Issue # 464
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Children’s Minnesota names Caroline Njau as chief nursing officer
APRIL 5-11,2021
A F R IC A N
C OM MU N I T Y
N E W S PAP E R
All Minnesotans now eligible for COVID-19 vaccine
UN hails Biden’s end to International Criminal Court US sanctions
Black Protestants more likely to get vaccine than white evangelicals
Governor Tim Walz (left) was joined by former Republican governor for Minnesota Tim Pawlenty (right) on March 30, 2021 to receive the Johnson & Johnson vaccine at the Vikings practice facility in Eagan, Minnesota. Photo: Courtesy of Governor’s Office
P.10
Cha Wa has released “My People”
By Bethel Gessesse Mshale Staff Reporter Minnesota has expanded vaccine eligibility to all Minnesotans 16 and older as of March 30. Gov. Tim Walz made the formal announcement during a press conference on Friday, March 26. The eligibility for all comes in the wake of a promised increase in weekly doses from the federal government early next month, the governor’s office said Thursday, a day before he made the formal announcement. At a COVID-19 media briefing preceding the governor’s announcement, Kris Ehresmann, the infectious disease director at the Minnesota Department of Health said the state expects its allotment from the federal government to increase to 304,000 doses. “It’s definitely an increase in terms of what we have been receiving and we are just eagerly waiting to get to that point,” Ehresmann said. “It may be that we’ll get that in our allocation next week or it may be in the first week of April, but we know that it is coming.” Minnesota is among the top states in vaccinesadministered but on Thursday, MDH officials warned that there isan uptick in new COVID-19 cases which they attributed to the B117 variant first detected in Britain. During the briefing they announced 1,857 new
cases to bring the state’s total number of deaths to 6,814 since the start of the pandemic. Total COVID-19 cases for Minnesota since the pandemic started now stand at 510,398 as of March 25. Health Commissioner Jan Malcolm said most residents of longterm care facilities would have had a chance to be fully vaccinated by the end of last week Governor Walz’s announcement comes in the wake of news that Minnesota was ranked number one in the country for the percentage of vaccine doses administered. The state has vaccinated 80 percent of its seniors and has also vaccinated at least two-thirds of school and child care personnel. The governor’s office said while all Minnesotans will become eligible for a vaccine on March 30, not every Minnesotan will be immediately able to make an appointment. “Vaccine shipments from the federal government will continue increasing over the coming weeks, but for now demand will still exceed supply,” said Governor Walz. Governor Walz was on March 30, the first day all Minnesotans were Walz on Pg. 8
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April 5-11, 2021 Issue 464
Children’s Minnesota names Caroline Njau as new chief nursing officer
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By Tom Gitaa Mshale Caroline (Ndungu) Njau, until recently the director of hospital and nursing operations at St. Louis Park, Minnesota based Park Nicollet Methodist Hospital, is the new senior vice president of patient care services and chief nursing officer at Children’s Minnesota, the largest pediatric health care provider in the Upper Midwest. Njau, who starts immediately, becomes the first person of color to become chief nursing officer at Children’s Minnesota. She co-led Park Nicollet’s Health Equity Imitative while there. The health system employed over 5,000 employees as of the end of 2020 and operates hospital campuses in Minneapolis and Saint Paul, a surgery center, as well as 12 primary-care clinics, nine specialty-care sites and six rehabilitation centers. Njau, a native of Kenya, began her nursing career in medical-telemetry units at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta and has held a variety of health care leadership positions for more than 15 years. She succeeds Pam VanHazinga who retired in December. She is an alum of Kennesaw State University where she received her Bachelor of Science in Nursing. James Burroughs who is the chief equity and inclusion officer at Children’s Minnesota and served in the administration of former Governor Mark Dayton in a similar role was part of the search process that hired Njau. Burroughs hailed her hiring and described Njau as “amazing.” Speaking to Mshale after the announcement, he said “Her addition to our top leadership ranks is part of our efforts to diversify our workforce with top talent, to better serve our patients.” Njau, who has an MBA from the University of St. Thomas, will be part of the executive leadership
Caroline Njau is the new Chief Nursing Officer at Children’s Minnesota. Photo: Courtesy Children’s Minnesota
team at the system. In her new role, she will be responsible for patient care operations across the system’s two hospital campuses and will be in charge of a broad portfolio that includes nursing strategy, education, nursing and patient and family services and professional development, according to a news release from Children’s. “I am deeply humbled and full of joy, gratitude and excitement as I join Children’s Minnesota,” said Njau. “Health care has been rapidly evolving over the last few years and we have experienced growth and change in so many ways. As we pave forward our path and design the next generation of pediatric care, we will continue to ground ourselves in our shared values, mission and vision that makes Children’s Minnesota such a treasured part of the community.” “We’re thrilled to have Caroline join the Children’s Minnesota family and bring her wealth of expertise to our patients and families,” said Dr. Marc Gorelick, president and CEO of Children’s Minnesota. “I’m confident that her optimistic leadership and deep commitment to health equity, diversity and inclusion, and continuous patient care improvement will help us shape our future to better meet the needs of our patient families today and in the future.”
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Guest Commentary by Robert J. Jones and Christopher L. Eisgruber
Immigration bill would help grad students stay in U.S. — but must include more majors In 1958, a young Israeli doctoral student came to Berkeley, Calif., to study psychology. He eventually spent most of his career in the U.S. The student’s name was Daniel Kahneman, and he helped to create the field of behavioral economics, won a Nobel Prize and became an inspiration to many Americans — from scholars and policymakers to CEOs and baseball executives.
We know these fields are important: American research universities already make a huge investment in their doctoral students across all disciplines. These students in turn make critical contributions to address the great challenges of our day.
American doctoral programs remain magnets for talent. Our universities attract the best and brightest from around the world, just as they did in 1958. The next generation of Danny Kahnemans are here now, not just in psychology, but in a wide variety of other fields. They can make our country stronger, and we should keep them in the U.S. if we can.
We also have the evidence of history to guide us. We have built the most admired, most productive and most inclusive higher educational system in the world over the past century.
President Joe Biden’s administration has a comprehensive immigration reform bill now before Congress. It would go a long way toward fixing our broken system, including making it easier for certain science, technology, engineering and mathematics graduate students to stay in America. That is a smart first step, but the current bill is narrower than it should be. It does not, for example, apply to the field of psychology, so it would not have helped the young Danny Kahneman. That is a mistake. The challenges facing America are complex. Tackling them requires many skill sets. Yes, America needs computer scientists, physicists and engineers, but we also need agricultural economists, humanists and psychologists. We should be trying to keep far more of the exceptional doctoral talent we are cultivating at America’s research universities. For example: Historians and philosophers will help to guide the civic conversations required to bridge social differences and restore public trust. Agronomists and natural-resource experts are key to addressing our most pressing global challenges, from food insecurity to climate change. Sociologists, anthropologists and area studies experts provide knowledge crucial to navigating international crises. To address the next pandemic effectively, we need behavioral scientists and experts in global health, infectious disease, immunology and virology, as well as computer modelers. Of course, academia is only one arena where international Ph.D. recipients can contribute to our society. Students with doctorates in agriculture, for example, are future leaders in food services or agricultural production throughout business, government and the nonprofit world. People with doctorates in the humanities will fortify America’s cultural institutions, and graduates with natural resources degrees are poised to lead in wildlife conservation or management.
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Many want to stay, and we should want them to do so.
This system has been the driver of unmatched educational opportunity and social and economic growth and prosperity. We should stay the course, pushing forward along a proven road to America’s sustained success. This is the moment to act. For the past four years, we watched with alarm as the federal government — in ways large and small — jammed the gears of the legal immigration system and made it increasingly difficult for law-abiding immigrants to work, live and study in the U.S. We are heartened by the Biden administration’s recent measures to undo this damage, including restoring the DACA program. The president’s executive order tasking agencies to adopt a more sensible and hospitable immigration system sets exactly the right tone. These are important and essential actions, but we must do more to attract and retain the world’s best talent. Making it easier for doctoral students to work and live in the U.S. will encourage extraordinary people to study here and to contribute to our society after they graduate. American history has demonstrated that one of our country’s greatest strengths is the ability to attract superb talent from throughout the world. We see that talent all around us at our universities. Do we want these remarkable doctoral candidates to stay and contribute to our society after we have trained them? You bet we do, and we look forward to working with the administration and Congress to make that possible. Robert J. Jones is chancellor of the University of Illinois. Christopher L. Eisgruber is president of Princeton University. They wrote this ccommentary for The News-Gazette of Champaign , Ilinois hwere it first appeared.
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April 5-11, 2021 Issue 464
United Nations welcomes President Biden’s decision to lift sanctions against ICC officials
File photo of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), Fatou Bensouda, briefing the UN Security Council on Libya in May 2019.Photo: Loey Felipe/UN
By UN News Service
Move is President Biden’s latest move to end Trump’s isolationist policies UN Secretary-General António Guterres has welcomed the decision by the United States to lift sanctions and visa restrictions against officials with the International Criminal Court (ICC). President Joseph Biden on Friday revoked a Trump-era executive order issued after the ICC announced it was investigating alleged war crimes commit-
ted by all sides in the conflict in Afghanistan, including the US. Executive Order 13928 of 11 June 2020 imposed economic sanctions against ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda and the Head of the Jurisdiction, Complementarity and Cooperation Division, Phakiso Mochochoko. A separate 2019 policy regarding visa restrictions on certain court staff was also terminated. “These decisions reflect our assessment that the measures adopted were inappropriate and ineffective”, US Secretary of State Anthony J. Blinken said in a statement. In welcoming the decision, the Secretary-General noted that the ICC “plays an important role in advancing accountability
Police escort a group of supporters of former Ivory Coast president Laurent Gbagbo outside the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands, Thursday, February 6, 2020. Photo: Peter Dejong/AP
for international crimes”, his Spokesperson, Stéphane Dujarric, said in a statement on Saturday.
Ready to re-engage The Court, which is based in The Hague, in the Netherlands, prosecutes the most serious crimes of concern to the international community, such as genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. It was established in July 1998 under a treaty known as the Rome Statute, which more than 120 countries have signed. The US is not a party to the treaty. The ICC also issued a statement on
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Saturday welcoming the developments from Washington. “The Court is mindful that the United States has traditionally made important contributions to the cause of international criminal justice,” the statement said. “The Court stands ready to reengage with the US in the continuation of that tradition based on mutual respect and constructive engagement.” In the fulfilment of what it called its “independent and impartial judicial mandate” the Court said it “acts strictly within the confines of the Rome Statute, as a Court of last resort, in a manner complementary to national jurisdictions. The Court relies on the support and cooperation of its States Parties, representing all regions of the world, and of the international community more broadly.” The move has also drawn widespread praise from the international community even though the US is not a member of the ICC.
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Legal marijuana and camera surveillance: Five takeaways from the second Brooklyn Park mayoral candidate forum By Tom Gitaa Mshale
Candidates for mayor of Brooklyn Park took part in a virtual candidates’ forum hosted by Beyond Media Solutions and Mshale. Collins Oppong of Beyond Media and Cynthia Simba of Mshale co-moderated the almost 80-minute session. Five of the seven candidates in the race participated with Lisa Jacobson and Mark Mata citing a scheduling conflict for their absence.
Candidates articulate their visions of policing
Morson digs in on the Green Light Project
Throughout the campaign, all candidates have not shied away from trying to prove their public safety bona fides, even as they admit the city’s police department needs to do things differently.
In the first forum, Morson shared his vision of a camera surveillance system to fight crime in the city modeled after Detroit’s Green Light Project.
Tuesday was no different but their responses gave additional insight on the candidates’’ different views on policecommunity relations overall. At the forum, with the exception of Kurdyumova, they all committed to some version of ‘community policing.’
In-person and mail-in absentee voting is already underway for the April 13 special primary election for mayor. You can find details on the city website at this link.
Winston said the officers need to get out of their cars more and understand “What’s going on, on a block-by-block basis.” Him and Russell agreed that the department needs more officers of color.
With just three weeks to the April 13 special primary election, candidates for the first time on Tuesday directly criticized votes or stances taken by their opponents and although this was a forum and not a debate, the criticized candidates did not shy away from responding.
“I have been here for 18 years; I have not had any problems with Brooklyn Park police. But that doesn’t mean that some resident down the street, or someone who looks like me, who lives across 85th, may (not) have had a problem with the Brooklyn Park police,” said Russell.
Here are the highlights from Tuesday:
Morson reminded viewers of the ongoing Wilder Research study that is evaluating policing, community safety and violence prevention in the city.
The gloves are off Until now, candidates have focused on selling themselves and have not called out their opponents positions they agree on, at least not openly. They have left open direct criticism of their opponents to their supporters and surrogates. However, with three weeks to go and time becoming an issue, the gloves are off. Benjamin Osemenam who in last week’s forum promised “read my lips, no new taxes,” this week signaled to voters that he is the one looking out for them About 17 minutes into the forum, he said “At the last forum, it was mentioned that the city does not have money to clean our water. But one of the people that mentioned that, was on the Budget Commission, and the other was a City Council member that voted to give a staff $10,000 raise, but there was not enough money to clean our water. Now, it makes you wonder what are our priorities?” Osemenam did not mention any names but viewers quickly had any confusion erased about five minutes later when Hollies Winston pointed out he is one of those being referred to when he chose to defend himself. “I am the guy who sat on the Budget Advisory Commission. Paying someone $10,000 for hard work, is very different than a $20 to $25 million bill to fix hard water, versus investing in public safety and many of the issues that people of Brooklyn Park are concerned about.” Of the seven candidates in the race, Mark Mata who skipped this forum was the only one in the council when the water issue came up.
In December, the city hired Wilder Research to evaluate policing, community safety and violence prevention for six months. Morson said of the study, after reminding viewers of its existence, that “I am the council member that sits on this particular committee.”
Kurdyumova supports legal marijuana Candidates were asked to list two priorities for reform in the city and supporters of legalized marijuana discovered they have a friend in Yelena Kurdyumova. Kurdyumova came out in support of Minnesota House Majority Leader Ryan Winkler’s legislation introduced on March 5 that would legalize the adult use of cannabis. Rep. Winkler when introducing the bill said the “legislation is the result of months of public discussions on how to responsibly legalize and regulate cannabis.” Among the provisions in the bill, if it becomes law, is the expungement of most cannabis convictions. In April 2020, the American Civil Liberties Union released a report that showed Black people are 5.4 times more likely than white people to be arrested for marijuana possession in Minnesota, despite comparable usage rates. On Tuesday, in publicly supporting the legislation, Kurdyumova said “When it passes and becomes the law, it will open new, legal opportunities for Brooklyn Park’s small businesses, marijuana dispensaries, residents won’t have to go to other states like South Dakota to buy cannabis, but will buy locally and leave their money in the city where they live.”
On Tuesday, he reiterated his commitment to the surveillance project saying “It has reduced crime in Detroit.” Morson said his version of surveillance will be in conjunction with “A community radio patrol, where our volunteers would be our neighborhoods, our own people from our community, donating and give and volunteer and hour or two hours of their own time, to patrol their own neighborhood.” Osemenam is of a different mind when it comes to the Green Light Project although he does support some type of surveillance. He said that his version of surveillance will be “the establishment of public-private, citywide, surveillance system, linked to the police, that is not similar to what you have, you know, for the Green Light in Detroit. But something that is done in conjunction with our Toward Zero debt.”
Agreement on immigration Three of the five candidates at Tuesday’s forum are immigrants and the other two, Morson and Winston, have
longstanding relationships and support within the immigrant community. Therefore, it was not surprising that there would be general agreement and support for issues of particular concern to immigrants. Even with the broad agreement among the candidates, Osemenam made a statement worth noting when he said “As your next mayor, I will work with the police chief to sign off on all V visas, which protects immigrants from harm against them. In fact, as I mentioned earlier, that V visa is part of my Toward Zero Police Incident and Crime program.” Osemenam was probably referring to the U visa and not the V visa which is how the police chief will be involved. The U. S. Citizenship and Immigrations Services defines the U visa as “U nonimmigrant status (U visa) is set aside for victims of certain crimes who have suffered mental or physical abuse and are helpful to law enforcement or government officials in the investigation or prosecution of criminal activity.”
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April 5-11, 2021 Issue 464
Brooklyn Park mayoral race enters critical final week ahead of special primary election By Tom Gitaa Mshale As Brooklyn Park voters enter the final week of the special primary election campaign for mayor, early in-person voting and mail-in absentee voting has been off to a slow start. Just 487 people had voted as of Wednesday afternoon (March 31), according to the city clerk Devin Montero. When polls opened in last November’s general election, the city’s 24 precincts had 47,520 registered voters. In terms of population the city is Minnesota’s sixth largest. There are seven candidates on the ballot for the April 13 special primary election. Three of the seven currently serve on the city council and one is a former council member. As of this writing, the candidates have had two candidate forums, which you can watch here and here. The mayor’s seat became vacant after former Mayor Jeff Lunde was elected to the Hennepin County Board of Commissioners last November. How to vote before the April 13 special primary election Through April 12: You can vote in-person at City Hall, Monday through Friday between 8am-4:30pm. City Hall is at 5200 85th Ave. N.
The special primary election for mayor of Brooklyn Park will be held on April 13. The primary will narrow the field to two.
Saturday voting in-person: If you can only vote in-person on a Saturday, you can do so on Saturday, April 10 from 10am to 3pm.
By mail: If you have not already mailed your ballot, you might want to do that as soon as possible, ideally by April 6 because of the well-publicized postal challenges. If you have not already downloaded and filled out your ballot, you can do so at this Brooklyn Park city website.
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April 5-11, 2021 Issue 464
Governors Walz and Pawlenty receive COVID vaccine together From Pg. 1
eligible, was joined by former Republican governor Tim Pawlenty to receive their single shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine alongside each other at the Vikings’ practice facility in Eagan. Former Vikings linebacker EJ Henderson joined the two governors in receiving his shot at the facility. “I was excited to receive the Johnson & Johnson vaccine today, alongside my friend and former Republican governor of Minnesota Tim Pawlenty,” said Governor Walz. “It doesn’t matter where you live or who you vote for, we can all agree we need to end this pandemic. The vaccines are how we get there. So roll up your sleeves, Minnesota, the end is in sight.” State health officials have warned that even though eligibility has been opned to all, there is still not enough vaccine to accomodate everyone. This is expected to change however in the coming weeks as the vaccine allotment to the state increases. As vaccination rates increase, there is still the threat of new variants that are already in the state such as the UK and Brazil variants. Minnesotans are still urged to exercise caution even after they have been vaccinated to protect the unvaccinated.
Former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty (in red polo shirt) and current governor Tim Walz receive their shots of the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine on March 30, 2021 at the Vikings practice facility in Eagan. March 30 was the first day that all Minnesotans were eligible to receive the vaccine. Photo: Office of Governor Tim Walz
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Religion
Black Protestants aren’t least likely to get a covid vaccine; white evangelicals are By Yonat Shimron Religious News Service Since before the COVID-19 vaccines hit the market, it has been predicted that Black Americans would choose to be vaccinated at dramatically lower rates than white Americans due to a historic mistrust of the health system. Media stories defined the causes for “vaccine hesitancy” while physicians worried about how to overcome it. Scores of health systems, churches and religious coalitions responded by offering up houses of worship as sites for mobile vaccine distribution. A new Pew Research survey suggests that either the campaigns were effective or the worry was misplaced: 64% of Black Protestants, the researchers found, “definitely or probably” plan to get vaccinated — up sharply from November when little more than 40% said they planned to get vaccinated. It’s not that vaccine hesitancy is a myth; it’s merely strongest among another group: white evangelical Christians. A religious breakdown of the survey conducted in February of 10,121 U.S. adults shows that only 54% of white evangelicals “definitely or probably” plan to get vaccinated. As troubling, white evangelicals are the least likely to say they should consider the health effects on their community when making a decision to be vaccinated. Only 48% of white evangelicals said they would consider the community health effects “a lot” when deciding to be vaccinated. That compares with 70% of Black Protestants, 65% of Catholics and 68% of unaffiliated Americans. John Fea, a U.S. historian at Messiah University who studies evangelicals, said he wasn’t surprised that white evangelicals seemed least likely to want to take advantage of the vaccine. “There’s a long history of anti-science within American evangelicalism,” Fea said. “It goes back to the Scopes trial and evolution in the 1920s,” in which evangelicals debated Darwin’s theory of evolution. Fea said the distrust of science is related to their belief that God will protect them. “Getting a vaccine is a lack of faith,” as some evangelicals see it, Fea said. As a group, 58% of Protestants — including mainline Protestants, evangelicals and Black Protestants — said they would consider community health effects “a lot.” (The religious breakdowns did not include Jews or Muslims, who each constitute less than 2% of the American public.) Cary Funk, director of Science and Society Research at Pew, said white evangelicals generally express lower levels of trust in the vaccine research-and-development process and are also less likely to report getting a seasonal flu vaccine every year.
Elaine Chambers reads a coronavirus vaccination pamphlet while resting after receiving the first dose of the vaccine at a popup COVID-19 vaccination site at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Tuesday, Jan. 26, 2021, in the Bronx borough of New York. Photo: Mary Altaffer/AP
The larger survey also showed that partisan differences play a big role in assessing the likelihood of getting vaccinated. Democrats are far more likely than Republicans to say they plan to get, or have already received, a coronavirus vaccine (83% to 56%).
of the vaccines before leaving office and has claimed credit for their quick development, most recently during an appearance at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Sunday (Feb. 28).
White evangelicals, who are overwhelmingly Republican, are less likely to want to get the vaccine for partisan reasons as well, Fea said.
But he did relatively little to encourage their use while in office and faced criticism for his reluctance to abide by COVID19 regulations, including casting doubt on the efficacy of mask use. He did encourage his supporters to get vaccinated at his CPAC address.
Former president Trump received one
The survey also showed that atheists
and agnostics scored highest of all the religious groups in their willingness to get vaccinated. But a subgroup of the religiously unaffiliated, popularly known as “nones,” scored much like other Protestants. Among the nones, 64% said they would “definitely or probably” get a vaccine — an identical number to Black Protestants. Nones are generally disconnected from not only religion but civic life generally, as opposed to atheists and agnostics who have well-formed ideological commitments.
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April 5-11, 2021 Issue 464
Art & Entertainment
Cha Wa returns with a message to “My People” By Ben Richmond AfroPop Grammy-nominated New Orleans funkmashers Cha Wa are back with a new single and video: “My People” out this week. “The message I am trying to send with the ‘My People’ music video is based on ancestral recall,” singer Aurelien Barnes explains. “This is a phenomenon where people consciously or subconsciously draw on the experiences and lives of their ancestors to perpetuate a certain lifestyle or culture. I am also trying to give the viewer an idea of the different spirits that dominate New Orleans. These are represented by the various elements of New Orleans culture shown, such as the Skull and Bone Gang, the Mardi Gras Indians, and the brass band.” Singer Joseph Boudreaux Jr. was born into the tradition; his father, Monk Boudreaux, is the Big Chief of the Golden Eagles, and one of the first musicians to bring the Mardi Gras Indians onto the national stage with the Wild Magnolias, who performed at the very first Jazz Fest back in 1970. While non-Natives affecting Native American dress has justly come under scrutiny in recent years, the tradition of Mardi Gras Indians, which Boudreaux Jr.
Cha Wa is out with their latest “My People”
is demonstrating in the video, continues. The band took time to explain why. “In this video, I juxtapose the origin story of the Mardi Gras Indians with the present day representation of our Black and Native American hybrid culture,” says Barnes. “Historically, many Black people who escaped slavery in south Louisiana were taken in, guided to safety, and hidden from slave-catchers by sovereign Native American tribes. From the natives, they acquired new customs, language and dress, and meshed them with African masking traditions. This not only provided
His first football season, Isaiah told us, ‘Wear a jersey with my name on it. I want everyone to know you’re here for me.’ Darnell and Denna, adopted 16-year-old Isaiah LEARN ABOUT ADOPTING A TEEN YO U C A N ’ T I M AG I N E T H E R E WA R D
A D O P T U S K I D S . O R G
Photo: Zach Smith via Afropop
immediate freedom from captivity for the people who escaped, but also would eventually provide an avenue for the Black people of New Orleans to feel free on carnival day despite not being allowed to participate in the official Mardi Gras celebrations.” Brass bands in New Orleans also represent freedom, as they are the centerpiece of second lines. Second lines are long parades that involve high energy dancing and music, free of cost to anyone who wants to show up. They happen every Sunday, and for many people, no matter
how terrible their week might have been, second lines provide a space where they can dance, rejoice in the music, forget about their troubles for a little bit, and feel free. This is a tradition that dates back to the days of the drum circles at Congo Square where, only in New Orleans, Black enslaved people were allowed to play drums, sing, and dance however they wanted.” “My People” is the title track from the band’s new album, out on Single Lock Records.
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Advertorial
Our path forward to advance racial equity By Brian lamb JP Morgan Chase The past year has been one of the most tumultuous chapters in recent history for Black Americans, with numerous reminders that systemic racism brings devastating consequences for individuals, families and communities. The COVID-19 pandemic is tearing through Black communities across the country, killing Black people at twice the rate of white Americans, while leaving a trail of lost jobs and shuttered Blackowned businesses in its wake. This, along with the killing of George Floyd and so many others, has sparked an outpouring of corporate support for Black Americans in recent months, and we’ve seen numerous examples of companies stepping up to make concrete changes to the way they do business in an effort to advance racial equity around the world. As the largest bank in the United States, it’s long past time for JPMorgan Chase to own its part in creating economic opportunity and inclusion for communities that have been historically marginalized. Systemic racism is a tragic part of America’s history. It’s a congenital defect of our society that’s resulted in racial gaps across virtually every walk of American life, including wealth, homeownership, educational outcomes, health care, incarceration rates and life expectancy.
Real lives that matter are impacted by these gaps, and it’s our responsibility to do something about it, given the role of banks in the financial health of the communities we serve. How JPMorgan Chase is combating the racial wealth divide Over the past few months, we’ve reviewed our business practices, products and the role we play in communities across this country to understand the changes we need to make to address the largest drivers of the racial wealth divide. We’ve been especially focused on developing ways to expand affordable lending and housing, increase credit and capital for Black-owned small businesses, and improve access to tools that will help Black people save money and get on a path to sustained financial health.
This work led us to make a $30 billion commitment over the next five years to provide economic opportunities in underserved communities — with a special focus on Black and Latinx people. These commitments include loans, equity, and direct funding to promote homeownership and affordable housing. We’ve set a goal of originating an additional 40,000 home purchase loans for Black and Latinx households. To do this we’ve committed $8 billion toward mortgages. We also want underserved communities to be able to take advantage of historically low interest rates, and we’ve committed $4 billion toward helping Black
and Latinx households refinance their home loans. Creating pathways to financial health
Through our own research, we know that Black households tend to have lower savings and higher debt burdens than other groups. Historically, Black Americans have been forced to grapple with less access to credit, and often have to pay higher financing fees. Too many Black Americans are completely unbanked as well, which increases the likelihood of turning to predatory alternative financial services like check cashing and payday lenders. To combat this challenge, we aim to help one million people open low-cost checking and savings accounts. To accomplish this, we must build stronger connections to underserved communities, so we’ve committed to hiring 150 new community managers. We’re also planning to open new Community Center branches in the areas that need them most, and increase our marketing outreach to our Black and Latinx populations to raise awareness of these efforts. Leaning in on Black entrepreneurship If we are to make meaningful progress in closing the racial wealth divide, entrepreneurship must be a key part of the equation. We’re committed to helping the job creators in Black and Latinx communities gain access to the credit
they need to launch, grow and scale their businesses. As part of this effort, we’ve committed to delivering $2 billion in loans, and to spending an additional $750 million with Black and Latinx companies that can supply products and services to JPMorgan Chase. We’re also going to expand our Entrepreneurs of Color Fund to support more Black and Latinx small-business owners nationwide. As we move forward with these efforts, we know we must hold ourselves accountable if they’re going to achieve their intended impact. We are going to continually assess how these commitments are performing and will adjust when necessary. Ultimately, we know that no single company can close the racial wealth gap, but it is our responsibility to try — and to work with other companies and policymakers along the way. We’re owning our part in this — and we’re just getting started. Visit JPMorganChase.com/Pathforward to learn more about our efforts to advance racial equity, which include affordable housing, minority-owned businesses, financial health, workforce diversity and more.
TRANSTELLAR TAX SERVICES TA X E S A N D A C C O U N T I N G
• Individual & Corporate Tax • Rapid Refunds • Job Related Expenses • 1099 Contractors • Refinancing • Mortgage Loans • Business Proposals • Trucking Audit & Fuel Tax Reporting
Tom Bens Motanya
612-248-1283 651-468-1807 763-269-6056 Fax: 612-605-5711
transtellar@yahoo.com
5701 Shingle Creek Parkway Suite 620, Brooklyn Center, MN 55430
www.Transtellartaxes.blogspot.com s8_Mshale_QuarterlyPageBWPrintAD_4.875x7.125.indd 1
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Mshale - The African Community Newspaper
www.mshale.com
April 5-11, 2021 Issue 464