Friday, July 31, 2015

Rock's Neighbors

From Upworthy -

A study reveals a painful truth behind a story about Chris Rock's neighbors.

Why are Chris Rock's only black neighbors also big-time celebrities?

Back in 2008, Chris Rock shared a story about the neighborhood he has the privilege of living in today.

Rock lives in Alpine, New Jersey, a town boasting one of the nation's richest zip codes.

Here are a few of Zillow's featured real estate listings in Alpine. Non-multimillionaires need not inquire.

He was among dozens of prominent African-Americans interviewed for the "The Black List," an HBO documentary that was created in response to "the persistent taint that western culture has applied to the word 'black.'"

In his story, Rock puts some of his neighbors on blast, namely his black neighbors.

You've probably heard of a few of them. Of course, there are very few of them in Rock's neighborhood.

GIFs from "The Black List."

Then he turns the spotlight to the guy who lives right next door to him.

As a comedian, Rock delivers the story with plenty of levity. But a few breaths after he finishes, a kind of heaviness sets in when you get his point and start to wonder:

Why are the only black people who live in Rock's neighborhood people who got rich through phenomenal achievements?

Photo by Mark Metcalfe/Getty Images.

A June 2015 study by Stanford University peers down that rabbit hole and finds what they call a "neighborhood affluence gap."

According to the researchers, "black and Hispanic families effectively need much higher incomes than white families to live in comparably affluent neighborhoods."

Job seekers wait in line for a Chicago career fair. Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images.

On average, black households earning $50,000 a year live in neighborhoods where the median income is $42,579. White households earning the same income live in neighborhoods where the median income is $53,000.

That's a neighborhood affluence gap of roughly 25%. With incomes at $100,000 a year, the gap is 20%.

And it's even worse for poor families. The neighborhood affluence gap between white and black households earning $13,000 a year is 40%.

The result is that blacks and Latinos are more likely to live in communities where it's harder for people to succeed.

Those neighborhoods are marked by underfunded schools, higher crime rates, fewer job opportunities, and a slew of other social woes stemming from poverty and inequality.

And when you consider, for example, that the black unemployment rate is more than twice the white unemployment rate, it gets clearer how steep the uphill climb really is.

With that in mind, is it so surprising that black families are rare in Chris Rock's neighborhood?

Because even if Rock himself were a successful dentist, like his neighbor, he probably wouldn't be living there.

http://www.upworthy.com/a-study-reveals-a-painful-truth-behind-a-story-about-chris-rocks-neighbors?c=upw1&u=6861cbea6edfdfe5a709ee39ad3c14b64135e61f

Misplaced Tears?

From The Root -

We Weep For African Lions. But What About Black Lives?

Because, you know, #AllLivesMatter, right?

Julia CravenStaff Reporter, The Huffington Post

Kim BellwareAssociate Chicago Editor, The Huffington Post

After American dentist Walter Palmer was identified as Cecil the lion's shooter, outrage -- and demand for him to be held accountable -- came quickly.

In less than 24 hours, Palmer's past felony record was exposed, he was bombarded with criticism on social media, and his dental practice was abruptly shuttered for an undetermined length of time. Palmer has since gone into hiding as the Zimbabwean government says it would like to speak to him. And some people are speculating that he could be extradited to face trial over there.

Social media response from white Americans has never been this intense for #BlackLivesMatter.

Laments for Cecil were, sadly, much more heart-rending than the outcries for black lives lost. Uproar over the famous lion's death almost instantly reached the late-night talk show circuit. On Tuesday, Jimmy Kimmel choked back tears as he discussed the killing of endangered animals on his show. Singer Ariana Grande was equally hurt over the loss.

It seems like Americans, in general, found it easier to condemn a man who killed a lion than to criticize police officers who abuse their power. It took more than six months to simply bring charges against the Cleveland officer who killed Tamir Rice, an unarmed, 12-year-old child who was shot to death while playing at a park. It took over a year for an off-duty Chicago cop to be charged for Rekia Boyd’s death.

Remember how, in the first few weeks after Mike Brown was killed, more funds were raised for Darren Wilson than for the dead teen's family. Now a White House petition calling for Palmer to be extradited has already racked up over 95,000 signatures.

Listen to the language used to describe Cecil -- the black-maned lion was beloved, majestic and a treasure. It’s sad that the death of a lion is bringing more tears than that of many a human being simply because those people weren’t white.

As Greg Gutfeld, a host of Fox News talk show "The Five," put it, this is “easy outrage.” No one has to grapple with difficult but necessary questions about how America treats its black citizens. No one is asking what Cecil could have done differently, how he could have avoided this outcome or which of his minor missteps justified a violent death.

“Sure, wildlife are photogenic and apolitical. Cecil the lion never made a video for #BlackLivesMatter and half of the people in the U.S. aren’t trying to convince themselves that somehow Cecil deserved his fate,” wrote David Ferguson for Raw Story. “And while African lions may be endangered, isn’t it time we admit that here in the U.S., black lives are endangered, too?”

Those outraged over Cecil also failed to deplore the human and wildlife rights abuses committed by Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe. Probably because most Americans know little and care less about Zimbabwe, its people or, on most days, its wildlife.

It’s quite astounding how some Americans can speak so adamantly about the evil done Cecil -- but not about the abuses suffered by Sandra Bland or Kindra Chapman or Samuel Dubose, or any of the other black folks who've died recently at the hands or in the custody of the police.

Cecil’s death has already inspired the introduction of a New Jersey bill to protect endangered species. Perhaps it’s facile to compare this to the dearth of legislation addressing police violence. But it is worth noting how many black Americans had to die before Congress reauthorized a law, after a six-year lapse, aiming to protect black life.

Outrage over Cecil's needless death is warranted, but where is the same love for black Americans? Why don’t black lives matter just as much?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/cecil-black-lives_55b9482ce4b095423d0dc4d5

Wedding Bell Blues

These five minutes might save you bunch if you're in the market for a wedding.

Color- Coded Dinner

From OxfordAmerican.org -

This is an excerpt from a captivating article from a food critic on the lack of integration in most restaurants.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Southern hospitality is more than what we call “etiquette.” It’s a sensibility. A way of being in the world. A philosophy. A spirit. You don’t just open your doors to a stranger; you lavish that stranger with kindness, attention, and care. Nor are you simply accepting someone you don’t know into your home. In the purest sense, you are accepting that stranger as an extension of yourself.

This is what is known as “welcome” in the South. And there is no thinking of it except in the purest sense. “Welcome” is an almost mythic conceit, one bound up with the very ways the region chooses to think of itself—sun-dappled land of kindness, grace, and mercy.

But if we choose to see the South as it really is, and as it once was—and if we are honest in admitting that in many ways what is is not so very different from what was—then we find ourselves with a messier, more authentic picture of welcome.

Last year, on the fiftieth anniversary of restaurant desegregation, we celebrated a signifying moment in the long march toward full and equal citizenship for black Americans. But we delude ourselves if we don’t acknowledge that there is a difference between being admitted and being welcomed.

The court order that ended desegregation stipulated that every cafe, tavern, Waffle House, and roadside joint must open its doors to all. It did not, could not, stipulate that whites in the South must also open their hearts and minds to all. Welcome was, and is, the final barrier to racial parity.

We have witnessed remarkable progress over the past five decades, yes, and we should acknowledge this, too. What seemed fanciful, even utopian, a generation ago is now so commonplace as to not bear any comment at all. We have come to expect and accept black and white in the workplace, on the playing field, in politics, in the military, and we congratulate ourselves on our steady march to racial harmony. But our neighborhoods and our restaurants do not look much different today than they did fifty years ago. That Kingly vision of sitting down at the same table together and breaking bread is as smudgy as it’s ever been.

Ihave a day job in Washington, D.C., as a food critic. I’ve done it for ten years. During that time, the city has become bigger and more cosmopolitan, the restaurant scene has evolved from that of a steak & potatoes town to that of a vibrant metropolis, and people now talk excitedly about going out to eat. But what no one talks about is the almost total absence of black faces in that scene.

I count faces, I have to confess. It’s a habit. Something I began doing when I was teaching at Howard University, when I was made to see myself as white in the world—whiteness not as neutral, as baseline, but as an idea, a construct. I began to keep a tally, each night, of the non-whites in the room. I eat out, on average, ten times a week in restaurants that span the gamut from ambitious fine-dining to so-called ethnic mom & pops. So let’s do the math. That’s 40 restaurant visits a month for 4 months, or 160 restaurant visits. Only 8 times—8 times out of 160—did I see more than 10 black folks in the room during any one lunch or dinner. On more than 90 of those restaurant visits, I did not see any faces other than white faces.

We’re not talking about Provo, Utah. Or Johannesburg, South Africa. We’re talking about a town enshrined in song, four decades ago, as Chocolate City.

Yes, the black majority may be a thing of the past—the recent census shows that whites now make up a paper-thin majority—but blacks remain a force in local politics. They are heavily represented in both the government bureaucracy and the workplace. And Prince George’s County, where I live, is home to the largest black middle class in the country.

So why aren’t they coming to dinner? It’s a question I’ve been asking for almost as long as I’ve been a restaurant critic. And—not that I’m surprised—no one seems interested in answering it. Or even addressing it.

~~~~~~~~~~

The answer might surprise you.

Find the complete article at the link below:

http://www.oxfordamerican.org/magazine/item/548-coding-and-decoding-dinner

Trophy Nation: Real Sports Trailer (HBO)

I found this fascinating.

I agree with the folks who contend that every child getting a trophy is a bit much.

What's your take?

Wednesday, July 29, 2015

Viva La Cuba!!!

Greetings from Cuba!

This car was pristine and absolutely beautiful!

Actually we're home now, having arrived a couple of hours ago.

Honestly, I'm too tired to be doing this, but I'm so excited to share the wonderful time Forrest and I had on the island that is still (although hopefully not for long) forbidden fruit.

It was a quick trip, but packed to the gills with excitement.

We left Houston on Monday morning with a confirmed flight to Cancun. You still can't book a flight directly from the US to Cuba, so we opted to go through Mexico as it's only two hours from Houston. Once we arrived in Cancun, we shared that we were trying to get to Havana, and we were directed to Cubana Airlines.

Thankfully, the next (and only) flight to Havana was delayed, so we purchased tickets and waited to board. We waited for several hours, leaving Mexico about 7:15, arriving in Havana at about 8:15.

Once on the ground, we were met with sweltering heat. It took forever and a day it seems to get through passport control, and it was hot as a booger bear in the area were we were waiting.

Then with that paperwork behind us, we headed out of the airport to secure a hotel.

Hotel Nacional - Not where we stayed!

Celebrities who have stayed at the Hotel Nacional

This plaque is embedded on the ground as you leave the hotel going to the garden.

A hallway in the Hotel Nacional

Another view of the hotel

Mohammed Ali was here, too.

Again, you can't make any reservations for flights or hotels yet from the US to Cuba through the major booking sites like Orbiitz or Expedia.

So, we asked at the airport information where we might find a hotel, and the lady said that all of Havana hotels were completely booked, and the only available rooms were in private homes.

Forrest suggested we ask someone else. We spoke with a cab driver who said he knew of a hotel and off we went . . . into the unknown.

It's late and dark outside, but we're too excited to be there to be anxious about anything.

We're made it this far, so were we confident we've find a room.

We did, but as Forrest described it, if Motel 6 is rated a 10, this place was a 2.

Clean, but rustic, is the kindest description.

The next day, we looked out the window to 1959.

Seriously, it was like walking back in time.

Many of the old cars are taxis.

1956?

A beautiful home

Most of the cars are in classic car mint condition.

This is a local artist's home that is incredible to see.
I have more pictures of this that I hope captures the magnitude of the beauty of this place.

Many of the cars are painted really bright colors.

This is a "Coco Taxi."

These chickens and chicks were roaming around at the restaurant where we had lunch.
Black beans and rice. DELICIOUS!

Cars, cars and more cars!

The buildings. The cars. Everything screamed 1959.

It's almost as if time stopped.

So, we got dressed, asked for directions to an ATM, and headed to the bank to get local currency, which is what I do when I travel. The directions given were to go down the block, and turn left at the hotel. Well, when we passed this hotel, we noticed how nice it was, inquired within, and secured a room there. Compared to where we were, it was 10 stars! The name of the hotel is the Habana Libre. It's in the center of town, a great location. The link is below. It looks like it might be possible to contact the hotel directly to reserve a room.

http://www.hotelhabanalibre.com/en/

At the bank we encountered a problem. The bank we were sent to only honors Cuban bank cards. In a mini-panic, we returned to the hotel, asked around, and we were sent a couple of blocks down the street in the opposite directions to an ATM that honored cards from around the world.

But, there was one exception, Cuban banks DO NOT honor US credit/debit cards AT ALL.

So, if you plan to go, and I highly recommend it, take cash, and exchange it at the airport. It is a cash society. Very few places accepted credit cards.

With cash in hand, we hired a cab driver to show us the city sites. He was amazing.

He was patient, (in an island kind of way), friendly, and thorough in his knowledge of the history and significance of the sites.

In fact, everyone was very cordial.

He shared that having the Internet in private homes is forbidden. Wifi is available in public places.

There were lots of European visitors, as it's so much easier for them to visit Cuba.

It was our plan to be on the ground in Havana for two days, but there was a conflict with the return flight that I booked from Cancun to Houston, that would have gotten us back to Cancun to late to catch the flight to Houston. So we had 24 hours.

That's OK, though.

Our day in Havana were filled with awe and wonder and pure pleasure.

The entrance to the Jazz Club

Sculpture down the main causeway

The US Embassy!!!

Although it's not clear, this house has a wrap around porch that is so inviting.
You just want to hang out with a glass of ice tea, enjoying the day.

A view of the beach. The water is blue, blue, blue.

This is the entrance to the Marina Hemingway that is lined with incredible yachts.
Picture are not allowed of the boats. Bigwigs demand their privacy!

VIVA LA CUBA!!!

Wednesday, July 22, 2015

Another One

The recent arrest and subsequent death of a black woman in custody as a result of a routine traffic stop in Texas, is raising all kinds of questions, as it should.

The article below sheds light what you would expect to happen under the circumstances.

The police contend this woman committed suicide. I'm with the camp that thinks this is very unlikely.

What do you think?

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/07/20/us/sandra-bland-arrest-death-videos-maps.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=second-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0

He Feels Your Pain . . . Literally

From Pacific Standard -

This Doctor Knows Exactly How You Feel

A rare condition causes Joel Salinas to experience other people's emotions and sensations. Is mirror-touch synesthesia a superpower or a curse?

by ERIKA HAYASAKI

No one, it seemed, knew what the patient clutching the stuffed blue bunny was feeling. At 33, he looked like a bewildered boy, staring at the doctors who crowded into his room in Massachusetts General Hospital. Lumpy oyster-sized growths shrouded his face, the result of a genetic condition that causes benign tumors to develop on the skin, in the brain, and on organs, hindering the patient’s ability to walk, talk, and feel normally. He looked like he was grimacing in pain, but his mother explained that her son, Josh, did not have a clear threshold for pain or other sensations. If Josh felt any discomfort at all, he was nearly incapable of expressing it.

“Any numbness?” asked Joel Salinas, a soft-spoken doctor in the Harvard Neurology Residency Program, a red-tipped reflex hammer in his doctor’s coat pocket. “Like it feels funny?” Josh did not answer. Salinas pulled up a blanket, revealing Josh’s atrophied legs. He thumped Josh’s left leg with the reflex hammer. Again, Josh barely reacted. But Salinas felt something: The thump against Josh’s left knee registered on Salinas’s own left knee as a tingly tap. Not just a thought of what the thump might feel like, but a distinct physical sensation.

That’s because Salinas himself has a rare medical condition, one that stands in marked contrast to his patients’: While Josh appeared unresponsive even to his own sensations, Salinas is peculiarly attuned to the sensations of others. If he sees someone slapped across the cheek, Salinas feels a hint of the slap against his own cheek. A pinch on a stranger’s right arm might become a tickle on his own. “If a person is touched, I feel it, and then I recognize that it’s touch,” Salinas says.

The condition is called mirror-touch synesthesia, and it has aroused significant interest among neuroscientists in recent years because it appears to be an extreme form of a basic human trait. In all of us, mirror neurons in the premotor cortex and other areas of the brain activate when we watch someone else’s behaviors and actions. Our brains map the regions of the body where we see someone else caressed, jabbed, or whacked, and they mimic just a shade of that feeling on the same spots on our own bodies. For mirror-touch synesthetes like Salinas, that mental simulacrum is so strong that it crosses a threshold into near-tactile sensation, sometimes indistinguishable from one’s own. Neuroscientists regard the condition as a state of “heightened empathic ability.”

Read the rest of this remarkable story at:

http://www.psmag.com/health-and-behavior/is-mirror-touch-synesthesia-a-superpower-or-a-curse

Cultural Appropriation

From The Huffington Post - (Bold is mine)

'Whiteness Goggles' Set Out To Change How You See Cultural Appropriation

"We white people can just unsee the violence that is done in our name. We don't have to look."

2 days ago | Updated 1 day ago

Priscilla Frank Arts Writer, The Huffington Post

Having a hard time understanding the meaning of appropriation? Take a look at Portland-based artist Roger Peet's handy "Whiteness Goggles" series.

In the images he created for the series, the history of violence and oppression endured by people of color quite literally becomes the backdrop for the quirky styles and awesome music of white people. Take for example his biting ode to Miley Cyrus. In the image above, she twerks before a crowd of armed policemen in Ferguson, Missouri. In another, Katy Perry poses in a geisha costume in front of an exploding atomic bomb.

"All of the people shown engaging in acts of cultural appropriation ... are what you would call white," Peet explained to The Huffington Post. "Behind them, in the red, is the rest of what whiteness means: the daily violence and brutality of a world system that is bent on turning everything -- every sacred grove, every deep note, every singular moment -- into an object of value for speculators." 

However, if you're at all disturbed by the violence and suffering visualized in the background imagery, Peet provides a cheeky solution. Simply slip on a pair of his "Whiteness Goggles," the supplementary part of the project pictured below, and watch as all the nitty gritty backdrop details fade from view. What a cute kimono, Katy! 

"Discussing [cultural appropriation] opens fault lines within groups of people," Peet said, describing the inspiration for his work, "and reveals some fundamental differences in the ways different people see the world as a result of their contexts of race, class, gender and power. Appropriation is something I think about a lot, because I think it's a singular way to understand some of the more insidious and destructive ways that capitalism works."

Specifically, Peet, who himself is white, is referencing what he claims is capitalism's ability to spin lives, stories, traditions, even suffering, into profitable goods. "Capitalism invented whiteness in order to create a class of people that could parasitize the rest of the world," he continued. "A people with no connection to history, divorced from place and context, engines of pure abstraction -- which is what Capitalism is all about; the conversion of the complex, beautiful world into quantifiable units that can be speculated upon."

Before embarking on this project, Peet hung 250 flyers around Portland, asking strangers to call a number and leave a voicemail discussing their thoughts on cultural appropriation. You can listen to said voicemails here.

Peet also incorporated the perspectives of what he dubbed a "critical advisory group of indigenous artists and artists of color," including artists Sara Siestreem, Sharita Towne and Gabe Flores, who "spent much time tirelessly shooting down concepts that didn't work, and patiently explaining why many of my ideas were deeply ignorant and ineffective."

Nearly every news cycle brings a handful of egregious instances of cultural appropriation. Last week we saw Kylie Jenner sporting cornrows and MFA Boston promoting "Kimono Wednesdays." For those unaware of the ignorant and hurtful ramifications of such choices, allow teenage actress Amandla Stenberg to humbly school you.

"Appropriation occurs when a style leads to racist generalizations or stereotypes where it originated but is deemed as high-fashion, cool or funny when the privileged take it for themselves," she explained in a video released in April. 

In Peet's words: "When you put on the 'Whiteness Goggles,' the colonial, military and police violence that underpins casual cultural consumption disappears. This is what life is like under whiteness, within the dominant category that capitalism has created. We white people can just unsee the violence that is done in our name. We don't have to look. When we put on the whiteness goggles, we become heroes, and all the while so many others look at us as butchers."

"IN  // APPROPRIATE: An excavation of appropriation" is on view at Littman Gallery ﻿in Portland until July 29. The show is presented in association with artists Sara Siestreem (Hanis Coos), Camas Logue (Klamath-Modoc), Sharita Towne and Gabe Flores, who are programming additional installations in the gallery. 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/whiteness-goggles-cultural-appropriation-roger-peet_55a7f7d3e4b04740a3df470c?

I Love Amazon!

From USA Today -

Amazon Expands Home Services to More Cities

Brett Molina, USA TODAY 9:50 a.m. EDT July 22, 2015

Amazon is expanding its Home Services -- a hub for connecting with local handymen -- to several new cities including Atlanta, Boston and Chicago.

In a statement released Wednesday, the other cities that will support Home Services are Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, Miami, Philadelphia, Phoenix, San Diego, San Jose and Washington D.C. The service is already available in New York, Los Angeles, Seattle and San Francisco.

Users can choose to request customized services, then seek out estimates from a handyman, or order a pre-packaged service such as mounting a flat-screen television.

The service also includes some more unusual services, including aerial yoga lessons or goat grazing.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/personal/2015/07/22/amazon-expands-home-services-more-cities/30506245/?csp=tech

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