Thank you Black Twitter. Drag on!
Commentary by Black Kos Editor Denise Oliver-Velez
Black folks who have had to live through centuries of abuse have developed a razor sharp style of riposte humor that helps us laugh away some of the daily pain of racist abuse we suffer through. Whether we called it playing the dozens. or “reading” someone, in these days of social media platforms it’s often a matter of “dragging” or “ratioing” offenders. No where has it been more honed to perfection than on Black Twitter, and because Black Twitter, which is an estimated 25% of Twitter users, still stands — despite the despicable actions of its owner, Elon Musk, Black Twitter users are still doing their thing, even while they may opt to try out some of the new platforms.
Black Twitter is why I am still there.
The most recent example is Black Twitterati dragging the right-wing, white supremacist “Moms for Liberty” hate group took place around their visit to Philly.
‘Klanned Karenhood’: Philadelphians And Black Twitter Roast Conservative Moms For Liberty Group
Leave it to Black Twitter to take over a proper dragging of a person or group who steps out of line. Even while debates rage over whether users will stay on the app or migrate over to one of its rivals, Black Twitter users have been taking the time to roast everyone from presidential candidate Nikki Haley to Keke Palmer’s boyfriend. In the midst of all that, they’ve carved out some time to drag the conservative group Moms for Liberty.
Philadelphia did not welcome Moms for Liberty
This particular roasting actually began offline. Moms for Liberty, a Florida-based ultraconservative group that is close to Gov. Ron DeSantis and the MAGA movement, held a convention last Friday in Philadelphia, inviting DeSantis, Trump and other top Republicans. They did not, however, anticipate how many people would show up to give them a piece of their mind. Groups like ACT UP Philadelphia and the Philadelphia Young Communist League organized protests outside the convention’s venue. Local Philadelphians and others who oppose Moms for Liberty’s agenda, which includes banning Black and LGBTQ-friendly books from schools, came out in force to protest the group and to publicly drag them. Protesters wielded signs with messages like “We Don’t Co-Parent With Fascists,’ and ‘Klanned Karenhood: Coming for a School Near You.'”
Some examples:
This struck an historical chord:
And it’s not just Black folks getting into the act. Editorial cartoonist Jesse Duquette, had no issue pointing out their racism.
They ain’t my momma, nor are they gonna get away with stealing “joyful warrior” which we all know is MVP Kamala Harris’ tag.
What’s your favorite name for them?
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News round up by dopper0189, Black Kos Managing Editor
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South Ocean Boulevard is a thin road that runs parallel to the beach on South Carolina’s Grand Strand. It stretches eight miles across the coveted coast of North Myrtle Beach, then stops abruptly at 28th Avenue. Here, across a narrow strip of undeveloped land, is where Atlantic Beach starts — one of the few Black-owned beach towns in the United States.
From an aerial view, Atlantic Beach is a 92-acre cut out in North Myrtle Beach; an interruption in the coastline. The town spans just four blocks, comprising mostly of beach homes and small family-owned motels. But for more than three decades, this small tract of land was a bustling vacation destination for hundreds of Black travelers and one of the few places where Black people could experience the ocean in a segregated south. It was known as “The Black Pearl.”
Those who remember the height of Atlantic Beach say the community has become a ghost town after years of decline. For decades, residents, city officials and property owners have debated on the best ways to preserve the town’s history while also reinvigorating tourism and returning the town to the shining pearl it once was.
Atlantic Beach began in 1934, when George Tyson, a Black business owner from Wilmington, N.C., purchased 47 acres of beachfront property. A few years later, he purchased an additional tract of land, located on the west side of the highway and adjacent to the initial tract.
Tyson wanted to create an oasis for Black travelers. In the Jim Crow era of the late 1800s and early 1900s, beaches — like many public places — were segregated by race. A sprinkling of Black resort towns would sprout up during this time, including Highland Beach in Maryland and American Beach on Florida’s Amelia Island.
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Uniting Black cosplayers, anime lovers, gamers, Black nerds and more, the 7th annual Blerdcon kicked things off Friday in Crystal City, Va. The Grio: Blerdcon 2023 opens with a high-energy first day
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The seventh annual Black Nerd (or “Blerd”) convention officially kicked off Friday afternoon in the grand ballroom of the Hyatt Regency in Crystal City, Va., with a panel featuring Rachel True ( of the cult-classic film “The Craft”), a late-night dance party celebrating Cree Summer, spades and Uno tournaments, and hundreds of Black cosplayers.
Pushing past stereotypes was a theme of the day. While discussing stereotypes Black people face during her opening ceremony panel, actress True said, “We were put into those boxes; it doesn’t mean we have to stay there.”
Blerdcon is a celebration of stepping out of the box. For three days (four, if you count Thursday’s pre-events), Black people are afforded a space to step out of standard cultural stereotypes to engage with the culture, fandoms, and genres we’ve been underrepresented in.
The crowd easily embraced one another, whether knowing each other prior to Blerdcon or not. Refrains of “Yass!” and “Can I take a picture?” could be heard while navigating the festivities. Invited guests, including Karen Ashley (best known as the beloved Yellow Ranger on Fox Kids’ “Mighty Morphin Power Rangers”) and actor Ade M’Cormack (“The Winter Soldier,” “Blood Diamond,” and Netflix’s “Castlevania” and “Blood of Zeus”), were all smiles as they greeted fans.
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Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) on Monday refused to walk back statements he recently made defining white nationalists as nothing more than your average patriotic “Americans.”
During an interview on CNN, the senator repeatedly insisted that white nationalism is not a form of racism, telling newly-minted anchor Kaitlan Collins that stating otherwise is simply “some people’s opinion.”
On the first episode of her new primetime show, Collins pressed Tuberville on whether he believes white nationalists should be able to serve in the U.S. military, harkening back to comments he made this spring downplaying the racist ideology.
“If people think that a white nationalist is racist, I agree with that,” Tuberville said.
“A white nationalist is someone who believes that the white race is superior to other races,” Collins replied.
“Well that’s some people’s opinion,” Tuberville pushed back.
“It’s not an opinion,” she interjected. “What’s your opinion?”
“My opinion of a white nationalist — if somebody wants to call them a white nationalist — to me, is an American. It’s an American,” he said. “Now, if that white nationalist is a racist, I’m totally against anything that they want to do, because I am 110% against racism.”
He then went on a long rant about how “identity politics” is ruining the country and “Democrats ought to be ashamed” of it.
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In the six weeks since Uganda’s president signed the country’s Anti-Homosexuality Act (AHA) into law, the LGBTQ community and its supporters in Kampala, Uganda’s capital and largest city, have faced escalating harassment and security threats. The regulation has led to more than 300 human rights violations against people suspected of being gay in Uganda, according to reporting from CNN.
Experts are deeply concerned about the law’s impact on Uganda’s progress on health — in particular, its impact on HIV transmission. Although gay men and their sexual networks comprise less than a third of new HIV cases in the country, containing the infection’s spread among men, women, and children depends on steady access to HIV treatment and prevention.
A court challenge to the AHA is in progress, but so far, there is no indication that Uganda’s leaders intend to walk back the law. In the meantime, the AHA poses material threats to people who provide health care to LGBTQ people, raising the risk of treatment interruptions for many Ugandans with HIV.
In Kampala, amid intensifying hostility toward LGBTQ people and those who provide their health care, Brian Aliganyira is executive director of the Ark Wellness Hub, an LGBTQ health clinic. We talked to him in mid-June about the clinic’s work, the risks he and his staff face, and what action he thinks people outside Uganda should take in response to the AHA.
When we checked in with Aliganyira in early July, his clinic had just received a visit from employees of the national bureau that monitors nongovernmental organization work within Uganda. He was told the bureau had information on the group’s involvement in immoral acts and the recruitment of minors for homosexual behavior.
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After an epic 36-hour journey, the first native giraffes to be returned to an Angolan national park arrived from Namibia this week, in what many hope to be the first of multiple translocations to return the animals to their historical homeland.
The giraffes, seven males and seven females, travelled more than 800 miles (1,300km) from a private game farm near Otjiwarongo in the Otjozondjupa region of central Namibia to Iona national park in the south-west corner of Angola.
The new arrivals are the first Angolan giraffes (Giraffa giraffa angolensis) to be brought back to the country’s national parks in an effort to restore Angola’s wildlife, which was decimated during decades of conflict. The giraffes were thought to have been extinct since the 1990s.
“It’s great seeing a species back where it should be,” said Pedro Monterroso, Iona national park manager. “It’s a message of hope for conservation in this country.”
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Black founders will be getting a leg up this year according to new data about the Small Business Administration.
A report from Creative Investment Research shows the SBA’s 7(a) Loan Program, is projected to lend Black firms and businesses $1 billion this year. This is a significant uptick from the $599 million the entity reported in 2017.
“Access to capital is the key that unlocks the door of economic empowerment and unleashes the true potential of entrepreneurs,” an SBA spokesperson said in response to the report per BLACK ENTERPRISE. “That’s why it is a top priority for the Biden-Harris Administration to improve equity within our lending programs, and strengthen direct outreach to historically underserved communities, including Black entrepreneurs.”
The data is welcome news since Black-owned businesses have continued to recoup what was lost during the pandemic.
As previously reported by ESSENCE, a 2021 CNBC Survey Monkey Small Business Survey, 15 percent of Black small-business owners had to temporarily shutter their business due to the pandemic. In comparison, 8 percent of White small-business owners reported taking the same action.
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Voices & Soul
by Justice Putnam, Black Kos Poetry Editor
Those Nazi Frauen Moms 4 Liberty like to think they are goosestepping to a different Teutonic drummer, but it is the same old Kristalnacht book burning roar of a black and white celluloid yesteryear. Their forebears are in the forefront of those postcard lynchings, the firm expression of dominance in counterpoint to the ghoulish crowds in openmouthed psychopathic smiles and blurred dances of glee. We see them in newspaper photos screaming at Black kids walking up the steps to a school door and sitting at a coffee counter at Woolworth’s, we see them in color on the six o’clock news beating the sides of school buses in Boston. And we even saw them in WWII military documentaries claiming to be only Good Germans and how dare the occupiers force them to bury the millions of dead jews they packed into train cars.
How dare we, indeed.
I count my lucky stars I was born to a mother who forbid us to even point a finger at someone and go “bang!” because it was pretending to kill someone and that was just as evil as the real thing. I feel lucky to have had a young mother who read to us and made sure we all had library cards the first day of our first day of school, who toured us to museums and historical markers citing a terrible injustice that was finally made right. A mother who warned us there was more to the story than what was recalled from ignorance, and to be sure to chronicle each day to be sure we got it right. I feel blessed to have had a mother who sang a little jazz to make us laugh, and a lullaby to put us at ease.
A mom who demanded action, and liberty for all.
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Mommy taught
3rd grade
Her book was The Longest
Way ’Round (Is The Shortest Way Home)
I was an adult
Before I realized
How True
Their marriage
Is none of your business
You don’t understand
Your parents don’t owe
You anything
You finally say to yourself:
They Have Nothing
I want
Except
I remember this Blue Book
With a wonderful title
My Mother West Wind Stories
And Mommy singing
“Time After Time”
It worked
I am Happy
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