Commentary by Black Kos editor JoanMar
Who asked Nikki Haley if America was a racist country? Nobody. She was questioned not about America’s racism but about whether her gawdawful party embraced it. A question she ignored, choosing instead to indulge in another act of sycophantic compliance. “See, MAGA universe, I am one of you! You are safe with me!”
The Republican Party of the 21st century has become a profoundly unserious entity with sickeningly unserious, anti-intellectual leaders. Haley’s appearance on Fox (yet again), the adroitness with which she sidestepped the question she was asked so as to virtue signal to racists, all serve to remind us of the decaying mess that is today’s GOP.
James Baldwin: “I love America more than any other country in the world and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually.”
Racism runs in the very bloodstream of this country, hence, we are talking today about “Nikki” and not “Nimarata” (a beautiful name, btw). Can someone ask her to explain why “Nikki” is more appealing than “Nimarata,” and to whom was she catering when she decided on the name change?
To deny the inherent racism of a country stolen from Indigenous Peoples, who were then labeled as savages, and built upon the dehumanization of Black people, who were then deemed subhuman, is to be disingenuous, cowardly, or clueless. And all those qualities should be disqualifying for anyone seeking to hold high office.
Charles Barkley (of all people) making some sense, "She's 100% correct. If you forget about slavery, Jim Crow, segregation, anti-semitism, Asian hate... America's been smooth sailing!" (This is not an endorsement of his show with Gayle King. They are absolutely awful. The quote is an example of a broken clock being right twice per day.)
Nikki knows — or should know — that the Founding Fathers, all of whom were slave owners at some point, did not have Black, Brown, or Native peoples in their minds when they crafted the constitution. Every single right or concession we enjoy today was paid for with the blood, sweat, and tears of our foreparents. The fight continues to this very day and has become even more pressing. Every single hard-fought victory is now threatened by her gawdawful party and the equally gawdawful people they’ve put in high places. Her party is waging an intense war against their understanding of CRT, DEI, and woke. If they truly do believe that we are not now a racist country, then Nikki Haley and her comrades will make damn sure that we become one in the very near future.
From Madam Vice President:
“We cannot get to a place of progress on the history of race by denying the existence of racism. By denying the history of racism. // It is unfortunate that some would deny fact or overlook it when in fact moving toward progress requires that we speak truth.”
Nikki Haley may not know much, but one thing she does know is that in order for her to succeed in the Republican Party of 2024, she has to be willing to erase/disavow/sacrifice her Brown self and totally embrace the philosophy of whiteness. Her denying the racist roots, limbs, and leaves of the USA is an indication of her total lack of respect for Black folks. I’m not interesting in hearing comments ‘bout, “At least she won’t be as bad as trump.” She is showing that she doesn’t mind spitting in our collective faces so as to gain a head rub from racists. “Good girl, Nikki. Good girl.”
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News round up by dopper0189, Black Kos Managing Editor
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She’s best known as a singer with an explosive voice, who’s sold more than 50 million records and earned two Grammys, and an actress with dozens of TV appearances, including her own ’90s sitcom, Out All Night. But these days, Patti LaBelle—the Godmother of Soul (and Mariah Carey’s real-life godmother)—is just as focused on her food business.
In 2007, LaBelle founded Patti’s Good Life, offering meals and treats from mac and cheese to sweet potato pie. She says sales jumped about 12% last year, to more than $200 million. “I knew I would sing all my life,” LaBelle says. “But I never knew that I would have a food brand. It’s wonderful.”
LaBelle’s love for cooking started as a child, when she created a spicy ketchup in her family’s garage. Even as she rose to stardom, she continued to prepare lots of meals, both at home and on tour. Over the past six decades she’s whipped up grub for legends such as the Rolling Stones, Elton John, Prince, Cyndi Lauper and Richard Pryor. And when dinnertime rolled around, she would proudly write her name on the tray. “I wanted them to know I cooked the food with love and it was not something from a caterer,” she says.
With encouragement from entertainer friends, family and her manager, she decided 15 years ago to start selling her creations to the broader public. Patti’s Good Life began with a line of condiments such as barbecue sauce (inspired by her childhood ketchup experiments) and expanded to comfort foods like collard greens and chicken and biscuits, and desserts including pies, cobblers and cookies—based on LaBelle’s own recipes.
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After a brief surge in performers of color winning Emmys, the awards had fallen back into old habits , until Monday night’s ceremony, which handed out 12 of this year’s prizes to performers of color. LA Times: Diversity makes a comeback among the Emmy performance winners
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In 2020, Black performers earned a record seven wins for acting in drama, comedy and limited series categories. That year, which included the roiling summer of George Floyd protests, saw a massive jump from previous years in terms of Emmy nominations for Black performers. For the five years prior to 2020, 14% of the nominees in comedy, drama and limited series acting categories were Black. In 2020, 33% were — crowned by the record-setting number of winners.
But was it just a blip? In 2021, a year dominated by mostly white-cast shows such as “The Crown” (recording a historic sweep), “Ted Lasso,” “The Queen’s Gambit” and “Hacks,” Black performers collected only guest prizes (Courtney B. Vance in the already canceled “Lovecraft Country” and Maya Rudolph and Dave Chappelle for “Saturday Night Live”).
The next year, 2022, saw records for winners of Asian descent shattered thanks to “Squid Game,” with historic triumphs in many categories, including for lead actor in a drama (Lee Jung-jae) and guest actress in a drama (Lee You-mi). Black performers scored guest actor in a drama (Colman Domingo for “Euphoria”) and lead actress in a drama (Zendaya, repeating for “Euphoria”).
The 2023 Emmys (handed out in January 2024 because of the actors’ and writers’ strikes last year) saw diversity bounce back with a vengeance.
This year saw five Black winners in comedy, drama and limited series categories, one more in short form, and four more for non-acting/non-on-camera performances, including one for a certain former president.
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Major human rights violations are being committed at a vast Del Monte pineapple farm in Kenya where there have been numerous deaths and violence, according to the conclusions of an unpublished report.
The findings, seen by the Guardian, are highly critical of Del Monte Kenya and include claims that the company’s employees are working with a cartel of thieves, providing them with intelligence. The report says the farm has serious problems with organised pineapple theft, losing crops to gangs at a large scale.
British supermarkets that have been supplied by the farm were given a summary of the report conducted by the social auditor Partner Africa last month. Since then, police have been investigating another four deaths of men whose bodies were found in a river over Christmas after they went to the farm near Thika to steal pineapples.
In response to the most recent deaths, Del Monte said it was “cooperating with Kenyan authorities as they continue to investigate the circumstances surrounding the four bodies retrieved from the Thika River”. The company said: “Footage from when the men attempted to steal pineapple shows no foul play on Del Monte’s part.”
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centuries ago in antiquity Ethiopia was a realm at the heart of global trade, But modern Ethiopia is famously landlocked. Washington Post: Ethiopia’s controversial quest for the sea
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Many centuries ago, chroniclers conjured what was in antiquity called Ethiopia as a realm at the heart of global trade. The treasures of Rome and India all flowed through its ports along the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea. Merchants and pilgrims made their way to the Middle East and Mediterranean world via its caravan routes and docks. A 6th-century Byzantine historian described a kingdom with a vast fleet of wooden boats. The ancient Greeks even named the southern part of the Atlantic Ocean, thousands of miles away from the Ethiopian highlands, the Ethiopian Sea.
But modern-day Ethiopia is famously landlocked. Apart from a few decades in the 20th century when Ethiopia had annexed neighboring Eritrea, Africa’s second-most populous nation has never had a coastline. It maintains a meager, mostly riverine navy and pays tiny Djibouti some $1.5 billion a year for the privilege of accessing its ports and coastal infrastructure.
That’s why Abiy Ahmed, the ambitious Ethiopian prime minister, has long harbored visions of reaching the sea. He has groused against his country’s “geographic prison” and summoned the legacy of seafaring medieval empires as one the contemporary Ethiopian state must redeem. Ethiopia’s profound economic woes and constant internecine conflicts have not dented Abiy’s desires for maritime access — indeed, they may fuel them.
And last week, in what was a geopolitical bombshell in the Horn of Africa, Abiy appeared to achieve his goal. Alongside Muse Bihi Abdi, president of the self-declared breakaway Republic of Somaliland, Abiy announced that the two parties had reached a memorandum of understanding that would see Somaliland lease to Ethiopia some 12 miles of its coastline by the port of Berbera. In return, the autonomous entity that exists within the internationally recognized territory of Somalia may win something altogether more valuable: diplomatic recognition from Addis Ababa.
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Imagine your child has broken a bone. You head to the emergency department, but the doctors won't prescribe painkillers. This scenario is one that children of color in the U.S. are more likely to face than their white peers, according to new findings published in The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health.
Researchers reviewed dozens of recent studies looking at the quality of care children receive across a wide spectrum of pediatric specialties. The inequities are widespread, says Nia Heard-Garris, a researcher at Northwestern University and a pediatrician at Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago, who oversaw the review.
"No matter where you look, there are disparities in care for Black Americans, Hispanic, Latinx, Asian Americans — pretty much every racial and ethnic group that's not white," she says.
Heard-Garris says there are lots of examples of inequalities across specialties. The review found children of color are less likely to get diagnostic imaging and more likely to experience complications during and after some surgical procedures. They face longer wait times for care at the emergency room, and they are less likely to get diagnosed and treated for a developmental disability.
The strongest disparity evidence was found in pain management. Kids of color are less likely than their white peers to get painkillers for a broken arm or leg, for appendicitis or for migraines. "Those are some really severe examples of how this plays out," says Dr. Monique Jindal, an assistant professor at the University of Illinois Chicago and one of the authors of the review.
The researchers looked only at studies that included children who had health insurance, "so we cannot blame the lack of insurance for causing these disparities," Heard-Garris says.
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