Black emojis have arrived. Recently, Apple executives said they would work on getting emojis of color. But Africa couldn’t wait. Oju Africa, a division of African mobile company Mi-Fone, released 15 emojis this week on the Google Play store.
“We follow global trends but we are differentiated by our authentic African voice. So as a brand we wanted to do something that only Africa could pull off, something that could become so iconic that it would have the world talking. I believe what we have created will ensure that every African on the planet won’t be able to help but love it!” Eserick Fouché, the creative director of Oju Africa, told International Business Times.
Accordingly, Oju translates as “face” in the Yoruba language of Nigeria. The emojis, which are similar to Apple’s yellow smiley face, are available now for Android (search for “oju emoticon app” in the Play Store), and will be released soon for iOS.
article by Dominique Zonyeé via bet.com
Posts published in “Media/Internet”
GOOD BLACK NEWS proudly celebrates its fourth anniversary today, with 6,397 Facebook followers, 3,988 Twitter followers, 1,932 Tumblr followers, 653 via Pinterest, and hundreds more via Instagram, Google+, YouTube, WordPress, our RSS feed, and LinkedIn. Although initially launched on March 18, 2010 as a Facebook page (read the detailed story behind GBN’s creation here), in September 2012, GBN created this dedicated website, goodblacknews.org, which has allowed us to expand our presence on the internet and provide archives and search functions to you, our loyal readers.
In the past year, we were greatly honored to receive the 2013 Black Weblog Award for Best Political or News Blog, largely due to the support of our dedicated followers. The outpour of appreciation you’ve shown us via likes, comments, shares, reflags and e-mails means the world to us, and only inspires GBN to keep getting bigger and better. In the coming months, we aim to refresh and revise the look of goodblacknews.org once again to improve mobile access, provide more original content, and (if you sign up for it) a downloadable e-newsletter (this goal got away from us in 2013, but it’s going to be for real this time) with features such as historical spotlights, interviews, film release dates, television listings, and more.
Please keep helping us spread GBN by sharing, liking, re-tweeting and commenting, and consider joining our e-mail list via our “Contact Us” tab on goodblacknews.org. We will only use this list to keep you updated on GBN and send you our upcoming e-newsletter — nothing else. And, of course, you may opt out at any time.
GBN remains a labor of love, and our Founder/Editor-In-Chief (Lori Lakin Hutcherson), Lifestyle/Fashion Editor (Lesa Lakin) and this year’s contributors (Ashanti Hutcherson, Monika Jones, Richard Mar, Jeff Meier, Gabriel Ryder, Minsun Park, Terry Samwick, power stringer Becky Schonbrun, Arro Verse, tech consultant/web genius Andrew Lin) are all unpaid volunteers. We believe in bringing you positive news, reviews and stories of interest about black people all over the world, and greatly value your participation in continuing to build our shared vision.
Thank you again for your support, and we look forward to providing you with more Good Black News in the coming year, and beyond!
Warmly,
The Good Black News Team
Comedy Central duo Key and Peele are on a roll. After landing on the cover of New York Times Sunday Magazine last year, this week they are cover boys for national weekly news magazine Time. It’s the Ideas Issue, and Key and Peele offer an opinion piece about comedy that may or may not make you laugh, but at the very least will make you think. Check it out below:
Would you make fun of a burn victim? Well, we did. Sort of… We’re comics. In the most recent season of our TV show, in a sketch titled “Insult Comic,” a traditional stand-up comedian professes that he is “going to get everybody” in his set (the guy toward the front with big ears, the fat guy, the woman with comically large breasts). That’s the phrase, isn’t it, when a critic wants to praise a comedian for the fearless nature of his or her comedy? That he or she “gets everybody”? That “nobody is safe”? One of the club patrons in our sketch, however, is a wheelchair-bound burn victim. “You skipped me,” he calls from the audience, with a robotic-sounding artificial larynx. “Go for it,” he says, “I can take it.”
But can we, as a society, take it anymore?
Today it seems that we live in a world of extremes. On one end of the spectrum, we have anonymous Internet trolls looking for opportunities to dole out cruelty with impunity. But in mainstream culture, it often seems we’re drowning in a sea of political correctness that lapped up on our shores a couple of decades ago and has yet to recede.
It’s amazing to think how popular television shows like All in the Family and Good Times might fare today in a Hollywood pitch meeting. Films like Blazing Saddles and Silver Streak wouldn’t make it past the development stage at a studio. Too edgy.
Oprah Winfrey is set to drop some of her biggest gems in a book based on her “What I Know for Sure” columns published in the back of every O, The Oprah Winfrey Magazine.
The book will be a compilation of the articles that she’s penned since the glossy debuted in 2000.
According to a press release, the essays will be organized by themes– joy, gratitude, awe, possibility and others– and will “offer a rare, powerful and intimate glimpse into Oprah’s inner life– her thoughts, struggles and dreams– while providing readers a guide to becoming their best selves.”
What I Know for Sure will hit shelves Sept. 2.
article by Camille Travis via uptownmagazine.com
According to a press release, the essays will be organized by themes– joy, gratitude, awe, possibility and others– and will “offer a rare, powerful and intimate glimpse into Oprah’s inner life– her thoughts, struggles and dreams– while providing readers a guide to becoming their best selves.”
What I Know for Sure will hit shelves Sept. 2.
article by Camille Travis via uptownmagazine.com
Bill Whitaker, a veteran CBS News reporter, has been named a 60 Minutes correspondent, becoming only the second African-American correspondent in the show’s history, after Ed Bradley, who died in 2006.
In a statement, Jeff Fager, 60 Minutes executive producer and chairman of CBS News said, “Bill Whitaker is one of the great veterans of CBS News. He has had a distinguished career covering just about every kind of story all over the world. Bill is a natural fit at ’60 Minutes’ and it’s exciting that he has agreed to join us.”
A Philadelphia native, Whitaker joined CBS in 1984, later reporting from Atlanta, and then in the network’s Tokyo bureau where he covered the uprising at Tiananmen Square. He was later lead reporter on George Bush’s 2000 campaign, and Mitt Romney’s 2008 run. Based in Los Angeles since 1992, he has also been a frequent contributor to Sunday Morning.
Bradley, another Philadelphia native, and a 26-year veteran of 60, was among television news’ respected and honored correspondents over his long run at CBS.
(By the way, this question may come up so just to answer: Byron Pitts, who has appeared on 60 Minutes numerous times, was not officially a “correspondent” for the show, but a contributor – the difference is considerable. There have been many “contributors” to 60 over the years, but very very few 60 Minutes correspondents.)
article by Verne Gay via newsday.com
http://youtu.be/-J8F61MdbUI
With Black History Month winding down, Fox Sports joined forces with poet Raliq Bashard for a sports-centric tribute to the legends who paved the way for today’s athletes. Check out the video above, put together by Fox and their partners at Relevant 24. To see the full written text of Bashard’s inspiring spoken-word testimonial, as well as specific stories about black sports figures such as Sugar Ray Robinson, Vonetta Flowers, Larry Doby and Wilma Rudolph, click here.
article by Lori Lakin Hutcherson
Learning nonprofit edX is partnering with Facebook to help bridge the digital divide and bring online education to the unconnected world. The new pilot initiative, named SocialEDU, was revealed Monday at the Barcelona-based Mobile World Congress, and will provide students in Rwanda with free access to “a collaborative online education experience,” according to a statement fresh from the Facebook newsroom. The program is being released under the umbrella of Internet.org, a global partnership focused on bringing Internet to the two-thirds of the world’s population living without it.
The social media giant will be working with the Harvard-and MIT-founded platform to build a mobile app that is integrated with Facebook. Through SocialEDU, students will receive free data plans for accessing edX’s massive open online courses, which stem from 32 of the world’s leading universities, including Dartmouth, U.C. Berkeley, TU Delft, Australian National University and the University of Hong Kong. The platform will allow students to ask questions, interact with teachers, participate in group discussions and engage with their peers. What’s more, the Rwandan government will work with edX to adapt the course materials, thereby creating more locally-relevant content, as well as expand its free Wi-Fi in campuses throughout the East African country.
As part of SocialEDU, Facebook is also partnering with telecommunications company Airtel and Nokia. The former is providing a year’s worth of free educational data to registrants, while the latter is offering discounted smartphones to all those participating in the program. If the pilot is deemed successful, SocialEDU will expand beyond Rwanda.
When Mickalene Thomas, 42, describes her short film, Happy Birthday to a Beautiful Girl, as a “moving portrait of my mother,” it’s meant both literally and figuratively. The 30-minute feature on Thomas’s mother, Sandra Bush, a beautiful statuesque preacher’s daughter from Camden, New Jersey, who has appeared in many of Thomas’s paintings, is rich in detail, provocative and endearing. It chronicles Bush’s life in her own words as she becomes a young mother and wife, a survivor of abuse and addiction, the reigning “mother of the art-world” and ultimately a warrior for her waning health.
“What I love about my mother is that she had a never give up spirit. Even when she was really sick and dying, you can see in the film that she didn’t want to die. She had hope and faith that she was going to survive,” says Thomas. Sandra Bush passed on November 7, 2012, shortly after Thomas’ first solo exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum, where the Happy Birthday film debuted.
“The reason why I say this is a portrait of my mother is because for me it’s like looking at a painting—you don’t always have all of the answers, instead there’s lots of questions. It’s very open ended and that’s what makes life beautiful and mysterious and exhilirating and exciting and adventurous because it’s so tangible and intangible at the same time.”
Happy Birthday to a Beautiful Girl airs starting today on HBO.
article by Norell Giancana via bet.com
“The reason why I say this is a portrait of my mother is because for me it’s like looking at a painting—you don’t always have all of the answers, instead there’s lots of questions. It’s very open ended and that’s what makes life beautiful and mysterious and exhilirating and exciting and adventurous because it’s so tangible and intangible at the same time.”
Happy Birthday to a Beautiful Girl airs starting today on HBO.
article by Norell Giancana via bet.com
Kevin Hart was named Entertainer of the Year while 12 Years a Slave racked up another four awards including for Outstanding Motion Picture at the NAACP Image Awards, which were held Saturday at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium. Hart said he was a “real mama’s boy” and dedicated his prize to his mother, who recently passed away.
Director Steve McQueen and writer John Ridley won kudos for “12 Years” during a non-televised portion of the show Friday, while Supporting Actress Lupita Nyong’o said she was honored to win for a film ”that has inspired discourse long overdue.”
Forest Whitaker and David Oyelowo were honored for their roles in Lee Daniels’ The Butler and Angela Bassett won the Lead Actress prize for Black Nativity. Whitaker was also honored with the NAACP Chairman’s Award. “I’m one of those with a funny accent and an African name,” Oyelowo referencing emcee Anthony Anderson’s earlier jokes about Brit actors with their accents and African names in his speech who cross the Pond to grab roles in Hollywood. Meanwhile, Whitaker quoted a song from Nat King Cole, “The greatest thing you’ll ever learn is to love and be loved.”
On the television side, Hart and his BET show Real Husbands of Hollywood were honored for comedy, while Kerry Washington, Joe Morton and ABC’s Scandal picked up three awards for drama. Since showrunner Shonda Rhimes was unable to attend, Washington accepted the Scandal award. In her own acceptance speech, Washington said, “The historic nature of this role is due not to lack of talent, but lack of opportunity.”
The NAACP Image Awards were broadcast live on TV One and hosted by Anthony Anderson. Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) President Cheryl Boone Isaacs and Director’s Guild (DGA) president Paris Barclay were inducted into the Image Awards Hall of Fame. Both are the first African-American presidents of their respective organizations. Barclay referenced his upbringing saying, “I’m the first in a long line of factory workers.” Boone Isaacs said AMPAS invited more women and minority this year than it ever has. “We still have a lot of work to do. I look forward to it,” she said to applause.
Forest Whitaker and David Oyelowo were honored for their roles in Lee Daniels’ The Butler and Angela Bassett won the Lead Actress prize for Black Nativity. Whitaker was also honored with the NAACP Chairman’s Award. “I’m one of those with a funny accent and an African name,” Oyelowo referencing emcee Anthony Anderson’s earlier jokes about Brit actors with their accents and African names in his speech who cross the Pond to grab roles in Hollywood. Meanwhile, Whitaker quoted a song from Nat King Cole, “The greatest thing you’ll ever learn is to love and be loved.”
On the television side, Hart and his BET show Real Husbands of Hollywood were honored for comedy, while Kerry Washington, Joe Morton and ABC’s Scandal picked up three awards for drama. Since showrunner Shonda Rhimes was unable to attend, Washington accepted the Scandal award. In her own acceptance speech, Washington said, “The historic nature of this role is due not to lack of talent, but lack of opportunity.”
The NAACP Image Awards were broadcast live on TV One and hosted by Anthony Anderson. Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) President Cheryl Boone Isaacs and Director’s Guild (DGA) president Paris Barclay were inducted into the Image Awards Hall of Fame. Both are the first African-American presidents of their respective organizations. Barclay referenced his upbringing saying, “I’m the first in a long line of factory workers.” Boone Isaacs said AMPAS invited more women and minority this year than it ever has. “We still have a lot of work to do. I look forward to it,” she said to applause.
Lupita Nyong’o may be preparing herself for a potential Oscar win, but if you ask us, she has already won awards season this year. From that drop dead Ralph Lauren number at the Golden Globes to her epic turquoise Gucci dress at the SAG Awards, the actress has quickly become the fashion world’s “It girl.” It’s no surprise then, that she’s the cover star of New York Magazine’s Spring Fashion Issue. The 12 Years A Slave star, who we have learned has no problem playing with color, looks as gorgeous as ever in a red and white dress by Stella McCartney. She chatted with The Cut about her childhood, dancing with Michael Fassbender and the difficulties of adjusting to life in the United States.
The 30-year-old actress admits that her first months at the Yale School Of Drama served as a bit of a culture shock. “I find my freedom in structure. It was very hard to adjust to an individualistic and very liberal system. I mean, my upbringing, I would iron my clothes every night. I would plan what I wore the night before, and then I would iron it. That’s just the way my mom raised us. Then I got to Hampshire, where clothing is sometimes optional and all this kind of thing. I was mortified,” she said.
Perhaps that’s why her look is a bit more… conservative than Lake Bell’s Fashion Issue cover from last season. Either way, she certainly has the poise and grace of a bonafide star — with the photos to prove it. Check out the beautifully done cover and spread below and head over to The Cut for the entire interview.
article by Jamie Feldman via huffingtonpost.com