400 Years Since 1619

Tuesday, February 18, 2020

Tiffany Boone addresses why she left the hit show, ‘The Chi’

Tiffany Boone, who formerly acted on Showtime’s The Chi before abruptly leaving the show in November 2018 after alleging she was being harassed by co-star Jason Mitchell, is shining some light on her experience.

In her three-page Instagram post, which she captioned “feeling grateful and free,” Boone said when she worked for Lena Waithe’s hit show, “not everyone was interested in creating a work environment that was conducive to each person feeling safe, seen and heard.”

View this post on Instagram

feeling grateful and free.

A post shared by Tiffany Boone (@tiffmonet) on Feb 17, 2020 at 11:11am PST

Boone said she felt a personal responsibility to address the matter. “I felt that if I didn’t speak up, other voices that were trying to be heard would be silenced.”

“You don’t carelessly leave a ‘hit show’ that is praised by your community,” Boone wrote in her IG post. “I deeply love Chicago and the people of that city who have embraced me. I felt honored and privileged to be part of telling their story. The weight of what I was leaving behind felt like a ton, but the weight of my responsibility to speak up was even heavier. There were people who questioned my decision. How could I be sure I would work again, especially on a project of that magnitude? I wasn’t sure, but I had faith that once I took that leap I could be guided wherever I was supposed to go.”

“Never did I imagine that that leap would turn into the most beautiful flight,” Boone added. “I knew it was a risk but I feel as if the second I dove off that cliff, there was a hand beneath me lifting me higher.”

Deadline reported that Boone left The Chi in its second season and was later cast in Jordan Peele’s Amazon series Hunters, where she said everyone affiliated with the project “made it clear that they were creating an environment of safety, respect, and collaboration.”

Boone also worked on Hulu’s Little Fires Everywhere, produced by Kerry Washington and Reese Witherspoon’s production companies. Boone said this experience couldn’t be more different than her time on The Chi. “It is not simply that this show is run by women. It is run by women who are committed to supporting other women, telling unique and compelling stories written by and about women, and creating an environment where each and every person feels safe and inspired to create their best work,” Boone wrote on IG.

Mitchell was subsequently axed from The Chi last year and he also was fired from Desperados, a Netflix movie, after other actresses accused him of harassment. Mitchell was later fired by his agency, UTA.

The post Tiffany Boone addresses why she left the hit show, ‘The Chi’ appeared first on TheGrio.

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Study finds Black students are suspended more than white peers

Black students face the harshest discipline in schools across America. They are also less likely to be accepted into gifted and talented programs.

So found a study by the American Educational Research Journal, which examined U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights data from more than 1,880 public school districts nationwide. The study, entitled “Categorical Inequality in Black and White: Linking Disproportionality Across Multiple Educational Outcomes,” found that Black and white students have sizeable differences in discipline rates, grade level-retention, classification into special education, gifted and talented and Advanced Placement programs. The years studied were from 2011 through 2016.

Or to put it another way – Black students are suspended 1.5 times more frequently than their white classmates in the United States. And, on average, white students enroll in AP classes 1.3 times as often as Black students and have a 1.7 times higher likelihood to get into gifted programs, according to The Seattle Times.

So who’s the blame for the racial disparity? The study puts the blame largely on school districts, not families or their socioeconomic status.

“Systemic patterns of racial socioeconomic inequality drive inequalities across multiple educational outcomes; however, discretionary policies at local levels are more influential for nonachievement outcomes,” the study found.

“We want to shine the light back on schools directly so they feel compelled to explain to us why these racial differences (exist),” explained lead researcher Kenneth Shores, assistant professor of human development and family studies at Pennsylvania State University, reported The Seattle Times.

Nowhere are the racial disparity numbers more stark than in Seattle, according to The Seattle Times.

Seattle, along with nine other school districts, were in the bottom 10 with the largest Black-white achievement gap in terms of students being enrolled in gifted and talented programs. For example, in Seattle, white students are 2.38 times more likely to be enrolled in gifted programs than their Black peers and Black students are twice as likely as white students to be suspended.

Previous studies have blamed the disparity in discipline partly on how Black students are viewed by teachers as less innocent compared with their white peers.

The post Study finds Black students are suspended more than white peers appeared first on TheGrio.

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Stacey Abrams open to VP role in 2020 presidential election

Stacey Abrams is definitely open to running alongside a Democratic presidential candidate as his or her vice president in the 2020 presidential election.

In an interview Monday on ABC’s The View, Whoopi Goldberg told Abrams that while she is not currently running for president, “a lot of people want to see you on that ticket, first as vice president,” for which Abrams responded “of course” she’d accept an offer to join one of the current Democratic contenders for office.

This represents a change from a year ago when Abrams told The View that she was not interested in the VP job because “I think you don’t run for second place.”

Abrams, the former minority leader of the Georgia House of Representatives, now sees things differently.

“It would be doing a disservice to every woman of color, every woman of ambition, every child who wants to think beyond their known space for me to say no or to pretend, ‘Oh, no, I don’t want it.’ Of course, I want it. Of course, I want to serve America. Of course, I want to be a patriot and do this work. And so, I’d say yes,” Abrams said to the ladies on The View.

So far, Abrams said none of the remaining Democratic challengers have reached out to her offering her the position. And she refused to endorse a candidate, saying her “job right now is to fix our democracy” by actively working to combat and expose voter suppression tactics.

Abrams has a new book soon to be released entitled: Our Time is Now: Power, Purpose, and the Fight for a Fair America. It draws from her own experience running for governor of Georgia in 2018 and the numerous voter suppression challenges that arose— from access issues to the purging of voter rolls, according to The Hill.

“My best service is to be in that neutral space where it’s not about who the nominee is – it’s about making sure no matter who the nominee is, any person who wants to go and vote, can vote,” Abrams explained on The View. “That’s what we’re doing through Fair Fight 2020.”

Abrams launched Fair Fight 2020 after her 2018 gubernatorial loss to Republican Brian Kemp. Fair Fight 2020 aims to determine voter suppression challenges and fight back by financing voter protection operations in 20 key states, according to ABC News.

The post Stacey Abrams open to VP role in 2020 presidential election appeared first on TheGrio.

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Young Black Americans Can Take A Free Birthright Trip To Africa

Young Black Americans have in recent years been given the opportunity to travel to their ancestral African countries and connect with their roots by nonprofit organizations.

One such nonprofit is Birthright Africa which has its headquarters in New York City.

“This isn’t about validating Black identity. It’s about providing an opportunity for people to explore their ancestry,” Birthright Africa co-founder Diallo Shabaz told CNN.

Another nonprofit organization that does a similar thing is Birthright Israel. It was initiated in 1994 by Charles Bronfman and Michael Steinhardt in collaboration with the Israeli government.

Birthright Israel sponsors free 10-day heritage trips to Israel for young adults aged 18-32.

Since the trips began in 1999, more than 600,000 people from 67 countries have participated in the Birthright Israel program. Around 80 percent of the participants have been from the U.S. and Canada.

During the trips to Israel, Participants are encouraged to discover new meaning in their personal Jewish identity.

Other countries that do this include Greece, Hungary, Macedonia, Armenia, Cuba, and Ireland.

Bright Africa’s goal is to give young people knowledge and understanding about Africa that the American school system does not provide.

To be eligible for a birthright trip to Africa, one has to be a U.S. citizen and between 13 and 30 years old. The person also has to be of African descent.

The trips are free. Flights, hotels, food, and the cost of museums are covered by Birthright Africa and its partners.

From CNN: Young Black Americans who want to explore their roots can take a free birthright trip to Africa. Here’s how (check it out): https://t.co/mANEHMOHBz #Africa pic.twitter.com/zLGUZinKzY

— Ayodele Odusola (@AyodeleOdusola) February 4, 2020

An Experience That Lasts Beyond #BlackHistoryMonth | Young Black Americans Who Want to Explore Their Roots Can Take a Free Birthright Trip to Africa. Here’s How | CNN https://t.co/lPc0BssyDY pic.twitter.com/MA2ek9eQM5

— Karen-Kay Harrison (@K4Kats) February 3, 2020

This article was originally written by Kevin Mwanza for The Moguldom Nation.

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