Almost 200 Nigerians leave South Africa and fly to Lagos after outbreaks of xenophobic violence.
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Thursday, September 12, 2019
Wednesday, September 11, 2019
Detecting patients’ pain levels via their brain signals
Researchers from MIT and elsewhere have developed a system that measures a patient’s pain level by analyzing brain activity from a portable neuroimaging device. The system could help doctors diagnose and treat pain in unconscious and noncommunicative patients, which could reduce the risk of chronic pain that can occur after surgery.
Pain management is a surprisingly challenging, complex balancing act. Overtreating pain, for example, runs the risk of addicting patients to pain medication. Undertreating pain, on the other hand, may lead to long-term chronic pain and other complications. Today, doctors generally gauge pain levels according to their patients’ own reports of how they’re feeling. But what about patients who can’t communicate how they’re feeling effectively — or at all — such as children, elderly patients with dementia, or those undergoing surgery?
In a paper presented at the International Conference on Affective Computing and Intelligent Interaction, the researchers describe a method to quantify pain in patients. To do so, they leverage an emerging neuroimaging technique called functional near infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), in which sensors placed around the head measure oxygenated hemoglobin concentrations that indicate neuron activity.
For their work, the researchers use only a few fNIRS sensors on a patient’s forehead to measure activity in the prefrontal cortex, which plays a major role in pain processing. Using the measured brain signals, the researchers developed personalized machine-learning models to detect patterns of oxygenated hemoglobin levels associated with pain responses. When the sensors are in place, the models can detect whether a patient is experiencing pain with around 87 percent accuracy.
“The way we measure pain hasn’t changed over the years,” says Daniel Lopez-Martinez, a PhD student in the Harvard-MIT Program in Health Sciences and Technology and a researcher at the MIT Media Lab. “If we don’t have metrics for how much pain someone experiences, treating pain and running clinical trials becomes challenging. The motivation is to quantify pain in an objective manner that doesn’t require the cooperation of the patient, such as when a patient is unconscious during surgery.”
Traditionally, surgery patients receive anesthesia and medication based on their age, weight, previous diseases, and other factors. If they don’t move and their heart rate remains stable, they’re considered fine. But the brain may still be processing pain signals while they’re unconscious, which can lead to increased postoperative pain and long-term chronic pain. The researchers’ system could provide surgeons with real-time information about an unconscious patient’s pain levels, so they can adjust anesthesia and medication dosages accordingly to stop those pain signals.
Joining Lopez-Martinez on the paper are: Ke Peng of Harvard Medical School, Boston Children’s Hospital, and the CHUM Research Centre in Montreal; Arielle Lee and David Borsook, both of Harvard Medical School, Boston Children’s Hospital, and Massachusetts General Hospital; and Rosalind Picard, a professor of media arts and sciences and director of affective computing research in the Media Lab.
Focusing on the forehead
In their work, the researchers adapted the fNIRS system and developed new machine-learning techniques to make the system more accurate and practical for clinical use.
To use fNIRS, sensors are traditionally placed all around a patient’s head. Different wavelengths of near-infrared light shine through the skull and into the brain. Oxygenated and deoxygenated hemoglobin absorb the wavelengths differently, altering their signals slightly. When the infrared signals reflect back to the sensors, signal-processing techniques use the altered signals to calculate how much of each hemoglobin type is present in different regions of the brain.
When a patient is hurt, regions of the brain associated with pain will see a sharp rise in oxygenated hemoglobin and decreases in deoxygenated hemoglobin, and these changes can be detected through fNIRS monitoring. But traditional fNIRS systems place sensors all around the patient’s head. This can take a long time to set up, and it can be difficult for patients who must lie down. It also isn’t really feasible for patients undergoing surgery.
Therefore, the researchers adapted the fNIRS system to specifically measure signals only from the prefrontal cortex. While pain processing involves outputs of information from multiple regions of the brain, studies have shown the prefrontal cortex integrates all that information. This means they need to place sensors only over the forehead.
Another problem with traditional fNIRS systems is they capture some signals from the skull and skin that contribute to noise. To fix that, the researchers installed additional sensors to capture and filter out those signals.
Personalized pain modeling
On the machine-learning side, the researchers trained and tested a model on a labeled pain-processing dataset they collected from 43 male participants. (Next they plan to collect a lot more data from diverse patient populations, including female patients — both during surgery and while conscious, and at a range of pain intensities — in order to better evaluate the accuracy of the system.)
Each participant wore the researchers’ fNIRS device and was randomly exposed to an innocuous sensation and then about a dozen shocks to their thumb at two different pain intensities, measured on a scale of 1-10: a low level (about a 3/10) or high level (about 7/10). Those two intensities were determined with pretests: The participants self-reported the low level as being only strongly aware of the shock without pain, and the high level as the maximum pain they could tolerate.
In training, the model extracted dozens of features from the signals related to how much oxygenated and deoxygenated hemoglobin was present, as well as how quickly the oxygenated hemoglobin levels rose. Those two metrics — quantity and speed — give a clearer picture of a patient’s experience of pain at the different intensities.
Importantly, the model also automatically generates “personalized” submodels that extract high-resolution features from individual patient subpopulations. Traditionally, in machine learning, one model learns classifications — “pain” or “no pain” — based on average responses of the entire patient population. But that generalized approach can reduce accuracy, especially with diverse patient populations.
The researchers’ model instead trains on the entire population but simultaneously identifies shared characteristics among subpopulations within the larger dataset. For example, pain responses to the two intensities may differ between young and old patients, or depending on gender. This generates learned submodels that break off and learn, in parallel, patterns of their patient subpopulations. At the same time, however, they’re all still sharing information and learning patterns shared across the entire population. In short, they’re simultaneously leveraging fine-grained personalized information and population-level information to train better.
The personalized models and a traditional model were evaluated in classifying pain or no-pain in a random hold-out set of participant brain signals from the dataset, where the self-reported pain scores were known for each participant. The personalized models outperformed the traditional model by about 20 percent, reaching about 87 percent accuracy.
“Because we are able to detect pain with this high accuracy, using only a few sensors on the forehead, we have a solid basis for bringing this technology to a real-world clinical setting,” Lopez-Martinez says.
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Engineers develop multimaterial fiber “ink” for 3-D-printed devices
A new method developed by MIT researchers uses standard 3-D printers to produce functioning devices with the electronics already embedded inside. The devices are made of fibers containing multiple interconnected materials, which can light up, sense their surroundings, store energy, or perform other actions.
The new 3-D printing method is described in the journal Nature Communication, in a paper by MIT doctoral student Gabriel Loke, professors John Joannopoulos and Yoel Fink, and four others at MIT and elsewhere.
The system makes use of conventional 3-D printers outfitted with a special nozzle and a new kind of filament to replace the usual single-material polymer filament, which typically gets fully melted before it’s extruded from the printer’s nozzle. The researchers’ new filament has a complex internal structure made up of different materials arranged in a precise configuration, and is surrounded by polymer cladding on the outside.
In the new printer, the nozzle operates at a lower temperature and pulls the filament through faster conventional printers do, so that only its outer layer gets partially molten. The interior stays cool and solid, with its embedded electronic functions unaffected. In this way, the surface is melted just enough to make it adhere solidly to adjacent filaments during the printing process, to produce a sturdy 3-D structure.
The internal components in the filament include metal wires that serve as conductors, semiconductors that can be used to control active functions, and polymer insulators to prevent wires from contacting each other. As a demonstration, the team printed a wing for a model airplane, using filaments that contained both light-emitting and light-detecting electronics. These components could potentially reveal the formation of any microscopic cracks that might develop.
While the filaments used in the model wing contained eight different materials, Loke says that in principle they could contain even more. Until this work, he says, “a printer capable of depositing metals, semiconductors, and polymers in a single platform still did not exist, because printing each of these materials requires different hardware and techniques.”
This method is up to three times faster than any other current approach to fabricating 3-D devices, Loke says, and as with all 3-D printers, offers much more flexibility regarding the kinds of forms that can be produced than typical manufacturing methods do. “Unique to 3-D printing, this approach is able to construct devices of any freeform shapes, which are not achievable by any other methods thus far,” he says.
The method makes use of thermally drawn fibers that contain a variety of different materials embedded within them, a process that Fink and his collaborators have been perfecting for two decades. They have created an array of fibers that have electronic components within them, making the fibers able to carry out a variety of functions. For example, for communications applications, flashing lights can transmit data that is then picked up by other fibers containing light sensors. This approach has for the first time produced fibers, and fabrics woven from them, that have these functions built in.
Now, this new process makes this whole family of fibers available as the raw material for producing functional 3-D devices that can sense, communicate, or store energy, among other actions.
To make the fibers themselves, the different materials are initially assembled into a larger-scale version called a preform, which is then heated and drawn in a furnace to produce a very narrow fiber that contains all those materials, in their same exact relative positions but greatly reduced in size.
The method could potentially be developed further to produce a variety of different kinds of devices, especially for applications where the ability to precisely customize each device is essential. One such area is for biomedical devices, where matching the device to the patient’s own body can be important, says Fink, who is a professor of materials science as well as of electrical engineering and computer science and the CEO of the nonprofit Advanced Functional Fabrics of America.
For example, prosthetic limbs might someday be printed using this method, not only matching the precise dimensions and contours of the patient’s limb, but with all the electronics to monitor and control the limb embedded in place.
Over the years, the group has developed a wide array of fibers containing different materials and functionalities. Loke says virtually all of these can be adapted for the new 3-D-printing technique, making it possible to print objects with a wide variety of different combinations of materials and functions. The device makes use of a standard type of 3-D printer known as a fused deposition modeling (FDM) printer, which is already found in many labs, offices, and even homes.
One application that may be possible in the future would be to print materials for biomedical implants that would provide a scaffolding for the growth of new cells to replace a damaged organ, and include within it sensors to monitor the progress of that growth.
The new method could also be useful for prototyping of devices — already a major application for 3-D printing, but in this case the prototypes would have actual functionality, rather than being static models.
The research team included MIT graduate student Rodger Yuan; former MIT graduate student Michael Rein, who now works at AFFOA; postdoc Tural Khudiyev, and undergraduate student Yash Jain at Stony Brook University in New York. The work was partly supported by the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Army Research Laboratory and the U.S. Army Research Office through the Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies.
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Trans actress Angelica Ross shares how Oprah helped her mother accept her
Pose star Angelica Ross is sharing her coming out story which includes a surprising tidbit about how talk show host Oprah Winfrey inadvertently helped heal her relationship with her mom.
In a recent episode of Black Women OWN the Conversation, the actress opened up about how coming out as trans at 17 transformed her relationship with her devout Christian mother who was, “definitely not accepting at all in the beginning.”
READ MORE: Laverne Cox opens up about planning her suicide: “I am angered, saddened, and enraged”
“My mom had her ideas that were fueled from the Bible and what the Bible says,” she explained during the show which according to a press release, is meant to give Black women of varying backgrounds a chance to speak with each other on “love and relationships, motherhood, beauty, and mind, body and soul.”
Ross’ mother — who was seated in the audience — was teary eyed as she explained how she struggled with the thought that her child would go to hell and fell into a deep depression. At one point, things were so precarious, she even advised her Ross to commit suicide, threatening that if she didn’t do it, she would take her own life instead.
READ MORE: Patti LaBelle wants a husband, optimistic that she’ll find the man of her dreams
“Me and my mother have a very loving, healed relationship.” – @angelicaross
Did you catch the last episode of #BlackWomenOWN the Conversation? This week, we are centering our conversation on Mind, Body and Soul. Be sure to catch the newest episode this Saturday, 10|9c on OWN. pic.twitter.com/AhxWncJfAu
— Black Women OWN the Conversation (@BlackWomenOWN) September 9, 2019
“It’s always preached: ‘You’re going to hell for this, you’re going to hell for that,’” Ross’ mother confessed. “I wasn’t knowledgeable. I didn’t know… And I hate that I missed so many years out of her life.”
Despite that initial visceral reaction, after years of tension Ross’ mother says her turning point happening unexpectedly came while watching an episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show in which a mother who had recently lost her LGBTQ son spoke of having an epiphany while at a Pride event.
READ MORE: Wendy Williams Lifetime biopic will address Notorious B.I.G. hook up allegations
“I gotta do something,” she thought to herself while watching Winfrey’s show, “because that could be my kid.”
“My mother and I have a very loving and healed relationship,” Ross said of their current relationship. And her mother also now sees her as her daughter and not her son.
This latest episode of Black Women OWN the Conversation airs on Sunday at 10 p.m. ET / 9 p.m. CT.
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Marshawn Lynch Will Be Running More Than the Ball as Co-Owner of the Oakland Panthers
Retired football player Marshawn Lynch has elevated his status from player to owner. He is co-owner of the newly named Oakland Panthers, an arena football team that will be playing at the Oakland Arena (formerly Oracle Arena) this upcoming spring. The Panthers name is a nod to Oakland’s Black Panthers history of the 1960s.
With The Oakland Raiders slated to leave the Bay Area and moving their operations to Las Vegas next season, ex-Raider Lynch felt the city shouldn’t be without a professional football team.
“I believe the power of football has the ability to transform a community and the families who live there,” Lynch said in a statement. “I’ve seen it and lived it. I’m excited that Da’ Town will get another team to call its own. I attended some Indoor Football games last year and had a good ass time. The games have lots of fluidity, and tickets are priced so that the entire family can check it out.”
That’s right #Beastmode himself, @MoneyLynch , is officially a co-owner of the IFL’s newest member, the Oakland Panthers! pic.twitter.com/tuDn2ViBJt
— IndoorFootballLeague (@IndoorFtballLge) September 11, 2019
Two years ago, National Football League team owners, in a nearly unanimous vote (31–1), agreed to allow the Raiders to relocate from Oakland to Las Vegas for the 2020 season. The Oakland Panthers, part of the Indoor Football League, are stepping in to fill the void.
“I went to go check my brother out and I kind of ran into them after the game,” Lynch told The Mercury News about co-owner Roy Choi (an entertainment and gaming entrepreneur) and team president Scott McKibben. “I had a good-ass time while I was at the game. When they said, ‘We’re going to bring a team to Oakland,’ I didn’t really believe that.”
“My whole intention was to come back and play with them until they left,” Lynch, 33, said, according to The Mercury News. “[Arena football] wasn’t something I was looking at—not even a little bit. But when the opportunity presented itself—I’m a big dude on believing in timing and [stuff]. This, at the time, really made sense.”
For more information on ticket sales, sponsorships, player transactions, and everything having to do with the Oakland Panthers, you can check them out at www.Oakland-Panthers.com. For information on the Indoor Football League, go to www.GoIFL.com.
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‘Harriet’ makes its worldwide premiere at Toronto International Film Festival
The first feature film on the story of Harriet Tubman, Harriet, made its premiere Tuesday night at the Toronto International Film Festival.
Harriett is directed by Kasi Lemmons, best known for her work directing Eve Bayou, Talk to Me, and Black Nativity, who was on hand for the introduction of the film by festival director Cameron Bailey.
“There are 30 films about Gen. Custer,” said Bailey. “This is the first film about Harriet Tubman.”
The film stars Tony award-winning actress Cynthia Erivo as the legendary leader of the Underground Railroad leader, telling the story of her life as a youthful abolitionist who escaped in slavery and returned to help others in the 20s and 30s.
“There are pictures of her that have been painted from the wrong time period almost,” said Erivo to the San Francisco Gate. “It’s important to know this was a really young woman who took a lot of risk in what she was doing.”
Tubman was born into slavery as Araminta Ross on the eastern shores of Maryland. Her escape was to the city of Philadelphia but would return to assist over 70 people at a time through the Underground Railroad. In addition, Tubman would work as a scout, spy, and nurse for the Union Army in the American Civil War and led 150 Black soldiers on a gunboat raid in South Carolina rescuing over 700 slaves.
“When we think of Harriet, we kind of don’t see her womanhood. That’s partly because in the pictures we have of her, she’s an older woman,” said Lemmons. “There’s a picture found fairly recently of Harriet as a young woman, and that was my inspiration. There was this very small, young woman who managed to do incredible things.”
Lemmons also states the product was guided by the spirit of Tubman and not created to fill the void of a cinematic oversight.
“I really thought about this as a task I took very solemnly of bringing Harriet to life so that young girls could see this young woman heroine, and that the world could see her as this fierce, strong, feminine presence that she was,” said Lemmons.
READ MORE: Image of Harriet Tubman $20 bill mock-up revealed
Receptions to Harriet after the Toronto premiere have been mild. The New York Post praises Erivo for an Oscar-worthy performance but details the film as “well-intentioned” and “never really breaks free of conventional biopic mode or demonstrates any particular stylistic flair in her telling of the pivotal events of Tubman’s life.” The film is detailed as a “far cry from the brutal realism,” in comparison to 12 Years a Slave.
Similarly to the Post, Indie Wire praises Erivo as the film’s “soulful centerpiece” but states that it “doesn’t attempt to reinvent the biopic.”
Harriet also stares Leslie Odom Jr., Joe Alwyn, and Janelle Monae. The film will be released nationwide on November 1.
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‘Queen Sugar’s’ Tina Lifford offers much needed advice for Black women who are determined to make wellness non-negotiable
When actress Tina Lifford agreed to play the character Aunt Vi, she had no idea how many lives she would impact along the way.
For the past four seasons of Ava DuVernay’s award-winning OWN drama series “Queen Sugar,” Lifford’s character has given us a front row seat to what a vivacious, unapologetic and liberated seasoned woman on TV looks like— but it’s been Aunt Vi’s lupus diagnosis that has given her even more meaning and depth to Black women who watch the show.
One in 250 African-American women will be diagnosed with lupus, an autoimmune illness, which disproportionately affects the Black community. Celebrities like Toni Braxton and Nick Cannon, have helped bring awareness to the disease by being transparent about their struggles with it. For those who’ve lost their battle with the illness, such as 33-year-old “The Voice” singer Janice Freeman who died earlier this year, it’s a sobering reminder to put your health first, no matter what’s on your plate.
READ MORE: How Aunt Vi on ‘Queen Sugar’ gave me hope as a Black woman living with lupus
Self-care is message Lifford has promoted long before she became Aunt Vi in Queen Sugar, through a wellness campaign called Inner Fitness. She has a increased following on social media who look to her for guidance about being doing their best when it comes to their bodies and minds.
TheGrio spoke with Lifford turning Aunt Vi into an iconic role, the impact of her lupus storyline and how she came to the realization that wellness is non-negotiable.
theGrio: How has playing Aunt VI changed you? How has it affected you as a person?
Tina Lifford: Playing Aunt Vi has been a gift, and a gift in a very specific and important lane. The most important skill that any of us can cultivate in our lives is the ability to get back to hope as fast as possible and to cultivate it as much as possible in our lives. It is a strengthening thing.
Aunt Vi to come at this later part of my life. What she represents—not specifically the character but the experience—represents the audacity of hope. It underscores everything that I believe and I am advocating for when it comes to that broader conversation of inner fitness.
We absolutely must have dreams. They empower us. They strengthen us and then we must have experiences that confirm the power of dreaming. Aunt Vi is a testament, both as a character and as the position that role has in my life.
theGrio: Can you talk about the range of reactions you received when the character was diagnosed with Lupus?
Tina Lifford: What was warming to my heart and actually educational for me was the number of women who are living with lupus. And how much relief or a sense of empowerment… by their story being a part of this bigger story. Everyone wants to be seen and Lupus impacts African-American women at much greater—or women of color—at a much greater rate than White women. And it’s a disease that a lot of people know very little about.
WATCH: Three courageous Black women candidly share what life is like with lupus
Ava Duvernay who has just recently acknowledged her own journey with lupus brings lupus to the forefront. And woman after woman after woman is saying, ‘You were telling my story and you were telling my experience. And when I see you rub your hands, I know what you’re going through.’ It’s a beautiful thing.
theGrio: As you prepared for this character, what were some of the things that you did to understand the manifestations of the chronic illness and how to you represent that mentally and physically on camera?
Tina Lifford: It’s an interesting question. First, of course, Ava connected me with the Lupus Foundation and of course, then I began to read about the autoimmune disease and that was new for me. That was educational for me. I did not know anyone in my life who had lupus.
So, with that said, I wanted to feel inside of my body the feelings that go with the disease. I spoke to people who live with the disease and they talked about the achey-ness; they talk about sometimes literally being in abject pain where the very bones seem to ache, the muscles seem to ache.
“Don’t think that your dreams are tied to your disease.”
And the thing about pain and the thing about Black women is that a lot of times the pain that is being experienced, you can’t see. You just feel it. And we’re so good at covering stuff up.
Part of Vi’s journey is to be in that pain and not be able to show it, not want to show it. In fact, be committed to nobody being able to see it. It’s an added burden and Vi actually said—I think it is Season 2—’I’m a Black woman. Black women don’t have time to be sick. I can’t reveal that I’m sick.’
theGrio: How would you advise and encourage anyone who’s going through mourning, whether it’s because of physical illness or the end of a relationship or just change in their body?
Tina Lifford: You know so much of our pain is in how we hold a thing. I would ask anyone to challenge the beliefs that you’re holding around whatever it is you’re going through. Just because it’s on your plate does not mean it is the ruining of your life.
So, let’s make sure that we’re talking about lupus or we’re talking about losing your job or the divorce… Let’s make sure that we are talking about and leaving room for your dreams.
Just because you have lupus does not mean that you can’t go off and write, direct, and deliver a piece like “When They See Us.” Don’t think that your dreams are tied to your disease.
READ MORE: Michael B. Jordan and celeb pals throws lupus fundraiser to spread awareness
You as a human being are the center point of what you can do and will do in this life. Not your disease. When we empower ourselves, meaning our hearts, meaning we take charge of how we think and how we dare to think in spite of old conditioning, then we can take charge of our experience.
It can be greater than we can even imagine.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
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Wendy Williams Lifetime biopic will address Notorious B.I.G. hook up allegations
Did Wendy Williams have sex with late rapper Biggie Smalls?
According to the Atlanta Black Star, Sunday evening the talk show maven addressed the gossip about her relationship with Biggie during the after show for “Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen.”
READ MORE: Wendy compliments 50 Cent, but you’ll never guess his response
The claim of a sordid tryst between the radio host and the rapper were first made public by his protege Lil Kim who believed Williams once hooked up with her ex-boyfriend. And when a viewer asked if she’d be addressing that long standing rumor in her upcoming Lifetime biopic, tentatively titled Just Wendy, the 55-year-old confirmed that would be one of the many things covered in the movie.
“That will play out in my Lifetime movie, OK?” she responded before falling into a fit of giggles and hiding her face in her hand.
Lil Kim and the talk show host have had a prickly relationship over the years that came to a head in 2013 when Williams publicly speculated about the female MC’s extensive surgical procedures.
“In my mind, I knew your goal was always to look like La Toya Jackson. You’ve out-La Toya’d La Toya in your new look. Don’t blame Photoshopping, blame your plastic surgeon, girl,” she said in an on-air segment. According to MTV the clip was also posted to her Twitter account with Kim tagged in it.
When Kim caught wind of what had been said she lashed out and responded directly to Williams, “Stop hating on me because U sucked Big’s d— & he didn’t want nothing to do with yo ass after that,” then added in a separate post, “It’s time for the world to know the real. I’m not playing with yo ass no more. Let’s Get it!!!!”
Williams new biopic is reportedly planning to tackle not just that incident but several other moments of contention on the host’s life and she will be co-producing the project with Will Packer, the man behind comedy hits like Girls Trip, and the Think Like A Man franchise.
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How Aunt Vi on ‘Queen Sugar’ gave me hope as a Black woman living with lupus
Queen Sugar‘s Aunt Vi gave me hope at a time when I needed it the most.
At the end of 2017, I found myself in the midst of a battle with lupus, a chronic illness I’d been diagnosed with two years earlier, which rocked me to my core.
Like many other young Black women who are diagnosed with the autoimmune condition in the prime of their life, I was surprised, fearful and trying to appear unphased in a demanding media industry that required me to always be on with a smile.
READ MORE: Michael B. Jordan and celeb pals throws lupus fundraiser to spread awareness
They call lupus a “cruel mystery” because while survivors may look perfectly fine on the outside, when its active your immune system is attacking itself and your organs. It can feel like having the flu or achy joints 24-7. It can interrupt your breathing or cause rashes to appear on perfectly beautiful brown skin. It can make you tired and drain your excitement for life, mentally, physically and emotionally. Everyone suffers differently, which is why no one person, whether you have lupus or not, can dictate the pain you’re in or the depth of your struggle.
When I saw that the character of Aunt Vi, played by the phenomenal actress Tina Lifford, had been diagnosed with lupus on Ava DuVernay‘s hit show, I felt seen and affirmed. I’d been keeping my diagnosis a secret outside of my inner circle, but even the weight of wearing the mask of perfect health was becoming too much to bear.
READ MORE: Bianca Lawson talks ‘Queen Sugar’: ‘I hope the Darlas of the world feel less alone’
In true form, the universe is always just right on time because not long after that episode, I received an invitation to attend a special taping of a Queen Sugar post-season special in Hollywood. OWN invited myself and a small trio journalists to a private after-party where I would get to meet none other the two women behind this storyline, DuVernay and Lifford.
With my heart quickly beating, I approached DuVernay as soon as there was the slightest of pauses in the buzzing crowd surrounding her. It allowed me the short opening I needed just to say hello.
“Ava, I know you don’t know me but I want to thank you for writing a storyline that includes a character with lupus,” I remember saying, trying to gather the courage to keep going.
“I was recently diagnosed with lupus and it means so much to me.”
DuVernay, who has since revealed publicly that she has been in remission from lupus for the last 20 years, told me words I have continued to cherish for months and encouraged me to connect with Lifford.
The first thing I did was thank her for playing a character who had the courage and willingness to fight this disease, whether it be motivated by the love of her man or the success of her pie business.
READ MORE: Ava DuVernay selected to co-chair Prada advisory board on diversity and inclusion
Lifford looked at me lovingly as I told her my story and then hugged me tight like I was her own. She told me that since developing that storyline, she has spoken to many women who bravely face the condition on the daily.
“Contact me the next time you’re in L.A. and we will talk more,” she said, extending her contact information.
My heart swelled with emotion, happiness and even relief.
What happened here is the true explosion of power when Black women directors, storytellers and actresses can authentically come together to ensure that our experiences are represented properly and not reduced to two-dimensional caricatures.
Yes, we are indeed strong Black women, but we are also human beings who wrestle with doubt and anxiety too.
Yes, we can successfully battle chronic illnesses and diseases, but we also deserve to be desired, loved and wanted by the romantic partners in our lives.
Yes, we can diligently work to reclaim our health, but there may be times when we need help handling our professional responsibilities, whether we are entrepreneurs or award-winning filmmakers.
Lifford has always been an advocate for what she calls “inner fitness,” a wellness philosophy that encourages people to care for their internal and external health.
In a phone interview some days later with me, she talked about the message of hope she wants to give to anyone who lives with lupus, but particularly Black women who are disproportionately affected:
“So much of our pain is in how we hold a thing,” Lifford said. “Meaning, our beliefs around a thing. I would ask anyone to challenge the beliefs that you’re holding around whatever it is you’re going through.”
“Let’s make sure that we’re talking about lupus or we’re talking about using your job or the divorce and we’re not talking about the ruining of the rest of your life… Just because you have lupus does not mean that you can’t go off and write, direct, and deliver a piece like “When They See Us.”
WATCH: Three courageous Black women candidly share what life is like with lupus
Don’t think that your dreams are tied to your disease. When we empower ourselves, meaning our hearts, meaning we take charge of how we think and how we dare to think in spite of you know old conditioning then we can take charge of our experience and it can be greater than we can even imagine.”
Whether you’re facing lupus or something else is testing your faith, hold your struggle with hope as a core belief. Just like when I met her in person, Lifford’s words over the phone, were an affirmation to me to never surrender life’s many peaks because of one valley.
Since our meeting, I’ve shared my lupus journey nationally and internationally, letting go of the burden of silence. With each new episode of “Queen Sugar,” I see Aunt Vi living victoriously and it shows me and others, that we can do the same.
Natasha S. Alford is Deputy Editor of theGrio, a digital host and advocate for health and wellness. Follow her at @natashasalford on Instagram and Twitter under the hashtag #ThePeoplesJournalist to get the latest in news and entertainment.
The post How Aunt Vi on ‘Queen Sugar’ gave me hope as a Black woman living with lupus appeared first on theGrio.
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Miami Dolphins’ Albert Wilson still kneels on the field
Miami Dolphins‘ receiver Albert Wilson kicked off the season opener with his continued support of protesting racial injustice by kneeling from the sidelines.
The Dolphins have now earned a spot in history as the team with the longest running protest in the NFL against social injustice at four straight seasons, The Sun-Sentinel reports.
Wilson’s protest this time however was even more personal. He explained that he was kneeling for his friend Kenny Stills, because he was traded to the Houston Texas from the Dolphins where he played for the last four years.
“I don’t feel like anything has changed. We’re protesting social injustice and police brutality,” said Wilson, who suffered a calf injury in the first half and sat out the second half of Sunday’s game. “Things haven’t changed since last year so we’ll continue to protest.”
On Monday, during his first game for the Texans, Stills kneeled too.
Kenny Stills kneels for national anthem @KSTiLLS pic.twitter.com/vOkcW0y4SV
— Aaron Wilson (@AaronWilson_NFL) September 9, 2019
Still was trolled last month when he was still a Dolphins, after he criticized Jay-Z for NFL deal, and his coach played all the rapper’s jams at practice.
On Sunday, the Dolphins didn’t win against the Baltimore Ravens, (59-10), but that won’t keep Wilson from continuing Colin Kaepernick’s legacy of kneeling protests.
Dolphins coach Brian Flores is on board with backing his players, especially as a Hispanic man who grew up in Brooklyn, New York.
—Patriots’ Michael Bennett holds his NFL checks until end of season—
“Quite honestly, they’re bringing attention to my story. So, let’s talk about that. I’m the son of immigrants. I’m black. I grew up poor. I grew up in New York during the stop-and-frisk era, so I’ve been stopped because I fit a description before. So everything these guys have protested, I’ve lived it. I’ve experienced it,” Flores said.
“I applaud those guys, how [they] protest. Whether it’s Kaepernick, or Eric Reid, or Kenny, I applaud those guys. I told Kenny that in our meeting, in front of our entire team.”
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Black-Owned Roaming Rooster Booms After Chicken Sandwich Beef
So who you got? Popeyes or Chick-fil-A? Well, how about D.C’s very own Roaming Rooster? This summer, the nation went chicken sandwich crazy but amidst the chicken chaos, the local black-owned chicken restaurant has boomed with business since a tweet recommending Roaming Rooster went viral in late August.
After Popeyes ran out of ammo, the chicken war came to a cease-fire. However, the people were still hungry and Roaming Rooster was there to supply the chicken sandwiches the people craved; business tripled. The restaurant is owned by Michael Habtemariam, his brother, Biniyam Habtemariam, and sister-in-law, Hareg Mesfin. Roaming Rooster hasn’t always been as successful. The Habtemariam brothers first started their food business with a humble Halal food truck. Today they not only own a restaurant but have four Roaming Rooster food trucks.
The Habtemariam brothers’ love for cooking runs in the family. Their father, who lost his left hand after a plane crash, enjoys cooking too. However, due to his disability, the boys had to pick up the slack in the kitchen. They learned to appreciate the craft of cooking and although they were born into an Ethiopian family, they learned to cook a variety of dishes like Indian, vegetarian, and American. Before the brothers worked for themselves, they took up jobs in other restaurants like McDonald’s.
Roaming Rooster may not be a fast-food chain, but since the chicken war ended they’ve been reaping the benefits and supplying D.C. with their tasty chicken sandwich. The Roaming Rooster was once a hidden gem but is now a very popular spot in D.C.
“Since then, it’s been so hectic, I mean right now, we have people lining up outside the door,” Habtemariam told MSN News. “It’s very exciting.”
But with a great number of hungry customers comes great responsibility. With the restaurant open from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Saturday and 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Sunday, the Habtemariam brothers have been swamped. According to MSN News, they work between 15 and 16 hours a day. During the lunch rush, there are at least 30 people waiting outside the door.
To keep their restaurant and their food trucks from being overwhelmed by clients, the Habtemariam brothers have had to call in reinforcements–i.e., family members. Their staff has grown from nine to 14 to accommodate their business’ success.
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