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Health Care Reform: A Minority Report
Let’s cut to the chase regarding President Barack Obama’s health care plan, or, as it’s formally called, the Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009. At least three versions exist at the moment: the administration’s and those of the House and the Senate. In the days remaining until the congressional recess begins this week, they will…
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Gone, But Not Forgotten
January 2009 “Prince” Joe Henry, 78, a Negro League all-star baseball player with Memphis Red Sox, Indianapolis Clowns and Detroit Stars died on Jan. 2. Sam “Bluzman” Taylor, 74, a blues singer-songwriter/guitarist, died Jan. 5 from complications of heart disease. On Jan. 4, Giselle Salandy, 21, Trinidad and Tobago’s unbeaten female boxer and winner of…
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Software Prez Gets Posterized in NYC
What the heck are gigantic billboards of Oracle Corporation co-president Charles Phillips, and his “girlfriend,” YaVaughnie Wilkins, doing at 3rd Avenue and on Times Square in New York? The pro-athlete-outside-the-arena size posters have a link on them to the couple’s Web site. The site contains photo albums from 2001 through 2009, the couple singing Karaoke…
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The Art of Turning $25 Million Into $560 Million
How did a completely bankrupt satellite communications company—that now provides data and voice services to customers worldwide, including relief agencies in earthquake-torn Haiti—become a powerhouse with a market value of $560 million? Syncom Venture Partners came to its rescue, and set a better course. The easy part occurred when the Maryland venture capital firm, which…
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The USDA and The Value of Black Land
Alphonso Hooks, a fourth-generation farmer in Shorter, Alab., was ambivalent about recent news that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) signed a $1.25 billion discrimination settlement with thousands of black farmers. The agreement, called Pigford II, was the second redressing of past USDA racial discrimination cases. Hooks says he got nothing in an earlier settlement.…
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Don’t Play for a Pro Team. Own One.
Michael Jordan, pro basketball’s greatest player, and a lackluster executive for two franchises, once said in a Nike commercial, “I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.” He got another chance when his bid for the NBA’s Charlotte Bobcats was accepted. Although, how much he paid…
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Jobs Vanish for African Americans
As the Great Recession’s scythe slices through industries, states, cities and neighborhoods, African Americans have received the most devastating wound. Blacks, and particularly African-American males, have suffered disproportionate rates of unemployment and underemployment historically, for reasons that include weaker educational attainment, lack of connections, less mobility, a high percentage of workers in blue-collar jobs and…
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In Appreciation of J. Bruce Llewellyn (1927-2010)
J. Bruce Llewellyn, who died on April 8 at age 82, was a bustling lion of a man, with a shock of white hair and matching goatee. Throughout his 50-year career as a serial entrepreneur he was always prepared to pounce on a deal. The son of Jamaican immigrants rose from running a Harlem liquor…
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An Earth Day Fix for Urban Food Deserts
Rewind: In April 2010, we examined the “guerrilla tactics” of black organic farmers looking to combat food deserts in urban areas. “Usilima hua huli.” (If you don’t farm, you are not eating.)—Bena (Tanzania) Proverb Veronica Kyle of Chicago is not happy, but she is hopeful. Her upset stems from knowing that too many blacks and…
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Jazzonomics
In the mid-1890s and early 19th century, few of New Orleans’ earliest jazz musicians could afford to play their instruments full-time. So the artists practiced after work, played weekends and tried to answer the eternal musical question: How well can you play? For a few, the music they loved was transformed from a hobby into…
Black News and Black Views with a Whole Lotta Attitude
