Commentary by Black Kos editor JoanMar
CNN’s premier prime-time program, AC360 hosted by Anderson Cooper ( 5th highest-paid tv anchor), had less than half a minute to talk about one of the most momentous events of the last 232 years. I patiently waited, only to find that when they did get around to mentioning it, it was only in the context of discussing the latest egregious ruling from this radical, over-reaching supreme court.
Shame on you, CNN.
Yes, Ketanji Jackson Brown became an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court and in the immortal words of Joe Biden, it was a big F’ing deal! We refuse to allow the deluge of negative news to overshadow this fulfillment of the “dream and hope of the slaves.” Generations of our ancestors paid in lives & limbs; blood, sweat, and tears for this moment and it deserves to be celebrated every step of the way.
As President Joe Biden noted:
"[H]er historic swearing in today represents a profound step forward for our nation, for all the young, Black girls who now see themselves reflected on our highest court, and for all of us as Americans."
Let’s celebrate Justice Ketanji Jackson Brown.
"With a full heart, I accept the solemn responsibility of supporting and defending the Constitution of the United States and administering justice without fear or favor, so help me God. I am truly grateful to be part of the promise of our great Nation,"
MVP:
And this:
Let’s remember to keep our sister in our thoughts and prayers. She is gonna need our fortifying support.
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News round up by dopper0189, Black Kos Managing Editor
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Ketanji Brown Jackson made history on Thursday after officially being sworn in as the first Black woman justice to serve on the Supreme Court of the United States. Jackson, who is the 104th associate justice to join the high court, filled the seat left vacant by Justice Stephen Breyer, who retired just hours before Justice Jackson’s swearing-in.
Jackson took two oaths of office, one administered by Chief Justice John Roberts, and the other by outgoing Justice Breyer. She was met with applause from a small number of invited guests at the Supreme Court, including her husband and two daughters.
In a letter dated Wednesday and addressed to President Joe Biden, Breyer, 83, expressed his intent to retire from his service on the court after serving 28 years on the bench.
Noting the president’s nomination of Jackson and subsequent confirmation by the U.S. Senate, Breyer wrote, “I understand that she is prepared to take the prescribed oaths to begin her service as the 116th member of this court.”
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Black women seek abortions at the highest rate and will face greater rates of maternal mortality without the right to choose. VOX: Black women will suffer the most without Roe
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The United States is now a country without a legal right to an abortion. In this new reality, Black women will suffer the most.
Black women are more likely to live in areas where it’s harder to access contraception. They get abortions at the highest rates compared to women of other races, due to high rates of unintended pregnancy.
The factors that lead some Black women to seek abortions are present from the day they are born, passed down from mothers who faced similar plights. Those born into poverty are less likely to have access to health care, let alone reproductive or maternal health care; when some Black women are able to seek care, they face medical racism. For centuries, Black women have fought for autonomy over their bodies, against government-sanctioned abuse and abuse from intimate partners. The end of a constitutional right to legal abortion makes the fight harder.
State-level abortion restrictions have already taken effect in at least eight states, and in total, 22 states have laws that impose very strict restrictions on abortions. Those states are home to 39 percent of the total US population, but 45 percent of Black women and girls under age 55.
The consequences will be dire. The end of legal abortion will trap Black women in cycles of poverty. The consequences will also be deadly. Black women have the highest rates of maternal mortality and pregnancy complications, and those risks will only increase if more Black women have to carry unwanted pregnancies to term. Here are the numbers that show how alarming the situation is.
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For the past few years, Black social media influencers and content creators have put social media companies on notice that they play a major role in what goes viral on their platforms and deserve to be recognized (and compensated) for their work. Since then, TikTok, YouTube and others have gone out of their way to launch programs designed to support and nurture creators of color. After all, a world without our dance videos, beauty tutorials and duets would not be a fun place to be.
Now Snapchat is working with Google Pixel, UNCMMN, and Will and Jada Pinkett Smith’s Westbrook Media to support the work of Black content creators through their Black Creator Accelerator program. The year-long program begins in November 2022 and will provide 25 Black content creators with a $10,000 per month stipend to support their efforts from idea to execution, personal mentorship, networking opportunities and access to workshops led by experts across Snapchat. Google Pixel will also provide brand new Quick Tap to Snap-enabled Pixel 7 Pro devices.
Eligible applicants must be emerging content creators who are 18 years or older and self-identify as Black. They must also create positive content that aligns with Snapchat’s values of empathy and kindness. The company says this program is a part of a larger effort to level the playing field and provide more opportunities for Black content creators to find success on the platform.
“Black creators face unique systemic barriers across the creator industry— from disparities in compensation and attribution, to toxic experiences and more,” the company said in a statement. “We believe one of the ways we can help remove some of those barriers is to provide mentorship and financial resources to emerging Black creators in the early stages of their professional career.”
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In June, the European Parliament voted to effectively outlaw the sale of new cars using gasoline or diesel by 2035. If approved by the European Union, the move would revolutionize the world’s third-largest auto market after China and the United States—and hasten the global transformation of the entire automotive industry to battery technology.
What the parliamentarians didn’t mention: The world cannot mine and refine the vast amounts of minerals that go into batteries—lithium, nickel, cobalt, manganese, palladium, and others—at anywhere close to the scale for this rapid transition to electric vehicles (EVs) to occur. The dirty secret of the green revolution is its insatiable hunger for resources from Africa and elsewhere that are produced using some of the world’s dirtiest technologies. What’s more, the accelerated shift to batteries now threatens to replicate one of the most destructive dynamics in global economic history: the systematic extraction of raw commodities from the global south in a way that made developed countries unimaginably rich while leaving a trail of environmental degradation, human rights violations, and semipermanent underdevelopment all across the developing world.
Some countries are trying to buck this trend and get a bigger share of energy transition riches. Indonesia, for example, introduced a ban on the export of raw nickel ore in 2020, effectively forcing foreign companies to relocate their nickel processing to Indonesia. But many economists question whether such bans actually spur development. In a competitive global market, such initiatives are frequently stymied by a lack of local skills and logistics networks. Bolivia similarly attempted to add value to its lithium reserves, with only lackluster results so far.
But it’s not just economics. As battery metals take on a strategic significance in many ways similar to the central role long played by oil, it will be very hard for developing countries with significant resources to keep their development trajectories from being hijacked by geopolitics. No country illustrates that problem better than the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which controls the world’s largest known reserves of cobalt—a metal that has emerged as key to the green transition, not least because EV batteries produced with cobalt tend to allow longer driving distances between charges.
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