COMMENTARY: AFRICAN AMERICAN SCIENTISTS AND INVENTORS
By Black Kos Editor, Sephius1
You don't have to be a rocket scientist to be successful—unless, like Aprille Ericsson-Jackson, your goal in life is to be an aerospace engineer. Ms. Ericsson-Jackson, the first African American female Ph.D. at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, delivered the Library's 2001 Women's History Month keynote address on March 6.
"Read, read, read, and learn, learn, learn," she advised the audience, which included third-grade students from Watkins Elementary School in Washington, D.C.
In addition to building satellites, delivering motivational speeches, mentoring young people and participating in a wide variety of sports, Ms. Ericsson-Jackson has made the time to read and learn about the technological contributions of women and minorities.
"If I'm a 'giant in science,' it is only because I stand on the shoulders of my forefathers," she said. "We must go back and reclaim our past so we can move forward."
Undeterred from her goal of becoming an astronaut, Ms. Ericsson-Jackson earned a master's degree in engineering from Howard University in 1992 and accepted her current position as an aerospace engineer at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland that same year. In 1995 she became the first African American woman to receive a doctorate degree in mechanical engineering from Howard University. She is currently among the 10 percent of applicants (350 of 3,500) who have made it through the first round of interviews for NASA's astronaut training program.
By her own admission, Ms. Ericsson-Jackson is on a crusade to reach out to the largest population of math and science underachievers—young girls.
"It's not that they're incapable," she said. "It's just that they have been unwittingly discouraged from succeeding in these fields."
She cited studies that show that through the fifth grade girls and boys score nearly identically in these areas. In the sixth grade, girls' scores plummet, perhaps in response to the social pressures they experience in middle school.....Read More
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News round up by dopper0189, Black Kos Managing Editor
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Dance Theater of Harlem will receive a $4 million gift from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the organization announced on Tuesday. The company’s board of directors will also raise $1 million as part of a matching grant agreement with the Mellon Foundation, for a total infusion of $5 million.
Virginia Johnson, a founding member of Dance Theater of Harlem who was named artistic director in 2009, said the gift would go toward increasing the size of the company from 18 to 20 dancers, supplementing the organization’s lean staff and further encouraging the development of works by women and people of color.
In a statement, Elizabeth Alexander, the Mellon Foundation’s president, said “the Foundation enthusiastically offers its support to Dance Theater of Harlem’s visionary leaders as they guide the company to a bright and flourishing future.”
Dance Theater of Harlem was founded by the New York City Ballet star Arthur Mitchell in 1969 to increase opportunities for dancers of color in the ballet world. By 2004, it employed 44 dancers, but all were laid off that year when it was announced that the company was more than $2 million in debt. The bleeding was stanched, and by 2009, Laveen Naidu, the organization’s executive director at the time, reported that the debt had been reduced by more than half.
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If you want a window on the condition of children in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, there is no better vantage point than the Katanga health centre in the impoverished northern state of Jigawa.
In a hut that passes for a nutrition clinic, a group of 25 women wait with their children. Tiny bodies bearing the hallmarks of acute malnutrition – distended stomachs and twig-thin limbs – are lifted into a weighing harness and their arms measured to check for signs of wasting. Ali, who has just reached his first birthday, weighs only 5kg – the average age of a two-month-old in the UK. His mother is 14.
Sitting under a tree in the forecourt, another severely malnourished child is gasping for breath. Nayo, who is seven months, has the telltale symptoms of severe pneumonia – a collapsed rib cage, deep cough and fever. He desperately needs antibiotics and medical oxygen. The clinic has neither. “I’m worried for his life, there is nowhere to go for help,” his mother tells me.
Nigeria is Africa’s largest economy and a global energy-exporting superpower. It is endowed with vast natural resources. But the country is rooted near the foot of the World Bank’s global league table for human capital – a composite measure capturing the health, education and nutritional status of children.
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In what was the latest but likely most inadvertent incident of cultural appropriation since Gucci’s blackface-sweater scandal this time last year, American legacy brand Ralph Lauren crossed the line—by demonstrating that no one on their design staff has likely ever crossed a black Greek line. (True Confession Time: Neither has this writer, which hopefully doesn’t disqualify me from commenting on what is clearly a very loaded issue, as indicated by The Root’s staff conversation.)
The issue at hand initially arose last week, when Ralph Lauren’s namesake company decided to take their relentlessly preppy aesthetic to the next level by adding some Greek lettering to the back of an otherwise mediocre pair of $334 chinos sold on its French site—except, in this case, the lettering happened to be that of black fraternity Phi Beta Sigma, which celebrated its 106th Founders’ Day on Jan. 9.
Was it blatant and callous appropriation, or the inevitable gaffe of a company that has long benefitted from being promoted within black culture without feeling compelled to pay much attention to it? We all know black folks have long loved themselves some damned Polo, but if Beyoncé has taught us anything, it’s that black Greek culture is a force not to be ignored; a point Phi Beta Sigma’s membership and allies made abundantly clear, first by digital and social media and soon after by the launch of a Color of Change petition calling out Ralph Lauren for copyright infringement.
“If Polo is using these beloved letters so freely, where are the royalties going? To whom did they ask & get permission to use these letters, and why did they feel so comfortable doing this?” asked the petition. “We are demanding that Ralph Lauren do the right thing and RECALL, DESTROY, & PUBLICLY APOLOGIZE for trying to capitalize off of Black Culture!”
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In a powerful video released Thursday, the Congresswoman discussed living with alopecia and the importance of Black women seeing themselves represented. Slate: Ayanna Pressley Broadens the Range of the Black Hair Conversation
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Her waist-long, abundant Senegalese twists were always freaked in a different way. Sometimes half of the braids were pinned off her face as the rest cascaded down her shoulders or in a low ponytail. In her official Congressional profile photo, she opted to have them pulled back in a style that was half-coiffure, half low-twisted bun.
The braids weren’t the only thing that stood out about Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.). She entered Congress in 2019 as part of the most diverse generation of women to arrive on Capitol Hill: an incredibly visible Black woman with a powerful voice, an open desire to create change, and a willingness to throw her political weight behind what she believes is right.
Yet the hair seemed to be an integral part of that visibility. Pressley was one of the few Black women politicians who wore a natural hairstyle. She wore it in spite of other women of color who said her style was “too ethnic,” “too urban” or “wasn’t polished enough.” Seeing an elected official proudly wear her hair in braids mattered.
And then, on Thursday, Pressley announced that the braids were gone. In a powerful video published by The Root, Pressley revealed that she has alopecia areata, an autoimmune disorder that causes the body to attack healthy hair follicles and decrease growth to the point that it may stop.
“My twists have become such a synonymous and a conflated part of not only my personal identity and how I show up in the world but my political brand,” said Pressley. “And that’s why I think it’s important that I’m transparent about this new normal and living with alopecia.”
Pressley’s revelation is a testament to the importance of representation and the multifaceted nature of a Black woman’s hair journey. Her braids stood in defiance to a society that actively singles out, disciplines, and asks Black folks to cut their hair or, at times, violently attacks them for wearing braids and locs. When she initially got the twists five years ago, Pressley said it felt like she was meeting herself for the first time. They morphed into a personal and political statement she was intentional about maintaining—in part because of the number of Black women and girls who openly admired her and were empowered by her decision to keep her hair braided.
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