netflix.html

AMERICAN BLACK FILM FESTIVAL ANNOUNCES 2022 TALKS, PANELS AND TOP LINE TALENT FOR 26TH ABFF JUNE 15-19, 2022

Following is the schedule of 2022 ABFF talk series events to date.

Live Events
Thursday, June 16, 2022
The NFT Masterclass for Creative
NFTs have risen as one of the hottest topics in the entertainment industry. Understanding the intellectual property issues in NFTs is essential to our protection and advancement. This session will address the ABCs of NFTs, including copyright, trademark, publicity issues and tax matters surrounding NFTs. Instructed by Kimra Major-Morris, attorney at law.

Leading From Within 
Presented by Prime Video

From the suffrage movement to the civil rights movement, history has shown us we all win when Black women lead. Join three Black women executives from Prime Video for an intimate discussion on how they are leading the charge to create content across series and features that all audiences will love.

Moderators: Latasha Gillespie (head of diversity, equity and inclusion, Prime Video)

Panelists: Amber Rasberry (senior executive development, Movies – am*zon Studios),

Lauren Anderson (co-head Content and Programming, am*zon Freevee) and Larissa Bell (development executive, am*zon St.)

The Black Beauty Effect Panel 
Presented by Black Experience on Xfinity

An intimate discussion on the global impact of Black Beauty in the upcoming docuseries, The Black Beauty Effect. This discussion will highlight black women and their overall impact in the beauty industry, despite its historical exclusion and oppression of black women.

Panelists: Andrea Lewis, series creator, Kahlana Barfield Brown, beauty expert, Whitney White, natural hair entrepreneur, CJ Faison, executive producer

Funding Your Story: The Nuts and Bolts of Film Finance
Presented by the Motion Picture Association

You can be a great storyteller and writer of words that captivate the masses. However, you can’t share that story with the world without having a financing plan in place to get the story made! In this panel, representatives from major studios and a lead film finance company will provide an overview of the variety of ways content creators can finance their production. As each panelist has a unique background in the film finance world, this panel will provide filmmakers with a basic understanding of what to expect when putting together a financing package.

Moderator: John Gibson, vice president, External and Multicultural Affairs, Motion Picture Association

Panelists: Donyelle Marshall, LATAM business and tax analyst, Florida Office of Film and Entertainment; Chiquita Banks, Esq., senior vice president, TPC; Graham Lee, Esq., vice president, Tax Counsel-Production, Paramount; Brian O’Leary, Esq., senior vice president Tax, NBCUniversal (Invited)

Bel-Air: Clips and Conversations  
Presented by Comcast NBCUniversal

Peacock presents an intimate conversation with the cast members from Bel-Air about celebrating Black on-screen characters and discussing story themes such as love, family and relationships.

Moderator: Scott Evans

Panelists: Rasheed Newson, Adrian Holmes, Cassandra Freeman, Coco Jones, Akira Akbar, Jimmy Akingbola and Jordan Jones

Bust Down in Laughter with NBCU’s Comedy Crew
Presented by Comcast NBCUniversal

Join talent from NBCU’s hit comedies for a lively conversation about celebrating and shaping Black culture through stories of family, friendships, love and joy on TV.

Moderator: Danielle Young, journalist and host of Real Quick

Panelists:  Nicole Byer, Phil Augusta Jackson and Carl Tart from NBCU’s “Grand Crew” and Sam Jay, Langston Kerman, Jak Knight and Chris Redd from Peacock’s “Bust Down”

Shoot Your Shot
Presented by ALLBLK

ALLBLK, the first and largest streaming service for Black TV and film from AMC Networks, is partnering with the American Black Film Festival (ABFF) to kick off a nationwide casting call for the co-star of its latest original production, “Judge Me Not.” A new hour-long psychological/legal drama created by TV icon, Judge Lynn Toler.

“Judge Me Not” focuses on a millennial Black female attorney navigating mental health issues, a rocky romantic relationship and a volatile family, who shocks everyone when she wins a judicial seat at 31. Once there, she fights her demons while managing the chaos of a busy court.

25th Annual HBO Short Film Award Showcase
Presented by Warner Bros. Discovery and HBO

Five finalists will compete in ABFF’s HBOÒ Short Film Award. The prestigious showcase will celebrate 25 years of HBO’s commitment to recognizing the next generation of diverse, artistic and creative talent at ABFF.  This year’s groudbreaking directors with diverse style of filmmaking are: Sherif Alabede (Another Country), Elisee Junior St. Preux (Aurinko in Adagio), Gia-Rayne Harris (Pens & Pencils), Destiny J. Macon (Talk Black) and Rebecca Usoro (The Family Meeting)

Friday, June 17, 2022
Masterclass: Legal Aspects of Indie Filmmaking
Presented by Arrington and Phillips

This seminar will introduce filmmakers to the legal and business aspects of independent filmmaking. From conception to distribution, attendees will learn all the basics needed to make, produce and distribute their own independent film. Instructed by Marvin Arrington and Vince Phillips.

Johnson: Clips and Conversations
Presented by Bounce TV

Join the cast and producer of Johnson for a conversation around the anticipated return of season two. Johnson focuses on life-long best friends and their sometimes-complicated journey of love, friendship, heartbreak and personal growth as told from the Black male perspective.  The show is executive produced by Eric C. Rhone and Cedric The Entertainer’s A Bird and A Bear Entertainment.

Moderator: David J. Hudson, head of Original Programming for Scripps Networks

Panelists:  Deji LaRay (series creator and show runner); Thomas Q. Jones (show runner, “P- Valley,” “Luke Cage”); Philip Smithey (“Switched at Birth,” “The Rookie”); and Derrex Brady (“NCIS,” “First”) with Earthquake (“The Neighborhood,” “Chappelle’s Home Team – Earthquake: Legendary”) and Eric C. Rhone (executive producer)

Finding Happy: Clips and Conversations
Presented by Bounce TV

Meet the cast of Bounce’s newest series, Finding Happy, a show created about, for and by Black women. The dramedy follows Yaz Carter as she navigates her loving-but-complicated family, her stagnant career and a merry-go-round of unrequited love as she looks to find her happy. The show is executive produced by Eric C. Rhone and Cedric The Entertainer’s A Bird and A Bear Entertainment.

Moderator: Keisha Taylor Starr, chief marketing officer for Scripps Networks

Panelists: B. Simone (MTV’s “Wild ‘n Out”); Kim Coles (“Living Single”); Marketta Patrice (“Black Jesus”); Angela Gibbs (“Hacks,” “The Fosters”); and Kendra Jo (series creator and show runner)

A Champion of Independent Black Film: Celebrating the Legacy of Michelle Materre
Presented by Meta

Michelle Materre, prolific film distributor, professor, curator and fervent supporter of women and BIPOC filmmakers, passed away in March. To honor her decades as a champion of independent film and her mission to lift the voices of underrepresented people in cinema, ABFF and Daughters of Eve Media will present a roundtable discussion featuring trailblazing and renowned women filmmakers.

Moderators: Terri Bowles and Dr. Michele Prettyman

Panelist: Ayoka Chenzira

Fierce Female Filmmakers of TriStar Pictures
Presented by Sony Pictures Entertainment

Join three trailblazing fierce, female, filmmakers — Gina Prince-Bythewood (Love & Basketball), Kasi Lemmons (Eve’s Bayou), and Nicole Brown (TriStar Pictures President) for an intimate sit-down conversation as they open up about their highly anticipated Sony Pictures releases: The Woman King starring Viola Davis, and the Whitney Houston biopic I Wanna Dance with Somebody starring Naomi Ackie. This conversation will dive into the importance, power and future of Black film while providing a sneak peek of what audiences can expect in their upcoming releases via exclusive content.

Moderator: Brett King, vice president, Creative Programming, Diversity and Inclusion for Sony Pictures Entertainment

Panelists: Nicole Brown, president of TriStar Pictures; Kasi Lemmons, director, I Wanna Dance with Somebody; Gina Prince-Bythewood, Director, The Woman King

Flipping the Script: Defining your own Path to Success presented by Warner Bros. Discovery Equity and Inclusion
Presented by Warner Bros. Discovery

Over the last few decades, the road to stardom and success in Hollywood has changed significantly. With the emergence of the digital age, social media and waves of new talent, many are finding success, their own way and on their own terms. This engaging and motivating panel discusses the impact of breaking into the entertainment industry both traditionally and non-traditionally; and ways to stay relevant in an ever-changing production landscape that is no longer one size fits all.

Moderator: Karen Horne, senior vice president, Warner Bros. Discovery, Equity and Inclusion

Panelists: Salli Richardson-Whitfield (Winning Time and The Gilded Age, HBO), Carlos King (Love & Marriage Franchise, OWN), Ashley Blaine Featherson-Jenkins (Trials to Triumphs Podcast, OWN), Bashir Salahuddin (South Side, HBO Max), Diallo Riddle (South Side, HBO Max). Networking Reception to follow. RSVP and COVID vaccination required.

“This Is Us”: From Script to Screen
Presented by Comcast NBCUniversal

Go behind the scenes of NBC’s beloved drama “This Is Us” with actress and writer Susan Kelechi Watson, writer and producer Eboni Freeman and producer Christiana Hooks. Delve into a poignant conversation about the final season and the episode “Our Little Island Girl: Part Two” that is centered on Beth Pearson and was co-written by Susan and Eboni. Learn about the show’s unique approach to bringing multidimensional narratives to life by reflecting on the past, inspiring the future, and creating beautiful stories that transcend generations.

Moderator: Danielle Young, journalist and host of Real Quick

Panelists: Susan Kelechi Watson, actress and writer; Eboni Freeman, writer and producer; Christiana Hooks, producer

Life Of A Showrunner 
Presented by UPS

This panel examines the road to becoming a television showrunner, the duties and demands it entails, career strategies to be considered, the parameters of creative control as well as the freedom it affords and what running a writers room looks like.

Panelists: Robin Thede (A Black Lady Sketch Show), Rikki Hughes (The Hype), Randy Huggins (BMF)

ABFF Comedy Wings Showcase
Presented by Warner Bros. Discovery and HBO

A night of laugher hosted by Aida Rodriquez and introducing: Marshall Brandon, Cherie Danielle, Shanna Christmas, Rob Gordon and Alan Massenburg

Saturday, June 18, 2022
Academy 365
Presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is a 95-year-old organization that has long been known for the Oscars, often called “Hollywood’s biggest night.” But what goes on the other 364 days of the year? In this panel, key leadership shares how the Academy engages their membership of over 10,000 members on a year-round basis and leads industry initiatives that celebrate the history of film, amplifies its global community of artists and advocates for increased representation across the industry.

Moderator: Scott Evans, Access Hollywood

Panelists: DeVon Franklin, governor-at-large; Christine Simmons, chief operating officder, Academy; Shawn Finnie, executive vice president, Member Relations and Awards, Academy; Meryl Johnson, vice president, Digital Marketing, Academy

Best of ABFF Awards Presentation 
Hosted by Dondré Whitfield

Join us for the announcement of the festival winner of this year’s competitions including: Best Narrative Feature, Best Director, Best Screenplay, John Singleton Award for Best First Feature, Best Documentary, Best Web Series and HBO Short Film Award. This event will be live-streamed on ABFF PLAY.

Cocktails, Conversations, and Financial Facts with LisaRaye McCoy
Presented by Prudential Financial

Actress and Entrepreneur LisaRaye McCoy will share her journey with money, finances, and setting financial goals from her life on the South Side of Chicago to her life in the film industry. Prudential financial professionals will be available to answer financial questions.

Moderator: Delvin Joyce (Prudential Financial Planner & Founder of Prosperity Wealth Group)

The Leading Man
Presented by Cadillac

A panel of esteemed male actors examine the images of Black men in film and television, share stories about their journeys to success and discuss the messages they wish to convey to boys and young men in the community.

Moderator: Malinda Williams

Panelists: Trevante Rhodes, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Michael Ealy

Critter Fixers: Clips and Conversation
Presented by Disney+

Join veterinarians Dr. Terrence Ferguson and Dr. Vernard Hodges as they discuss some of their most unique animal cases and provide great tips and techniques to help care for your pets.

Moderator: Jill Tracey, Morning Show co-host on WHQT Hot 105 Miami

Panelists: Dr. Terrence Ferguson, Dr. Vernard Hodges

Closing Night Screening   
Rap Sh!t

Courtesy of Warner Bros. Discovery and HBO Max

Rap Sh!t follows two estranged high school friends from Miami, Shawna and Mia, who reunite to form a rap group.
Cast: Aida Osman (Shawna), KaMillion (Mia), Jonica Booth (Chastity), Devon Terrell (Cliff,) RJ Cyler (Lamont), Executive Producer and Writer: Issa Rae (for HOORAE); Executive Producer and Showrunner: Syreeta Singleton; Executive Producer: Montrel McKay (for HOORAE); Executive Producers: Dave Becky and Jonathan Berry (for 3 Arts Entertainment); Executive Producer: Deniese Davis

Hip hop duo Yung Miami and JT of City Girls serve as co-executive producers, along with Kevin “Coach K” Lee and Pierre “P” Thomas for Quality Control Films and Sara Rastogi for HOORAE. Sadé Clacken Joseph directed the pilot. Rae’s audio content company Raedio will handle music supervision for the series.

Sunday, June 18, 2022
ABFF Community Day
Sponsored by the Greater Miami Convention and Visitors Bureau (GMCVB)

The festival, in partnership with the Greater Miami Convention & Visitors Bureau, presents a day of entertainment curated for family audiences.

Virtual Events available on ABFF PLAY https://abffplay.com/

Life As Entrepreneurs
Presented by Morgan Stanley

A discussion exploring what it takes to build a family brand, the importance of being financially literate, and the value of building generational wealth.

Panelists:  Husband and wife team DJ Envy and Gia Casey

Mathis Family Matters
Presented by Comcast NBCUniversal

E! Entertainment presents an intimate conversation with the cast of E!’s new docuseries, “Mathis Family Matters” about representation, the black family on television today, their personal experiences and perspectives around diversity both in front of and behind the camera. To further the dialogue regarding unscripted television, they will exchange thoughts on the importance of Black producers ensuring that our stories aren’t overlooked and we are represented equally in today’s diverse culture.

Moderators: Ebony Magazine  

Panelists: Judge Greg Mathis, Linda Mathis, Jade Mathis, Camara Mathis, Greg Mathis Jr., Amir Mathis

Universal GTDI’s Five Years of Creative Impact 
Presented by Comcast NBCUniversal

In celebration of Universal’s Global Talent Development & Inclusion (GTDI) five-year anniversary, this panel spotlights friend-of-GTDI director Jude Weng, accompanied by four incredible alumni who have participated in GTDI’s flagship programs. Moderated by Rotten Tomatoes Awards Editor Jacqueline Coley, this panel aims to highlight the participants’ journeys towards establishing a career in the industry, as well as provide their perspective on how they view representation and access in the industry.

Moderators: Jacqueline Coley

Panelists: Jermaine Stegall, Juel Taylor, Jude Weng, Marielle Woods

Gate-Opening: Black Exec Round Table
Presented by Lionsgate and Starz

A candid conversation with Black development executives at Lionsgate and Starz demystifying the studio system, providing helpful guidance and insight into the initial development stages to support rising Black filmmakers.

Moderator: Kamala Avila-Salmon — head of Inclusive Content at Lionsgate

Panelists: Kathryn Tyus-Adair, senior vice president of Original Programming at Starz, Jade-Addon Hall, vice president of Current Series at Lionsgate TV, Aaron Edmonds, vice president of Production and Development at Lionsgate

ABFF 2022 sponsors and partners to date include Warner Bros. Discovery & HBOÒ (Founding); Cadillac, City of Miami Beach, Greater Miami Convention and Visitors Bureau (GMCVB), Sony Pictures Entertainment, Prime Video (Presenting); American Airlines, Comcast NBCUniversal, Meta, Bounce TV, Black Experience on Xfinity, UPS, IMDb (Premier); ALLBLK, Prudential Financial, Variety, TV One, Netflix, Starz, Disney+, Onyx Collective (Official); Accenture, Motion Pictures Association (MPA), A&E, The SpringHill Company, The Boston Globe, Color Of Change, Confluential Films, Arrington & Phillips, Fulton Films, BET Her, Morgan Stanley, Miami Beach VCA, Frankfurt Kurnit Klein & Selz, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (Supporting); Endeavor Content and DC Office of Television (Industry).

https://www.blackenterprise.com/american-black-film-festival-announces-2022-talks-panels-and-top-line-talent-for-26th-abff-june-15-19-2022/

KWL Live Q&A – Romance Roundtable with B. E. Baker, Elana Johnson, Jean Oram, Jan Moran, & Kellie Coates Gilbert

youtube

article

MY THOUGHTS AS I WATCH

5:54 publishing wide
opportunities expand with going wide. 
you get to join with partners, book publishing,  better.
you lose personalization on larger platforms

11:12 define sweet romance and what is the difference between women's fiction and sweet romance
women's fiction , a woman enters one way and exists another
the focus is different, women's fiction where point of view are females, while sweet romance is a double
Advertising between women's fiction or sweet romance is not the same.
We do readers a disservice by trying to labelize or niche their stories.
The Notebook is beloved

21:43 marketing reader expectations
Covers are our billboards
most use script because script smbolizes for most romance
big heavy romance readers are more acute and have many categories. if you make a romance that is small town and it is set in nyc, the readers will have a problem.
use subtitles, to specify for readers clarity
mafia romances are usually black red and gold , so an author changed her colors on her book, to handle the common assumptions of certain audiences
explicit titles can be blunt but can make it easy to be remember and focus, and in the blurb give them all the details to what is in it
branding is essential, if you go in a store and every can has no label, how do you know what you are buying.
your audience isn't everyone
as trends change, you can change books, especially if they fit

39:30 marketing strategies and what has worked best for you
one started a reader group, and she did author interviews, she uses newsletters, the she's reading group is better
one said connecting to readers and she has a readers group , and her mailing list
one is her email marketing is her best avenue, stop marketing books, and start marketing experiences, and she is on a place that nobody can change. 
one don't limit herself. she is very active in her facebook group. go for vertical sales, where people who like you and they buy your work. horizontal sales is new people. if you are selling at 99 cent and doing a lot of giveaways then you may have a marketing problem. do you need to get an editor. people on a restrictive budget are on kobo plus, not the regular sales.

51:00 audience questions
one said, if you keep writing, this is a backlist. It may not work at the beginning but when you find your audience these books can do better.
one said, you write because you love doing it. and she had a story on the shelf for five years. But, all her books are clean. People think clean means cheesy. 
one said, find yourself author friends, you can link. Don't do the journey alone. 
one said, what few say when they reach six figures in sales, even they have days when things don't go well, where you will want to quit. you watch the graph go down, and you wonder. Get your tribe:)
husbands don't make great girlfriends:) 
one, i write for it is a therapy.

1:06:00 any advice for new authors coming into the industry
one said, if you are starting out, you are going to have to write and write and write. 
one said, it is hard to advertise one book. 
one said, take a little time every day to go into author groups.  consume but don't take everything to gospel
one said, your working with something small at the beginning, every decision can be undone, everything you are making can be unfixed, following advice takes away from writing. Everyone's process is different, and other's may do well, and not your system.
try to have fun being a creator
 

My thoughts in reply to the source
I don't see a problem at all. But I grew up in a home where my parents worked together to pay bills, to rear me. This concept of the male role or the female role is silly or dysfunctional.
A woman has the right to have a dominant charater type like a man has the same right. 
The following image is shared as a photo of proper gender representation

https://twitter.com/ShadayaKnight/status/1626159504575414274

I don't see the problem with either. If Oprah side her partner/husband wants to appear side to side while Rihanna's partner/husband want to be seen with her in the lead and him being led carrying their child what is the problem? 
I am a heterosexual man, a rare thing I tout , but I do now cause a dysfunctional mentality exist among many, and I argue most, of my fellow heterosexual men. And that is this idea that the man is lessened, or taken out of masculinity, ala emasculated, when he appears in any role where a woman is in a superior posture.
I do not know Rihanna, but if we actually knew each other, and we became intimate, and she said she wanted to have a child side me, and I said yes, I will not feel lessened or emasculated because we are in a photo shoot like the one above. 
I can't even comprehend why I will feel lessened or emasculated. I will not feel embarassed or insulted by Rihanna or the photographer. In the photograph, Rihanna doesn't have a chain around the man's neck. She isn't walking in front disconnected which was a common and still visible married posture in public in Nippon or Japan. 
The best question is, if Rihanna was holding the baby and being led by the male, would that then be an image of proper gender roles by those who judge the Rihanna photo above as emasculating to men? 
Not for me. If my wife, no too easy, if my girlfriend wants to create a baby side me and I concur, then I have no problem at all with her wanting to have such a photo shoot. Notice I didn't mention money. I wouldn't mind this photoshoot. Now if my girlfriend has Rihanna's money, I daresay this photoshoot is warranted. I don't mind being the father whether my girlfriend is rich or poor if we both agree. But, I am not ashamed to say my girlfriend who has joined me in creating a baby, and another baby:), who is a billionaire warrants the photo. I am not less of a man because a woman is a billionaire and I am looking for work/hustling/struggling through my own road. 
I think men who feel emasculated by Rihanna's photo are why so many women who are financially successful don't trust men. Cause many, and i argue most in global humanity, heterosexual men, whether rich or poor, feel/think/believe/know a woman , whether she is financially superior to them or not, needs to act like a housewife. 
I recall a scene in Crazy Rich Asians, I never read the book, when a male character fiscally poorer than the female character he is married to couldn't handle their environment or reality in their community.
My fellow Heterosexual Men, calm down:) Your manhood isn't lessened because a woman can make more money than you, can want children without marrying you, can not need to rely on you for what men forced women to rely on men for in the past. Men in the USA...Embrace the opportunity to have only love as what is needed living side women. Don't undermine women as men in most other places in humanity who seem infatuated to a male dominant gender structure in their community. 
Calm down and be happy women are free. Wouldn't you want your daughter to be able to be whatever she wants and not feel through peer pressure in her mind or where she lives she has to give a man an unfair or unwarranted or unnecessary role to her, just for his ego side the ego of many , and I argue most, in his gender community.

CITATIONS

source

https://twitter.com/ShadayaKnight/status/1626112523190648833

The emasculation of men continues...you can already tell who the man is in this relationship...that dude about to be a proud mother of 2

referral
https://twitter.com/MisterLassiter/status/1626639429153738752

This guy has 260K plus followers. We are doomed to more of his fragility and stupidity...pretty much forever

IN AMENDMENT to the referral
I oppose the position of the source but I don't think men who are unafraid of women are near extinction. The reality is, the future will have many men who feel/know/think a woman has a natural subservient place. The good news is that the future will also have at least as equally strong spaces for men who oppose that position. 
It isn't doom and gloom. And I comprehend the frustration. I am a heterosexual man. Yeah, lust isn't a sin, it is powerful, necessary, human. And shouldn't be cast aside. Lust all to often plays a huge role in men's, heterosexual men's physical desires for women. The key isn't to delete lust or run away from it or succumb to it, but to embrace love + liking more than lust. For when you love or like a woman, your lust can exist without guiding you to desiring a woman ill. 
 

photo source
Image via Linkedin/Miishe Addy

GHANAIAN CEO SECURES $13M FROM INVESTORS FOR STARTUP SHIPPING AND LOGISTICS FIRM

Stacy Jackson

This Ghanaian entrepreneur is helping businesses in Africa expand globally.

Jetstream Africa’s co-founder and CEO, Miishe Addy <  https://twitter.com/MiisheAddy , secured $13 million dollars in pre-Series-A equity and debt funding for her shipping and logistics firm.

According to Ghana Web, the funding round included investors, such as development finance institution PROPARCO, through the Digital Africa Bridge Fund, and ASC VC, a venture fund founded by executives of the end-to-end visibility platform, Project44. < https://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/business/Meet-the-Ghanaian-entrepreneur-who-led-her-startup-to-raise-13-million-from-investors-1714037> 

Nigerian venture capital fund, Octerra, also participated in the funding round, along with Senegal’s Wuri Ventures, Seed9, an association founded by Google alumni, the MBA Fund, the W Fun, and investments from family offices. Alitheia, IDF, and Golden Palm were additional investors in the equity round. < https://jetstreamafrica.com/ >

Fintech lender, Cauris, participated in the debt round as the sole investor.

“All of our major investors have investment or operational experience with the problem we’re solving. They are specialists in supply chain technology like ASCVC, which was founded by Project44 executives, or African value chain and logistics portfolio companies like Alitheia, Golden Palm, Octerra, Wuri, and Proparco,” Addy said.

Jetstream provides services to shippers who need to import or export goods from Ghana and Nigeria. The company’s digital platform allows shippers to pay for and track their cargo.

“Most businesses in Africa make and sell physical things, and you can’t sell what you can’t move. So logistics is really a centerpiece of the entire commerce equation,” Addy said during the virtual Africa Tech Summit Connects. “There are so many e-commerce websites that are coming up to allow SMEs and everyone else to sell products, but it is the people who are running the cargo on the ground who are solving one of the trickiest bottlenecks.”

During a 2021 interview with CNN, Addy discussed her journey as a woman who pursued a male-dominated industry by launching her technology-enabled logistics company. She shared that she takes pride in making an impact through technology and her contributions in an industry creating things that are of value to people across geographical boundaries.

“I would generally say it’s easier to be an entrepreneur as a woman in Ghana than in other countries. Technology specifically is a little harder in Ghana because there are so few women with engineering backgrounds or who have the capabilities to build an engineering or technology-based business,” Addy said at the time.

Article source
https://www.blackenterprise.com/ghanaian-ceo-secures-13m-from-investors-for-startup/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Newsletter_02/16/2023
 

in facebook < https://www.facebook.com/groups/162792258578547/permalink/595312771993158/ > 
In the literature , carmen is not the villainous, as later in the play or movie. In the play and definitely movie versions carmen is the seductress who tempts a good man away. but in the literature carmen didn't have a part in his original sin so to speak, she simply proves he hasn't changed but is angry when she moves on from him, which all versions have oddly enough. The woman moving on from a fallen guy is the end hook in each:) ... to the white produced film, written by a white man with an all black cast:)  I have huge issues with Kleiner's interpretation, like Heyward's porgy and bess. Both stories do not have a proper comprehension of the financial levels or internal social strata's of the black community in the USA. What do I mean?  Kleiner suggest that a black woman who has "hoodoo voodoo" is equivalent to a romani woman. the romani are considered another race in spain. A black woman who does "hoodoo voodoo" is not deemed another race in the black community in the usa. From a storytelling perspective, the correct thing for carmen jones is similar to OScar Micheaux's symbol of the unconquered. No disrespect to harry belafonte's joe but in the black community in the usa since world war II is a small, usually high yellow, usually passing, financial black aristocracy who embraced the usa faster than other black people. Joe should be that, like in said michaeux film. So, the vision of the black community is totally false. The reason the movie made money was the same reason cameron's avatar  movies make money, the spectacle. A film of black people, with the sexy pearl bailey/dorothy dandrige the handsom well known white female sex symbol [I just quoted or paraphrased james baldwin] is the selling point. For all audiences the image of an all black cast and no mamies, forgive me hattie mcdaniel , during the time of premminger's carmen was the same as the totally digital blue people of cameron's avatar.
in youtube LINK < https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBISrX84MpU > 
Before 10:15 One key you didn't mention is the role of women inability to own things based on male power.
After 10:15 great point, one of the biggest problems with many later carmen's that the original literature doesn't miss is the other racial category of carmen. Carmen is the tragedy. Dorothy dandrige was clearly very pretty but Carmen isn't the beautiful woman every man needs to fornicate with who when withers if they fornicate with her. Carmen is an outsider , deemed another of the dominant race, who meets a dishonorable/criminal man who still lives a very good life because of his racial status, and when her admiration to him makes him feel better all is good, but when she desires a change and a better man, at least in terms of criminal record, the disgraced man of "a better race" terminates her. That is the lesson of carmen. A person of a potent race can commit crimes and still live affluent or oppulent compared to one of an impotent race, and when the one of an impotent race decides to leave the one of an opulent race the true racial relationship is revealed in the murder. 

What medium or style of art are you most obsessed with?
None, I am not obsessed to any medium or style of art. But the art I will like to be satisfied in creating that I am farthest from is literature based games. But I am romancing it, so to speak.

What love-themed artwork(s) do you believe are the most powerful, and why?
I will say love songs are the most powerful from love themed artworks. Why? At their best they are a blend of two heart felt passions wrapped in one. 
The words when best, have a comprehension that can be sung by a mute lover through their eyes or a lonely yearning person calling out in isolation. 
But, when a vocalist is at their best, they can utilize the words to emit frequencies that massage the doubts or dismissals from one who has no memory of a loving touch or provide paths for memories in the wind to re-enter the silverhaired. 
Unlike the film, the song need not be seen. 
Unlike the painting, the song touches the body. 
Unlike the book, the song has a voice when one can't imagine it on their own.
If you are interested in some love songs, consider the list in the following work, I suggest Nat King Cole, Fly Me To The Moon
https://www.deviantart.com/hddeviant/art/Album-Yourself-Submit-935178300

Has love or obsession inspired you to create a work of art? If so, share it in your comment and talk about how the feeling inspired it!
Yes, a love has inpsired the following work. I am a private person. It is a gif, click to see.
https://www.deviantart.com/hddeviant/art/Valentine-s-Day-2022-Color-gif-906988319

If you will like something to color for Valentine's day consider the following version, please share with me if you do
https://www.deviantart.com/hddeviant/art/Valentine-s-Day-2022-BW-906988146

If you want to listen to the poetry , I offer the following
https://www.kobo.com/us/en/audiobook/the-last-flail

Referral Page
https://www.deviantart.com/team/journal/Heart-to-HeArt-Share-love-for-Valentines-Day-944781878

(Image: LinkedIn/Karen Hatcher/Screenshot)

ATLANTA BUSINESS CHRONICLE NAMES ARA’S FIRST BLACK WOMAN PRESIDENT AS A ‘WOMAN OF INFLUENCE’
BLACK ENTERPRISE EditorsJanuary 11, 2023

Karen Hatcher, CPM®, CEO of Sovereign Realty + Management, and the 2022 President of Atlanta REALTORS Association, has been recognized for her dedication and commitment to the real estate industry by being named “REALTOR of the Year” for 2022.

She is the first African-American female and African-American-owned company to be awarded this prestigious award since it was established over 60 years ago.

The ARA created the distinguished award in 1960 to recognize the REALTOR® who contributed most to the Association in that calendar year. This recognition is given to those who embody the spirit of the REALTOR®, engage in exemplary civic activity, and show impressive business accomplishments.

Hatcher was the first Black woman to lead the ARA and dedicated her tenure to ensuring that it embraced intentional inclusion with a campaign called “Let’s Dance.” Coined from the phrase, ‘Diversity is being invited to the party, Inclusion is being asked to dance.’ Hatcher focused the organization this year on advancing their strategic plan through inclusion, prioritizing our voices being heard on important real estate industry issues, and working together with industry colleagues, so everyone has a fair chance of attaining The American Dream of home ownership. This would create more housing opportunities and allow future generations to build a legacy of wealth.

In the first six months of Hatcher’s presidency, ARA institution voting rights for local Multicultural Real Estate Affiliate Associations and reinstated that ARA members who actively participate in committees receive voting power. The Multicultural Association representative on ARA’s Board of Directors had their non-voting seats turned into voting seats, enabling the underrepresented constituents a true and full seat at the table on issues impacting communities right now, such as housing affordability, equity, and inclusion. In addition, ARA provided a total of $20,000 to the Multicultural Partner Organizations.

REALTORS are community builders and much more than the transaction. Envisioned by Hatcher in 2021, in 2022, the ARA Board formed the Atlanta REALTORS Impact Foundation (ARIF) to support the awarding of educational scholarships and community charitable giving and received tax-exempt status. $135,000 in funds were donated by ARA to support the Community Excellence Scholarship program and to establish an ARA Care Fund. This year, (10) ten $1,000 scholarships were awarded to local students, and (3) three ARA members in need received a total of $7,500 in Care Funds.

This year marked a momentous occasion for the ARA as their task forces and committees achieved several firsts during Hatcher’s appointment:

The ARA RPAC Subcommittee convened and surpassed their goal for the first time in many, many years, raising a total of $317,450, a 22% increase year over year.
The ARA Diversity Council launched a new initiative that partners new association members with volunteers of diverse backgrounds willing to help them establish stronger connections within ARA.
ARA hosted a virtual interview on The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America to provide members with a greater understanding of the ways government-sanctioned segregation affected housing options and wealth building historically and in the present.
ARA reached a record of 14,193 members in 2022, a 10% increase over the previous year. Atlanta REALTORS Association is now the 19th largest local association in the country.
The newly formed Affordable & Equitable Housing Committee became one of the largest ARA committees ever, with nearly 160 members, followed by the Diversity & Inclusion Advisory Council and Governmental Affairs Committee, with nearly 110 members on each.
ARA donated $10,000 to NAR’s Disaster Relief Fund.
ARA established relationships with entities that provide complementary services and information that is beneficial for our members, including the Home Builders Association, the Urban League, and HouseATL, to name a few.
Karen states, “This year was monumental for our association in a multitude of ways. From my tenure as president to our restructured operations, adding new key personnel, and our astounding committee work.” She continues, “Our focus for 2022 was implementing our strategic plan through acceptance and putting our voices at the forefront of significant real estate industry issues. I am exceedingly proud of our success. Furthermore, our efforts were unwavering in upholding our NAR Code of Ethics.”

Hatcher’s recognition as the “REALTOR of the Year” reflects her dedication to promoting access to equitable home ownership. She is determined to do so through the 2023 key appointments, 2023 NAR Small Broker Chair & 2023 Co-Chair HouseAtl Homeownership Working Group.

URL of Article
https://www.blackenterprise.com/atlanta-business-chronicle-names-aras-first-black-woman-president-as-a-woman-of-influence/

(Image ULU Ventures)

BLACK WOMAN DEVELOPS FINTECH PLATFORM, RAISES $6.2M IN FUNDING
Stacy JacksonJanuary 11, 2023

This entrepreneur is keeping diversity in mind as she builds her platform.

Physician Ami Kumordzie developed a fintech platform with no experience and a mission to connect consumers with IRS-compliant merchants, urging people to invest in improving their health.

According to Forbes, after the Sika Health CEO observed the flaws within the healthcare system while studying at Stanford University School of Medicine, she decided not to go into residency and got her M.B.A. instead.

“My first job was as a management consultant working for healthcare clients at BCG,” she said adding that the analytical position helped her identify the gap in the market.

Kumordzie was inspired to launch Sika Health after her mother was laid off from her hotel job during the pandemic.

“Even though I have worked in healthcare my entire career, I had to scramble and practically become a tax expert to figure out how she [my mother] could spend these funds before she would lose them,” she said.

“About 70 million Americans are enrolled in FSA or HSA accounts, contributing about $150 billion a year,” Kumordzie said, noting the major loss consumers experience from forfeiting their FSA benefits.

“That’s a real tragedy because it is money people could have invested in improving their health,” Kumordzie said.

“We need more ways to save and tools that help stretch our dollars,” she said. “[Using FSA and HSA dollars] effectively means that you’re buying healthcare at 30% off expenses.”

Kumordzie raised $6.2 million in the early stages of funding.

“The goal was to raise $500,000,” she said. “Within weeks, I surpassed my goal and raised $1.2 million.” Kumordzie reached $5 million later during a seed funding round led by Forerunner Ventures representative Brian O’Malley.

“Having a brand like Forerunner as one of our backers makes a big difference when you’re trying to hire,” Kumordzie said. “It makes a big difference when you’re having a hiring conversation and trying to convince someone to leave their high-paying stable job to take a risk on an early-stage business.”

Kumordzie credits her non-traditional background to the success of drawing venture capitalists.

The fintech founder wanted to be able to hire great tech professionals and eventually, Sika Health was able to hire the founding engineer of the payments team at Etsy.

“Sika is on a mission to ensure customers can access and spend their HSA/FSA funds on items they want, when they want, hassle-free,” the website wrote.”

URL of Article
https://www.blackenterprise.com/ghanaian-woman-develops-fintech-platform-raises-6-2m-in-funding/

Screenshot via YouTube/Eleora Beauty,Inc Products

TEEN WHO SUFFERED HAIR LOSS DURING SICKLE CELL TREATMENTS CREATED PRODUCT LINE FOR BLACK HAIR
Stacy JacksonJanuary 11, 2023

Inspired by her childhood experiences, this 15-year-old was motivated to start a business.

After being diagnosed with sickle cell disease when she was eight years old, teen entrepreneur, Eleora Ogundare, created a line of products through Eleora Beauty to help other Black girls and women maintain their hair.

According to CBC News, undergoing chemotherapy and other treatments for the red blood cell disorder caused Ogundare to experience hair loss. Uncertain of other kids’ reactions at her school, who had nice, long hair, Ogundare and her mother decided to make a quick change and cut her hair off.

“I felt, like, naked almost because, the thing that was like giving me confidence, I didn’t have it anymore. I had to cut it all off.”

“The struggle for them is identity, you know, trying to understand why their hair is not as silky as the next person in her class,” said Ogundare’s mother Eugenia, who helps her daughter run the business. “But then having to lose that hair was a whole different ball game altogether.”

Ogundare and her mother invested time in testing a variety of oils, butters, and creams, before they tried out their own formula, the product they used to launch their line for Black hair.

“One of the problems Black women actually face would be the edges, so that’s the first thing we get, that, ‘Oh, it actually works for my edges’,” Ogundare’s mother said.

According to her mother, the products have accumulated lots of positive feedback, with some mothers saying their daughter’s hair became more manageable after using their formulas.

Salon owner Adedoyin Omotara, sells Eleora Beauty products through her company and the Adoniaa Collective at at Westbrook Mall.

Omotara said she understands the pressure Black kids are under as they become more conscious of their environments.

“Especially for younger people, they need to understand that there are products that can actually work for our hair so that they don’t start to put toxic product in their hair, just to want to look like another Sharon on the street or another Anita on the street,” Omotara said.

Ogundare recently cut her hair again and strives to be an example for Black girls to love their hair no matter its length.

URL of Article
https://www.blackenterprise.com/teen-who-suffered-hair-loss-during-sickle-cell-treatments-created-product-line-for-black-hair/
 

Larry Buchanan/The New York Times

Did a Fourth Grader Write This? Or the New Chatbot?

Don’t be surprised if you can’t always tell. Neither could a fourth-grade teacher — or Judy Blume.

By Claire Cain Miller, Adam Playford, Larry Buchanan and Aaron Krolik Dec. 26, 2022

It’s hard to fully grasp the enormous potential of ChatGPT, a new artificial intelligence chatbot released last month. The bot doesn’t just search and summarize information that already exists. It creates new content, tailored to your request, often with a startling degree of nuance, humor and creativity. Most of us have never seen anything like it outside of science fiction.

To better understand what ChatGPT can do, we decided to see if people could tell the difference between the bot’s writing and a child’s.

We used real essay prompts from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (the standardized test from the Department of Education, known as the nation’s report card). We asked the bot to produce essays based on those prompts — sometimes with a little coaching, and always telling it to write like a student of the appropriate age. We put what it wrote side by side with sample answers written by real children.

We asked some experts on children’s writing to take our variation on the Turing test, live on a call with us. They were a fourth-grade teacher; a professional writing tutor; a Stanford education professor; and Judy Blume, the beloved children’s author. None of them could tell every time whether a child or a bot wrote the essay. See how you do.

BELOW ARE PROMPTS , can you tell if they are from human children or chatbot, if you want to test yourself, go to the article url after my thoughts and test yourself

Prompt 1: School Lunch

The following prompt was given to fourth graders.

Describe what lunchtime is like for you on a school day. Be sure to tell about your lunchtime so that someone who has never had lunch with you on a school day can understand where you have lunch and what lunchtime is like.

Here are three answers. They were written either by a real fourth grader or ChatGPT. (You can read all three before deciding. But once you pick, your choices lock in. Then keep scrolling to see how our experts did.)

1 of 10
Essay 1: A fun and exciting time

Lunchtime on a school day is a fun and exciting time for me and my friends. We usually go to the cafeteria, which is a big and noisy room filled with tables and chairs. After getting our lunch from the lunch ladies, we find a spot to sit and enjoy our meal. I like to bring a yummy sandwich and a cold juice box for lunch, and sometimes I'll even pack a tasty piece of fruit or a bag of crunchy chips. As we eat, we chat and laugh and catch up on each other’s day.

Overall, lunchtime is a great opportunity to take a break from classes and spend time with my friends. I always look forward to it, and I always have a good time. The cafeteria can be a little crowded and noisy, but it's a fun and lively place to be. I’m grateful that I get to enjoy a delicious lunch with my friends every day.

Human child

ChatGPT

2 of 10
Essay 2: I usually eat cold lunch

At lunchtime I usually eat cold lunch. My mother packs me a sandwich, a drink, fruit, and a treat. When I get in the lunchroom I find an empty table and sit there, and eat my lunch. My friends come and sit down with me. I open my lunch and start to eat. First I eat my sandwich then I open my drink, then eat my fruit and last but not least my treat. After that I sit quietly until I am dismissed. When I am I go into to the bathroom and clean my teeth because I have braces.

When I am done with that I go outside and put my lunchbox away and go find my friends. We usually play four square or play on the play ground. If we are not on the playground or on the four square ground we are on the field playing tag, kickball, or soccer. I really like to play soccer and my friends do too.

Human child

ChatGPT

3 of 10
Essay 3: Everybody talks

Lunch time in my school is very noisy, because everybody talks. The 4th, 5th, and 6th graders at my school have to eat lunch at the same time. We all sit at tables that are set up in the gym, across half of the basketball court. We eat lunch every day from 11:45 am through 12:00 pm. At lunch everyone eats and talks to their friends until the lunch-moms dismiss them so they can go to recess. When everybody has cleared out of the lunch room, the janitors and lunch moms whipe off the tables, just on time for the 7th and 8th graders to come into the room for lunch. After lunch and recess I go back to my 4th grade classroom, which is in the basement. I like lunch time a lot — it’s my favorite time of the day!

Human child

ChatGPT

Prompt 2: Becoming President

The following prompt was given to eighth graders.

Imagine that you wake up one morning to discover that you have become the President of the United States. Write a story about your first day as President.

Here are three answers:

4 of 10
Essay 1: Royal blue silk sheets

It was my first official day being the president. I woke up early that day because I was extremely eager to begin my work.

I woke up in the most enormous bed I’ve ever laid eyes on. There were layes of royal blue silk sheets under a soft white down comforter. The deep red pillows supported my head and had helped me to enjoy a good nights’ rest.

I hesitated before climbing out of bed, not wanting to leave my sense of eutopia. I eventually found myself making my way to the walk-in closet across the room. In it were countless pants, shirts, shoes, and ties that were all unique, so it wasn't a difficult decision.

I heard a knock on the door and call for them to come in. It was my maid. Yes, I had a maid! I couldn’t believe it.

I sprang downstairs to the breakfast table as numerous people were awaiting to serve me. It was delicious.

After brushing my teeth and doing all of the other essentials, it was time for me to take charge.

My office was humungus and was covered, floor to ceiling with rows and rows of books. In front of gigantic windows, was my desk, where I sat for many hours of the day stressing out over papers I needed to sign and decisions I had to make. It wasn’t as simple as I thought.

That night I had a dinner party to attend with some important businessmen. Everything ran smoothly.

I returned home that night to my cozy bed, just in time for yet another good nights’ sleep. Only to wake up and repeat it all tomorrow. What a life I live.

Human child

ChatGPT

5 of 10
Essay 2: Shocked and amazed

One morning, I woke up to discover that I had become the President of the United States. I was shocked and amazed, but I quickly realized that I had a huge responsibility on my shoulders.

I got dressed and headed to the White House, where I was greeted by the Secret Service and my staff. They told me that I had a busy day ahead of me, with meetings with foreign leaders and important decisions to make.

I met with the Vice President and the rest of the Cabinet, and we discussed the major issues facing the country. I listened carefully to their advice, and made some tough decisions.

I also met with the leaders of other countries, and we discussed ways to improve relations and solve global problems. I was nervous at first, but I soon realized that I was up to the task.

At the end of the day, I was exhausted but proud of what I had accomplished. I knew that being President was a huge challenge, but I was ready to face it head on. I went to bed that night, ready for the challenges that the next day would bring.

Human child

ChatGPT

6 of 10
Essay 3: Madam President

It was a typical Tuesday morning. I woke up, got dresesed, and went downstairs to eat breakfast. But as I was pouring myself a bowl of cereal, I heard a knock on the door. I opened it to find a man in a suit standing on my porch.

“Good morning, Madam President,” he said. “I’m here to take you to the White House.”

I was stunned. I had no idea what he was talking about. I had never even run for presidnet.

“I’m sorry, but there must be some mistake,” I said. “I’m just an eighth gradeer.”

The man chuckled. “I understand your confusion, Madam President, but the fact remains that you are now the President of the United States. You were chosen by the previous president to be his successor in the event that something were to happen to him.”

I was speechless. I had never even thought about being president before. And now, all of a sudden, I was the leader of the free world.

The man ushered me into a black car and we drove to the White House. When we arrived, I was greeted by a crowd of people and a flurry of flashing cameras. I was whisked inside and taken to the Oval Office, where I was given a briefing on the state of the nation.

It was a crisis-filled day. The economy was in shambles, the nation was divided, and there were threats of war on the horizon. I had to make tough decisions and work with other world leaders to try and solve these problems.

But despite the challenges, I felt a sense of pride and responsibility. I was the President of the United States, and I was determined to do my best for my country and its people.

Human child

ChatGPT

Prompt 3: A Castle Appears

The following prompt was given to fourth graders.

One morning a child looks out the window and discovers that a huge castle has appeared overnight. The child rushes outside to the castle and hears strange sounds coming from it. Someone is living in the castle!

The castle door creaks open. The child goes in.

Write a story about who the child meets and what happens inside the castle.

And here are four answers (don’t worry, they’re shorter):

7 of 10
Essay 1: John the knight

“Wow a castle!” said John. He had know clue of how it got here or where it came from? He walked inside and found that it was rather damp. He wandered around until finally he saw someone. This person didn’t look normal. He was dressed in royalty with a purple cape and a crown of jewels. Then the person spoke out. “There you are you’re supposed to be training right now.” John had know clue what he was talking about. Suddenly he thought of something, was this the King of the castle? He finally got the nerve to ask a question. He asked “Who are you”. He answered “I’m the King.” John was shocked. Then the King told him to get on his armor. John thought and thought. Then he knew what he was talking about. He thought he was a knight. John thought again. If he was to be a knight then he would never see his family again. Then he thought of his older sister, Jennifer. He decided to be a knight. After about 2 months he finally was knighted. He fought many dragons and man. He finally died but is still a legend today. The end.

Human child

ChatGPT

8 of 10
Essay 2: A dragon named Sparky

One morning a child looks out the window and discovers that a huge castle has appeared over knight. The child rushes outside to the castle and hears strange sounds coming from it. Someone is living in the castle! The castle door creaks open and the child goes in. The child walks into the castle and is amazed by what they see. The walls are made of shiny stones, and there are torches burning along the walls, casting a warm glow on the room. The child hears a voice calling out from deep inside the castle. “Is anyone there?” the child calls out. “Yes, I’m here!” the voice says. The child follows the voice until they come to a room with a big fireplace. Inside the fireplace, the child sees a small, friendly-looking dragon. “Hello!” the dragon says. “I'm Sparky, I’m the only one who lives here in the castle, I've been all alone for a very long time.” The child is amazed. They have never seen a real dragon before. “Do you want to be friends?” the dragon asks. The child nods and smiles, “Yes, I would love to be friends with you, Sparky.” Sparky is so happy to have a new friend, he shows the child all around the castle. They play games and explore the castle together. The child has the best day of their lie, and they can't wait to come back and visit Sparky again!

Human child

ChatGPT

9 of 10
Essay 3: Tsharra explores

Once there was a little girl who had looked out of her bedroom window. Her name, was Tsharra. She was only 5 yrs. old. Tsharra spotted a castle right in front of her house. So she decided to explore. She went to the front of the castle and a chain wood door opened. It sounded like it needed oil on the hinges. Tsharra stepped her tiny foot in. She looked straight ahead and saw a velvit red thrown on the ground. It has 3 steps that leaded to a marble deck. There were 2 tall chairs and in them were a king and queen. The king and queen wore golden sparkly crows with lots of diamonds and jewls. They both wore purple velvet caps that went all the way around them. Tsharra was amazed she was starring straight in the eyes of a real king and queen. The king and queen had not a son or daughter. The king and queen were whispering back and forth. Should we keep her said one. Sure said the other. We should adapt her by tomorrow. Tsharra heard them. She’s ours. She stayed in the castle over night. In the morning she was adapted and the little family lived happily ever after.

Human child

ChatGPT

10 of 10
Essay 4: Sir James and Alice

The child’s name is Alice and she is very curious. She walks into the castle and sees a knight in shining armor. The knight is holding a sword and is practicing his sword skills.

Alice watches the knight for a moment and then walks up to him. The knight is surprised to see her and asks her what she is doing in the castle. Alice tells him that she woke up to find the castle in her backyard and wanted to explore it.

The knight introduces himself as Sir James and tells Alice that he has been living in the castle for many years. He tells her that the castle is magical and that it can take her to different worlds.

Alice is amazed and asks Sir James if he can take her to one of these worlds. Sir James says that he can, but only if she is brave enough. Alice says she is brave and Sir James takes her to a world full of dragons.

Alice is scared at first, but she quickly learns that the dragons are friendly and she even gets to ride one. She has the best adventure of her life and can’t wait to see what other worlds the castle has to offer.

Human child

ChatGPT

MY THOUGHTS
As I said to computer programs, sculpting images from a prompt, computer programs sculpting essays isn't a problem to me. 
The two issues with computer created art are simple: 1) the truth 2) acceptance of human effort absent competitions

To the truth, as a writer , if another writer wants to use a computer program to write a book and that book provides millions, I don't have a problem as long as the author admit it. The odd thing about those who use computer programs is how ashamed they are to admit it. Just say you do. why can't you? 
The same applies to drawing or anything resulting from a program. Just admit a computer program is used. 

To artistic competition, one of the problems in art since the domination of those of white european descent to all other humans is the role of critique or judgement in ranking art which relates to financial evaluation. Jean Michel Basquiat when alive had art that he gave away to people who treated it worthlessly, but in the last few years since this writing, his art has sold for multiples of millions.
The point, artistic quality can not be used to rank art. And once artistic ranking ends, then the threat of what computers generate to artists or the greater art community is nonexistent. The reason why artists/art assessors or judgers feel threatened is cause the ranking of art creates an artificial ranking that allows some artist to profit.

And for children don't worry, if you want to test any one of any age , just take the time in school to test them, eradicate homework and lesson lecture time and have more testing time, and students will exhibit what they know... the question is, is the goal of education a jounrey to grow or is the goal of education a competitive race to win. If it is a journey to grow, a student can be left back a trillion times and all is well. If education is a competition then cheating has to be allowed. 

Article URL
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/12/26/upshot/chatgpt-child-essays.html
 

Attending to a patient at the severe burns unit.Credit...Zied Ben Romdhane for The New York Times

In a Hospital Ward, the Wounds of a Failed Democracy Don’t Heal
Tunisia’s road to democracy began with a self-immolation, and such cases have filled hospital burn wards ever since, as elected leaders failed to deliver on a promise of prosperity.

By Vivian Yee
Vivian Yee, who covers North Africa for The Times, spent a week at the Trauma and Severe Burns Hospital in Ben Arous, near the Tunisian capital, where she watched doctors carry out their work.

Jan. 3, 2023
The most troublesome patient in the hospital’s severe burns unit was refusing to let the orderlies change the bandages that had encased him since he set himself on fire three months earlier, so Dr. Imen Jami burst into his room, her habitually knit brows drawn as tight as they would go, her lips pressed together in a magenta line.

“Look, I have someone in a coma, and I have no time,” she told the young man. “The final word is that you’ll get on the bed and change your bandages.”

“I’m so tired,” he moaned.

“You’re really not going to have them changed?” she said, looming over him.

“No, I will,” he said, quailing.

The doctor had seen this before: Tunisians who set themselves on fire in the throes of desperation often had little interest in recovering. Unable to support their families in a country that was coming apart, they had only the same old futility waiting for them back home.

In a sense, Tunisia’s 2010 revolution — and the wave of Arab Spring uprisings it inspired — began in this hospital burn ward near the capital, Tunis, and sometimes it seems as if its dying breaths are being taken there, too.

A decade ago, the Trauma and Severe Burns Hospital treated Mohamed Bouazizi, the 26-year-old fruit seller whose self-immolation came to stand for the rage that brought down a dictator and launched a democracy. Now it houses self-immolation patients whose own acts of protest changed nothing, and a host of doctors trying to escape. The country’s collective despair was so great that Tunisians turned once again to the one-man rule they had fought so fiercely to overthrow just a decade ago.

All the while, Dr. Jami had been there on the fourth floor.

She was there in the waning days of 2010, when Mr. Bouazizi was brought into the ward in critical condition, and there when the former dictator, President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, came to pose for a picture at his bedside in an unconvincing attempt to show the public that he cared. Less than three weeks later, on Jan. 4, 2011, Mr. Bouazizi was dead.

She was there in the days that followed, when a surge of young men from around the country inundated the hospital after their own copycat self-immolations.

Outside the walls of the hospital in the Tunis suburb of Ben Arous, Mr. Bouazizi’s death was galvanizing Tunisia’s Jasmine Revolution. “Jobs, freedom, dignity,” protesters chanted, and soon the revolt spread from young, struggling men like Mr. Bouazizi to all kinds of Tunisians. By Jan. 14, 2011, Mr. Ben Ali had fled the country, and Tunisia’s uprising had set off others across the region.

The others ended in bloodshed. But for a while, it seemed, democracy was blooming in Tunisia — the Arab Spring’s last great hope. Yet even as Tunisians’ freedoms multiplied, bread got harder to afford, and democracy itself started to seem undignified.

The old regime’s crimes went largely unpunished. Parliament deadlocked. Corruption spread. Unemployment rose. Poverty deepened. Buffeted by inexperience, infighting and bad luck, 10 prime ministers in 10 years failed to make urgent economic changes.

The post-revolution government was dominated by an Islamist party, Ennahda, and religious-secular divisions polarized a society unsure about whether politicians who wanted to govern according to Islamic principles belonged in a democracy at all.

During what Tunisians called the “black decade” after the revolution, the Bouazizi copycats arrived at the hospital by the hundreds. A relative rarity before the revolution, the act of self-immolation soon accounted for a fifth of the burn ward’s cases.

Then, in 2019, Kais Saied — an austere constitutional law professor — was elected president. Harnessing Tunisians’ rage and regret over the revolution, he suspended Parliament in July 2021, sidelined political parties, undercut civil liberties and embraced one-man rule, all but burying the country’s brief experiment with democracy.

And many Tunisians cheered.

People like Dr. Jami and many of her colleagues wanted rescuing, and after a decade of watching elected leaders fumble, they had not seen a better candidate for savior than Mr. Saied.

More than a year after his election, however, the president had been unable to do much about the foundering economy, the soaring prices or the lack of decent jobs. Which was why an estimated 15,400 Tunisians boarded rickety boats bound for Europe last year, only for at least 570 of them to drown, and part of why young men kept setting themselves on fire.

In Tunisia, illegal migration to Europe by boat was called the “harga.” The word translated, literally, to “burning.”

On the burn ward, all the doctors raised their voices so patients could hear them through the thick layers of white bandages that shrouded their heads, but Dr. Jami was loudest of all. Her “good mornings” were trumpet blasts, her entrances laughter and thunder; she could get a roomful of staff laughing with a single line, or upend it with demands for help, now.

The daughter of a nurse, Dr. Jami had studied medicine because it was her father’s dream for her, joining the burn unit soon after it opened in 2008.

She and her office mate, a fellow general practitioner, Behija Gasri, had spent five days straight in the ward during the revolution, changing diapers and mopping hallways themselves because no one else could reach the hospital. So many self-immolation cases were brought in that they ran out of beds and started putting patients on chairs.

Chaos and upheaval: That was all the revolution had brought her, she often thought.

In the decade that followed, most of Tunisia’s self-immolation cases were brought to this hospital, North Africa’s premier burn treatment center, their numbers growing just as the medical staff caring for them shrank. The increasingly bleak economy had pushed thousands of Tunisian doctors to leave the country for better opportunities abroad, including half the burn unit’s senior specialists, and now there was far more work and far less money for the ones who had stayed behind.

But Dr. Jami and Dr. Gasri were still here, even if survival and resilience in the face of adversity, it often seemed, had earned them little more than the chance to survive yet more adversity.

Doing the rounds of their patients every morning in early October, the gaggle of doctors in scrubs and rubber clogs — many of them women, most of them bespectacled, and all of them tired — tended to pass the self-immolation patient’s room without comment.

Day after day, he lay in the dark as the small TV on the wall cast ghostly light on his face, curling and uncurling the unbandaged fingers on his right hand.

Changing his bandages was always an ordeal. When orderlies wheeled him back to his room after Dr. Jami’s scolding, he was groaning in pain.

“Slowly, slowly!” he shouted as they shifted him back onto the bed. This time, Dr. Jami’s office mate, Dr. Gasri, was there to greet him. She spoke softly.

“Help us help you get better soon,” she said.

He said nothing, except to ask a nurse for a new diaper.

Dr. Gasri had the graven, planed face of a Byzantine mosaic saint, the impression of piety reinforced by a daily uniform of white head scarf and white coat. More than a head shorter than Dr. Jami, she moved quietly down hallways where her office mate whirled and strode.

During morning rounds, Dr. Jami massaged Dr. Gasri’s shoulders, patted upper arms in apology as she squeezed past the nurses, whispered jokes in people’s ears. She blew brusque little kisses in greeting, thanks and farewell. Dr. Gasri just smiled.

When Dr. Gasri first joined the unit in its early years, she had barely been able to take it. She fainted the first time she saw and smelled the burned flesh under the bandages.

Still, it was rewarding work. Former patients often came back to thank her and pray for her, she said. Sometimes they brought gifts from their home regions: dates sweet as caramel from the city of Tozeur, or, once, a bottle of fresh milk a farmer had gotten up early to deliver all the way from impoverished Kasserine. By the time it reached Ben Arous, it had gone bad.

Now a former patient was waiting for her in the hall, there with not a gift but a plea.

Ahmed Yaakoubi had first been admitted in 2012 after burning his lower legs in a car accident. Recovery was supposed to take two years, but for nearly a decade now, he had been unable to come up with the money for regular bandage replacements and follow-up treatment. At 25, unable to fully control his lower legs, walking with a limp, he couldn’t find work.

Dr. Gasri smiled at him as they shook hands, but what she had to say was serious.

“I don’t want to lie to you,” she said. “Your legs are worn out. You can’t go on like this.”

He hadn’t changed the bandages that still swaddled both legs from the knee down for four days now, risking infection and maybe even amputation. The charity his neighbors pressed on him after the accident had tapered off four years later, when he started to walk again, though he said one neighbor who was a nurse kept selling him discounted bandages.

But years had turned to a decade, Tunisians’ budgets had gone from modest to minuscule, and now nobody was giving. He felt he was a burden on the neighbor, who could no longer conceal his impatience.

Ten dinars — about $3 — for each hospital visit, 20 for fresh bandages. At the pharmacy, some products he was supposed to use had tripled in price. And he was meant to change the wrappings every day.

“I can’t even afford to eat,” Mr. Yaakoubi told Dr. Gasri. “How can I buy new bandages?”

She told him to come back on Monday. Maybe she would have something for him then. She would ask a few relatives to chip in, and, probably, dip into her own pocket.

The burn unit’s founder and head, Amen Allah Messadi, had set up an association to raise money for patients who couldn’t afford physical therapy, pressure garments, laser therapy, prosthetics and bandages, which was to say most patients. The erratic public health care system instituted after the revolution covered only the formally employed, and by the World Bank’s estimate, nearly half of Tunisians eked out a living off the books.

But the association had paused its fund-raising when Covid-19 hit, and donations dried up as times got harder. These days, it was often the staff who gave, stuffing spare dinars into an envelope that Dr. Gasri kept to help those in need.

Money had never seemed so tight when Ben Ali, the former dictator, was in power. As the regime’s heavily state-controlled approach opened up to private investment, the country’s middle class was considered sound, its education and health care systems solid, its markets’ prices steady.

Yet citified coastal Tunisia was much wealthier than the country’s rural inland, the gap between the Ben Ali cronies who controlled much of the economy and the rest stoked resentment, and the young people who made up nearly a third of Tunisia’s 11 million people, like Mr. Bouazizi, were desperate for decent jobs. He had set himself on fire to protest police harassment after municipal officials confiscated the fruit he was selling and, according to his family, slapped him.

A decade of democracy brought elections, freedom of expression, a thriving press, a muscular civil society and independent institutions, all things the country had never had under French colonial rule or the two dictators who followed. But such intangibles meant little to the revolutionaries who had demanded better lives — materially, and fast.

The foreign debt and economic structure that the new Tunisia inherited from the old Tunisia — the country imported expensive things and exported cheap ones — would have made that a challenge even for experienced leadership, and Tunisia’s new leaders were green, more focused on a new constitution than fixing the economy.

Early governments ineptly tried to hire and borrow their way into prosperity; later governments all failed to overhaul the economy.

But‌ they might have avoided disaster ‌if ‌Western countries had stepped up with far more aid and debt relief, and if not for a run of bad luck: a financial crisis in Europe, a war in neighboring Libya and terrorist attacks by Islamic extremists that crippled the country’s vital tourism industry.

The attacks deepened suspicion of Ennahda, vitriol that eventually tarnished the whole Parliament that the Islamist party had dominated.

The decline of faith in democracy could be measured in voter turnout. Back in 2011, during the first parliamentary elections after the revolution, 92 percent of voters went to the polls. By 2019, when Mr. Saied was elected as an incorruptible-seeming outsider, just 41 percent bothered.

Or it could be measured in self-immolations. With every fresh economic downturn, more people set themselves on fire, and eight years into Tunisia’s democratic experiment, the doctors whom Dr. Messadi had worked hard to recruit started leaving the burn unit, one by one. That left only Dr. Messadi, Dr. Jami, Dr. Gasri and two senior specialists — one of them debating whether to move abroad.

In France, where Tunisian doctors often emigrated, the pay wasn’t much better, at least not at first. But the equipment, facilities, regulations, malpractice insurance and hours were, and many of the unit’s young doctors said they believed there would be less burnout and depression.

In France, there wouldn’t be a political crisis with no sure outcome, or an economy that seemed headed for collapse.

In July, Mr. Saied rammed through a new Constitution in a referendum, demoting Parliament to more of an advisory body and giving himself the kind of presidential powers no leader had enjoyed since Mr. Ben Ali. Western experts warned that the new charter would hasten the end of Tunisia’s democracy.

Then he urged people to vote for a new, revamped Parliament, one that did away with the influence of Ennahda and other political parties. But only about 11 percent of eligible voters showed up for the Dec. 17 elections.

For Dr. Gasri, the surge of hope she had felt during the revolution was still down there somewhere, though it felt harder to remember these days. She said she would understand if her son, who was studying for an architecture degree, left for a few years’ professional experience in Europe, but she wanted him to come back someday.

She would stay.

“If we all leave,” she said, “what will happen to Tunisia?”

To Dr. Jami, it felt like the revolution had been the beginning of a long plunge into darkness. She said she spent most days now in a funk of stomach pain, fatigue and stress.

“Get me a man,” she said, hunting not for a ring but a visa to a Western country. “Get me out of this country.” It was a joke, but if she didn’t have to support her elderly mother, she said, she would be trying to leave.

The latest blow to the doctors had come when Covid-19 hit the hospitals hard, forcing intensive care specialists to the front lines, even as the strapped Health Ministry had to cut residents’ pay.

It was amid the death and chaos that Mr. Saied mounted his power grab. Dr. Jami said she had been cautiously relieved at his intervention. Dr. Gasri was just hoping for the best.

Now it had been more than a year. The staff tried not to dwell on the fact that, with the economy the way it was, with Mr. Saied apparently unable to fix things, many more young men who had tried to self-immolate might come their way.

“It’s one of the best countries, but I want to leave because they destroyed it,” Dr. Jami said to one of the physical therapists during a rare break one afternoon. Her face was soft with tiredness. “They didn’t leave us with any reasons to stay.”

She meant the politicians they had voted for, dutifully, election after election. Soon after, she told Dr. Messadi she wanted to leave early, and went home.

Ahmed Ellali contributed reporting.

MY THOUGHTS

Financial poverty is a powerful thing and many governments or communities in humanity, through a recent heritage of white european domination don't have the culture to handle how to be poor. It is easier to flee to another country, to burn yourself alive, than to be fiscal poor.
Secondly, though more potently, democracy, the rule of the people always exist. The form of government doesn't matter, the people always rule, the question is, how do the people want to be ruled. Sometimes most folk accept someone with a crown. sometimes most folk accept people voted in. Sometimes most folk accept individuals in a minority populace among them deciding among themselves. but the people always rule and yes, even when a commonly called dictator is the head.
Lastly, or rarely stated, the fiscal wealth of the governments deemed wealthiest in humanity, all comes from slavery/genocides/wars/various levels of abuse. Countries like tunisia, who are larger than city states,  who are trying to make financial changes absent the ability to commit genocides/enslavements/wars/abuses to others especially, are always going to have a hard time. Yes, Germany or Japan or China didn't need so much of that abusive power to others but all of them were given money by the usa to prevent them from joining an enemy in the commonly called cold war. To many countries are deemed financially successful absent the truth to their fiscal profit admitted in media alongside.

In Amendment

The quote by the tunisian woman about getting a man for immigration is a great public admission, when it comes to the nature of male or female relationships concerning the immigrant community and those in the countries of wealth.

Article URL
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/03/world/middleeast/tunisia-democracy.html

I am Vanessa Guillen

My thoughts are after the transcript

Metrofocus video

https://www.thirteen.org/metrofocus/2023/01/metrofocus-january-3-2023-08ecys/

Full Documentary

https://www.univision.com/especiales/noticias/2022/i-am-vanessa-guillen

DESCRIPTION

In April 2020, U.S. Army Spc. Vanessa Guillén was murdered after reporting her assault that took place at Fort Hood in Texas.  In late November 2022, Cecily Aguilar, the only person charged in connection with Vanessa’s murder, pled guilty to four counts, including accessory to murder after the fact, and now faces up to 30 years in prison.  While this decision is a victory for Vanessa’s family, the problem of sexual harassment and assault, as well as retaliation for those reporting these crimes, remains a major issue in our armed forces.  A documentary, available to stream on Univision.com called #IamVanessaGuillen, covers the issue of sexual violence in our military and tells Vanessa’s story, including how her situation inspired countless others to share their own stories of abuse and push for change in the military.  Joining us to discuss the film are producer and director Andrea Patiño Contreras; and Karina López, a military sexual assault survivor.

TRANSCRIPT

 TONIGHT, A MAJOR UPDATE ON THE MURDER OF VANESSA GUILLEN, THE ARMY SOLDIER WHOSE DEATH INSPIRED THOUSANDS TO SHARE THEIR STORY OF THE SEXUAL VIOLENCE IN THE MILITARY.

WE REVISIT, THE CASE, THE DOCUMENTARY TELLING THE STORY.

'METROFOCUS' STARTS RIGHT NOW.

♪

> THIS IS 'METROFOCUS,' WITH RAFAEL PI ROMAN, JACK FORD, AND JENNA FLANAGAN.

> 'METROFOCUS' IS MADE POSSIBLE BY -- SUE AND EDGAR WACHENHEIM III, THE PETER G. PETERSON AND JOAN GANZ COONEY FUND, BERNARD AND DENISE SCHWARTZ, BARBARA HOPE ZUCKERBERG, THE AMBROSE MONELL FOUNDATION.

AND BY --

> GOOD EVENING, AND WELCOME TO 'METROFOCUS.'

I'M JENNA FLANAGAN.

JUST A FEW MONTHS AGO WE BROUGHT TO YOU POWERFUL STORY OF VANESSA GUILLEN, THE U.S. ARMY SOLDIER MURDERED AFTER REPORTING THE SEXUAL HARASSMENT SHE ENDURED AT FT. HOOD IN TEXAS.

HER DEATH INSPIRED COUNTLESS OTHERS TO SHARE THEIR STORY OF SEXUAL VIOLENCE AND PUSH FOR CHANGE IN THE MILITARY.

PROSECUTORS SAY GUILLEN'S KILLER TOOK HIS OWN LIFE BEFORE HE COULD BE BROUGHT TO JUSTICE.

ONLY ONE PERSON, THE KILLER'S GIRLFRIEND, WAS CHARGED WITH A CRIME IN THIS CASE E CECILY AGUILAR.

SHE ADMITTED TO HELPING DISPOSE OF GUILLEN'S BODY.

SHE FACES UP TO 30 YEARS IN PRISON.

WHILE THIS IS A VICTORY FOR VANESSA'S FAMILY, THE PROBLEM OF SEXUAL HARASSMENT AND ASSAULT AS WELL AS RETALIATION FOR THOSE REPORTING THESE CRIMES REMAINS A MAJOR PROBLEM AND ISSUE IN OUR ARMED FORCES.

THE DOCUMENTARY ' #I AM VANESSA GUILLEN' EXAMINES THESE ISSUES AND IS STREAMING ON UNIVISION.COM.

HERE'S A QUICK LOOK FOLLOWED BY MY INTERVIEW WITH THE FILM'S DIRECTOR AND ONE THOSE IN THE FILM.

IT WAS A VERY NERVOUS VOICE.

SHE SAID SOMETHING HAPPENED AND NO ONE WAS BELIEVING HER.

SHE DID NOT KNOW, AND SHE WAS CON CON CON CONTEMPLATING HURTING HERSELF.

I DIDN'T KNOW HOW TO FEEL SAFE.

I DIDN'T KNOW ANYTHING.

A PART OF ME DIED BECAUSE SOMEBODY DECIDED TO DO THIS TO ME, AND NOBODY WANTED TO LISTEN.

I REPORTED IT AND I FOUGHT AND I'VE GONE THROUGH THE TRAUMA AND THE RETALIATION THAT I FACED AND NOW YOU HAVE A MISSING SOLDIER THAT WAS HARASSED.

I WROTE MY STORY AND PUT MY PICTURE BESIDES VANESSA BECAUSE I WAS VANESSA.

I AM VANESSA.

I AM VANESSA GUILLEN IS A HASHTAG GOING VIRAL HIGHLIGHTING SEXUAL ASSAULT AND HARASMENT WITHIN THE MILITARY.

AT FT. HOOD, A SOLDIER GONE MISSING.

THEY CREATED AN ENVIRONMENT THAT CONTRIBUTED TO SEXUAL ASSAULT, EVEN MURDER.

THE ENVIRONMENT AT FT. HOOD WAS PERMISSIVE.

WE'RE JUST LIKE ANY ORGANIZATION.

WE'RE ALL ABOUT MAKING OURSELF BETTER.

BECAUSE THE MESSAGE AND CULTURE IN THE MILITARY HAS BEEN CLEAR -- SHUT UP, SUCK IT UP, AND DON'T ROCK THE BOAT.

IN THE CIVILIAN WORLD, PROSECUTORS MAKE THE DECISION TO PROSECUTE, AND THE MILITARY NONLAWYER COMMANDERS MAKE THAT DECISION.

90% OF SEX OFFENDER IN THE MILITARY WILL NEVER BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE.

AFTER 246 YEART TIME FOR CONGRESS TO GIVE THE MEN AND WOMEN SERVING OUR NATION A JUSTICE SYSTEM WORTHY OF SACRIFICES.

YOU MEMBERS OF CONGRESS, YOU NEED TO PASS THIS LEGISLATION.

JUSTICE!

WHEN DO WE WANT IT?

NOW!

I REALLY FEEL LIKE WE'RE ON THE VERGE OF SUCCESS.

WE'RE GOING TO REFORM THIS SYSTEM AND WE'RE GOING TO GET TO A BETTER PLACE.

THE WOMEN VETERANS YOU ENCOUNTER HAVE THE ABILITY TO ADAPT AND OVERCOME BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT WE HAVE BEEN TAUGHT.

BUT HERE'S THE THING -- YOU'VE CREATED A WOMAN WHO IS UNSTOPPABLE.

JOINING ME NOW TO DISCUSS THIS POWERFUL NEW DOCUMENTARY IS THE FILM'S DIRECTOR AND PRODUCER, ANDREA CONTRAERAS, THANK YOU FOR JOINING US.

I'D LIKE TO INTRODUCE KARINA LOPEZ, A SURVEVETERAN AND SURVI THE SEXUAL ASSAULT.

SHE'S THE CREATOR OF THE VIRAL HASHTAG #I AM VANESSA GUILLEN, WHICH INSPIRED THE FILM'S TITLE.

LADIES, THANK YOU TO P 'METROFOCUS.'

THANK YOU FOR HAVING US.

ABSOLUTELY.

I WANT TO START BY ASKING ANDREA, YOU, THE QUESTION I ASK ALL DIRECTORS, AND THAT WAS WHAT MOTIVATED TO YOU CREATE THIS DOCUMENTARY.

WHAT WAS, YOU FELT, THE NARRATIVE THAT WAS NOT ALREADY OUT THERE?

SO, DURING 2020, OUR TEAM AT UNIVISION HAD BEEN COVERING THE DISAPPEARANCE AND MURDER OF VANESSA GUILLEN, WHO WENT MISSING AT THE FT. HOOD BASE IN APRIL OF 2020, AND LATER HER BODY WAS FOUND.

DURING THAT REPORTING, THE FALLING ONES, WE HEARD FROM A COUPLE OF CASES, KARINA INCLUDED.

SHE REACHED OUT TO US TELLING US HER STORY, AND AT THAT POINT IN THE FALL OF 2020, WE HEARD FROM HER, AND IN DECEMBER OF 2020, I DECIDED TO FLY DOWN TO MEET HER.

AND ONCE WE MET, I KNEW RIGHT AWAY THAT WE -- THERE WAS A REALLY IMPORTANT STORY TO BE TOLD.

I WAS VERY STRUCK BY KARINA'S -- I TELL HER THIS ALL THE TIME -- BY HER INCREDIBLE ABILITY TO ARTICULATE HER FEELINGS AND REALLY EXPLAIN TO ME WHAT THAT WAS THROUGH AND KIND OF VERY COMPLEX -- YOU KNOW, IT'S A VERY TRAGIC SITUATION, BUT ALSO HAS REALLY DEEP AND GRAVE CONSEQUENCES FOR MENTAL HEALTH, YOU KNOW, AND KARINA, THE WAY SHE ARTICULATED THAT TO ME STRUCK ME.

SO I CAME BACK FROM THAT TRIP AND KNEW THERE WAS A REALLY IMPORTANT STORY TO TELL, NOT JUST ABOUT SEXUAL VIOLENCE AND THE LACK OF ACCOUNTABILITY, BUT ALSO THE HUGE IMPACT AND LACK OF JUSTICE HAS ON SURVIVES.

THAT'S WHY I WANTED TO TELL THIS STORY.

FRONT AND SENTER THE STORY OF SUR SURVIVES.

KARINA IS THE MAIN BUT THERE'S ALSO OTHERS.

AND ALSO TELL THE STORY OF THE LEGISLATIVE CHANGES THAT TOOK PLACE BECAUSE OF VANESSA'S CASE.

IN PART BECAUSE OF KARINA'S HASHTAG, MANY CAME FORWARD.

MANY CHANGES TOOK PLACE.

THERE'S SO MUCH MORE TO DO, BUT SOME THINGS HAPPENED THAT WERE PRISS UNPRECEDENTED.

KARINA, I WANT TO BRING YOU IN AND GET YOUR TAKE ON WHAT WAS ABOUT ABOUT VANESSA'S STORY THAT RESONATED AND MADE IT CLEAR NOW IS THE TIME TO SPEAK UP?

I THINK WHEN I ORIGINALLY HEARD ABOUT HER CASE ALL I HAD KNOWN IS SHE WAS MISSING AND THE DAYS KEPT GOING WHERE YOU WOULD SEE HER FACE AND YOU WOULDN'T -- THERE WASN'T REALLY AN EXPLANATION AS TO WHY SHE WAS MISSING.

WHEN I TWRAEACTUALLY LOOKED UP STORY, SO MANY THINGS DIDN'T MAKE SENSE.

I WAS LIKE, THERE HAS TO BE MORE COVERAGE.

A COUPLE DAYS INTO IT I REALIZED I DIDN'T LOOK AT THE SPANISH SECTION OF THE NEWS AND MAYBE I'LL FIND SOMETHING THERE, AND THAT'S WHEN I -- WHEN I HEARD HER MOM SAY THAT SHE WAS SEXUALLY HARASSED AND NOW SHE'S MISSING AND SHE WANTS ANSWERS.

AND TO ME IT FELT LIKE A TON OF BRICKS JUST FELL ON TOP OF ME BECAUSE THIS WASN'T BEING SAID, YOU KNOW, IN THE ENGLISH MEDIA.

AND IT JUST MADE ME SO ANGRY.

I REMEMBER JUST SO MANY EMOTIONS, AND I STARTED, YOU KNOW, LOOKING AT EVERYBODY.

I STARTED TRYING TO GET IN TOUCH WITH THE RIGHT PEOPLE THAT COULD LISTEN AND COULD UNDERSTAND THAT THIS -- YOU KNOW, WHAT HAPPENED TO HER WAS NOT AN INDIVIDUAL THING.

IT HAPPENED ALL OF THE TIME AND, YOU KNOW, MORE SPECIFICALLY, MY CASE AND HOW I HAD JUST LEFT AND I WAS FORCED OUT OF MY CAREER BECAUSE I WAS SPEAKING UP ON THIS, AND IT HAD GONE SO BAD AND CHAOTIC THAT, YOU KNOW, CONGRESS HAD TO GET INVOLVED IN MY CASE.

SO IT WAS ONE OF THOSE THINGS THAT, YOU KNOW, I WAS ANGRY, I WAS SENDING, YOU KNOW, THE FAMILY -- MORE SPECIFICALLY THE SISTERS, YOU KNOW, MY STORE, AND IT JUST, YOU KNOW, WASN'T REACHING THEM, WHICH I UNDERSTAND, YOU KNOW, WHY.

THERE WAS PROBABLY SO MANY MESSAGES COMING IN THERE IN BOXES AND TO THEM.

AND YOU KNOW, I -- I WAS LIKE, OKAY, I'M GOING TO PUT IT ON FACEBOOK, AND I'M GOING TO COME FORWARD AND SEE WHAT HAPPENS WHEN IT'S OUT THERE.

YOU KNOW, BECAUSE THIS ISN'T -- YOU KNOW, MANY PEOPLE DON'T UNDERSTAND -- ESPECIALLY CIVILIANS DON'T UNDERSTAND WHY YOU CAN'T COME FORWARD, AND YOU THINK THAT WHEN SOMETHING TRAUMATIC HAPPENS LIKE THAT THAT YOU'RE SAFE IF YOU GO TO THE RIGHT PEOPLE.

HOWEVER, THAT'S REALLY NOT THE CASE.

YOU CAN HAVE ALL THE RIGHT PEOPLE, AND THOSE RIGHT PEOPLE, THOSE DOORS ARE SHUT ON THEM TO PROTECT YOU.

AND THE RETALIATION THAT COMES IS -- IS -- IS HORRIFYING SO, YOU MIGHT AS WELL JUST STAY QUIET AND JUST ENDURE EVERYTHING IN SILENCE.

YOU KNOW, IT'S -- IT'S A VERY SCARY THING TO GO THROUGH, AND I THINK PEOPLE NEEDED TO UNDERSTAND THAT AND SEE THAT MORE SPECIFICALLY THROUGH MY STORY, BECAUSE I CAME FORWARD AND I HAD MOMENTS WHERE, SHOULD I HAVE COME FORWARD?

MAYBE I WOULD STILL HAVE MY CAREER IF I DIDN'T, AND I WOULD JUST GET MENTAL HEALTH SERVICES BEHIND THE SCENES, BEHIND, YOU KNOW -- BEHIND EVERYONE'S BACK AND JUST TOOK CARE OF IT THAT WAY.

YOU KNOW, WHO KNOWS?

ANDREA, I WANT TO GO BACK TO YOU, BECAUSE WE DID SHOW OF COURSE A CLIP FROM THE FILM, AND WE ALWAYS DEFINITELY WANT PEOPLE TO WATCH THE FULL DOCUMENTARY, BUT CAN YOU TELL US, JUST FILL IN FOR PEOPLE WHO MIGHT NOT BE AWARE OF VANESSA'S STORY, WHO WAS SHE, AND WHAT DO WE NOW KNOW HAPPENED TO HER?

YEAH, SO VANESSA WAS A LATINA SOLDIER.

SHE WAS STATIONED AT FT. HOOD IN TEXAS.

SHE STARTED, AND SHE WAS VERY EXCITED TO JOIN THE MILITARY.

HER FAMILY SAYS SHE WAS JUST VERY PROUD TO SERVE.

HER FAMILY IS AN IMMIGRANT FAMILY.

THEY'RE MEXICANS, OF MEXICAN DES DESCENT, AND I THINK SHE SAW THIS AS AN OPPORTUNITY TO SERVE HER COUNTRY AND WAS JUST VERY PROUD.

AT SOME POINT, VANESSA CAME HOME AND HER MOM NOTICED SHE WAS A LITTLE OFF, WASN'T SLEEPING, JUST SEEMED REALLY OFF TO HER, AND WHEN SHE ASKED HER WHAT WAS HAPPENING, VANESSA WOULDN'T TELL HER.

EVENTUALLY SHE TOLD HER SHE WAS BEING SEXUALLY HARASSED BY A SARGENT, BUT SHE DIDN'T WANT TO REPORT IT BECAUSE SHE WAS AFRAID OF RETALIATION.

FAST FORWARD A FEW MONTHS, AND VANESSA GOES MISSING IN APRIL OF 2020.

INITIALLY -- YOU KNOW, THE FAMILY KNEW RIGHT AWAY THERE WAS SOMETHING WRONG WITH THAT, BECAUSE THEY WERE A VERY TIGHT KNIT FAMILY AND NOT HEARING FROM VANESSA WAS JUST REALLY OFF TO THEM.

THEY WENT TO THE BASE.

THEY WERE NOT GETTING A LOT OF ANSWERS.

THEY WERE, YOU KNOW, KIND OF KEPT -- PUSHED AWAY IN SOME WAYS.

BUT THEY WERE VERY, VERY PERSISTENT.

THEY WERE JUST DEMANDING ANSWERS.

AND EVENTUALLY, HER BODY WAS FOUND, AND WE KNOW THAT SHE WAS MURDERED BY SOMEONE IN HER UNIT.

WE KNOW THAT HE WASN'T THE PERSON THAT WAS HARASSING HER NECESSARILY, BUT THERE'S STILL A LOT OF ANSWERS THAT NEED TO BE -- TO BE CLEARED OUT, AND THE FAMILY'S STILL WAITING FOR A LOT OF ANSWERS.

AND THROUGHOUT THAT SEARCH, YOU KNOW, WITH KARINA'S HASHTAG WHEN VANESSA WAS STILL MISSING THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE CAME FORWARD WITH THEIR OWN STORY OF HARASMENT AS WELL.

KARINA, I WANT TO GO BACK AND GET YOU TO EXPLAIN A LITTLE BIT FOR SO MANY OF US WHO ARE CIVILIAN, WHAT IS THAT MILITARY CULTURE LIKE THAT PUSHES, MAYBE COERCES, MAYBE EVEN DEMANDS THAT WOMEN WHO ARE SERVING REMAIN QUIET ON AN ISSUE LIKE THIS?

THAT'S THE QUESTION I GET FROM A LOT OF PEOPLE, AND I THINK -- I DON'T THINK THAT THERE'S A REALLY GOOD ANSWER TO IT.

I THINK, FOR EXAMPLE, BEFORE I JOINED MY FAMILY SAT DOWN AND TALKED TO ME ABOUT WHAT IT'S LIKE TO BE A WOMAN AND WORK IN A MALE FILLED INDUSTRY, AND THEN ME AS A MINORITY AS A WOMAN, ESPECIALLY BEING 19 YEARS OLD, BECAUSE I WAS 19 AT THE TIME.

AND THEY WENT THROUGH, YOU KNOW, DIFFERENT THINGS THAT COULD BE ISSUES.

YOU KNOW, THEY TOLD ME THAT I WAS VERY NAIVE, I WAS VERY YOUNG, AND YOU KNOW, THEY WANTED TO MAKE SURE I WAS SET UP FOR SUCCESS WITH KNOWING THINGS LIKE THIS.

I REMEMBER MY FAMILY SHOWED ME THE LIVEINA JOHNSON CASE AND I REMEMBER THINKING, YOU KNOW, THEY'RE STILL FIGHTING FOR THIS.

BUT THAT WAS THE ONLY CASE I REMEMBERED.

BUT THE STATISTICS OF THAT HAPPENING TO ME WERE PRETTY LOW.

HER FAMILY IS STILL FIGHTING FOR ANSWERS.

THEY'RE GOING TO GET THOSE ANSWERS.

I WAS VERY I WAS VERY NAIVE, VERY -- I HAD A LOT OF TRUST IN THE SYSTEM.

I WAS LIKE, I'M GOING TO DO THIS.

I'M GOING THE GO SERVE MY COUNTRY.

I'M SUPEREXCITED ABOUT IT.

THERE'S GOING TO BE A LOT OF OPPORTUNITIES.

I'M NERVOUS.

AND YOU KNOW, I REMEMBER BEING IN BASE, GOING THROUGH I.T., GOING THROUGH THE MILITARY PROCESS.

I REMEMBER JUST HOW MANY FEMALES PULLED ME ASIDE AND GAVE ME ADVICE OR TOLD ME TO STAY AWAY FROM A SPECIFIC PERSON OR, YOU KNOW, JUST SOMETHING THAT KIND OF -- THEY WERE DOING THE BEST THEY COULD TO GIVE ME ADVICE, BUT, YOU KNOW, TO A 19-YEAR-OLD, A 20-YEAR-OLD, YOU'RE JUST LIKE, THAT'S SO WEIRD THAT THAT PERSON HAD TO COME AND TELL ME AND GIVE ME THAT ADVICE IN THE FIRST PLACE.

I REMEMBER HAVING THIS REALLY, YOU KNOW, BEING SEXUALLY HARASSED IN ONE SPECIFIC INCIDENT IN KOREA, AND I DIDN'T KNOW WHAT TO DO.

I FELT LIKE I WAS, YOU KNOW, SUFFOCATING AND I WAS BLOCKED INTO A KITCHEN.

AND I REMEMBER GOING TO AN NCO, A FEMALE NCO AND I TOLD HER HOW I FELT BECAUSE I DIDN'T KNOW WHAT I WAS FEELING.

AND SHE TOLD ME -- SHE GAVE ME ADVICE AND SHE WAS LIKE, YOU KNOW -- SHE WAS BACKING ME UP THE FULL TIME AND TOLD ME HOW TO HANDLE SITUATIONS LIKE THAT, AND SHE MADE ME CONFRONT HIM AND TELL HIM THAT WAS UNACCEPTABLE AND JUST STAND UP FOR MYSELF.

SO WHEN THIS HAPPENED ON FT.

HOOD AND I THOUGHT THAT I COULD DO EXACTLY THAT, THAT I WAS SHOWN HOW TO DO IT AND I WOULD GET HELP IN MY SITUATION, AND I WAS INSTEAD REDIRECTED AND GUIDED TO NOT GET THAT HELP AND INSTEAD TO JUST STAY QUIET ABOUT THAT BECAUSE THE BASE DIDN'T -- THE UNIT DIDN'T NEED EYES ON -- OR EXTRA ATTENTION ON THE UNIT.

I KIND OF FELT ASHAMED.

I FELT LIKE I COULDN'T STAND UP FOR MYSELF.

I HAD ALWAYS BEEN THAT 19-YEAR-OLD THAT WAS LIKE, IF THIS EVER HAPPENS I'M GOING TO STAND UP FOR MYSELF, I'M GOING TO FIGHT BACK.

NO ONE'S GOING TO BE ABLE TO DO THAT.

THAT STARTED THAT INNER WAR WITH MYSELF WHERE I DIDN'T -- I FAILED MYSELF, BECAUSE HERE I WAS, YOU KNOW, LETTING THEM WIN AND INTIMIDATE ME AND KEEP ME SILENT, AND I FELT UNSAFE, AND THEN ON TOP OF THAT I DIDN'T KNOW HOW TO -- MY FAMILY MEMBERS WERE THE ONES WHO TOLD ME ALL OF THIS, SO THEN I FELT COMPLETELY SHATTERED, BECAUSE THAT 19-YEAR-OLD GIRL WHO WAS TELLING THEM, I WILL STAND UP AND FIGHT FOR MYSELF AND I'LL DO WHAT'S RIGHT, AND, YOU KNOW, THEY'LL HAVE TO HELP ME.

NOW IT'S THE OPPOSITE.

SO WHEN SOMETHING HAPPENS LIKE THAT, YOU GET -- IT'S THE SUBJECT THAT'S EXTREMELY HEAVY.

SO EVEN IF YOU DO TELL THE RIGHT PEOPLE, THEY DON'T KNOW REALLY HOW TO APPROACH THE SITUATION AND THEN ON TOP OF THAT IF YOU GO TO THE WRONG PEOPLE, THE WRONG PEOPLE DON'T WANT TO YOU ACKNOWLEDGE IT AT ALL.

IT'S YOUR FAULT AND THAT'S IT.

EVEN WHEN I STARTED RECEIVING MENTAL HEALTH SERVICES, I HAD BEEN TOLD IT WAS MY FAULT.

YOU START REALLY BATTLING YOURSELF, AND I THINK ULTIMATELY THAT'S HOW THEY KIND OF WIN, BECAUSE THEY TARGET -- THEY MAKE YOU QUESTION YOURSELF.

YOU'RE NOT QUESTIONING THEM.

IF YOU'RE QUESTIONING THEM YOU'RE LIKE, NO, I KNOW WHAT HAPPENED TO ME, AND THAT'S WRONG.

BUT ONCE YOU HEAR IT ENOUGH AND YOU'RE IN THAT FRAGILE STATE OF MAYBE THIS WASN'T -- YOU KNOW, MAYBE THIS WASN'T THEIR FAULT.

MAYBE THIS WAS MY FAULT.

WHAT DID I DO WRONG?

YOU'RE RETRACKING AND GOING THROUGH THE PROCESS OF, OKAY, IT HAPPENED HERE, BUT WHAT DID I DO THAT LED ME TO BE PUT INTO THE SITUATION?

WELL, IT'S SOUNDING A LITTLE BIT LIKE PERHAPS ISSUES OF HIERARCHY AND CHAIN OF COMMAND ARE ALSO COMING INTO PLAY WITH YOU AS A 19-YEAR-OLD RECRUIT.

FOR THE NONSERVING CIVILIAN AUDIENCE, JUST VERY QUICKLY CAN YOU JUST LET EVERYBODY KNOW, SO THEY FULLY UNDERSTAND, WHAT EXACT LY IS AN NCO?

THE NCO IS BASICALLY THE -- THEY'RE KNOWN AS THE BACKBONE OF THE ARMY, OR THE MILITARY IN GENERAL.

THEY HAVE SERVED FOR SOME TIME.

THEY'VE GONE THROUGH THE BASIC LEADERSHIP SCHOOLS, AND THEY HAVE THAT RANK.

SO THEY'RE THE ONES THAT ARE PUT IN CHARGE OF THE LOWER ENLISTED SOLDIERS SOME BASICALLY THEY ARE A FORM OF LEADERSHIP.

THEY ARE SOMEONE YOU REPORT TO AND HELP YOU --

OKAY, AND DOES THAT STAND FOR SOMETHING?

I JUST WANT TO MAKE SURE PEOPLE ARE LIKE, OH, THAT'S WHAT NCO IS.

YES, NONCOMMISSIONED OFFICER.

MY SECOND QUESTION IS ALSO -- YOU DO KEEP GOING BACK TO YOUR AGE, AND ONE THING I THINK EVERYONE CAN RELATE TO IS BEING A 19-YEAR-OLD AND THINK YOU UNDERSTAND BUT NOT FULLY UNDERSTANDING THE WORLD YOU'RE STEPPING INTO.

HOW LONG AFTER YOU GOT TO FT.

HOOD DID YOUR ASSAULT HAPPEN?

AND I KNOW THAT YOU SORT OF TOUCHED ON IT, BUT AS MUCH AS YOU CAN SHARE, CAN YOU SHARE WITH US WHAT HAPPENED?

YES.

SO I JOINED WHEN I WAS 19, JUST TO CLARIFY, AND I HAD SEEN, YOU KNOW, JUST THE SEXUAL HARASSMENT FROM 19, 20, YOU KNOW, THOSE AGES.

WHEN I WENT TO FT. HOOD I WAS 21 ALREADY, AND I HAD ARRIVED LATE JULY.

SO I WENT THROUGH THE PROCESS OF -- THEY CALL IT -- IT'S BASICALLY FOR CIVILIAN TERMS ONBOARDING WHEN YOU FIRST GET THERE, THEY HAVE TO IN-PROCESS YOU.

AND I REMEMBER SENDING MY MOM A TEXT MESSAGE, RIGHT, THAT FIRST DAY, AND I REMEMBER TELLING HER I FELT LIKE A PIECE OF MEAT.

I REMEMBER TEXTING HER AND TELLING HER I WAS CRYING, BECAUSE SHE WAS LIKE, MAYBE YOU'RE GOING TO LOVE IT.

I WAS LIKE, I DIDN'T WANT TO GO TO TEXAS, BUT WHATEVER.

I'M SO FAR AWAY FROM HOME.

I WANTED TO GO TO FT. BRAGG AND BE CLOSER TO MY FAMILY AFTER BEING AWAY FROM THEM FOR A YEAR.

I'M YOUNG.

I WANT TO BE CLOSE TO MY FAMILY.

THAT FIRST DAY WAS FRUSTRATING FOR ME.

I FELT LIKE EVERY TIME I ASKED A QUESTION THEY WERE SETTING ME UP FOR FAILURE.

THEY THOUGHT IT WAS REALLY FUNNY THAT I WAS ASKING THESE QUESTIQUE QUESTIONS SO I WOULDN'T BREAK ANY RULES BECAUSE THEY WERE GIVING ME THE COMPLETE OPPOSITE ANSWER.

IT WAS LIKE YOU WERE BACKED AGAINST A WALL AND I DIDN'T KNOW HOW TO BELIEVE OR DIDN'T.

THAT WAS EXTREMELY FRUSTRATING.

ON TOP OF THAT IT WAS THE COMMENTS AND THINGS LIKE THAT THEY WOULD MAKE.

THAT WAS BEFORE I GOT TO MY UNIT.

I WAS SEXUAL ASSAULTED IN SEPTEMBER, SO I HAD BEEN THERE TECHNICALLY ONE FULL MONTH AND A COUPLE WEEKS.

BUT ALSO WITH THAT, TOO, YOU KNOW, ONE THING I ALWAYS TELL PEOPLE IS, WE GROW UP WITH OUR PARENTS TELLING US DON'T TALK TO SPRAI STRANGERS, DON'T GET IN THE CAR WITH STRANGERS, BUT IN THE MILITARY, YOU DO WHAT YOU'RE TOLD, SO THERE WERE A LOT OF TIMES THAT I WAS IN A CAR WITH A STRANGER, BECAUSE I -- YOU KNOW, SOMEBODY WHO WAS SUPPOSED TO PICK ME UP DIDN'T SHOW UP, SO THEY SENT SOMEONE ELSE.

SO TECHNICALLY I'M GETTING IN THIS CAR ON A BASE WHERE I HAVE NO IDEA WHERE ANYTHING IS OR WHO ANYONE IS AND THEY'RE DRIVING ME AND IT'S LIKE, OH, I NEVER MET THIS PERSON IN MY LIFE.

SO IT KIND OF GOES INTO THAT KIND OF SITUATION WHERE IT'S LIKE, WE'RE TOLD OUR WHOLE ENTIRE LIVES NOT TO GET INTO CARS WITH STRANGERS AND THINGS LIKE THAT, BUT THEN THAT'S WHAT WE DO IN THE MILITARY.

AND BEING THAT YOUNG AND STILL, YOU KNOW, DOING WHAT YOU'RE TOLD, YOU THINK THAT WHAT YOU'RE BEING TOLD IS LAW AND YOU HAVE TO DO IT.

SO THERE'S A LOT OF INTIMIDATION THAT COMES INTO WHEN YOU'RE TELLING YOUNGER SOLDIERS, HEY, YOU HAVE TO DO THIS OR YOU HAVE TO BE HERE AND IN A LOT OF CASES AND A LOT OF STORIES, THAT, ESPECIALLY FROM THE SURVIVES THAT CAME FORWARD WITH THE HASHTAG, THEY'LL TELL YOU, I WAS DOING WHAT THEY TOLD ME TO DO BECAUSE I THOUGHT THAT'S WHAT WAS EXPECTED FROM ME.

THERE'S A LOT THAT GOES INTO BEING YOUNG.

I HAVE HAD SURVIVES TELL ME THAT THEY WERE 25, 26 EVEN, AND STILL, IT'S THAT -- IT'S JUST WHEN YOU COME INTO THE MILITARY, EVERYTHING IS COMPLETELY BRAND NEW BECAUSE IT'S NOT THE CIVILIAN WORLD.

IT IS ABOUT AGING BUT IT'S THAT INTIMIDATION FACTOR WHERE YOU HAVE SOMEBODY SUPERIOR TO YOU OR TELLING YOU OR GIVING YOU AN ORDER THAT IF YOU DON'T FOLLOW THAT ORDER YOU COULD GET IN TROUBLE.

IT'S ALSO, I DON'T WANT TO MAKE THIS PERSON UPSET, BECAUSE THIS PERSON LEGIT HOLDS ALL OF THE POWER FOR MY CAREER.

MY CAREER PROGRESSION AND MY REPUTATION AS WELL.

BECAUSE IF I DON'T DO THIS, THEN THAT PERSON'S GOING TO GO AND TELL EVERYONE THAT I'M A BAD SOLDIER AND I DON'T LISTEN AND I'M DISRESPECTFUL.

IN MY CASE, YOU SEE THAT WHERE IT'S LIKE, EVERY TIME I WOULD COME ALL OF A SUDDEN SOMETHING WOULD COME OVER MY HEAD AND SAY, YOU WANT TO GO TO I.G.? HERE'S THIS.

WE'RE GOING TO SAY YOU DID THIS.

IT'S LIKE, WAIT A MINUTE, WHY ARE YOU BRINGING THIS UP AT THIS EXACT MOMENT WHEN I'M TRYING TO GET HELP?

IT SILENCES YOU AGAIN AND YOU JUST KEEP GOING ON WITH YOUR LIFE, UNABLE TO LOOK AT YOURSELF IN THE MIRROR AND REALIZE, YOU'RE JUST STUCK.

WELL, ANDREA, I WANT TO BRING YOU BACK IN.

WE ONLY HAVE ABOUT A MINUTE LEFT, BUT YOU DID MENTION ABOUT SOME OF THE LEGISLATIVE CHANGES THAT WERE BEGINNING TO TAKE PLACE.

CAN YOU JUST LET US KNOW WHAT IS POTENTIALLY ON THE TABLE TO HAPPEN TO ADDRESS SOME OF THESE ISSUES?

YEAH.

THE BIGGEST CHANGE THAT HAPPENED LAST YEAR -- ONE OF THE MAIN ISSUES IN THE MILITARY, GOING BACK TO KARINA'S STORY IS THAT BASICALLY THE MILITARY -- YOU KNOW, LIKE, CHECKS THEMSELVES.

YOU HAVE -- IF YOUR CASE IS IN THE CHAIN OF COMMAND, IT'S YOUR COMMANDER WHO DECIDES WHETHER THE CASE OF ASSAULT OR HA HARASSMENT IS PROSECUTED.

CHAIN OF COMMAND IS NONLAWYERS SO IT'S NOT AN UNBIASSED BROSS.

FOR DECADES ACTIVISTS HAD BEEN WANTING TO TAKE THOSE CASES OUT OF THE CHAIN OF COMMAND TO A BODY THAT WOULD REGULATE, AND THAT WAS ACHIEVED LAST YEAR FOR THE FIRST TIME, AND IT'S A HUGE CHANGE.

IT'S GOING TO TAKE A FEW YEARS FOR IT TO BE IMPLEMENTED.

BUT THERE ARE OTHER THINGS THAT STILL NEED TO CHANGE.

FOR INSTANCE, THOSE -- THE CASES THAT WE'RE TAKING OUT OF THE CHAIN OF COMMAND WERE SEXUAL ASSAULT BE AND MURDER AND OTHER REALLY GRAVE ASSAULTS.

BUT FOR INSTANCE SEXUAL HARASSMENT WAS NOT TAKEN OUT OF THE CHAIN OF COMMAND, AND THAT IS VERY CONTRADICTORY BECAUSE SEXUAL HARASSMENT IS A HIGH INDICATOR OF SEXUAL ASSAULT, RIGHT?

SO IF THE COMMANDERS ARE STILL HANDLING THOSE CASES THEN IT KIND OF FEELS LIKE A BIT OF A CONTRADICTION.

LIKE, PEOPLE ARE NOT GOING TO FEEL COMFORTABLE.

THAT'S A HUGE CHANGE.

I THINK CULTURE NEEDS TO CHANGE AS WELL, AND THAT'S OBVIOUSLY GOING TO TAKE MANY, MANY YEARS.

OKAY.

IMPORTANT STEPS.

I DON'T MEAN TO CUT YOU OFF, BUT WE HAVE RUN OUT OF TIME.

I WANT TO THANK YOU BOTH SO MUCH FOR JOINING US.

THE FILM IS ' #I AM VANESSA GUILLEN'. YOU CAN STREAM IT ON UNIVISION.COM.

AND OF COURSE I WANT TO THANK THE FILM'S PRODUCER AND DIRECTOR, ANDREA.

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR JOINING US.

AND OF COURSE KARINA, ALSO, THANK YOU FOR JOINING US, AND THANK YOU FOR SHARING YOUR STORY.

SO THANK YOU BOTH.

THANKS FOR HAVING US.

THANK YOU FOR HAVING ME.

AND ANDREA.

> 'METROFOCUS' IS MADE POSSIBLE BY -- SUE AND EDGAR WACHENHEIM III, THE PETER G. PETERSON AND JOAN GANZ COONEY FUND, BERNARD AND DENISE SCHWARTZ, BARBARA HOPE ZUCKERBERG, THE AMBROSE MONELL FOUNDATION.

MY THOUGHTS

I recall years ago a village voice article about women in the NYPD with tons of accusations. 

The woman in the metrofocus video said she was 18 and naive, but when I was 12 I knew the military or nypd  were not organizations for a black person to be in. Maybe I simply had honest parents but it bothers me that the woman abused was told by relatives the environment of the military was abusive to women and she thought the military would be this mythological knights of the round table place. 

I am not trying to suggest women should be abused by men in any environment . But, in all earnest, women who join organizations that should be commonly known as abusive to women, are fools to me. It is the same with Blacks, male or female. I don't have the desire to give lenience to a person, in my opinion, who should know better. Women, stop joining the military, that is the answer. 

I have always called feces of bull on Black people who feel joining organizations that are clearly anti black is the best way to change them. I have always felt that is a stupid thing to do and has no proof of being a historically valid strategy. The NYPD is still anti black, the military, anti black, the federal government anti black. Am I wrong? If you want to change an organization , the best thing to do is to not try to change it and make a new one with a similar purpose that you control so you can start it with the cultural principles you want. It is that simple. 

ART SUMMARY 2022

a selection for each month

January
https://www.deviantart.com/hddeviant/art/Holiday-Rex-DTIYS-B-W-905513401
February
https://www.deviantart.com/hddeviant/art/Valentine-s-Day-2022-Color-gif-906988319
March
https://www.deviantart.com/hddeviant/art/Ship-of-Fools-Legend-to-be-909901566
April
https://www.deviantart.com/hddeviant/art/The-King-Of-Paradise-913395528
May
https://www.deviantart.com/hddeviant/art/Nanedud-feetorfins-917368124
June
https://www.deviantart.com/hddeviant/art/AmpraehDTIYScolor-917892345
July
https://www.deviantart.com/hddeviant/art/Dreamdisappointvacation-coloringpage-923869468
August
https://www.deviantart.com/hddeviant/art/Invitation-A-Moment-In-the-LEgendary-Bloody-Melee-927346127
September
https://www.deviantart.com/hddeviant/art/crystals-21-Witchtember-2022-930362174
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https://www.deviantart.com/hddeviant/art/Album-Yourself-Submit-935178300
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MOVIES THAT MOVE WE with Nike Ma and Nicole Decandas , discuss Alien vs Predaotr

My thoughts with time indexes as I listened

circa 3:47
Its funny, Black people in terms of film have an interesting relationship with the room in the house of fantasy called science fiction.
When I think of Body and Soul, Sankofa, Daughters of the Dust, black people are more interested in dream fiction, which is in fantasy, more than science fiction.

circa 4:06
As I ponder Nichelle Nichols I realize in cheap retrospect what many Black people see, what MArtin Luther King jr. saw, and what I don't like. 
Nichelle Nichols in star trek, the original series, is interesting cause she is so lauded by Black people, including me, yet the production is in many ways something between anti-black or not pro black.
To be blunt, Black people in the USA love Nichelle Nichols as Uhura because as a thespian or the character itself, she represents what they want. The Black Individual in the USA doesn't need or exclusively want a star ship designed by black people, populaced by black officers, in Black interstellar law enforcement agency or governmental union. 
The Black people in the USA are content with Black people living happy, or respected aside non Blacks in a ship not designed by blacks, in a ship mostly populated by non blacks, in a non black interstellar organization or law enforcment organization. 
It is not that Black people in the USA do not want the black designed ship, with the black crew , with the black interstellar organization, but they are content to live as individuals without it, hoping or knowing it will happen one day. 
I don't like that, but that is the potency of Nichelle Nichols as Uhura

circa 4:32
The terms science fiction or fantasy have commonly accepted definitions but are in no way bounded to the common definitions. 
I define for this section fantasy as any film that involves the unreal, so aliens/monsters/psycopaths any unreal character, including faux biographcal characters is fantasy. 
Musicals I define as films where exhibitions of songs are inacted by thespians in the film on more than one occasion, thus seven brides for seven brothers <which I never saw, but I recall the title>, Purple Rain, west side story are musicals. The fifth element, footloose, the color purple, ray are not musicals based on my definition.
I will not speak for Nike, but when I say major production in USA cinema, I refer to volume of money spent on the film. Blackwood, Black financed cinema in the usa, is historically in comparison to Hollywood,white financed cinema in the USA, lower budget. But I do not concur with comparing Black cinema to white cinema financially in the usa. The distinction of Black cinema in the usa is it is historically with the leanest finances, thus expensive fantastic productions are not possible. Thus why Dream Fiction is so popular in Black Cinema: Body and Soul, Sankofa, Daughters of the Dust, Ceddo , Emitai
In the USA no high budget Hollywood film involving what is commonly called science fiction had a black female lead before sanaa lathan. Dionna Ross was in a high budget film , but the WIZ is commonly considered a musical or fantasy film, not science fiction, in the USA.
Oddly enough, the journey of Dorothy is a dream journey which is historically interesting with the prevalence of dream fiction in Black cinema.

circa 5:38 
Nicole asked a historical question. She asked, I paraphrase her, Black people are usually cast in Hollywood, note I define hollywood as white financed cinema in the USA, in dramatic or comedy roles but to what extent are Black thespians comfortable or the Black audience comfortable with Science fiction? 
I recall Eddie Murphy saying he turned down who framed roger rabbit based on the screenplay he received or pitch he got, and he didn't buy it. The white actor, bob hoskins, who played the role Murphy let go ,oddly enough to my themes, was in a movie in 1986 called Mona Lisa, which is a dream fiction film. 
So Eddie Murphy's admitted career choices show Black thespians have doubts. I add, Denzel Washington turned down Seven, which Morgan Freeman did. Sequentially, "the nutty professor" or "doctor dolittle" from Murphy or "the little things" from Washington. 
In defense to Murphy or Denzel, I read screenplays. And if you ever read the original screenplay of 1986 legend, by Hjortsberg  ,  you will realize how what thespians are originally pitched can be far away from what is finally produced. 
Now, why does that matter? To Nicole's point, Black Thespians based on the two examples I gave maintain the Black labor mentality in the USA. The Black labor mentality is based on the fact that Black people rarely are the owners, thus our employment is never secure and must be merited. Sequentially, as a thespian, mistakes are costly in a career. Sequentially, Black Thespians don't take the risks that early scripts present themselves to be.
As for the Black audience, the Black audience was always ready, but only recently had the money.

circa 6:51
Nike spoke on Black Panther and how a question existed in media. The question was: if people, I will define people as ticket buyers to films, was ready for an all black cast superhero film, I define ready as willing to buy tickets? 
The reality is , consumers are always artistically ready, but not always financially able. I restate, Black people always wanted to see Black people in everything. But Black people didn't have the money, nor did the non black ticket buyers show the willingness to buy a ticket for an all black high budget film in the past. 
But past the year 2020 when Blacks in: Africa,Europe, the Americas, Asia are all financially potent, let alone capable, they have the money to buy the tickets. 
And, non Black ticket buyers past the year 2020 are willing to buy an all Black cast. 

Circa 7:52
Nike states Hollywood, I defined it earlier, does not feel non blacks are willing to pay a ticket to see Black leads today. I concur. But I will say in the fantasy film realm, especially, that some Black creators haven't helped. 
From Poitier in the film "The Longships" <oh the Black Moor:) forgive me> to  Sayles, a white director, "Brother from another planet" starring Jellyroll Morton to Wesley SNipes as Blade, Black thespians have taken fantasy roles seriously.
But from "Cleopatra Jones" to "The Adventures of Pluto Nash" to "Fat Albert" to "MEtero Man" Black creators or thespians have played fantasy roles in a comedic way that hurts the role. 
To be blunt, fantasy can easily become comedy, as it is easy to laugh at the unreal. To many examples of Black thespians making a fantasy role comedic exists. 
And that is why Sanaa LAthan's heroine in Alien vs PRedator is a great role. She is Black, she is a woman, the film is a hollywood high budget, but she isn't comedic. While she still offers the full range of emotions through the character's scenes, from funny, to sexy, to brave, to afraid, to legendary.

circa 8:42 
Nicole makes the point, I restate her, Black money has finally reached a point where it can influence larger fields in the film universe.
The 1970s Hollywood films involving or starring Black thespians, commonly called Blaxploitation, was reflected on greater Black revenue in theaters as well as white ticket buyers willingness to buy said hollywood films with black thespians. How many white women know the Shaft song? 

circa 10:39
They , Nike side Nicole, speak on Sanaa Lathan's preparation, and how they felt she forced some of her lines. Sanaa was inexperienced in the genre. When you look at Sigourney Weaver in Aliens as compared to Alien you see what having one of these in the belt means. But they do make a great comparison between LAthan in "Alien vs PRedator" in comparison to Angela Bassett in "What's love got to do with it". 
My only issue is I would had compared Sanaa LAthan in "Alien Vs PRedator" to Angela BAssett in "Strange Days" . Yes, Ralph Fiennes was the lead thespian but Angela Bassett was totally convincing as the single mom black security driver who has a unrequited love to a man who earned her respect and is going through his own internal chaos while los angeles is going through a potential phenotypical war, and the man in question happens to be white.
I argue it will be nice to see if Angela BAssett was called for Alien vs PRedator and did any casting tests.

circa 12:10 
Nicole side Nike go over Sanaa Lathan in films like "Disappearing Acts" or "Brown Sugar"

circa 12:25
Everyone wish Nicole Decandis a happy BESOONED BIRTHDAY!!! seven days from the time of this post

circa 13:31 
They talked about the Alien or PRedator franchise and whether the story for Alien vs PRedator helped Sanna LAthan. 
I saw all the Predator films or the ALien films 1 to 3 before this film. 
It is a standalone, it refers to either film franchises but doesn't own either. It is standalone and even alludes, in location,  to the legendary story "who goes there" more commonly known in the film world as the "the thing from another world" or "the thing"

circa 15:52
I want to merely repeat what Nike stated about a film I will not type out in name, but say it is the supposed sequel to Alien vs PRedator. 
It didn't need to happen. 
Those who know about an annihilation, that is a clue , know what I am talking about. How can all that is good be killed in a sequel?  It makes wrath of khan look magical.

circa 16:04
I don't rate or star films, enjoy Nike or Nicole's rating.
My review is, if you are looking for a fun action film ride, Alien vs Predator is a fun ride. If you are a hardcore

Alien or PRedator fan that wants the details followed, this movie isn't for you. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2EZcgCyq8B0

MOVIES THAT MOVE WE- aalbc search
https://aalbc.com/tc/search/?&q=%22movies%20that%20move%20we%22&quick=1&search_and_or=or&sortby=relevancy
 

Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) in his office on Capitol Hill in Washington on Dec. 13, 2022. (Haiyun Jiang/The New York Times)

Shelby, One of the Senate's Last Big Spenders, 'Got Everything' for Alabama

Catie Edmondson and Carl Hulse

Mon, December 26, 2022 at 2:14 PM EST

SHELBY POINT, Ala. — For the first time in years, there are signs of dramatic transformation on the banks of the Mobile River. The waterway is dug wider and deeper by the day. Mobile’s airport will soon move in. And sitting watch from the waterfront is a 3-foot bronze bust of the man who brought home the money to finance it: Sen. Richard C. Shelby.

Determined to the point of obsession to harness the potential of Alabama’s only seaport, Shelby, who has served in Congress for more than four decades, has used his perch on the powerful committee that controls federal spending to bring in more than $1 billion to modernize the city’s harbor, procuring funding for projects including new wharves and better railways. The result is one of the fastest-growing ports of its kind, which today contributes to one in seven jobs in the state.

It is also something of a monument to a waning way of doing business on Capitol Hill, one that has fueled many a bipartisan deal — including the $1.7 trillion spending bill that cleared Congress last week, averting a government shutdown — and whose demise has contributed to the dysfunction and paralysis that has gripped Congress in recent years.

Shelby, who is retiring at 88, is one of the last of the big-time pork barrel legends who managed to sustain the flow of money to his state even as anti-spending fervor gripped his party during the rise of the Tea Party and never quite let go.

The Alabama senator did not just use his seat on the Appropriations Committee to turn the expanding port into an economic engine. Applying his influence, seniority, craftiness and deep knowledge of the arcane and secretive congressional spending process, he single-handedly transformed the landscape of his home state, harnessing billions of federal dollars to conjure the creation and expansion of university buildings and research programs, airports and seaports, and military and space facilities.

Shelby honed his tactics at a time when lawmakers across the political spectrum were willing to set aside ideology and unite behind a common zeal for grabbing federal money for their states and districts. That smoothed the path to passing major spending deals and keeping the government running in large part because those lawmakers had a vested interest in securing wins for their constituents.

He unapologetically followed in the footsteps of predecessors known in congressional parlance as “old bull appropriators,” like Republican Ted Stevens of Alaska, and Democrats Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia and Daniel K. Inouye of Hawaii. They saw their primary task in Congress as steering as much money as they could to their states, which they saw as neglected in favor of more populous ones with more influence.

“They trained me,” Shelby said.

The ascendant right-wing Republicans who wield the greatest influence in Congress these days have received different training altogether.

They are lawmakers who reflexively vote against any federal funding measure and regard big spenders like Shelby as establishment stooges who have been corrupted by the lure of wasteful government spending. And as the party prepares to assume the House majority next week, they have made it clear that they will demand severe cuts, potentially leading to the kind of spending stalemate that has become commonplace in recent years.

“Other people would say, ‘Oh you shouldn’t do anything for your state, you shouldn’t spend any money on this.’ I differ with that,” Shelby said last week, sitting in his office in Washington, feet away from his desk that once belonged to another Southern senator who used his perch in Congress to build his state, Lyndon B. Johnson.

Part of the task of a senator, he argued, is to help build the conditions for his state’s prosperity.

“I’m a pretty conservative guy in a lot of ways,” Shelby said. “But I thought that’s the role Congress has played since the Erie Canal.”

As Shelby’s contributions have sprung up across his home state, so too have the monuments in his honor. Beyond the statue at the Port of Mobile, which was unveiled early this month, there are no fewer than seven buildings in Alabama named for him — mostly academic buildings, but also a missile intelligence center. An eighth, a federal courthouse, is on the way.

“No one will ever accuse Richard Shelby of being timid or thinking small,” said Jo Bonner, the president of the University of South Alabama, and a former Republican congressman who served five terms. The senator’s ability to “dream big and look years down the road,” he said, made Shelby “the most consequential elected official in Alabama history.”

Bradley Byrne, a former Republican congressman from Mobile, recalled marveling when he first arrived to Congress at how thoroughly Shelby had stuffed the year-end spending bill.

“Senator, you got a whole lot of stuff for Alabama in that bill,” Byrne recalled telling Shelby.

“Bradley,” Shelby replied in his signature baritone drawl, “I got everything.”

Born in Birmingham during the Great Depression, Shelby said he had never even met a Republican growing up. A lawyer by trade, he began in politics as a conservative Democrat, first in the Alabama Senate, then as a U.S. congressman. By the time Shelby had climbed the ranks of seniority in the Senate, becoming the chair of the appropriations panel after helming three others, including the Intelligence Committee, he had changed parties as part of the vanguard of the Southern realignment.

Outside of his push for federal money, Shelby legislated and voted like a conventional conservative when it came to social and economic issues, and his relationship with the Clinton administration soured when, in 1993, he greeted the new president’s economic plan with the memorable phrase: “The taxman cometh.”

His enthusiasm for earmarks has long drawn detractors. Citizens Against Government Waste, a nonpartisan organization that opposes the use of earmarks, once published a report titled “Senator Shelby’s pork parade.”

“Sen. Shelby has long used his seniority on the Appropriations Committee to receive far more earmarks than his peers,” including last year, “when he received nearly twice as many dollars in earmarks as the next-highest recipient,” said Sean Kennedy, the group’s director of policy and research.

Even as the term “earmark” became a four-letter word in his party in the 2000s, Shelby remained unabashed about the parade of federal funds he steered his state’s way. When local cartoonists published images of Shelby depicting him as one of the state’s chief benefactors, such as one of Shelby carrying a pig in a large sack bearing a money symbol captioned, “Alabama’s Santa Claus,” his wife would display them at their home. It was a reminder, Shelby said, “to keep my humor.”

Shelby’s work was about “trying to make sure we got our fair share,” said Sandy Stimpson, the mayor of Mobile, where an estimated one in five people lives in poverty.

Shelby has funded roads and bridges and hospitals and public libraries and drinking water systems; university research into topics as varied as the prevention of diseases in local foods like catfish and oranges, to improved monitoring systems for coastal flooding and hurricanes, to the combustion behavior of liquid oxygen.

For some of his biggest priorities — such as the Redstone Arsenal, the military installation near Huntsville that houses Army missile programs, the FBI, and the Marshall Space Flight Center — Shelby secured vast infusions of federal funds bit by bit each year, shoehorning them into bill after bill over the course of decades.

“I thought the best thing I could do with federal money was not pave somebody’s driveway,” Shelby said. What he tried to do instead was “to build institutions, and then infrastructure that would create more of a competitive environment for the long run.”

At Redstone Arsenal, he successfully lobbied the Air Force to build the new U.S. Space Command’s headquarters, and pushed the FBI to expand its footprint there, an investment that has now topped $2.48 billion, much of it built by earmarks. And he sent billions of dollars to support research and expand jobs at NASA’s civilian rocketry and spacecraft propulsion research center there.

Sometimes his advocacy came in the form of a few paragraphs. In 2011, when lawmakers were rushing to approve a short-term spending bill to ensure the government did not shut down, Shelby tucked in language that blocked NASA from scrapping an effort to commission rockets with “heavy-lift” capabilities, a move that would have eliminated hundreds of jobs at Redstone Arsenal.

Shelby, in part for personal reasons, has also taken a special interest in Alabama’s universities, which have been some of the biggest beneficiaries of his largess. In 1987, during Shelby’s first year in the Senate, his wife, the first woman to become a tenured professor at Georgetown University’s business school, suffered kidney failure from lupus. The family turned to the medical staff at the University of Alabama, Birmingham.

“UAB saved her life,” Shelby says now. “I realized what they had there, and could have there.”

Since then, Shelby has secured funding for four academic buildings — all of them hubs for scientific research and teaching, none of them smaller than 150,000 square feet, and most built in the federal style with Doric columns. There is Shelby Hall at the University of Alabama; Shelby Hall at the University of South Alabama; the 12-story, 340,000 square foot Shelby Biomedical Research Building at the University of Alabama, Birmingham; and the Shelby Center for Science and Technology at the University of Alabama, Huntsville, two-thirds of which was built with federal funds.

At Tuscaloosa, more than $60 million secured by Shelby helped build what became one of the largest academic buildings on the University of Alabama campus, a 200,000-square-foot hall that houses more than 70 research labs, three lecture halls and more than 120 offices for faculty and graduate students.

“It allowed us to put students in laboratory facilities that otherwise they would not have been able to be a part of,” said Dr. Chuck Karr, the president of the University of Alabama, Huntsville, and a previous engineering dean at the University of Alabama. “It really served as the catalyst for other growth.”

When local officials unveiled the bust of Shelby at the Port of Mobile earlier this month, they also surprised him by announcing that they were privately financing two engineering and computing scholarships in his name at the University of South Alabama.

Seated in his office weeks later, he was more interested in talking about the scholarships than the twice-life-size bronze edifice modeled after him.

“If you have tried to educate everybody in your community — everybody,” Shelby said, “you’re going to create opportunity.”

Statues, he said with a mischievous glint in his eye, “are for dogs and birds.”

© 2022 The New York Times Company

URL : https://news.yahoo.com/shelby-one-senates-last-big-191432668.html

MY THOUGHTS

At the end the biggest issue I have is the notion of anti action in modern elected officials. I think of black elected officials to black districts, how many black elected officials in my lifetime have done absolutely nothing for their districts. If every black elected official to a black district did as shelby the black community in the usa would have more. I am 100% certain. The question is how do you change the culture of black elected officials. 

The items returned on Tuesday included an ivory mask that formerly belonged to a museum in Stuttgart, Germany.Credit...Kola Sulaimon/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

How Germany Changed Its Mind, and Gave the Benin Bronzes Back
A ceremony in Nigeria on Tuesday was the culmination of a yearslong process that upended Germany’s approach to museum items looted during the colonial era.

By Thomas Rogers, Rahila Lassa and Alex Marshall
Dec. 20, 2022

When the airplane of Germany’s foreign minister touched down in Abuja, Nigeria, this past weekend, it carried precious cargo: 20 Benin Bronzes, priceless artifacts that were looted in a violent raid more than a century ago, and which were finally coming home.

At a ceremony in Abuja on Tuesday, the German official, Annalena Baerbock, handed the stolen items back to Nigerian officials. “It was wrong to take the bronzes, and it was wrong to keep them for 120 years,” she said.

In a legal sense, the 20 artifacts Baerbock brought with her belonged to Nigeria even before she took off from Berlin; more than 1,100 bronzes in German museums have become Nigerian property since the countries signed an agreement in July. But Tuesday’s handover was an important symbolic gesture, and many more of the artifacts are expected to come back to Nigeria next year. Others will remain in Germany on long-term loan.

The foreign minister’s trip is the culmination of a yearslong process that upended Germany’s approach to handling cultural items unjustly obtained during the colonial period. It is also part of a pioneering model for large-scale restitution, in which ownership is swapped before any artifacts change hands. Crucially, that approach allows for items to be restituted even if the country of origin does not yet have the facilities to store and exhibit them.

Baerbock described the return of the bronzes as “just the first step.”

“More of these agreements will follow,” she said. “And this moment is also historic to us. We are facing up to our history of colonialism.”

The bronzes consist of thousands of sculptures and plaques that British forces looted from Benin City, in what is now southern Nigeria, during a raid in 1897. Many wound up in museums around the world, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in New York; the British Museum, in London; and several major German institutions.

Nigeria has been calling for the objects’ return for several decades, and its deal with Germany is the largest yet. It is also notable because the effort was spearheaded not by individual museums, but by a national government.

The items returned on Tuesday included an 18th-century throne stool and a sculpture commemorating a Benin “oba,” or king. A pavilion to store and display the treasures is being built in Benin City and will most likely be completed in 2023. The building will be next to the planned Edo Museum of West African Art, an ambitious institution designed by the acclaimed Ghanaian British architect David Adjaye.

This outcome had seemed far-fetched as recently as five years ago. As in other European countries, the subject of restitution had been largely ignored in Germany until recently, and some museum leaders had been reluctant to part ways with artifacts.

The about-face was driven — as interviews with eight German and Nigerian officials showed — by a changing social consensus about the ethics of holding on to such items, and further strengthened by a backlash against Germany’s flagship cultural project: the Humboldt Forum, an $825 million institution in Berlin, conceived as Germany’s equivalent to the Louvre or the British Museum.

According to Andreas Görgen, the secretary general of Germany’s Federal Culture Ministry and one of the architects of the restitution agreement, the deal was also a testament to a careful, incremental strategy, which he contrasted with a flashier approach from France.

In 2017, the French president, Emmanuel Macron, gave a groundbreaking speech during a visit to Burkina Faso in which he pledged to make returning unjustly acquired items to African countries “a top priority.” Although some objects have been given back, the French effort has floundered, in part because museum objects are property of the French state, meaning Parliament must sign off on transfers of ownership.

“Macron took the very French route: a great speech by a great president, then it takes years for reality to match those words,” Görgen said. “We are operating in a German way,” he said. “It isn’t especially sexy, but it can be efficient.”

Germany’s approach also contrasts with those of the United States and British governments, which have left decisions up to individual institutions. Some organizations, including the Smithsonian Institution, have acted alone. Last month, the Horniman Museum, in London, held a ceremony to transfer ownership of 72 objects, including bronzes, to Nigeria’s government, and immediately returned six to Nigerian hands. A museum spokeswoman said the other 66 items would stay in London, on loan from Nigeria, for at least the next year.

Yet some of the most important museums in England cannot return their Benin Bronzes, even if they wanted to, without a change in the law. That includes the British Museum, which owns about 900 of the artifacts, arguably the world’s finest collection.

According to officials in Germany, a key turning point there occurred in 2019, amid growing public pressure. It was partly spurred by Macron’s speech and a rising awareness in Germany of its own colonial crimes — including the killing of tens of thousands of Nama and Herero people in what is now Namibia. The atrocity, carried out between 1904 and 1908, is widely seen as the first genocide of the 20th century.

Until then, the main vehicle for discussing the return of the Benin Bronzes had been the Benin Dialogue Group, a network founded in 2010 that brought together Nigerian representatives and figures from European museums with bronzes in their collections. The group, however, favored loans over transfers of ownership.

Some prominent German museum officials were already on the record opposing complete restitution. In an interview with Der Tagesspiegel in 2018, Hermann Parzinger, the president of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, which held the largest collection of Benin Bronzes in the country, said, “It is too simple to say that they were all stolen and to send them back.” He added, “Politicians should not try to outdo each other with pronouncements.”

Parzinger was among those overseeing the construction of the Humboldt Forum, a controversial project uniting several museums’ collections in a reconstructed Baroque palace in the center of Berlin. Although many Germans initially bristled at the project because it required the demolition of the former East German Parliament, which was seen as an act of historical erasure, that anger soon refocused on the provenance of many objects to be exhibited in the building, including about 500 Benin Bronzes.

In 2017, Bénédicte Savoy, a historian who advised Macron on restitution, resigned from the Humboldt Forum’s advisory board in protest, comparing the project to the Chernobyl nuclear accident site. Jürgen Zimmerer, a historian at the University of Hamburg, accused the Humboldt Forum’s leaders, including Parzinger, of having “colonial amnesia.”

As public anger mounted, German lawmakers began looking for ways to salvage the country’s most ambitious cultural project in decades.

According to Zimmerer, a key moment occurred in February 2019, when Angela Merkel, Germany’s chancellor at the time, invited a small number of historians and experts to a dinner to discuss restitution. Zimmerer recalled telling Merkel that an agreement with Nigeria about the bronzes needed to be reached before the Humboldt Forum’s upcoming opening, lest “the spotlight of the entire world” be focused on criticism of the project. He recalled her saying later that evening, “Then why don’t we give them back?” (A spokeswoman for the former chancellor declined to comment.)

Germany’s federal and state culture ministers convened the following month to approve guidelines for handling museum items from “colonial contexts.” The agreement stipulated that all objects that had been obtained “unethically” would be liable for return and directed institutions to facilitate claims by producing publicly available inventories.

Those guidelines also overruled reluctant museum leaders. “Society applied the pressure on the politicians,” Zimmerer said, “and the politicians applied the pressure on the museums.” He argued that the sudden rise in public support for restitution had been enhanced by an awareness of earlier moves to return artwork stolen by the Nazis. “People know that looted art is something you give back,” Zimmerer said.

In an interview, Parzinger, the museum official, explained his own change of heart. “The Benin Bronzes are so symbolic for colonial-era cultural theft that one cannot simply push it away,” he said.

A group under the leadership of Markus Hilgert, a leading cultural official representing Germany’s 16 states, began working on an online catalog listing the bronzes being held in disparate collections. “Objects are often not inventoried or digitalized, and it raised the question of how you can have a dialogue with a country of origin when you don’t even know what is in Germany,” Hilgert said. The resulting database, he said, “was the material foundation for taking up conversations with Nigeria.”

As the Germans signaled they were moving toward restitution, obstacles remained on the Nigerian side. Although the country had requested the return of the bronzes since the 1970s, there was conflict over who would take ownership of the artifacts. Both the Nigerian government and the oba of Benin, whose family ruled the historical Kingdom of Benin from which they were looted, claimed that they owned the items. Godwin Obaseki, the governor of Edo State, where Benin City is, said he acted as a facilitator to resolve the dispute.

“Things happened so quickly that we couldn’t get everybody on the same page fast enough,” Obaseki said.

Nigeria also lacked the facilities to safely store and exhibit the delicate items. Phillip Ihenacho, a Nigerian financier, said that in 2019, Obaseki asked him to find a solution to the country’s “deficit in museum infrastructure.” He noted that “there was pressure from the German end.”

Ultimately, he said, the oba’s family, Nigeria’s museum commission and the government of Edo State agreed to join a trust together, with independent directors that oversee the construction and operation of the new museum.

Görgen, the culture ministry official, said the announcement of the museum plans in late 2020 helped eradicate any remaining doubts in Germany. After several rounds of negotiations in the spring of 2021, Germany and Nigeria signed a “memorandum of understanding,” and then the official agreement in July 2022. The agreement was finalized weeks ahead of the opening of the Humboldt Forum’s ethnological exhibits.

Visitors to the Humboldt Forum can still view several dozen Benin Bronzes, accompanied by signage clarifying that the objects belong to Nigeria. According to Parzinger, the agreement allows for 168 pieces chosen by Nigeria’s museum commission to remain in Germany “so that Benin’s art can be shown to the world.” The approximately 350 other bronzes that were part of the Berlin museum collections will be transported to Nigeria once the pavilion is completed.

Officials in Benin City hope the return of the artifacts and the construction of the Edo Museum of West African Art will herald a cultural revival and a boom in tourism. Obaseki, the Edo governor, said its effects would ideally resemble those of the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, which is credited with transforming the fortunes of that formerly gritty port city.

Ihenacho, however, made it clear that the bronzes’ return brought with it a new set of practical challenges for Nigeria. It remains unclear who will pay for the shipment and insurance of the remaining items in Germany, and he noted that the bronzes’ storage and upkeep will come at a considerable cost, including electrical bills for climate control. “These objects are going to cost a lot of money, so you had better be prepared,” Ihenacho said, noting that the country’s museum infrastructure was still being built up.

“To the West, this story is very much about the return of the Benin Bronzes,” Ilhenacho said, “but for most Nigerians, this is the beginning.”

URL
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/20/arts/benin-bronzes-nigeria-germany.html
 

MY THOUGHTS

Many talk of Black Unity in black countries  but this history highlight  one of the true problems with black unity in black countries. The fact that when Germany on its own, said nigeria owned all the bronzes that Nigeria had an internal battle to figure out who in nigeria will own them speak volumes to me. The first question in my mind, is how many other black countries will have similar difficulty? The good news is Nigeria figured out how to find a solution between all the parties in nigeria. and maybe this art venture may create a new approach in nigeria to administration. As Ilhenacho said, this is the beginning.

The history of films converted from books , proves everything in the article linked after the following prose is correct  
1. Millions of scripts or books have been created. As the article suggest most people in film production read screenplays/scripts , not books, for potential projects. Sequentially, screenplays are vetted more harshly. But, moreover, most successful movies are based on media to be read<books/short stories/comic books[reading images]> not viewed in motion<screenplays/scripts>. Gone with the wind/arthur conan doyle works/harry potter/hammet's detectives/stephen king works/edgar allen poe works/all religious characters/ the twilight series/the marvel or dc universes/chitty chitty bang bang <I just wanted to type that> / or et cetera dominate the list of most potent finacial films. Most of the financially potent movies come from media that does not have a moving image outside the mind of the reader. 
Yes, Star Wars, John Wick, Seven Samurai or its versions, titanic , or et cetera all prove standalone screenplays can make tons of money. But, overall I think the global film industry shows books are toe to toe with screenplays in profitable films, and thus with the larger perentage of potentials as screenplays, it is an advantage to books in rate. 
But, so many books exists, being the book chosen has its own set of rules that make it more of a challenge to be chosen , even if once chosen you have a better chance of selection.
2. Premise does matter, I said it a trillion times. A film is not as long as a written work. Even a short story at times can be in the mind quite long. SEquentially, while Ulysses, about the domestic life in Dublin, can work as a book, as a film, its premise is a challenge and converting the linguitiscal freedom of book world into film is always a challenge once film became governed with codes. Thus, few adaptions of this historically well regarded book have been made while others were chosen.
I can add Aucassin and Nicolette, of the troubadour era in mediterranean europe. It was transcribed to text as it was originally sung. It moves faster than the average film at times, but the erratic premise of it at times, think a romance between royals turns into something wilder than a screwball comedy while raunchier than hardcore bondage porn then back nto a royal romance, make it very difficult to turn into a film . And make something like Beowulf, an epic poem not as fast or raunchy or romantic but more simple while straightforward chosen over it. Beowulf is one of many "rise and fall of a king" tales. 
3. Book sales don't matter- yes, "the ninth gate" comes from a book called "el club dumas" which is originally in spanish from reverte. Shrek or Pitch perfect were once books. So, a book doesn't need to be a financialy juggernaut or a financial juggernaut in the anglophone book world like Harry potter to be selected for modulation into film. 
4. Characters are critical- when you look at the two film adaptions of the short story, Farewell to the master, you see this point proven well alongside the power of character over special effects. In the first adaption the attache/servant to the master is skeptical to humanity and ends the story, unassured  but with a slight hope. While the master is unknown in its truest power and offers a threat in frightful ignorance to humanity. While in the second adaption, the attache/servant to the master is a common laborer unconcerned to humanity and ends the story a hero who believes in humanity with the smallest of convincing to human merit. While the master performs the most grandiose feats but is thwarted in a way unbefitting the master , unknowingly.  The original short story allowed for the film adaptions to have space to be, but the choice of characterizations is exhibit A. 
5. Author involvement and loyalty to book form- Ende extremely disliked the film adaption of Die unendliche Geschichte <the reason being that book wasn't created as a children's book as the film adaption suggests>. Stepehn King extremely disliked the film adaption of the shining from kubrick <King opposed that Kubrick made the characterizations or settings are other enough to not be considered the same or similar to the book> . And I can see the point from Ende or King. The adults are making the nothing, and the lone child to save all fantasy is being influenced by adults/his father to not believe. The evil , unimaginative evil ,in adults is missing in the film. The fear induced by the grandeur of imagination, ala the details of the ivory tower or the decaying emptiness of the land of the southern oracle's fading voice is absent in the film. The journey of an alcoholic /depressed/not successful author by truly magical or negative forces in this isolated place with a strong wife or gifted child doesn't exist in the film. 
And yet, who can forget the wonder of the dreamlike depictions of the ivory tower or the southern oracle. Yes, it wasn't as frightful. It was depicted more safely , more gentle, as a Grimm fairy tale depicting the older unfiltered christian fables. But children loved it and the former children still do. 
Who can forget the psychological unwrapping of jack nicholson's jack torrance. Who boldly stated he was empowered going into this isolated empty hotel with his squeeky voiced unoffensive tall wife or disquieted introverted child. The fear the audience felt watching ths little family degrade into thier pure selves in a large prison: an angry violent uncaring man, a frightened unfriended woman, a child deep in his own mind, frightened and still frightens viewers.
6. The relationship between producer or author is key-  A bronx tale was started as a one man play, the thespian in it was offered by many producers to turn it into a film. He rejected them cause he wanted to play a specific role in any film adaption. Robet DeNiro accepted his condition and the film became highly successful. The two worked together , with deniro a producer or actor while palminteri was a screenwriter or actor. Both men are italian americans, new yorkers. But DeNiro knew what it took to make a film and that led the project. But he knew to delete what worked from the one man play was dysfunctional and needed palminteri.
In parallel, the movie international velvet. a screenplay sequel to a film, national velvet,  originally based on a one and done book. Was written and directed by one person. But the original author of the book, bagnold, elizabeth taylor who played the lead character, bagnold's daughter who illustrated the original book, the first films: direcotr/producer/screenplay writer were all alive in 1978. The writer + director of international velvet didn't include any of them in the production. My proof is Taylor didn't reprise her role from the original blockbuster film. her third film role and first starring role. 
I end with the relation between producer or prior creators is key. They are not dumb, they may be able to provide insight to the project you may miss. On the other hand, the producer needs to know the now. The fact that international velvet came out during star wars and after american graffiti proves the producer was not in touch with the trends.
7. Socal media in film production- to make greater connections authors can be known online not just intimately in private and that can aid in comprehending their stories plus the audience about their stories. When you look at how disney handled the star wars universe, it is clear, disney never intended the last trilogy to gain new audience members, the last trilogy was meant for the hardcore star wars fans, while the standalone films and streaming shows, like Rogue 1 or the Mandolorian were meant to get new fans and sate the encyclopedic hardcore fans. 

Article
https://www.janefriedman.com/what-kind-of-book-translates-well-to-screen/

My Reply

Bill T Jones once said, on Bill Maher's show, he was chided in the 1960s for a performance by other black people, and he said he thought the movement was about individual liberty. 
But, what many Black people or other population minorities in the USA don't see/comprehend/know/admit is that the majority in all minority groups are not fighting to get individual liberties for all, but they are fighting to get majority liberties in their minority. 
When the war between the states ended, the Black community was courted by white christian protestant groups for various reasons. But it made a hard space for Black agnostics or atheist or traditionalist <spiritual or religious beliefs brewed in the Black community during enslavement before the war between the states ended that are not christian ,ala Daughters of the Dust grandmother> . Frederick Douglass , a mulatto< a person with a phenotypically white parent plus black parent>, I feel was opposed to publicly supporting other options for Black DOS, <descendend of enslaved> who represented over ninety percent of the black populace in the usa at that time, largely in part because he knew all other options: a state in the union/leaving to canada or africa or haiti went against individual liberty growing in the black community. Which he himself needed as he had a white mistress and many Black people at that time, a recently completely enslaved people to whites , frowned on that. 
Many Black people felt and some feel the Black community was used in the 1960s. The civil rights act was never meant to be an individual liberties act, which is what it is. It was meant to  be a leveller for Black DOSers originally. But, the party of Andrew Jackson saw an opportunity to gain many votes by expanding the civil rights act to women/jews/asians or all non white european male christians, not merely Black DOSers, who sadly did die more than many others minorities for that civil rights act to be. 
So, Olayemi's point is correct save one thing. It isn't internalized anti-Blackness as much as anti-minority. In USA history, Black used to mean , DOSers, over ninety percent. But, USA immigration policy with the immigration act of 1965 had a tremendous effect on the majority in all communities in the USA. The white communities Anglo Saxon Protestant majority already dealt with catholics or italy/ireland plus eastern european jews before joining the white community. But now, white latinos/whites of africa are coming in droves into the white community of the USA in such numbers they don't just merge into the WASP, they are their own. MArcus Garvey was from the english imperial island of Jamaica but now, the Black DOS community has to deal with Nigerians/Jamaicans/Haitians/Trinidadians/Ghanians/South Africans/Siddi of India plus other Black Asians of South East Asia in such numbers they don't merely absorb in the DOS community , they are on their own. The Asian community was once majority Han Chinese, white asians, by far, but now you have Bangladeshi/Indonesians/filipinos/iranians/pakistani in large numbers that being asian american can not be synonymous with the chinese anymore and the chinese american tradition of governmental non involvement is no longer the standard. LAtin American used to be Mexican , mostly mestizo, in the west coast and Puerto Rican, mostly blanco, in the east coast but now it is colombian/venezuelan/ecuadorian/chilean/ bolivian and not all blanco but also mulatto also negra also indio , meaning native american, so the complexity has risen and thus latino voting patterns seem all over the place. 
All majorities in pen-population the USA, the native american in the usa is unique, before the 1960s have been reduced in potency by the individual liberties set in by the 1960s civil rights act and the immigration policy of the 1960s immigration act. So much so that the entire usa population as well as its parts: blacks/whites/women/latinos/christians/muslims plus all others are dealing with a plurality majority future that the former majorities didn't want, have not embraced for the most part, and thus the frictions in social media.
Bill T Jones a black man, legendary dancer, who is a member of one in the LGBTQ+ was fighting for Black empowerment as a subset of human empowerment. I paraphrase Sidney Poitier's character in guess whose coming to dinner: "you see yourself as a black human, I see myself as a human"
This is why MLK jr was so beloved by so many outside the Black community or so many minorities in the Black community. He was a Black christian preacher whose position was individual liberty. So he can get Black people who might not listen to a muslim- malcolm-  or a jamaican- garvey - or a woman- fannie lou hamer- to march with him. But it is also why Black Militants/Segregationist had huge issues with MLK because they tend to not accept individual liberties. In the same way the KKK , while for white power, wasn't interested in white women voting or white members of the lgbtq+ having any protection or say or rights or white asians or white latinos being considered equals to anglo saxon protestants. 
The issue isn't anti -yourself. The issue is anti- minority,which minority groups have within themselves. 
Olayemi's prose closes with the fundamental idea of individual liberty. The only community that matters is the human. Those who support individual liberty fight for communities, like Olayemi or Bill T Jones in the context of greater individual liberty or freedom or protection. Unfortunately, in the Black community in the USA , this is not full explained or comprehended by many Black people. 
I am not suggesting I support individual liberty universally, because I don't. But I comprehend it. And I don't have a problem with Black people whose actions reflect it. 

referral
[ https://twitter.com/msolurin/status/1596202896399687680  ]

Jacinda Townsend Wins 16th Annual Ernest Gaines Book Award for Mother Country
Read more details in the post immediately below

Alvin Bragg, now Manhattan District Attorney, speaks with supporters on election night, in New York, Nov. 2, 2021. (AP Photo/Craig Ruttle, File)

Bragg to toss 188 convictions due to NYPD misconduct

Dean Meminger reported
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg on Thursday said he will toss nearly 200 convictions that were secured by eight NYPD officers found guilty of work-related criminal conduct.  

Bragg on Thursday morning began the process of vacating 188 misdemeanor convictions stemming from arrests that took place between 2001 and 2016, his office said in a press release. 

Eight officers tied to the 188 convictions were convicted themselves, of crimes ranging from bribe-receiving and official misconduct to falsifying business records and perjury, the release said. More than 94 of the convictions led to prison sentences or fines. 

What You Need To Know
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg on Thursday said he will toss nearly 200 convictions that were secured by eight NYPD officers found guilty of work-related criminal conduct

Bragg on Thursday morning began the process of vacating 188 misdemeanor convictions stemming from arrests that took place between 2001 and 2016

Eight officers tied to the 188 convictions were convicted themselves, of crimes ranging from bribe-receiving and official misconduct to falsifying business records and perjury
“While most law enforcement officials and police officers are dedicated public servants, these eight officers, who played a material role in hundreds of arrests, criminally abused their positions of power,” Bragg said in a statement. 

“These illegal actions irrevocably taint these convictions and represent a significant violation of due process rights — the foundational principle of our legal system,” he added. 

In a statement NYPD Commissioner Keechant Sewell said there was "zero tolerance in the NYPD for corruption or criminal activity of any kind by any member of the service." 

“Those who betray their sworn oath to serve and protect the public have no place in the NYPD — and it is important to note that the involved officers are no longer employed by New York City Police Department," Sewell said. 

One of the eight former NYPD officers tied to the convictions, Jason Arbeeny, was found guilty of charges that included official misconduct for planting drugs on two people, the DA’s office said. 

A second officer, William Eiseman, was convicted of first-degree perjury and official misconduct for carrying out illegal searches and falsely testifying, while a third officer, Michael Foder, was found guilty of lying under oath during a federal hearing, the release said.

A fourth officer, Richard Hall, received five years’ probation after he and another NYPD detective had sex with a woman they took into custody in exchange for her release, according to the DA’s office. 

The four other officers were Michael Arenella, who was found guilty of petty larceny, official misconduct and falsifying business records; Michael Carsey, who was convicted of first-degree perjury and first-degree offering a false instrument for filing; Johnny Diaz, who was convicted on charges including second-degree bribe receiving; and Nicholas Mina, who was found guilty of charges including criminal sale of a controlled substance and criminal sale of a firearm. 

In a statement, Elizabeth Felber, the director of the Wrongful Conviction Unit at The Legal Aid Society, praised Bragg’s push to vacate the convictions.

“While this moment delivers some justice and closure to these New Yorkers, they were forced to endure hardships that should have never been allowed to happen,” Felber said. “This includes incarceration, hefty legal fees, loss of employment, housing instability, severed access to critical benefits and other collateral consequences.” 

“Going forward, we urge DA Bragg and all of the other New York City District Attorneys to conduct these reviews on an ongoing basis and with full transparency,” Felber said. 
article
https://www.ny1.com/nyc/manhattan/news/2022/11/17/manhattan-da-bragg-to-toss-convictions?cid=app_share
referral
https://twitter.com/DeanMeminger/status/1593427403434594306

MY POST THOUGHTS

Every single law enforcer in the history of the NEw York Police Department has committed the crime or aiding or abetting another NYPD member. This is a simple fact.
The reality is the quantity of NYPD members plus their saturation in every community in New YOrk  City means many will put up a wall of denial to the stated fact for a relative or friend who is in the nypd ranks.

This combo image shows Democratic candidate for Colorado's 3rd Congressional District Adam Frisch, left, and U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., right. Associated Press, File

Lauren Boebert's Democratic challenger conceded after she declared victory, even as the unexpectedly tight race has not been called and likely heads to an automatic recount
Story by hgetahun@insider.com

Democratic candidate Adam Frisch conceded to his opponent, GOP Rep. Lauren Boebert, in an extremely close race to represent Colorado's Third Congressional District. 

Boebert was leading by about 554 votes with more than 99% of votes counted as of Friday evening, according to Insider's election partner Decision Desk HQ. No major media network has yet called the race, which was not expected to be competitive until the surprisingly close results began rolling in on election night.

Under Colorado state law, a recount will automatically ensue if a candidate wins by a margin that is 0.5% or less of their total vote count. Boebert's current lead of 554 out of her total 163,832 votes falls within that threshold, at about 0.34%.

Despite the results not being called yet, Frisch said on Facebook live Friday that he called Boebert to concede the race to her, adding that the chances of him winning were "very small."

"The likelihood of this recount changing more than a handful of votes is very small. Very, very small. It'd be disingenuous and unethical for us or any other group to continue to raise false hope and encourage fundraising for a recount," Frisch said during his concession speech. "Colorado elections are safe, accurate, and secure. Please save your money for your groceries, your rent, your children, and for other important causes and organizations."

Frisch did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.

Boebert also acknowledged the call in a Tweet on Friday, saying: "I look forward to getting past election season and focusing on conservative governance in the House majority."

—Lauren Boebert (@laurenboebert) November 18, 2022 [ https://twitter.com/mims/statuses/1593675506712338432 ]
The conservative firebrand had already declared victory in the race. On Thursday evening, Boebert announced on social media: "We won!"

In the accompanying video, she said there were "less than 200 votes outstanding" and that she was "certain" that she would win the race, even with the recount. Insider could not confirm the amount of outstanding votes.

"Past recounts in Colorado have resulted in far fewer votes being adjusted than anything that could affect the current outcome we're seeing tonight in this race," she added.

Meanwhile, a Thursday FEC filing showed that Frisch had already submitted a statement of candidacy for 2024, potentially setting the stage for another Boebert-Frisch showdown.

ARTICLE
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/lauren-boeberts-democratic-challenger-conceded-after-she-declared-victory-even-as-the-unexpectedly-tight-race-has-not-been-called-and-likely-heads-to-an-automatic-recount/ar-AA14ilG9

MY THOUGHTS 

I requote Frisch: The likelihood of this recount changing more than a handful of votes is very small. Very, very small. It'd be disingenuous and unethical for us or any other group to continue to raise false hope and encourage fundraising for a recount," Frisch said during his concession speech. "Colorado elections are safe, accurate, and secure. Please save your money for your groceries, your rent, your children, and for other important causes and organizations.

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni in Rome on Nov. 10. (Guglielmo Mangiapane/Reuters)

Rising tide of immigration to Europe pushing continent's politics to the right, experts say
Story by Melissa Rossi • Yesterday 7:44 PM

After 16 days of the ship’s ignored distress calls to the Italian government asking to dock, France allowed the Ocean Viking safe harbor in Toulon on Nov. 11. According to the French interior minister, Gerald Darmanin, the vessel was Italy’s responsibility since it had been in Italian search and rescue waters, and ignoring the pleas “lacked humanity,” was “a nasty gesture” and was “incomprehensible.”

In a statement, Meloni’s interior minister, Matteo Piantedosi, fired back that “Italy has taken in 90,000 [migrants] just this year” and that it was the actions of France, which according to French broadcaster France 24 had never before received a migrant-filled rescue ship, that were “totally incomprehensible.” France, which in August took in 38 of the migrants that arrived in Italy this year, according to the European Commission, had pledged to accept 3,500 more later in 2022. But, said Darmanin, Italy’s behavior had forced France to retract that offer.

Such skirmishes between countries are becoming more common across Europe, where an increase in “irregular” migrants — as those who’ve entered illegally are called here — is pushing European politics in a rightward direction.

“There’s a relationship between the demographic change through immigration and the rise of the populist right in Western Europe,” Eric Kaufmann, author of “Whiteshift” and professor of politics at Birkbeck College, University of London, told Yahoo News. “The number of Europeans saying immigration is a top issue really rises along with rising migration numbers, and then the populist right rises along with that.”

Of late, the numbers of migrants, both legal and illegal, crossing into Europe are soaring.

This week Frontex, as the European border control and coast guard agency is called, released a new report showing that the number of illegal entries into Europe has risen by 77% since last year and is the highest since 2016.

Migrants have been illegally entering not only from across the Mediterranean but via land from non-EU Balkan countries, and tens of thousands have entered the United Kingdom by crossing the English Channel. And from Britain to Germany, Spain to Greece, countries are trying to figure out how to secure the continent, which has over 42,000 miles of coastline and 30 borders with non-EU countries, making external border security challenging.

According to Frontex, over 132,000 “detections” of entries to Mediterranean countries via sea were made from January to September of this year. However, an increasingly popular route for those trying to enter Europe illegally — whether to seek asylum or better economic opportunities — is to enter from non-EU countries such as Serbia and Albania, toward Hungary and from there to Austria and Germany. Over the past year, Frontex has made over 128,000 detections of illegal border entries of migrants, largely from Burundi, Afghanistan and Iraq, from that corner of southeastern Europe. According to the Associated Press, by September of this year state police had registered over 57,000 unauthorized entries into Germany, where the government in October met with EU officials to discuss how to seal borders, crack down on smuggling and speed up deportations.

“Annually, 2 to 3 million nationals from non-EU countries come to the EU legally, in contrast to 125,000 to 200,000 irregular arrivals,” EU Commission spokesperson for home affairs Anitta Hipper told Yahoo News. But, she added, “irregular migration is still a challenge.”

What’s more, the number of irregular migrants popping up in England is suddenly spiking even higher. This week the British department of defense announced that more than 40,000 people had crossed the English Channel from France and illegally entered England so far in 2022, while four years ago the number was a mere 299. On Wednesday the U.K. government also announced it is paying $75 million to France to bolster border security along the channel. Spain, meanwhile, is paying millions to Morocco to increase its security and prevent would-be migrants from crossing the Mediterranean to Spain. The EU has also spent billions on programs from economic development to job training to try to address the root causes behind illegal migration.

“There’s a concern that EU development funding is increasingly being used to finance projects aiming to curb migration towards Europe, rather than fulfilling their stated purpose, namely development in these countries — reducing poverty and inequality and improving livelihoods,” Stephanie Pope, EU migration policy adviser of human rights organization Oxfam International, told Yahoo News. “And we consider this to be a very dangerous development.”

To Rainer Münz, a senior research associate at the Martens Centre who specializes in migration, Europe’s media and policymakers are looking at the wrong issues — the recent attention given to the Ocean Viking saga being a case in point. “When 0.2% of migrants to Europe are dominating the headlines for weeks, it clearly shows that people are not looking at what’s going on.”

The biggest issue for him is that Europe’s population is declining, with the death rate exceeding the birth rate since 2015 — and the EU needs to bring in more skilled migrants “to stabilize the workforce.” But that’s not happening, he said. Legal immigrants “are not selected according to the talent and skills,” he said. “Politically, that’s not feasible, when 60 or 70% of your immigration is humanitarian, being either marriage or family reunion or asylum.”

And this year, with Europe taking in 5 million Ukrainians, who can legally live and work in the EU, the figure of humanitarian-motivated immigration in Europe is far higher, he added. “When 90% of your immigration is humanitarian, it’s not easy to convince the general public that we need to recruit another million people,” Münz said. “But if the aim is to bring more talented people here, you would have to reduce the inflow of people who do not fit European labor market needs. You would have to reduce the humanitarian flow in order to open up capacity for skilled worker admissions.”

Such talk is anathema to Pope. “Europe is a very, very wealthy region. If we look at it globally, and particularly the EU, by the end of 2021, for example, less than 10% of the world’s refugees were living in the EU. So if we look at it globally, [taking in more refugees] is very much something that the EU could manage effectively and humanely.”

However, Anna Knoll, head of migration and mobility at the European Centre for Development Policy Management, is concerned that humanitarian efforts are giving life to right-wing movements across the continent.

“You see countries like Sweden or Italy flipping more to the right side of the political spectrum,” Knoll told Yahoo News. “I think states are realizing they cannot afford having more refugees situated there or more irregular migrants coming in, because it does potentially push the voters more to the right. Obviously we try to balance this — we have principles, we have values and we are also a sanctuary for refugees. But we cannot allow everyone in.”

Knoll is especially worried about this winter, when more Ukrainian refugees are expected to come to Europe since Russia keeps attacking electrical and heating infrastructure. “If everything comes together — more migrants, super-high energy prices, inflation hitting the roof — at some point I wonder how much the system can take before people say, ‘No, we don’t want this.’”

In the meantime, France has already rejected the applications of 123 of the asylum seekers aboard the Ocean Viking, and on Friday, the Le Figaro newspaper reported that 26 of the minors on board had gone missing.

ARTICLE
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/rising-tide-of-immigration-to-europe-pushing-continents-politics-to-the-right-experts-say/ar-AA14hVwx

MY THOUGHTS

Most in humanity don't like strangers in their town. Maybe they are violent, maybe they are not, but few are happy. The newcomers want and the only way they get is if someone else doesn't have. The USA is a prime example. 
People will say, Immigrants do jobs people in the usa don't want but that is untrue. the Native American, the Black DOS, the WASP <white anglo saxon protestants>  are willing to do jobs with a better wage. The reality is, the fiscally wealthy in the usa setup the environment for immigration to get as near to slave labor as they could get and it worked. The price was laborers who already existed in the usa. 
Europe doesn't want its workers to suffer the fate of workers in the usa, who between firms sending jobs overseas for lower wage or setting up domestic jobs under the salary standard, the immigrant or their kin overseas are the labor winners.
Europe enjoyed the USA being the haven but now upon  being challenged to do it themselves, they are displaying the truth that they Europe, especially western Europe, chastized Russia/China or many other countries outside the USA or WEstern Europe for doing.
 

photo by imani perry

Searching for America, South of the Mason-Dixon
By Tayari Jones
Jan. 25, 2022

Imani Perry has won the 2022 National Book Award for Nonfiction for "South To America: A Journey below the mason-dixon to understand the soul of a nation"

review of
SOUTH TO AMERICA
A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation
By Imani Perry

At the start of “South to America,” Imani Perry implores the reader: “Please remember, while this book is not a history, it is a true story.” I tried to keep these instructions in mind — not always easy with a narrative so scrupulously researched and teeming with facts and citations — but ultimately, I discarded them. After all, Perry addresses everything from hip-hop to the United Fruit Company and her own grandmother. Any attempt to classify this ambitious work, which straddles genre, kicks down the fourth wall, dances with poetry, engages with literary criticism and flits from journalism to memoir to academic writing — well, that’s a fool’s errand and only undermines this insightful, ambitious and moving project.

This is no “both sides” affair: Perry is an unabashed “movement” baby, raised by intellectual freedom-fighter parents. The conviction of this book is that race and racism are fundamental values of the South, that “the creation of racial slavery in the colonies was a gateway to habits and dispositions that ultimately became the commonplace ways of doing things in this country.” In other words, the South is America, and its history and influence cannot be dismissed as an embarrassing relative at the nation’s holiday dinner table.

Inspired by Albert Murray’s 1971 memoir-cum-travelogue “South to a Very Old Place,” Perry travels to over a dozen Southern cities and towns, excavating both histories and modern realities. She begins at Harpers Ferry, W.Va. We meet Shields Green, a Black South Carolinian known as the “Emperor of New York” who was executed along with John Brown. His heroism has been nearly lost to history, and to compound the tragedy, after he was hanged his body was given to Winchester Medical College for dissection. In telling his story, Perry reveals the first of many patterns in the quilt stitched on these pages: At each stop, she recounts an atrocity, but also resistance. And she does not flinch when documenting the consequences.

From the three essays that examine Alabama it’s clear that despite a childhood in New England, Perry’s heart belongs to the idiosyncratic Yellowhammer State. Her tone grows tender as she recalls her dancing cousins or the foot-washing Baptists. Her portraits of her grandmother combine elegiac longing and the rigor of a historian setting the record straight. Equally moving are the dispatches from her mother’s native Louisiana.

The theme of unmarked graves and untold stories permeates this work. As remediation, Perry names scores of Southerners: some famous, some unknown. As Andre 3000 declared, “The South got something to say.” And it’s a breathtaking something — from fine arts to reality television, internationally traded corporations to roadside rib-shacks whose flavors inform the American palate.

Perry vowed to visit and contemplate as much of the South as possible for this project; this ambition is both gift and obstacle. The benefit of such a large canvas is that patterns are easily identified. Historical injustice such as the Wilmington Massacre cannot be dismissed as a one-off, nor can the contemporary violence of Dylann Roof, or the storied resistance of Rosa Parks. Perry finds that one “hidden virtue of an unsure genealogy is a vast archive of ways of being learned from birth.”

It is inevitable, though, that all sites will not receive equal care and attention — and clearly her loyalty is to Alabama. An acolyte of Toni Morrison, Perry nevertheless takes pointed issue with the Nobel laureate’s characterization of the women of Mobile. I understand her pain, for it is the same feeling conjured in me as I read the chapter on Atlanta, my hometown. While in some places, Perry has the benefit of a guide, here she doesn’t cite the personal conversations that led to her insights, and the resulting observations feel a bit chilly. Perry declares that “the major metropolis of the South doesn’t have a sufficient mass transit system or a polyglot culture....” but goes on to suggest that survivors of dirt roads take comfort, instead, in the shiny baubles hawked in Lenox Mall. Well, that hurt my feelings.

Wounded pride aside, it must be said that this work, though sometimes uneven, is an essential meditation on the South, its relationship to American culture — even Americanness itself. This is, as Perry puts it, “not a preservation. This is intervention.” For too long, the South has been scapegoated and reduced to a backward land on the other side of some translucent, but impenetrable, barrier.

Beyond the literal divide of the Mason-Dixon, Perry is fixated on the line that divides past and present. On her travels she encounters a Confederate re-enactor celebrating a birthday. Though he is nostalgia and revisionism made flesh, Perry finds him surprisingly pleasant. Assuming he’ll speak about “Northern aggression,” Perry chooses not to question him, and this, too, is the legacy of the intimacy of slavery — we have lived together so long that we believe we can read each other’s minds.

During her visit to Maryland, Perry sees people wearing muslin shirts and straw hats while laboring in a field. Her insides clench, fearing that she is witnessing some cruel antebellum cosplay. As she gets closer, Perry hears the men speaking Spanish. She was “sad, and also relieved. Workers, not re-enactors.” But of course, this underscores the refrain of this immersion in Southern (American) life and history — to what extent are we all re-enactors of the nation’s brutal history? This work — and I use the term for both Perry’s labor and its fruit — is determined to provoke a return to the other legacy of the South, the ever-urgent struggle toward freedom.

Tayari Jones is the Charles Howard Candler professor of English at Emory University.

SOUTH TO AMERICA
A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation
By Imani Perry
433 pp. Ecco. $28.99.

ARTICLE
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/25/books/review/south-to-america-imani-perry.html
 

Harlem debuts African Jazz Art Society & Studio (AJASS) documentary

by CINQUE BRATTEE
May 12, 2022

African Jazz Art Society & Studio Credit: Kwame Brath photo
It’s taken several decades, but it’s finally happening: a documentary about the African Jazz Art Society & Studio (AJASS), who have the earliest documented contributions as an organization to what people now recognize as the Black Arts Movement. The artist collective formed in 1956 on Kelly Street in the South Bronx, with the agenda of preserving jazz music as an African art form, at a time that many saw it being wrestled away by white interlopers.

Filmmaker Louise Dente, of Cultural Caravan, will debut her documentary on AJASS at the Dwyer Cultural Center on Sunday, May 15. It is very appropriate timing since May 15 has been declared AJASS Day by New York State Sen. Cordell Cleare. She will provide proclamations recognizing members of the historical organization at the intermission of the film.

It’s the first, but surely not the last, film to focus on AJASS. There are other documentaries that have mentioned significant contributions by AJASS, with the most notable being the EPIX four-part series that was successful enough to garner the NAACP Image award for its director, Keith McQuirter in 2021. McQuirter included some significant highlights about AJASS in his four-part docuseries entitled “By Whatever Means Necessary: The Times of Godfather of Harlem.”
The documentary focused on the music and cultural activism during the life and times of Bumpy Johnson, the Godfather of Harlem. Filmmaker Louise Dente’s documentary will look at the birth of the Black is Beautiful Movement and celebrate 66 years, from AJASS’s 1956 founding date to the present day.

Last year, Community Board 2 in the South Bronx voted to recognize and honor the historical organization with a street co-naming recognizing its Kelly Street birth and contributions to the cultural development of the Bronx. Unfortunately, this honor has been delayed as City Councilman Rafael Salamanca’s office was slowed by COVID restrictions and delays, so paperwork was delayed. Now the honor should happen this year. New Yorkers will continue to hear more about the AJASS organization and its terrific members as an exhibit by the New York Historical Society hits town on Aug. 23. The exhibit focusing on the photography of AJASS co-founder Kwame Brathwaite is entitled “Kwame Brathwaite: Black is Beautiful.” The exhibit will run for six months down the museum mile on 5th Avenue, and New Yorkers will get a chance to see and learn about AJASS global contributions through the photographic lens of one of its founders.

VIP ticket buyers will begin festivities at 2 p.m. on Sunday, May 15, and general ticket holders will commence at 3:50 p.m. for this highly anticipated film documenting an important history that some are just beginning to understand the impact of. For tickets go to Eventbrite and type in AJASS.

Article
https://amsterdamnews.com/news/2022/05/12/harlem-debuts-african-jazz-art-society-studio-ajass-documentary/

Black Is Beautiful: The Photography of Kwame Brathwaite

August 19, 2022 - January 15, 2023

One of the minds behind the "Black Is Beautiful" movement, Kwame Brathwaite has long deployed his photography as an agent of social change. This exploration of his work features 40 stunning studio portraits and behind-the-scenes images of Harlem's artistic community.

LOCATION
2nd floor, Luman Reed Galleries

Known as the “keeper of the images,” Kwame Brathwaite deployed his photography from the late 1950s and throughout the 1960s as an agent of social change. Born in Brooklyn to a Caribbean American family and raised in the Bronx, Brathwaite traces his artistic and political sensibilities to his youth. After seeing the horrific images of Emmett Till published in Jet magazine in 1955, Brathwaite and his brother Elombe Brath turned to art and political activism, absorbing the ideas of the Jamaican-born activist Marcus Garvey, who promoted a Pan-Africanist vision for Black economic liberation and freedom. Kwame and Elombe founded the African Jazz-Art Society & Studios (AJASS), a collective of artists and creatives that organized jazz concerts in clubs around Harlem and the Bronx. The group also advanced a message of economic empowerment and political consciousness in the Harlem community, with “Think Black, Buy Black” emphasizing the power of self-presentation and style. In the 1960s, Brathwaite and his collective also sought to address how white conceptions of beauty and body image affected Black women. To do so, they popularized the transformative idea “Black Is Beautiful” and founded the Grandassa Models, a modeling troupe of locally cast women who appeared in annual fashion shows at Harlem’s Apollo Theater.

Organized by Aperture, New York and Kwame S. Brathwaite, the exhibition features 40 stunning studio portraits and behind-the-scenes images of Harlem’s artistic community, including Max Roach and Abbey Lincoln, as well as dresses worn by the Grandassa Models, offering a long-overdue exploration of Brathwaite’s life and work. The exhibition is coordinated at New-York Historical by Marilyn Satin Kushner, curator of prints, photographs, and architectural collections.

Audio Tour

The accompanying audio tour for Black Is Beautiful—available on our Bloomberg Connects digital guide—explores some of the exhibition's key themes and stories. From the origins of the Black Is Beautiful movement to the birth of AJASS to the rise of Black activism in the 1960s to a reflection on natural beauty, you'll hear about photography as an agent of social change. This illustrated tour, narrated by Kwame S. Brathwaite, Sikolo Brathwaite, photography historian Deborah Willis, and curator Marilyn Satin Kushner, reflects on the photographs and fashions in the exhibition.
Download the Bloomberg Connects app now > [ https://www.bloombergconnects.org/?_branch_match_id=1062812982689049197&utm_medium=marketing&_branch_referrer=H4sIAAAAAAAAA8soKSkottLXTywo0EvKyc%2FPTUotSk%2FOz8tLTS4p1ssvStc3d%2FfPzXLLC%2FfNSgIAOxlOuC0AAAA%3D ] 
Spotify Playlist

Music plays a vital and central role in this exhibition. Enjoy a curated playlist selected by the photographer Kwame Brathwaite and his son, Kwame S. Brathwaite, director of the Kwame Brathwaite Archive.
Listen on Spotify now > [ https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6SnR3uHeBF7pXSR3vVxGuY?si=cSyCxAsRQcGim-yXX2mK9A&nd=1 ] 

Major support for Black Is Beautiful: The Photography of Kwame Brathwaite at New-York Historical is provided by Bank of America and Agnes Gund. The exhibition and the accompanying Aperture publication are made possible, in part, with generous support from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Photographic Arts Council Los Angeles.

Article
https://www.nyhistory.org/exhibitions/black-is-beautiful-the-photography-of-kwame-brathwaite

New-York Historical Society Showcases Black Is Beautiful: The Photography of Kwame Brathwaite

On View August 19, 2022 – January 15, 2023, the Acclaimed Traveling Exhibition Comes to New York City Featuring the Life and Work of a Key Figure in the Black Arts Movement

NEW YORK, NY (July 12, 2022) – Beginning August 19, 2022, the New-York Historical Society is the exclusive New York City venue for the traveling exhibition Black Is Beautiful: The Photography of Kwame Brathwaite, the first major show dedicated to this pivotal figure who helped launch and popularize the “Black Is Beautiful” movement of the 1960s. On view through January 15, 2023, the exhibition features 40 large-scale color and black-and-white photographs that document how Brathwaite helped change America’s political and cultural landscape during the so-called Second Harlem Renaissance, using his art to affirm Black physical beauty, celebrate African American community and identity, and reflect the vibrancy of Harlem’s jazz scene, local businesses, and events.

“We are thrilled to bring this exhibition to New York City, Kwame Brathwaite’s hometown and the location of many of his most powerful images,” said Dr. Louise Mirrer, president and CEO of New-York Historical. “His work is a testament to the power of a visual medium to impact the movement towards racial equity. We hope Kwame Brathwaite’s photographs inspire a deeper understanding of the Black empowerment movement and how its legacy resonates today.”

“This stop on the touring exhibition is especially meaningful because this is a New York story,” said Kwame S. Brathwaite. “My father was born in Brooklyn, raised in the Bronx and resides in Manhattan. These images introduce us to the origin of the Black is Beautiful movement that started in Harlem and show us how art, politics, music, and fashion combined to inspire, empower and change the status quo.”

Exhibition Highlights
The exhibition chronicles Brathwaite’s evolution as an activist and artist. Born in Brooklyn in 1938, and raised in the Bronx, Brathwaite was still a teenager when he saw the horrific photographs of Emmett Till in his open casket published in Jet magazine in 1955. For Brathwaite, as for so many people, the impact of those photographs was decisive. As the son of a Caribbean American family, Brathwaite was also greatly influenced by the ongoing Pan-Africanist legacy of the Jamaican-born activist Marcus Garvey.

With his brother Elombe, Brathwaite founded the African Jazz-Art Society & Studios (AJASS) and organized concerts featuring jazz luminaries such as Miles Davis, Abbey Lincoln, and Max Roach. In addition to promoting musical events, the group advanced a message of economic empowerment and political consciousness in the Harlem community, emphasizing the power of self-presentation and style. “Think Black, Buy Black” became a rallying cry.

In the 1960s, Brathwaite and his collective also sought to address how white conceptions of beauty and body image affected Black women and culture. To do so they popularized the transformative idea “Black Is Beautiful” and founded Grandassa Models, a group of Black women of varying backgrounds from the community who embraced natural hairstyles and their African ancestry. The modeling troupe sought to counter both the slight, androgynous figure made famous by 1960s British supermodels Jean Shrimpton and Twiggy and the ubiquity of lighter-complexioned, straight-haired Black models in Black-owned publications such as Ebony. Alongside striking photographs of Grandassa models, the exhibition features several dresses and pieces of jewelry worn by the women.

Special to New-York Historical’s display of the exhibition is a new audio guide available on the Bloomberg Connects app. The audio provides context about the “Black Is Beautiful” movement, the African Jazz-Art Society & Studios, and the Grandassa Models. The audio guide also explores other topics explored in the exhibition including jazz, Black activism, natural beauty, fashion, and Harlem during the time period depicted in Brathwaite’s photographs.

Organized by Aperture in partnership with Kwame S. Brathwaite, Brathwaite’s son and director of the Kwame Brathwaite Archive, the photographs—mostly shot in Harlem and the Bronx—tell a story of a movement and a time. Following its presentation at New-York Historical, the exhibition travels to the University of Alabama at Birmingham for the Abroms‐Engel Institute for the Visual Arts in February 2023.

The exhibition is accompanied by the first monograph dedicated to Kwame Brathwaite. Featuring essays by Tanisha C. Ford and Deborah Willis and more than 80 images, Kwame Brathwaite: Black Is Beautiful (Aperture, 2019) offers a long-overdue exploration of Brathwaite’s life and work and is available from the NYHistory Store.

About Kwame Brathwaite
Kwame Brathwaite (b. Brooklyn, New York, 1938) lives and works in New York. His photographs have been included in solo and group exhibitions at Philip Martin Gallery, Los Angeles; David Nolan Gallery, New York; and the Museum of the City of New York; and published in Aperture, the New Yorker, New York Times, and New York magazine. Brathwaite’s photography is held in public and private collections, including those of the Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois; Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery at Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, New York; MIT List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge, Massachusetts; Museum of the City of New York; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Santa Barbara Museum of Art, California; and Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. Organized by Aperture, Black Is Beautiful: The Photography of Kwame Brathwaite was first presented at the Skirball Cultural Center, Los Angeles, in 2019.

Programming
On Wednesday, October 19, photographer Kwame Brathwaite Jr. and historian Tanisha Ford with moderator Khalil Gibran Muhammad discuss the exhibition and legacy of the photographs on view. Special family programs related to the exhibition will take place during Martin Luther King Jr. weekend. Private group tours can also be arranged throughout the exhibition’s run.

Support
Major support for Black is Beautiful: The Photography of Kwame Brathwaite at New-York Historical is provided by Bank of America and Agnes Gund. The exhibition and the accompanying Aperture publication are made possible, in part, with generous support from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Photographic Arts Council Los Angeles. Exhibitions at New-York Historical are made possible by Dr. Agnes Hsu-Tang and Oscar Tang, the Saunders Trust for American History, the Evelyn & Seymour Neuman Fund, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, and the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature. WNET is the media sponsor.

About the New-York Historical Society
Experience 400 years of history through groundbreaking exhibitions, immersive films, and thought-provoking conversations among renowned historians and public figures at the New-York Historical Society, New York’s first museum. A great destination for history since 1804, the Museum and the Patricia D. Klingenstein Library convey the stories of the city and nation’s diverse populations, expanding our understanding of who we are as Americans and how we came to be. Ever-rising to the challenge of bringing little or unknown histories to light, New-York Historical will soon inaugurate a new annex housing its Academy for American Democracy as well as the American LGBTQ+ Museum. These latest efforts to help forge the future by documenting the past join New-York Historical’s DiMenna Children’s History Museum and Center for Women’s History. Digital exhibitions, apps, and our For the Ages podcast make it possible for visitors everywhere to dive more deeply into history. Connect with us at nyhistory.org or at @nyhistory on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and Tumblr.

Press Contacts
Marybeth Ihle
New-York Historical Society | 212-873-3400 ext. 326 | marybeth.ihle@nyhistory.org

Julia Esposito
Polskin Arts & Communications Counselors | 212-715-1643 | Julia.Esposito@finnpartners.com

PDF Link
https://nyhs-prod.cdn.prismic.io/nyhs-prod/fe383419-0d03-4d78-a8d3-ed4e4a485e7e_BlackIsBeautiful_imagesheet_FINAL.pdf

Article
https://www.nyhistory.org/press/new-york-historical-showcases-photography-of-kwame-brathwaite

Kwame Braithwaite short gallery

Elvis Mitchell on the set of Is That Black Enough For You?!? Hannah Kozak/Netflix

Hollywood’s Black film problem, explained by Elvis Mitchell
The venerated film critic on the unheralded Black influence on everything from soundtracks to Don’t Worry Darling.

By Alissa Wilkinson@alissamariealissa@vox.com  Nov 11, 2022, 7:30am EST

Over the past few years, movies like Black Panther and Get Out have raked in both accolades and box office returns, and the Oscar nominations hit new diversity records. To the casual observer, it may seem like Hollywood has made massive strides in moving from being overwhelmingly dominated by white actors, directors, and writers and toward a more inclusive environment. But from the standpoint of history, it’s startling how little has changed — and what that tells us about the industry.

That’s why Elvis Mitchell’s documentary Is That Black Enough For You?!?, which starts streaming on Netflix on November 11, is so revealing. The veteran critic and journalist, a former New York Times film critic, has, among many other pursuits, hosted KCRW’s phenomenal interview show The Treatment since 1996. He brings a wry and curious lens to the history of Black film in Hollywood, weaving interviews with renowned Black actors and filmmakers from Harry Belafonte to Zendaya into his own story. In so doing, he challenges many of the settled ideas about the film canon, Hollywood history, and what it’s meant to be a Black artist on screen.

I met Mitchell at a hotel on Manhattan’s Lower East Side to talk about those matters and a lot more. I wanted to ask him about Hollywood’s claims to inclusivity, about the still-common axiom that “Black films don’t travel,” and about why all of this history is really not so different from today. Our conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Alissa Wilkinson side Elvis Mitchell interview BEGIN

Alissa Wilkinson

You say in the film that Hollywood appointed itself “the myth-maker” for the world. Early studio heads saw themselves as the guardians of America’s morality and morale, and the exporters of a message about America to the world.

But as you demonstrate, the story Hollywood told about Black people was often demeaning, and very far from the truth. What kind of an effect does that have on the myth that the country and the world internalize?

Elvis Mitchell

I think [Hollywood] was unique to film culture, different from any place else in the world. American movies were made by people who fled [their home countries] under enormous persecution, and then decided to create out of whole cloth this ideal of what America was — this America that they wanted to come to. And the America that they created is still being seen — it’s something popular culture is still responding to.

We noticed as we were putting the movie together that so many of the people on camera — Samuel L. Jackson, Suzanne de Passe, Charles Burnett, Laurence Fishburne — talked about Westerns. The myth became that there was never a Black person on a horse. That would have been empowerment; as soon as you put a Black person on a horse, you’re saying that they have some control over where they’re going, literally, within their lives. We can’t do that.

Back when Paul Thomas Anderson was talking about his film Boogie Nights, he talked about how absurd the idea of a Black cowboy is. So even Paul Thomas Anderson has been kind of rolled under by the idea the movies have created about what cowboys are supposed to be, rather than what they actually were.

So much of Black culture has been about responding to myths created about Black people through various forms of media. That response came from actors as much as filmmakers, because so many of these movies are not directed by Black people. Actors took some claim over [reclaiming the truth about being Black], and that confidence and that brio becomes this really transfixing quality.

Alissa Wilkinson

But it’s not just about telling America what it is, or what its own history is, but also exporting an idea of America and its history to people who aren’t American. My sense as a film critic is that we still see the reverberations of world perceptions of American Black culture through that influence.

Elvis Mitchell

That gets to this message that’s constantly pushed in Hollywood — that Black film won’t sell overseas.

Alissa Wilkinson

Exactly.

Elvis Mitchell

This shibboleth that exists to this very day, one that was constantly fed and cared for, that Black movies “don’t travel.” But think about [renowned Senegalese filmmaker] Ousmane Sembène in Africa, seeing what Ossie Davis is doing [in America], or seeing 1972’s Sounder, and being inspired by that, and creating his own ... I’m not going to say mythology, but his own worldview about Black masculinity. When that’s missing, what does that do to the culture?

It’s very convenient to say, “This stuff doesn’t travel.” Because it’s still this peculiar view of Black culture, even though it seeps in and subsumes everything. When you hear somebody on Fox say “24/7” — that’s hip-hop. They’re terrified by the “fist bump,” but they’ll say something is happening “24/7,” and thus they’re missing the entire point of their argument.

Alissa Wilkinson

Yes — here Ossie Davis is making films like Cotton Comes to Harlem and Black Girl, with roles in which Black characters can exercise self-determination, and it sparks something for filmmakers because their imaginations are expanded.

At the same time, though, you bring up that Sidney Poitier was, at one point, the number one box office draw, and yet Hollywood executives couldn’t imagine that any other Black actor could also be popular with a broader audience. The thinking is that it’s just Poitier; it’s an exception, it’s an anomaly, it’s just this one guy.

It reminded me of how people talk about huge, massive hits like Black Panther or Get Out today. There’s still a reluctance to greenlight big-budget Black films, because the thinking is, “Oh, well, that was a fluke.”

Elvis Mitchell

And what happens? We get a white remake of Get Out, called Don’t Worry Darling.

Alissa Wilkinson

You said it.

Elvis Mitchell

So at the same time, we have to be careful about the way we deal with Black film, because [Hollywood doesn’t think there are] “genres” in Black film; it’s just “Black film.” So when any Black film fails, it is a “Black film” that is failing, not that movie.

I remember when Black Panther came out, I talked to so many people, including Oprah, who said, “This is going to bring in a whole new way of [making] film.” No, it’s not. Because what happens when a film succeeds in a major way? It’s imitated. How many Jurassic World [imitations] have there been since the first Black Panther movie? And now, how many imitations of Black Panther have we seen? The answer is none, because they’re still treated as if lightning struck.

Alissa Wilkinson

Absolutely. Hollywood loves to make big creature movies, even if none of them hit quite like Jurassic Park. And this goes to something I think about a lot, which is that Hollywood is fundamentally conservative. Often people think of Hollywood as a very progressive, forward-looking industry, but it’s risk-averse and prone to sticking with whatever they know — which becomes a problem when what you know is stuck in some false idea of reality.

Do you think the reluctance to mainstream Black film in the industry is due to failure of imagination, built-in biases that they’d be horrified to be accused of, or what?

Elvis Mitchell

How much time do you have? Let’s send out for lunch.

To your point, Hollywood is a community that thinks of itself as being incredibly liberal, except when it comes to exercising that liberal impulse. Maybe they think their liberalism and commerce are two different things, but no, they’re not.

While we were trying to get [Is That Black Enough For You?!?] going, it got shut down by Covid; this was all happening at the same time that the country was reeling from the George Floyd attack, and the responses to that.

Back then, I would get these calls, saying, “So we want to put together this blue ribbon panel to figure out what we can do to make things [in Hollywood] different.” Look, we don’t need a panel. I don’t have time for this. I have three words for you: Hire Black people. It’s as simple as that. And not just one [Black person], but several, so the one person doesn’t have to labor under the burden of having to explain all of Black culture.

Alissa Wilkinson

Your film feels a little bit like a story about all the people who have been told that something “simply isn’t done” or “just can’t be done.” But when it is done, it’s a wild success — like Melvin van Peebles self-financing Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song because no studio would make it, and then it being a huge, era-defining hit. I sort of feel like that might apply to your own film — am I right? I can imagine people saying, “We can’t do this, nobody’s going to watch it, nobody’s going to be interested.”

Elvis Mitchell

People in effect said that when they turned down this same material in a book pitch. I thought, oh, this is the kind of thing that could go on a bookshelf next to Easy Riders, Raging Bulls, or Pictures at a Revolution. This isn’t esoterica. I’m not talking about a wave of art films.

In fact, these movies are not only enormous successes as movies, but they also created these soundtracks that were enormous successes, and then were imitated in ways that were enormous successes.

People who know and understand film history say, “Why hasn’t this documentary happened before?” I say, “I don’t know. If a tree falls in the forest, and there’s nobody to hear it, is that a legacy?” I mean, this is what this comes down to. I hate to torture a metaphor like that, but if it’s not reported on, then it’s not a legacy — if it’s not examined, if there’s not context offered.

Alissa Wilkinson

I think a problem is that people get very emotional and defensive when you threaten their canon, their idea of who did what first.

Why do you think this is?

Elvis Mitchell

There is this consistent boxing up of Black film culture. It’s this. It’s solely this. It is only this. It is Sidney Poitier. It is Black filmmakers finally getting a chance to work in the 1960s. It’s this thing that Melvin van Peebles has tried to fight his way, and then after that Spike Lee, and Robert Townsend, and so many filmmakers.

One of the reasons I wanted to present the idea of the dangers of canonical thought is that nobody tends to think about blackface in Alfred Hitchcock, in the 1937 film Young and Innocent. I remember seeing that as a kid, and thinking, “Oh my god, there’s blackface in an Alfred Hitchcock movie?” Or there is this idea in canonical thought that 1939 is the greatest movie era in American movie history. Some of us disagree with that.

Alissa Wilkinson

But it’s accepted as fact, along with the idea that a set of white filmmakers changed film in the early 1970s. There’s truth to it, but there’s more to the story.

Elvis Mitchell

They end up feeding into that river of myth. “These filmmakers came and changed everything” — well, they did sometimes, but they didn’t exist in a vacuum.

Alissa Wilkinson

Getting a chance to see these things on screen, in front of me, might be what’s good about doing this in film form instead of a book. I had honestly never really been struck by the similarities between depictions of Mickey Mouse and minstrelsy, but of course, it was obvious once you showed it to me in the film.

Elvis Mitchell

This feels like this innocent thing. In fact, it is not. Or, I’m not going to say it’s not innocent, but certainly there are layers to this that need to be pulled away, so we can see the entirety of it.

Mickey wasn’t keeping on gloves so he doesn’t leave any clues for a CSI team or something. “These are Mickey Mouse’s fingerprints, now we know who killed him.”

Alissa Wilkinson

Music is really important to this film, and it’s especially interesting to hear about how releasing a soundtrack before the movie’s release — pretty common now — was virtually unheard of before Super Fly.

Elvis Mitchell

By releasing the soundtrack [before the movie], and having it be such an immediate success, it created a must-see feeling around the movie. And it was constantly being played. If you drove around LA, you heard the commercial for the release of Super Fly. People respond to these songs, and then go out and buy the soundtrack. It is that rare case where you had people listen to the soundtrack before they saw the movie. So they created their own movie in their head through Curtis Mayfield’s soundtrack. And the movie, in some ways, couldn’t live up to that movie they created in their head.

Let’s be honest, those songs are better than the movie. There’s great stuff in the movie, but as a dramatic creation, as a narrative with its own life, that soundtrack is extraordinary. The soundtrack was a huge artistic and commercial success, and every song was released as a single. This isn’t like you’re making A Hard Day’s Night, and the Beatles are already a hit; this is something that becomes a mainstream hit that then propels the movie to enormous success. Shaft followed its example, and it started to happen so much that by the time Saturday Night Fever was coming out, they had the soundtrack out two months before the movie.

Then music videos also started coming out before the movie, and that became the coin of the realm for the ’80s, that the soundtrack was as important, if not more so, than the film. Super Fly did that.

Alissa Wilkinson

Now that’s all TikTok, 10-second clips. This summer the music from Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis started circulating on TikTok before the movie came out. I’m not even sure people knew what it was from, or that the “Hound Dog” remix was based on an Elvis song.

Every year I’ve been doing this job, and especially when Oscar season arrives, the industry starts touting how far they’ve come in terms of inclusivity — the whole #OscarsSoWhite issue having pushed it recently. That is, frankly, embarrassing, when you actually look at who gets jobs and who wins awards.

Elvis Mitchell

Here’s the example. Suzanne de Passe was nominated for Best Original Screenplay in 1973 [for co-writing Lady Sings the Blues]. How many other Black women have been nominated since that, in that category? None.

So when people would say to me, “Are you afraid this documentary’s going to seem dated?” No.

My fear is that it will never seem dated. In the film, Zendaya says, “It’d be great to see Black kids playing together on camera, or to see more Black people in a sci-fi fantasy.” Was that going to seem like old hat by the time this movie came out? No.

It’s weird to show this history to young people and have them go, “God, nothing has changed.” This is the thing that I wanted to try to find a way to deal with, too: Every decade we hear about this “resurgence in Black film.” But where did it go? It didn’t go anywhere; it just wasn’t being covered.

To your question, maybe in some fundamental way things have changed, but it’s still about trying to wrest some control of this narrative. Certainly, the visibility of the phenomenon may change, but Black women aren’t getting opportunities to write movies. It’s as simple as that.

It would be fun to say, “Well, god, in the three years since I’ve started working on this, so much has changed.” No.

Alissa Wilkinson side Elvis Mitchell interview END

Is That Black Enough For You?!? premieres on Netflix on November 11.

ARTICLE
https://www.vox.com/23447401/elvis-mitchell-black-enough-interview

Unknown photographer

Betty Gabriel: The Unsung Black Scream Queen
"THERE IS A LOT OF HORROR WITHIN THE BLACK FEMALE EXPERIENCE IN THIS COUNTRY," THE ACTRESS SAID. "THERE IS A LOT TO BE MINED THERE."

BY RIVEA RUFF · UPDATED OCTOBER 28, 2022
When the term “scream queen” is brought up annually around this time, images of white women narrowly escaping the clutches of a crazed killer or evil entity across film franchises or pivotal genre entries come to mind. Jamie Lee Curtis as Laurie Strode, locked in a 45-year-long battle against Michael Myers. Neve Campbell as Sidney Prescott, opposing the various murderers donning the famed Ghostface mask in the Scream franchise. Naomi Watts as the longsuffering mother fighting supernatural forces in The Ring and Shut-In, or scratching for survival in Funny Games or Goodnight Mommy.

Less often mentioned are the contributions that Black women have made to the genre. Marlene Clark’s conflicted bloodthirst in 1973’s Ganja & Hess. Rachel True‘s vengeful teenage witch in 1996’s The Craft. Naomie Harris as a post-Apocalyptic warrior in 2002’s 28 Days Later.

But perhaps the most prolific yet often overlooked of these in the current era of horror is Betty Gabriel.

Starring in titles like violence thriller The Purge: Election Year, futuristic sci-fi/horror Upgrade, Screenlife slasher Unfriended: Dark Web, cybercrime horror-thriller limited series Clickbait, and of course, Jordan Peele’s innovatively genre-pushing racial horror, Get Out, Gabriel has broken the mold of the disposable Black friend of the protagonist or the film’s first victim.

Gabriel’s performance as “Georgina,” the white grandmother of villain Rose Armitage (Allison Williams), inhabiting the body of an unnamed Black woman, is one of the most iconic in the genre’s history, hands down. Though she had only a handful of lines in the film, her spine-tingling, smiling-yet-tearful monologue about the kindness of the Armitage family is one of the most recognizable frames of the film. Subtle yet chilling, it’s the strongest clue of the horror at the root of the story before the hand is revealed in the film’s third act. And it helped set the tone for a renaissance of Black horror that has begun over the last 6 years.

“I hadn’t really been aware that my contribution to the horror genre was significant in any way,” Gabriel says in conversation with ESSENCE about her status as a staple of modern horror. “I take it with gratitude.”

Ironically not much of a horror film watcher herself – “I will get nightmares,” she says laughing – Gabriel fell into starring in a string of scaries by pure happenstance.

“Starting out, you don’t really have much of a choice. You just take whatever work you can get,” the actress says. “Blumhouse, which was the main producer behind a lot of these films, kept hiring me, and I kept on saying yes to them. It wasn’t like I had a choice between this and a rom-com. It was a choice between this and not working.”

“But I think perhaps on a subconscious, universal level, there is something about me that is drawn to these films, or they’re drawn to me.”

Her first foray into chills and thrills came in 2016, for the second sequel in the wildly popular dystopian action horror franchise, The Purge: Election Year. Playing on societal fears over the turn the nation would take during the election cycle taking place in the real world just months later (and preluding some real-life political horrors that came about during the next Presidential term), the film tackled topics of politics and policy through the lenses of race, class, and religion – with a healthy dose of violence and mayhem, of course.

Gabriel portrayed Laney Rucker, an ex-purger known as “La Pequeña Muerta” in her youth, now an EMT assisting victims of violence each purge night, fighting to keep a peaceful senator in line for presidency alive for the night with the hope of Purge eradication on the horizon.

“It’s something I don’t really like to consume as an audience member, but as an individual, these are things that I definitely am haunted by,” she says of her connection to the material. “Just complete and utter chaos, the breakdown of our system, the guns constantly being a part of our everyday reality, and oppression.”

“It’s one of those movies where it’s like, ‘Is this horror? Or is this just a really messed up version of reality that might come true, that kind of [already] is true?'”

But her true big break into horror icon status came after a pretty harrowing audition process for Blumhouse’s new horror feature, written by that one comedian from Key & Peele.

“I was backpacking through the mountains of Peru, as one does when you’re soul-searching and single,” she reveals. “So, I didn’t have any technology, no smartphone, no wifi, nothing. I was going to an internet cafe once or twice a week, paying 10 cents for an hour for internet, and I got the email audition notice.”

Initially inclined to pass the process up, with no access to camera equipment, internet access, or even too many other people around who knew English, Gabriel tried to let this one go and move on. But something about the opportunity wouldn’t let her rest.

“I went to the hostel, and went to bed, and just couldn’t sleep. So, I just woke up and went, ‘Ugh…I’ve got to figure this out. I’ve got to figure out how to get that tape in. I can’t pass this up.'”

That realization led to a 24-hour bus ride to the next village over to visit a documentary filmmaker she stumbled across through a referral on Facebook, who not only had access to all the equipment she needed to film and upload her audition for the role but was from Chicago and knew English.

“We actually shot it outside. There were birds chirping throughout the whole thing,” she laughs. “12 hours later, it was uploaded and submitted.”

The rest, of course, is horror movie history. Get Out led to a renewed interest in horror films centering Black protagonists in authentically Black experiences, making way for films like Spell, His House, 2021 reboot sequel Candyman and shows like Lovecraft Country and Them.

“I think that ultimately, we’re being more inclusive, and we’re being a bit more aware in how we don’t fully invite people to the table,” Gabriel says of the increased space that’s been made for Black people in the horror genre. “And I do mean certain ‘we’s.’ The ‘we’s’ in power. We pat ourselves on the back for issuing crumbs. In any genre, I hope it isn’t a trend. Hopefully, we see more beautiful Black women on screen.”

Beyond the expression of horror in front of the screen, Gabriel is hopeful that the trend toward stories told by Black creators and about Black experiences continues, with increase.

“I think with the horror genre in particular, there’s so much to be mined there, because there is a lot of horror within the Black female experience in this country,” she says. “I look forward to that being conveyed, and in a way that’s profound, and not necessarily [gratuitous].”

Like many modern film watchers, Gabriel has a hard time viewing “Black struggle” and racialized violence against Black bodies committed to screen, though she sees the horrific stories they portray as valuable expressions.

“I do find myself not able to watch certain stories that really focus on slavery. I just find it challenging and retraumatizing. But that’s not to say that they’re not important and that I don’t try,” she said. “And, there’s always an audience for any story.”

“Personally, I think there’s something [special] to striking a balance between horrifying images, and transcendent nuances that we don’t always think about or see. Or things maybe we know on some level, but we haven’t quite seen [conveyed].”

“I look forward to seeing horror evolve in general. I personally am drawn to subtlety, with lots of layers and complexities about the human experience,” she continues. “I think that’s what made Get Out so wildly successful was that everyone related to this protagonist. Even though a white person will never know what it is to be a Black person, something about that journey was relatable and universal. So, I hope that is the future of horror, with Black stories and Black people behind and in front of the camera.”

Indeed, as Get Out opened Hollywood’s eyes to the bankability of Black horror, it opened doors personally for Gabriel, who has gone on to star in 17 more projects since the film’s release, 4 of which fall into the horror genre. The actress revealed that her role as Sophie Brewer in Netflix’s cyber-kidnapping thriller Clickbait, was the most pivotal on her journey through the genre.

“For me, that was the most personal, because it was the most extensive journey that I had been on playing a character,” she says. “It was my first time playing a lead, and though it wasn’t my first time playing a mom, I was a mother who had to really be the mother and keep the family together, while also having all these secrets and all this shame that she was processing and dealing with.”

Though the actress was considering stepping away from horror altogether in an effort to avoid typecasting, another horror project from a director of color recently came her way that was simply too good to pass up. Now presented with a choice, she chose horror once again – this time from another BIPOC perspective not often seen in American theaters.

The as-yet-untitled horror slated for a 2023/24 release comes from Indian director Bishal Dutta and centers on ancient Indian legends and personal immigrant experiences, subject matter which is likely to resonate with Black viewers just as much as our South Asian brothers and sisters. She also joins season 3 of Prime Video’s action drama Jack Ryan this November, and Discovery’s Manhunt, dramatizing the search for John Wilkes Booth in the days after Abraham Lincoln’s assassination.

“I think we’re in such an anxious place collectively that [horror is] really manifesting itself in a lot of stories,” Gabriel says. “So, yeah, I don’t think you can escape it.”

ARTICLE
https://www.essence.com/celebrity/betty-gabriel-unsung-black-scream-queen/

West Coast Blues Society Caravan of All Stars - soundcheck
Videographer: Ronald Reed

SGT SMOKING BLACK animated trailer FROM DEMUZ COMICS

Wakanda and Talokanil have a singular problem. Both represent a group of people who evaded what the entirety of their kin in the real world did not. While everyone else Black in all humanity in the last five centuries had to deal with being oppressed by white europeans, wakandans didn't. While all indigenous people in humanity in the last five centuries had to deal with being oppressed by white europeans, the Talokanil didn't. 

So the question is, what will a native american people potent enough to defend themselves from the descendants of white europeans or white european descended powers look like? same question what will a black people's <phenotypical race> potent enough to defend themselves from the descendants of white europeans or white european descended powers look like?

The answers are infinite. None are right or wrong. This is fiction. But, from some, not all, whom I spoke to offline who are Black or descended of enslaved or from the motherland to the black enslaved, Wakanda is at the least problematic, at most a cruel joke. And while I have not communicated to any indigenous americans <modern day canada to argentina> about the Talokanil,  I am certain they have similar ranges of negative or positive responses as the aforementioned to Wakanda. 

The problem is the delicacy of such stories. The audience may not admit it, but it knows history well enough to know human beings various groups do not have a positive relationship. And while looking at each person individually has been championed larger and larger since the nineteen hundreds , most human beings are still  of a group first over an individual, for better or worse, and thus, the history of groups in modern humanity, the past five hundred years, is simply negative, and not condoning any positive unions. 

Sequentially, if a writer decides to display fortunate isolated communities from the oppression all their neighbors have survived, if the isolated communities are displayed vengeful while everdistant to the outsiders, the contrast will yield to characters or plots who are unstable. As wanting revenge to all others while also wanting to never be near all others are to incompatible desires. To get revenge one must at some point be near. one must be integrated to get revenge even if the field of integration is the battlefield.

EXTRA THOUGHTS TO WAKANDA

My thoughts to Black Fiction and its modern highlighted forms
https://aalbc.com/tc/profile/6477-richardmurray/?status=1524&type=status

My Issue with the isolationism of Wakanda
https://aalbc.com/tc/profile/6477-richardmurray/?status=1527&type=status

The travels of Michael B Jordan
https://aalbc.com/tc/profile/6477-richardmurray/?status=1779&type=status
 

Wakanda Forever Reviewed by Three White men of Australia- I concur that wakanda forever has plot imbalances. But I oppose their view that the plot or characters are stupid. I think their erratic behavior makes sense. When the british empire fired cannons off the coast of japan and ended their pen-total isolation, the effect on Nippon was huge. Isolated communities historically have a very hard time handling the powerful stranger. In the case of wakanda or talokanil, their problem is restraint. These are two communities that by raw militaristic power could had split the world into two spheres of influence. 500 years ago, Talokanil had the ability to take over all of the american continent, conquistadors first, their fellow indigenous second. 500 years ago Wakanda had the ability to take over all of europe, from london to istanbul, their fellow africans second.  So these are two communities , that are minorities in their region, that have held back empire for centuries, or longer. That is what the hosts don't see. The execution may be a little sloppy at times ...  I would had loved a chance to write the screenplay, but I get what the writers are going for. Killmonger, seeking revenge for the Black people who were not able to evade white european power. Wanted Wakanda to use its power. His argument is that inaction was a betrayal to they black neighbor. What Tchalla and his branch of wakandan monarchy believe in is that, inaction was being respectful to all humans. As Martin Luther King jr said, content of character, not color of skin. Killmonger sees Whites = bad, but Tchalla's forebears see humans outside Wakanda =bad. But TChalla see's the middle ground. Wakandan lacking responsibility =bad. His father not taking his nephew to wakanda is equivalent to wakandan's not guiding blacks or whites anywhere, humans anywhere to positive resolution. Ala the end of Black Panther 1. In Black Panther 2, Namor, a 500 year old individual, has a different problem. He has lived long enough to know white power, white european power, control nearly all of humanity save talokanil side wakanda and a few other hidden spots on the map. While he has also lived long enough to see after centuries of white european rule , the oppressed adopt the way of the rulers, while he is still indigenous, under the water. It is the bitterness as he still feels the hate to the conquistador, to the white european community of the conquistador. But, said community, for better or worse, and in his mind worse, has led to new cultures created all throughout humanity, that are not the old ones before the white europeans arrived, but are not totally absent the indigenous heritages from before the white man came. Yes, Native Americans sit in the USA Congress. Yes, MAndela became president of South africa and preached ubuntu. YEs, the leadership of the Chinese government dresses in WEstern European Garb while being a proven/known nuclear power. Namor hates these hybrid cultures, in my interpretation to the story, and the irony is, he himself, is a hybrid:) 

The review beneath me is very negative towards wakanda forever, so I advise you not listen to it , if you can't handle such things, though it makes some great plot points about the film, that I agree, were lazy from the writers. 

In my opinion a video that is a great reply to the review above. The key is perspective. The reviewers above, in their judeo christian mentality can't comprehend the revenge narrative in either Black Panther films that reflects a well known in Black or Indigenous circles story view. In the indigenous or Black communities, it is common to live disliking whites, live whole lives disliking whites, sometimes hating whites. But, not doing much of anything. The historical figures of NAt Turner or Tecumseh prove that the two communities in question have important differences to most whites. I will argue, that some in the irish community comprehend this mentality. The point is, communities have their own perspectives which flow into fiction and if people from other communities don't comprehend those perspectives they may deem the said fiction silly or dysfunctional, as the reviewers above.

A small review of the book , one title in in english being, Water Margin

water Margin's series summarized

In Ode to Jet Li.  I truly think he , barring Brandon Lee , is the heir to Bruce Lee in Chinese Cinema. 

My thoughts to the concept of Unspoken

The video starts off with, and I quote
"Church membership among Black Americans has decreased by 19% over the past two decades. Departures led by Genz and Millennials"
Then the first speaker ask a question. Is Christianity the white man's religion?
A speaker said it is unfortunate the black christian church is pushed to the margins of the black community in the usa. 
But he is wrong, it was inevitable. Like Black Colleges first financed by whites or the National association for the advancement of colored people first financed by whites, the black churches, first financed by whites spent most of the time since the end of the war between the states preaching to black people , individual accountability. 
Again, many , and I say an unproven most , Black churches opposed the panthers/opposed Black violence against whites or blacks scheming/supported white initiatives like the war on drugs which was clearly a scheme to harm the black community. 
The Black Church failed, that is why its numbers are low. It the same problem with people voting. 
People don't mind supporting a church or some religion. They don't mind voting. But they want to see something in return. Don't tell the people the return on investment is the investment itself. 
That is why Black people are disinterested in the Black Church or Parties of Governance. They want something and these institutions don't offer anything and have proven they will not give anything the people value even with the greatest participation by the people. 
Circa 1:53 one of the documentaries creators, a black woman states, many people go by here and say is christianity a white man's religion? 
The problem I have is the question are incorrect. Two better questions are, is there a black version of christianity, or can one make their own version of christianity? the answer to the first is yes, the answer to the second is yes. 
First, The ethiopian Tewahedo church is christian, made by blacks in africa after christianity was introduced to the emperor of ethiopia by christians from europe, I think they were white. IT started, I looked it up, in the 4th century.
Second, all versions of christianity today are variants. No version of christianity reflects what jesus was doing? why? Jesus had no bible. Jesus had no mancraft church. Jesus had no restrictive memberships, meaning all could follow him regardless of their belief or disbelief.  If you want the christianity of jesus you better start with yourself, as a denomination with one member.
2:47 the sister after an interlude continues and says, some black man spoke about being harassed by his friends constantly that christianity is a white man's religion. Again, the problem is comprehending how religions work. Like the roman emperor constantine, manipulated and made the modern european christian churches, any individual has the ability to make their own christian church. This is where excommunicado comes from. It came from after Nicea when the selected christian groups by Constantine, were forced to make a bible, which was not official before and then they excommunicated any one who called themselves christian who didn't convert to their form of christianity. This is very simple.
Haitian Voodoo is similar but not Dahomey Vodun. Faiths , Spiritualities, Religions have versions. It is that simple. They are made more often than not. Sometimes they bicker amongst themselves, ala the reformations of europe. But anyone is free to make one.
In Conclusion, the problem isn't people leaving a religions or spirituality or faith <for the record those three things are not the same> . The problem is, near history saw a swelling of membership to some religions: christianity/islam/buddhism. But those swellings were based on military power of human groups against other human groups, it wasn't willing conversions. But, the religions accepted the selling without preaching how they swelled. So in modernity, the devout of these religions, feel an angst , an isolation, a confusion, but they are wrong to be confused. The christianity of jesus, islam of muhammed, buddhism or siddharta have one thing in common. Each started a faith that was deemed during the time their spirit was inside a living body, a radical minority. 
The people producing this are proselytizing a selling point. That christianity is black, christianity is african, and so Black people of African descent need to flock back to christianity. But the problem is most in humanity are distancing themselves from the religions forced on their forebears. Just remember, Christianity or islam or buddhism were all imperial religions over large portions of humanity at some point in the recent past. 
The modern christians need to accept they are or are becoming a minority populace across humanity as a whole or in parts and focus on improving their community and learning to be happy amongst the majority non christian community.
IN AMENDMENT 1
To the question of Christianity being a white man's religion...well... I have studied a little about the origins of christianity side other religions. One of the problems when we talk of religions or spiritualities or faiths is that the versions they become throughout time have influences. for example. the islam of muhammed didn't have arabic as a standardized language, didn't have a literary quran.  The christianity of jesus, didn't have a bible, didn't use latin as a liturgical language. A modern example is the nation of islam today , it isn't what malcolm built. So, is christianity a white man's religion? If by white you mean white european, then no. Was jesus white? was jesus mulatto? was jesus colored? was jesus black? Does anyone know for sure? Jean Jacques dessalines, first emperor of haiti wouldn't call the people in modern day palestine in jesus's home town , negro. mulatto, ok. Is Christianity a european religion? no. It was born in africa, like islam, like judaism. The fertile crescent isn't in asia, that is africa. 
IN AMENDMENT 2
I remember telling a Black person who was very angry at the abuses the black community in the usa had to deal with that, few to no black people, including myself,  in the usa will join any call to all out violence. But I also told him, to find those who are like minded and then practice what you preach. What is the point ? 
Being in a minority means based on a category/race/rank/order/some factor or measure, you are part of a smaller group of people than another in a given space. But, sometimes, one is part of a minority in a minority. Black Christians in the usa find themselves in that place. This documentary isn't trying to help Black Christians settle into their future. It's base message is to preach to the non Black Christian how Christianity is at the root.

The Explanation

if the video above doesn't appear, use the folloiwng link https://fb.watch/gGrEOH4nmL/

The Trailer
 

The Gospel of Joseph

consider making your own gospel as a starting point, if you are interested in a new christian path

https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/gospel-of-joseph

KINDRED

'Kindred' Trailer: Shocking Preview For FX's Octavia Butler Adaptation On Hulu Sees Mallori Johnson Violently Traverse Time

Monique Jones

November 07, 2022

The FX/Hulu’s upcoming series based on Octavia Butler’s Kindred has dropped its first trailer, which shows fear and anguish amid mysterious time travel.

The eight-episode series stars Mallori Johnson as a woman and writer who gets forcibly ping-ponged in between the present and America’s past of slavery. All the while, she is navigating an interracial relationship, which becomes even more complicated as she reckons with the racial violence embedded in her family.

According to the official description:

Adapted from the celebrated novel Kindred, by Hugo Award-winner Octavia E. Butler, the FX series centers on “Dana James” (Mallori Johnson), a young Black woman and aspiring writer who has uprooted her life of familial obligation and relocated to Los Angeles, ready to claim a future that, for once, feels all her own. But, before she can settle into her new home, she finds herself being violently pulled back and forth in time. She emerges at a nineteenth-century plantation, a place remarkably and intimately linked with Dana and her family. An interracial romance threads through Dana’s past and present, and the clock is ticking as she struggles to confront secrets she never knew ran through her blood, in this genre-breaking exploration of the ties that bind.

The series also stars Micah Stock, Ryan Kwanten, Gayle Rankin, Austin Smith, David Alexander Kaplan, Sophina Brown and Sheria Irving.

Kindred is Johnson’s breakout debut role; as Shadow and Act reported in 2021, this marks Johnson’s first role since graduating from Julliard that year.

The series is written by Watchmen writer/producer and playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, who also serves as showrunner and executive producer. Joining him as executive producers are Protozoa Pictures’ Joe Wisberg, Joel Fields, Darren Aronofsky and Ari Handel. Courtney Lee-Mitchell and Jules Jackson also executive produce with Janicza Bravo, who directs the pilot.

Bravo talked about what it was like to sign on to 'Kindred' in 2021, saying in a statement that she felt represented when she read the book in college.

“I first read Kindred 20 years ago. I was in college. I hadn’t ever seen myself in a world like that. And certainly not at its center,” she said, as reported by Deadline. “What might seem like only a portrait of an invisible woman is also a potent embrace of our relationship to history and how it can bring us closer to our future. After what felt like losing over a year of the life I had come to know so well, an opportunity to direct an adaptation of this specific text was a win. On top of that getting to partner with Branden is something I’d been wanting for quite some time.”

Kindred will air exclusively on Hulu starting Dec. 13.

ARTICLE

https://shadowandact.com/kindred-trailer-shocking-preview-for-fxs-octavia-butler-adaptation-on-hulu-sees-mallori-johnson-violently-traverse-time?item=4

Trailer

Chevalier film

Above is the chevalier film trailer, based on the life of Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges 

The following is some of his music
source 1 
https://imslp.org/wiki/Category:Saint-Georges,_Joseph_Bologne

source 2
https://www.artaria.com/collections/saint-georges-joseph-bologne-de-1745-1799

My Thoughts

... Support Black people whether they be negra/mulatto/yella/christian/Atheist or otherwise. I didn't say agree or concur to everybody else Black, but support. It helps at the least.