W E BU Y BLAC K Building Your Beauty Empire
Lyndsey Brantley is a national recognized beauty training instructor and certified Medical Aesthetics Practitioner, she is a mentor to estheticians, and the founder of Camellia Alise, a company dedicated to elevating the spa industry as a whole. She has worked with some of the best and brightest spa owners in the field; and contributed her expertise to the branding and positioning of major product launches.
GOD IS DOPE
Shop stylish tees, hats, and hoodies today. A spiritual and religious clothing line that brings awareness to God through fashion apparel and influence.
Prices range from $10.95 and up Products are available at https://www. camelliaalise.com/ products/buildingyour-beauty-empire
Prices range from $4.99 and up. Products are available at https:// www.godisdope.com/ collections/best-selling
DISTINGUISHED ONE
Distinguished One Clothing is a quality lifestyle brand designed for all ages that are creative, enlightened, and motivated to succeed. Our shirts inspire individuals who are distinguished in their own right and who aspire for better. Each shirt is carefully thought out and expertly planned to be more than just something you wear, it is a message which you share with everyone who sees it.
ELEV8 PRINT AND DESIGN, LLC
“Jesus is Greater�. This shirt signifies that there is nothing in this world that can be compared to his Greatness.
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Prices range from $10 and up. Products are available at https:// distinguishedone.com
Prices start at $10.99$19.99. Products are available at http:// www.elev8printdesign. com/store.html.
SUP S UPPP OR T TODAY CHAK THERAPY
Chak Therapy is an exclusive product line designed to honor the seven primary chakras of the body while promoting self-care and intentionality in our daily routine. You are probably asking yourself what are chakras and why are they so important? The chakra system is the energy centers within the human body that helps to regulate all its processes, from organ function to the immune system and emotions.
THE SIX FIGURE CHICK
RIP to The Six Figure Chick, and the Queen Bee of Instagram strategy, master of digital monetization and reigning expert on digital product creation for online business owners who want to 10x their community growth, cash in on their knowledge and pull in profits daily. {Proceeds from all purchases will be donated to cancer research.}
WALL STREET TRAPPER
From The Trap To Wallstreet is not only a brand, but a movement dedicated to empowering & improving the financial state of Urban American. The foundation of this movement is to highlight the power of the black dollar & Transition it from being used to make other races and nationalities wealthy, to allowing it to now be our most powerful tool in building wealth for ourselves & generations that follow.
SIMPLY SCENTS CANDLE CO.
WE MAKE CANDLES THAT MAKE SCENTS
Simply Scents Candle Company has several different products that consist of triple scented candles, room fragrant sprays, wax melts, oil burners, reed diffusers, jelly jars, electric burners, bath and body products, accessories, and more.
Prices range $7.77 and up. Products are available at https://chaktherapy. com/shop.
Prices range from $19 and up. Products are available at http:// thesixfigurechick.co.
Prices range from $15 and up. Products are available at https://www. wallstreettrapping. com/shop.
Prices start at $3.50 and up. Products are available at https://www. simplyscentsbyshan. com/skin-care.
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THE LAND OF THE FREE
Home of the land of the free, but are we really free? The state of the black race in America is troubling, every day we are trying to stay alive, praying we don’t get killed while being black today. Black men and black boys are being judged on the color of their skin even though Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. stated in his famous I Have a Dream speech, that we should be judged by the content of our character. How did bird watching in central park and asking someone to follow park rules turn into a racist matter? When did dreaming and jogging, coming home after a long day of working as an EMT, and shopping in a convenience store all while black became a crime? How many 24
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times do we have to say “I can’t breathe” for a change to happen? Year after year, month after month, state after state, city after city black people are fighting the same injustice.
“Home of the brave and free, free just to murder me,” lyrics from the T.I.’s song New National Anthem was relevant during the release in 2014 and still holds the same relevance in 2020. As a country, we refuse to deal with the issues at hand. When will enough be enough? We live in a society where we have to continuously remind ourselves, our family, and friends of the risk our black bodies constantly face daily. Why do we have to learn to adapt to a different rule every day for a biased justice sys-
tem? We put our hands up, we don’t resist arrest, we are not a threat but we are still murdered all because we are black. What do we tell our little black girls and little black boys? How are we supposed to handle being black and being stopped by a cop or white neighborhood watch members who can make citizens arrest? How many more Trayvon’s, Philando’s, Dominique’s, Eric’s, Michael’s, Alton’s, Sandra’s, Breonna’s, Freddie’s, Tamir’s, Ahmaud’s, George’s, have to leave this earth? To protect and ser ve is a joke. Every day we fear and dread any potential interaction with law enforcement, for fear that we might become the next tragic victims of an anodyne situation gone dead-
“This shouldn’t be ‘normal’ in 2020 America. It can’t be ‘normal.’ If we want our children to grow up in a nation that lives up to its highest ideals, we can and must be better.” - Barack Obama ly wrong like the on-going report of a string of burcases we have witnessed glaries in the neighborhood over the past few months. in which they accused Aubrey of committing. In New York, avid bird-lover Christian Cooper asked a And this week, George Floyd white woman, Amy Cooper, was killed by a Minneapolis to follow park rules and put police officer who was called her dog on a leash. When to investigate the alleged use she aggressively refused, he of counterfeit currency at a started filming which infu- retail establishment. After riated her. She then called security video surveillance 911 and lied to authorities footage was released Floyd stating that “an African never resisted arrest, he American man is threaten- complied. The police officer ing my life” while choking kneeled on Floyd’s neck as he cried for his mother and her dog. gasped, “I can’t breathe.” In Brunswick, Georgia, Ahmaud Arbery was shot and U.S. Surgeon General Jekilled in February during rome Adams said, “there is a confrontation involving no easy prescription to heal three white men as he was our nation, or take away the jogging through the Satilla pain people are experiencShores neighborhood. The ing.” Adams t weeted that men claimed to make a citi- “it’s a pain I too am experizen’s arrest due to a recent encing…because I’m black.”
The U.S. “must acknowledge & address the impact of racism on health,” he said. “We won’t fix or remove all the obstacles and stressors that are affecting people’s health and wellbeing especially ones like racism overnight. That doesn’t mean we mustn’t try at all,” Adams t weeted. When will we address the real issues at hand? Something must be done in this country so that someday we can really live free, free of bondage in the home of the brave.
Photo Sources: WGXA, EPA, ABACA, Image via Getty/Anadolu Agency, Dave Schwarz, St. Cloud Time, Stephen Maturen/Getty Images, A. Van Sise/NurPhoto via Getty Images, Sean Rayford/Getty Images, Star Tribune/Getty
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BLACK LIVES M
THESE MOVIES ARE HEARTBREAKING BUT THEY PORTR
16 SHOTS
FRUITVALE STATION
JASPER, TEXAS
A documentary examining the 2014 shooting of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald by Chicago police officer Jason Van Dyke and the cover-up that ensued. After the police initially declared the shooting as justified, journalists and activists fought for footage of the event to be released, sending the Chicago Police Department and local Chicago government officials into upheaval as the community demanded justice.
The film depicts the story of Oscar Grant III, a 22-year-old from Hayward, California, and his experiences on the last day of his life, before he was fatally shot by BART Police in the early morning hours of New Year’s Day 2009. The movie begins with the actual footage of Oscar Grant and his friends being detained by the BART Police at the Fruitvale BART station in Oakland on January 1, 2009, at 2:15 a.m. right before the shooting.
In Jasper, Texas, in June 1998, three self-proclaimed white supremacists chain James Byrd Jr., to the back of their pickup truck and drag him to his death over three miles of country road. When the town is forced to deal with an onslaught of media coverage that thrusts it into the collective conscience of the entire country and the arrival of contentious members of the Ku Klux Klan, and the Black Panthers, the once peaceful relationship between its white and black citizens is subjected to tension. Trying to maintain peace in the community as the trial of the three perpetrators commences are black mayor R.C. Horn and white sheriff Billy Rowles, neither of whom is prepared to handle all the negative publicity. Justice is served when two of the men are condemned to death and the third is sentenced to life in prison.
Release Date: June 7, 2019 Original Broadcast: Showtime Genre: Documentary, Drama Director: Rick Rowley Running Time: 99 minutes
While being restrained by officers Caruso and Ingram, he is shot in the back by Ingram. He is rushed to the hospital, where he dies in surgery.
Release Date: July 12, 2013 Genre: Biographical Drama Director: Ryan Coogler Writer: Ryan Coogler Running Time: 85 minutes
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Release Date: June 8, 2003 Original Broadcast: Showtime
Genre: Drama Director: Jeffrey W. Byrd Writer: Jonathan Estrin Running Time: 114 minutes
MATTER MOVIES
RAY ONLY 1/3 OF THE RACIAL INJUSTICE IN AMERICA.
LET THE FIRE BURN
MISSISSIPPI BURNING
THE HATE U GIVE
Let the Fire Burn is a 2013 documentary film about the events leading up to and surrounding a 1985 stand-off between the black liberation group MOVE and the Philadelphia Police Department. The MOVE organization was originally established as a “back to nature” movement that practiced “green” methods. In 1985, the Philadelphia Police Department decided to take action to evict the group from their row house at 6221 Osage Avenue. When gunfire broke out and tear gas was not enough to pull the MOVE members out of the house, the police decided to drop explosives on the house. Eleven people (MOVE founder John Africa, five other adults, and five children aged 7 to 13) died in the resulting fire, and more than 250 people in the neighborhood were left homeless
In 1964, three civil rights workers — two Jewish and one black — go missing while in Jessup County, Mississippi, organizing a voter registry for African Americans. The FBI sends two agents, Alan Ward and Rupert Anderson to investigate. Ward is a Northerner, senior in rank but younger than Anderson, and approaches the investigation by the book, whereas Anderson, a former Mississippi sheriff, is more nuanced in his approach. The pair find it difficult to conduct interviews with the local townspeople, as Sheriff Ray Stuckey and his deputies exert influence over the public, and are linked to a branch of the Ku Klux Klan. Their bodies are later found buried in an earthen dam.
Starr Carter is constantly switching between two worlds -- the poor, mostly black neighborhood where she lives and the wealthy, mostly white prep school that she attends. The uneasy balance between these worlds is soon shattered when she witnesses the fatal shooting of her childhood best friend at the hands of a police officer. Facing pressure from all sides of the community, Starr must find her voice and decide to stand up for what’s right.
Release Date: October 2, 2013 Genre: Documentary Director: Jason Osder Running Time: 95 minutes
Release Date: October 5, 2018 Genre: Drama Director: George Tillman Jr. Based on: The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas Running Time: 133 minutes
Release Date: December 9, 1988 Genre: Biographical Crime Thriller Director: Alan Parker Writer: Chris Gerolmo Running Time: 128 minutes
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