Browsing: National News

Have you fallen into a routine of drudgery? Do you feel stuck there? You’re not alone. If we’re honest, many of us will admit that we’re kind of going through the motions—work, home, eat, TV, sleep, repeat—and living by default instead of design. Life isn’t bad; it’s just dull. Uninspired. Actually (and ironically), a bit lifeless. We shouldn’t just accept our adventure-starved status quo.

     A number of fires broke out over a Louisiana parish last month and is apparently aimed in the direction of Black churches. An investigation into the criminalities has been instituted, and it appears that the fires could be related.

     A former student at the University of Kansas has been sentenced to 12 years in prison and a lifetime of probation for a September 2016 incident involving another underage student. 

     A century ago, roughly 14 percent of farmers were Black. By 2012, that number had shrunk to 1.58 percent, according to the report, “Progressive Governance Can Turn the Tide for Black Farmers,” by Abril Castro and Zoe Willingham.

Still reeling from the sudden death of her 10-year-old daughter, a South Carolina mom said she complained about her child being bullied multiple times before she died after a fight with a classmate at school.

Slavery and the Atlantic slave trade are among the most heinous crimes against humanity committed in the modern era, yet no one-time slave society in the Americas has paid reparations to former slaves or their descendants, notes historian, author and history professor Dr. Ana Lucia Araujo, who authored the groundbreaking 2017 book, “Reparations for Slavery and the Slave Trade: A Transnational and Comparative History.”

     Finances should never be a barrier to graduation, nor should the financial impact of earning a college degree be a barrier for buying a home, saving money, starting a family, and having a good credit score. TMCF prides itself on building pipelines into good paying jobs but we also have to work to ensure that those students are able to truly reap the financial benefits of their achievements without having to pay off years of student loan debt.

     During a set of comments with reporters present, President Trump said, “We have people coming into the country, or trying to come in — and we’re stopping a lot of them — but we’re taking people out of the country. You wouldn’t believe how bad these people are. These aren’t people. These are animals. And we’re taking them out of the country at a level and at a rate that’s never happened before. And because of the weak laws, they come in fast, we get them, we release them, we get them again, we bring them out. It’s crazy.”

Today, 51 years later, we have a generation that knew not Dr. King nor Congressman Powell. And what is even more tragic is that this generation is so social media addicted that they don’t want to read or hear about anything that is not about them. We must remember Dr. King beyond “I have a dream.” We must remember that he died because of his commitment to our future and life as we now know it. He was in Memphis because of the garbage workers and how two had died because of discrimination and the denial of shelter during an electrical storm. We must remember that he gave away the money from the Nobel Peace Prize and moved into public housing with his family in Chicago at one time, to demonstrate his commitment to equal housing.

     The week, which featured panel discussions and meetings of the board and association of the National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA), also included a fireside chat with Cherie Wilson of General Motors; a panel discussion on the Every Student Succeeds Act; and a visit to the Library of Congress.