Commentary: African American Scientists and Inventors
by Black Kos Editor, Sephius1
Medical science is an area that sorely needs african american input. We all know what can happen when junk science becomes accepted medical doctrine. You get things like the Tuskegee experiments, which do nothing but solidify the strain between doctors and black people. Let's face it, minorities become comfortable with something if they are apart of that something. It's like being the the only black person at the Christmas party and feeling a little awkward, but a another black person walks in and the proverbial "head nod" to each other, and a telepathic, "aight", seems to aleviate consternation. So too does seeing black doctors in all the medical sciences. So this week we'll look at Rebecca Cole, the second african american woman to receive a medical degree in the US.
(con't.)
In 1867, Rebecca J. Cole became the second African American woman to receive an M.D. degree in the United States (Rebecca Crumpler, M.D., graduated from the New England Female Medical College three years earlier, in 1864). Dr. Cole was able to overcome racial and gender barriers to medical education by training in all-female institutions run by women who had been part of the first generation of female physicians graduating mid-century. Dr. Cole graduated from the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania in 1867, under the supervision of Ann Preston, the first woman dean of the school, and went to work at Elizabeth Blackwell's New York Infirmary for Women and Children to gain clinical experience.
Although Rebecca Cole practiced medicine for fifty years, few records survive to tell her story, and no images of her remain. Cole was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where she attended the Institute for Colored Youth, graduating in 1863. Her medical thesis at the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania was titled "The Eye and Its Appendages."
In her autobiography, Blackwell commented on Rebecca Cole's valuable clinical skills: "In addition to the usual departments of hospital and dispensary practice, which included the visiting of poor patients at their own homes, we established a sanitary visitor. This post was filled by one of our assistant physicians, whose special duty it was to give simple, practical instruction to poor mothers on the management of infants and the preservation of the health of their families. An intelligent young coloured physician, Dr. Cole, who was one of our resident assistants, carried on this work with tact and care. Experience of its results serve to show that the establishment of such a department would be a valuable addition to every hospital".....Read More
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News by dopper0189, Black Kos Managing Editor
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Southern Blacks Would Have Been Psyched To Have Vote On Their Rights? TalkingPointsMemo: Christie On Gay Marriage
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Black lawmakers in New Jersey have sharply criticized Republican Gov. Chris Christie for comparing a ballot referendum on gay marriage to the civil rights movement thusly: “The fact of the matter is, I think people would have been happy to have a referendum on civil rights rather than fighting and dying in the streets in the South.”
On Thursday, New Jersey Assembly Speaker Sheila Y. Oliver (D) released a statement decrying Christie’s comments, saying that he’d “better sit down with some of New Jersey’s great teachers for a history lesson, because his puzzling comment shows a complete misunderstanding about the civil rights movement.”
Christie said on Tuesday that rather than pass a marriage equality bill in the New Jersey legislature — which is looking more and more likely — the state should put a referendum on the November ballot and “let the people decide.”
Christie, who has said that he would veto a marriage equality bill from the legislature if it reached his desk, said that there’s nothing “so special about this particular issue that it must be handled by a legislature.” According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, he added: “The fact of the matter is, I think people would have been happy to have a referendum on civil rights rather than fighting and dying in the streets in the South.”
The comment outraged many African-American leaders in the state, who pointed out that such a referendum never would have passed in the south during the 60s — and that many black people were also disenfranchised at the time.
“People were fighting and dying in the streets of the South for a reason,” Oliver said. “They were fighting and dying in the streets of the South because the majority refused to grant minorities equal rights by any method. It look legislative action to bring justice to all Americans, just as legislative action is the right way to bring marriage equality to all New Jerseyans.”
“The governor’s comment is an insult to those who had no choice but to fight and die in the streets for equal rights,” she added.
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The GOP candidates don't see their racial rhetoric as offensive. You got a problem with that? Everything seems to be fine if you say "I'm not a racist BUT..." The Root: Colorblind Racism: The New Norm
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Colorblind racism is the new normal in American conservative political thought. Well after the election of the nation's first African-American president, in 2012 Republican candidates are using egregious signals and dog whistles to incite racial divisiveness as an effective tool for political gain. But when confronted about the nature of their offensive rhetoric, the answer is either an innocuous denial or dismissive retort.
It is curious that people bold enough to make outlandish racial claims never admit guilt or receive a proverbial trial and conviction by the greater populace. Paul Rosenberg, a political contributor to Al-Jazeera, recently explained that this curious phenomenon of "racism without racists" has become de facto in today's political discourse and is best described as "colorblind racism."
First explored in the book Racism Without Racists: Color-Blind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in the United States by Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, a professor of sociology at Duke University, the concept explains much of the Republican strategy to defeat Barack Obama, using race as a wedge issue. Bonilla-Silva defined colorblind racism as a racial ideology that expresses itself in seemingly nonracial terms. As such, it is most practiced by people who never see themselves outside their own myopic worldview.
Last week's Fox News debate prior to the South Carolina Republican primary was an excellent example of the hubris inherent in today's racially charged, conservative environment.
All the more offensive was the fact that this debate took place on the national holiday celebrating Martin Luther King Jr. As Michael Keegan explained in the Huffington Post, "What could have been an opportunity for the candidates to express their support for the myriad advances of the civil rights movement and to address the real challenges that remain, instead turned into a mess of racially charged attacks on African Americans, immigrants and the poor."
Newt Gingrich -- the worst offender -- doubled down on his prior attacks. When asked by Juan Williams, the lone African-American Fox News moderator, about calling Barack Obama the greatest "food stamp president" and his insistence that he would "talk about why the African-American community should demand paychecks and not be satisfied with food stamps," Gingrich played to the bloodthirsty audience.
"Can't you see that this is viewed, at a minimum, as insulting to all Americans, but particularly to black Americans?" Williams asked.
"No," Gingrich replied. "No, I don't see that at all."
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I really do agree with this article of from TNR. The New Republic: Why'd It Take Obama So Long to Go Populist?
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The more interesting question, which I’m sure we’ll be discussing on and off between now and the election (and maybe for decades to come, depending on how that goes), is why it took so long for the president to make this change despite all the evidence that earnest engagement with Republicans was futile. Some, like Andrew Sullivan and my former colleague Jon Chait, have argued that it was part of the master plan all along: Before breaking out the shiv, which he always intended to do, Obama wanted to persuade any fair-minded observer that he’d made every effort to work with Republicans. That way, the public would blame the other guys and not him for the lack of cooperation.
I think there’s something to this explanation, but I’ve always considered it a little pat. The lengths Obama went to in this regard struck me as more pathological than tactical at times. The view I tease out in my forthcoming book on Obama and the economy (which you can pre-order here) is that Obama’s bipartisanship has roots in his organizing days in Chicago, where he saw the ugly side of political tribalism up close and decided he wanted no part of it.
But there’s still another explanation, which has to do with racial stereotypes and double-standards. Simply put, a little-known African-American politician who dabbles in edgy populism risks alienating certain white voters, who will view his populism through the lens of race. However the candidate actually intends it, these voters will treat his rhetoric as evidence that he plans to take from white people and give to black people, and, needless to say, they’ll be nudged along in this assumption by the right-wing media. (Fox et al was pretty good at fanning these fears even when Obama’s rhetoric was about as far from populist as you can get).
Three years into his term, by contrast, most Americans have a fairly detailed portrait of the president. He’s no longer a black man they don’t know, but a person they have a relatively intimate relationship with, at least as public figures go. Many, if not most, probably don’t even think of the president in racial terms anymore.
Which is to say, Obama may have finally embraced populism because he finally can embrace populism, whereas it simply wasn’t politically possible before.
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The carefully orchestrated strikes in the northern Nigeria city of Kano are reminiscent of Al Qaeda attacks, and dwarf previous assaults by the Islamic group Boko Haram, which claimed responsibility. The toll is expected to grow. LA Times: Nigeria stunned by Kano attacks that killed more than 150
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A militant Islamic group whose almost daily attacks have put Nigerians on edge left the country stunned Saturday after a well-coordinated strike with disturbing echoes of Al Qaeda's brand of mayhem.
More than 150 people were killed in the Friday evening carnage in the northern city of Kano. The group Boko Haram claimed responsibility for the attacks, whose targets included the secret service headquarters, an immigration office and a passport office.
It was the group's most deadly strike, far exceeding previous death tolls.
Boko Haram, which wants to impose sharia, or Islamic law, on Nigeria's 160 million people, killed more than 500 people in almost daily attacks last year. Before Friday's violence, it had killed more than 70 people this month.
U.S. officials have expressed fear that the group, whose name means "Western education is sacrilege," may be getting support and training from Al Qaeda affiliates on the continent, given the increasing sophistication of its attacks and growing use of suicide bombers.
Nigeria is divided between the mainly Muslim north and the oil-rich, mainly Christian south. It has been plagued by terrorist attacks in the north as well as by sectarian killings, particularly in central Nigeria, and violent insurgencies, oil theft and piracy in the southern Niger Delta.
A police building burns Friday after multiple explosions and gun battles in Kano, Nigeria. (Aminu Abubakar, AFP/Getty Images / January 21, 2012)
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An international jazz festival in Haiti hopes to attract fans and artists with support of local embassies in the earthquake-ravaged country. The festival is more than a marketing tool, say organizers. Miami Herald: International jazz festival in post-quake Haiti promotes music, education among Haitian musicians
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The improvised scales of the soprano saxophone dance off the soundproof walls, creating a mosaic of sound fused by African and Haitian rhythms.
This mélange of Caribbean, American and European cultures is not what one immediately associates with Haiti, an island nation known for chaos and konpa, the slow, timed Haitian meringue swayed by horns and electronic keyboards.
But the introduction of Creole jazz, and its growing popularity, represents part of this nation’s cultural rebirth. Here, inside a gingerbread architecture-inspired French cultural center rebuilt after the earthquake near the ruins of downtown, Creole jazz is having its moment as Thurgot Theodat’s weathered sax transforms the American-born art form across barriers of the Atlantic Ocean, language and culture.
“Creole jazz for me is all the rhythms that are related to the Caribbean culture,” bass player Richard Barbot, who has recorded with both jazz and konpa artists, said before joining Theodat in a practice jam session one recent morning. “Dancing isn’t bad, but it shouldn’t be the only thing that defines music.”
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As the Smithsonian continues developing a national black history museum, it's offering a look at Thomas Jefferson's lifelong slave ownership through an exhibit that explores the lives of six slave families at his Monticello plantation. The Grio: New exhibit explores Thomas Jefferson's slave ownership.
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The exhibit at the National Museum of American History includes a look at the family of Sally Hemmings, the slave who many historians believe had an intimate relationship with the third president. Some archaeological artifacts will be on public view for the first time.
Curators explore Jefferson's inherent conflict as he drafted the Declaration of Independence and called slavery an "abominable crime" but yet was a lifelong slave holder.
Construction is set to begin this year on the National Museum of African American History and Culture, the first addition to the National Mall since 2004.
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The Front Porch is now open!
Grab a drink and a seat. If you are new-introduce yourself and join in.