Commentary: African American Scientists and Inventors
by Black Kos Editor, Sephius1
Throughout his life, Hyman Y. Chase was a man of great intellectual stature who liked to remind mere mortals, in a booming voice, that he had a PhD from Leland J. Stanford University. In 1936, at the age of 34, he was appointed Chairman of Howard University’s Zoology Department, which was financed by the Julius Rosenwald Fund.
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Chase was undoubtedly a brilliant academic, but by 1939, he was getting restless in the winds of war. Thanks to supporters like Eleanor Roosevelt, blacks were going to play a larger part in this war, and would no longer be relegated to the roles of truck-drivers and cooks. Talk of a black infantry regiment forming at Fort Devens, Massachusetts, stirred Chase to action. He left his job at Howard and entered active military service in 1940. His education earned him an officer’s rank and made him one of the first black commanding officers.
It was a tough road ahead. Chase’s first regiment was delayed at port in Virginia because the state government would not tolerate a large battalion of armed blacks in one of its ports. Chase endured this indignity, and the 366th Infantry Division was eventually deployed to North Africa. Chase’s unit ended up in Italy, where they were cut down by German fire on the Po River. Later, during occupation duty in Germany, Chase helped to mastermind the brilliant logistical plan to airlift supplies to the embattled city of Berlin, which had been blockaded by Soviet forces.
Throughout the war, charges of cowardice were made against black soldiers. Chase saw first-hand that the white officers assigned to black units were substandard, and believed that the real issue was poor leadership. (In the 1990s, Medals of Honor were awarded to seven black soldiers who served in the units that had been so harshly criticized during the war.) He knew that, in the future, it would be necessary to include well-trained black officers in the officer corp. By the time the war ended, Chase was motivated by a fury that only a man of his intelligence could focus and control. His fiery attitude angered many white officers, and he was forced to defend himself against charges that were intended to ruin his career......Read More
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News by dopper0189, Black Kos Managing Editor
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The thugs who pushed a black man from a train remind us all that, despite the good work in eradicating discrimination, we still have far to go. The Guardian: Racists in Paris present depressing image of Chelsea, football and Britain.
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The thuggery and racism of the Chelsea supporters filmed shoving a black passenger off the waiting train in the Paris Métro on a prestigious European football night were laden with symbolism as well as shock. The fact it happened underground carried a powerful signal that such unabashed racist chanting, and these people’s sense of entitlement to casually assault a complete stranger, persist despite all football’s many campaigns and efforts to counter it, including by Chelsea themselves.
With similarly awful timing to the Wigan owner Dave Whelan’s appointment of Malky Mackay as manager– who was and remains under investigation by the Football Association for racism – the day after Wigan won an award for community club of the year, these Chelsea fans’ behaviour stuck two fingers up at the “Game for Equality” Chelsea are scheduled to hold against Burnley on Saturday.
That game highlights some of the efforts Chelsea have made in recent years to counter the racism for which a group of its fans from the 1970s onwards caused the club toxic notoriety. It is part of the “Building Bridges” initiative, running since 2010, advertising anti-discrimination on advertising hoardings at every home game, with a video promoting equality shown before the match. The game, carrying the slogan “Support Chelsea Support Equality” has been backed up by features on Chelsea’s website opposing racism, homophobia, sexism and all discrimination. The latest, an interview with star striker Diego Costa talking about the club “setting an example” on “eradicating all forms of discrimination from football and wider society” – went up on the same day the film of the fans on the Métro chanting “We’re racist, we’re racist, and that’s the way we like it” went global.
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Thirty-seven people have died in an air strike in southern Niger, local officials say. BBC: Air strike 'kills dozens of mourners' in Niger.
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They were attending a funeral ceremony in Abadam village on the border with Nigeria when an unidentified plane began dropping bombs.
The incident came as the Nigerian army said more than 300 militants were killed in nearby north-east Nigeria during operations targeting Boko Haram.
Two soldiers lost their lives and 10 more were wounded in Borno state. Nigerian defence spokesman Chris Olukolade said that a number of Boko Haram fighters had been captured and weapons and equipment seized.
The number of militant deaths has not been independently verified.
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A fallen African dictator is likely to face a new kind of African justice. Economist: A pan-African trial, at last.
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ONE of Africa’s most bloodstained former leaders, Hissène Habré, is likely to be formally charged in the next few days by a special African court with having committed a string of atrocities when he was president of Chad from 1982-1990. The judges of the so-called Extraordinary African Chambers, set up in 2012 in Senegal, will decide what charges he must face.
Mr Habré, now aged 72, has been living in Senegal since fleeing from Chad at the end of his reign. He is alleged to have committed crimes against humanity, war crimes and torture. Around 40,000 people are reckoned to have been killed and many more tortured during his rule, according to Chad’s truth commission. His trial is likely to start in May or June.
It has been a labyrinthine process. “The case has bounced around for the past 15 years,” says Reed Brody of Human Rights Watch, a New York-based monitoring group, which has been working with victims of Mr Habré to bring him to justice. They filed a case against him in 2000, whereupon he was indicted by a Senegalese court and arrested. But Mr Habré had powerful friends in Senegal. Its government interminably dragged its feet.
But in 2012 Belgium, where the victims had sought justice invoking an unusual law that enables it to prosecute anyone for human-rights abuses wherever committed, won a case against Senegal at the International Court of Justice, the UN’s main judicial organ for adjudicating disputes between states. The court ordered Senegal to prosecute Mr Habré or extradite him. A new Senegalese president, Macky Sall, gave the case a fresh lease of life, with the eager backing of Aminata Touré, an anti-corruption campaigner who served as his prime minister until last summer. With the endorsement of the African Union (AU), they oversaw the innovative creation of the Extraordinary African Chambers.
Hissène Habré
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For the first time, British society could grasp the horrific conditions experienced by people who had little control over their fate. Centuries later, the haunting imagery of the ship’s cargo still resonates. The Root: How a Look Inside a Slave Ship Turned the Tide Toward Abolition.
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Reduced to its essential details, the slim lines of an 18th-century sailing vessel reveal the shocking accommodation of its interior to the transportation of African slaves across the far reaches of the Atlantic Ocean. The cleanly outlined juxtaposition of cross section and bird’s-eye views of the interior recalls the rational mindset of the Enlightenment, here applied with a great moral resolve to redressing the most egregious injustice of the age.
Known as the Brooks, the ship had been measured for the express purpose of producing this print. The inspection took place at its home base of Liverpool, a thriving seaport farther up the west coast of Britain from the national capital of London. In the print, an extensive account of the ship and the conditions of its use in the trade appears in densely set type below the image of the ship.
The sensibility of the viewer to the graphic depiction of human misery within the ship’s hold is abetted by the lengthy account of the experience of the hundreds of slaves packed aboard during their long voyage. The four columns of text begin with a comparison of the arrangement of slaves, shipped according to recently passed regulations governing the maximum capacity of the ship, with an account of the far greater number of captives carried on a previous voyage. According to the chart, the allowable limit was 454 souls, which makes the conditions even more appalling given the figure of more than 600 that was confirmed by the examination of shipping records.
Description of a Slave Ship, 1789. Wood engraving with letterpress text, approximately 500 by 440 mm.
MENIL COLLECTION, HOUSTON
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The end of an era? Talking Point Memo: The End of Black Respectability Politics.
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“Black respectability politics” describes African-Americans’ self-policing morality and propriety in order to better reflect themselves to the white mainstream. I would be lying if I said I didn’t benefit from the cultural gymnastics of learning and adapting to mainstream etiquette, values, dress codes, hairstyles and preferred media. This is how most people, regardless of race and class, try to live. There is nothing wrong with self-improvement, dressing well and speaking proper English.
But black respectability politics is more than self-help and discipline. It’s like living your life as a job interview. Forever. It is a state of always striving to impress and never arriving at the promised land of equality. It’s a mindfuck, because in order to be “equal” to whiteness, I have to take it upon myself to do more, to counteract the feeling that I am less.
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In 2014, BRP just may have died of its wounds. From the diminishment of its main spokesman Bill Cosby, to the wholesale discrediting of police murders where BRP buzzwords like “thug” were lobbed at black victims, to even President Obama’s gradual abandonment of lecture-y speeches directed at the black community, “respectabilility” reads as hollow and manipulative to a new generation.
President Obama has come a long way from the days of scolding black families for feeding their kids a cold Popeye’s dinner. Six years ago, he was the Platonic ideal of a BRP candidate. He was clean, articulate and uncorrupted. He even weathered attempts to associate him with Reverend Jeremiah Wright, the radical, evil, crazy Negro. For a second there, it seemed like respectability politics could work if all blacks just kept a pristine record, graduated from Harvard, lead a quiet life, came from a biracial background, had beautiful kids and a dynamic wife, said all the right things, made all the right moves. Perhaps Obama would singlehandedly be able to overcome 400 years of America’s intractable execration of the black body and mind by just being…perfect.
We all know how this hypothesis has played out. Despite the brilliant speeches, the painstaking compromises, foreign policy successes, legislative achievements and, to some, being one of the most objectively successful presidents in America’s history, he is still unpopular with vast sections of white America. If a black man like Obama is still hated by almost half the population, then what hope is there for the average middle class family, a single mother, the teenage kid with a hoodie, the creative artist who likes to provoke, or the philosopher who proposes change? What hope is there for me?
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Income inequality is in the news, but racial income inequality often get over looked. The New Republic: Urban Institute Study: Minorities Have Built Less Wealth Than Whites.
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By age 61, the median white person has earned $2 million over their lifetime. The median African-American and Hispanic have earned $1.5 million and $1 million, respectively. The higher lifetime earnings allows white to save more, and those savings earn more interest—wealth begets more wealth.
This gap is also apparent in average liquid retirement savings, which the researchers define as including “dollars in accounts as 401(k), 403(b) and IRAs.” These are common vehicles for retirement. The Fed study found that 43 percent of Americans are using a 401(k), 403(b) or other defined contribution pension plan through an employer. Another 23 percent of Americans have an IRA (some have both). It’s important for families that they have some liquid retirement savings. It’s always great to build up wealth in a house. But you don’t want to have to sell the house to afford basic needs during retirement.
The Urban Institute report reveals just how little African-American and Hispanic families have in liquid retirement savings, particularly compared to white families. In 2013, the average white family had more than $130,000 in liquid retirement savings, compared to $19,000 for the average African-American family and $12,000 for the average Hispanic family.
In some ways, this understates the retirement crisis for everyone—African-American and Hispanic families, as well as whites. The Urban Institute also looked at liquid retirement savings for the median family, not the average. That’s important because a few very rich people at the top of the income distribution can distort the statistics: Say 20 people are in a bar, each of whom make $50,000 a year. Then Bill Gates walks into the bar. Suddenly, the average income of each person in the bar skyrockets. But that’s just a result of Gates’s exorbitant income, not everyone in the bar getting richer. Using the median overcomes this problem.
“Median wealth shows how the typical person is doing,” said Signe-Mary McKernan, one of the researchers behind the study. “If you line everybody up in order, you’re just grabbing out that middle person and seeing how they are doing.”
And that’s where the liquid retirement savings data is most alarming. The median white family has just $5,000 in liquid retirement savings, up from $1,500 in 1998. For African-American and Hispanic families, the median is zero.
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