Commentary: African American Scientists and Inventors
by Black Kos Editor, Sephius1
Neurobiologist Erich D. Jarvis was born on May 6, 1965, in the Harlem neighborhood of New York City to musicians James Jarvis and Sasha Valeria McCall. Growing up in an artistic but poverty-stricken household, Jarvis found an early passion for dance, which led him to the High School of the Performing Arts. He graduated from high school in 1983 and turned down an audition for the African American dance company, Alvin Ailey to attend Hunter College. As an undergraduate, he worked as a Minority Access to Research Careers (MARC) Fellow and researched protein synthesis genes in bacteria. After obtaining his B.A. degree in mathematics and biology in 1988, Jarvis pursued his Ph.D. degree in molecular neurobiology and animal behavior at The Rockefeller University where he researched vocal learning in songbirds. He received his Ph.D. degree in 1995 and stayed at The Rockefeller University to conduct postdoctoral research.
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After completing his postdoctoral research, Jarvis joined the faculty of The Rockefeller University as an adjunct assistant professor and also participated in the Science Outreach Program of New York where he taught laboratory skills to inner city high school students. He left Rockefeller in 1998 to become an assistant professor in the Department of Neurobiology at Duke University. Jarvis also served as an assistant professor in the Department of Cognitive Neuroscience and the Center for Bioinformatics and Computational Biology. In 2005, he led the Avian Brain Nomenclature Consortium, a team of twenty-eight neuroscientists, who proposed a new nomenclature for the bird brain to better reflect a bird’s similarities with mammals in cognitive abilities. Jarvis also became a tenured associate professor at Duke in 2005 and in 2008......Read More
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News by dopper0189, Black Kos Managing Editor
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When cops’ first instinct is to use force, we shouldn’t be surprised that people will die.
Slate: Shoot First.
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Eric Garner never had a chance.
Or, to be more accurate, the cops never gave him one. Rather than talk to Garner, whom they approached on a Staten Island corner, police used force. Officer Daniel Pantaleo used a chokehold to bring him to the ground, and officers joined the struggle in an attempt to subdue Garner, whose only “crime” was asking police to leave him alone. He went into cardiac arrest, and died.
That sudden escalation in the use of force isn’t unusual. In April, Dontre Hamilton was killed—shot 14 times—after an altercation with Officer Christopher Manney, who confronted him in a Milwaukee park after complaints that Hamilton was sleeping on the ground. An attempted pat-down led to a scuffle, in which Manney says Hamilton took his baton and started hitting him. Soon after, Manney shot and killed the mentally ill man. (It’s worth noting that, in his memo detailing the event, Manney described Hamilton as “muscular” and “impossible to control if you were one-man.” According to the autopsy report, Hamilton was 5-foot-7 and an overweight 169 pounds.)
In August, just days before Officer Darren Wilson shot Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, 22-year-old John Crawford was killed by police in an Ohio Walmart. Crawford—who was holding an air gun while talking to his family on the phone—didn’t have a chance, either. In less than a minute, police rounded a corner, shouted a command, and shot him, hitting Crawford and sending him to the emergency room, where he died of his wounds.
Later that same month, in St. Louis, Kajieme Powell was shot by police while allegedly wielding a butter knife outside a convenience store. By all accounts, including a video, he wasn’t an actual threat. Despite this, police entered close—erasing any space between them and Powell—and drew their guns, firing several shots and killing the 25-year-old, who also suffered from mental illness.
A few weeks later, in South Carolina, Levar Jones was shot and wounded by state trooper Sean Groubert at a gas station near Columbia. According to the dash-camera video, Groubert asked Jones to show his ID. When Jones tried to comply—he was standing outside his car, reaching for his wallet—Groubert drew his weapon, yelled for Jones to “Get out of the car,” and opened fire. He shot several times at Jones, striking him in the hip and prompting a bewildered response. “What did I do, sir?” he asked. “Why did you shoot me?”
Most recently, Cleveland police killed 12-year-old Tamir Rice after receiving a call that a “juvenile” was in a public area with a gun that was “probably” fake. In the video released by authorities, Rice is holding an air gun and standing in an empty park. A police car rolls into view—stopping just a few feet from Rice—and an officer jumps out, shooting. Seconds later, Rice is on the ground, dying.
The common thread in all of these isn’t police violence as much as it’s the sudden use of force. The victims never have a chance to react. Instead, police enter, weapons drawn, ready to kill. And when they do kill, they almost never face criminal charges.
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Roots drummer and bandleader Questlove took to Instagram with a call to action for other artists, urging them to “push themselves to be a voice of the times that we live in.” Instagram: @questlove - Urges Artists to Write More Protest Songs.
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I urge and challenge musicians and artists alike to push themselves to be a voice of the times that we live in. I know that many see what happened to Dixie Chicks' #NatalieMaines @mainesmusic (she bravely expressed her opinion/dismay on the Bush administration declaring war & was unjustly targeted....while in hindsight being CORRECT) suddenly there was an onslaught of radio silence from artists across the board (correction not everyone was silent, but the silence was deafening) although I'm kinda/sorta addressing the hip hop nation I really apply this challenge to ALL artists. We need new Dylans. New Public Enemys. New Simones. New De La Roachas. New ideas! But it just doesn't stop there!! We need outlets (hello #ClearChannel #RadioOne #Vh1) to balance the system. Yeah I'm just as guilty of feeling the high of all that I despise ("Devil's Pie" D'angelo) but the reason why this nation seems to be moving 3 steps ahead in some areas.....but then 7 steps backwards in every area is a lack of balance. I'm not saying every song gotta be "Fight The Power" but in times like these we need to be more community minded (taking a wild guess that "urban radio's" format didn't change much from the pre program stuff (using that word politely) we've been hearing for years. & when I say challenge I don't mean breathless race to the finish on who makes the more banging "Fuck Tha Police" sequel. I mean real stories. Real narratives. Songs with spirit in them. Songs with solutions. Songs with questions. Protest songs don't have to be boring or non danceable or ready made for the next Olympics. They just have to speak truth. I laugh & have fun w "Bitch You Guessed It" like everyone else. But my soul is aching man. Seriously just ONE or Two songs that change the course. This is something I feel the need and urgency to put out there. #EricGarner #MikeBrown #JusticeForAll #FeedMySoul #HandsUpDontShoot #ICantBreathe
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Author and media maker Janet Mock launched her second annual #TransBookDrive this week on Indiegogo and it’s already been a smashing success. Color Lines: Janet Mock Raises Nearly $8K (and Counting) in Books for Trans Prisoners.
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The project, which raises money to send books to incarcerated transgender inmates in U.S. jails and prisons, has already raised nearly $8,000 in fewer than two days, already surpassing its goal of $5,000 with 28 days left.
It’s an effort that highlights a significant problem. Nearly one in six transgender people in America has been to prison — and nearly half of all transgender black people, according to Lambda Legal. Once incarcerated, transgender inmates — particularly women locked in men’s facilities — face increased risks of physical and sexual assault behind bars.
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Family of anti-apartheid activist who died in 1977 argued the document was national property and couldn’t be sold. The Guardian: Family of Steven Biko halt the sale of his postmortem report.
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The family of renowned South African anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko said it has won a court battle to stop an auction house selling a postmortem report into his 1977 death.
Biko died of a brain haemorrhage after being arrested at a police roadblock, interrogated and tortured for hours. His demise triggered an international outcry and became a key moment in the decades-long struggle against white rule.
Members of his family went to the high court on Tuesday, saying the report was national property. “The sale is disrespectful of African culture and should be stopped,” Biko’s son Nkosinathi told local radio.
On Wednesday a lawyer for the Biko family said a judge had halted the sale until 31 January to give both parties time to negotiate or take legal action over the ownership of the document.
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Scientists have completed a comprehensive study of genetic diversity in Sub-Saharan Africa. BBC: Genetic diversity of Sub-Saharan Africa revealed.
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The African Genome Variation Project analysed the DNA of 1,800 people living across the continent. The data is helping scientists to understand how susceptibility to disease varies across the region and has provided more insight into how populations have moved within Africa.
The research is published in the journal Nature.
Until now, most studies examining genetic risk factors for disease have focused on Europe. Little has been known about Africa, the most genetically diverse region in the world.
Dr Manj Sandhu, from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute and the University of Cambridge, said: "We originally set out to look at chronic diseases in Africa, and one strategy to understand the causes of those diseases is to look at the underlying genetic susceptibility.
"But to do that, you need a pretty good grasp of the variation in genomes across the region, but we realised that information wasn't available."
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Following the Africa for Norway spoof single, the Rusty Radiator awards point the finger at the most damaging fundraising campaigns. The Guardian: Bad charity awards highlight the worst cases of western stereotyping.
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It was the brainchild of The Norwegian Students’ and Academics’ International Assistance Fund, the organisation behind the Rusty Radiator award, which held its second annual ceremony this week.
The awards were set up for the “fundraising video with the worst use of stereotypes” – their point being that “this kind of portrayal is not only unfair to the persons portrayed in the campaign, but also hinders long-term development and the fight against poverty.”
The award – as decided by the public through social media – was given to Feed A Child, a South African aid organisation whose advert featured a wealthy white woman feeding a black child “like a dog”.
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Welcome to the Black Kos Community Front Porch!
Pull up a chair and sit down a while and enjoy the company.