Activist icon Angela Davis and Massachusetts Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) spearheaded a rally Tuesday in Washington, D.C., of black women in support of besieged Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.).
Looks like charges of a sexist past may be the downfall of yet another of Donald Trump’s presumed picks for appointment to the Federal Reserve Board.
A jury on Tuesday convicted a now former Minneapolis police officer of murder for shooting and killing a woman after responding to a 911 call she made to report a possible sexual assault.
Starting a business can be a fantastic experience, but it often requires a large amount of capital to start. Young, black entrepreneurs may not have access to the amount of money needed to get a business up and running. However, several cheap business startup ideas can get you started with your entrepreneurial ambitions with very little initial capital investment required.
Starting up a business online requires very little capital because all you need is a well-designed website and a good business idea. There is a multitude of opportunities that await you online. You can start a search engine optimization service, sell products on eBay, and market products through online affiliate programs.
While online businesses are very cheap to get up and running, make an excellent investment to create an attractive website. A well-designed website is essential to attracting potential customers to your products or services.
Many businesses need the services of a secretary, but cannot afford to hire one full-time. Virtual assistants usually work on a variety of small tasks for multiple small businesses. If you have a manageable schedule, this might be an excellent choice for you.
Many online freelancing websites are available where you can advertise your services to prospective customers. Being a virtual assistant requires very little capital and involves very few risks, making it an excellent choice for young entrepreneurs.
Weddings, family reunions, class reunions, and business conferences occur every day all around the country. All of these events require solid planning to be pulled off successfully, and an event planner can provide this service. If you are a highly-organized person who understands how to arrange a successful event, this job might be right for you.
Young entrepreneurs can create their website or advertise in freelance postings to offer their services. This requires only a little bit of money, and it can be started in very little time.
Americans spend an immense amount of money on their pets. With a little bit of startup money, you can have access to a large customer base. If you know how to groom animals, you can spend a little money on the necessary equipment, and you are ready to care for customers’ pets quickly.
People also pay to have their dogs walked, which is also great for young entrepreneurs. All you need is a little advertising for your services, and you can be making money quickly and easily.
These are several cheap business startup ideas that can get you started with a successful business quickly. All you need is a modest amount of money, an entrepreneurial spirit and a healthy amount of determination to pursue your entrepreneurial goals. With all of these opportunities, you can start making money in no time.
The post Affordable Business Startup Ideas for Young, Black Entrepreneurs appeared first on Black Enterprise.
Empire is coming back for a sixth season, but not the beloved Jamal, aka actor Jussie Smollett.
Salt-N-Pepa is the stuff of legend: They’ve got hits. They’ve won a Grammy award. Heck, even the Queen, Beyoncé paid homage to them for Halloween. But, is their game dominoes or Spades?
Mainstream media have provided few spaces for black women to discuss politics, but A’shanti F. Gholar is joining a growing group of women of color podcasters who hope to provide more such spaces, with her new podcast The Brown Girls Guide To Politics.
We see a lot of deals around the web over on Kinja Deals, but these were our ten favorites today.
Coming to you live from the Daytona 500, BLACK ENTERPRISE spent time with NASCAR, learning how the car racing organization is diversifying. In the video, check out interviews with race car driver Bubba Wallace; the first black woman member of a pit crew; and other black people who are making waves in NASCAR. (Video by Ed Stokes).
Related: MEET MELISSA HARVILLE-LEBRON: THE FIRST BLACK WOMAN TO OWN A NASCAR TEAM
The post [Video] Meet The Black Race Car Drivers, Pit Members, and Executives at NASCAR appeared first on Black Enterprise.
Ask a Clean Person and Style Girlfriend are teaming up this month to bring you the latest on what to wear for spring and summer ... and how to care for your new wardrobe acquisitions. This week: wedding wear.
Trying to get your beach body ready in a hurry? This resistance band set lets you get a full workout in any room in your house, with up to 150 pounds of resistance if you use all of the bands in concert. And at $18 (after clipping the $4 coupon), it’s quite a bit more cost-effective than joining a gym.
We’ve wondered for months what Amber Guyger—the former Dallas police officer who shot and killed 26-year-old Botham Jean in his own apartment—was thinking in the immediate aftermath of Jean’s murder and now we finally have an answer.
It will have been twenty days spent in three cities, two very different climates, juggling business, pleasure and one vicious sunburn until I see my bed again this weekend, and whew! Since mid-April, I’ve hit the Florida beaches for my birthday, revisited my days as a New York City girl at the Tribeca Film Festival…
It seems like every time I turn around, Uber is in the news for all the wrong reasons. There’s the resignation of their head of HR over how discrimination complaints were being mishandled, various assault accusations, that whole #DeleteUber fiasco, and a bunch of other shit I don’t have the time to point out. Yet…
Vizio’s 5.1 channel sound bars changed the game by bringing surround sound to people who didn’t want to buy a receiver or run a ton of wires around their living room, and now, you can get your own setup for just $200, or $50 less than usual.
On the 2018 Beyoncé-infused “Black Effect,” Jay-Z nonchalantly professed “I’m good on every MLK,” keenly aware that civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr. has roads sprinkled throughout the country carrying his namesake. But on the flip side, our forever president Barack Obama—whose own iconic status wasn’t…
The Trump administration touted its bullshit tax plan as a win for the little guy with the idea being this: by giving big businesses massive tax breaks, they’d have more money, and with more money, they’d do the right thing and take care of their workers.
When you reach single-name—hell, single initial—status like Oprah Winfrey, do you have room for regrets?
Quality clothing fundamentals, like basic tees and socks and pants, are important to have on hand, but you shouldn’t be spending a fortune on them. That’s why you should check out these Amazon Essentials, all under $20. You can stock up on vital wardrobe items, including tons of summer-appropriate shorts, tanks, and…
Nominations are in for the biggest night in Broadway and members of the Tony Awards committee really are coming to see Otis. (*wink*)
Morgan Stanley recently announced the third cohort of the Multicultural Innovation Lab, an accelerator program for technology and technology-enabled startups in the post–seed to Series B funding rounds.
The program is three years in the making and targets companies with a multicultural or woman founder, co–founder, CTO, or other C-suite member that is developing innovative solutions across sectors.
“This program has seen tremendous success over the past two years, and I am looking forward to helping this next group of founders accelerate their businesses and make significant strides in executing their strategies,” said Carla Harris, vice chairman of Morgan Stanley and head of the Multicultural Client Strategy Group. “The Lab’s goal is to provide these founders with additional contributions toward their future success by leveraging our expansive and global networks, resources, and expertise that will hopefully attract the capital needed to scale.”
Carla Harris
Over 300 applicants applied globally. 2019 cohort startups include BLUEWAVE Technologies, Care Advisors, Cosynd, Five to Nine, Gappify, Looklive, Mighty Well, ShopJenzy, SmartGurlz, and Taina Technology. The companies span across sectors focusing on health, software development, legal, medical hardware, HR, fintech, fashion, and education.
Morgan Stanley will take an equity percentage in the company in exchange for utilizing its global reach, content, and connections to push growth and address the funding gap for multicultural and women startup founders.
Access to capital alone isn’t sufficient enough to build a successful tech startup. The Lab brings in other elements to help the entrepreneurs grow and scale their companies. William Crowder, formerly head of Comcast Ventures’ Catalyst Fund and now founding partner at 42 Venture Partners, will be returning as its Entrepreneur-In-Residence. Crowder will serve as a strategic advisor to both the entrepreneurs and the Multicultural Client Strategy team throughout the duration of the Lab to help participating companies address and conquer challenges that will increase performance and progress. There will also be additional input from other partners such as Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati.
The post Morgan Stanley Announces its Third Cohort of the Multicultural Innovation Lab appeared first on Black Enterprise.
John Singleton passed Monday, April 29, 2019. After suffering a stroke that left him in a coma, his family ultimately decided to take him off life support. To say it was a life gone too soon is an understatement, especially for a figure who has had such a tremendous impact on the black community at large. I grew up in…
Jimmy Butler wants to make one thing clear to everyone: His name is not James!
The Amazon Prime Store Card and Amazon Prime Rewards Visa are worth having just to get 5% cash back on Amazon purchases, but for a limited time, that offer is getting bumped to a whopping 15% back on select outdoor items, just in time for your spring camping trips and cookouts.
As a black person in America, we’ve all been there.
Foodies everywhere are familiar with the James Beard Awards, the culinary-focused ceremony considered the “Oscars of food.” And those who look forward to the annual Chicago-based event are swiftly getting a taste for the hottest party of the weekend, the Iconoclast Dinner Experience All-Star Culinary bash.
How do we know with certainty that the president of the United States is not a high paid sex worker who exclusively caters to Russian President Vladimir Putin?
More than three months after a Binghamton, N.Y., middle school was accused of illegally strip-searching four black and Latina students, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF) has filed a lawsuit against the school district for failing to redress or apologize for the incident.
Black activists and technologists are increasingly raising the alarm about what one has called ‘the new frontier of civil rights’—that is, growing concerns over inherent racism in artificial intelligence and computer algorithm technologies.
It was proven that algorithms behind many social media platforms were manipulated in an attempt to influence black voters. The released Mueller report outlined it plainly: Russian operatives deliberately targeted black activists online through social media—using the algorithmic technology behind online platforms to purposely cause dissension among black voters in the 2016 election (on page 32 of the Special Counsel’s report).
According to a report from Axios, these foreign actors gamed a number of tech platforms in addition to social media, including Google, PayPal, and Instagram.
“One of the reasons social media platforms continue to be exploited is because the opacity of algorithms being used make many of these fictitious posts or misleading campaigns go viral,” according to the Axios report.
Algorithms are inextricably linked with Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Big Data. Algorithms, in a nutshell, are lines of code that tell computers what to do. While not all algorithms are used for AI, they do provide instructions for AI systems, as per TheNextWeb.
The problem with algorithms is that they are “inherently racist,” according to Mutale Nkonde, a US-based policy analyst and a 2018-19 fellow at Data & Society Research Institute in New York City.
“Algorithmic decision-making is based on historical data,” says Nkonde. “A system will look at, for example, how many people were evicted in Bed-Stuy [a Brooklyn neighborhood] over the last 10 years. When you are going for an apartment and then when your landlord does a credit check, if you’re black and it says there were historically huge amounts of evictions [among the black community], then you may not get the apartment.”
Mutale Nkonde
Last month, the Housing and Urban Development agency charged Facebook with housing discrimination violations. Facebook’s ad-targeting technology allowed property owners to target their properties to Facebook users based on race and other factors.
Algorithms today can help determine whether you get a loan, a job, or insurance. Just about all business verticals are using algorithms to some extent for decision making. Couple that with the massive amount of information collected against people through social media apps and search engines—so-called ‘Big Data’— and the potential to stealthily discriminate against black people is a concerning issue.
“Algorithmic decision-making is at the core running all of society’s systems,” says Nkonde.
Even the prison industry has moved into the digital age. Superstar rapper Jay-Z recently invested in Promise, a startup dedicated to reducing incarceration rates. The startup offers ‘community-supervised alternatives to jail and prison’ according to its website.
While the intent of the startup, keeping more black people out of the prison system is good, Nkonde sees the technology behind it as problematic.
She says Jay-Z and “a bunch of other billionaires have bought into this company where instead of going to jail, you’re going to be given an ankle bracelet that will track you,” she says.
In a TechCrunch article featuring Promise’s co-founder and CEO, Phaedra Ellis Lampkins, the startup’s technology was described: “Instead of a county paying to incarcerate someone simply because they can’t afford to post bail, they can use Promise to monitor compliance with court orders and better keep tabs on people via the app and, if needed, GPS monitoring devices. Counties, courts, case managers and other stakeholders can also access progress reports of individuals to monitor compliance.”
“The problem is there is secondary use for that data. The data that you generate can then be sold to various other businesses and that’s where the real money is,” says Nkonde. “That is a reinforcement of the ‘black code’ and reinforcement of the racist code that has always driven American society. Except now, it’s called ‘AI’.”
Ellis Lampkins refutes Nkonde’s allegations. In an emailed statement to Black Enterprise, she called Nkonde’s statements, “factually inaccurate.”
“We have not built and do not have any plans on building GPS monitoring technology. We believe that constant monitoring technology would create more injustice and be a violation of the foundation of our company. We built Promise so that there would be technology that improved the lives of those who were impacted by the criminal justice system, ” she wrote. She also clarified her company’s position on GPS monitoring of those entangled in the legal system and the potential for data collection against those individuals.
“People are on GPS because the court mandates it. We do not provide the GPS. We do not recommend it and we do not have it in our app. The court has many conditions such as AA, parenting class, etc. We also do not provide those services. Because we do not collect the data, there is no way it could ever be sold,” stated Ellis Lampkins via email.
However, the problems of biased algorithms and AI are being raised by politicians. Sen. Cory Booker and Rep. Yvette Clarke have presented legislation addressing tech bias.
Nkonde, in fact, serves as a senior tech policy adviser for Congresswoman Clarke. She says Clarke and Booker have gone beyond just looking into well-documented cases of facial recognition technology’s inability to correctly identify people of color but they have “gone for the money,” says Nkonde.
“They’ve gone for the algorithm; they’ve gone for ‘what makes systems think?’ Those algorithms are protected by commercial law so this is actually the first time in history that anybody has really gone for how AI works.”
She says she loves the fact that Sen. Booker is involved with this cause because she feels he can make bias in technology a presidential issue. “I’m hoping that what journalists and activists and policymakers can do is really frame this as the new frontier of civil rights,” she says.
Last year, Nkonde and Clarke gave a briefing in DC on algorithmic bias. “We were looking at white supremacy online because the algorithms that feed you videos on YouTube were feeding white supremacists more extreme content and we were speaking about that,” says Nkonde.
Facebook has also taken measures to combat bias in AI. At its developers’ conference last year, a Facebook executive said that it is focused on “how to build fair and unbiased systems.” The company says one way to do so is by having diverse individuals involved in building its AI systems.
“If AI is built by a small group of technologists it will only see a narrow point of view,” said research scientist Isabel Kloumann at the event.
Still, activists say that Facebook and other tech companies are not doing enough and the red flags aren’t being raised enough about how potentially harmful AI and algorithms can be to black people.
“The real issue,” says Nkonde, “is technologies do not serve everybody equally. Because algorithms/AI systems are built by people, those people encode their values in those systems.”
“What AI actually does increase the likelihood for white, rich, cis men to succeed and decreases the likelihood for everybody else in society to succeed.”
The post Artificial Intelligence and Algorithms: 21st Century Tools for Racism appeared first on Black Enterprise.
Discounted Sonos One speakers, Insomnia Coffee, and a sale on graduation party supplies lead off Tuesday’s best deals.
“What feeds your soul?” D’Angelo asks. For him, it’s God. It’s Yahweh. And for any fan who wonders why an artist decided to take a 14-year-long hiatus at the height of his career, maybe the answer rests in his gut—maybe, even with the superfluous reinforcement, he was starving.
It’s been 15 years since Sex and the City set the standard for what it meant to be a successful working woman in New York City, with four white actresses (Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Cattrall, Cynthia Nixon, and Kristen Davis) providing a weekly dose of humor, friendship, fashion, and yes, sex to devoted viewers from…
After Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx’s announced that she would no longer be seeking to prosecute Empire actor Jussie Smollett on charges that he made a false report to police in the aftermath of what authorities say was a staged racist and homophobic attack, both a prosecutor in her office as well as a former…
Time’s ticking on Mother’s Day gifts and right now Amazon is blowing out tons of different watches. Both men’s and women’s styles are discounted. Prices start at just at around $29 for a Fossil watch and go all the way up to Michael Kors smart watch for $238.
Halima Aden has been changing the game since 2016, when she became the first contestant in the Miss Minnesota USA pageant to wear a hijab—and made it to the semifinals. In the years since, the Somali refugee-turned-burgeoning supermodel has been lighting up runways and magazine covers alike, reinforcing the fact that…
We still don’t know exactly what Stacey Abrams has in mind for future office, but we can at least rule one possibility out: a U.S. Senate seat in 2020.
I have had the good fortune to have seen many a Broadway play (also quite a few off-Broadway, for that matter). But only a very few over the years have stayed with me—a short list would include Fela! The Mountaintop. Choir Boy. The House That Will Not Stand. Denzel Washington in Julius Caesar.
Tick season is officially upon us and it is expected to be a bad one. That means it is time to stock up on your pet’s protection. You can get 20% off Frontline Plus from Chewy right now. So hopefully your poor dog or cat hopefully won’t be chewing their butt anymore. At least, not because of itchy fleas or ticks.
Four Northern Virginia school districts are showing support for Gavin Grimm, the young transgender man who’s been in a years-long battle with another Virginia school district over its policy when it comes to what bathroom transgender students can use.
Deputy U.S. Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, has officially submitted his resignation papers, stating that his last day will be May 11.
A Louisiana man whose life was almost thrown away by the criminal justice system when he was overcharged in a case that came be known as the “Jena 6” is now officially a lawyer.
Glossier is all about that less-is-more simplicity, so it makes sense that their latest launch, Bubblewrap, is an eye cream that’s also meant for your lips—or is it a lip cream that’s also meant for you under eyes? Either way, it promises plump up any under eye or lip it’s swiped across.
Puff, puff — hard pass: A pair of Baltimore city judges have denied Baltimore City State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby’s request to throw out some 5,000 marijuana convictions.
California law enforcement officials stopped an Army veteran from carrying out a deadly terror attack at a political rally, officials announced Monday, foiling a plot to retaliate for a recent mass killing at a New Zealand mosque.
The energy? Buoyant. The crowd? Beautiful. The inspiration? Boundless. In the first stop in their first-ever Beauty Carnival tour, Essence magazine created a mecca for black girl magic this weekend in New York City, with some of the most notable names in the beauty, fashion and entertainment industries on site at the…
We see a lot of deals around the web over on Kinja Deals, but these were our ten favorites today.
An unseasoned collection of white nationalists who apparently are fed up with all this “inclusion and diversity” nonsense had some things to get off their chest this weekend during a book event in Washington, D.C.
Update: 4:45 p.m. EST
According to CNN, John Singleton died on April 29 at 51 years old. His family released the following statement:
“We are sad to relay that John Singleton has died. John passed away peacefully, surrounded by his family and friends. We want to thank the amazing doctors at Cedars-Sinai Hospital for their expert care and kindness and we again want thank all of John’s fans, friends and colleagues for all of the love and support they showed him during this difficult time.”
Hollywood trailblazer John Singleton, who suffered from a stroke and fell into a coma earlier this month, made history when he was just 24 years old with his iconic 1991 film Boyz n the Hood. The groundbreaking movie explored the plight of childhood friends growing up in an inner-city neighborhood stricken by gang violence in South Los Angeles. The film received two Academy Award nominations in 1992, making Singleton both the first African American and youngest person ever to be nominated for Best Director. It also received the nod for Best Original Screenplay. In addition, the film also helped launch the careers of stars like Angela Bassett, Morris Chestnut, and Cuba Gooding, Jr.
At the 2015 American Black Film Festival, Singleton revealed that he had hired a predominantly black crew to make the film as well as a mix of actors and non-actors, some from South LA. “Everyone from the neighborhood was invested in the film. The crew was 97% black,” said the USC School of Cinematic Arts graduate. He described making the film — which was inspired by his real-life friends and the challenges that they experienced in South Central — as “cathartic.” “I wanted to make a film that was quintessentially black American. I think we’ve gotten away from that as filmmakers. We’re too concerned with what others think, not about what’s culturally astute.”
Today, Boyz n the Hood is recognized as one of the most definitive movies of the 90s and an urban classic that continues to resonate with audiences almost 30 years later. “Everything that we dealt with in Boyz n the Hood is still relevant today,” Singleton said. “Black men still feel like they have to prove their masculinity. There’s so much pressure black women and men have to deal with. We’ve become time bombs.” Boyz n the Hood was added to the United States Library of Congress in 2002.
The screenwriter went on to direct a number of other notable films and television series throughout his career, including Poetic Justice, Baby Boy, 2 Fast 2 Furious, the FX crime drama Snowfall, and several episodes of Empire.
Back in 2011, Singleton told BLACK ENTERPRISE that there are fewer opportunities for black directors today to make big-picture films than there were at the start of his career. “I think there is less opportunity now in making big mainstream pictures [for] black filmmakers making films for black audiences,” he said. “It’s harder for us to get a movie made in that vein because they kind of compartmentalized and made it open for just a few people to make pictures.”
Tragically, Singleton suffered from a stroke on April 17 and was placed in intensive care. His mother and business manager, Shelia Ward, filed papers in court requesting conservatorship, stating that Singleton was “unable to provide for his personal needs” or “manage his financial resources,” according to The Associated Press. The court papers also claim that at the time of his stroke, Singleton was “engaged in several business deals” and in the process of signing “a lucrative settlement agreement.” Ward’s claims, however, were publicly refuted by Singleton’s daughter, Cleopatra Singleton, who also opposed the idea of giving her grandmother control over her father’s estate.
At the time of publishing, Singleton was reportedly still on life support and scheduled to be taken off April 29. In a statement, a family spokesperson revealed he had suffered from hypertension. “Like many African Americans, Singleton quietly struggled with hypertension. More than 40% of African American men and women have high blood pressure, which also develops earlier in life and is usually more severe.”
The post Remembering the Legacy of Legendary Director John Singleton and his Classic Film “Boyz n the Hood” appeared first on Black Enterprise.
In the ongoing, gut-wrenching, Handmaid’s Tale-like real-life saga that is the decimation of reproductive rights across the country, yet another state has weighed in on its hatred of women. And yet. And yet, this time, Kansas came through for the bodily autonomy of its women citizenry.
Director, screenwriter and producer John Singleton has died at the age of 51.
My blood pressure still has not returned to normal after episode three of Game of Thrones.
The Battle of Winterfell popped off and shit did not go as any of us expected. I turned on my friend’s television in preparation to say goodbye to all of my favorite characters because I knew the Night King was going to swoop in…
Monitor arms give you back wasted desk space, and include channels that keep your cables hidden and organized. And if that sounds appealing, you can pick up a dual monitor arm set up for just $43 if you stack an on-page coupon and the code KJ9ONK65.
Before heading into work a few weeks ago, I tweeted an original, now viral series of tweets about a surge of competing emotions that had unexpectedly hit me after placing a bandage on a stubborn, four-day old cut on my finger. But it wasn’t like the typical Johnson & Johnson brand adhesive bandages I’d worn on the…