News — black men

In 1908 four black men formed the California Colony and Home Promoting Association. The Association purchased 20 acres along the Santa Fe rail line from the Pacific Farming Company, at a railway stop called Solita. They divided this land into individual parcels to form the first town in California to be founded, financed, and governed by blacks. Soon after the town was founded the name was changed to Allensworth in honor of the association’s president Allen Allensworth, retired chaplain of the all-black 24th Infantry Regiment. With the success of its agricultural development and business enterprises, the town quickly grew.

By the year 1914 the town would not only have a schoolhouse it would become California’s first African American school district. It became a judicial district, had a Baptist church, a hotel, and a library that would be made part of the Tulare County free library system. The year 1914 also brought a number of setbacks to the town. First, much of the town’s economic base was lost when the Santa Fe Railroad moved its rail stop from Allensworth to Alpaugh. In September, during a trip to Monrovia, California, Colonel Allensworth was crossing the street when he was struck and killed by a motorcycle. The town refuses to die. The downtown area is now preserved as Colonel Allensworth State Historic Park where thousands of visitors come from all over California to partake in the special events held at the park during the year. The area outside of the state park is also still inhabited.

While it seemed everyone rushed to stock up on toilet paper at the start of the pandemic, a group of Black men saw it as an opportunity to launch a startup that brings a new toilet tissue line to the market.

Five Black men from Ohio, who call themselves “mogul minds,” created a toilet paper brand called “Leafy.” With the company motto, “Go Green, Stay Clean,” Leafy is an eco-friendly brand that focuses on the betterment of the environment through the benefits of bamboo.

According to the company website, the founders say, “We look to educate and elevate consumers to be more socially conscious through the use of biodegradable paper products. We partner with organizations centered on environmental solutions and organizations that elevate underserved communities to build sustainability.”

In addition to being good for the environment, the brand is intended to benefit local communities.

“We wanted to bring in a product that would have a direct impact on the community, co-founder D’Andre Martin told WBNS. “Proceeds from our toilet paper company are going back to minority communities,” added co-founder Charles Peaks.

While the group launched the business only a few months ago, Leafy is already thriving. The brand can be found in local grocery stores in Ohio, the Hyatt, and on the company’s website.

“We feel amazing about it,” Marvin Green, another of the founders, told WSYX. “It’s exciting, we look forward to watching it grow.”

Leafy now joins a short nationwide list of Black-owned paper product brands and is the first in the state of Ohio. In fact, the state of Ohio is reporting that 2020 was a record year for new businesses in the state, with around 160,000 new businesses that launched.

While the founders say they enjoy the success so far, it’s about more than making money.

“We’re not even thinking about money right. It’s about growing our communities, being able to help, educate people, and get them more aware of what they’re using,” the group told WSYX.

Attracting business investment, particularly to third world countries like Haiti, has always been a challenge. Therefore, the burden of job creation turns to be on the government, despite scarce resources and its limited abilities.

One of the appeals of the Haiti government is for members of the Haitian diaspora to remit home for job creation and participate in the general growth of the country’s economy. While some have responded positively to the call, others have stayed away due to limited infrastructure. 

Jude Celiscar is one of those Haitians in the diaspora who is determined to contribute to the economy of Haiti. He co-founded Goodoo Courier, a shipping company in 2017. The idea to start a courier service business occurred to him after noticing the difficulties Haitians face in buying and delivery of consumer goods.

He recalls how people will contract him to bring them certain goods from the United States and when he arrives in Haiti, they repay him for the purchases. 

Celiscar also realized the challenge many Haitians face purchasing goods online. Part of the problem was the lack of credit or payment plans. This challenge, he says, made it difficult for companies to ship to Haiti. 

Goodoo Courier delivers goods through a network of independent contractors. Compared to other courier firms, goodoo offers fast delivery of parcels at a cheaper rate, Celiscar says.

Although Celiscar has not disclosed his sales record, he tells the Haitiantimes that “it is neither profitable nor a deficit. We work with what we have.”

His pre-occupation remains to create job opportunities for young people in Haiti. Celiscar would like, in the long run, maybe 10 years down the line, for Goodoo to be one of the companies in Haiti that employs at least 5,000 people.

Celiscar is the first college graduate from his family to earn a bachelor’s degree. He graduated from the University of Texas at Dallas with a degree in international political economy.

Celiscar survived a major earthquake in 2010, which led to the destruction of many homes and school facilities in Haiti. The disaster killed over 220,000 people and 1.5 million people.

“My school basically collapsed, that building that we had before is no longer there,” Celiscar explained, according to NBC. But Celiscar was determined to pursue higher education

“I know some people could have been discouraged and say ‘I’m not doing this anymore. I’ll just stay here and work,’” Celiscar said, according to the University of Texas, Dallas. “It was hard, but I always see myself as a fighter. These things can’t stop me from focusing on my dream, on my goal.”

Forbes named him as one of 10 young Haitian entrepreneurs working to reinvent their nation.

For the first time in Harvard University’s 382-year history, a Black student has been elected to serve as the prestigious educational institution’s student body president. The newly elected president, 20-year-old Noah Harris, is set to be sworn in on December 6 to commence his 2021 term.

Speaking with CBS Boston in an interview, the Mississippi native and junior shared his excitement on his historic milestone, saying it couldn’t have come at a more crucial time considering the recent happenings in the country.

“Me being a Black man from Mississippi is not something that I run from,” Harris, who is majoring in government studies, said. “It was a historic election and for it to come in a year of so many racial injustices with George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and people who were taken from our communities, it makes it that much more of a statement on the part of Harvard and the student body.”

He added: “It’s a message to the university that we really have to be conscious about the decisions that we’re making and how we’re standing with all of our students of color and making sure that their college experience and just their livelihoods are as good as possible when a university like Harvard has so many resources.”

Though two other Black students have served as presidents of the school’s Undergraduate Council, Harris is the first Black person to be elected by the student body, according to Hattiesburg American. During his campaign, Harris, together with his vice president, Jenny Gan, centered on areas including diversity and inclusion, improving student welfare as well as mental and physical health. Harris told the news outlet they’re also aiming at better improving and fostering unity among the school’s very diverse communities.

“Harvard’s community specifically, it’s very diverse but it’s kind of diverse in that it has its own separate communities,” he said. “A lot of what we’re trying to do is we’re trying to bring communities together.”

An assistant professor of African and African American studies and social studies at Harvard, Brandon Terry, Ph.D., described Harris as “somebody who has made sure that the relatively privileged student body that we have at Harvard is exposed to and attuned to broader issues of fairness in the larger society.”

“That’s rare as a student body leader,” Terry added. “You can imagine a lot of student body leadership is pretty narrowly inward-focused and you can’t get far by just doing the status quo. He’s somebody who has really broken with that. He seems responsive to a higher calling.”

Terry also stressed how Harris’ historic election reflects the current stance of the school’s student body when it comes to diversity and inclusion.

“I think it reflects a growing interest among the broader student body in taking these questions of diversity and inclusion seriously, not just as an abstract or intellectual puzzle, but as a set of values to be lived in the decisions that they make in their most intimate community,” he said.

“For him, it’s not just that he’s African American. It’s more so that those are the principles he put forward and the substance of his campaign. And to have those principles ratified by the broader student body I think is an important statement, especially in a university that’s often been known for favoring the wealthy.”

This past weekend, NASA celebrated a historic moment with the launch of the SpaceX Crew-1 mission and Victor J. Glover became the first Black astronaut to live on the international space station for an extended stay. The flight left on Sunday, Nov. 15 from the Kennedy Space Center based in Florida.

“It is something to be celebrated once we accomplish it, and, you know, I am honored to be in this position and to be a part of this great and experienced crew,” Glover said during a news conference on the new mission last week, according to Space.com. “And I look forward to getting up there and doing my best to make sure that, you know, we are worthy of all the work that’s been put into setting us up for this mission.”

The team for the first operational flight will also include NASA astronauts Michael Hopkins, Shannon Walker, and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s Soichi Noguchi in addition to the California native. The Navy veteran expressed excitement about the new milestone and embarking on the missions with his team.

“Listening to Shannon and Soichi and Mike talk about their Soyuz experience, their space shuttle experience, and their lives on the International Space Station, and how they managed their families and communication and keeping their things together, all of that has been so valuable to me and to top it all off,” Glover said in an interview with Spectrum News. “We have a great time.”

Glover also took to his own Twitter to celebrate the news of the mission with followers. “Crew-1 is complete with Dragon Rider training,” he wrote. “We’ve got our license to fly! Thank you to all that made this possible. We hope to make you proud!” NASA also shared a short video on Glover’s history with the organization and his work with the Crew-1 mission.

NASA posted a clip of the mission launch on Sunday on their Instagram page with the caption “At 7:27 p.m. EST the @SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and the Crew Dragon “Resilience” spacecraft launched from @NASAKennedy en route to the @ISS. Its precious cargo? @NASAastronauts Mike Hopkins, Victor Glover, Shannon Walker, @JAXAjp astronaut Soichi Noguchi, and more than 440 pounds of science experiments and supplies. This is the first official flight of the Commercial Crew Program, helping pave the way for the future of space exploration.”

South Sudan's government and the rebels of the National Salvation Front (NSF) announced in Rome the signing of a ceasefire agreement.

The National Salvation Front, which mostly operates in the country's southern states has clashed frequently with gouvernmental forces.

But thanks to a international mediation, firefights should stop between the two forces.

"What were the results of this meeting? It was the commitment of the parties to the ceasefire and, above all, the decision to organise a meeting between the military from both sides to ensure that the opposition is included in the mechanism for monitoring ceasefire violations" said secretary-general of Sant'Egidio, Paolo Impagliazzo, who leaded the negociations between the government representative Barnaba Marial Benjamin and National Salvation Front (NSF) representative, Thomas Cirillo Swaka.

Despite efforts by other rebel groups, the National Salvation Front, hadn't signed the September 2018 peace deal. Thomas Cirillo, the leader of the rebel group has agreed to a ceasefire earlier this year, but it hadn't been respected.

Over 380 000 have died and 4 million people, a third of the country's population have been displaced, in a seven lyear long civil war, that officials now hope to finally bring to an end.

The celebrity news website and its wildly popular Instagram page (currently at over 20 million followers and counting) have, since its founding by Nigerian American entrepreneur Angelica Nwandu in 2014, become an institution in the world of Black gossip. It is a part of the Black lexicon and the Black zeitgeist, mentioned in rap songs and TV shows. With a hodgepodge of posts including celebrity news, memes, politics, and inspirational messages, The Shade Room has cemented itself as a constantly evolving archive of Black pop culture.  

That’s what makes The Shade Room so intensely intriguing and addictive. It is relentless with content generation, adept at locking onto stories as they develop (a running joke is that The Shade Room seems to repost celebrity Instagram posts before the celebrities have even posted them). And it is powerful enough to not only follow the gossip but also to become the catalyst for it. On any given day, you’ll see Black celebrities, influencers, and reality television stars like Teyana Taylor, B. Simone, and Nene Leakes “step into The Shade Room” to refute, clap back or cut up in the comments with thousands of other followers. These comments from celebs usually get screencapped and made into their own posts, forming a never-ending, self-referential loop of tea. 

In a March 2019 profile for Marie Claire, Nwandu contended that she doesn’t think of The Shade Room as purely a gossip site but more of a cultural archive. “I think our site is about the culture,” she said, “All the things that make black culture beautiful.” To some extent, Nwandu is correct in that The Shade Room does provide a kind of snapshot of Blackness that, while not definitive, is most definitely key. But with the beauty, obviously, comes some of the ugliness.  

When rapper Tory Lanez released a 17-song album with several songs largely refuting accusations around him shooting Megan Thee Stallion this summer, The Shade Room made dozens of posts platforming and breaking down each song, line for line. In the comments on these posts, there were those who came to Megan’s defense, but there were also those who eagerly took the opportunity to bash her, question her and praise Lanez for sharing his “side of the story.”

There have, apparently, been efforts made to mitigate and challenge some of the rhetoric in the comments section in response to these kinds of stories, with Nwandu telling Marie Claire that around 2015 she and her team decided to create a more balanced, positive atmosphere on the site and on Instagram. “There was a time when I would go on the Shade Room and I would just feel, like, ugh. I remember thinking, If I feel like this, what am I putting out to the people who are reading this? They may be feeling like this too if they come on here every day and consume what we’re giving.”

So, it seems as if there is an awareness. But what else is being done? What else should be done when it comes to this kind of content? The potential for breeding toxicity is not isolated to The Shade Room, of course. It is a problem that comes up constantly in the world of gossip, especially internet gossip, on sites and Instagram pages like Baller Alert, Bossip, and World Star Hip Hop. And it’s definitely not just a Black gossip thing either.

For Mental Health Awareness week, BLACK ENTERPRISE is interviewing numerous individuals within the wellness community to talk about the racial disparities that affect the Black community in the hopes of creating a safe place to talk about mental health. 

According to the U.S. Department Office of Minority Health, suicide became the second-leading cause of death for African Americans between the ages of 15-24 in 2017. In the same year, data showed that the rate for African American men who died by suicide was four times greater than African American women.

Celebrity therapist and licensed mental health counselor Jeff Rocker sees the effects it has on his clients and has created a platform for black men to talk about the mental health issues they may be facing.

In an interview with BLACK ENTERPRISE, Rocker discusses the stigma around discussions about mental health among black men and how the COVID-19 has contributed to increasing the number of people who say they are suffering mental health issues due to the fallout from the health crisis.

What has the COVID-19 pandemic contributed to mental health ailments amongst Black men?

The coronavirus disease has adversely affected the mental health of Black men in a myriad of ways. 2020 has brought a lot of frustration to many Black men that have heightened their anxiety to new levels to the point where they find themselves constantly worrying about the safety of their families, financial stability, and reevaluating their short term and long goals.

Sadly enough, research reveals that 44% of African Americans have experienced pay cuts or job loss. In comparison, 73% lacked emergency financial reserves to cater to their three-month expenses due to the epidemic. As you can see, the significant decrease in household income imposes a substantial financial burden on Black men as they try to provide for their families.

To make matters worse, African Americans have recorded the highest COVID-19 hospitalizations and death rates. This devastating situation attributes to increased chronic health conditions, poverty, and racial discrimination that endanger their well-being. In other words, “It’s tough being a Black man in today’s society, but they don’t have to deal with their issues on their own.”

What are some of the things keeping Black men from seeking out help?

Black men refrain from pursuing professional help due to various reasons such as finding therapists who are knowledgeable about Black culture, false representations, or hostile generalizations of therapy, fear of being judged, and being misdiagnosed.

For example, some mental health professionals have developed biased and negative perceptions, which influence them to misdiagnose Black men with mental illnesses such as schizophrenia, while diagnosing White males with similar symptoms as experiencing mild mood disorders. Culturally unskilled therapists discourage Black men from enrolling in counseling sessions due to fear that clinicians may incorrectly diagnose them with mental illness that they do not have in reality.

Additionally, fear of judgment hampers African American males from finding help. The conventional masculinity beliefs that force men to endure challenges, as well as the fear of their families identifying them as crazy due to their mental health diagnoses, elevates their resistance to psychological assistance. The negative depiction of counseling sessions in movies or television impedes Black men from seeking help because filmmakers portray mental health patients as unpredictably violent while depicting counselors as unethical or unhelpful. Hence, these factors hinder Black men from pursuing professional assistance.

Do you think attitudes toward mental health among Black men are changing? Why or why not?

I believe that Black men’s attitude toward mental health is heading in the right direction. More African American therapists have received commendations from the public for helping their communities through innovative therapeutic approaches.

Since the death of George Floyd, mental health agencies have been forced to hire more Black therapists to deal with the vicarious trauma experienced in the Black community. There has been a huge need for Black mental health professionals for many years, and now it feels like something is being done about it. The confessions of Black celebrities such as Trevor Noah, Taraji P. Henson, and LeBron James ailing from mental disorder has encouraged African American men to change their attitude toward mental health. Unlike in the past, where African Americans viewed dialogues regarding mental health as an embarrassment, Black families have currently started discussing psychological well-being issues.

As a celebrity therapist, this is why I focus the majority of my time discussing mental health issues that are prevalent in the Black community and coping skills to overcome them. We need to continue to have these conversations amongst each other to promote mental health awareness.

It’s National Suicide Prevention Month, and recent studies have shown an increase in the number of young Black boys committing suicide. What are some factors causing these numbers to increase?

Suicide rates among Black youths continue to increase exponentially due to various reasons. First and foremost, traumatic experiences instigated by massive killings of African American men by police officers has impacted the suicide rates in young Black males.

From 1991 to 2017, incidences of suicide among Black adolescents have increased by 73% due to exposure to racial discrimination and violence, which bolsters stress and depression. Besides, the integration of masculinity and racial norms, which mandate Black men to develop emotional resilience, triggers suicidal thoughts, especially when they fail to withhold their feelings.

The lack of social relations or emotional support from peers has impacted suicide rates drastically in young Black teens. At the same time, the lack of health insurance and high treatment expenditures hampers Black families from enrolling their children in counseling sessions. Therefore, there needs to be more resources and programs in place to offset these issues that contribute to the inflating cases of suicide among Black adolescents.