A Ticketmaster for science seminars

One of the perks of an academic’s pre-pandemic life was the chance, at least once a week, to take a break from problem sets and proofs, and walk down the hall or across campus to sit in on cutting-edge research presented by invited experts from around the world.

Offered through a department’s regular seminar series, these talks were also opportunities to get some friendly face-to-face with colleagues who were otherwise buried in their own work. And on occasion, a chance meeting or a raised question could spark a new collaboration or an unexpected offshoot that pushed a field forward.

The Covid-19 pandemic has put a pause on seminars hosted physically on university campuses. But in mid-March, a small team of MIT mathematicians began to notice that institutions around the world were finding ways to continue hosting seminars, online. To virtually attend these talks, however, required hearing about them through word of mouth or digging through the webpages of individual departments or organizers.

Enter researchseminars.org, a website the MIT team formally launched this week, that serves as a sort of crowdsourced Ticketmaster for science talks. Instead of featuring upcoming shows and concerts, the new site lists more than 1,000 free, upcoming seminars hosted online by more than 115 institutions around the world.

“We’ve had a lot of feedback from users who say, ‘thank you so much for building this, I feel like part of a community again,’” says Drew Sutherland, principal research scientist in MIT’s Department of Mathematics.

The site is designed so that any verified organizer can add their own seminar listing. In this way, the team hopes the site can serve as a centralized, crowdsourced portal to the latest scientific advances being presented anywhere in the world. Users can filter seminars by topic, then click on a listing for details on how to virtually attend. After entering a password — or in more discerning cases, solving a math puzzle — they can sit in on live talks they might have been unable to attend in person.

In just a few weeks, the site has drawn about half a million pageviews, from visitors in 160 countries.

If reactions on Twitter are any indication, the site has been a bright source of connection for academics who’ve been isolated from their campuses, and from each other, for weeks and months since the pandemic’s start.

For instance, Jordan Ellenberg, a math professor at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, tweeted that the new site “is like the departure board at O’Hare if you could just get on any flight you wanted and they were all free.”

Another, from Britanny Kamai, an astrophysicist at Caltech, exclaimed, “This is the future of science that I want to live in! One with more access and entry points.”

And Anh-Khoi Trinh, a theoretical physicist at McGill University, put it all in context with this simple tweet: “This is how you science during a quarantine.”

“My hope is, obviously one day the pandemic will end and we’ll all start going back to seminars that are taking place in physical rooms,” Sutherland says. “But there will still be a large number of online events going on, and our site is intended to make it easy for people to find both.”

“Why not all of math?”

Back in mid-March, shortly after MIT cleared out much of its campus in an effort to slow the spread of Covid-19, Sutherland caught up online with Edgar Costa and David Roe, both research scientists in MIT’s math department, and Bjorn Poonen, distinguished professor in science, during their biweekly lab meeting for the Simons Collaboration in Arithmetic Geometry, Number Theory, and Computation.

The group specializes in number theory, a branch of mathematics that deals with the study of integers and their associated functions. As it happens, there are more than a handful of number theory groups around Boston, each normally hosting their own seminars, and opportunities for researchers to meet up.

Keeping track of these talks, and figuring out which they could actually make time to attend, quickly became an unwieldy task. The previous fall, Costa had built a website to aggregate all the number theory seminars in and around Boston. Then, in the early days of the pandemic, as organizers shifted their seminars online, Roe wondered whether they might expand the site beyond Boston, and to topics beyond number theory. They approached Poonen and Sutherland with their idea.

“We realized, wait, we can go to a number theory seminar anywhere in the country,” Sutherland says. “Then it was, ‘Why just number theory? Why not all of math?’”

Costa and Roe spent the next few weeks building an interactive, online directory of math seminars, designed to handle and organize a huge amount of data, with an interface that users can easily use to enter their own seminar listings. They were able to get the site up and running quickly by building on a code they developed for another number theory-based website — the LMFDB, or L-functions and Modular Forms Database, a massive online atlas of mathematical objects that is organized to reveal relationship between objects that scientists can further explore.

“That project brought us a different mindset towards the way to present and organize large amounts of data, which we were able to use to quickly get this new site off the ground,” Roe says.

In early April, the researchers launched a beta version that initially included talks only related to math. They populated the site first with lists of seminars that other mathematicians had curated, as well as whatever seminars the researchers themselves knew about. They then emailed math listservs to invite users to register and try out the site, both by checking out existing seminars, and adding their own.

“The first day we launched, we were using Gmail’s email server to send out confirmation links for users who were registering, and we quickly hit the limit of 500 emails that Google would allow us to send in a day, and had to scramble to move our email server in-house,” Roe says. “We had almost 10,000 visitors within the first 24 hours the site was live, and the response has vastly exceeded our expectations.”

Making connections

Very quickly, word of the new website spread throughout the math community, who eagerly added to the exponentially growing list of talks. Organizers such as Poonen, who runs MIT’s number theory seminar, also saw an uptick in the number of people attending virtual seminars listed on the site.

“We would have maybe 20 people at a typical meeting, but now it’s usually more like 80 to 100, and this is a pretty technical subject,” Poonen says. “It’s not for everybody, but there are people all around the world who want to participate. I’ve also run into people whom I haven’t seen in years, who just happen to come to the same talk.”

“On the one hand, mathematicians tend to work alone, but we’re also very social — we all go to tea together, and the research seminar was built into our weekly schedule, where we got to meet and see all the people that we know,” Sutherland adds. “There is really a social aspect to it, and after months of isolation, this kind of connection makes a big difference.”

In response to increasing interest from scientists in other subject fields, the team has since added more topics to the website, including seminars in physics, biology, and computer science. They’re also working out ways to host social platforms on the site, such as chat rooms that run in parallel with scheduled talks.

“Most of my math happens when I meet with someone and spend a coffee break working with them,” Costa says. “I miss the connection of looking over the same piece of paper and taking the pen from each other to fix a problem. Online provides that to some level but differently. And we have some ideas of how to recreate those more informal interactions going forward.”

This research was funded, in part, by the Simons Foundation.

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Study finds electrical fields can throw a curveball

MIT researchers have discovered a phenomenon that could be harnessed to control the movement of tiny particles floating in suspension. This approach, which requires simply applying an external electric field, may ultimately lead to new ways of performing certain industrial or medical processes that require separation of tiny suspended materials.

The findings are based on an electrokinetic version of the phenomenon that gives curveballs their curve, known as the Magnus effect. Zachary Sherman PhD ’19, who is now a postdoc at the University of Texas at Austin, and MIT professor of chemical engineering James Swan describe the new phenomenon in a paper published this week in the journal Physical Review Letters.

The Magnus effect causes a spinning object to be pulled in a direction perpendicular to its motion, as in the curveball; it is based on aerodynamic forces and operates at macroscopic scales — i.e. on easily visible objects — but not on smaller particles. The new phenomenon, induced by an electric field, can propel particles down to nanometer scales, moving them along in a controlled direction without any contact or moving parts.

The discovery came about as a surprise, as Sherman was testing some new simulation software for the interactions of tiny nanoscale particles that he was developing, within magnetic and electric fields. The test case he was studying involves placing charged particles in an electrolytic liquid, which are liquids with ions, or charged atoms or molecules, in them.

It was known, he says, that when charged particles just a few tens to hundreds of nanometers across are placed in such liquids they remain suspended within it rather than settling, forming a colloid. Ions then cluster around the particles. The new software successfully simulated this ion clustering. Next, he simulated an electric field across the material. This would be expected to induce a process called electrophoresis, which would propel the particles along in the direction of the applied field. Again, the software correctly simulated the process.

Then Sherman decided to push it further, and gradually increased the strength of the electric field. “But then we saw this funny thing,” he says. “If the field was strong enough, you would get normal electrophoresis for a tiny bit, but then the colloids would spontaneously start spinning.” And that’s where the Magnus effect comes in.

Not only were the particles spinning in the simulations as they moved along, but “those two motions coupled together, and the spinning particle would veer off of its path,” he says. “It’s kind of strange, because you apply a force in one direction, and then the thing moves in an orthogonal [right-angle] direction to what you've specified.” It’s directly analogous to what happens aerodynamically with spinning balls, he says. “If you throw a curveball in baseball, it goes in the direction you threw it, but then it also veers off. So this is a kind of a microscopic version of that well-known macroscopic Magnus effect.”

When the applied field was strong enough, the charged particles took on a strong motion in the direction perpendicular to the field. This could be useful, he says, because with electrophoresis “the particle moves toward one of the electrodes, and you run into this problem where the particle will move and then it will run into the electrode, and it’ll stop moving. So you can’t really generate a continuous motion with just electrophoresis.”

Instead, since this new effect goes at right angles to the applied field, it could be used for example to propel particles along a microchannel, simply by placing electrodes on the top and bottom. That way, he says, the particle will “just move along the channel, and it will never bump into the electrodes.” That makes it, he says, “actually a more efficient way to direct the motion of microscopic particles.”

There are two different kinds of examples of processes where this ability might come in handy, he says. One is to use the particle to deliver some sort of “cargo” to a specific location. For example, the particle could be attached to a therapeutic drug “and you’re trying to get it to a target site that needs that drug, but you can’t get the drug there directly,” he says. Or the particle might contain some sort of chemical reactant or catalyst that needs to be directed to a specific channel to carry out its desired reaction.

The other example is sort of the inverse of that process: picking up some kind of target material and bringing it back. For example, a chemical reaction to generate a product might also generate a lot of unwanted byproducts. “So you need a way to get a product out,” he says. These particles can be used to capture the product and then be extracted using the applied electric field. “In this way they kind of act as little vacuum cleaners,” he says. “They pick up the thing you want, and then you can move them somewhere else, and then release the product where it’s easier to collect.”

He says this effect should apply for a wide array of particle sizes and particle materials, and the team will continue to study how different material properties affect the rotation speed or the translation speed of this effect. The basic phenomenon should apply to virtually any combination of materials for the particles and the liquid they are suspended in, as long as the two differ from each other in terms of an electrical property called the dielectric constant.

The researchers looked at materials with a very high dielectric constant, such as metal particles, suspended in a much lower-conducting electrolyte, such as water or oils. “But you might also be able to see this with any two materials that have a contrast” in dielectric constant, Sherman says, for example with two oils that don’t mix and thus form suspended droplets.

The work was supported by NASA and the National Science Foundation.

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Woman falsely claims Black man threatened life in Central Park

Another day, another instance of the “Karen” jumping out of a white woman and this time one falsely claimed that an “African-American man” threatened her life over a dog in New York’s Central Park.

On Monday, a video went viral of a woman apparently identified as Amy Cooper interacting with a Black man over the Memorial Day weekend while in New York’s Central Park. The man asked Cooper, who was exercising, to place her dog in a leash and a verbal confrontation soon ensued. She refused and he began to film the encounter.

READ MORE: White woman slaps Red Lobster employee after being tossed out over dispute

Oh, when Karens take a walk with their dogs off leash in the famous Bramble in NY’s Central Park, where it is clearly posted on signs that dogs MUST be leashed at all times, and someone like my brother (an avid birder) politely asks her to put her dog on the leash. pic.twitter.com/3YnzuATsDm

— Melody Cooper (@melodyMcooper) May 25, 2020

Cooper is seen walking towards the man and aggressively gripping the animal by its collar.

“Please stop,” she demanded. “Sir, I’m asking you to stop recording me.”

Cooper then threatened that she would call the police and report that the Black man was threatening her life.

“I’m going to tell them there’s an African-American man threatening my life,” she said.

“Please tell them whatever you like,” the man replied.

READ MORE: Angry customer says Detroit-area restaurant served him nothing but racism

The viral clip showed that Cooper then backed away from the man and made good on her threat to weaponize the police against the Black man.

“There’s a man, an African-American, he’s recording and threatening me and my dog,” Cooper said. “There is an African-American man in Central Park. He is recording me and threatening myself and my dog.”

Cooper then raised her voice as if she were in imminent danger while on the phone with police. She begged for help to be sent right away.

“I am being threatened by a man in the bramble (SIC)!” she screamed. “Please send the police immediately!”

It would now appear Cooper has since deleted her social media profiles that identify her and the place where she works.

(credit: Screenshot)

(Credit: Screenshot)

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Federal judge rules felons cannot be stopped from voting due to fees

An exciting new ruling out of Florida is a victory for voting rights.

According to a report in The Washington Post, U.S. District Judge Robert L. Hinkle has ruled that Floridians who have been convicted of felonies can register to vote and participate in the upcoming November election, even if they have not paid off all fines and fees. 

READ MORE: Federal trial opens over Florida’s felon voting law

Voters in the state chose overwhelmingly to restore voting rights to felons who had completed “all terms of their sentence including probation and parole” in 2018. However, Republican leaders and the state’s governor, Ron DeSantis said that amendment was ambiguous and added requirements that all fines, fees, and restitution must be paid first. 

Residents of Miami-Dade cast their votes on electronic voting machines October 28, 2004 in Miami, Florida. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

The additional requirements meant that more than 1.5 million felons were barred from participating in the voting process. 

The court ruled that “The Twenty-Fourth Amendment precludes Florida from conditioning voting in federal elections on payment of these fees and costs.” Hinkle compared the state’s law to a poll tax. An additional complication to the ruling is that the state has not provided people with the tools or resources they need to calculate how much they either owe or have already paid.

Voter rights advocates have stated that without being able to determine whether they still owed fines, fees, or restitution, voter applicants could have been charged with perjury.

READ MORE: GOP spending $20M on alleged voter suppression for the 2020 election

According to the report, Hinkle’s order requires the state to tell felons whether they are eligible to vote and what they owe. It also requires the state to allow any felon to register if they are not given an answer within 21 days. No one will face perjury charges for registering and voting through this process. 

Julie Ebenstein, a senior staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) who litigated the case, said: “The court recognized that conditioning a person’s right to vote on their ability to pay is unconstitutional. This ruling means hundreds of thousands of Floridians will be able to rejoin the electorate and participate in upcoming elections. This is a tremendous victory for voting rights.”

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Biden makes 1st in-person appearance in more than 2 months

NEW CASTLE, Del. (AP) — Joe Biden made his first in-person appearance in more than two months on Monday as he marked Memorial Day by laying a wreath at a veterans park near his Delaware home.

Since abruptly canceling a March 10 rally in Cleveland at the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee has waged much of his campaign from his home in Wilmington. When Biden emerged on Monday, he wore a face mask, in contrast to President Donald Trump, who has refused to cover his face in public as health officials suggest.

Biden and his wife, Jill, laid a wreath of white flowers tied with a white bow, and bowed their heads in silence at the park. He saluted. “Never forget the sacrifices that these men and women made,” he said after. “Never, ever, forget.”

“I feel great to be out here.” Biden told reporters, his words muffled through his black cloth mask. His visit to the park was unannounced and there was no crowd waiting for him.

READ MORE: Biden reinforces plan for Black America after ‘Breakfast Club’ backlash

But Biden briefly greeted a county official and another man, both wearing face masks and standing a few feet away. Biden also yelled to another, larger group standing nearby, “Thank you for your service.” His campaign says Biden has gone to the park for Memorial Day often in the past, though services were canceled Monday in the pandemic.

Though low-key, the appearance was a milestone in a presidential campaign that has largely been frozen by the coronavirus outbreak. While the feasibility of traditional events such as rallies and the presidential conventions are in doubt, Biden’s emergence suggests he won’t spend the nearly five months that remain until the election entirely at home.

The coronavirus has upended virtually all aspects of American life and changed the terms of the election. Trump’s argument that he deserves another term in office because of the strong economy has evaporated as unemployment rises to levels not seen since the Great Depression.

Democratic presidential candidate, former Vice President Joe Biden and Jill Biden, arrive to lay a wreath at the Delaware Memorial Bridge Veterans Memorial Park, Monday, May 25, 2020, in New Castle, Del. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)

As a longtime senator and former vice president, Biden is trying to position himself as someone with the experience and empathy to lead the country out of a crisis.

Biden has adjusted to the coronavirus era by building a television studio in his home, which he’s used to make appearances on news programs, late-night shows and virtual campaign events. Some of those efforts have been marred by technical glitches and other awkward moments.

Some Democratic strategists have openly worried that Biden is ceding too much ground to Trump by staying home. The president himself has knocked Biden for essentially campaigning from his basement.

Biden’s advisers say they plan to return to normal campaign activities at some point, including travel to battleground states. But they’re in no hurry, preferring to defer to the advice of health experts and authorities’ stay-at-home and social distancing recommendations.

At 77, Biden is among the nation’s senior population thought to be especially vulnerable to the effects of the coronavirus — though so is Trump, who turns 74 next month.

Vice President Joe Biden and Jill Biden pause afer placing a wreath at the Delaware Memorial Bridge Veterans Memorial Park, Monday, May 25, 2020, in New Castle, Del. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)

“We will never make any choices that put our staff or voters in harm’s way,” Biden campaign manager Jen O’Malley Dillon said recently, adding that the campaign would resume more traditional activities “when safety allows, and we will not do that a day sooner.”

Trump has not resumed the large rallies that were the hallmark of his 2016 campaign and presidency but has begun traveling outside Washington in recent weeks. He visited a facility producing face masks in Arizona and a Ford plant in Michigan that has been converted to produce medical and protective equipment.

Trump even played golf at his club in Virginia on the weekend, hoping that others will follow his lead and return to some semblance of normal life and gradually help revive an economy in free fall.

It was the president’s first trip to one of his money-making properties since March 8, when he visited his private golf club in West Palm Beach. The World Health Organization declared the coronavirus a pandemic on March 11, and Trump followed with the national emergency declaration two days later.

READ MORE: Bernie Sanders on Joe Biden: ‘Vast majority of my supporters will vote for him’

Biden’s campaign wasted little time producing an online video offering blurry, faraway footage of Trump on the golf course, imposed over images evoking the virus ravaging the nation as the number of Americans dead from the pandemic approached 100,000. The video concluded by proclaiming: “The death toll is still rising. The president is playing golf.”

Trump spent Memorial Day visiting Arlington National Cemetery and the Fort McHenry national monument in Baltimore, to be followed by a trip to Florida’s coast on Wednesday to watch to U.S. astronauts blast into orbit.

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BET’s tribute to Andre Harrell was the ultimate ode to Black excellence

Several of Hollywood’s biggest celebrities came together virtually on Sunday to celebrate the life of Andre Harrell, who tragically passed away earlier this month.

Jamie Foxx touched viewers and celebrity friends alike with this heartfelt words about the famed music executive.

“Coming from Texas, you didn’t see a lot of Black men that were in charge of everything. Now, I had positive Black role models coming up, don’t get me wrong,” he said. “But I didn’t even know that you could think the way that Andre Harrell thought. Andre said ‘Black man, you can be anything.’ He taught me the word ‘Black excellence.’ I was like ‘what is that?’ He said, ‘It’s me, personified.’”

Those were the words actor Foxx used to describe the late Harrell during BET tribute to the legendary record exec and owner of Uptown Records. Harrell launched the careers of such iconic hip-hop and R&B acts as Mary J. Blige, Heavy D & The Boyz, Jodeci, and Al B. Sure, and he also paved the way for a certain intern named Sean “Diddy” Combs to later continue the legacy through his own label, Bad Boy Records.

READ MORE: Andre Harrell, founder of Uptown Records, is dead at 59

Foxx continued, describing a throwback story from when he was first starting out in the industry and witnessed actress Charlize Theron from across the room at an event.

According to Foxx, Harrell stopped him from approaching and suggested that he focus, gain some success, and win an Oscar before trying to talk to her. Foxx later went on to win the Oscar for Ray, which he says made Harrell proud being that it was a film that celebrated Black excellence. However, on the night of his acceptance speech, he was told by producers that his speech was “referencing Black stuff too much.”

“But with Harrell’s words ringing in my ears about Black excellence I said ‘I’m not changing my speech,'” Foxx said on Sunday. 

He went on to unapologetically deliver his speech as planned and receive his award from the presenter, who just so happened to be Theron. In a beautiful full circle moment, the first person he called when he exited the stage was Harrell. 

Foxx wasn’t the only Black star who attributed much of their drive to Harrell. According to singer Tyrese, “I didn’t believe that an Oscar would be possible before [he] talked to me about it. But I believe it now.” And producer Lee Daniels expressed that “before I showed anybody my movies, I showed Andre. He was the cultural barometer of what people would like to see.”

Several other celebrity friends, such as Naomi Campbell, Kimora Lee Simmons, and Mariah Carey, all fought back tears recalling a man who they described as selfless and loving.

“It was never ever possible to give back to you the way you’ve given to us,” declared Campbell.

“This one hit hard. The people in our lives that give us comfort are the sages, the seers, the pastors. They give us that wisdom. Dre was one of those,” added Pharrell Williams. 

Of course, it wouldn’t be an Andre Harrell celebration without live musical performances. Kathy Sledge kicked off the night’s music with a simple rendition of Sister Sledge’s “Thinking of You,” and Robin Thicke sung an a cappella snippet of Jodeci’s “Come and Talk to Me.” Thicke also debuted a new track of his titled “Forever Mine” that he and Harrell had been working on and finalized just prior to his May 7 passing. Babyface also debuted a stirring tribute song he wrote specially for this occasion called “I’ll See You in The Stars.” 

#CelebratingAndreHarrell @KennyEdmonds did a beautiful tribute to #andreharrell , can't wait for the #WaitingToExhale soundtrack special in 15 mins pic.twitter.com/qVI1CP6WtT

— Denzel Weaver (@DeaconDtw) May 24, 2020

However, Harrell’s Black excellence extended well beyond the music industry as politicians Rep. Barbara Lee and Rep. Maxine Waters provided emotional testimonies about a man who wasn’t in the same industry as them, but who moved them with his passion for voter education. Rep. Waters was especially emotional as Harrell’s death came just a few days after she lost her sister to coronavirus.

“I can’t believe that he’s gone. This is hard to take,” said Rep. Waters. “Two days before I learned that he passed, I’d spent hours on the phone with him. He was about to spend big time on Vote or Die. He was really my go-to person. I’m trying to digest this. I’m trying to make sense out of it. I’m overwhelmed, but I’m not going to forget what was on his mind and what he was about to launch and that he asked me to play a role in that.”

READ MORE: Diddy, Monifah, Aaron Hall, and more pay tribute to Andre Harrell

She then continued on to make an impassioned plea for viewers to get out and vote “in the name of Andre Harrell. Thank you for caring about government and politics and working with someone like me.”

Unlike the musical tributes of yesteryear, this production was filmed solely by the guest stars’ own mobile devices while quarantined in the comfort and familiarity of their own living rooms. Without the usual glitz and glam of hair and makeup teams, production-quality lighting, and a theater full of live music, these Black music industry heavy-hitters came to us raw and vulnerable, sporting new growth and unkempt beards. But despite the seemingly limited circumstances, Black excellence was on full display thanks to filmmaker Jonte and producer Rikki Hughes. 

I can’t believe we pulled this off in a week! wendycredle and @gianniharrell , Thank You for trusting me with his legacy. When I got the call to do this (even though i had a million things going on) I said yes… https://t.co/00wSOF7Rkl

— RikkiHughes (@msRikki3) May 23, 2020

What an absolute honor to create #andreharrell tribute. I hope you can tell we put my entire love into it. Thanks to the amazing @msRikki3 for being the most amazing producer. We love you Andre!!! And ya don’t stop and ya don’t!!! 🖤✊🏽 for the culture

— theBlaakRthefilmmaker (@BlaakRichardson) May 25, 2020

This is not the point, but kudos to @BET for the stellar production value of this #AndreHarrell tribute, considering that all the interviews came in by cell phone. He deserves. 🙏🏾

— brittany packnett cunningham does not do remixes. (@MsPackyetti) May 24, 2020

Thank you BET for the outstanding tribute special for Andre Harrell! The performances and words were heartfelt and amazing. It was truly what Andre lived for and stood for…”Black Excellence”.

— Earvin Magic Johnson (@MagicJohnson) May 25, 2020

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Black women open up about dating other POC amid Hollywood spotlight

For decades, interracial relationships in Hollywood were rarely, if ever, seen. When pairings did grace our screens, such as in 1957’s Island in the Sun, the pairing was almost always limited to a person of color and a white protagonist.

In recent years, however, that’s begun to change. Audiences can now see Black women at the forefront of many of these relationships, and they are often paired with other people of color. Yara Shahidi and Charles Melton played two characters in the throes of young love while dealing with cultural differences in 2019’s The Sun Is Also a Star, Yvonne Orji‘s Molly is currently unpacking the highs and lows of interracial dating in her relationship with Alexander Hodge‘s Andrew on Insecure and Issa Rae and Kumail Nanjiani showed off the humor of their unique pairing in 2020’s The Lovebirds.

For real-life interracial couples of color, this representation is long overdue. Since 1980, the percentage of recently married Black people with a spouse of a different race or ethnicity has more than tripled, from 5% to 18%, according to a 2015 Pew Research Center study. theGrio sat down with two Black women who are dealing with the realities of interracial dating between people of color and defining what love looks like for them.

Tabitha Reynolds

Tabitha Reynolds and her fiancé are pictured in an undated photo. (Credit: Tabitha Reynolds)

Tabitha and her fiancé met as many millennials often do: on a dating app. The twosome connected on OkCupid (“not Tinder!” Tabitha stresses) in 2016, and the rest, as they say, is history.

“I had just moved to Louisiana to teach, and I was like, ‘Yeah, you know, let me check [it] out, see what’s out there, see who’s out there.’ So I got online and we started talking and then we met and pretty much we’ve been together ever since,” she explains. “He did move for like six months to another city, but after he returned to Louisiana, we’ve been together ever since.”

Tabitha, a Black woman, had never been in a serious relationship with a person of another of race. Her fiancé who is Vietnamese-American, has been dating interracially since middle school. While she may have been inexperienced with the interracial dating world, Tabitha was open to finding love in any culture, with her family and friends cheering her on.

“I would say like, merging cultures, per se, isn’t the hard thing. You know, there’s like different foods and there’s different ways of speaking and things like that. But that’s not necessarily difficult for us,” she says. “I’ve never had any pushback from friends [or family]. We’ve been together for three years now. I’ve never had anyone say anything negative to me about it at all–now I don’t know what they say behind closed doors–but they don’t say it to me. So it’s not an issue, my immediate family’s great about it.”

Strangers, however, are a different story. Tabitha and her fiancé have received “weird” looks from people on the street, random high-fives from strangers in Walmart (“very random,” she says) and one particularly outrageous reaction from a coworker (“I guess she didn’t know he was going to be Asian,” she explains).

These experiences, Tabitha says, are well worth it.

“At the end of the day, as I always say, I’m always going to be a black woman,” she stresses. “So like, my ancestors will always be black. My mom and daddy are black. My niece and nephews are black, my sister’s black. So at the end of the day, I’m always going to have that tie for my own personal identity and my own experiences to being a black woman in this world. When we get married, when my last name changes, when I show up to a job interview, people are still gonna be like, ‘Oh, your last name was this on the paper, but now I see you’re a black woman,’ and they will treat me as such.”

She continues, “I will say this is the best and most easiest relationship I’ve ever been. Like, I wouldn’t be getting married or be engaged if it wasn’t. So even though there are going to be cultural differences sometimes, and maybe when we start thinking about having kids or things like that, we’ll navigate that space with them and it’ll look differently, helping them discover their identity and things like that. But for us, I feel like it’s such a cohesive, easy relationship, like we just mesh together. We’re great together as two people, it’s not this ‘strange, every single day is a struggle’ type of thing. We’re normal folks. We do goofy things at home, we’re goofy all the time together, we laugh together, you know, we do life together.”

Yara Shahidi and Charles Melton are pictured in a YouTube screenshot from The Sun is Also a Star. (Credit: Warner Bros.)

For Tabitha and her fiancé, who are planning a multicultural wedding with Vietnamese and Black cultural elements, Hollywood showcasing a love like theirs is a welcome change.

“We saw [The Sun Is Also a Star] because we thought that was a very interesting casting and dynamic. …I remember seeing the trailer for [The Lovebirds] and I was like, ‘Oh, that’s like really great,’ in that there is representation,” she dishes. “Because it does really get on my nerves, when we talk about interracial couples that it’s always a white partner and a black partner. Because it’s not everybody’s reality. I think that seeing different pairings on screen…that’s great because it gets people used to this idea that when we say interracial, we don’t always mean she’s dating a white man, right, as a black person. I think that it opens the conversation up to discussing issues that come up when you’re dating another person of color.”

April Jones and Alex Moreno

April Jones and Alex Moreno are pictured in an undated photo. (Credit: April Jones)

April and Alex’s love story is in a beautiful place today, but it wasn’t always that way.

The Pre-K teacher, who is black, and her boyfriend, who is Latino, met through his sister at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County in 2015. The two fell hard and fast for one another, saying “I love you” within two weeks of meeting. And while Alex’s sister was supportive of their blossoming romance, the rest of his family initially struggled with their union.

“It’s been hard, I’m not going to lie. You’d think it’d be easy because we all kind of fight the same battles, you know, when dealing with white privilege and low-key racism and things like that. But actually, it’s been really hard because I didn’t realize just how different Latinos and black people act towards one another,” April explains. “When we first started dating, it was very rough. The first two years of our relationship was rough. His mom didn’t like me, she thought I was, like, dirty because I was black and all these things and thought, ‘She’s gonna be a bad influence.’

April says that during the course of their relationship, Alex’s family would express their disapproval repeatedly–to the point that April had to change her phone number to avoid the constant questioning.

“I had Latino friends of course, [but] I’ve never dated a Latino guy. We’ve been dating for five years now, so that’s all water under the bridge, forgive and forget. But, you know, I would get called the N word,” she says. “They’d think that I wasn’t about anything and that I was just gonna be like a low-life influence on him. Of course, it hurt my feelings and in the beginning relationship, I would get harassed a lot. In the third month of our relationship, I had to change my phone number because I would just get called all the time, in the middle of the night if he was with me. They’d blast my phone to see where he was and you know, it was just like a lot of BS.”

Alex would do his best to fight for his relationship with April but was met with constant resistance. The tension was very difficult for him to handle, according to his girlfriend.

“He’s a very soft spoken guy, for him to get angry [is rare],” she says. “So, it was seeing a different side of him, like, getting super angry with his family and just, you know, not knowing what to do. But then eventually, it was just like, ‘We’re gonna live our life and we’ll just go from there.’ And, you know, time heals everything.”

April Jones and Alex Moreno are pictured in an undated photo. (Credit: April Jones)

Today, Alex’s family is supportive of their interracial romance, and April’s family has loved Alex “from the beginning” when he met them at a family reunion.

“We can all hang out together, you know, we’re at the house all the time,” the 29-year-old explains. “In college, I studied Spanish and tutored Spanish so now my Spanish has gotten a lot better. I can enjoy casual conversations and my comprehension is just that much better because I’m with someone who speaks Spanish, and has Spanish-speaking family. We’ve been together for a long time, so of course, you talk about kids. We want our kids to be bilingual. I think that’s like probably one of the most positive things is just, you know, the different culture, different foods, different language.”

As far as Hollywood representation goes, April couldn’t be happier about the growing examples of people of color falling in love on screen.

“We’re always seeing same-race relationships in movies, and then it kind of like, we got to seeing black and white relationships mostly,” she dishes. “I think interracial relationships are really beautiful. Because both parties have the same struggles, like I had mentioned earlier. I mean even though we come from different cultures, and it’s something that you can relate to. I don’t like to say that–don’t confuse love for being related to each other’s trauma, but I think this is something that’s a foundation.”

So, what advice would April and Tabitha give to other Black women who are considering dating another person of color?

“Do your own thing with your life. If you’re not hurting anybody, then it shouldn’t matter,” April says.

“A lot of times we look at very surface level things in relationships, especially when we’re younger, we’re looking for these markers of compatibility that don’t necessarily make the relationship great,” Tabitha adds. “Sometimes it’s like the smaller, quieter details in your relationship that really help you connect with a person or things that you haven’t even thought about. Once you start talking to a person and being open to people, you will find that you connect with them in different ways than you ever knew you would.”

The post Black women open up about dating other POC amid Hollywood spotlight appeared first on TheGrio.

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Ayesha Curry goes viral after sharing bikini pics on Instagram

Television personality, entrepreneur, and mother of three, Ayesha Curry showed off her newly-toned body on Instagram this weekend.

Clad in a flattering grey bikini, she shared the two photos with the caption, “Took me long enough.” The pictures were taken by her husband, Golden State Warriors player Stephen Curry. 

READ MORE: Gabrielle Union recalls telling Steph and Ayesha Curry to sleep with other people

The photos have garnered nearly a million likes with comments from many of Curry’s celebrity friends. Kelly Rowland said, “Get it, Mama!” While actress Gabrielle Union said, “Alrighty. Lemme get my life together.” 

 

View this post on Instagram

 

Took me long enough. 📷 @stephencurry30

A post shared by Ayesha Curry (@ayeshacurry) on May 23, 2020 at 5:06pm PDT

One commenter asked how is it possible that Curry doesn’t have stretch marks although she has given birth to three children. Not to let the remark slide, she responded saying that they are on her sides and thighs. 

But, it isn’t just her remarkable weight loss that is making the pictures go viral.

The bikini-clad photos prompted some Twitter users to bring up some of Curry’s previous tweets. 

“Everyone’s into barely wearing clothes these days, huh?” she tweeted in 2015, “I like to keep the good stuff covered up for the one who matters.”

Everyone’s into barely wearing clothes these days huh? Not my style. I like to keep the good stuff covered up for the one who matters 😂😂😂

— Ayesha Curry (@ayeshacurry) December 6, 2015

The old tweet was seen as slut-shaming. Five years later, as she showed a little skin, some people have pointed out the what they see is hypocrisy. “I’m laughing at the fact that Ayesha Curry was trying to slut-shame women for not dressing modestly when she was chubby.” 

I’m laughing at the fact ayesha curry was really tryna slut shame women for not dressing modestly when she was chubby, now she’s lost weight she she’s flinging bikini pics on the gram. So the real storyline here is don’t project your insecurities on to everyone else silly cow

— liya london (@liyalondon) May 24, 2020

Other users supported Curry’s health journey of losing approximately 35 pounds. “She’s spent all of her years taking care of their family; being a wife and mother. She deserves to have her moment without judgment,” one user wrote. 

Ayesha Curry said “I’m down 35lbs & very happy to be. I spent my entire 20s having babies, nursing babies. Now it’s time for me to nurse myself.” Unlike the rest of the internet, I’m super happy for her & her journey!

— MK 🌬 (@makylalynnay) May 24, 2020

READ MORE: Ayesha Curry sued for more than $10 million by branding company

Curry recently launched a magazine called Sweet July. The magazine features recipes, interviews, and a column where she answers questions posed to her by her children. She is the third African American woman to have her own major magazine after Oprah and the late B. Smith. 

Sweet July is available on newsstands and online for $9.99. 

The post Ayesha Curry goes viral after sharing bikini pics on Instagram appeared first on TheGrio.

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Venus Williams Unveils Her New Skincare Collaboration For Sunscreen Collection

Venus Williams is known as one of the best tennis players in the world along with her sister, Serena Williams. Off the court, she is a beauty aficionado who prides herself in maintaining a good skincare routine. She has even been featured in Vogue magazine, where she gave readers a detailed and intimate look at her nightly skincare regimen. Now she is teaming up with retailer Credo Beauty for a new line for sunscreen products aimed for women of color.

Williams announced the new partnership this week with Credo Beauty, who are known for their assortment of clean, natural beauty brands to unveil her very first beauty line called EleVen by Venus x Credo. The special collection is an extension of her Eleven brand, which consists of athletic wear.

In an interview with Allure, Williams shared how her love of skincare products started at an early age and the value of protecting your skin from damage. “When I was younger, I was wild and too free, and I took it for granted that I had great skin,” she said. “But that is not the case now. I am covered from head to toe when I’m outside: long sleeves, long pants, and sunscreen. I try to protect my skin as much as I can.”

Williams hopes to bridge the gap for women of color to find sunscreen products that compliment their skin in a market that often forgets about them. “No matter what skin tone you are, you want your skin to look like your skin, and you don’t want any layers on top,” William said. “This [line] leaves no white cast and, of course, it’s universal for every skin tone and complexion.”

 

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Clean suncare has arrived! Our new silky SPF serum that doubles as hydrating skincare + a creamy sunscreen that protects without ever leaving a trace! #FaceTheDay #CleanBeauty

A post shared by EleVen By Venus Williams (@elevenbyvenus) on May 21, 2020 at 10:32am PDT

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4 Best Cocktail Subscription Kits: 4 Top Kits Reviewed (2020)

If you're craving a craft cocktail, these services deliver all the necessary components to your door. We reviewed Shaker & Spoon, SaloonBox, EastBevCo, and Sourced Craft Cocktails.

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Hundreds spotted at Memorial Day party in the Ozarks

Scott Pasmore, a reporter for Missouri’s KTVK shot video footage of a Memorial Day weekend party at the Lake of the Ozarks that has gone viral. 

Backwater Jack’s Bar and Grill was the site of a pool party called, “Zero Ducks Given.”

READ MORE: Florida man dresses as Grim Reaper, strolls beaches in protest of state reopening ‘prematurely’

No covid concerns at the lake of the ozarks😳 #loto pic.twitter.com/Yrb4UNM64u

— Scott Pasmore (@scottpasmoretv) May 24, 2020

According to CNN, the party was advertised on Facebook in a post that has now been deleted. The venue worked with government officials and management teams in efforts to follow social distancing guidelines. 

“Extra precautions and safety measures will be taken to provide a safe environment for you to enjoy the event,” the bar said before the gathering, according to the report. 

The bar had a paramedic on-site, and according to one person who attended, they took patron’s temperatures and provided bottles of hand sanitizer. 

Jodi Akins, from Blue Springs, told CNN in a message that she visited the bar with four friends for a pool party on Saturday.

“When we walked up my first words were ‘oh my gosh’ it was intense for sure!! Social distancing was nonexistent. However, everyone was enjoying themselves. It was a very carefree environment but security was heavy!!” she wrote to CNN.

Pasmore’s Twitter post of the event has been viewed more than 16 million times with more than 20,000 comments. 

No covid concerns at the lake of the ozarks😳 #loto pic.twitter.com/Yrb4UNM64u

— Scott Pasmore (@scottpasmoretv) May 24, 2020

Some commenters are supportive of the revelers saying that COVID-19 is suppressed in humidity and not transmittable in water, while others say that the party is negligent behavior that will affect others.

Sunlight kills #COVID19. Humidity likely suppresses it. Outdoors spread is very rare. How are these 3 facts still unknown to many in the media, like you?

— Robert Barnes (@Barnes_Law) May 24, 2020

Lake of the Ozarks is a destination area for the St. Louis area. The area features resorts and restaurants which are most profitable from May to October. According to the FOX affiliate in the area, many resorts are all booked up. 

About 11,800 people in Missouri have tested positive for coronavirus and about 680 have died from COVID-19 infection, according to state data.

 

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‘Insecure’ episode 7 recap: Molly doesn’t unpack her oversized baggage and it bursts at the seams

The last episode dropped us off with an avoided encounter between Issa and Molly. Issa pulled up to her favorite Ethiopian spot for some takeout and Molly was perched at the counter, doing the exact same thing. You know, because besties and old habits die hard.

From Issa’s point of view, we saw that she saw Molly and decided not to go in. In this episode, we see that Molly sees Issa approaching the restaurant and she braces herself for impact. But by the time she looks over, Issa is rushing to get back into her car. Molly has to be devastated to know that Issa would rather avoid her and eating dinner, than talk.

When Molly gets home, to our delicious Asian Bae (who has earned the right to be called by his name), Andrew was on the phone speaking in his native tongue! We love to hear it! Sidebar, the man who plays Andrew, Alexander Hodge is Australian. Could you imagine if his character was also Australian? Wow.

“That b*tch ran away from me like I was an actual job!” Whoa. Way harsh Molly! It was as if she thought of that joke as soon as Issa ran away from her at the restaurant. She couldn’t wait to throw that shade towards her best friend formerly known as Issa, when she got back home to Andrew.

Another side note, we love a cardigan as a dress and yes to Molly’s Mary J. Blige boots. Molly might be tripping as a friend, but she’s giving 10s across the board with her fashions…and that wet and wavy.

Molly’s packing for a baecation with Andrew, where she’ll meet his brother and sister-in-law. Fun, but like, also not. She has to run into work for a quick meeting before their flight and ends up snapping on her assistant. “You don’t get paid to make me look dumb,” Molly said. We all felt the sting and knew immediately that her anger at Issa was still festering and had started to boil over. And when that happens, who knows who’s going to be on the receiving end of that?

Yvvone Orji and Andrew Hodge are pictured in a screenshot of Insecure, Episode 7.

Aww, remember flights? Andrew is too cute with his distinction of Economy plus. We can all agree, yes give us all the plusses–every single thing we’re supposed to have. Honestly, it’s a way of life. Andrew is getting more and more plusses from Molly for sure!

Oh yes, hey Kim Fields with the TMI. Cute haircut.

Want to know how you’re in the honeymoon phase of your relationship? One minute, you can be trying to avoid small talk with a very recent divorcee and the next, you’re getting finger popped in Economy plus. Good for you Molly. And now that we’re off the plane, we’re in Mexico. Why is Insecure triggering us so much?! Oh trips. We miss you. Signed, everyone.

There’s nothing quite as sweet as being called “the” by your boo’s family members; like, “Oh that’s ‘the’ Molly?” Molly has to feel good about that one. For as long as we’ve gotten to know Molly, we’ve known a woman who wants love so urgently and fully, so to the path of something real with Andrew, you know Molly’s pleased with herself about how she’s showing up in that relationship.

Oh great, Andrew’s brother is Action Jackson on vacation with the itinerary. But also the sister-in-law is doing a lot around Molly’s physique. The pressure is on…or is it? Our favorite “lustbirds,” Molly and Andrew definitely ended up doing their own thing later that night…literally.

READ MORE: ‘Insecure’ breakout star Jean Elie teases new project in development

They teased one another about bringing something sexy with them and when they made the big reveal, we see that Molly brought some slinky lingerie and Andrew pulled out all the sex toys stops, including booty balls and a “pink butt thing.” 

OOH OK ANDREW! He said, “I’mma be a freak until the day until the dawn!” And they surely “pumped pumped” until the early morning. Their love-making made them a bit late for the hike the next day with brother and sister-in-law, but it was worth it. Our boy went the fearless route and it made Molly feel vanilla, but in typical Andrew fashion, he made sure Molly felt good in a moment she was ready to feel like she wasn’t enough. “You know what’s sexy is finding out what you’re really into,” Andrew said before pulling Molly into him for a kiss.

Yvvone Orji and Andrew Hodge are pictured in a screenshot of Insecure, Episode 7.

Molly’s wet and wavy looks great. So does her cute little workout Nike fit. And can we just say yes for Molly for trying new things and making memories with bae. OMG the feels of it all. It’s very special to be able to share adventurous memories with someone you have feelings for. It’s the building blocks of a memorable relationship. We see you Andrew! But do we have to run the 3 miles to the top? Side note, Kim Fields must have said no to zip lining because she was definitely jogging down the trail.

Later that night while Molly and Andrew are chilling in the room, Andrew realizes that he’s missed a few calls from Nathan. He called Nathan back and quickly realized that Issa was with him. Molly was immediately intrigued and irritated. But why was Molly mad that Issa was with Nathan again? Molly brought more shade towards Issa when she told Andrew that Issa is messy and she sarcastically added, “So what? Now it’s just Groundhog’s Day?” It’s almost as if Molly’s never had an issue or something happen with someone she was dating and gave him a second chance or even needed one herself. She also acts as if she holds the key to Issa’s relationships.

It was the end of last season when Nathan and Molly had a run-in and Nathan had flowers for Issa. He was coming to explain to Issa why he ghosted her and Molly took that opportunity away from him and the option away from Issa. Molly is stuck on being against Nathan. And Issa, tbh.

READ MORE: #SelfCareSunday: Why giving yourself space is so important after a friendship ends

But here comes Andrew being the bae that he is and he explains to Molly that when Nathan ghosted, he was dealing with “mental health stuff.” Andrew is the perspective that Molly needs. He softens her and gets her to open her mind to a new way of thinking that doesn’t automatically make her right all the time. It feels like, right now, Molly is only seeing Issa through a murky lens–as if everything she does is bad. When you’ve stopped being able to see the good in a person, it may be safe to say that friendship has sailed.

Oh the hot and sexy portion of the relationship in the beginning. Everything leads to sex. Molly pulls out her lingerie and tells our bae to “eat this *ss.” OK MOLLY! Get yours sis! What we think is going to be a chill day in the pool, turns into a Molly day in the pool. Molly’s so on edge, she doesn’t know she’s on edge/ an unfortunate interaction with towel lady at the pool over her not having a key card made Molly big mad because her experience of the incident was racist. She got back to Andrew upset and when he asked, Molly shared that she was fine, but it was a racist incident. 

Yvvone Orji and Andrew Hodge are pictured in a screenshot of Insecure, Episode 7.

Claiming to play “devil’s advocate,” Andrew’s brother said that he didn’t believe it was about race and told Molly that she “could be making your life harder by assuming.” And when Andrew speaks up for Molly to his brother, he does so in Chinese, to which Molly suggests they speak English because she doesn’t speak their language. Molly tells him that he doesn’t get it and he tells her that she gives it too much power. “You got to know when to pick your battles,” Andrew’s brother said to Molly.

Oh no he didn’t! Molly accused them, like all of them–sister-in-law, brother and Andrew of picking and choosing “people of color” when it benefits them. When Andrew questioned what Molly said, “That’s not true. I don’t think like that,” she told him that he’s different. Andrew’s brother made a point of saying that Molly is picking and choosing who gets the benefit of the doubt. Molly was done after that. Brother was ready to debate and Molly was ready for blood.

 “Andrew, get your fucking brother!” Molly screamed at a low pitch, between her teeth. 

At the end of the day, Andrew had to straddle the fence between his brother and his girl. He followed Molly out of the pool, but their sleepless night wasn’t quite the honeymoon makeup sex we expected. The next morning, Andrew ditched his brother and sister-in-law and to let Molly sleep in and to spend time with only her. He even brought her a smoothie. Andrew is just…swoon. Clearly, Molly is still hung all up in her feelings. She only knows 0-100 and nothing in between. “Did I f*ck things up?” Molly asked. She didn’t. Andrew spoke to his brother and everything is fine. He apologized. Andrew made a good point, saying his brother could be an *sshole at times, but that’s his brother, so they don’t let anything like that stick. They work it out.

Again, Andrew is bringing Molly a new way of thinking. Andrew helps her to see she shouldn’t let it fester. She can easily apply this advice to her relationship with Issa and how she festers in negativity there. Her baggage has gotten too heavy. She’s not able to control when she snaps.

Yes, Molly with the action of calling Dr. Rhonda immediately and not even waiting to when baecation is over. We love to see it. Letting go is one of Molly’s recurring problems and the first step is realizing there is a problem. Good for Molly. We are making progress. In the words of our good sis, Kelli, “You know what that’s called? Growth.”

The post ‘Insecure’ episode 7 recap: Molly doesn’t unpack her oversized baggage and it bursts at the seams appeared first on TheGrio.

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