Strauss-Kahn Accuser Sues New York Post

July 5, 2011, 11:39 am

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From the Wall Street Journal:

The hotel maid who accused former International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn of sexual assault filed a libel lawsuit Tuesday against the New York Post and five reporters over recent articles that said she had worked as a prostitute.

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Lenny Kravitz Reveals Inspiration for Black and White America

July 5, 2011, 11:46 am

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From MTV News:

Lenny Kravitz has never been one for boxes. When he broke onto the scene 22 years ago with Let Love Rule, his brand of psych-and-funk-tinged retro rock, coupled with his roots (his mother was black, his father white, his religion a mixture of Christianity and Judaism), confounded critics and radio executives alike. And to an extent, that's never really changed, though, with each successive hit - 'Let Love Rule,' 'Are You Gonna Go My Way,' 'Fly Away,' 'American Woman,' to name just a few - he's become less of a curio case and more of a career artist.

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Legendary Baltimore Businessman Dies at 97

July 5, 2011, 11:50 am

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From the Root:

William Lloyd "Little Willie" Adams, who began his career as a number runner on the streets of Baltimore and eventually became the city's first prominent African-American venture capitalist, bankrolling numerous black-owned businesses, died last week from pneumonia. He was 97.

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Long Static, Black Theater Showing Signs of Change

July 6, 2011, 2:04 am

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From Chicago News Cooperative:

Compared to the rest of Chicago's theater community, where companies can rise, fall and change directions seemingly from show to show, African-American theaters have been a bastion of stability-or, according to some critics, stasis. The Black Ensemble Theater could be counted on to do jukebox musicals at its space in the Jane Addams Hull House; eta Creative Arts reliably produced new works whose educational content often overwhelmed their artistic power. Congo Square Theatre and MPAACT presented first-rate plays by contemporary black playwrights but sometimes went dark because of managerial or financial difficulties.

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How to Start a New Country, South Sudan Style

July 6, 2011, 2:10 am

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From CNN:

South Sudan will declare itself the world's newest country on Saturday in a ceremony that caps the region's long struggle to cede from its northern neighbor. But though a heavy price has been paid for independence -- Sudan's north and south fought one of Africa's longest and bloodiest civil wars -- declaring statehood isn't as simple as hoisting a flag.

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Talk, Talk, Talk But No End to a Six-Decade-Long Scandal

July 6, 2011, 2:16 am

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Daily Kos:

Nationwide, the unemployment rate for black workers at 16.2% is almost double the 9.1% rate for the rest of the population. And it's twice the 8% white jobless rate. The size of those numbers can, in part, be chalked up to the current jobs crisis in which black workers are being decimated. According to Duke University public policy expert William Darity, that means blacks are "the last to be hired in a good economy, and when there's a downturn, they're the first to be released."

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Leading American and African Contemporary Artists Contribute to Sotheby's Art for Africa Sale

July 6, 2011, 2:22 am

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From Art Daily:

Peter Beard, Alex Katz, Alexander Calder, Andy Warhol, Mary Sibande, Hunt Slonem, Nick Cave, Mickalene Thomas, E.V. Day, Jeff Sonhouse, Beezy Bailey and Sue Williamson are among the artists whose works have been donated to the Art for Africa Auction, a unique auction presenting leading American, African-American and African contemporary artists which will be held at Sotheby's New York on Thursday, November 17th, 2011.

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Attention At The Gym: Motivating or Aggrevating?

July 6, 2011, 4:24 am

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Filed under: Lifestyle/ Health

When you're on your "Kanye workout plan," do you find a side glance from men distracting or does it inspire you to put more pep in your step?

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One blogger mentioned that a handsome man actually takes her mind off breaking a sweat.

"I will shamelessly admit I pass most of my time people-watching at the gym. I've actually changed my workout schedule in order to go to the gym when the hottest guys show up (I've found it was 6-8 p.m., which may vary depending on your particular gym). If I spend the time imagining what the hot dude next to me on the treadmill does for a living, or starring at the endless full-sleeve tattoos, it takes my mind off of actually exerting effort," said market researcher and blogger Erica Dermer.

But many women are focused on their routines and a guy constantly ogling their bodies isn't motivation to get in the last few reps. It may be the motivation to join another gym.

Weigh in, does a little eye candy and attention break up the monotony of your routine?

 

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Cory Maye Freed After 10 Years In Prison

July 6, 2011, 5:25 am

≫ Next: UPDATED: Obama To Hold Twitter Town Hall

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Filed under: News

From The Huffington Post:

MONTICELLO, Miss. -- It's Friday, July 1, 2011, a little past 8:15 a.m. when I arrive at the Lawrence County, Mississippi, courthouse. As I walk toward the building, I run into Dorothy Maye, the mother of Cory Maye. She's beaming.

"I thought you'd be wearing a smile today, Miss Dorothy," I say. She gives me a quick but firm embrace. She scolded me years ago when I tried to shake her hand. "I don't shake," she said. "I hug." Later that day, she expects to hear Judge Prentiss Howell tell the courtroom that after 9 and a half years in prison -- including two on death row and another three in Parchman Penitentiary's notoriously violent Unit 32 -- her son will soon be coming home.

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Cory Maye, now 30, was convicted in 2004 of shooting and killing Prentiss, Mississippi, police officer Ron Jones, Jr. during a botched drug raid on Maye's home on the day after Christmas in 2001. Maye says he was asleep as the raid began at 12:30 a.m. and had no idea the men breaking into his home were police. The police say they announced themselves. Maye had no prior criminal record, and police found all of a marijuana roach in his apartment, which under other circumstances would garner a $100 fine.

Read more here.

 

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UPDATED: Obama To Hold Twitter Town Hall

July 6, 2011, 5:42 am

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President Obama is taking to Twitter to answer questions from the public on the economy and jobs. The White House said the Twitter town hall is an effort to bypass traditional media outlets and talk to Americans outside of DC.

But don't expect the President to be banging out tweets on his BlackBerry. "He's just answering the questions. He's not typing and tweeting," White House spokesman Jay Carney said. White House staffers will shoehorn the President's responses into 140 characters, the limit for a tweet.

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This isn't the first time Obama has used a popular social networking platform to answer questions. Obama answered questions from YouTube users, and the President held a town hall via Facebook in April. This approach gives the White House a chance to connect with young, tech-savvy Americans who are a big part of Obama's base and less likely to get their news via the 6:30 broadcasts or 24-hour news channels.

While the technology being used in the Q&A with the president may be novel, the event will be as tightly controlled as any other press event for the President. Questions from the Twitterverse will be curated by journalists who write primarily about economic issues. Since the most popular trending questions will get priority, the chances of the president being thrown a curveball or even just asked a thoughtful little-considered question is pretty slim. And the setup allows the White House to ignore questions the President would rather not answer: Obama was criticized at the Twitter and Facebook events for ignoring a question on whether he supported legalizing marijuana.

But the event also shows how much the big social media companies have become major players in the news -- both in the way the news it's transmitted and the way it's made.

The town hall will begin at 2 p.m. EST, and you can follow the livestream of the conversation here. Questions for the President can be tweeted with the hashtag "AskObama."

Be sure to be following @blackvoices on Twitter to join the ongoing conversation.

 

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Is Your Weave Holding You Back From Your Man?

July 6, 2011, 5:45 am

≫ Next: French Production Company Fined $46 Million for Failing to Distribute Spike Lee's Miracle at St. Anna

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Filed under: Weaves & Extensions, Hair and Beauty

From Clutchmag.com:

The construal of the model black woman garners the ability to encompass an immeasurable range of unparalleled love. With a repertoire like that, some would believe that the black woman is a force to be reckoned with. And they'd be correct.

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Yet, even with the innate ability to rule a country like Queen Amina and the effortless poise to "run the world" á la Beyoncé, there remains two subject matters that have perplexed and frustrated the black woman for years:

Black men. And black hair.

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French Production Company Fined $46 Million for Failing to Distribute Spike Lee's Miracle at St. Anna

July 6, 2011, 7:14 am

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From the Hollywood Reporter:

Spike Lee has scored a big win in a Paris courtroom. TF1 Droits Audiovisuels has been ordered to pay $46 million to producers of Miracle at St. Anna for failing to honor a contract to distribute the World War II picture internationally.

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Phylicia Rashad, Rosie Perez, and Nelsan Ellis Join Star-Studded Cast of "Gods Behaving Badly"

July 6, 2011, 7:22 am

≫ Next: Bill Clinton Compares Voter ID Laws to Jim Crow

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Filed under: Movies

Big Beach Films announced Tuesday that its film adaptation of Marie Phillips' 2007 novel Gods Behaving Badly will feature a star-studded cast including Tony Award winner Phylicia Rashad, Rosie Perez, and True Blood's Nelsan Ellis.

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Bill Clinton Compares Voter ID Laws to Jim Crow

July 6, 2011, 10:39 am

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Filed under: News

Former President Bill Clinton compared efforts to limit voter ID laws and block some convicted felons from voting to the Jim Crow laws and poll taxes.

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"I can't help thinking since we just celebrated the Fourth of July and we're supposed to be a country dedicated to liberty that one of the most pervasive political movements going on outside Washington today is the disciplined, passionate, determined effort of Republican governors and legislators to keep most of you from voting next time," he said at a conference in Washington on Wednesday.

The former President specifically mentioned Florida Gov. Rick Scott's move to overturn the state's longstanding reenfranchisement rules, which allow convicted felons vote after their probations have ended. "Why should we disenfranchise people forever once they've paid their price?" Clinton said. "Because most of them in Florida were African Americans and Hispanics who tended to vote for Democrats. That's why."

Florida isn't the only state making it harder for its residents to vote. As VC noted last week at PostBourgie, Kansas, Wisconsin, Tennessee, Georgia, South Carolina, Indiana, and Texas all boast strict photo ID laws, and the Pennsylvania House recently backed a photo ID bill. But she notes that voter fraud almost never happens.

"Oddly enough, requiring a photo ID to cast a vote would only be effective in preventing individuals from impersonating other voters at the polls-an occurrence that is, according to a study released by the Brennan Center, more rare than getting struck by lightning," she writes. "From the Bush administration's five-year national 'war on voter fraud,' there were only 86 convictions of illegal voting out of more than 196 million votes cast. Of those 86 convictions, only 26 were attributable to individual voters, and most of those were misunderstandings about eligibility. What is more, connection to voter fraud in a federal election carries grave punishments, including a $10,000 fine and five years in prison, in addition to any state penalties. This is a risk that very few people are willing to take, particularly for the result of one incremental vote."

"Under the guise of protecting elections, the integral democratic right to vote is being transformed into a privilege and a prize," she added.

During the Jim Crow era, many states required black people attempting to vote to "prove" that they were eligible to vote by making them pay onerous taxes in order to vote, or to take "literacy tests" that required would-be black voters to cite obscure legal statutes. While black people were technically allowed to vote, the inability to meet the murky, impossible requirements needed to cast their ballots effectively disenfranchised most blacks in the South.

The requirement of state ID's to vote would have a similar effect: shutting out poor people who can't afford them or young people who don't have permanent addresses.

But Chris Jankowski, who heads the Republican State Leadership Committee, took issue with Clinton's characterization of the push for voter ID laws. "The Republican legislative majorities and their governors around the country are standing up for the integrity of the election process," he told Politico. "We support everyone who is entitled to vote to vote. And to take issue with that, to be opposed to that principle means you're actually supporting illegal voting."

 

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Zoe Kravitz Inherits Dad's Eclectic Style

July 6, 2011, 10:56 am

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Filed under: Celebrity Style , Fashion Files

Rocker Lenny Kravitz is set to release his ninth album Black and White in America this August after two decades in the music industry and at 47-years-old he still has a unique sense of style that he's passed to down to daughter Zoe Kravitz.

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Kravitz is a man unafraid of high heels and in an interview with Details he talked about his funky style, his relationship with his 22-year-old daughter and how he sees his influence on her fashion sense.

"I look back at some of those pictures and I'm like, "Wow, that was really crazy." I would try anything: furs, boas, platform boots. It's funny how you never think you're going to change. I met Mick Jagger at the beginning of my career and asked him, "Where's that outfit with the omega on it? Where's that cape?" He said, "I don't know. I think my daughter has it in her closet." I was so bummed. But now my daughter, Zoë, has a lot of my stuff. She took all my boas from the Mama Said era. They were in storage, and I yelled at her, "Don't steal my boas!" She laughed and said, "Those words would not come out of most fathers' mouths."

When asked what he thought of her wearing skimpy outfits in her role as Angel Salvadore in X-Men he said "she plays a superhero, so how bad can it be? I haven't seen the movie. I'm not a jealous dad at all. I trust her judgment. She's well equipped, and she needs to go out and do her own thing. She's seen enough and was loved enough by both her mom and me that she has made me proud on every account."

"I used to be a little embarrassed by how she [mother Lisa Bonet] and my dad would dress, but now I steal their clothes all the time," actress Zoe said of her parents to ASOS magazine.

 

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Why Crime Is Down in America's Cities

July 7, 2011, 1:35 am

≫ Next: Essence Festival Interrupts Racial Segregation in New Orleans

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From the Atlantic:

Yesterday, the Financial Times ran an op ed piece of mine about the mysterious downward trend in crime. While this drop is a welcome development -- and very possibly a bellwether of even more positive changes in our society -- it poses a vexing challenge to professional explainers. What follows is a longer, more detailed, and more statistics-laden exploration of why crime rates are falling.

Read more here.

 

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Essence Festival Interrupts Racial Segregation in New Orleans

July 7, 2011, 1:46 am

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The Society Pages:

Essence Music Festival, the "party with a purpose," is a three-day event in New Orleans, featuring speakers during the day and musical performances at night. It also caters to an almost exclusively black audience, bringing 400,000 people to the Crescent City each year. Their sheer presence challenges informal systems of segregation in New Orleans.

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Obama Denies Bachmann Charge That He Has Failed African-Americans, Latinos on Jobs

July 7, 2011, 2:07 am

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From the Seattle Medium:

President Barack Obama, in what was likely his first direct defense pertaining to the question of the high unemployment rate among Blacks and Latinos, says Republicans who accuse him of failing on jobs are playing politics.

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Trapped in Motown's Closet

July 7, 2011, 2:13 am

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From the New Black Man:

Nearly 35 years before the release of Lady Gaga's Born This Way, a Gospel singer turned Disco star, recorded a song bearing the same title, which became one of the era's most important Gay anthems. That a Baltimore bred, African-American man, who came of age during the height of Civil Rights movement could so seamlessly wed the Gospel impulses of this nation's most affecting social movement, with the nascent impulses of the GLBT movement-"Yes I'm gay/tain't a fault 'tis a fact/I was born this way"-should not be surprising. That Bean did so recording for Motown Records, a company that symbolized the push for Black integration and respectability in the 1960s and 1970s, should elicit some wonder.

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Black Baptists Should Engage Changing Culture, Says Conference Workshop

July 7, 2011, 2:21 am

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From Lubbock Online:

Times are changing for many black churches, said the Rev. Michael A. Evans Sr., pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Mansfield. Evans led a workshop challenging churches to engage changing culture during the African American Fellowship Conference Wednesday. The fellowship is a ministry of the Baptist General Convention of Texas, or Texas Baptists.

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