“Cheers to a New Year and another chance for us to get it right.” — Oprah Winfrey, Founder and CEO of the OWN Network
Good Black News
The Way-C tablet (courtesy of VMK website)
Congolese technology company, VMK, is attempting to break into the smart phone and tablet market by unveiling the first homegrown devices specifically geared towards Africans.
VMK announced the launch of the new Way-C tablet and Elikia smart phone earlier this week. To market the devices as authentically African, the budding tech company chose the names Way-C, which means “the light of the stars” and Elikia, which translates to “hope,” in the local Lingala language.
“Only Africans know what Africa needs.” says Congolese entrepreneur and founder, Verone Mankou. “Apple is huge in the US, Samsung is huge in Asia, and we want VMK to be huge in Africa.”
Members of the “Wilmington 10” hold a brief communion service before boarding a prison bus on Feb. 2, 1976 in Burgaw, North Carolina, as they surrendered to start prison terms on convictions growing out of 1971 racial disorders in Wilmington, N.C. Four of the group shown from left are Connie Tindall, Rev. Ben Chavis, Jerry Jacobs and Anne Sheppard. (AP Photo)
After decades of claims that they were wrongly convicted, nine African-American men and one white women who were imprisoned for an arson fire in North Carolina that stemmed from racial unrest over integrated schools have been pardoned. North Carolina Gov. Bev Purdue, who is leaving office in just one week, issued the pardons Monday.
Purdue’s office issued a statement, saying she had spent “a great deal of time over the past seven months reviewing the pardon of innocence requests of the persons collectively known as the Wilmington Ten.”
Two African-American scientists have been named as part of a group that will receive the National Medal of Technology and Innovation Award by the Obama Administration, the White House announced. Among the 12 recipients are James Gates, a physicist at the University of Maryland, and George Carruthers, an inventor, physicist, space scientist and professor at Howard University.
“I am proud to honor these inspiring American innovators,” President Obama said, in a statement.
“They represent the ingenuity and imagination that has long made this Nation great — and they remind us of the enormous impact a few good ideas can have when these creative qualities are unleashed in an entrepreneurial environment.”
Sam Covelli, the owner of several western Pennsylvania Panera Bread restaurants is paying for allegedly discriminating against African-American workers. The franchisee will pay Guy Vines, a former employee who is the lead plaintiff in a class-action lawsuit $10,000 and $66,000 in attorneys’ fees as part of the settlement. He’ll also pay out an extra 70 cents per hour to each member of the lawsuit for each year after their first year of employment with Covelli, according to a Courthouse News Service report.
Vines and other members of the class action lawsuit claimed they were forced to work in the kitchen because Covelli didn’t want black employees in public view, according to court documents. Vines’ attorney told the judge that about 200 to 300 black workers could be entitled to money.
In a January 2012 complaint, Vines claimed that he worked as a sandwich maker at Panera Bread from 2009 to 2011, but his manager said black workers like him were ineligible for promotion to management. The same manager also allegedly said “customers would not want to see an African-American working in the front of the store,” and feared he would lose his job for disobeying this rule.
Chief U.S. District Judge Gary Lancaster in Pittsburgh made the following statement regarding the settlement.
“Here, the class members allege that they were flatly ineligible for promotion because of their race and regardless of their job performance, They allege that this prohibition, although not written down anywhere, was the rule at all of defendant’s restaurants, and that defendant’s managers disobeyed it at their peril. This question of law and fact applies evenly across the class and is sufficient to ensure that ‘the action can be practically maintained and that the interests of the absentees will be fairly and adequately represented.’”
He gave final approval last week after a fairness hearing.
Covelli Enterprises and Panera Bread did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
article by C. Daniel Baker via blackenterprise.com
Berkeley Fire Chief Debra Pryor is retiring Dec. 28, 2012 after 27 years in the Berkeley fire department. She was the city’s first woman firefighter, the first woman chief and the second black woman to head a fire department in the nation. (Doug Oakley/Staff)
BERKELEY, CA — It’s a drizzly cold Tuesday evening and Berkeley Fire Chief Debra Pryor is outside the city’s public safety building talking to a homeless man with two shopping carts piled high with possessions. The man loops in and out of lucidity, but Pryor doesn’t appear annoyed, pressed for time or afraid. She listens and talks to him, then politely wraps it up and approaches a second man to ask if he needs help deciphering the front desk hours of the police station.
Pryor, 51, is retiring Friday after 27 years in the fire department and 27 years of smashing race and gender barriers: she was the city’s first female firefighter, its first female fire chief and the second black female fire chief in the country behind Rosemary Cloud of East Point, Ga. (Earlier this year Oakland named Teresa Deloach Reed as its fire chief, making her the first black woman fire chief of a major metropolitan city.)
‘A Salute to Michelle Obama.’ (Image: Essence Magazine)
The editors at Essence magazine have been hard at work this fall on a new tome celebrating first lady Michelle Obama’s life and achievements. A Salute to Michelle Obama, available now in paperback, features an array of images of the first lady punctuated with essays penned by legendary black women. Yet, what makes it special are quotes from African-American female fans of Mrs. Obama interwoven through this compendium of her accomplishments.
“We reached out to women and asked, ‘What do you believe has been the impact of Michelle Obama?’” Patrik Henry Bass, Senior Editor at Essence, told theGrio. He was inundated with streams of enthusiastic praise in response from the Essence audience. “I was surprised, in a delightful way,” he said of women’s reactions.
Hear The Root’s editor-in-chief, Henry Louis Gates Jr., chat with the Django Unchained director about the n-word and a possible sequel.
A Django Unchained and Inglourious Basterds trilogy? The historical accuracy of the n-word in
Django? The unlikely connection between the slavery-themed film and The Birth of a Nation? How Django fits into Hollywood’s overplayed, often offensive white-savior stereotype? You name it, and The Root‘s editor-in-chief, Henry Louis Gates Jr., and Quentin Tarantino — whose latest film, Django Unchained, a “postmodern slave-narrative Western,” as Gates describes it, opened on Christmas Day — likely covered it in this exhaustive interview.
When asked why he wanted to combine a slave narrative with a Western, Tarantino said this:
It’s two separate stories I’ve always wanted to tell. One, I’ve always wanted to tell a Western story. Two, I’ve always wanted to re-create cinematically that world of the antebellum South, of America under slavery, and just what a different place it was — an unfathomable place. To create an environment and again, not just have a historical story play out — they did this and they did that, and they did this and they did that — but actually make it a genre story. Make it an exciting adventure.
Listen to the whole interview by clicking here.
Also, read it in three parts:
Tarantino Unchained Part 1: Django Trilogy?
Tarantino Unchained Part 2: On the N-Word.
Tarantino Unchained Part 3: White Saviors.
Detroit Lions wide receiver Calvin Johnson is on the cover of the latest installment of the Madden series (’13), appropriate because he is putting up video game type numbers in real life. Johnson, highly regarded as one of the best receivers in the NFL, surpassed the legendary Jerry Rice in receiving yards gained in a season on Saturday (12/22) in a loss to the Atlanta Falcons. A highlight in an otherwise disappointing season for the Lions, Johnson currently has 1892 yards and can go for the 2000 yard mark.
article by Jamiyl Samuels via theurbandaily.com
Shonda Rhimes (Photo by Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP)
The Hollywood Reporter released its Women in Entertainment Power 100 and seven black women made the ranks this year. Oprah, naturally, was the top-ranking African American, at number 18, as the CEO of the OWN network.
Debra Lee, chairman and CEO of BET Networks, was number 23, while Vanessa Morrison, president of Fox Animation Studios, came in at number 27. Shonda Rhimes, creator of Grey’s Anatomy, Private Practice, and Scandal, has always made a point to bring a diverse cast of characters to the TV screen and was number 47 on the list.