News — black woman

Sometimes our mothers are typically jealous of us because they're dissatisfied with their own lives and struggle with low self-esteem. When a mom favors one daughter over another, it's often because the preferred daughter is more like she is. They share the same beliefs, have commons interests, and make similar life choices.
What are your thoughts on this?

Kamiyah Mobley, a 19-year-old who was kidnapped at birth and raised by her kidnapper, Alexis. She was taken from her biological parents 8 hours after birth. It is so sad that a woman Kamiyah saw as a hero was the villain who destroyed Kamiyah's biological parents' lives. Kamiyah is very protective of Alexis, despite finding out the truth. The biggest pain that no one is really talking about is that Kamaya has to bury Alexis to exist. Today, with her abductor in jail, Kamiyah is left without a true identity or a mother to call her own. What do you think of Kamiyah's situation?

Martina Big has had injections to turn her into a black woman. Martina Big explains that she admires women of color, their skin, and their curves. She has had three melatonin injects costing 170 pounds each. Her skin color, hair color, and eye color have all changed to match those of a person of color. Her husband, Michael, is also taking the necessary steps to change his skin color. Martina has spent time in Africa to learn more about black culture and their way of living. She now identifies as 100% black. What do you think about Martina's choice?

Fathima Shaikh is a stylist who works in Bengaluru, India. She belongs to the sizeable Siddi tribe of Karnataka, a tribe of East African origin who has settled in India for centuries. While older Siddis have completely adapted to Indian ways, the younger generation is embracing their roots and giving new meaning to their identity as African Indians. They want to know more about their origins. Fathima explains how her generation is embracing their roots through dressing and eating African cultural food. This is a popular trend that has seen people of African descent embrace their roots. What do you think?

Nicole had been in prison for four years, where she has been in a relationship with Daonte. Despite warnings from his family, 33-year-old Daonte spent more than $30,000 on Nicole while incarcerated. He was ready to take their relationship to the next level. However, when Nicole is released, she claims not to be ready to have an intimate relationship with Deonte; she is interested in someone else. Doente, who is not aware of this, is willing to give Nicole some space The dynamics of their relationship represent most that develop with inmates. What do you think?

Treka Engleman, a 32-year-old public school teacher from Cincinnati, Ohio, is a foster mum who has adopted three white children. However, she has faced massive trolling for this particular act. They criticize her choice to adopt white kids as a form of betrayal to the black community. The backlash is based on the idea that there are a lot of black kids that need homes. This is quite unfortunate as all kids deserve a chance to get home regardless of their race. Are we limited by race when seeking to expand families, as in Treka Engleman? Are the trolls depicting some form of double standards? What do you think?

The term “power couple” is a modern invention to describe couples either married or romantically linked where each is accomplished in their own right. It has been applied to Barack and Michelle Obama and retroactively to Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt among others. But no one is more deserving of the title than Manet Harrison and Stephen Fowler, arguably the 20th century’s first Black power couple.

Both Harrison and Fowler were born and grew up in Fort Worth, Texas, a town not known for its Black population or its racial tolerance. She was born Minnia Helen Harrison on August 30, 1895, changing her given name to “Manette” (or “Manet”) while still a young woman. He was born on May 6, 1881. Both were products of the segregated Fort Worth school system which before 1910 ended for Black students with primary education. Yet both attended college, she to Tuskegee Agricultural and Normal School (Alabama) where she knew George Washington Carver and Booker T. Washington and he to Prairie View Normal and Industrial College (Texas) Although their specific graduation dates are unknown, after graduation both returned to Fort Worth and Fowler joined the faculty of the Colored high school.

Manet Harrison was drawn to teaching. She was a child prodigy who gave piano recitals at the age of six. She graduated from Tuskegee with a degree in “domestic science” then joined the faculty at Prairie View where she put her true talents to work teaching music. However, Fort Worth drew her back to teach in the public schools.

It was a love of music and church that brought them together. Both were members of Mount Gilead Baptist Church, Fort Worth’s oldest Black church. He was on staff teaching Bible classes, and she was the director of the choir and the organist. In 1915 they married in a church wedding that was one of the biggest social events of the year in Fort Worth’s Black community which numbered approximately 10,000 at that time or about 9% of the city’s population. In the next ten years they would have five children (2 girls and 3 boys) who were raised to value education and make their way in the professional world.

It was as professionals that Stephen and Manet Flower made their mark. Within two years of hiring on with the Fort Worth public school system Manet was promoted to “director of music” for the three “negro schools.” She took her students to the larger community by putting on choral programs (“festivals”) of African American folk music. Stephen, after sixteen years teaching in the school system, resigned in 1919 to become the first “General Secretary” of the “Negro YMCA” of Fort Worth. Both were talented, ambitious, and entrepreneurial. Manet refused to be defined by conventional categories; she played the piano and pipe organ, sang, and painted.

Stephen Flower made the Negro YMCA a center of the Black community, setting up a trade school and employment “bureau” on site. On the side he led a male quartet that performed African American folk songs and spirituals for audiences both white and Black. It was only natural that they would collaborate. Their first joint effort was a pageant, “Up from Slavery,” which she wrote and they co-directed. A decade later they took another original pageant, “The Voice,” to Chicago, Illinois for the golden jubilee of the National Baptist Convention of America.

In 1926 Manet organized the Negro Music Institute of Fort Worth, out of which grew the Texas Association of Negro Musicians (TANM), a branch of the National Association of Negro Musicians (NANM). She was elected first president of the Texas branch and published the national magazine, The Negro Musician, out of Fort Worth. her self-appointed mission was to promote the education of young African Americans, using children’s natural love of music to get them interested in education in general and their African roots in particular. Stephen served on the Institute’s faculty.

In the summer of 1928, Manet Fowler brought the TANM to Fort Worth for a four-week course of study that she called “a Master School” that drew faculty from all over the state. Stephen was the school’s vice president and treasurer. It was so successful that the Fowlers brought it back the following summer, which was a busy one for Manet. She persuaded the national organization to hold their annual convention in Fort Worth. The week-long event drew some 1,300 people from all over the country and included a grand parade through downtown.

Somehow during these years, Manet Fowler found time to study voice at the Chicago Musical College and the American Conservatory of Music (Chicago), winning new plaudits as a “dramatic soprano.” After 1929, she was much more in demand as a singer than at the keyboard. In 1930 she gave a recital in Fort Worth that combined classical pieces, negro spirituals, and what the newspaper described as “genuine African melodies sung in native languages.”

Manet Fowler dreamed of transforming her Masters’ School into a year-round school teaching not just music but also African art and culture. (She personally disdained the term “negro” as demeaning.) Finally, in 1933 she realized her dream when she opened the Mwalimu School of Music and Creative Art in New York City. (The name is Swahili for “noble or distinguished teacher.”) As the home of the Harlem Renaissance, it was the perfect place. She had already formulated the “Mwalimu Creed,” a statement of personal growth that combined elements of Christian piety, 19th century naturalism, and self-improvement philosophy, promoting “the good, the true and the beautiful.” The school’s curriculum combined vocational with liberal arts with instruction in music, interpretive dance, “artistic photography,” African history, “elementary journalism,” and cosmetology.

The school’s public face was the Mwalimu Festival Chorus, which she directed. They sang in English, German, and Yoruba as well as other “African dialects,” and their repertoire included classical, contemporary, and even opera. The highlight of those concerts was what they called the African national anthem, “Nkosi Sikele U Afrika.” By mixing musical genres and styles she wanted to show the “Negro [sic] contributions to [world] culture,” as one newspaper put it. Within a year she had her students performing in some of New York’s finest concert halls and touring.

After Manet moved to New York in 1933, Stephen remained in Fort Worth working for the YMCA and through that organization for his own people. In 1932 what was now known as “the Colored Y” hosted the Negro State Teachers’ Association of Texas convention, requiring accommodations in private homes. Three years later he presided over the opening of an expanded “Colored YMCA” that was still more about social services than athletic activities. In 1938 he resigned and moved to Harlem to become “director” of the Mwalimu School. He and Manet also began performing together again in recitals where they both sang while she accompanied them on the piano.

The Fowlers spent their final years living in Manhattan. She performed, led the school, and served on the board of the NANM. She also launched a booking agency for Black musicians. Occasionally she came back to Fort Worth to visit family and keep in touch with her many admirers. In 1962 she attended the 50th anniversary of the Colored High School’s 1912 graduating class.

Stephen Fowler died on October 28, 1965 at the age of 84 while attending the Empire State Baptist Convention in Syracuse, New York. He was buried in New Jersey’s Rose Hill Cemetery. Back in Fort Worth his memory flickered briefly in 1989 when the school board was casting about for a name for a name for a new elementary school. One name suggested was that of Stephen H. Fowler, but trustees rejected it because the name was hardly a household word even in the Black community and “would promote little neighborhood identification with the school.”

Manet Fowler died in New York City on February 16, 1976 at the age of 80 and was buried with Stephen, literally in the same grave. She did not even rate an obituary in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Her hometown had forgotten her. Her papers eventually wound up at Yale and Emory universities.

A better indication of the Fowlers’ significance is not how many pages they rate in the history books but the recognition they received during their lifetimes. No other Black woman of the first half of the 20th century was covered more extensively in the nation’s newspapers, not Madam C.J. Walker and not Mary McLeod Bethune. She was an early proponent of Black nationalism and though a latecomer to the Harlem Renaissance, she contributed greatly to the acceptance of African American culture by the white mainstream. She was honored in 1972 at the same time as Duke Ellington and Ramsey Lewis by NANM. Stephen, too, quietly challenged the status quo in Fort Worth by his performing and transforming the local YMCA from a lily-white organization.

Together Manet and Stephen Fowler broke down walls and blazed a trail in education and the arts from Fort Worth to New York City. They brought the spirit of the Harlem Renaissance to Texas, and they deserve to be celebrated in the age of “Black Lives Matter.”

A woman who claims to be the winner of a $26 million lottery ticket says she may have literally washed it down the drain. The unnamed California woman said she purchased the lottery ticket at a Norwalk ARCO AM/PM convenience store six months ago.

According to her, she put the ticket into the pockets of her pant and unfortunately forgot to take it out while doing the laundry. She reportedly walked into the store and claimed to have accidentally washed the ticket down the drain, according to news.

A California Lottery Center spokeswoman, Cathy Johnston, says at least six people have turned in a non-ticket claim to the lottery office. She adds that the woman did not bring the ticket in by the 5:00 pm deadline. The winning numbers were 23, 36, 12, 31, 13 and the mega number was 10.

To win the prize, Johnston says you must show “compelling substantial proof you were in possession of the ticket.” She adds that “every claim of this size, if it is not turned in, will be investigated.”

The store’s manager reportedly told KTLA-TV that surveillance video showed that the woman indeed purchased the ticket and that she is well known to the store workers.

The store has subsequently given a copy of the surveillance video to the California Lottery Centre. However, Johnston says store surveillance video is not considered reliable proof.

According to the official, a more compelling proof would be a photograph of the lottery showing the front and back of the ticket. Johnston adds that if no one successfully claims the $26 million cash prize, some $19 million cash option will go into education.

The Los Angeles Times reports that there are several instances where big money jackpots have gone unclaimed. In 2015, the winner of a $26 million jackpot never stepped foot to claim it. Also, three other pots of $20 million from the California Lottery have not been claimed since 1997.

On March 18 of this year, the popular Chicago-based dominatrix Mistress Velvet took to her Twitter account to announce that she was “getting a divorce and going through mourning” for which reason she was suspending virtual and in-person work for the time being. The next tweet from her account, however, was the announcement of Mistress Velvet’s death.

She was followed by more than 11 thousand people on the social media platform many of whom commiserated with her family and fans. Her connection to Ghana is not clear although she has an emoticon of the country’s flag in her Twitter name.

To say Velvet was eccentric is, to say the least, boring. In a world dominated by male egos and achievements, dominatrices have to be eccentric to survive. In Velvet’s own words in an interview earlier this year with the Huffington Post, a dominatrix must provide an avenue for men to go to as a “safe space to explore the parts of them that may not be seen as masculine, or they might have a lot of shame around.” She viewed her work beyond the physical performance and exertions but also a manifestation of a mental state that should not be overlooked.

Masculine performativity – the fact of acting and responding to the world as males are usually raised to do – constrains our imaginations, according to Velvet. Men are not expected to show “softness” and even if they did, they are not expected to continually retain that feature. It is as though material achievement is the only ought and nothing should stand in a man’s way in pursuance of this. When this happens women become the objects of male oppression as men try in any way possible to show themselves powerful and with little to no emotional weakness.

As a result of this, Velvet introduced into her sessions, a part where the men who submitted themselves to her read Black feminist theory. This was novel. She had started off as a sex worker purely for the purpose of sustenance and to pay the bills but here she was, teaching mostly straight white men about the Combahee River Collective and such.

“Just allowing them to be submissive doesn’t allow for the more drastic shift in the framework and thinking that I want. So I have to bring in my girls, like Audre Lorde and Patricia Hill Collins, and make these men actually read about black feminism,” Velvet said.

Among the books the subs read were Sisters Outside by Audre Lourde, The Black Body in Ecstasy by Jennifer Nash and The Color of Kink by Ariane Cruz. It is imaginable to see Velvet treating these texts as if she was in an academic setting since she held a master’s degree herself. That too was part of her eccentricities because we do not hear of many sex workers who are that educated.

Velvet described herself as a Black Liberation practitioner, a pro-sex work activist and a communist. Her activism was recognized by various sex work rights advocates as well as members of the LGBTQ+ community. She was 33.

What was expected to be a routine plastic surgery appointment in Mexico for three California women who had booked the same doctor, unfortunately, ended tragically for the trio. One of them, Keuana Weaver, died during her procedure while the two others sustained near-fatal health complications in the aftermath of the botched surgeries.

The women had their individual procedures done by Dr. Jesús Manuel Báez López at his Art Siluette Aesthetic Surgery clinic in the Mexican city of Tijuana the same day, The San Diego Union-Tribune reported. Among the two women who were lucky to have survived, one sustained kidney failure and has had to be on dialysis as a result while the other woman was admitted to the hospital for two weeks after suffering a hemorrhage and hematoma.

The Mexican border city, which is located south of California, is frequently thronged by Americans for plastic surgery procedures as the charges are cheaper compared to those back home. However, there have been multiple reports of citizens sustaining health complications after undergoing procedures there.

Speaking to the news outlet, Renee Weaver, the mother of the deceased woman, said her daughter informed her she was headed to Florida to undergo a tummy tuck procedure. But unbeknownst to her, Weaver was rather heading to Mexico. She said she only got to know her 38-year-old daughter was out of the country after a family member informed her of her passing while under the knife. The incident happened on January 29 and an autopsy report determined she died as a result of her central nervous system shutting down after not receiving enough blood and oxygen. That report was provided to Weaver’s mother by Baja California’s Secretary of Health.

Following Weaver’s death, her mother said their family has been left in limbo as to what might have occurred. Attempts by The San Diego Union-Tribune to get Báez López to comment on the incident have also proved futile. However, the clinic reportedly offered to reimburse the $6,700 bill Weaver paid for the surgery following her death, her mother said.

One of the women who survived the surgery, Kanisha Davis, happened to be a friend of Weaver. She told the news outlet they both booked Báez López for liposuction and tummy tuck procedures. Davis, who is also a nurse by profession, recalled the red flags were raised during her procedure when she realized she had not been hooked up to any monitor while under the knife. She also added she was immediately discharged without even having her blood tested – which is supposed to be a routine post-surgery procedure.

“They didn’t check my hemo. They just kept sedating me and sedating me,” she said. “And me being a nurse, I knew something was off.” Davis said she later suffered complications and was admitted at a hospital for 2 weeks. She said she would have died if she hadn’t gone to the hospital earlier.

“If I hadn’t gone into the hospital when I did, I would have died,” she said. “I was slowly bleeding to death. I was weak.”

Meanwhile, a check on Báez López’s professional medical background by The San Diego Union-Tribune revealed he is not a member of Asociación Mexicana de Cirugía Plástica, Estética y Reconstructiva, A.C., an association of plastic surgeons in the North American country. Though membership is voluntary, plastic surgeons told the news outlet that supposed colleagues whose names don’t appear as members may be as a result of they not being professionally trained in the profession.

A search on Báez López’s educational background also revealed he has a master’s degree in aesthetic surgery – not plastic surgery. And there’s a difference. A professional plastic surgeon explained aesthetic surgery is “not really even surgery.”

“It’s like Botox. They advertise it as aesthetic surgery. But it’s not actually surgery,” he said.

Weaver’s family and Davis are exploring the possibility of taking legal action against the doctor but they are experiencing a few setbacks. Authorities in Baja California have said they’re investigating the incident though Weaver’s family say they’ve been left in the dark.

“Keuana was a very independent woman; a good, loving, smart and very intelligent Black woman,” the deceased’s mother said. “That doctor took a lot from me and my family and I most definitely have to have her story out there.

“I’m mostly sad this happened to my daughter because she was already so beautiful to me, inside and out, she just couldn’t see it.”

Alexis White attended cyber camps as a child at the Air Force where her mother was stationed. It was there that she picked interest in cybersecurity. A few years down the line, White has made history in the state of Louisiana as the first person ever to earn a degree in cybersecurity.

“My journey was not easy, but it was achievable,” White said, according to WLBT. “If you can get yourself to think positively, keep going no matter the opposition, and just do it, it can be done.”

White initially enrolled into Grambling State University’s biology program even though when she was in Ruston high school, she was part of the robotics team. Even in their freshman year at Grambling, she participated in Louisiana’s Tech’s Cyber Security Camp.

The university introduced its cybersecurity program along the line and knowing she had an interest in the field, White dared to transfer her major from biology unto the program knowing very well she would have to do twice the work if she intended on graduating.

According to the school’s website, the Grambling State Department of Cybersecurity offers “comprehensive undergraduate level training…[tackling] cyber-related endangers, [raising] the awareness of digital data security, and promoting responsible citizenship in a changing world.”

Her professors have been full of praises for her especially since she crammed the course in and graduated in two years. “Even though she transferred to this department, she worked hard and had internships in a lot of other places. She participated in many programs and actually took many of my classes. So, she’s graduating, I think we are proud of her for being the first graduate,” said Dr. Yenumula Reddy, Cybersecurity Professor at GSU.

The STEM lover put all her energy into her new program and went on work placements while on the program. She is yet to complete her Clinton Global Initiative internship classwork, which she nearly missed because of her grandmother’s ailment.

On the day of the interview for an apprenticeship as a cyber-analyst in governance risk and compliance at Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited, White was contemplating on canceling but decided to go and hopefully make her grandmother and family proud. She got the internship but got home to the sad news that her nan had passed away.

“So, the next day she actually passed away. So I didn’t get a chance to tell her but she knew what I was doing, and so after that, I got the email saying that I had gotten the position, the cybersecurity position with governance, risk, and compliance. So just to say, I am so happy that I was able to get that position and to make my family proud,” White told reporters.

A noticeably pregnant Nigerian woman has nabbed a Taekwondo gold medal at the ongoing biennial National Sports Festival. Aminat Idrees trained for months before the multi-sport event and she was not going to let her current condition stop her from participating in the event after being cleared by her doctor.

Footage of the 26-year-old beautifully executing different combat techniques in Poomsae, the non-combat form of Taekwondo, was shared on Twitter. Idrees won gold for the Mixed Poomsae category and took home medals from other Poomsae categories.

As part of Team Lagos, and this being the first time the team won gold, Idrees was one of the leading medalists at the sports festival. Apart from winning gold in the Mixed Poomsae category, she also took home silver in the female team Poomsae category and won an individual bronze medal in the same category.

Idrees said being able to participate in the competition was a “privilege.” “It’s such a privilege for me. I just decided to give it a try after training a couple of times… It feels really good,” she said.

“Before I got pregnant, I have always enjoyed the training, so it didn’t seem different with pregnancy,” Idrees added.

The organizers of the National Sports Festival taking place in Edo State were elated by her performance and described her win as “inspiring”. However, some Twitter users criticized her for endangering the life of her unborn child.

One user said, “If you are seeing this and you going about how strong a woman is, you are a fool The organizers that allowed this to happen are mad The woman herself is mad and she needs someone to tell her What in f**s name is she trying to prove There is breaking the barrier and then stupidity.”

Another said, “This rather Sickening than Inspiring.”

But some jumped to her defense and attempted to explain the category of sport in which she participated in. Idrees explained she got clearance from her doctor as well as the organizing body of the games which certified her fit to participate in the sport. 

She told CNN that many people have a misconception about the sport, adding that this is the right time to educate people on Taekwondo. “Taekwondo has two branches: the combat sport and Poomsae — which is a form of exercise…just displaying the hand and leg techniques in Taekwondo. I participated in the Poomsae event,” she said.