This NEW Biden-Harris ad featuring 14 Black mayors from across the country is straight fire!! 🔥🔥🔥 #BlackLivesMatter #BidenHarris2020 pic.twitter.com/qMlWUUoCVo
— ✊🏾 ALL BLACK LIVES MATTER ✊🏾 (@flywithkamala) October 10, 2020
Sunday, October 11, 2020
Architecture in Black
An excerpt from Black Enterprise -
MEET THE BLACK WOMAN BEHIND ONE OF THE COUNTRY’S FEW BLACK-OWNED ARCHITECTURE FIRMS
by Dana Givens
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| Image via Purpose Brands |
Architecture is an extremely difficult field to enter, especially for people of color. In a 2018 report from the National Council of Architectural Registration Board, nonwhite architecture professionals are 25% more likely to stop pursuing licensure with a nonwhite professional representing 45% of participants in the Architectural Experience Program. Black women are an even smaller margin when it comes to diversity within the sector. One woman decided to take her savings to start her career in architecture and is now celebrating 30 years in the business.
Deryl McKissack is the owner of McKissack & McKissack, a firm responsible for overseeing construction projects including the Obama Presidential Center, the National Museum of African American History and Culture, the Lincoln, and several Martin Luther King, Jr. memorials. In an interview with BLACK ENTERPRISE, McKissack shares her story about getting into the architecture field and the importance of diversity in the sector.
BE: What inspired you to get into architecture?
McKissack: Architecture was in my blood. I’m the fifth generation in our family to go into the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) business. My great-great-grandfather, a freed slave, was a builder, as was his son, my great-grandfather. His son, my grandfather, was the first Black registered architect in Tennessee. And my father, also a registered architect, would take me and my twin sister to work with him when we were 6, prop us up on his drawing boards and teach us how to draw details, do schedules, use Leroy lettering, make legends, and everything else. By the time we were 13, he was using our drawings.
My sister and I both went to Howard University on academic scholarships as double-majors in architecture and engineering. But I was more drawn to the practical side of things—how buildings work—and eventually made engineering my major. After I graduated, I went to work at an engineering firm.
https://www.blackenterprise.com/meet-the-black-woman-behind-the-countrys-few-black-owned-architecture-firm/
To Be Young, Gifted & Black 2
An excerpt from the Root -
Thanks to This 16-Year-Old Author, Black Girls at Predominantly White Schools Are Telling Their Stories
By Janelle Harris Dixon
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| Image: LifeSlice Media, Photo: Courtesy of Olivia V.G. Clarke |
If you’ve never been Black surrounded by a constant overwhelm of White—at school, your place of work, in your neighborhood—just know there can never be enough memoirs, screenplays, or comedies to exhaust the complex experience. You are ever a racial ambassador, an explainer of non-white culturisms, a human Google for thoughtless questions, a pioneering barrier-breaker of beliefs about what Black people do and don’t do. (Once when I was pseudo-swimming in a friend’s backyard pool, a white woman gasped as I adjusted my bathing suit straps and exclaimed, “I didn’t know Black people got tanned!”)
Sixteen-year-old Olivia V.G. Clarke has lived the experience. A graduating senior at Columbus School for Girls, a predominantly white institution in Columbus, Ohio, she’s spent seven of her formative years navigating racial politics. The idea to write about it hit her when she was walking home with her mom.
“I said, ‘how cool would it be to have a book to help other [Black] girls in predominantly white institutions, who either go to one or graduated or are preparing to go? And just have stories, anecdotes and poems to help them feel supported?”
Black Girl, White School: Thriving, Surviving and No, You Can’t Touch My Hair, a 123-page anthology of poems, essays and reflections from contributors ranging from middle-school age to college students, is the creative dividend of that conversation. To represent a range of experiences, Clarke posted a call for writers on social media, reached out to friends and her parents’ friends, and girls she’d met in school, camps and other activities.
https://theglowup.theroot.com/thanks-to-this-16-year-old-author-black-girls-at-predo-1845323110
From Janitor to Nurse Practitioner
An excerpt from Goalcast -
Woman Becomes Nurse Practitioner At The Same Hospital She Used To Clean
By Kawter
Achieving your dreams has no age limit, but sometimes, life gets in the way and we forget just how possible it is. That’s why stories of real life people who overcame all odds to achieve their goals are a strong reminders that we can do it, no matter what.
Such is the story of Jaines Andrades, who in 10 years, went from custodian to nurse practitioner in the very same hospital she used to clean at.
https://www.goalcast.com/2020/10/08/woman-becomes-nurse-practitioner-at-the-same-hospital-she-used-to-clean/
Saturday, October 10, 2020
Young, Gifted & Black
An excerpt from Black Enterprise -
THIS 12-YEAR OLD JUST STARTED HIS 2ND YEAR IN COLLEGE, MAJORING IN AEROSPACE ENGINEERING
by BLACK ENTERPRISE Editors
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| image: BlackBusiness.com |
Caleb Anderson, a 12-year old gifted boy from Georgia, has already finished his first year in college and has just started his second year. He is majoring in Aerospace Engineering at Chattahoochee Technical College.
Caleb was just 9-months old when he learned to sign more than 250 words. He eventually learned to speak and read when he turned 11-months old. Aside from the English language, he also learned Spanish, French, and Mandarin.
Caleb’s parents, Claire and Kobi, knew he was special and has been very supportive of him ever since.
https://www.blackenterprise.com/this-12-year-old-just-started-his-2nd-year-in-college-majoring-in-aerospace-engineering/
A Generous Class Act
An excerpt from ESPN -
Houston Rockets' Russell Westbrook leaves $8,000 tip for bubble hotel staff, per report
On his way out of the NBA bubble, Rockets star Russell Westbrook left the housekeepers at the Grand Floridian hotel an $8,000 tip, the Dallas Morning News reported.
By Royce Young
On his way out of the NBA bubble in Orlando, Florida, Houston Rockets star Russell Westbrook wanted to show his appreciation for the housekeepers of the Grand Floridian hotel, and he did it with an $8,000 tip, according to the Dallas Morning News.
"They took great care of us," Westbrook told Bleacher Report, confirming the tip. "Took the time and energy to do their job at a high level. That was the right thing. I like to do the right thing."
https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/30056301/houston-rockets-russell-westbrook-leaves-8000-tip-bubble-hotel-staff-per-report
Saturday, October 3, 2020
A Family Photo at the Door
An excerpt from the Washington Post -
I keep a family photo at my front door. It’ll stay there until toxic attitudes toward Black lives go away.
Opinion by Michele L. Norris
I keep a framed family photo next to my front door, positioned on a table, so you see it as soon as you enter. It captures a moment of joy while on vacation. We’re leaning on each other, smiling wide. Family Strong.
I keep that picture by the entry in case police ever enter my home, they know that the people in that photo belong in the house where they live.
That paragraph you just read is a litmus test. Some of you will read these words and wonder, “Why would she ever do that?”
But some of you will read this and nod your head in recognition. Or perhaps conclude, “Maybe I should do that, too.”
Those of us in that second category are not worried about police entering our home because we’re engaged in criminal behavior. We worry — actually, we know, that we could be seen as criminals or intruders in our own homes even if we consistently and even obsessively live by the rules. A steady stream of raids-gone-wrong buttresses those fears and yet it goes far beyond all that.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/i-keep-a-family-photo-at-my-front-door-itll-stay-there-until-toxic-attitudes-toward-black-lives-go-away/2020/09/28/0e9027fe-01bb-11eb-a2db-417cddf4816a_story.html
Swearing Birds
An excerpt from CNN -
Parrots in wildlife park moved after swearing at visitors
By Rob Picheta
London (CNN) — Five parrots have been removed from public view at a British wildlife park after they started swearing at customers.
The foul-mouthed birds were split up after they launched a number of different expletives at visitors and staff just days after being donated to Lincolnshire Wildlife Park in eastern England.
"It just went ballistic, they were all swearing," the venue's chief executive Steve Nichols told CNN Travel on Tuesday. "We were a little concerned about the children."
"I get called a fat t**t every time I walk past," Nichols complained.
The African grey parrots -- named Eric, Jade, Elsie, Tyson and Billy -- were given to the park from five different owners within the same week, and shared a quarantining facility together before being placed on display.
But staff immediately noticed that the birds shared a propensity to fly off the handle.
https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/swearing-parrots-moved-park-scli-gbr-intl/index.html
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