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Black Kos, Week In Review [1]
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Date: 2022-11-11
"... And from its ample folds Shall rise no cry to God, Upon its warp and woof shall be No stain of tears and blood.... " - Frances Ellen Watkins Harper "Free Labor"
Voices and Soul
by Justice Putnam, Black Kos Poetry Editor
Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, though born a free woman in the time of slavery, was nonetheless, a fierce advocate for abolition and equal rights. She was part of the Free Produce Movement, a boycott of goods made with slave labor. "Free" meant, "not enlsaved" and "Produce" was any good or crop made or harvested by human effort. Some have argued how effective the movement was, given that slavery existed for almost a century from the movement's inception. But whether a boycott is against “Blood Emeralds,” or “Sweat Shop Fabric", an individual stand, indeed, carries great power. It brings about irrevocable change, like waves wearing away rock along the coast line. When asked by the landed gentry of the times, why she would boycott goods made by her "people", she insisted that what she owned was Free; that it was manufactured by men and women of their own Free Will, who were paid an honest wage for an honest day's work. She insisted that what she owned was not extracted by the whip and the lash, what she owned was not the result of the tearing apart of families, of the flesh and the Soul. What she owned was the result of Free Labor by a free people.
I wear an easy garment,
O’er it no toiling slave
Wept tears of hopeless anguish,
In his passage to the grave. And from its ample folds
Shall rise no cry to God,
Upon its warp and woof shall be
No stain of tears and blood. Oh, lightly shall it press my form,
Unladened with a sigh,
I shall not ‘mid its rustling hear,
Some sad despairing cry. This fabric is too light to bear
The weight of bondsmen’s tears,
I shall not in its texture trace
The agony of years. Too light to bear a smother’d sigh,
From some lorn woman’s heart,
Whose only wreath of household love
Is rudely torn apart. Then lightly shall it press my form,
Unburden’d by a sigh;
And from its seams and folds shall rise,
No voice to pierce the sky, And witness at the throne of God,
In language deep and strong,
That I have nerv’d Oppression’s hand,
For deeds of guilt and wrong. - Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
"Free Labor"
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News round up by dopper0189, Black Kos Managing Editor
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In races from Maryland to Pennsylvania to Massachusetts, Black candidates made history last night. The Root: Wes Moore Leads On A Night Of Black Electoral Firsts
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For only the third time in the nation’s history, voters in one of the 50 states picked a Black candidate for governor on Tuesday, electing Democrat Wes Moore over Republican Dan Cox by a nearly 23-point margin.
Moore’s win was the headline on an election night where Black candidates in several states also made history. Summer Lee became the first Black woman elected to represent Pennsylvania in Congress while Austin Davis became its first Black governor-elect. Massachusetts voted for its first Black woman attorney general in Andrea Campbell. In California, Malia Cohen became the first Black woman elected as the state’s controller while Karen Bass appears poised to be L.A.’s first Black woman mayor-elect.
Moore follows only Deval Patrick, who was governor of Massachusetts from 2007 to 2015, and Douglas Wilder, who was governor of Virginia from 1990 until 1994, among Black elected governors in the the country’s history.
Moore’s was a particularly resounding win in a state where outgoing Republican Gov. Larry Hogan had won two terms despite having cut millions of dollars in funding for projects that were considered potentially transformative for Black communities. Ironically, Hogan beat former Maryland Lieutenant Gov. Anthony Brown, who is Black, in 2018 to become the state’s only third Republican governor since former Vice President Spiro Agnew in the 1970s. Maryland has also had one other Black lieutenant governor, Republican Michael Steele, who served from 2003 until 2007.
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Activists say Stacey Abrams’ political career is just beginning even though the gubernatorial Democratic candidate was defeated by Republican Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp Tuesday night.
“I don’t think she’s going anywhere. She’s young. I believe she’s just getting started,” said Aimee Allison, founder of She the People, told theGrio.
She added, “Stacey Abrams’ name is shorthand for the possibilities of this country. The future of this country.”
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After Black women, Black men are the second largest group to vote for Democrats. The Root: Black Men Showed Up And Showed Out At The Midterm Polls. Why Are People Saying They Don't Vote?
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The narrative that Black men don’t vote has been a pervasive one for years. We saw it during the 2016 election in which Trump was victorious (white women were instrumental in securing his win). We saw it when Andrew Gillum narrowly lost his Florida governorship to Ron DeSantis back in 2018. And unfortunately, we will continue to see it in upcoming elections.
At the core of this myth lies the discomfort of white folks. It’s easier to point the finger at Black men and not interrogate the amount of racist white people desperate to cling to oppressive, political systems even if it’s to their detriment. That level of honesty will force the infrastructure of American politics to shatter in hopes of building something newer and fairer.
The Democratic party relies heavily on the work, passion and dedication of Black people. To exclude Black men from their contributions to it is factually inaccurate and just plain wrong.
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Over its last few movies — Eternals, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, and Thor: Love and Thunder — Marvel has used its post-credits scenes to announce big new castings. Harry Styles, Charlize Theron, and Brett Goldstein all had cameos introducing new characters (Eros, Clea, and Hercules) who will be major players in those respective franchises. One might assume that would happen with Wakanda Forever, especially with how the movie introduced the antihero sub-mariner Namor (Tenoch Huerta) and the underwater city of Talokan.
But Wakanda Forever did something different, using its post-credits scene to further one of the movie’s ongoing plots.
In the film, Shuri (Letitia Wright) is holding on to an immense amount of grief after losing her brother T’Challa (the late Chadwick Boseman) to an unknown disease. In real life, Boseman died in August 2020 at the age of 43 after his colon cancer had progressed to stage four. He kept his disease private and his death was a shock to his fans and colleagues. In Wakanda Forever, his character dies offscreen.
Shuri wrestles with her anger and guilt at not being able to help him. She’s unable to give herself closure — something her mother Ramonda (Angela Bassett) urges her to do. At the same time, we learn her brother’s lover Nakia (Lupita Nyong’o) did not attend T’Challa’s funeral. Nakia moved to Haiti after Thanos’s snap turned T’Challa and half the Earth’s population into dust (T’Challa was brought back in Endgame but died sometime after his resurrection).
In the movie, Nakia gives Shuri a standing offer to live with her in Haiti. The movie’s final scene has Shuri finally visiting Nakia and performing a Wakandan ritual in which she says goodbye to her brother.
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Gaining access to finance is by far the biggest obstacle. The Economist: A Ghanaian brewery shows how hard life is for small businesses
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Happy 34th birthday, Tom”, exclaims the label on the beer bottle. Underneath is a photo of the birthday boy, then an employee at the American embassy in Ghana, pulling a face that suggests he was not expecting any buttoned-up diplomats at his party. Clement Djameh, a wisecracking Ghanaian brewer, makes the bespoke labels and the amber liquid inside. It is refreshing, tangy, and so strong that a second glass risks turning the afternoon into a haze. The surprise ingredient is locally grown sorghum. Mr Djameh is desperate to expand to meet demand, but his plans are badly stalled.
Those running businesses in sub-Saharan Africa, even in relatively prosperous countries such as Ghana, face a scarcely conceivable array of problems. Chief among them is access to finance. Alas, government and donor efforts to fix the problems often go awry.
Mr Djameh has many advantages for a would-be brewing kingpin. He studied beer-making in Munich and has worked for Ghana’s biggest brewers. Beer-glugging foreigners love his concoctions. His microbrewery was Ghana’s first. And his use of sorghum stemmed from his work on a multimillion-dollar government- and un-backed project to reduce poverty by encouraging Ghanaian farmers to grow the grain to supply brewers. Ghana’s beer barons have been sniffy about using sorghum. Mr Djameh’s business offers a way to make something of the project.
To ramp up production from a mere 200 litres a batch in 2016, Mr Djameh began looking for about $400,000 to buy bigger brewing equipment and lots more kegs. He applied for an interest-free loan under a special scheme at a state bank and was approved, he says. But the bank then said it had no cash to lend. The cheap-loan scheme was later changed into one that charged 10% interest. That did not deter Mr Djameh, who was keen to reap economies of scale. “Breweries always make money,” he grins. However, he balked when the loan officer wanted a 10% kickback, he says, adding: “If you’re not prepared to pay [and] you don’t have a strong political connection, you will not get the money.”
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WELCOME TO THE FRIDAY PORCH
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