Pinterest and The Knot will change how they promote plantation weddings

Two well-liked wedding sites have agreed to change their policies around how they market former slave plantations after they were contacted and urged to do so by Color of Change, a national civil rights organization that shines a light on injustices and challenges discriminatory people, organizations and practices.

The Knot Worldwide, which owns The Knot and Wedding Wire, and Pinterest have agreed to stop promoting former slave plantations as romantic wedding sites and/or to alter the romanticized language that these venues are allowed to use on their web sites to try and attract couples, according to BuzzFeed.

READ MORE: Nicki Minaj’s mother drops Gospel single and dishes on her daughter’s surprise wedding

“Weddings should be a symbol of love and unity. Plantations represent none of those things,” a spokesperson from Pinterest emailed to BuzzFeed. “We are working to limit the distribution of this content and accounts across our platform, and continue to not accept advertisements for them.”

Pinterest added in its email to NBC News that they are “grateful to Color of Change for bringing attention to this disrespectful practice.”

Pinterest says it will revise its policies to now restrict former plantation wedding content on its website and will also turn off search recommendations to these sites. Users will still be able to hop on Google and look at former slave plantation venues on Pinterest, however, those searches will soon be accompanied by an advisory warning that some content may violate Pinterest’s policies. Pinterest also vowed to no longer run advertisements on plantation search results so it will no longer make money from these venues.

Although The Knot will still allow former slave plantations to advertise on its sites as wedding venues, it will alter the flowery adjectives these venues can use. The Knot is working with Color of Change on its updates, but said its new language rules would also apply to all wedding venues advertising on its sites and not just former slave plantations to try and thwart any effort from former plantations to change its branding to something altogether different, like a manor, according to NBC News.

“Color of Change brought an issue to light about the way venues with a history of slavery describe their properties to couples. We’re currently working with Color of Change to create additions to our current content guidelines that will ensure all couples feel welcomed and respected on our sites,” according to a statement The Knot released to NBC News.

Arisha Hatch, vice president at Color Of Change, said the civil rights organization is attempting to draw attention to “all the different ways that the wedding industry is disrespecting Black folks by romanticizing forced labor camps that brutalized millions of slaves.” One way the organization is doing this is to show that this sort of thing would never be allowed to occur at former concentration camps.

“If we were talking about concentration camps, it would be weird and disrespectful and egregious for folks to be seeking to have their weddings at these locations,” Hatch said in an email to theGrio.

READ MORE: Color of Change demands Comcast withdraw its Supreme Court challenge to the Civil Rights Act of 1866

Color of Change also reached out to Martha Stewart Weddings, Brides magazine, and Zola, but the organization said so far Pinterest and The Knot are the only two that have responded.

Might be time to see if their advertisers will respond.

The post Pinterest and The Knot will change how they promote plantation weddings appeared first on theGrio.

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Sen. Cory Booker Reveals $100B Plan to Invest in HBCUs

According to The Hill, presidential hopeful Cory Booker has put forth a $100 billion plan to invest in historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs).

Booker is a current New Jersey senator (since 2013) who previously served as the 36th Mayor of Newark, New Jersey, from 2006 to 2013. He is currently running to become the second black president of the United States.

As the son of two proud HBCU grads (@FISK1866 and @NCCU!), I’m proud to announce that today my campaign is proposing the boldest-ever plan to invest in HBCUs: https://t.co/j7kpKmGRjV

— Cory Booker (@CoryBooker) December 3, 2019

Sen. Booker has outlined his HBCUs and MSIs plan:

Ensure that HBCUs and MSIs (minority-serving institutions) are able to provide a world-class education in world-class facilities:

• Build on the investments of the Future Act by investing an additional $30 billion in competitively-awarded grants by the Department of Education to enable HBCUs and MSIs to expand and improve STEM education and help with recruitment, retention, and graduation rates. Importantly, an investment of this scale would provide schools the security of funding for years to come, avoiding a situation where STEM funding for HBCUs can be held hostage by Congressional Republicans seeking leverage to push their legislative agenda. 
• Provide $30 billion in grants to upgrade infrastructure, including facilities and technology, at HBCUs and MSIs to ensure all students have access to a world-class education in world-class facilities.
• Build on his bill, the HBCU Capital Financing Improvement Act, which would allow more institutions to access financing to improve or construct classrooms, libraries, laboratories, dormitories, instructional equipment, and research instrumentation. Cory would also double the total amount of loans available through the HBCU Capital Financing Program.     

Related: Dell Technologies Builds Tech Pipeline for Black and Latinx Students

Put HBCUs at the center of the fight against climate change:

• Booker will require that at least 10% of his $400 billion 50-State Climate Moonshot Hubs are based in HBCUs and MSIs. Each hub would be focused on reasserting our global leadership in Research and Development (R&D) and leading the way in tackling the most important challenges in basic science, applied research, manufacturing, and commercialization.

Expand collaboration between HBCUs and federal agencies:

• Sign into law the Parren Mitchell Minority Business Education and Empowerment Act, a bill proposed by former Rep. Elijah Cummings that would require the SBA to collaborate with HBCUs to establish Small Business Development Centers and develop entrepreneurship curricula. 
• Fight to pass the HBCU PARTNERS Act, which would direct federal agencies to make a concerted effort to support HBCU participation in federal programs and grants.

Make college affordable for all Americans:

• Fight to pass the Debt-Free College Act, which would help students who attend public colleges, HBCUs, or MSIs graduate without debt by providing public funding to cover the full cost of college, including tuition, fees, and living expenses.
• Double the value of Pell Grants from $6,200 to $12,400, which about three in four students at HBCUs rely upon, and ensure that Dreamers are eligible to receive them. He would also fight to pass the Restoring Education and Learning Act to extend eligibility to incarcerated individuals. And, Cory would require that HBCUs and MSIs make up 10% of higher education institutions in the Second Chance Pell Grant Program.
• Work with Congress to pass the What You Can Do for Your Country Act, which would strengthen and expand the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program that provides debt cancellation to those who enter public service like teachers, social workers, public defenders and those who serve in the military. Borrowers would have their student debt cut in half after five years in public service and receive full debt forgiveness after 10 years in public service. Cory will also fight for his STRIVE Act, which would forgive loans for teachers incrementally and provide full forgiveness after seven years.
• Forgive student loan debt for low-income students who are struggling to repay their debt and for those who received degrees from failed for-profit colleges. 
• Make it easier to apply for student aid by simplifying the FAFSA for low-income students who qualify for other programs, as in his Simplifying Financial Aid for Students Act. He would also make the FAFSA more accessible for all by removing the prior drug conviction question on the FAFSA.
• Ensure access to affordable child care at HBCUs, community colleges, and other MSIs and invest in the child care workforce by passing his Preparing and Resourcing Our Student Parents and Early Childhood Teachers (PROSPECT) Act, which provides grants to MSIs and community colleges for student parents who need child care and invests in infant and toddler educators. 

Read more about his plan here.

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The 9 Best Soundbars for Every Budget (2019)

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Air pollution in Nairobi leaves Kenyan children struggling to breathe

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What Happens When Computers Learn to Read Our Emotions?

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Nigeria's Leon Balogun says fight against racism is a collective responsibility

Nigeria defender Leon Balogun insists the battle against racism is a collective responsibility and more 'extreme punishments' are needed.

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Confederation of African Football cuts shortlists for awards

The Confederation of African Football reduces the shortlists for its annual awards.

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Meet the Activists Risking Prison to Film VR in Factory Farms

This animal liberation group actually wants to be put on trial. Their goal: force jurors to wear VR headsets and immerse them in the suffering of animals bound for slaughter.

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Fueled by the power of stories

K. Guadalupe Cruz’s path into neuroscience began with storytelling.

“For me, it was always interesting that we are capable of keeping knowledge over so many generations,” says Cruz, a PhD student in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences. For millennia, information has been passed down through the stories shared by communities, and Cruz wanted to understand how that information was transferred from one person to the next. “That was one of my first big questions,” she says.

Cruz has been asking this question since high school and the urge to answer it led her to anthropology, psychology, and linguistics, but she felt like something was missing. “I wanted a mechanism,” she explains. “So I kept going further and further, and eventually ended up in neuroscience.”

As an undergraduate at the University of Arizona, Cruz became fascinated with the sheer complexity of the brain. “We started learning a lot about different animals and how their brains worked,” says Cruz. “I just thought it was so cool,” she adds. That fascination got her into the lab and Cruz has never left. “I’ve been doing research ever since.”

A sense of space

If you’ve ever seen a model of the brain, you’ve probably seen one that is divided into regions, each shaded with a different color and with its own distinct function. The frontal lobe in red plans, the cerebellum in blue coordinates movement, the hippocampus in green remembers. But this is an oversimplification.

“The brain isn’t entirely modular,” says Cruz. Different parts of the brain don’t have a single function, but rather a number of functions, and their complexity increases toward the front of the brain. The intricacy of these frontal regions is embodied in their anatomy: “They have a lot of cells and they’re heavily interconnected,” she explains. These frontal regions encode many types of information, which means they are involved in a number of different functions, sometimes in abstract ways that are difficult to unravel.

The frontal region Cruz is bent on demystifying is the anterior cingulate cortex, or ACC, a part of the brain that wraps around the corpus callosum, which divides the outer layers of the brain into left and right hemispheres. Working with mice in Professor Mriganka Sur’s lab, Cruz looks at the role of the ACC in coordinating different downstream brain structures in orientating tasks. In humans, the ACC is involved in motivation, but in mice it has a role in eye movements and vision.

“Everything you experience in the world is relative to your own body,” says Cruz. Being able to determine where your body is in space is essential for navigating through the world. To explain this, Cruz gives the example of driver making a turn. “If you have to do a left turn, you’re going to need to use different information to determine whether you’re allowed to make that turn and if that’s the right choice,” Cruz explains. The ACC in this analogy is the driver: It has to take in all the information about the surrounding world, decide what to do, and then send this decision to other parts of the brain that control movement.

To study this, Cruz gives mice a simple task: She shows them two squares of different shades on a screen and asks them to move the darker square. “The idea is, how does this area of the brain take in this information, compare the two squares and decide which movement is correct,” she explains. Many researchers study how information gets to the ACC, but Cruz is interested in what happens after the information arrives, focusing on the processing and output ends of the equation, particularly in deciphering the contributions of different brain connections to the resulting action.

Cruz uses optogenetics to figure out which areas of the brain are necessary for decision-making. Optogenetics is a technique that uses light to turn on or off previously targeted neurons or areas of the brain. “This allows us to causally test whether parts of a circuit are required for a behavior or not,” she explains. Cruz distills it even further: “But mostly, it just lets us know that if you screw with this area, you’re going to screw something up.”

Community builder

At MIT, Cruz has been able to ask the neuroscience questions she’s captivated by, but coming to the Institute also made her more aware of how few underrepresented minorities, or URMs, there are in science broadly. “I started realizing how academia is not built for us, or rather, is built to exclude us,” says Cruz. “I saw these problems, and I wanted to do something to address them.”

Cruz has focused many of her efforts on community building. “A lot of us come from communities that are very ‘other’ oriented, and focused on helping one another,” she explains. One of her initiatives is Community Lunch, a biweekly casual lunch in the brain and cognitive sciences department. “It’s sponsored by the School of Science for basically anybody that’s a person of color in academia,” says Cruz. The lunch includes graduate students, postdocs, and technicians who come together to talk about their experiences in academia. “It’s kind of like a support group,” she says. Connecting with people that have shared experiences is important, she adds: “You get to talk about things and realize this is a feeling that a lot of people have.”

Another goal of Cruz’s is to make sure MIT understands the hurdles that many URMs experience in academia. For instance, applying to graduate school or having to cover costs for conferences can put a real strain on finances. “I applied to 10 programs; I was eating cereal every day for a month,” remembers Cruz. “I try to bring that information to light, because faculty and administrators have often never experienced it.”

Cruz also is the representative for the LGBT community on the MIT Graduate Student Council and a member of LGBT Grad, a student group run by and for MIT’s LGBT grad students and postdocs. “LGBT Grad is basically a social club for the community, and we try to organize events to get to know each other,” says Cruz. According to Cruz, graduate school can feel pretty lonely for members of the LGBT community, so, similar to her work with URMs, Cruz concentrates on bringing people together. “I can’t fix the whole system, which can be very frustrating at times, but I focused my efforts on supporting people and allowing us to build a community.”

As in her research, Cruz again comes back to the importance of storytelling. In her activism on campus, she wants to make sure the stories of URMs are known and, in doing so, help remove the obstacles faced by that generations of students that come after her.

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New York City Ballet’s ‘The Nutcracker’ Casts Charlotte Nebres as First Black Marie

Misty Copeland is an inspiration to the youth! According to The New York Times, the New York City Ballet has cast their very first black ballerina to play the character of Marie.

Eleven-year-old Charlotte Nebres is the first black girl to star in this year’s rendition of “The Nutcracker,” which has been ongoing since 1954. Nebres, whose mother’s family is from Trinidad and her father’s family is from the Philippines, attends the School of American Ballet.

In addition to Nebres securing a lead role in the ballet, the other young leads are Tanner Quirk (her Prince), who is half-Chinese; Sophia Thomopoulos (Marie), who is half-Korean, half-Greek; and Kai Misra-Stone (Sophia’s Prince), who is half-South Asian.

When Nebres was asked why ballet is important to her, she responded, “To me, it just feels like when I dance I feel free and I feel empowered. I feel like I can do anything when I dance. It makes me happy, and I’m going to do what makes me happy. You don’t need to think about anything else.”

NYC Ballet announced The New York Times story about the children cast on its Instagram account, “IN THE NEWS // The four children who alternate the roles of Marie and the Nutcracker Prince were recently profiled in The New York Times by Gia Kourlas. She sat down with them to discuss the rehearsal process, their lives off-stage, and their roles in the ballet.⁠”⠀

Misty Copeland became the first female African American principal at American Ballet Theater when Nebres was 6 and she remembers. “I saw her perform and she was just so inspiring and so beautiful,” she said. “When I saw someone who looked like me on stage, I thought, that’s amazing. She was representing me and all the people like me.”

School of American Ballet, which is the official school of New York City Ballet, is changing with the makeup of students attending. Over the past seven years, 62 S.A.B. students have become City Ballet apprentices; of those, 21 identify as nonwhite or mixed; and of those, 12 refer to themselves as black; four of them are women.

 George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker® is one of the most complex theatrical, staged ballets in the Company’s active repertory. The popularity of the ballet is immense and it provides an unforgettable spark to everyone’s holiday season.

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Spotify celebrates Jay-Z’s 50th birthday by making his entire discography available

Today is Jay-Z’s 50th birthday and the business savvy mogul commemorated the day by making his entire discography available on Spotify.

According to Complex, Wednesday, Spotify’s announced on their official Twitter account that their users could now listen to every Hov track ever released on their streaming service.

READ MORE: Gabrielle Union claps back after ‘America’s Got Talent’ releases lackluster statement but no apology

“Happy birthday, Hov Welcome back to Spotify,” read the caption of the post.

Previously, JAY, had removed most of his albums from Spotify after launching his own streaming service Tidal. Up until this week the only albums from the rapper left behind were Reasonable Doubt, In My Lifetime, Vol. 1, and Vol. 2…Hard Knock Life and Collision Course, his 2004 album with Linkin Park.

Now faves like The Black Album, American Gangster, and Watch the Throne have also been added back into the mix. There has been no word on if this is a longterm reunion or just a short term gift to celebrate the special day. But you can check out some of the excited fan reactions below.

READ MORE: Jay-Z sues Australian bookseller for using some of his most famous lyrics

Happy birthday, Hov 🎁
Welcome back to Spotify.https://t.co/exr5QGgwCK pic.twitter.com/t7l4H5zn6E

— Spotify (@Spotify) December 4, 2019

Ya have no idea how stressful and annoying it was to have Spotify and not be able to listen to Jay Z on there 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭 pic.twitter.com/6jupKwaxv4

— #FreeAyton (@Freshman893) December 4, 2019

Jay z putting his discography back on Spotify means watch the throne is back on there pic.twitter.com/G35LGP5Nwo

— jk (@_JwK14) December 4, 2019

seeing jay z spotify links all over my timeline pic.twitter.com/DHwqACIEKn

— shpee (is baby) (@MrSirShpee) December 4, 2019

JAY Z JUST PUT ALL HIS MUSIC ON #SPOTIFY!!!!!!!! #HAPPYBIRTHDAYJAYZ pic.twitter.com/rLg3IjuJfq

— ✨The Good Girl✨ (@Hi_ImNeshay) December 4, 2019

 

 

 

The post Spotify celebrates Jay-Z’s 50th birthday by making his entire discography available appeared first on theGrio.

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DR Congo and South Sudan withdraw from Cecafa Cup

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How the Game of Golf—and the PGA HOPE Program—Changed This Military Vet’s Life

The idea of golf and retirement goes hand in hand in popular culture, when you’re talking about a senior citizen enjoying his or her leisure time after decades of hard work. But PGA HOPE is working to get a whole different kind of retiree to pick up some clubs. It’s using the game to help veterans chart a new path after they retire from the military.

In the fourth and final episode of PGA of America’s video podcast series On The Tee, PGA’s Chief People Officer Sandy Cross introduces military veteran James Eugene, who shares how golf helped him rediscover his drive and make the transition to civilian life.

“PGA HOPE is Helping Our Patriots Everywhere,” says Eugene, who started in the PGA HOPE program and is now a PGA WORKS Fellow in the Metropolitan PGA Section.

“I was at a point of despair once I left the military after 12 years of faithful service to the United States Marine Corps,” Eugene continues. “I found myself just trying to figure out a new sense of identity. I didn’t really know where I wanted to go or have a direction to go to. By chance I found PGA HOPE, and it truly changed my life. It introduced me to the game of golf and connected me with other veterans going through the same issue.”

PGA HOPE is the flagship military program of PGA’s foundation. It introduces golf to veterans with disabilities—at no cost to them—through a six-to-eight week curriculum taught by PGA Professionals trained in adaptive golf and military cultural competency. The program aims to enhance the physical, mental, social, and emotional well-being of vets and thereby create a healthier veteran community.

Previous episodes of On the Tee have highlighted PGA WORKS and also the PGA’s partnership with Jopwell, both part of the organization’s initiatives to expose golf to communities that traditionally have not had access.

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We Need to Protect Antarctic ‘Blue Carbon’

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Gabrielle Union Launches A Holiday Collection With New York & Company

Gabrielle’s Got Talent! According to Essence, Gabrielle Union has launched a holiday collection with New York & Company.

Union debuted new silhouettes for her 51-piece holiday collection, which features an assortment of shiny metallics, sequins, luxe fabrics, and dramatic flair. The holiday collection is available online with prices ranging from $55 to $200.

The promo for the collection showcases Raven Goodwin, Ajiona Alexus, Essence Atkins, Valarie Pettiford, Candace Parker, Nia Sioux, Dania Ramirez and also features two black trans women, Ashlee Marie Preston and Isis King.

 

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Gabrielle Union-Wade (@gabunion) on Nov 13, 2019 at 12:59pm PST

“While I’m crazy about fashion, I’m also all about balance and want to make sure I create looks that not only I would wear, but that my mom, aunts, cousins, friends, and sisters would want to rock,” Union told ESSENCE back in August when speaking about the Fall collection she and NY&Company collaborated on.

Related: Ultimate 2019 Gift Guide From Black-Owned Businesses: Clothing, Jewelry, and Accessories

This latest collection arrives months after Union’s launch of Kaavi James by Gabrielle Union, the actress’s baby collection in collaboration with New York & Company, which includes girls and unisex pieces.  

This comes on the heels of the actress becoming embroiled in a controversy that saw her lose her job on America’s Got Talent. After making several complaints to executives at NBC regarding some racial issues, Union won’t be returning to the popular variety show in January. 

 

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