Black Daddies

An excerpt from the Washinton Post - 

A dad posted joyful photos of black fathers to shatter stereotypes. Then it became a movement.

By Sydney Page 

Williams aimed to debunk the misconception of black fatherhood by creating an initiative called The Dad Gang.

He began by posting photos of him and his kids, now ages 15, 4 and 3, on social media. Then he started posting photos of other black fathers he knew.

“It started as an Instagram page, with the goal of focusing exclusively on positive stories, images and videos of active black dads,” Williams said. “I wanted to showcase the reality of black fatherhood and rewrite the narrative.”

When he and some friends called out to black fathers to share their stories, submissions started overflowing.

The account, which now has more than 86,000 followers, features dads doing it all: From braiding hair to dancing, teaching to cooking, The Dad Gang Instagram page shows black fathers collectively smashing the stereotype.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2020/06/19/dad-posted-joyful-photos-black-fathers-shatter-stereotypes-then-it-became-movement/

 

View this post on Instagram

Feel good post of the day. 😃 Dad and baby got the moves! . #THEDADGANG

A post shared by THE DAD GANG ™ (@thedadgang) on May 16, 2020 at 6:42am PDT

Reign of Terror

An excerpt from National Geographic - 

Remembering ‘Red Summer,’ when white mobs massacred Blacks from Tulsa to D.C.

The U.S. was gripped by a reign of racial terror after World War I, when whites rose up to quash prosperous Black communities.

BY DENEEN L. BROWN

A group of white women beat a group of Black women with sticks and stones as they begged “for mercy,” Hurd wrote. But the white women “laughed and answered the coarse sallies of men as they beat the negresses’ faces and breasts with fists, stones and sticks.”

The East St. Louis Massacre launched a reign of racial terror throughout the U.S. that historians say stretched from 1917 to 1923, when the all-Black town of Rosewood, Florida, was destroyed. During that period, known as the Red Summer, at least 97 lynchings were recorded, thousands of Black people were killed, and thousands of Black-owned homes and businesses were burned to the ground. Fire and fury fueled massacres in at least 26 cities, including Washington, D.C.; Chicago, Illinois; Omaha, Nebraska; Elaine, Arkansas; Charleston, South Carolina; Columbia, Tennessee; Houston, Texas; and Tulsa, Oklahoma.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/2020/06/remembering-red-summer-white-mobs-massacred-blacks-tulsa-dc/#close

Black Violin - Lift Every Voice and Sing

Powerful Reflections

Please take the time to read this in its entirety.  It's too powerful to cherry-pick an excerpt.

Reflections on the Color of My Skin

By Neil deGrasse Tyson

https://www.haydenplanetarium.org/tyson/commentary/2020-06-03-reflections-on-color-of-my-skin.php

Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man

Will Smith - Just The Two Of Us (Official Video)

2004: The Murder of Emmett Till

2018 - Inside the memorial to victims of lynching

Tulsa's Black Wall Street massacre

What is Juneteenth?

Ways To Help

From the Strategist - 

135 Ways to Donate in Support of Black Lives and Communities of Color

The Editors

https://nymag.com/strategist/article/where-to-donate-for-black-lives-matter.html

Covid vs. Police Violence

An excerpt from GQ - 

I've Spent Months Fighting Coronavirus in the ER. Police Violence Is What Really Scares Me

For a Black doctor, simply getting to the hospital feels like the most dangerous part.  

BY DR. DARIEN SUTTON-RAMSEY

I’m an emergency medicine physician in New York City—one of the only Black physicians in the entire emergency department at my hospital. While many New Yorkers followed shelter-in-place orders, I’ve been called to work to help heal the people afflicted by the coronavirus pandemic. I drive to work, and lately, compared to typical New York City traffic, the roads are empty. You might think this was a relief for me, but it was the opposite. I may have a shorter commute, but I’m a Black man behind the wheel when law enforcement and the government have ordered us to stay home. Stay-at-home rules have been enforced much more harshly against Black people, and I am aware that I am very much a moving target.

https://www.gq.com/story/making-myself-essential

Ivy League Student Who Grew Up Homeless Tells Her Inspiring Story

No Baby Critters, Please!

A Proud Father and Son

An excerpt from ESPN - 

Doug Williams, the first black QB to win a Super Bowl, shares 42 years of 'teaching moments'

By John Keim

My son, D.J. [an offensive assistant with the Saints], sent me a text Saturday morning [June 6] that brought me to tears.

"You raised a strong black man! You created America's worst nightmare. A SMART, EDUCATED, AMBITIOUS, BLACK MAN with great character. Thanks for that Pops. I can't even begin to imagine the things you went through coming from seeing crosses burning and just your ride as a black man and a black player in this country. Love you Pops. I'm a product of you and that's what I am most proud of my brother"

We always have had a great relationship, talking about life and how to handle situations. When he was driving back and forth to Grambling [where he went to college and played football], I used to tell him, "If you get stopped, be compliant. You've got to get out and say, 'Yes, sir.'" He was going through Mississippi and a few country towns. Don't be argumentative. He would always say, "Don't worry about me." But I had to worry, because he's black and he's driving by himself through little towns. And then to get that note? It says a lot about him and what he thinks of me. It made me feel like I'd done a decent job. He wanted me to know the impact I had on his life, that I raised a smart, educated, ambitious black man. As an older black man, that's pretty good. Yeah, from an emotional standpoint he brought something out of me.

https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/29297476/doug-williams-first-black-qb-win-super-bowl-shares-42-years-teaching-moments

More Black Girl Magic!

Now I could let these dream killers kill my self esteem or use my arrogance as the steam to power my dreams.

A black female neuroscientist.

Shot by: @Txmmy4k pic.twitter.com/KAa7zApnSn

— Ono (@_onvme) June 7, 2020

American Apartheid

An excerpt from Salon - 

American apartheid: This country still treats too many of its black citizens like slaves

What happened to George Floyd has a long history. Until we face that history honestly, we'll never escape it

By LUCIAN K. TRUSCOTT IV

Imagine that you are a black citizen of this country. Every day, you wake up in your house or your apartment, and you must wonder, is this the day? Is this the day I'm going to be jogging down a neighborhood street, like Ahmaud Arbery, and be killed by armed civilians? Is this the day I'm going to be arrested outside a convenience store, like George Floyd, and be strangled to death? Is this the day I'm going to be stopped in my car by a policeman for failure to signal a lane change, like Sandra Bland, and be arrested and jailed and end up dead? Is this the day I'm going to be birdwatching in the park, like Christian Cooper, and have a passerby call the police and report me? Is this the day I'm going to be stopped for a broken brake light, like Walter Scott, and shot five times in the back and killed? Is this the day I'm going to walk up to the door of my apartment building and be confronted by four policemen and when I reach for my wallet, be shot 19 times, like Amadou Diallo? Is this the day I will be snatched off the street by three white supremacists and dragged with a chain behind a truck for three miles until I die, like James Byrd Jr. in Texas?

How would you like to be afraid every single day of your life that something terrible will happen to you, just because you are black?

https://www.salon.com/2020/06/13/american-apartheid-this-country-still-treats-too-many-of-its-black-citizens-like-slaves/

The NFL - Will They Do The Right Thing?

An excerpt from the Undefeated - 

For the NFL, issues have to outweigh the optics this time around

This is an ideal time for America’s sport to lead the conversation

BY J.A. ADANDE

The reason the NFL keeps winding up in the middle of the police brutality debate is because both professional football and violence are woven into America. You could actually make a case that professional football is so quintessentially American specifically because it is so violent. The nexus of football and violence also reminds us of the limits historically placed on African Americans, that their prominence rarely accompanies power, that for all the attention given to black players in the NFL and their outspokenness about police brutality, they were unable to do much about it on their own. It is a dynamic as old as America itself.

As a way to quantify the prominence, consider this: Black players scored 80% of the touchdowns in the NFL last season. Not to diminish the importance of blocking, tackling, special teams play, film study, playcalling or any of the other components of winning football games, but ultimately what matters to us are touchdowns. Black people, in overwhelming numbers, produce the thing we care about the most in the sport we care about the most.

“Touchdowns equal happiness,” John Madden once said as the cameras showed jubilant fans reacting to a touchdown. The equation is unbalanced. For all of the happiness produced by black players, there should be an expectation to not only pay their salaries but to pay attention to their concerns, hopes and fears. That didn’t happen in 2016 when then-San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick started a wave of players kneeling during the national anthem to protest inequality and injustice.

https://theundefeated.com/features/for-the-nfl-issues-have-to-outweigh-the-optics-this-time-around/

Ravens

Ravens united.

Black Lives Matter. pic.twitter.com/3KAl3dFSrQ

— Baltimore Ravens (@Ravens) June 12, 2020

People are loving this adorable boy's politeness