Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel released a statement that “conservative” hairstyles popular among black female soldiers will be acceptable according to military grooming standards, Army Times reports.
Last March, the Department of Defense issued new regulations that many African-American servicemen and women claimed were racially biased, especially against black women, who would be forced to use heat or chemical straighteners to achieve an acceptable hairstyle. A number of black women wrote to the Congressional Black Caucus urging them to put pressure on the Department of Defense to change the regulations — and three months later, that is what Chuck Hagel has done.
In a letter to the Congressional Black Caucus notifying them of the changes, Hagel wrote that “[e]ach service reviewed its hairstyle policies to ensure standards are fair and respectful while also meeting military requirements. These reviews were informed by a panel of military personnel of mixed demographics reflective of our diverse force. Additionally, each Service reviewed its hairstyle policies to ensure standards are fair and respectful while also meeting our military requirements.”
The review concluded that the terms “matted and unkempt” when used in reference to African-American hair were “offensive” and eliminated them from the guidelines. The Air Force also determined that the word “dreadlocks” was offensive, and changed the prohibited hairstyle to “locs” in official grooming literature.
Congressional Black Caucus chair Representative Marcia Fudge (D-OH) responded to Hagel’s decision to expand the range of acceptable hairstyles for black female soldiers by saying that “[t]hese changes recognize that traditional hairstyles worn by women of color are often necessary to meet our unique needs, and acknowledges that these hairstyles do not result in or reflect less professionalism or commitment to the high standards required to serve within our Armed Forces.”
“Secretary Hagel and the Department of Defense not only show they are responsive to the individuals who serve within our military, but that he and his leadership respect them as well,” she continued. “The Congressional Black Caucus commends Secretary Hagel for his leadership in addressing this issue.”
article by Scott Kaufman via rawstory.com
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Barneys New York has agreed to pay $525,000 to settle allegations that the upscale retailer deliberately targeted minorities entering its Madison Ave. flagship store.
State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman’s investigators heard from customers and former employees that a pattern of racial profiling began last year when the high-end store tried to crack down on a dramatic spike in shoplifting and credit card fraud.
Complainants told Schneiderman’s civil rights division that the store’s security team — known as the “loss prevention unit” — made a habit of keeping watch over black and Hispanic shoppers in disproportionate numbers.
“This agreement will correct a number of wrongs,” said Schneiderman, “both by fixing past policies and by monitoring the actions of Barneys and its employees to make sure that past mistakes are not repeated.”
In a 27-page settlement document signed by both parties Friday, Schneiderman released a series of findings from a nine-month review based on interviews with nearly a dozen complainants in the so-called shop-and-frisk case, including shoppers and former employees.
They alleged that black and Hispanic customers were unfairly targeted when they entered the pricey store at 660 Madison Ave.
The store’s own data showed that from October 2012 through October 2013, black and Hispanic shoppers were detained “at rates far greater than their percentage of the store’s customer base.”
The review began this past October in response to a series of Daily News articles exposing numerous complaints about racial profiling at Barneys and Macy’s.
Schneiderman’s review of Macy’s continues, but Barneys executives last week agreed to the settlement.
As part of the deal, Barneys agreed to pay the $525,000 in fines and legal expenses, to hire an “anti-profiling consultant” for two years, to update its detention policy and to improve training of security and sales personnel.
article by Greg A. Smith via nydailynews.com
This week, a Bachelor of Arts diploma that belonged to Richard T. Greener, the first African-American to graduate from Harvard, will hit the auction block in Chicago, when it’s sold by Leslie Hindman Auctioneers to the tune of $15,000.
“Greener was a pioneer of social and racial equality in the racially divided South. His Harvard diploma, a document of incalculable historical significance, has never before been offered at public auction,” according to representatives from Leslie Hindman Auctioneers, who will put the diploma out to bid on Wednesday.
The document, dated July 1870, along with piles of other personal papers and artwork that belonged to Greener, were previously thought to have been lost during a San Francisco earthquake in 1906. In 2009, however, Rufus McDonald, a 52-year-old contractor, stumbled upon a treasure trove of Greener’s belongings while cleaning out an old house in Chicago’s Englewood neighborhood.
After he found what Harvard University officials have called priceless artifacts, McDonald started selling his discovery to those who he thought could benefit from having them as part of their own collections.
McDonald sold some of the documents for around $52,000 to the University of South Carolina, where Greener taught. “It was like the Holy Grail. It’s such an important symbol of that time period,” Elizabeth West, university archivist at USC, told Boston last year.
When he approached Harvard with a collection that included the diploma, McDonald said he was offered a lowball amount based on appraisals he had done, and instead threatened to torch the document if the school didn’t meet his demands.
“I’ll roast and burn them,” he said in October of last year, when trying to negotiate with the Cambridge university. “It might sound crazy, but people who know me know I’d really do it—I’m sick and tired of Harvard’s BS.”
While the actual amount that Harvard offered McDonald was never revealed, Henry Gates, Jr., who leads Harvard’s W.E.B. DuBois Institute for African-American Research, told Boston that he wanted the documents to end up back at the school.
“I very much hope that Harvard acquires these documents at a fairly appraised value. Mr. McDonald’s discovery was extraordinary,” he said at the time McDonald threatened to burn them.
The price tag set on the diploma alone—valued between $10,000 and $15,000— is lower than McDonald’s original demands from the school for a pile of items owned by Greener. In October of 2013, McDonald was calling on the school to fork over around $65,000 for the Harvard degree and several other documents, after he had them appraised.
Because it’s being sold through an auction house, McDonald doesn’t stand to pocket the full amount of the sale, either. According to a spokesperson from Leslie Hindman Auctioneers, the company will take a cut of the profit once the sale is complete. “If it sells, [Mr. McDonald] gets a portion of that sale. If it doesn’t sell, he can take the document back with him,” the spokesperson said over the phone on Tuesday.
article by Steve Annear via bostonmagazine.com
According to Variety.com, on Tuesday the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences re-elected Cheryl Boone Isaacs as its President. This upcoming year will mark her second term. (Officers, including the president, are elected for one-year stints, with a maximum of four consecutive terms in any one office.)
Since her first election on July 30, 2013, Boone Isaacs has generally gotten favorable reaction for keeping the Academy on track during major changes and for working to expand its effectiveness.
While maintaining ongoing goals, including education, preservation and sci-tech advancement — as well as all things related to the all-important yearly Oscars broadcast — the Academy is moving ahead on several fronts. These include recent moves to open its museum (slated for 2017), and digital innovations such as the video series “Academy Originals,” consisting of documentary-style examinations of creativity and film history.
Since her first election on July 30, 2013, Boone Isaacs has generally gotten favorable reaction for keeping the Academy on track during major changes and for working to expand its effectiveness.
While maintaining ongoing goals, including education, preservation and sci-tech advancement — as well as all things related to the all-important yearly Oscars broadcast — the Academy is moving ahead on several fronts. These include recent moves to open its museum (slated for 2017), and digital innovations such as the video series “Academy Originals,” consisting of documentary-style examinations of creativity and film history.
James Baldwin, a Harlem native who died in 1987, would have turned 90 on Saturday. Among the many tributes in a year in which his legacy as a major writer is being celebrated, a portion of East 128th Street, between Fifth Avenue and Madison Avenue, was renamed James Baldwin Way.
Baldwin, whose classic works include the novel “Go Tell It on the Mountain” and the essay collections “The Fire Next Time” and “Notes of a Native Son” attended Public School 24 (now the Harlem Renaissance School) on that block. Nearby, the marquee of the Apollo Theater, at 253 West 125th Street, read “Happy 90th Birthday James Baldwin.”
“We’re reclaiming him as a son of Harlem,” said Rich Blint, a Baldwin scholar and associate director in the Office of Community Outreach and Education at the Columbia University School of the Arts. The university, along with Harlem Stage and New York Live Arts, is participating in a citywide consideration of Baldwin.
In this year of all things Baldwin, some fans and scholars have expressed concern that his complex presence is fading in too many high schools. “We want to reintroduce his contemporary relevance,” said Trevor Baldwin, a nephew who attended the Saturday festivities.
The writer was known for fiery works about race and for frank portrayals of sexuality, in novels like “Giovanni’s Room” and “Another Country,” as well as for his work in the civil rights movement.
“I want people to be interested in the courage of his life choices,” Trevor Baldwin said.
The street renaming concluded with a musical procession to the National Black Theater at 2031 Fifth Avenue, between 125th and 126th Streets, with readings from “The Fire Next Time” and testimonials from those who knew Baldwin.
article by Felicia R. Lee via nytimes.com
Tara Walker, 31, a high school girls basketball legend who scored 2,376 points in her Marist High School career, is now one of six women in the Jersey City Fire Department, and the first black female firefighter in the department’s 143-year history.
The diverse class includes two black men, four Hispanic men and an Asian man, city officials pointed out on Monday.
“Now today is really a great day because if you look at the 26 men and women sitting to my right, to your left, it really represents everything that is great about Jersey City,” Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop said at the ceremony. “It is a diverse class, it is a young class, it is a motivated class, it is a class of people that have dedicated and lived their lives here in Jersey City.”
The new class brings the number of Jersey City firefighters to 557. City officials said that 47 members have been hired since Fulop took office.
RELATED: Bronx Firefighter Danae Mines Becomes 1st Woman Featured In FDNY Calendar of Heroes
“Waited for it since I was a kid,” said Anthony Silleto, 26, after he was sworn in. “It’s great.”
Kevin Ramirez, 28, said he’s excited to become a part of the department and serve Jersey City.
“It’s a wonderful feeling, a great feeling,” he said. “We’ve lived our whole lives here. I’m happy, I’m excited to become a part of it and meet the rest of the family.”
The hiring of the firefighters was made possible by funds from a $6.9 million federal Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response (SAFER) grant. The grant is expected to fund up to 49 new firefighters in total.
The 26 firefighters trained for eight weeks at the Morris County Public Safety Training Academy.
article via forharriet.com and nj.com
WASHINGTON (AP) — A program designed to foster a new generation of young African leaders will be renamed after former South African President Nelson Mandela.
President Barack Obama, who has said he was one of the untold millions of people around the world who were inspired by Mandela’s life, is set to announce the name change at a town hall-style event Monday in Washington with several hundred young leaders from across sub-Saharan Africa.
The youngsters are participating in the inaugural Washington Fellowship for Young African Leaders, part of the broader Young African Leaders Initiative that Obama launched in 2010 to support a new generation of leadership there. The fellowship is being renamed as a tribute to Mandela, who died last December at age 95.
Obama announced the fellowship during a stop in South Africa last summer. It connects young African leaders to leadership training opportunities at top U.S. universities.
In remarks at Monday’s event, Obama also was announcing new public-private partnerships to create more programs for young African leaders, including four regional leadership centers across Africa, online classes and other resources, the White House said.
Mandela spent 27 years in jail under apartheid, South Africa’s former system of white minority rule, before eventually leading his country through a difficult transition to democracy. In 1994, he became the first democratically elected leader of a post-apartheid South Africa.
This week’s events with the next generation of young African leaders are a lead-in to the inaugural U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit, being held Aug. 4-6 in Washington. About 50 African leaders are expected to attend what the White House says will be the largest gathering any U.S. president has held with African heads of state and government.
article by Associated Press via newsone.com
Jade Goss, age 2, looks as if she just stepped out of the wildly popular “Doc McStuffins” cartoon. “She has the Doc McStuffins sheets. She has the Doc McStuffins doll. She has the Doc McStuffins purse. She has Doc McStuffins clothes,” said Jade’s mother, Melissa Woods, of Lynwood, Calif.
“I think what attracts her is, ‘Hey, I look like her, and she looks like me,’ ” Ms. Woods said of the character, an African-American child who acts as a doctor to her stuffed animals.
With about $500 million in sales last year, Doc McStuffins merchandise seems to be setting a record as the best-selling toy line based on an African-American character, industry experts say. Its blockbuster success reflects, in part, the country’s changing consumer demographics, experts say, with more children from minority backgrounds providing an expanding, less segregated marketplace for shoppers and toymakers.
But what also differentiates Doc — and Dora the Explorer, an exceptionally popular Latina character whose toy line has sold $12 billion worth of merchandise over the years, Nickelodeon executives say — is her crossover appeal. “The kids who are of color see her as an African-American girl, and that’s really big for them,” said Chris Nee, the creator of Doc McStuffins. “And I think a lot of other kids don’t see her color, and that’s wonderful as well.”
Nancy Kanter, general manager of Disney Junior Worldwide, which developed “Doc McStuffins” — and who suggested the character be African-American in the first place — said Doc’s wide-ranging fan base could be gleaned from a spreadsheet. “If you look at the numbers on the toy sales, it’s pretty obvious that this isn’t just African-American families buying these toys,” Ms. Kanter said. “It’s the broadest demographics possible.”
Former heavyweight champions Mike Tyson and Evander Holyfield have come a long way since 1997, when Tyson bit off a piece of Holyfield’s ear in the third round and was disqualified in their infamous championship rematch. Over the years, they have put their ill feelings for each other to bed and even appeared in a recent television commercial spoofing the biting incident.
Tyson, who will hand Holyfield his Hall of Fame trophy, called the opportunity to present Holyfield a “privilege and high honor.”
Holyfield is also looking forward to it. “That’s great,” he said of Tyson’s participation.
Rich Marotta, a longtime boxing broadcaster and president of the Nevada Boxing Hall of Fame, said: “This is the kind of thing we showed is possible in boxing last year at our inaugural induction ceremony — former and even current rivals coming together under the same roof to celebrate boxing. Everyone checks those rivalries at the door. Tyson presenting Holyfield is sheer magic.”
Holyfield is being enshrined in the non-Nevada-resident category, along with George Foreman and Roberto Duran, as voted on by a 35-member panel.
Tyson was inducted in the Nevada resident category in the inaugural ceremony in 2013. Holyfield and Tyson both fought many of their biggest fights in Las Vegas.
The rest of the 18-man class of 2014, which was announced in February, includes Sonny Liston and Cornelius Boza Edwards (Nevada-resident boxers category), Jack Dempsey and Archie Moore (pioneers), Joe Louis (adoptive Nevada resident), trainer Miguel Diaz (non-boxers), Richard Steele and Kenny Bayless (officials), Col. Bob Sheridan and Kevin Iole (media), Bruce Trampler (promotions), Chuck Minker and Luther Mack (executives), and Clifford Perlman and Steve Wynn (special contributors).
article by Dan Rafael via espn.com
We’re happy to report that charges against Shanesha Taylor, the mother who left her children in the car during a job interview, have been dropped.
The gripping mugshot featuring Taylor and her tear-stained face spread quickly and garnered worldwide support for her case. According to the Maricopa County Attorney, a judge ruled that Taylor will have the charges dismissed if she completes a diversion program.
Taylor was arrested back in March after police say she left two children in her Dodge Durango for 45 minutes while she was in a Farmers Insurance office in Scottsdale. Taylor told authorities that she was unemployed, didn’t have child care and had been occasionally homeless.
This morning, after the deal was reached, Taylor attended a settlement conference this morning, where she told reporters:
“This is a beautiful resolution to a very long, very hard journey.”
The program will require Taylor to complete parenting and substance abuse classes and establish education and child care trusts for her three children. Each education trust must have $10,000 in it.
If you’re wondering where that money will come from, you may remember that fundraisers were set up on Taylor’s behalf to help with legal fees and other expenses. The effort raised $144,775 from over four thousand donors.
In reference to the resolution, Bill Montgomery, the county attorney, said: “Where we can focus on an opportunity for rehabilitation without having to use punitive consequences we’re always willing to take a look at that. And our resolution today shouldn’t be taken as a policy shift, this is just how we were able to resolve this one particular case.”
They also took into account the fact that Taylor was searching for employment and had no other criminal history.