RIP Carl Weathers, California reparations(?) plan, Jay-Z shakes up the Grammys
Friday, February 9, 2024.
What I’m Reading
Reparations bills in California leave out a key ingredient: Cash, MSNBC
Lawmakers in the California Legislative Black Caucus have announced the country’s first set of reparations bills — all of which include several things, like a formal apology from the governor and a ban on hair discrimination in athletics. However, as my former colleague Ja'han Jones writes, the bills are missing a key ingredient: cash.
“[The] problem as I see it is that the proposed bills seem to offer much less than cash payments. To an extent that it’s debatable whether one can call them ‘reparations’ at all,” Jones writes. Some California reparations backers are urging people to remain patient, reminding them the bills are “just the beginning.”
When will Black artists be ready to break up with The Grammys?, NPR
As someone who has to watch the Grammys for work, the awards show wasn’t totally dull this year. In fact, one of the most interesting points of the event was Jay-Z’s criticism of The Recording Academy during his acceptance speech for the Dr. Dre Global Impact Award. (Media personality Dee Barnes ripped the Recording Academy for naming the award after her assaulter). The rapper called out the organization for awarding Beyoncé with more Grammys than any other artist in history but never awarding her Album of the Year. This was especially egregious last year, but I digress.
After Jay-Z’s speech lit up the internet, NPR’s Sidney Madden pointed out that “the type of change Jay says he's seeking comes from pressure, not platitudes.” So when will Black artists be ready to break up with the Grammys?
The Most Overlooked Reason Black Americans Are Moving South, The New York Times
Adam Mahoney, likely the most prominent Black climate reporter covering the South, penned a guest essay in the New York Times about pollution’s damaging impacts on Black communities in the Midwest and the North, and why we must stop that same thing from happening as Black Americans move to the South.
What’s In The News
Across America
California: Los Angeles has become the first U.S. city to outlaw digital discrimination after homes in the city’s poorest neighborhoods were disproportionately asked to pay high prices for slow internet service…
Colorado: The city of Aurora reached a settlement with a Black woman who was forcibly removed from her car at gunpoint with her family after police mistakenly thought she had stolen her vehicle…
Georgia: A medical examiner has confirmed that the death of a baby who was decapitated during delivery in a hospital has been ruled a homicide…
Missouri: A prosecutor has filed a motion to vacate the conviction of a man imprisoned for more than three decades for the shooting death of a 15-year-old boy…
Mississippi: The state auditor is demanding Brett Favre repay nearly $730,000 that was supposed to help some of the poorest people in the state…
Pennsylvania: The University of Pennsylvania has held hundreds of skulls that were once part of racist scientific research and most recently reburied the remains of 19 Black Philadelphians. Some community members feel excluded from the process…
Tennessee: State lawmakers have advanced a bill that would vacate the Tennessee State University board and empower the governor to appoint new members to oversee the historically Black university…
Texas: Lynn Price, who co-founded Turkey Leg Hut with his wife Nakia Holmes, said he’s been fired from the popular restaurant amid their divorce…
Vermont: A foster mother called the police on her Black son to talk with him after he stole e-cigarettes. She is suing them after he was forcibly handcuffed and sedated…
What’s Happening
The Environmental Protection Agency has been blocked from investigating racial disparities in Louisiana’s “Cancer Alley,” in a decision with broad civil rights implications…
Georgia’s GOP-controlled Senate passed a bill that would severely limit charitable organizations that pay bail for protesters who have been arrested. The new bill would only allow such organizations to bail out just three people per year…
MSNBC correspondent Trymaine Lee and civil rights attorney Charles Coleman Jr. star in a new documentary “exploring the intersection of race, culture and politics through the eyes of Black men in America”...
Journalist Dara T. Mathis is the 2024 recipient of the American Mosaic Journalism Prize, the largest national media award in the country…
“If Chandler is considered the poet of crime fiction and Hammett its great journalist, then Chester Himes is the songwriter of the downtrodden,” S.A. Cosby writes of the prolific crime novelist Chester Himes…
Gabriella Karefa-Johnson, the fashion editor who is known as the first Black woman to style a Vogue cover, is speaking out since her departure from Condé Nast…
Big companies vowed to fix water woes in Mississippi and save cities millions. But a New York Times investigation found the deals racked up debt and left many worse off than before…
The man who killed 21-year-old Asia Womack in Dallas after she beat him in a pickup basketball game has been sentenced to 20 years in prison…
Sweetly Seasoned has posted an apology after the owner came under fire for taking the entirety of a $4,000 tip left by Keith Lee meant not only for herself, but for others…
Black churches have often played critical roles in civil and freedom movements. 31 of them have now been awarded $4 million to preserve those stories…
Entertainment
Carl Weathers, who starred as Apollo Creed in the first four Rocky films, has died. He was 76…
I went to the NPR Tiny Desk recording of Jeezy this week, which will premiere on February 21…
Mo’Nique sat down with Shannon Sharpe for “Club Shay Shay,” where she unloaded on Tyler Perry, Oprah, Kevin Hart and others. She later announced that she’s joining Katt Williams on his “The Dark Matter” tour…
Henry Fambrough, the last surviving original member of the iconic R&B group The Spinners, has died. He was 85…
For the Los Angeles Times, Marissa Evans sat down with Usher to discuss his new album, the Las Vegas residency and much more. Don’t forget, he’s the halftime performer at the Super Bowl this Sunday…
WHAT? YEAH! Lil Jon is reportedly dropping a guided meditation album…
T-Pain says he has removed his songwriting credits from country songs due to the racism he's experienced…
Wendy Williams is seen for the first time in a year in a devastating Lifetime documentary trailer…
Movie news: Warner Bros. has acquired the secret film Ryan Coogler and Michael B. Jordan are working on next. Also: Denzel Washington and Spike Lee are reuniting for their fifth film together…
Beyoncé has announced that she is entering the hair-care game with her new line named “Cécred”...
Tracy Chapman, who hadn’t performed in public in years, performed "Fast Car" with Luke Combs at the Grammys. The performance boosted her original track to #1 on iTunes after the performance…
Snoop Dogg and Master P are suing Post Foods and Walmart, accusing them of intentionally leaving their cereal off store shelves and hiding it in stockrooms to sabotage it…
Don’t Miss
Can you beat my time on Black Crossword? 2 minutes, 25 seconds…
Got a story to tell? Monkeypaw is seeking pitches from short genre filmmakers, and the prize is a $50,000 grant…
Tiger Woods said he will make his first PGA Tour start since the Masters at the Genesis Invitational next week at Riviera…
The Ida B. Wells Society Investigative Reporting Internship Program is back! We desperately need more Black investigative journalists. Students and recent graduates, apply by Feb. 18…
On Black folks and the Grammy's... we are tired. Stop giving them airtime, if you are a major artist - don't attend. But what will we do about the fact that Lemonade and Renaissance were robbed? They better give her an honorary award - Album Anthology of the Decade or something.
And yes, it was not lost on me that Jay-Z won an award named after Dr. Dre (I was one of his biggest fans in the 90s and 00s but DV is DV, fam)... just mixed feelings all around when it comes to that award show.