Colin Kaepernick and Nike's #JustDoIt Headed to the Emmys

UNITED STATES - Colin Kaepernick, the former Super Bowl Quarterback, continues to demonstrate that standing for one's convictions by ‘taking a knee,’ can open exponentially more doors and hearts than the adversary would have us believe. In an era when divisions seem to flood the airwaves, when hatred and xenophobia seem to have become humanity’s default, and hopelessness seemingly the best alternative to despair, activists like Kaepernick and others demonstrate the cost and reward of bravery.

There are many athletes with international fame, but in recent months, sports icons such as the U.S.A. Women’s Soccer Team Captain Megan Rapinoe, who led the U.S. Women’s team to its fourth world championship, tennis phenom Serena Williams, and basketball great LeBron James are each utilizing their professional platforms to support, inspire, and promote political and social causes, as well as encourage those with smaller voices to not be cowed into silence.

But it is Kaepernick’s protests against racial injustice, which has resulted in the most prolonged and sustained positive impact on highlighting social injustice. His activism was catapulted to international acclaim when Nike chose him to headline their 30th Anniversary of the Just Do It campaign in September of 2018.  This video not only elevated Kaepernick’s profile, but it also increased Nike’s stock price, proving the capital and intrinsic value of standing by one’s convictions.

Recently, the partnership was in the news again for Kaepernick’s role in stopping Nike from selling a special edition Air Max 1 that featured Betsy Ross's original United States flag, revered by nationalists as an emblem of freedom, with the understanding that these liberties were not for all people. Once again, this controversy threatened the economic, political, and social fortunes of both Kaepernick and Nike, but neither bowed to the pressure, resulting in even greater recognition.

To realize greatness in one’s chosen field, it takes dedication, unwavering tenacity, and commitment to the dream of a future much different from the “now” in which we inhabit. All significant accomplishments started with what people often labeled as “crazy,” thus it is fitting that the Nike commercial narrated by Kaepernick and titled "Dream Crazy,” has been nominated for a 2019 Emmy for Outstanding Commercial.

One does not do a thing in search of recognition or acclaim, and often this is not the result of such actions, but on the rare occasion when the confluence of events is such that opprobrium occurs, it is worth noting. The Emmy Awards will take place Sunday, Sept. 22, 2019, and win, lose, or honorable mention, Kaepernick is already a Hero.

Related Articles

• Colin Kaepernick Is Chosen For Nike's Anniversary 'Just Do It' Campaign (npr.org)

• Counterpoint: Kaepernick Was Right — Racists Love the Betsy Ross Flag (insidesources.com)

• How LeBron Turned His Instagram Feed Into a Page for Social Activism (theringer.com)

• Megan Rapinoe: How A ‘Radical Individualist’ Led The U.S. Women’s Soccer Team (forbes.com)

• Nike Shares Close at Another Record High After Controversial Colin Kaepernick Endorsement (fortune.com)

• Serena Williams Will Be ‘Fighting for Equality’ Until Her Death (thecut.com)

• Watch: Colin Kaepernick Narrates New Nike 'Just Do It' Commercial On Dreaming Big (si.com)

Editor-in-Chief: @ayannanahmias
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India Struggles with a “Silent Killer”: Depression

INDIA - India is the world's second most populous nation with some 1.4 billion people.  But the ex-British colony that once spawned transformational figures like Mahatma Gandhi has also gained global notoriety for a host of glaring social problems, including poverty and air pollution.

 Less well known is India’s dubious honor as the country with the highest percentage of citizens suffering from depression.

International agencies and the government's own national mental health care body estimate that 10% of India’s population -- or 140 million people -- suffer from moderate-to-severe depression, including 2% that suffer from depression severe enough to require hospitalization.  

But those figures probably underestimate the actual size and scale of the problem because studies show that millions of Indians, especially in rural areas, have never been diagnosed and may not even know that they suffer from mental illness.  

Some analysts estimate that as much as 36% of India suffers from a mental disorder.

India, with its plethora of traditional ethnic, religious and linguistic groups, shares with many other countries a deep resistance to modern psychiatry which has helped reinforce a deep social stigma about mental illness.   

Many families are still ashamed to admit that their parents, children or siblings have a debilitating psychiatric disorder, and may try to hide or disguise it, fearing that it suggests a weakness in their lineage or care practices.  

There is also a pervasive belief, especially in rural areas, that mental illness constitutes a curse or a form of karma that only supernatural intervention can "cure.”

In central and southern India lower-caste Indians still make pilgrimages to Hindu "healing temples" to beseech their favorite deities to assist their mentally ill loved ones.  Some also bring their relatives to local exorcists in the hopes to freeing them of “demon possession."   

Mental health officials that try to discourage these practices – even sending teams of psychologists to the temples -- have often been met with fierce resistance.

Many scholars believe that the real fault for India’s ongoing depression problem lies with the national government which has failed to develop a comprehensive mental health care system and whose medical establishment suffers from the same depression sigma afflicting the general populace.

In 1983, the government established a National Mental Health Program (NMHP) with headquarters in Bangalore.  It soon pledged to devote significant diagnostic and treatment resources to depression and a host of other mental disorders, including schizophrenia.                       

But despite steady increases in annual funding, the NMHP has largely failed to integrate mental health services into India’s primary care system, studies show.  For example, more than 60 per cent of people with mental disorders still access specialized care at poorly funded district hospitals.  In addition, there are extreme regional disparities in the government’s mental healthcare infrastructure. 

India has 443 public mental hospitals, but six states, mainly in the northern and eastern regions with a combined population of 56 million people – a third of the country -- are without a single mental hospital.

Demographic disparities are also wide – and growing.  A 2015 study among 1,000 hospitalized mental health patients found that mental illness and depression rates were much higher among the nation’s poor.  Elderly Indians are especially subject to depression and depression stigma, as are women, especially pregnant women and those suffering from HIV/AIDS.  Some scholars believe female depression rates – and their comparatively high suicide rates – are linked to domestic violence, conflict with relationship partners, and confining social roles.                                          

Some notable bright spots exist in India's approach to depression and mental illness in specific locales and among some social groups.  Sikhs in the northern Punjabi region have long viewed depression as a “natural” part of daily life and prescribe meditation, yoga and other practices to help relieve it.  Muslim Sufis have also approached depression with a greater spirit of acceptance than other groups, analysts say.

And there have been sporadic experiments in mental health outreach led by non-governmental organizations and specially-trained “lay counselors” that have demonstrated what committed professionals can achieve, with sufficient resources, even in the most forbidding of environments. 

But the number of mental health clinicians in India continues to lag far behind most of the world’s nations, including other countries in the developing world.   For example, the median number of psychiatrists in India is only 0.2 per 100,000 population compared to a global median of 1.2 per 100,000 population.

The median figures for psychologists, social workers and nurses working in mental health in India are almost as severe, according to figures compiled by the World health Organization (WHO).

While the national government, egged on by the WHO, continues to debate new grassroots policy initiatives, depression sufferers have begun receiving support from an unlikely source:  Bollywood.

Last October, after several of the nation's top film actors went public with their struggles against depression, a coalition of health advocacy groups, including two of India’s leading psychiatric associations, joined with them to launch the country’s first nationwide mental health awareness campaign. 

The Bollywood initiative has spawned a separate campaign by Indian college students and their counterparts at American universities to raise depression awareness among adolescents and youth.  Photographs of students holding placards with depression awareness messages are disseminated through Instagram, Twitter and other social media sites.

Many scholars believe it’s long overdue that India embraced social marketing techniques of the kind that have proven successful in the West in reducing stigma toward HIV/AIDS and other taboo illnesses, including mental disorders.

But time is running out.  Depression-related suicides are skyrocketing in rural areas, with the highest rates recorded among younger Indians who often lack the family and community supports their parents had.  Without an extraordinary social intervention, coupled with institutional reform experts fear that India’s debilitating depression syndrome could get even worse in the years ahead.

A Vision for the Future - China to Construct Housing in Rwanda

KIGALI, Rwanda - It is not uncommon for cities in the developing world to experience an influx of rural-urban migration because of economic development, and thus heightened opportunities in urban areas. While at times this occurs on a scale so large that new buildings and infrastructure must be constructed to accommodate the newly enlarged population. In the case of Rwanda an entirely new microcosm of a city had to be built to mollify the citizens adversely impacted by the this issue. Befitting the optimistic prognostications for the future, the new development is called Vision City, and will eventually provide 4,500 new homes to Rwandans in 2024, its scheduled completion.

Chinas Zhang Dejiang and Rwanda’s Prime Minister Anastase Murekezi at ground breaking ceremony for construction of the Multimillion complex, Photo by KT Press

The problem; however, they plan to construct luxury, but pedestrian styled homes ranging in price from $172,00 to $560,000. At these prices the population that most requires housing is unable to afford it because the average per capita income is just $700 a year. A study in 2012 by the City of Kigali, the Ministry of Infrastructure, and the European Union revealed that by 2020 a housing deficit of upwards of 344,000 homes could prove to be problematic for Rwanda’s already populous and centrally located capital city. Just a year after the study came out, ground broke on Vision City, Rwanda’s largest housing project to date.

The project is set to be completed in four phases with phase one offering an initial five hundred housing units sometime early this month to help alleviate the housing deficiency. In addition to offering accommodations, Vision City will also provide supermarkets, schools, and a new network of public transportation, thus making the housing project truly a city within a city. While Vision City has been funded by the Rwandan Social Security Board, construction is being led by China Civil Engineering, and is utilizing a prolific quantity of imported materials which may account for the steep price of the housing units. Due to this, it seems that many Rwandans will not be able to afford to live in Vision City which could prove to be problematic especially as its very construction is part of a plan to appease the housing deficit due to migrant workers pouring into the city in search of work.

Furthermore, the project may exacerbate Rwanda’s already prominent level of income inequality especially as its construction displaced approximately three thousand people who owned more moderately valued property on the land which Vision City is currently being erected. Vision City’s location on the periphery of Kigali is of paramount importance in understanding its role in explaining and perhaps heightening income inequality in Rwanda. When there is an inundation of people migrating into economically important cities it is frequently the case that many end up settling on the outskirts as that is where they can afford to live even if they must commute to jobs that are more centrally located.

This has proved to be the case in many Brazilian cities regarding the construction of favelas (shantytowns) on the periphery of city centers as well as Kibera in Nairobi, which has evolved into the largest slum in Africa. While Vision City seeks to provide housing for this eventual overflow of migrant workers, the prices of the units do not reflect its final goal and might merely expand the perimeter of the city while encouraging the construction of slums on its outskirts. The result of this is that it will become even more difficult for migrant workers to find affordable accommodations and have easy access to jobs.

Of course, this is assuming that Vision City achieves full occupancy. Apart from the obvious problem that they are too expensive for the average Rwandan, it is quite possible that people will not want to move there because everything is too cookie-cutter and planned, which was the case in Brazil’s construction of Brasilia in 1960 as well as a similar development in Angola that finished in 2012 but remains largely unoccupied.

Nevertheless, there is a potential certainty that population in Rwanda that wants and can afford to live in luxury style homes with imported granite, but it is unlikely that this is feasible and in some cases even appealing to the general population. Ultimately, it seems that while Rwanda has poured $110 million dollars into this project, its vision for the future might be a little too optimistic and may even exclude the very people it is trying to help.

Feyisa Lilesa's Olympic Homage to the Oromo Movement

Feyisa Lilesa, Ethiopian Olympian, Oromo Activist, Rio 2016 Olympics, Photo by Jeso Carneiro

ETHIOPIA -  While many Olympic runners raise their arms as they approach the finish line, few do so as a demonstration of political protest. Ethiopian runner Feyisa Lilesa joined this elite group of politically charged Olympic athletes such as Tommie Smith and John Carlos when he crossed his arms at the end of the Men’s Marathon during the Rio Olympics. While Tommie Smith and John Carlos raised their fists in a Black Power salute during the awards ceremony, Feyisa Lilesa crossed his arms at the end of the race to demonstrate his allegiance with the Oromo people as they continue a centuries long clash with the Ethiopian government. What looked like a stretch to many Olympic observers was really a powerful demonstration that resulted from many years of unrest and political strife.

Thousands of miles from where Lilesa made his protest in August, Oromo dissenters had been actively demonstrating against the Ethiopian government since 2014 when a plan was unveiled for the expansion of Addis Ababa. The plan, arguably excellent for the capitals image and perhaps even reminiscent of the rapid improvements made under Haile Selassie in the mid 20th century, also proved reminiscent to the Oromo of how they were kicked off their land when the capital was moved from the north of the country to Addis Ababa in the first place. The new plan involved permeating the capital city into the Oromo occupied outskirts of its current blueprint, displacing members of the already marginalized group in the process. Without previous knowledge of the maltreatment of the Oromo, one might think that protests involving more than one hundred thousand people across Oromia might be drastic, but the government’s plan to expand the city into heavily Oromo occupied territory was perhaps the last straw after centuries of government action taken to improve Ethiopia at the expense of the Oromo.

In 1941 at the end of the Italian occupation the imperial system made strides towards assimilating the Oromo in order to build Ethiopian nationalism at a time when the country was lacking a strong national identity. This assimilation process entailed making Amharic the national language and banning the use of the Oromo language in schools, churches, and public offices. While some Oromo’s ‘Amharised’ in order to achieve upward mobility, it was not long before campaigns such as Macha Tulama and Ethiopian Student Movement formed in opposition to the current political environment and poor treatment of the Oromo identity. While some of the more extreme followers of these movements wanted independence from Ethiopia all together, they at the very least desired equal treatment of the Oromo language, culture, and religion to that of the Amhara.

Unfortunately, not all that much has changed since Oromo nationalist movements began. The Oromo remain the largest ethnic group in Ethiopia (and the Horn of Africa for that matter), yet groups such as the Amhara and the Tigray are favored in government just like they have been for decades. Interestingly though, Ethiopia is a country in which a strong sense of fraternity is felt amongst its citizens, which can perhaps be attributed to the historical bond that it is the only country to have fought off colonization. However, it must be noted that fraternity and national identity cannot be confused here because if you ask an Oromo about their national identity it is likely that they will respond “I am Oromo,” not, “I am Ethiopian

With this in mind, it is not surprising that when Oromo athlete Feyisa Lilesa ran for the Ethiopian Olympic team he also took a stand that demonstrated his allegiance to his Oromo identity during a crucial time in their history and relationship with the Ethiopian government. Even though Lilesa won silver in the race, he won gold in the hearts of many Oromo nationalists through his bold demonstration of solidarity and civil disobedience towards a government that has historically mistreated his people.

1. Bulcha, Mekuria. "African Sociological Review/Revue Africaine De Sociologie."African Studies Companion Online 1.1 (1997): 30-65. JSTOR [JSTOR]. Web. 22 Sept. 2016.

Obesity in China: A Plague of Affluence

CHINA - There is a big problem - one which has only gotten bigger in recent years. For the first time, researchers have confirmed that China is facing an ever-growing problem with obesity, an epidemic that has typically only plagued Western nations such as the United States. According to reports, China which previously ranked second among countries with rising rates of obesity finds itself in the unenviable position of surpassing the US in terms of percentage of obese citizens. “A new Gallup survey published on Friday shows that the obesity rate among adults surged in 2015 to a new high of 28 percent, or a 2.5 percentage point increase since 2008. That means the ranks of dangerously overweight Americans increased by 6.1 million adults over that seven-year period.” (Source: The Fiscal Times)

Lu Zhihao, 4, Foshan, Guangdong province March 28, 2011, Photo: REUTERS/Joe Tan

In many countries, especially those with emerging economies, obesity is associated with economic prosperity. For instance, in Mauritania, a practice called ‘gavage,’ the force feeding of girls to make them fat, is still practiced despite the obvious health risks. This practice is a consequence of societal norms of beauty which arose from the association of weight with affluence.  In this North African country where famine and starvation historically resulted in women being vastly underweight, being overweight signified the converse. Thus, obesity became alluring despite the grave health risks associated with it. However, in the affluent nation such as the U.S., obesity is the result of a complex confluence of factors, including stress, lack of exercise, smoking cigarettes, eating processed or genetically modified foods, or other known ‘fat’ culprits such as high fructose corn syrup.

Those less in tune would find the trend of obesity on the rise in China incomprehensible. From a Western perspective, a country with nearly 1.4 billion citizens is certainly unable to adequately support, much less provide enough food to feed these many people. Thus, it is a conundrum how the plague of obesity has beset a nation in which many of the country's oldest residents vividly recall a time in which the opposite was true. It was during the brutal era of the great famines of China. This tragic part of China’s history is rarely discussed, nor do many young and modern citizens recall the horrendous circumstances in which 45 million people died. Following the Communist Party’s take over in 1949, a deadly combination of natural disasters and ill-conceived government policies resulted in farms being forcibly taken or farmers being ordered to produce food well beyond the capacity of their lands. These farmers were not allowed to consume the food they produced, and if they protested against this mistreatment they were maimed, tortured, or killed.

Shockingly, within less than 70 years, China has managed to go from one extreme to another. It has transformed itself from a nation torn apart by a cultural and political revolution, to one which churns out an astronomical number of exports to the tune of “US$2.282 trillion in 2015.” The top 10 products which the U.S. and other nations purchase from China include, “Electronic equipment, Machines, engines, pumps, Furniture, lighting, signs, Knit or crochet clothing, Clothing, Medical, technical equipment, Plastics, Vehicles, Iron or steel products, and Footwear.” (Source: World’s Top Exports)  The affluence which China has experienced as a result of becoming one of the world’s leading manufacturer is reflected in improved economic stability and social ascendancy which many of its citizens now realize. 

With more discretionary income and leisure time, Chinese citizens are now experiencing a trend which was once unimaginable.  Unprecedented increases in the rate of obesity among its citizenry, particularly with the country's youth, and predominantly in its male population. Boys seem to be at highest risk for this endemic predisposition towards obesity. Recent findings have shown that as of 2014, a staggering 17% of boys and 9% of girls under the age of 19 were reported as being obese, up from just 1% of each when the studies were first conducted in 1985. In addition to the issue of obesity, there has also been an increase in corollary non-communicative illnesses.

• Juvenile Diabetes: According to a 6 April 2016, World Health Organization news release, “Unhealthy lifestyles are also putting China’s children at risk of developing diabetes: more than 4 in 5 adolescents 11-17 years do not get enough physical activity, and rates of overweight and obesity in children are increasing rapidly: from less than 3% in 1985 to around 1 in 10 in girls and 1 in 5 boys in 2010.”

• Adult Diabetes: The estimated prevalence of diabetes among a representative sample of Chinese adults was 11.6% and the prevalence of prediabetes was 50.1%. Projections based on sample weighting suggest this may represent up to 113.9 million Chinese adults with diabetes and 493.4 million with prediabetes. These findings indicate the importance of diabetes as a public health problem in China. (Source: ResearchGate, Prevalence and Control of Diabetes in Chinese Adults)

• Hypertension: In 2010, the prevalence of hypertension increased to 33.6% (35.3% in men and 32.0% in women) or 335.8 million Chinese adults based on the China Noncommunicable Disease Surveillance 2010, which was conducted in a nationally representative sample of 98 658 Chinese adults aged at least 18. (Source: Journal of Hypertension in China)

• Heart Disease and Stroke: The European Society of Cardiology presented to the 27th Great Wall International Congress of Cardiology Asia Pacific Heart Congress the fact that “40%, the mortality rate due to cardiovascular disease (CVD) in China is amongst the highest in the world¹ and has been rightly described as an epidemic. Its population faces a catalogue of CVD risk factor statistics that expose high levels of obesity, diabetes, cholesterol and blood pressure, and a smoking habit within males that is proving stubborn to address. (Source: European Society of Cardiology)

These many obesity-related factors are causing growing concern among Chinese government officials, who worry that it will put increased burden on China's healthcare system which currently lacks the elasticity to handle non-communicable diseases such as obesity which is largely preventable.  In China, as in the U.S., the drastic changes in weight gain among its citizenry is also linked to a growing popularity for high-sodium and fatty foods (such as fast food), which are both inexpensive and readily available. Additionally, China struggles with the cultural acceptance of cigarette smoking, which is another deadly factor that contributes to a host of long-term illnesses. In the U.S. smoking has been advertised as deleterious to one’s health, and many people, especially those who are health conscious, find the practice anathema.

However, smoking isn’t viewed with the same negative connotations outside of the U.S. In Europe, Africa, and the Middle East smoking is a integral component of social interactions, and the same can be said of China. Smoking among the younger generation is on the increase, and this coupled with decreased levels of physical activity are contributing factors to the rise of obesity.  Their decisions to relocate to major cities to pursue high paying job and educational opportunities are the very things which now disadvantaged them. They have replaced low wages and physical labor, with jobs where they work long hours in cramped office spaces, under stressful conditions, which they relieve by smoking or drinking alcohol, neither of which are little more than palliatives.

Officials in both countries are now racing against the clock to aggressively combat a crisis that is both socially and economically complex. One which will take the combined efforts of the citizens, scientists, food producers, and the health care system to develop a long-term strategy for tackling this problem. Steps have been taken by both nations to raise public awareness of the problem through advertisement, anti-smoking campaigns, instructing doctors to provide BMI information to patients in addition to their weight, as well as promoting programs designed to help people develop better eating and exercise habits. Additionally, the creation of educational programs throughout China, such as those sponsored by the Joint US-China Collaboration on Clean Energy (Source: JUCCCE), have achieved some success in teaching kids the importance of eating healthy.

Here in the U.S. similar programs have been implemented with the goal of encouraging Americans to make positive healthy lifestyle changes, however, it is as difficult for the government of the U.S. as it is for China to convince people to adjust social norms. For example, as Americans have become more obese, manufacturers make clothes in larger sizes to accommodate increased girths. Many of these clothes are made in China which produces them in accordance with consumer demand. Though this correlation is simplistic, one thing is for certain - China and the U.S. would greatly benefit from moving beyond a relationship governed solely by economic expediency to one which protects the health of the two most important resources of their economic ecosystem - laborers and consumers.

The epidemic of obesity which plagues both nations has far reaching repercussions both economically and societally. The levels of economic prosperity, the ease of modern living, plentiful goods and services, and access to functional and unburdened health systems, are all things which are threatened should each nation fail to stop this scourge. It is imperative that we remember in meeting this daunting challenge that real change is only accomplished through implementing strategies which promise long-term success.

Waging a successful ‘battle of the bulge’ will be a slow and arduous undertaking, one which could best be viewed in terms of dieting.  One can lose a lot of weight quickly and just as easily gain it back and then some, or one can implement a regime that takes longer and requires more discipline, but ultimately leads to a gradual return to optimal health. Thus, it is important for us to remain cognizant of the pitfalls of focusing all of our effort on a single aspect of this epidemic to the exclusion of all others, because to do so would be akin to winning the battle, but losing the war.

Contributing Journalist: @JonEizyk
LinkedIn: Jon Eizyk

America's Reluctant Racists: Are the Media & Donald Trump to Blame?

Donald Trump, Photo by Gage Skidmore

UNITED STATES - In my heart I’ve always wanted to believe that racists are simply radicals who comprise a very small percentage of the population back in my native U.S.A. Sadly, that hope has been increasingly hard to hold onto over the years and it looks like 2015 might just be the year I have to admit that I've been wrong. Sure, there are radicals (and extremists and supremacists) who out-crazy even the most fanatical racists but it looks like lies and IGNORANCE are breeding a brand new army of Americans who may not even self-identify as being racist yet.

The Reluctant Racist

When I say reluctant, I really do mean it. First, because someone very special to me back home in California believes a whole lotta wrong at the moment that is turning them into a racist.

Secondly, because I still want to believe that people are fundamentally good and they just don't have enough information to know better at the moment. The right-wing media in the U.S., coupled with the insanely racist (and completely unqualified to be a politician) Donald Trump, are spouting some crazy things that some Americans are buying into because they believe the media and influencers without doing their own homework.

Instead of digging into topics that really matter and sharing facts and data with the American people, most mainstream media seems content to mislead them. In fact, it’s mostly the liberal news channels and journalists who look beyond the superficial story. The liberals also choose NOT to take rare or isolated or extreme cases and turn those into ‘the new trend’ or ‘the direction America is headed’ when reporting, which is how the media and Trump and recruiting their new racist army.

The topic is too broad to attack on all fronts so I’m going to crack into just two issues:

1. The so-called confederate flag
2. The negativity surrounding immigrants and the idea of abolishing the 14th amendment

The Confederate Flag

After the race-fuelled mass shooting in a South Carolina church, the U.S. finally rallied to remove the country’s #1 symbol of racism. This important person in my life believes that it is simply a symbol of the South with a rich history dating back to the 1800s.   They listened to what the news said without looking into the facts and decided that they are pro-flag. I’m sorry but the only people who should blindly be pro-confederate flag are white supremacists and current or legacy KKK members. But not the people I care about in my life, and certainly not the people in yours.

THE FACTS

1. The flag everyone is all riled up about is NOT the Confederate Flag
2. In the 1800s, the real Confederate Flag went through 3 designs. The first design looked too much like the real American flag and soldiers were confused at times who to shoot at so it was scrapped. The second one included the design people believe to be the confederate flag up where the stars are on the real American flag and replaced the red and white stripes with a symbolic field of pure white. The third rendition added a red band on the right side of the field of white. Again, the real Confederate Flag of the rebels is NOT the one Americans are being shown today.
3. The perceived current confederate flag (which in the 1800s was only used by the army in Tennessee on the battlefield towards the end of the war I believe) went away for the most part and was only resurrected in the early 1940s by the race-driven Dixiecrats, the political party dedicated to maintaining segregation between whites and blacks in the South.
4. In 1948, the University of Mississippi flew it for the 1st time when white students protested Truman’s civil rights proposals. They hated the thought of being educated alongside black students so this flag became the brand image for racism in Mississippi.
5. In 1963, it was raised over the state Capitol of Alabama for the 1st time in history. Alabama Gov. George Wallace raised it in protest against desegregation. He wanted to keep whites and blacks apart, definitively turning it into the #1 symbol of racism in modern-day America.
6. It remains the unofficial symbol of the Ku Klux Klan.

My German friend Rando commented, 'Would it be okay for us to fly the swastika over German town halls on special days as it is certainly part of our history, and under Mr. H pre-WW2 the country boomed economically, the VW Beetle was created etc? The confederate flag stands for slavery.'

Mainstream media doesn’t share the facts above, though. Sadly turning more intelligent and generally caring people into reluctant racists. EVERY SINGLE EXAMPLE of the current ‘confederate flag’ being flown in the south has 100% direct ties to racism and oppression. It is NOT a symbol of our fallen brothers in war but that is the bullshit being told by influencers and the media. It doesn’t represent Southern heritage, well at least not one that any American should be proud of. It represents racism and hate, plain and simple. There is no other truth.

Immigration & Foreigners

I was born in Los Angeles, the daughter of a 5th generation immigrant. Our ancestors left their friends, family and possessions behind and came over from Europe in hopes of a better life in the 1860s. Some of our family hails from Ireland and in those times the Irish were despised as the worst sort of immigrants arriving to American shores.   During the famous Potato Famine years, close to one million Irish arrived by boat to America. ONE MILLION!

If they washed up in Boston, well that was probably the roughest place to be welcomed to America. English Puritans could trace their lineage back to the Mayflower some 230 years earlier and the city underwent what was described as a ‘social revolution’ because they did not want ‘those Irish people’ in their country.

The Irish didn’t look like them. They wore clothes that were night and day different to the English settlers. They sounded different. They often came over poor and would have to settle into unsanitary conditions. And heaven help them if they only spoke Gaeilge or a Celtic language! All they wanted was a chance to live a better life than was possible in Ireland.

My Mom tells me that our family came over because they ‘wanted to be American.’ To me that means they had hope and ambition and wanted to give their children a better life. They wanted to work hard and live the American Dream. Well, I’ll bet their American Dream didn’t originally include the extra gift-on-arrival of hated and discrimination by Americans who viewed them as outsiders and who wanted that nationality OUT OF AMERICA. Yet they endured, for which I'm thankful because I wouldn't be alive otherwise.

Flash Forward to 2015

Donald Trump and the media tell Americans that today’s generation of immigrants – the new ‘Irish’ if you will – are the worst kind of people. They brainwash Americans to think that ‘those people’ don’t want to be true Americans. The media reports that ‘they’ only want to live for free in America, sucking up hard working taxpayers money, without wanting to embrace the American dream. The media insists that ‘they’ retain their cultural heritage from their homeland, which bugs the hell out of Americans. In fact, the same way it did in the 1800s:

According to one report I read >> 'Wherever they settled, the Irish kept to themselves to the exclusion of everyone else, and thus were slow to assimilate. Americans were thus slow to accept the Irish as equals, preferring instead to judge them by the stereotypes published in newspapers of the day.'

The same way the English Puritans persecuted my own ancestors, today’s cry of ‘go home immigrant’ feels like a 360° loop back around to the 1800s – and again it is turning former immigrants (or the children of immigrants) into a potentially scary breed of reluctant racists. Unless someone is an American Indian, they aren’t natives of the country.   U.S. citizens have families who fled their country of origin in hopes of a better life, just like mine did, and just like everyone arriving to our shores today. Why can’t some Americans see that the rhetoric they are espousing is as cruel and unnecessary in 2015 as it was in the 1850s, back when U.S. immigration records indicate that the Irish made up 43% of the foreign-born population?

I’ve lived in Mexico, Spain, India, China and I’ve been living in Hong Kong now for about to a year. I know that the news I read as an expat is different to what Americans back home consume but it’s shocking how many people are jumping on this ‘us versus them’ bandwagon. In fact, the special person in my life who inspired this post has very strong ideas about just how ‘they’ are ruining America, for all the reasons I mentioned the English had (and strangely almost verbatim every single thing in that 'report quote' above!).

Yet the funny thing is that when I asked, the only personal experience with immigrants they've had is beautiful and not hateful or negative. They have Mexican neighbours who emigrated some years back with two sweet children. They applied for and gained their American citizenship and are trying hard to learn English, have just bought their first home, and for all intents and purposes ARE living the American dream, just like my Irish relatives who emigrated in the 1860s.

I just don’t understand why the hearts of some Americans can’t see that these real-life examples right in front of their face are the TRUTH of immigration, instead of blindly supporting the negative view that is never witnessed first-hand but believed because extreme examples are the battle cry of influencers like Donald Trump and the right-wing U.S. media.

Contributing Journalist: @angelacarson
LinkedIn: Angela Carson

Erawan Shrine Bombing, Religiously Motivated or an Ancillary Attack Against Thailand's Tourism?

The Erawan Shrine, Photo © Kalandrakas

BANGKOK, Thailand - The brutal terrorist attack on the Bangkok Erawan Shrine, seems to be another in an ever increasing string of violence that is plaguing the world. Unfortunately, terrorist groups like Islamic State (IS) have bombarded us with increasingly violent, bizarre, and senseless attacks, and thus less spectacular attacks may seem to lose their news worthiness.

However, the bombing of the Erawan Shrine which has not been attributed to them, was appalling to millions worldwide. This bombing occurred in one of Thailand's busiest tourism spots and at 8 casualties in the initial blast, and another 20 in the second blast twelve hours later the number of victims increased to include 100 injured.

The target of this attack left the critically injured survivors, the citizens of Thailand, and people around the world with a sense of horror that could only be assuaged by prayer.

Erawan Shrine in Bangkok is to Thailand what Times Square in New York is to the United States. It can be surmised that one of the strategic objectives of this attack was to disrupt tourism, a significant driver of Thailand's economy. Bangkok is a premiere travel destination for people from many Western countries, and the Bangkok Shrine is most frequently visited by citizens of China and India. The shine is venerated as having "immense powers" including the ability to bless visitors with "riches". It is also a shrine dedicated to Brahma, a Hindu god which is worshiped by Indian Hindus, but is also revered by some Chinese Buddhists.

The government hasn't ruled out terrorism; however, it is believed that the bomb attacks were coordinated and that one or more suspects may be from the anti-government group known as the "Yellow Shirts."  This group was formed as part of a movement called the "People's Alliance for Democracy" in reaction to a corrupt billionaire named Thaksin Shinawatra. A successful businessman turned politician in 1994, he later became prime minister in 2001. Initially viewed as a philanthropist, Shinawatra launched programs to reduce poverty, instituted programs designed to help small businesses, as well as legislating universal healthcare coverage.

But, after declaring a "war on drugs" and selling billions of shares of his company to foreign investors without paying taxes, Thaksin critics denounced him, even going so far as to call him a dictator.

An article on The Guardian pointed out the similarities between this attack and the 10 January 2014 incident in which two bombs were detonated minutes apart by anti-government protesters who sought the ouster ofthen Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra. But, though this group were suspected in this attack, as in the case of the Erawan conclusive evidence has not been found to identify the perpetrators.

It is suspected that the true motives of these bombing were to disrupt Thailand's tourism industry and frighten and discourage foreigners from visiting the country. While the "who did this" and the "why" are still a blur, the "what, when, and how did it happen"are very clear. Despite this, as with other governments facing similar external and domestic terrorism, the Thai government led by the current prime minister have responded quickly and appropriately, but have been understandably cautious in not making a rush to judgement. The focus has been and continues to be the capture and bringing to justice the culprits.

Contributing Journalist: @toritorinicole

Portrait of a Suicide Bomber, DNA Identifies Turkey ISIS Terrorist who Killed 32 People

remains of suicide bomber, kabul, afghanistan, photo by us air force tech sergeant brenda nipper

SURUC, Turkey - The recent suicide bombing which occurred in the town of Suruc was a highly publicized terrorist act, one of the worst perpetrated in this predominantly Muslim country.  Israel has long been victimized by suicide bombers, but now this killing strategy is unfortunately a worldwide phenomenon and increasingly prevalent in the Middle East, Eurasia, and Africa.

No nation is immune from this type of terrorism, even in Europe which has in recent years witnessed devastating attacks in London, France, Spain, and Norway. The United States has suffered major attacks as well, including the infamous Sept. 11th attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon by Al Qaeda operatives killing 2,996 and injuring more than 6,000. The latest such attack occurred in Boston in 2013 in which 3 people were killed and 264 injured during a marathon on April 15th of that year.

There is no set demographic for the profile of the terrorists who have been young and old, men and women, elderly and young people, but the similarity exists in that each has been radicalized and dispatched to wreak havoc and in the process kill themselves and many innocents.

In Turkey a 20-year-old university student named Seyh Abdurrahman Alagoz, was identified as the suicide bomber through DNA tests. Alagoz's attack was even more disconcerting because of the fact that he took the lives of 32 people who were roughly his same age.

According to the New York Times, "The investigation is ongoing, but we have evidence that the suspect was linked to Daesh" the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with government protocol and using an Arabic acronym for the Islamic State, which is also known as ISIS or ISIL."

Authorities say that the suspect, who had been on foot, blended into the crowd which enabled him to inflict the maximum damage once he blew himself up, leaving debris and carnage in his wake. Though there isn't clear evidence for the motive of this attack; it is surmised that it was some kind of retaliation by ISIS because of the recent victory of Kurdish military forces in driving out the militants from the town of Kobani which is directly across the border in Syria.

The young people killed were activists who were presenting speeches, holding a news conference, and gathering supplies and donations to help rebuild the lives of Syrian Kurds. Witnesses said that the bomber detonated himself in the Amara Cultural Centre while attendees were engaged in humanitarian efforts to relieve the suffering of the citizens of Kobani, Syria where Kurdish fighters in January of this year successfully drove out Islamic State (ISIS) militants.

In effect, Alagoz killed young people who sought peace and were attempting to provide much needed aid to people who had been tyrannized by ISIS, and perhaps in this respect they thought they had achieved their objective, but such is not the case, as the dead will be mourned, but their mission will not be silenced nor their efforts in vain.

Contributing Journalist: @toritorinicole

Mohed Altrad, a Bedouin Who Flees the Desert, Becomes Billionaire, Wins Coveted 2015 EY Award

eiffel eyeful, photo by iwc photo

MARSEILLE, France - How many of us could walk through the desert to sit outside of school because we had such a thirst for knowledge? Would you be motivated enough to gaze through a hole in mud and tin roof schoolhouse and stare at a chalk board covered in symbols which meant nothing to you because you have never seen writing?

What if in addition to this, you knew that everyday after a several hour walk home that you would be beaten upon your arrival because your destiny was predetermined to be a sheepherder? Well not only did he learn to write, he excelled.

The man who did all of this and more is Mohed Altrad, a Syrian son of a Bedouin girl who was either 12 or 13-years-old when she was raped for the second time by his father who was the leader of their nomadic tribe. It was into these horrific circumstances that Altrad and his elder brother were born. In interviews, Altrad says that he doesn't remember his mother's name, but he does know that she died giving birth to him.

His elder brother was eventually murdered by his father, leaving Mohed to be raised by his maternal grandmother just outside Raqqa, which like many towns and cities in Syria, it is now controlled by the Islamic State (ISIS), but back then it was the place he called home.

Because his family were Bedouin tribesmen wandering the deserts of Syria, they kept no records of births or deaths so Altrad has no idea of his true age. According to interviews, he surmises that he is perhaps as old as 65, but this figure is not as important to him as all that he has achieved in remembrance of his mother. The pursuit of this promise to honor her has culminated in his becoming a billionaire, but the prize that has allowed him the visibility to publicly honor her was in being chosen as the 2014 French Entrepreneur of the Year.

As a result of the French Entrepreneur of the Year, he was nominated to represent France in the annual Ernst and Young World Entrepreneur of the Year competition. This year, 52 national award winners were nominated, but Altrad won the coveted 2015 award. Of course his ascent wasn't immediate, but his success was a consequence of his thirst for knowledge, his persistence, and triumph over the limitations set for him by his grandmother.

Once she died he was free to fully engage in the pursuit of his academic studies. He was just 17-years-old when he was awarded a scholarship by a Syrian foundation which granted him admission to the University of Kiev in Ukraine. He packed what little possessions he had and traveled to Europe where he knew no one and didn't speak the language. Upon his arrival he was told that the course was full, so he traveled to France. He recounted how he arrived during the coldest of winter days in France, unable to speak French, and with little means to support himself. He sometimes ate only one meal a day but this did not deter him. It seemed that the hardness of life in the Syrian desert prepared him to face any type of difficulty, and gave him the fortitude to withstand hardship and persevere.

In France he became fluent in French and matriculated into one of the oldest universities in Europe located in the city of Montpellier. There he pursued his undergraduate studies, eventually receiving his PhD in Computer Science. According to interviews, upon graduation he began to look for a business venture and as if destined, while sitting in a cafe he picked up a newspaper and noticed an advertisement from the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company which was seeking engineers to help design the infrastructure for their burgeoning oil and gas industry.

He made the decision to take the job because it would provide him with the opportunity to save money and perhaps to buy a business. Like other foreign nationals who even today work in the Middle East, they are paid astronomical salaries with nothing to spend the money on. Upon the completion of his contract, he returned to France in search of a business venture into which he could invest. He and his partner worked on and brought to market one of the first laptop computers.

These laptops were large and clunky, and according to interviews "were about the size of a suitcase." They were initially used as the precursor to the airport terminal computers that announce flight arrivals and departures. At that time he and his partner lacked the resources to scale and thus sold the company and continued to save money. Always in search of opportunities, he considered and discarded ventures into which he could invest. One day he was approached by a man who had been trying to sell his bankrupt scaffolding business, thus Altrad and his partner bought the faltering business in 1985.

Despite knowing nothing about scaffolding a decidedly non-tech business, he and his partner decided to assume the risk, plus the investment was relatively small. Altrad capitalized his investments by buying and selling not only scaffolding, but also everything that might be of benefit to builders. This included the expansion into the tool market, machinery, and cement etcetera. He also invested in the workforce by providing excellent employee benefits that made them happier and thus more productive. His company philosophy incentivize his employees to take ownership of their work product and feel like they were valuable to the company.

In the past 30 years under his management the Altrad Group has grown to 17,000 employees, with customers in 100 countries, and 170 subsidiary companies. According to their website the company "sells and hires out equipment for building and public works and for industry (mixers, scaffolding, tubular equipment)." An amazing feat for a non-technical company, especially one that was birthed from such meager beginnings but now has $2bn (£1.3bn) in turnover and $200m annual profit.

In a BBC interview Altrad said that he sleeps less than 4 hours a night. He doesn't know why; however from the outside looking in, it is because of this drive and creativity that he is a prolific businessman and a successful writer who has two books in publication. One which is autobiographical and the other which is read in schools across France. Between the two he has sold millions of copies.

In a time when xenophobia is at its height both in Europe where illegal African immigrants arrive daily, or in America where people like the Republican candidate Donald Trump espouse hatred and vitriol toward Mexican immigrants and garners a large following; Mr. Altrad is a shinning example of what it truly means to be an immigrant. A citizen who uses their culture and history to enrich the society into which they assimilate, and as a consequence makes the country stronger and better because of their tenacity, vision, and drive to succeed despite all odds.

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: @ ayannanahmias
LINKEDIN: Ayanna Nahmias

Muslim American Support for LGBT Rights is Growing

WASHINGTON D.C., United States -  Prominent Muslim Americans have been actively speaking up in support of the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark decision, which legalized same-sex marriage in all 50 states last month, but not without controversy.

Author Reza Aslan and "Daily Show" correspondent Hasan Minhaj discussed on Huffington Post Live the open letter they penned to fellow Muslim Americans about the Supreme Court’s ruling. Their letter outlined how the LGBT and Muslim communities have increasingly found themselves to have much in common, in an atmosphere that has tried to restrict both group’s civil rights.

"Christians can always give the Marco Rubio, Jeb Bush stance, which is, 'Well, I really disagree with this and I think [same-sex marriage is] awful and a sin, but it's the law so we have to go with it,'" Aslan said on Huffington Post Live. "Muslims who represent a heavily marginalized 1 percent -- a very negatively viewed 1 percent -- have to approach these issues in a completely different light because … they can be tagged with being un-American, in way that Marco Rubio or Jeb Bush or Rick Santorum or Mike Huckabee could never be tagged."

Minhaj added that as part of a minority group in the United States, Muslims have the responsibility to advocate for the rights of all other marginalized people because Muslims need support against discrimination, just like the LGBT community.

Other outspoken Muslim Americans have voiced similar rhetoric. Omid Safi, professor of Asian and Middle Eastern studies at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, said religious convictions should never stand in the way of someone else's liberty.

“I have not forgotten that existing interpretations of Shari’a so far prohibit same-sex activity. Fine, that’s our business, our own internal religious conversation,” Safi writes in a column for Religion News Service. “But we are here talking about the state recognizing a marriage, not a state dictating to religious traditions what they should or should not teach.”

However, many in the Muslim American community disagree with this outspoken support and lashed out on social media.

But this backlash should come at no surprise. In 2011 the Pew Research Center found that only 39% of Muslim Americans believed that homosexuality should be “accepted” by society. Still, there have been signs of change. In 2007, the center found that Muslim Americans -- 61% to 27% believed that homosexuality should be “discouraged."

This growing shift toward acceptance of homosexuality may be catalyzed in part by the visible support for LGBT rights from prominent members within the Muslim American community.

But this outspoken support is not new. In 2013, the largest U.S. based Muslim organization, the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), joined a broad interfaith coalition in the fight to bring the Employment and Discrimination Act (ENDA) to fruition. The group called it a “measured, common sense solution that will ensure workers are judged on their merits, not on their personal characteristics like sexual orientation or gender identity.”

Although disagreement on LGBT rights still exists within the Muslim American community, it is clear that the amount of Muslim Americans supporting LGBT rights is steadily growing.

CONTRIBUTING EDITOR: @ austindbryan
LINKEDIN: Austin Bryan

Civil Rights in America, a New but Old Debate. Meet My Grandfather, Julius W. Robertson, Esq.

Attorney Julius w. Robertson (Top Left) with clients and Attorney Dovey Jonhnson-Roundtree (Bottom Right) © Annette McGee (May not be used without permission)

WASHINGTON, DC -Julius Winfield Robertson (1916 – 1961) was known as a brilliant litigator, distinguished civil rights activist, author, much sought after speaker, and well-respected member of the legal community in good standing. He was also the lead attorney on the 1955 precedent-setting case Sarah Keys v. Carolina Coach Company.

Born of humble beginnings in rural Georgia, to a family of subsistence farmers, they subsequently moved to Tennessee for better opportunities. In his early 20s, he moved to Washington, DC, to escape the harsh realities of a black man living in the Deep South. While attending Howard University in 1944, Robertson wrote about racism in America in his book titled 'This Bird Must Fly," It formed the basis of his studies and his subsequent pursuit to remedy the inequitable treatment of African-Americans in a system dominated by segregation and Jim Crow Laws.

In 1948, Robertson graduated at the top of his class from Howard University with combined degrees (B.A. and LL.B.), and today because of his academic standing, he would have received the Order of the Coif.  The admissions committee at Harvard University Law School, having observed Robertson’s career, offered him a full scholarship to pursue his LL.M., but he was unable to accept the offer because of his young family.

He and classmate James Madison Nabrit, Jr. joined the ranks of renowned civil rights lawyers such as the former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall with whom they worked closely in his early years. Robertson, Nabrit, Jr., along with Attorney George E.C. Hayes, were deeply involved in the movement to dismantle segregation through the courts.

Robertson was admitted to the bar in the District of Columbia, District of Columbia Court of Appeals, U.S. District Court of the District of Columbia, U.S. Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia, U.S. Court of Claims, and the United States Supreme Court. He worked as a sole-proprietor until he established the law firm Robertson & Roundtree in 1952 as the senior and managing partner. Robertson hired Attorney Dovey J. Roundtree, upon her graduation from Howard University, and was credited by Roundtree as being her mentor.

He was sponsored to argue cases before the U.S. Supreme Court for the first time in 1952, then in 1954, 1955, 1959, and 1960 shortly before his untimely death. He was a member in good standing of the American Bar Association—one of its first ‘official’ Black members, the National Bar Association, and the District of Columbia Bar Association.

Robertson was recognized as a gifted intellectual with a broad range of knowledge of national and international geopolitics. As a constituent of Senator Estes Kefauver (D-Tenn.), Robertson, had many appointments with him to discuss critical Civil Rights issues. During these meetings, Kefauver discovered that Robertson spoke, wrote, and read fluent German. He then asked if Robertson would be willing to research and gain background information for a bill he was sponsoring.

Robertson reviewed the evidence presented during the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal, particularly regarding “Permissible Medical Experiments,” the standards used to judge the German doctors on trial at the time. These became codified as the Nuremberg Code, which was used in part to establish “the requirements that all research participants be fully informed about potential risks or harm that may result from taking part in a study and that, based on this information, they voluntarily agree to participate.” 

Using this standard, Sen. Kefauver and Rep. Oren Harris (D-Ark.) sponsored a bill that “established a framework that required drug manufacturers to prove scientifically that a medication was not only safe but effective.” This legislation became known as the Kefauver-Harris Amendment; it was signed into law by President Kennedy on Oct. 10, 1962.

According to written reports and my mother's anecdotal stories, my grandfather was a brilliant litigator, distinguished civil rights activist and author, much sought after speaker, and well-respected member of the legal community in good standing.

It also seems at that time; my grandfather also enjoyed some press for his part in identifying and taking down a con-artist impersonator.

·     In 1944 my grandfather, Attorney Robertson, wrote about Race Relations in This Bird Must Fly.

·     JET Magazine, December 2, 1954, featured an article about this landmark case titled, ICC To Outlaw Jim Crow In Interstate Travel.

·     In 1955 Attorney Robertson argued a Civil Rights cases on behalf of the plaintiff Sarah Keys v. Carolina Coach Company

·     JET Magazine, November 23, 1961, pg. 50, Smooth Talker Tangles With.

·     JET Magazine, July 13, 1961, pg. 23, His Obituary

Not only did Robertson pursue desegregation in the courts, his then-teenage daughter, Annette M. (Robertson) McGee, was in the 2nd ‘handpicked’ class to integrate the then ‘elite’ all-white college prep Theodore Roosevelt High School in Washington, D.C. Her selection was based upon academic acumen, outstanding grades, being from a professional and well-educated family, and possessing a clear understanding of the importance of their role in the Civil Rights movement in education.

 His Civil Rights movement legacy persists through his surviving children Annette M. (Robertson) McGee and her sister, Mrs. Dale (Robertson), and their children, who are lawyers and human rights activists.

CIVIL RIGHTS CASE BACKGROUND: MIDNIGHT IN THE JIM CROW SOUTH

The Keys case originated in an incident that occurred at a bus station in the tiny North Carolina town of Roanoke Rapids shortly after midnight on August 1, 1952, when African-American WAC private Sarah Keys was forced by a local bus driver to yield her seat in the front of the vehicle to a white Marine as she traveled homeward on furlough. At the time of the incident, Jim Crow laws entirely governed Southern bus travel, despite a 1946 Supreme Court ruling meant to put an end to the practice.

That decision, Morgan v. Virginia (328 US 373 (1946)), had declared state Jim Crow laws inoperative on interstate buses on the basis that the imposition of widely varying statutes on black passengers moving across state lines generated multiple seat changes and thus created the kind of disorder and inconsistency forbidden by the commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution.

Southern carriers managed to dodge the Morgan decision, however, bypassing segregation rules of their own, and those rules remained outside the purview of state and federal courts because they pertained to private businesses. Also, the federal agency charged with regulating the carriers, the Interstate Commerce Commission, had historically interpreted the Interstate Commerce Act's discrimination ban as permitting separate accommodations for the races so long as they were equal.

The ICC had ruled so consistently against black complainants since its establishment in 1887 that it had become known as "the Supreme Court of the Confederacy." The ICC's 'separate but equal' policy, upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States in a 1950 railway dining car segregation case known as Henderson v. United States (399 US 816 (1950)), thus remained the norm in public transportation.

So hardened was the practice of Jim Crow in Southern travel when Sarah Keys made her journey in 1952 that even black travelers who had started their journey in the North on integrated trains or buses were, with few exceptions, forced to comply with Jim Crow carrier regulations once they crossed into the South.

When Sarah Keys departed her WAC post in Fort Dix, New Jersey on the evening of July 31, 1952 for her home in the town of Washington, North Carolina, she boarded an integrated bus and transferred without incident in Washington, D.C. to a Carolina Trailways vehicle, taking the fifth seat from the front in the white section.

When the bus pulled into the town of Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina, however, a new driver took the wheel and demanded that she comply with the carrier's Jim Crow regulation by moving to the so-called "colored section" in the back of the bus so that a white Marine could occupy her seat. When Keys refused to move, the driver emptied the bus, directed the other passengers to another vehicle, and barred Keys from boarding it.

An altercation ensued, and Keys was arrested, charged with disorderly conduct, jailed incommunicado overnight, then convicted of the disorderly conduct charge and fined $25.

A THREE-YEAR BATTLE FOR JUSTICE

When that charge was sustained on appeal by a North Carolina lower court, Keys and her father brought the matter to the attention of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) office in Washington, D.C., headed by Howard University Law School professor Frank D. Reeves.

With Thurgood Marshall, Reeves had run the Legal Defense Fund's New York City office in the early 1940s, and he was working with Marshall and his team in the early 1950s on the legal drive to end school segregation that would culminate in the groundbreaking 1954 Brown v. Board decision.

Reeves referred the Sarah Keys matter to his former law student, Julius W. Robertson, and his junior partner, Dovey Johnson Roundtree, a World War II WAC who had herself been subjected to Jim Crow during her military travels. The match of client and attorneys proved fortuitous.

Sarah Keys v. Carolina Coach Company, 64 MCC 769 (1955) is a landmark civil rights case in the United States in which the segregationist Interstate Commerce Commission, in response to a complaint filed in 1953 by a Women's Army Corps (WAC) private named Sarah Louise Keys, broke with its past racist practice and banned the segregation of black passengers in buses traveling across state lines.

The November 1955 ruling, publicly announced six days before Rosa Parks' historic defiance of state Jim Crow laws on Montgomery buses, applied the United States Supreme Court's logic in Brown v. Board of Education (347 US 483 (1954)) for the the first time to the field of interstate transportation, and closed the legal loophole that private bus companies had long exploited to impose their own Jim Crow regulations on black interstate travelers.

Keys v. Carolina Coach was the only explicit rejection ever made by either a court or a federal administrative body of the Plessy v. Ferguson (163 US 537 (1896)) 'separate but equal' doctrine in the field of bus travel across state lines, and the ruling made legal history both at the time of its issuance and again in 1961, when Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy invoked it in his successful battle to end Jim Crow travel during the Freedom Riders' campaign.

Attorney Robertson argued the case on the eve of the explosion of civil rights protest across America, and Keys v. Carolina Coach Company, along with its companion train desegregation case, NAACP v. St. Louis-San Francisco Railway Company, 298 ICC 335 (1955), represents a crucial milestone in the legal battle for racial justice in the United States.

Source: My mother, Annette M. (Robertson) McGee, and her sister, Mrs. Dale (Robertson) Ore, are the only surviving relatives of Attorney Julius Winfield Robertson and are available to verify and corroborate the information I have presented here. 

Editor-in-Chief: @ayannanahmias
LinkedIn: Ayanna Nahmias

“Well, Who Burns Churches in God’s Name??!!” South Carolina Black Churches Under Fire

Ragged pieces of the Confederate Flag Dipped in blood still smoulders upon The basement floor of Mount Zion AME Church.

A White man in 'Blackface' Adorned in the KKK’s uniform Waves his right hand in the air, Once the crowd ceases talking, He opens the meeting by reading Job 2:1-7 And the group of men and women respond with laughter.

“These niggers are nothing like Job,”

“Kidnapping, enslavement, and lynching clearly hasn’t been enough for them,”

“As long as we have Monkey Obama pushing his legislation to appease the American people, we have nothing to fear.

Their so-called leader has turned his back on them.”

“And who allowed a Black man in the White House anyway?-“

“SILENCE!” Commanded the lonely Black man.

“Hey nigger, you show some damn respect when you address your superiors.” “Yeah, we n da middle of a war here. Ain’t no time for some monkey uprisin'.”

The man in 'Blackface' motions his right hand towards the creed, The crowd repeats the allegiance to the cause:

LONG LIVE WHITE SUPREMACY!

“Hey Uncle Tom, can we get along with this meeting? Gotta get home to my wife and kids.”

The man in 'Blackface' welcomes Father Joshua to the front for his portion of the meeting.

“I am delighted to see almost everyone here tonight, Long live white supremacy, The only time of the month where we allow ourselves to utter these very words For it is important to clothe our behavior with popular terms such as WASPs, American government, and Fox News-“

Everyone erupts in laughter.

“Now I will not give much attention to the stupidity of our young comrade Dylann Roof, but I will say that a job well done is a job well done!

These youngsters just have to remember the most important rule, NEVER GET CAUGHT!

For Christ’s sake, we have senators, policemen, and generals to make our jobs easier That young lad got too excited, And now we have moved forward in the war During a time when we were not clearly ready.

But do not worry! For our weapons are worthy enough to bring us victory.

"NEXT ORDER OF BUSINESS........"

Who shall I thank for setting fire to the Glover Grove Baptist Church in Warrenville, South Carolina?”

Eyes look everywhere around the room.

“Oh, now don’t be shy, We here must praise the work of our comrades.”

One man speaks up:

“Sir, no one has said anything cause no one set fire to that church In fact, we have no clue how that fire started.”

“WHAT??!! But it was on our list for that day and time. What about College Hill Seventh Day Adventist Church in Knoxville, Tennessee?”

“Yeah, we did that sir. And Briar Creek Baptist Church in Charlotte, North Carolina, And God’s Power Church of Christ in Macon, Georgia, But, we have no idea who did Fruitland Presbyterian or Greater Miracle”

“WELL WHO IN GOD’S NAME IS BURNING THESE CHURCHES THEN??!!”

Mary, a seven year old girl, wakes up In her Princess and the Frog bed She looks at her window As she usually does when she wants to gaze at the stars and moon. Her favorite night was when the moon was red However, this night was different Because of the thunderstorm.

She usually runs to her parents’ room, To hide from the lightning Instead she sat up and watched the sky.

In the distance, the Mount Zion AME Church illumined briefly, Beneath the brilliance of the lightning dancing above it. Suddenly, a bolt of lightning strikes the building And it bursts into flames, She watched as the building burned down to the ground, And prayed that her pastor was not in the basement on this night.

POET & SOCIAL CRITIC: @ chrycka_harper

NASA's Next Frontier: The Moons of Jupiter

WASHINGTON, (NASA PR) - In their newest search to see if we are truly alone in the universe, NASA has set its sights to Jupiter's moon Europa.

The concept of sending a spacecraft to orbit Jupiter in order to learn about its most promising moon has been around since 2011, thanks to the John Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. Now it's become more than a theory and is being developed in earnest.

The idea began when NASA's 1990 Galileo mission scoping out Europa showed the possibility of an ocean beneath the moon's frozen crust. According to a NASA press release, "With abundant salt water, a rocky sea floor, and the energy and chemistry provided by tidal heating, Europa may have the ingredients needed to support simple organisms." Throughout the history of space exploration, water has always been the most important indicator of potential life.

The Europa mission plan involves an unmanned spacecraft to be launched sometime in the 2020s. After a journey of several years, the shuttle will fall in orbit around Jupiter. Every two weeks in orbit, the craft will be close enough to Europa to examine its composition.

The press release quoted Joan Salute, Europa's program executive at NASA: “It’s a great day for science. We are thrilled to pass the first major milestone in the lifecycle of a mission that will ultimately inform us on the habitability of Europa.”

Europa is similar in size to Earth's moon and is one of 63 known moons of Jupiter.

To learn more about the mission, go to: NASA Europa Mission

CONTRIBUTING JOURNALIST: @SJJakubowski
LINKEDIN: Sarah Jakubowski

Karachi Heat Wave, Hottest in Recorded History, Death Toll Surpasses 1,100

KARACHI, Pakistan - As the temperature approached 100 degrees Fahrenheit civilians struggle to stay dehydrated. Now that temperatures have surpassed 112°F or 45°C people are dying in the streets. This heat wave is one of the highest recorded temperatures since another deadly heat wave overtook the country 15-year-ago.

With people staggering through the streets, those who are clear minded take refuge in hospitals, shops, or covered markets, while the morgues and cemeteries continue to fill. Over 1,100 people have died, with an additional 14,000 being treated at hospitals around the city.

Symptoms of heat stroke include headache, dizziness, delirium and unconsciousness as well as abnormally high body temperature (over 103°F.) At the Jinnah Post Graduate Medical Center in Sindh's capital, Karachi, heat stroke victims are wheeled in daily, swelling the numbers well beyond capacity. The overwhelmed doctors and nurses do what they can. (Source: CNN) 

Many civilians have collapsed in the streets because of the heat, and may lay prostrate for hours before being discovered. Under any circumstances a heat wave is an unfortunate natural disaster, but the timing of this heat wave coincides with Ramadan, a time when Muslims fast, abstaining from both food and water from sunrise to sunset. Although older people, the infirmed, and pregnant or nursing women are allowed an exemption from fasting, heat exhaustion and strokes remain a source of danger to this segment of the population despite the dispensation.

With the death toll increasing daily, morgues have become full to overflowing. CNN interviewed a grave digger at one of the city’s central graveyard. He says that because of the growing number of dead he is having trouble “finding places to bury them” and thus has resorted to making graves between graves.

News sources, including the BBC have also reported that the exponential rate of increase in the deaths of Pakistanis is concomitant with a massive power failure. A little after midnight on Thursday multiple grid stations of the K-Electric (previously KESC) went offline for three hours before finally being restored. (Source: GeoTV)

Thus, the unfortunate confluence of the summer heat and the most pervasive infrastructure failure in recent history has resulted in a death toll exceeding 1,100s. Though temperatures seemed to have abated somewhat many more are predicted to die, especially the poor, the young, and the old remain most vulnerable.

Those who were affluent or fortunate enough to own air conditioners or fans stand a chance of staving off heat prostration, but these isolated opportunities to survive this natural and man-made disaster remain few and far between and utterly inaccessible to the general public. The people of Karachi and even the Taliban blame the government and K-Electric for the majority of the deaths; and those who have strength and energy enough have begun to protest and demand justice for those who have died.

Contributing Journalist: @ VictoriaCopeland

Wassup Rachel Dolezal?

rachel dolezal, march 2, 2015, photo by cerrahi news

Wassup Rachel, Do you like your chicken fried, baked, or smothered in gravy? Does your family eat chitlins, oxtails, pig feet, and fried catfish? Do you put Ham Hocks in your Collard greens? Do you go to church on Sunday mornings? When the church speaks, do you say Amen? Have you ever caught the spirit when you speak from the podium? Do you twerk? Can you twerk? Have you ever been called a nigger or a nigga? Do you call white people crackers, honkies, devils, or trash? Do you speak with twang in your voice? Are you fluent in the Ebonics and Creole languages?

When you look at Black women who destroy their skins with lightening creams, what do you say? When you look at Black women who destroy their hair with relaxers, what do you say? Would you advise a little girl to go natural or wear a weave? Is your hair real or is that a weave?

Have you ever been denied a job because of the way your hair looks or the spelling of your name? Have you ever suffered racism and sexism at the same time? Do you believe American slavery is a hate crime? What do you think about a mentally ill Black veteran murdered by the Wichita police? Do you believe the massacre at the AME church in Charleston was a hate crime? What do you think about the Black Haitian-Dominicans on the brink of losing their citizenship? What does #Blacklivesmatter mean to you?

To all the Rachels in the world,

I do not have a problem with your mission to help a community that continually suffers from American oppression. I do not have a problem with your aim in educating young people on history that is not taught in schools. My problem lies in your inability to understand your own sickness.

I did not ask you those questions to receive responses. I asked because you believe that by wearing your hair in stereotypical Black hairstyles, Or darkening your skin, Or putting a pep in your step, you would achieve what.... Acceptance? Unity? Understanding? Solutions?

Rachel, a definition of a Black woman is not by the color of her skin, The texture of her hair, The hood she grew up in, The thickness of her lips, Or the box that she checks on a job application.

The definition of a Black woman is complicated because there is the social construct’s definition, Then a cultural definition, Then a psychological definition, Then a historical definition.

I have no problem with you identifying yourself as an African (gosh, humanity began there) But, I have a problem with your attempt to identify with my experiences as a Black woman. You can never walk a thousand miles in my shoes.

Why?

Because many Black women have done what you done, Mothers, grandmothers, sisters, aunts, cousins, who couldn’t obtain your level of success because they are Black women in a racist society.

Because many Black women have done what you done, ministers, educators, scientists, mentors, activists, doctors, nurses, and they achieved success AND never lied about who they are.

Rachel, I am no longer concerned about your ethnic origins or the integrity of your work. I am more concerned about your mental health. If you cannot see the similarities between you and the white missionaries traveling to countries in Africa, Asia, Central America, and South America with the mindsets that they are fixing the troubled natives and their problems.........

THEN YOU ARE THE PROBLEM.

There is an inexplicable war against people of color, women, religious groups, young people, elderly people, the mentally ill, the physically handicapped, and poor people, and you have the nerve to conduct magic by making your ‘whiteness’ disappear? Have you ever listened to the lyrics in Kendrick Lamar’s song: “you ain’t gotta lie to kick it my nigga?” I am watching people that look like me die by the day in the hands of police officers, hate groups, and yes, mentally disturbed people that look like me and you. My peers are upset and ready to take action, but do not through the wisdom of our elders and ancestors. Can you honestly relate to my experience? Are you mourning for Charleston? Or is this all not a race issue?

Instead of speaking to crowds about the experiences of being a Black woman, or being a Black person period, maybe you should have shared your experiences of conquering identity issues. They affect all of us. They affect us to the point where people feel the need to kill others over a natural identity that America transformed into a Sick, Social, Construct.

But I guess you never had my, a Black woman's, best interests at heart.

Many wolves are adorned in sheep's clothing so I dedicated to build my arsenal of mental and spiritual weapons. When my people are attacked by imposters and enemies, #Wewillshootback.

Do not worry. This is not a declaration of a physical, violent war. Only insight into the kind of world we live in. Rachels, if you are really about it, put on REAL armor and be ready to fight for the revolution through protests, writing, speaking, and boycotting. And be ready to mourn for those we lose in the struggle for they serve as reminders that the battle is definitely not over.

Sincerely,

A. Black. Woman. Fighting for my community as I am.

Poet & Literary Critic: @Chrycka_Harper
Facebook: Chrycka Harper