Insecure Returns For its Fourth Season This Spring

Wow, y’all. It’s been over a whole ass year since we’ve last seen the misadventures of Issa, Molly and the rest of the Insecure crew. Fear not though, the drought is soon to be over.

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Five Bookshelf Upgrades That Cost Less Than $25

Bookshelves do way more than just house books — they’re also a focal point, from a design perspective — in many of the rooms in our home, they also serve as design focal points, and as a way through which we express our tastes, our style, our values. If your bookshelves could use a little freshening up, here are five…

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Report: Black business owners are denied bank loans twice as often as white business owners

Black business owners are routinely denied bank loans, even if they have good credit scores and consistent annual profits.

More than any other racial group,Black entrepreneurs more frequently hear “no” when going after business loans, according to St. Louis Public Radio.

READ MORE: Stacey Abrams tackles voter suppression in new book due out in June

One case in point is Freddie Lee James and his wife, Deborah, who started Freddie Lee’s Gourmet Sauces in St. Louis back in 2010. The couple has a good credit score and $200,000 in annual yearly profits. Their barbeque sauce is currently sold at more than 1,000 retail stores across the United States and Jamaica, including Home Goods, Schnucks, Dierbergs, Straub’s and Hy-Vee, yet they can’t qualify for a business loan.

“We have 750-760 credit score. … We pay all our debts. We don’t have no problems with that. But they were saying that the sauce business is not generating enough capital to their standards,” James said to St. Louis Public Radio.

According to U.S. Federal Reserve statistics, Black business owners are denied loans by banks twice as often as white business owners. In 2014, when data was last made available nationally, more than half of all applications for bank loans from black-owned businesses were denied. This compares to about 25% of loan applications by white business owners in the same timeframe.

READ MORE:NAACP lawsuit claims Census Bureau is unprepared for count 

Deborah James said without bank funding, it’s tough to expand their business to achieve the bank’s requirements for volume. She said it’s impossible to reach the sales quota achieved by well-financed brands while working off of a small-business budget, according to St. Louis Public Radio.

To finance the business, the couple used $100,000 from Freddie Lee James’ 401(k) and then went to Justine Petersen, a St. Louis microlender, for help. The nonprofit organization works with small business owners to help them improve their credit and qualify for affordable loans.

Galen Gondolfi, a senior loan counselor and spokesman at Justine Petersen, said there are many business owners in the same predicament as the Jameses.’

“St. Louis’ seemingly provincial lending struggles not only with entrepreneurs that don’t historically ‘look like them,’ but (also) the types of businesses that are unique to these populations,” Gondolfi told St. Louis Public Radio in an email.

For Black entrepreneurs seeking basic financial opportunities, the fight continues.

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Oakland Mothers Who Were Arrested For Squatting Released From Jail

If you were unaware, the city of Oakland is currently in the midst of a housing crisis. Prices for renting and owning homes are skyrocketing,forcing groups like Moms 4 Housing to resort to desperate measures to keep a roof over their head.

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Oprah shuts down claims she’s planning a ‘tell-all’ interview with Harry and Meghan

On the heels of her stepping away from her role as executive producer on an upcoming Russell Simmons documentary, media mogul Oprah Winfrey has now come forward to shut down reports that she’s planning a tell-all interview with Meghan Markle and Prince Harry.

According to Fox News, Monday, Nicole Nichols, the chief spokesperson for the OWN Network, clarified that despite what was being speculated in the press, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex were “not in discussion for an interview” with the talk show host.

READ MORE: How Meghan Markle exposed racism in the British media (then bounced)

Last fall during an interview with journalist Bryony Gordon, the Duke of Sussex opened up about the Apple TV+ series he and Winfrey collaborated on, which he believes will highlight examples of “human spirit fighting back from the darkest places.”

Given the relationship between Winfrey and Harry, many assumed she would be the likely first stop for the royal couple to vent any of their frustrations about the attacks from the British press. But it appears that at least for now, that is not the case.

On the same day of Winfrey’s statement, Queen Elizabeth released a statement of her own, sharing her parting thoughts on her grandson’s sudden departure from his duties as a senior member of the royal family.

READ MORE: Gayle King checks royal family biographer over Megan Markle racial remark on ‘CBS This Morning’

“Today my family had very constructive discussions on the future of my grandson and his family,” she confirmed in the message. “My family and I are entirely supportive of Harry and Meghan’s desire to create a new life as a young family. Although we would have preferred them to remain full-time working Members of the Royal Family, we respect and understand their wish to live a more independent life as a family while remaining a valued part of my family.

“Harry and Meghan have made clear that they do not want to be reliant on public funds in their new lives,” the Queen. “It has therefore been agreed that there will be a period of transition in which the Sussexes will spend time in Canada and the UK. These are complex matters for my family to resolve, and there is some more work to be done, but I have asked for final decisions to be reached in the coming days.”

The post Oprah shuts down claims she’s planning a ‘tell-all’ interview with Harry and Meghan appeared first on TheGrio.

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