Author: Carma Henry

The Financial Wall

      For over eighty minutes, President Trump preached to the American public and legislators with lofty words, which made you think, that he is a leader with integrity. Our president has made some mistakes, but based on his second State of the Union Address, he has seen the light. He now believes by working with a bipartisan collaborative team, the divisions in the country will suddenly disappear.

     Seventy-eight percent of the cigarettes consumed in the Black community are menthol-flavored. As the selling of menthol products become prohibited within Black communities, do we honestly believe that people will stop smoking them? It doesn’t take the brilliance of Albert Einstein to recognize the financial opportunity of smuggling in a new supply of menthol products from another state or country. The perfect smuggling model is already in place that of smuggling lower-taxed cigarettes.

     The disproportionate mass incarceration of people of color in America continues to grow. It is bad enough to be confined and locked up in over-crowded jails and prisons in the United States. But what just went down inside the Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC) in Brooklyn, New York was a serious violation of the United Nations Convention Against Torture.

Ben Wilson’s Black Chronicle Book I 1778-1956, a Black history publication whose time has come, will be re-issued for the yearlong 400-year celebration of African American history beginning in January of 2019. HR1242, a bill signed into law in 2018 honoring this celebration, will also honor the many contributions made by African Americans to the building of the USA, despite Chattel Slavery, Jim Crow and 2nd class citizenship.

St. Elmo Brady, the first African American to earn a Ph.D. in chemistry, is being honored by the American Chemical Society (ACS) with a National Historic Chemical Landmark. The designation will be celebrated on Feb. 5 at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, which awarded Brady his doctorate in 1916. The event coincides with February’s Black History Month. 

Building on the historic success of the 2018 Power Rising Summit, Black women will reconvene in New Orleans, Louisiana from February 22-24, 2019. Last year’s summit brought together Black women across ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, age, political affiliation, socio- economic status, and gender experience.

Celebrating African American Writers

Twenty minutes into it, the outrageous sight-gag sex scenes, flippant dialogue and over-the-top performances yank the old premise firmly into the 21st century with a brand of humor fans of Bridesmaids will enjoy. There isn’t one subtle comic turn in this entire film. That gives Henson a chance to show her Tiffany Haddish side, which is more than willing to do anything to make viewers laugh.

     “What the president has done has opened up the eyes of so many people,” Johnson continued. “This nation has still not dealt with race and its appeal to the lowest common dominator of us as a community. We really need to take a step back and focus on what’s important, particularly in this era.”