When Karen Braithwaite (pictured) could not find party supplies for her daughter’s fifth birthday gathering with images of Black Barbies, she took her gripe to Change.org and YouTube in order to twist the corporate arm of the famed doll’s manufacturer, reports CBS New York.
The Harlem-based, 40-year-old human resources manager could not fathom why the toy company makes Black Barbie dolls but failed to create a culturally diverse line of party goods that would follow suit. She refused to purchase supplies with images of blond-haired, blue-eyed Barbies for her daughter, Georgia (pictured), despite the child’s insistence.
Braithwaite is at the helm of the group of 14 Harlem moms who have taken up their concerns with Mattel. The Change.org online petition that Braithwaite started last month has thus far garnered nearly 5,000 signatures. The request has reportedly not fallen on deaf ears and the toy maker, which manufactured its first African-American doll, Christie, in 1968, is reportedly considering the move to create the cultural party supplies.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCJXk9uAeOI&w=420&h=315]
article via newsone.com
On Mattel’s social media page, the company tweeted two replies to people who brought the issue to their attention: “We work closely with our partners to develop and distribute Barbie products such as party supplies,” and “We will be sharing your valuable feedback with them to start conversations and evaluate the business.”
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Virginia Johnson, the artistic director of Dance Theater of Harlem, with her dancers, at an open rehearsal. (Andrea Mohin/The New York Times)
In the early days of Dance Theater of Harlem its members, charged with proving to the world that black dancers could master ballet, needed a certain pluck. “It was a group of young dancers that went out and carried their own lights and did lecture-demonstrations and started performing,” said Laveen Naidu, 45, the organization’s executive director.
That scrappy image has served Virginia Johnson well. The elegant artistic director of Dance Theater of Harlem — and its star ballerina for 28 years — Ms. Johnson, 63, was reminded of such humble beginnings last spring, when she held auditions for the rebirth of the company. (It had been forced to go on hiatus in 2004 when it announced its $2.3 million debt.) As Ms. Johnson put it, she had stars in her eyes. But she was in for a surprise.
“I was really shocked at how few African-Americans auditioned,” she said. “And that was the moment when we were looking in this room, and it was like, ‘No, but where are the black people?’ ”
She laughed, as she often does when describing a seemingly hopeless situation. “I thought about Arthur Mitchell with all the hodgepodge of dancers that came to him back in 1969 that he had to make into a company. I said, ‘O.K., it’s the same thing again, and this is great.’ It was actually more exciting than taking top-level dancers and making them into a company. It meant that we had to have that inner-grit thing going again.”
Dance Theater, formed by Mr. Mitchell and Karel Shook, took on the barrier-breaking mission of training and presenting black classical ballet dancers to the world. For years the company was more than a thriving, internationally touring troupe. It showed that ballet was no longer just a white domain. But then the company disappeared, leaving a gaping hole. One year off turned into nine; disillusionment set in. Now Dance Theater is making a comeback. Beginning Wednesday the company, lean at just 18 members from 44 in 2004, will perform at the Rose Theater at Jazz at Lincoln Center.
This Feb. 5, 1999 file photo shows O’Neal putting his arms around teammates, Elden Campbell (41) and Kobe Bryant (8) as Eddie Jones (6) and Derek Harper walk in front as they return to play the Houston Rockets in the fourth quarter. (AP Photo/ Victoria Arocho,File)
In the midst of the Los Angeles Lakers race for the eighth seed in the Western Conference, the Lakers plan to retire former center Shaquille O’Neal before Tuesday night’s game against the Dallas Mavericks. O’Neal, who retired in 2011 after his sole season with the Boston Celtics, averaged 27 points, nearly 12 rebounds and 2.5 blocks per game as a Laker during the regular season.
O’Neal was dominant during the Lakers championship ‘threepeat’ from 1999-2002, earning three consecutive NBA Finals MVPs. His coach during that championship run, Phil Jackson, will speak at the jersey retirement ceremony. Kobe Bryant will offer a video tribute which has been pre-recorded according to Kevin Ding of the Orange-County Register.
The ceremony will take place during halftime. Shaq has been keeping busy since announcing he was hanging up his #34 for good, especially on social media. O’Neal boasts nearly 7 million followers on Twitter. He’s currently an NBA analyst and host for Turner Sports’ Inside the NBA show.
article via thegrio.com
Wendell Pierce welcomes the first customers inside his 25,000 square-foot store.
After Hurricane Katrina devastated this city in 2005, Pierce seized an opportunity to help his childhood neighborhood — Pontchartrain Park, an historic enclave for middle-class blacks — get back on its feet. He started the nonprofit Pontchartrain Park Community Development Corp. with a goal of replacing hundreds of flood-ravaged, 1950s-era houses with new homes. Now, the next item in his recovery recipe is a long-missing ingredient.
Pierce, 50, and his partners are investing big in something seemingly so small: convenient access to a grocery store. They have launched a chain of convenience stores, Sterling Express, and a full-service grocery store, called Sterling Farms, the latter just unveiled in what is often described as a “food desert,” a neighborhood where residents must travel more than a mile to a store selling fresh food. According to 2011 data, 19 percent of all Orleans Parish households have no access to a vehicle.
WASHINGTON (AP) — On April 4th, the 45th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s death, Attorney General Eric Holder challenged the Supreme Court to uphold a key section of the Voting Rights Act that requires all or part of 15 states with a history of discrimination to get federal clearance before carrying out changes in elections.
Holder made the comments Thursday in a speech to a civil rights group whose founder and president is the Rev. Al Sharpton. Focusing on issues he regards as important during President Barack Obama’s second term in office, Holder vowed to protect the voting rights of all Americans, safeguard young people from gun violence and improve the criminal justice system.
Opponents of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 say the pre-clearance requirement has outlived its usefulness. Starting in 2009, the Supreme Court made clear its skepticism about the present-day need for the provision. The court is considering a challenge on the issue from Shelby County, Ala., near Birmingham.
CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) — Venus Williams outlasted fellow American Ververa Lapchenko in three sets Friday to start a long day of tennis for the Williams’ family at the rain-delayed Family Circle Cup.
Venus was up a set and held a 3-0 lead in the second set before Lapchenko won six of the next seven games to force a third set. Lapchenko led 1-0 before Williams found her game and closed out the set, 6-2. Williams will face 18-year-old Madison Keys later Friday for a spot in the semifinals Saturday.
Top-ranked Serena Williams also must play twice Friday after a 7 1-2 hour rain delay wiped out much of Thursday’s schedule. Serena will play Mallory Burdette. If she wins, she’ll play either sixth-seeded Lucie Safarova or Sorana Cirstea.
via Venus Williams wins at Family Circle | theGrio.
From the Great Pyramids of Giza to the rock-hewn churches of Ethiopia; the Swahili stone houses of Kenya to the Bedouin tents of Morocco — indigenous African design bespeaks grace, style, imagination and verve. Over hundreds of years, the continent has also absorbed layers of influence from other cultures through explorers, invaders, soldiers, stonemasons, merchants and missionaries hailing from such far-flung places as Turkey, India, Europe, China and Arabia. Today’s architecture and interior design draws on this variegated past, often fusing local, hand-crafted elements with modern technology to create an aesthetic that is absolutely African.
One example is pictured – North Island Lodge (www.north-island.org). The Lodge opened 10 years ago on a private paradise island in the Seychelles and caters to the ecologically-minded. The entire place was built after extensive coordination with the government to make certain the environment was not only undisturbed, but preserved. The owners’ philosophy is to rehabilitate habitats and reintroduce the critically endangered flora and fauna of Seychelles.
To see and learn more about this and other indigenous African constructs, click on Africa.com‘s full article and slideshow Top 10 Afro-Smart Designs.
original article by Africa.com‘s Peggy Healy
Desmond Tutu was named this year’s winner of the 2013 Templeton Prize.
Tutu is being awarded for his promotion of what the foundation calls “spiritual progress,” including love, forgiveness and human liberation, especially after the fall of apartheid when he chaired South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The commission addressed tensions between perpetrators of the apartheid state and reformers, and granted amnesty on both sides to hundreds of requests out of thousands that were submitted. It is considered key to the nation’s democratic transition in the 1990s.
“When you are in a crowd and you stand out from the crowd it’s usually because you are being carried on the shoulders of others,” Tutu said in response to receiving the prize in a video on the Templeton website. “I want to acknowledge all the wonderful people who accepted me as their leader at home and so to accept this prize, as it were, in a representative capacity.”