Commentary by Black Kos editor JoanMar
Let me confess up front that Taylor Swift is not on any of my playlists. None. Further, if I had the discretionary income, I’d have definitely gone to see Queen Bey’s summer concert; it would not have even entered my mind to go see Taylor. I’m outside her sphere of influence. But everything I’ve seen, heard, or read about her tells me that she’s beautiful, intelligent, kind, and compassionate—everything the MAGA universe is not.
I have to admit that I got to exhale a little this week. I go on Twitter and there are no Black women trending in my home timeline. Glory be! A Black woman trending usually means that the hate brigade is out in full force. It really does take a toll on a body having to deal with the bile & vomitus of racists on the regular. It will be a short reprieve, I know, but for now, the haters are preoccupied with a white woman. For now, at least, Taylor Swift will be the most hated woman on their radar. The hate campaign against her will intensify in the next few weeks leading up to the Super Bowl, and then they’ll go back to doing what they love doing most: attacking Black women. Michelle Obama and Serena Williams will be masculinized & dehumanized. Meghan Markle and Kamala Harris will be called every sexist term their limited vocabulary can conjure up, while Letticia James and Fani Willis will have them frothing at the mouth for having the temerity to prosecute their dear leader.
Colin Cowherd had an insightful video on this whole anti-Taylor Swift mania and it’s worth a listen.
I have one point of disagreement with what he said: “Judge people sometimes on the silly stuff that bothers them. It will tell you a lot about them.” To the people who are triggered and moved to commit stochastic terrorism by the sight of this particular white woman loving on her white boyfriend, this is not trivial. This is about their whole universe. These are the same people who hated Kaepernick for bringing attention to police violence and over-policing; they hate the singing of the Black National Anthem at the games, and they really, really hate anything deemed “woke.” It may sound counterintuitive, but the people who hate Taylor Swift are racists.
The most delicious aspect of this astroturfed storm, fomented and led by Fox “News”, is the palpable fear. These MAGA-inspired racist trolls feel genuine fear. They cannot compete in the marketplace of ideas, and they know it. They are on the losing team. Taylor Swift is more popular than any of their false prophets parading around as God’s mouthpieces. She’s more popular than the Orange Clown himself, and that makes him maaad. Millions of young people look up to her and hang onto her every word, and the purveyors of discord and discontent can do nothing about it. Heck, she just may get millions of young and not-so-young people registered to vote, and guess who they are gonna vote for?
Most egregious of all, in their sick minds, she had the temerity to let the whole world know that she’s not on their side! She had the gall to get involved in the political affairs of her country! She refuses to keep her darn mouth shut!
I have not checked in with the delegation, but I’m pretty sure that we’ll vote unanimously to accept Ms. Swift on this side of the aisle. In exchange, I propose that we offer up a packaged deal of Snoop Dogg, Charlamagne, Ice-Cube, Little Wayne, & Kanye.
How do you vote, my peeps?
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News round up by dopper0189, Black Kos Managing Editor
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The Urban Institute, with support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, released the analysis this month. The report defines preventable hospitalizations as inpatient stays for health conditions that could have been avoided with consistent, timely, and high-quality care. For the report, which uses 2019 data, researchers analyzed preventable hospitalization information for 21 states.
Researchers found that the three most common issues that faced Black people for preventable hospitalizations were heart failure, diabetes, and asthma/chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Heart disease had the widest disparity between Black and white Medicaid enrollees who experienced preventable hospitalizations.
“Minimizing preventable hospitalizations improves population health and reduces costs,” Katherine Hempstead, senior policy adviser at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, said in a statement about the analysis. “The data for heart failure are particularly concerning as they show high overall rates as well as large differences by race and disability status, suggesting that enrollees lack sufficient access to high-quality primary care, particularly enrollees that are Black and/or disabled.”
The analysis is just another example of the health care disparities that exist across America, specifically for poor Black people. Black women have the highest rate of maternal mortality, with 69.9 deaths per 100,000 live births as of 2021. Some 56% of Black adults have high blood pressure, compared with 32% of white people. Black children are 30% more likely to have asthma than white kids.
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California state lawmakers introduced a slate of reparations bills on Wednesday, including a proposal to restore property taken by “race-based” cases of eminent domain and a potentially unconstitutional measure to provide state funding for “specific groups.”
The package marks a first-in-the-nation effort to give restitution to Black Americans who have been harmed by centuries of racist policies and practices. California’s legislative push is the culmination of years of research and debate, including 111-pages of recommendations issued last year by a task force.
Other states like Colorado, New York, and Massachusetts have commissioned reparations studies or task forces, but California is the first to attempt to turn those ideas into law.
The 14 measures introduced by the Legislative Black Caucus touch on education, civil rights and criminal justice, including reviving a years-old effort to restrict solitary confinement that failed to make it out of the statehouse as recently as last year.
Not included is any type of financial compensation to descendants of Black slaves, a polarizing proposal that has received a cool response from many state Democrats, including Gov. Gavin Newsom.
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New York City police officers will be required to record the apparent race, gender and ages of most people they stop for questioning under a law passed Tuesday by the City Council, which overrode a
veto by
Mayor Eric Adams.
The issue was thrust into the national spotlight in recent days when NYPD officers pulled over a Black council member without giving him a reason.
The law gives police reform advocates a major win in requiring the nation’s largest police department and its 36,000 officers to document all investigative encounters in a city that once had officers routinely stop and frisk huge numbers of men for weapons — a strategy that took a heavy toll on communities of color.
Since 2001, NYPD officers have been required to document instances in which they have asked someone “accusatory” questions as part of an investigation, detain or search someone or arrest them.
But the new law requires officers to document basic information in low-level encounters, where police ask for information from people who aren’t necessarily suspected of a crime. Officers also will have to report the circumstances that led to stopping a particular person. The data would be made public on the police department’s website.
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On a hillside in Kisii, western Kenya, the congregation of St Peter’s church convened for a special mass on January 7th. “In the Russian calendar…today is Christmas Day,” says Hezekiah Johnson Otara, the priest. To mark the occasion, Mr Otara picked four girls from the 70-odd worshippers and promised to pay their school fees for the coming year.
Mr Otara is one of scores of African priests who have switched to Russia’s branch of Orthodox Christianity as the fallout from the Ukraine war has unexpected consequences across the world. He joined the Patriarchal Exarchate of Africa, which claims jurisdiction over more than 200 parishes in 25 African countries and plans to build schools, hospitals and cathedrals, including a huge “spiritual centre” opposite the presidential palace in Uganda.
One possible reason for the Russian church’s African adventure is to do down the Patriarchate of Alexandria, a branch of the Greek Orthodox Church. The Russian Orthodox Church considers all Ukrainian Orthodox churches to be under its authority. But in 2019 the Greek Orthodox patriarchs of Constantinople and then Alexandria recognised the independence of the newly formed Orthodox Church of Ukraine. Patriarch Kirill, the Russian church’s head, broke off relations with Alexandria and Constantinople, damning their support for Ukrainian “schismatics”.
In revenge the Russians are now muscling in on the Greek Orthodox Church, which claims exclusive jurisdiction over Africa and accuses the Russian church of trying to lure its priests away with money. “They want to humiliate us because of our connection with Ukraine,” says Archbishop Makarios of Nairobi.
Most of the Russian church’s priests in Africa, including Mr Otara, are Greek-trained clerics who have switched teams. In Kenya alone at least 90 have defected—nearly half the total number of African priests whose loyalty the Russian church now claims to command. Asked why he joined the Russians, Mr Otara cites the “schism” in Ukraine. He does not deny, however, that the move also brought some rather worldly benefits: they have doubled his salary, paid for his son to study nursing in Moscow and contributed money to the orphanage he also runs.
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Paul Kagame, the longtime president of Rwanda, wins plaudits abroad for making his tiny country a continental power. But the transformation has meant suppression of dissent and alleged assassinations of critics. Bloomberg: How the West’s Favorite Autocrat Engineered Africa’s Most Dramatic Turnaround
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Once a year, Paul Kagame, the longtime president of Rwanda, hosts a nationally televised program known as Umushyikirano. It’s a unique spectacle, drawing millions of viewers to what amounts to the ritual opening of a complaint box. Kagame assembles politicians and public servants in the Kigali Convention Center, then relays criticisms of their performance and of programs they oversee, sent in via social media or from meeting halls across the country. He calls them to account, often in humiliating fashion.
At the event last February, a businessman rose to complain about having to visit up to five agencies to obtain licenses. This was despite the existence of a “one-stop center” on the ground floor of the Rwanda Development Board’s offices, where entrepreneurs are supposed to be able to get everything they need to set up a business, from permits to immigration services, within six hours.
Umushyikirano serves as an annual reminder of Kagame’s power, as well as the two sides of the equation that has helped him keep it: a ruthless focus on efficiency, laced with a large dose of fear. One Western diplomat calls it both the stuff of dictators and a way of getting real results.
Over the decades, Kagame has become possibly the West’s most important African ally. He wins plaudits abroad for making his tiny country a continental power. But the transformation has meant suppression of dissent and alleged assassinations of critics.
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