Summer Interlude
by Chitown Kev
Look, y’all...I need an interlude today so…
Y’all know that most discussions of soul/R&B music will, at some point, simply become a contest between Detroit soul and Philly soul.
You know it, don’t deny it...it just...is.
And when it comes to the Aretha/Patti battles, I am on Team Aretha...of course.
I don’t recall seeing this tribute to Aretha where Patti sang “Ain’t No Way” but...as the tweeter here says, Aretha’s nod says it all!
Chile, Patti put her foot in this!
Not bad for an “Illuminati globalist puppet,” now is it?
Chile...my week got started off ALL wrong with that shit!
(Yeah, that was the same dude that took a joke that Beyonce was really Italian seriously and just blew it up).
Honestly, this stuff is kinda funny on one hand.
On the other hand, the QAnon folks are serious about their batshit and, therefore, they put other in danger.
This next selection is one that I saw through a retweet by Boston Globe columnist Renee Graham.
This last little bit today is courtesy of one of my favorite people to follow on Twitter, @BlackWomenViews
I did a little digging…
and this one...(sorry for the repeats!)
That’s it, that’s all for today...and for my Black Kos interlude for the rest of this year!
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NEWS ROUND UP BY DOPPER0189, BLACK KOS MANAGING EDITOR
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A Black high school athlete says his dreams were dashed when he was attacked with racist taunts during a baseball game in Iowa.
Jeremiah Chapman, a junior who was playing in his first game with Charles City High School since the coronavirus pandemic put the country on lockdown, was met with cheers from some and racist chants from others in the game against Waverly-Shell Rock High School
According to CNN, Chapman was called “Colin,” and told “You should have been George Floyd” and “Get back to the fields.” He says the incident has left him disheartened.
“I try my hardest to have everyone like me because that’s just my personality,” Chapman said. “And it’s just hard seeing that no matter how hard I try, people can’t accept me because of my skin color.”
His mother, Keisha Cunnings, was not at the game, but received messages from people in attendance. She hopes this is a wake-up call for her son.
“I was angry because as a parent, this is the one fear I have for him,” she said. “The other part of me was kind of relieved that it did happen because it opened Jeremiah’s eyes to not be so naive and colorblind and ignorant to the fact that things like this still happen.”
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It’s often said that if Black people took up arms and marched through the streets, gun laws would get passed with the quickness. It’s been said we could never get away with it the way mobs of white protesters have been able to this year alone. Well, on the Fourth of July, about 1,000 heavily armed Black people challenged those theories by marching through Georgia’s Stone Mountain Park to call for the removal of America’s largest Confederate monument—the 76 by 158-foot carving depicting Confederate President Jefferson Davis and Generals Robert E. Lee and Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson.
Newsweek reports that the massive yet peaceful march was organized by the Not Fucking Around Coalition (NFAC), a group whose “initial goal was to have a formation of our militia in Stone Mountain to send a message that as long as you’re abolishing all these statues across the country, what about this one?” according to the groups founder Grand Master Jay.
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At the foot of Theo and Gloria Ferguson’s property stands a giant silk cotton tree. Reminiscent of those enchanted species in children’s fables, this ancient sentinel’s huge varicose limbs yawn upwards and outwards, towards a canopy of leaves that scratch the sky. Eight adults linking arms would struggle to encircle its vast girth, proof of the aeons it has stood guarding the edge of Trinidad’s Maracas valley.
It could be that this tree was a mere sapling when the indigenous people who first lived here named this land Iere, or “Land of the Hummingbird”. So bewitched were they by these bejewelled creatures that they created a myth to protect the birds, which they believed represented the souls of their dead. According to the legend, the La Brea Pitch Lake – a sprawling bitumen wonder in the south-west of Trinidad, now a Unesco world heritage site – was once the home of the Chima Indians. However, the tribe induced the wrath of the gods by dining on hummingbirds at a celebratory feast. In their fury, the gods opened up the earth and summoned the sulphurous lake of pitch to consume the village and its people.
The Amerindians and their myths could not protect the hummingbird for ever. The birds’ population and that of its human defenders was nearly decimated when the first European settlers arrived on the islands 500 years ago. The hummingbird’s striking plumage, exemplified by names such as ruby-throated, emerald-chinned and blue-chinned sapphire, was highly prized in the courts of 19th-century Europe, where its feathers were worn as jewellery. The trade in thousands of birds was only halted with the introduction of the 1918 Migratory Bird Treaty Act. It took decades for the island’s hummingbird population to recover – with some species disappearing altogether.
Today, the twin islands of Trinidad and Tobago have 19 species of this tiny creature, each the size of an adult thumb. Hummingbirds are found exclusively in the Americas and this vast continent has approximately 345 species, mostly located in the northern Andes.
The Fergusons’ lush garden, in the shadow of the silk cotton tree, teems with hundreds of hummingbirds daily. Fifteen species have been spotted in the garden, including a new discovery in October 2019, the glittering-throated emerald. Entering the space, a tropical oasis of vivid, trumpet-shaped blooms, the air beats with the frenzied wings of these tiny creatures, which flit, zoom and shimmer among the scarlet feeders like miniature rainbow-coloured strobes.
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The government said three laboratories in Canada, South Africa and Zimbabwe would be asked to "process the samples taken from the dead elephants". More than 350 elephant carcasses have been spotted in Botswana's Okavango Delta in the past two months.
No-one knows why the animals are dying in Botswana - home to a third of Africa's declining elephant population. In a report prepared for the government, conservation organisation Elephants Without Borders (EWB) said its aerial surveys showed that elephants of all ages appeared to be dying, according to Reuters.
Dr Niall McCann, of the UK-based charity National Park Rescue, earlier this week told the BBC that local conservationists first alerted the government in early May, after they undertook a flight over the delta.
"They spotted 169 in a three-hour flight," he said. "To be able to see and count that many in a three-hour flight was extraordinary. "A month later, further investigations identified many more carcasses, bringing the total to over 350."
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“I am pleased to report that yesterday, federal agents arrested the suspected ringleader of the attack on the statue of the great Andrew Jackson in Washington, D.C.”
This is how the President started his rally at Mount Rushmore on Friday, in what was a clear attempt to drive a “full-on culture war,” according to a report from the New York Times.
Trump’s remarks at the event, where he was joined on stage by family and staffers who wore no masks, were mostly about riling up his base against the ongoing movement for racial justice—which has included the toppling of monuments to bigotry.
“As we meet here tonight, there is a growing danger that threatens every blessing our ancestors fought so hard far,” said Trump. “Our nation is witnessing a merciless campaign to wipe out our history, defame our heroes, erase our values, and indoctrinate our children.”
“They think the American people are weak, and soft, and submissive,” added the President, making it obvious for the umpteenth time that he believes ‘American’ is synonymous with white.
Ironically, the event was marked with protests from Native Americans, including members of the Sioux tribe—from whom the sacred Black Hills were stolen by the U.S. government and then made into a veneration of white men with the help of a KKK member.
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Crisp-crunching, straight-talking and unabashedly fond of fame, 19-year-old Kenyan student Elsa Majimbo has become an unlikely hero of the coronavirus pandemic. Viral videos filmed in her bedroom while under lockdown in Nairobi – during which she updates followers on her search for a boyfriend and warns her future child that they will never be given a car (“You have legs. Two in fact.”) – have made Majimbo a social media star.
“Ever since corona started we’ve all been in isolation,” one of her most famous videos begins, seeming as though it will continue with a heartfelt message.
“And I miss no one!” she says, laughing with abandon. “Why am I missing you? There is no reason for me to miss you.”
She continues: “And these ones who keep on telling me ‘I miss you’. Why?” She repeats the question four times. “Do I pay your school fees? Do I pay your rent? Do I provide food for you? Why are you missing me?”
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"It’s in the quiet moments where racism and unconscious bias lies and thrives," Meghan Markle said while talking to young people from the Queen's Commonwealth Trust The Grio: Meghan Markle, Prince Harry talk racism with Commonwealth youth leaders
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In response to the international Black Lives Matter movement, sparked by the killing of George Floyd, the couple recently joined in on a video conversation about the fight for equality with young leaders from across the world linked to the Queen’s Commonwealth Trust.
The QCT has held weekly discussions about fairness, justice and equality, and on July 1, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex joined the video conference where challenging unconscious bias was a key part of the conversation.
Harry, 35, serves as president of the QCT while Meghan, 38, is vice-president — positions they have continued since their departure from their frontline royal roles.
In the video conversation, Meghan and Harry spoke with Chrisann Jarrett, QCT Trustee and co-founder and co-CEO of We Belong; Alicia Wallace, director of Equality Bahamas; Mike Omoniyi, founder and CEO of The Common Sense Network; and Abdullahi Alim who leads the World Economic Forum's Global Shapers network of emerging young leaders in Africa and the Middle East.
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WELCOME TO THE TUESDAY’S PORCH
IF YOU ARE NEW TO THE BLACK KOS COMMUNITY, GRAB A SEAT, SOME CYBER EATS, RELAX, AND INTRODUCE YOURSELF.