Commentary: African American Scientists and Inventors
by Black Kos Editor, Sephius1
Alice Augusta Ball was born on July 24, 1892 in Seattle, Washington to James Presley and Laura Louise (Howard) Ball.[3] Her family was considered middle class to upper-middle class as Ball's father was a newspaper editor, photographer, and a lawyer. Her grandfather, James Ball Sr., was also a famous photographer and one of the first African Americans in the United States to learn to daguerreotype. James Ball, Sr. moved to Hawaii with his family in 1903, but died one year later which caused the family to move back to Seattle in 1905.
After returning to Seattle, Ball attended Seattle High School and received top grades in the sciences. She graduated from Seattle High School in 1910 and entered the University of Washington to study chemistry. During her four years there, she earned bachelor degrees in both pharmaceutical chemistry and pharmacy. She also, with her pharmacy instructor, published a 10-page article in the prestigious Journal of the American Chemical Society titled "Benzoylations in Ether Solution." Following her graduation, Ball was offered scholarships to attend the University of California Berkeley and the University of Hawaii. Ball decided to move back to Hawaii to pursue a master's degree in chemistry. In 1915, she became the first woman and first African American to graduate with a master's degree from the University of Hawaii.
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In her postgraduate research career at the University of Hawaii, Ball investigated the chemical makeup and active principle of Piper methysticum (kava) for her master's thesis. While working on her thesis, Ball was asked by Dr. Harry T. Hollmann, an assistant surgeon at Kalihi Hospital in Hawaii, to help him develop a method to isolate the active chemical compounds in chaulmoogra oil. Chaulmoogra oil had previously been used in the treatment of Hansen's disease (leprosy) with mixed results. Most patients with Hansen's disease were hesitant to take the oil over the long term because it tasted bitter and tended to cause an upset stomach. Ball developed a process to isolate the ethyl esters of the fatty acids in the chaulmoogra oil so that they could be injected, but died before she could publish her results. Another chemist at the University of Hawaii, Arthur L. Dean, continued her work and began producing large quantities of the injectable chaulmoogra extract. In 1918, a Hawaii physician reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association that a total of 78 patients were released from Kalihi Hospital by the board of health examiners after treatment with injections. The isolated ethyl ester remained the preferred treatment for Hansen's disease until sulfonamide drugs were developed in the 1940s......Read More
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News by dopper0189, Black Kos Managing Editor
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The problem with that catcalling video from about a lady walking all over Manhattan... Slate: The Problem With That Catcalling Video: They Edited Out the White Guys.
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On Tuesday, Slate and everyone else posted a video of a woman who is harassed more than 100 times by men as she walks around New York City for ten hours. More specifically, it’s a video of a young white woman who is harassed by mostly black and Latino men as she walks around New York City for ten hours. The one dude who turns around and says, “Nice,” is white, but the guys who do the most egregious things—like the one who harangues her, “Somebody’s acknowledging you for being beautiful! You should say thank you more,” or the one who follows her down the street too closely for five whole minutes—are not.
This doesn’t mean that the video doesn’t still effectively make its point, that a woman can’t walk down the street lost in her own thoughts, that men feel totally free to demand her attention and get annoyed when she doesn’t respond, that women can’t be at ease in a public space in the same way men can. But the video also unintentionally makes another point, that harassers are mostly black and Latino, and hanging out on the streets in midday in clothes that suggest they are not on their lunch break. As Roxane Gay tweeted, “The racial politics of the video are fucked up. Like, she didn’t walk through any white neighborhoods?”
The video is a collaboration between Hollaback!, an anti-street harassment organization, and the marketing agency Rob Bliss Creative. At the end they claim the woman experienced 100 plus incidents of harassment “involving people of all backgrounds.” Since that obviously doesn’t show up in the video, Bliss addressed it in a post. He wrote, “we got a fair amount of white guys, but for whatever reason, a lot of what they said was in passing, or off camera” or was ruined by a siren or other noise. The final product, he writes, “is not a perfect representation of everything that happened.” That may be true but if you find yourself editing out all the catcalling white guys, maybe you should try another take.
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VH1 has gradually turned itself into a black entertainment network, home to raunchy, riotous reality shows, without the kind of criticisms that have been leveled at BET for similar programming. The Root: Why VH1 Gets to Be Black Without the Burden.
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When I first saw an advertisement for the made-for-TV sequel to the 2002 film Drumline, I assumed that it was airing on BET.
After all, Drumline’s star and one of the executive producers of the sequel, Nick Cannon, has a relationship with BET and is a regular on Kevin Hart’s Real Husbands of Hollywood. Yet around the third or fourth commercial I saw for Drumline: A New Beat, which aired earlier this week, I realized that it was actually airing on VH1—BET’s latest rival for the eyes of African Americans.
VH1, now known more for Love & Hip Hop: Atlanta than its beginnings as a sort of MTV for old people, was initially an unexpected rival. VH1 has gone through a few incarnations, while BET has always been BET: Black Entertainment Television. Yet it’s VH1 that is home to one of the highest-rated reality shows on cable, the aforementioned Love & Hip Hop: Atlanta, and is now the No. 1 network in African-American households, followed by BET and OWN.
VH1—which, like BET, is owned by Viacom—started producing more and more African-American reality shows and original programming in the mid-2000s, beginning with the offensive and outrageous car wreck Flavor of Love in 2006. Since then VH1 has been home to several African-American-led reality shows, including Basketball Wives, T.I. and Tiny: The Family Hustle, LaLa’s Full Court Life, Marrying the Game, Love & Hip Hop: Hollywood and Atlanta Exes. The network also started producing dramas with African-American stars, starting with the Queen Latifah-produced Single Ladies and continuing with last summer’s cheerleader drama Hit the Floor.
Although BET has produced reality shows, none has ever caught fire like the over-the-top antics of a Mona Scott-Young production or a table-hopping Basketball Wives fight. I wonder, is there a reason for that, and does it have to do with what black audiences expect of BET versus what they will accept from VH1?
Cast members Yung Berg, Masika Kalysha and Sincere Show attend the Love & Hip Hop: Hollywood premiere Sept. 9, 2014, in Hollywood, Calif.
JESSE GRANT/GETTY IMAGES FOR VH1
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A Nigerian schoolgirl recalls the terrifying night she and her classmates were taken by the country’s most notorious terrorism group. The Root: Saa’s Story: How She Escaped After Being Kidnapped by Boko Haram.
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She came up onstage wearing a wig and sunglasses. I sat there stunned, slightly shivering, because the 18-year-old girl in front of us could have been anywhere but here at that moment had she not made one of the most fearless decisions anyone could ever make.
Her name is Saa (changed for her safety), and she told her story to 90 of us in a room at the ONE Campaign’s AYA Summit in Washington, D.C., last Thursday. I’m sharing her story (with permission) because the resilience of the human spirit is incredible, and courage often comes in small packages. Plus, we cannot forget these girls just because the cries of #BringBackOurGirls have died down on social media.
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Tree and shrub-planting program has transformed degraded and deforested land across Africa, with Ethiopia planning to restore a further 15m hectares by 2030. The Guardian: Regreening program to restore one-sixth of Ethiopia's land.
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Fifteen years years ago the villages around Abrha Weatsbha in northern Ethiopia were on the point of being abandoned. The hillsides were barren, the communities, plagued by floods and droughts, needed constant food aid, and the soil was being washed away.
Today, Abrha Weatsbha in the Tigray region is unrecognisable and an environmental catastrophe has been averted following the planting of many millions of tree and bush seedlings. Wells that were dry have been recharged, the soil is in better shape, fruit trees grow in the valleys and the hillsides are green again.
The “regreening” of the area, achieved in just a few years for little cost by farming communities working together to close off large areas to animals, save water and replant trees, is now to be replicated across one sixth of Ethiopia – an area the size of England and Wales. The most ambitious attempt yet to reduce soil erosion, increase food security and adapt to climate change is expected to vastly increase the amount of food grown in one of the most drought- and famine-prone areas of the world.
Bale Mountains, Ethiopia: Trees and shrubs can be seen growing on the steeper slopes along a ravine that was once plagued by erosion. Photograph: Aaron Minnick/WRI
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Burkina Faso's President Blaise Compaore has announced his resignation, following violent protests at his attempt to extend his 27-year rule. BBC: Burkina Faso unrest: President Blaise Compaore resigns.
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Mr Compaore issued a statement saying the presidency was now vacant and urging elections within 90 days.
An army spokesman also broke the news to cheering demonstrators in the capital, Ouagadougou.
On Thursday, protesters angry at Mr Compaore's attempt to amend the constitution set fire to parliament. Following the protests, Mr Compaore said he had agreed not to seek another term, but that he would remain in power until a transitional government had completed its work in 2015.
However, the opposition continued to demand that he resign. Its leader, Zephirin Diabre, urged protesters to occupy public spaces. There were cheers when the army spokesman told the crowd gathered in front of army headquarters on Friday that Mr Compaore had left office, AFP news agency reports.
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One state is failing in almost every imaginable way. The reason why is rooted in its violent and racist past. Slate: Mississippi’s Race to the Bottom.
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Driven by its high poverty rate, Mississippi ranks low on health and wellness. It has one the highest rates of obesity, heart disease, and diabetes in the country, as well as the highest mortality rate for infants and adults. These ills are worst among its black residents: 43.2 percent of Mississippi blacks are afflicted by obesity and its associated problems and 44 percent live at or below the poverty line, compared with a—still high—30.2 percent obesity rate and 16 percent poverty rate for whites.
Which is to say that, more than anywhere else, the Affordable Care Act is necessary in Mississippi. But, as Sarah Varney describes in a vital piece for Politico Magazine, the state’s Tea Party–tinged Republican leadership—including Gov. Phil Bryant—refuses to budge. Not only did it shutter a state-run private exchange for individuals to purchase health insurance, it refused the Medicaid expansion, which would have extended coverage to those living in desperate poverty. The latter consequence is especially destructive.
As designed, the Affordable Care Act provides Medicaid for everyone at or below 133 percent of the poverty line and subsidized private insurance for everyone above. Chief Justice John Roberts and the Supreme Court made the expansion optional, but they failed to extend the subsidies to poorer families, which left a gap. If you’re too poor to qualify for subsidies—but don’t qualify for the present Medicaid program in your state—you’re left in the cold. In Mississippi, this leaves 138,000 residents—most of them black—with no insurance options at all.
In addition, the state’s full rejection of the ACA has thrown the existing hospital system into chaos. “[The hospitals] had been banking on newly insured patients to replace the federal support for hospitals serving the uninsured, which was set to taper off as people gained coverage,” writes Varney. “Now, instead of more people getting more care in Mississippi, in many cases, they would get less.” It’s a disaster. A worsening of conditions for a state that—Varney notes—is already last in life expectancy, per capita income, and child literacy.
We know why Mississippi Republicans refuse to work with the ACA: A hyper-ideological, small government conservatism that disdains social programs and public investment. But it’s worth a look at the history behind that conservatism, which lives strongest in Mississippi but exists throughout the Deep South.
Mississippi has poor social outcomes and a threadbare safety net. It also has—and has long had—the largest black population in the country. And it’s where slavery was very lucrative, and Jim Crow most vicious. This is not a coincidence.
Mississippi state flag
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