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Black Kos, Week In Review [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-01-24
Voices & Soul
by Justice Putnam, Black Kos Editor
I was called a race traitor again by the usual bigots who insist I always “see” racism where none exists. That’s why they want to pull a Stasi Quo and turn in neighbors who are not white to ICE. They have no problem turning in Black workers for being DEI hires, just don’t call it racist. They accuse us of being radicalized by Critical Race Theory, when I was actually radicalized in third grade in Corvallis, Oregon, September of 1963, when those little Black school girls were blown up in the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing by the KKK. I was radicalized by tv news coverage of police dogs attacking Black school boys at lunch counters and high pressure fire hoses knocking elderly Black women to the ground. I was only a kid, but Black men, women and children beaten to a pulp on the Edmund Pettus Bridge radicalized me to the core.
I cannot capitulate. I refuse to pretend a Nazi salute is an awkward gesture, I cannot pretend the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers are nothing but Brownshirts goosestepping to their own Wagnerian drummer for the King of America. I refuse to forget all that was fought for. And I refuse to give up.
a man is killed in Mobile, Alabama. It is 1981, nearest what some will call the last lynching in America. The business of our nation goes forward—a star leads and hostages are freed while Michael Donald walks from the corner store. He is 19, the youngest of six, a college boy. He will miss class the next morning and Sunday dinner; he will not bring the cigarettes to his sister. Those weeks after spiriting me into the world, my mother watches the news, looks over at my father too frequently, calls his name each time he heads to another room—delirious in her exhaustion and fear—where was he, would he disappear? And the little girl, what world was this for her to enter? Crosses burning on the county courthouse lawn, then other sons with ropes and guns, looking for anyone, find Michael Donald walking, ask him for directions, a sign for old haints. They show him the rifle and what can he do but be forced into the car, driven past this life into the next. Years later, in an unimaginable victory, his mother will bankrupt the KKK, demanding they pay for her loss and others, while my mother, like so many, carries me daily to school around the corner, insists on watching until I am beyond the large blue doors. Mothers are God again, and they will not go quietly; they know everything born will need to be fed, even children hung from low branches in their jean jackets and muddy tennis shoes, carried out of the wood into the light of everyone's suffering. - Remica Bingham-Risher
"25 days after I am born"
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News round up by dopper0189, Black Kos Managing Editor
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New executive actions from the Trump administration on Tuesday make clear that not only is President Donald Trump using his power to purge the practice of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) from the federal government — he’s acting to try and purge it from American culture as a whole.
In an executive order Tuesday night, Trump dismantled the decades-old requirements that federal contractors practice affirmative action by trying to employ more women and people of color. Trump’s acting chief of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) — the office that oversees the federal civil service — also ordered that all employees of DEIA (diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility) offices at federal agencies be placed on paid administrative leave by the end of the day Wednesday.
But Trump went further, also taking aim at DEI in the private and nonprofit sectors. His executive order instructed the Justice Department and other agencies to identify “the most egregious and discriminatory DEI practitioners” in their jurisdiction.
Every federal agency, the order went on, must send a recommendation to the attorney general of up to nine potential investigations of corporations, large nonprofits, foundations with assets of $500 million or more, higher education institutions with endowments of $1 billion or more, or bar and medical associations. All this, the order said, was meant to “encourage the private sector to end illegal discrimination and preferences, including DEI.”
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Female entrepreneurs are leading the charge. The Economist: West African booze is becoming a luxury product
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WEST AFRICA has long been a source of booze. In Yoruba mythology Obatala, a deity sent to create humans, stumbled on palm wine and fell into a drunken slumber before completing the task. Some of the world’s first rums were made by Africans enslaved in the Caribbean, who may have brought knowledge of local tipples with them. Yet today there are few African names in the global market for high-end spirits. Some entrepreneurs are trying to change that.
Amma Mensah, the British-Ghanaian owner of Reign Rums, and Lola Pedro, of Pedro’s ogogoro in Nigeria, see the business as an act of reclamation. Ms Mensah’s distillery sits on a former colonial plantation that she says was owned by white Europeans until a decade ago. Her bottles are decorated with war horns, crowns and golden stools, insignia of power among Ghana’s Ashanti kings. Ms Pedro seeks to popularise ogogoro, a smoky, spicy spirit made from fermented palm sap, partly because it was once a symbol of anti-colonial protest (in the early 20th century British colonisers banned the drink, because it was seen as a threat to pricier imports).
Both women are targeting the luxury market. Unlike informally produced ogogoro, which is cheap and has not quite shed its illicit reputation, a bottle of Pedro’s costs at least £60 ($74). Ms Mensah’s rums, aged in repurposed barrels previously used to make cashew-apple brandy, retail at between £48 and £96 a bottle. She serves fancy shops and bars in Accra, Ghana’s capital, as well as in London, and has plans to expand to America. Besides Nigeria, Pedro’s is sold in Ghana and Britain, with Kenya, South Africa and France next on the list.
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The Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change hosted a red-carpet ceremony and the MLK Jr. Beloved Community Awards in Atlanta. NewsOne: The King Center Hosts Red Carpet Reception And MLK Jr. Beloved Community Awards
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This past weekend, the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change hosted a red carpet ceremony before an awards ceremony recognizing individuals and organizations keeping Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy alive.
The red carpet reception featured a number of celebrities before the MLK Jr. Beloved Community Awards ceremony took place in Atlanta on Saturday night, just days ahead of the annual award ceremony.
Among those who were on the red carpet at the Omni hotel at Centennial Olympic Park were Dr. Bernice A. King, the CEO of The King Center; actress Trina Braxton, who also hosted the red carpet reception; actor Tanner Thomason; actress Jennifer Lewis; HeadKrack, the co-host of Dish Nation; and saxophonist and songwriter Kirk Whalum.
The MLK Jr. Beloved Community Awards featured performances by MaKenzie Thomas, CommUNITY ATL and others.
Dr. Bernice King
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WELCOME TO THE FRIDAY PORCH
IF YOU ARE NEW TO THE BLACK KOS COMMUNITY, GRAB A SEAT, SOME CYBER EATS, RELAX, AND INTRODUCE YOURSELF.
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