The Skinny on COVID
The latest in numbers: 34M total cases & 608K deaths (+222K & +5K from last week)
The headlines:
Are you fully vaccinated and thought you were going to have a carefree hot girl or hot boy summer? Yeah...no.
Los Angeles County reverted back to its mask policy amid a recent increase in COVID-19 cases. What’s to blame for the increase? YKTV (You Know The Variant): Delta.
Word on the street is, nearly all of the recent COVID-19 hospitalizations and deaths are among the unvaccinated.
DACA. Again.
There’s always someone coming for DACA and this time, they found a federal judge who would declare the law illegal. The judge’s reasoning for his decision was that Congress hadn’t given the Executive Branch the authority to create such a program. As a result, the program will no longer accept new applicants. Biden vows to appeal the decision, but the only thing that can permanently help current and future dreamers is action from Congress.
Keeping Up with Biden & Harris
Biden says: Social media is killing people with pandemic misinformation. Facebook says: Yo momma.
Tomorrow will make 6 months since Joe Biden has been in office. How’s it going?
A day after they were arrested for leading a peaceful protest in the Senate building in Washington, DC, VP Kamala Harris met with Black women activists to discuss the issue of voting rights.
Congress, What’s Good?
Senators are still negotiating a bipartisan infrastructure package as they near the deadline to vote on the legislation. A test vote will happen this week to get an idea of whether things may actually come together or just fall apart.
As for the budget package (potentially expanding medical benefits, the child tax credit and more), progressive and moderate Democrats still aren’t on one accord. If they could get in formation, they could completely bypass Republican support. The catch is, they do need them present for the proceeding. Lindsay Graham is asking his GOP colleagues to take a page out of Texas Democrats’ book and leave town. The absence of Republicans would prevent Democrats from being able to hold a vote.
Anyone else feel like it’s all fun and games for some of these people?
In other congressional news, Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Rep. Al Green (not to be confused with THE Rev. Al Green) want to establish a board of civil rights advocates and indigenous tribal members to change the name of over 1000 towns/landmarks with racist names. As it stands today, over 621 places still have the word “negro” in their name today.
On the schedule for this week’s committee meetings:
Stopping those annoying ass online hackers
Addressing extreme heat as it becomes more and more frequent in the nation
Workers’ right to organize in 2021
Social Justice Round Up
In not so shocking news, Texas’ Senate passed a law banning Critical Race Theory and anything else that calls the fake superiority of white men into question (MLK’s “I Have a Dream” speech, women’s suffrage, etc.). The law is unable to pass in the state’s House as they don’t have enough representatives in the state to vote and pass the law. As we alluded to before, Democratic lawmakers are in DC to prevent the passage of a repressive voting rights law.
Speaking of Texas & voting. The next time someone wants to tell you about widespread voter fraud in the Lone Star State, please tell them to Google before they speak.
The NFL will play “Lift Every Voice and Sing” before every game in 2021. It’s giving hypocrisy considering how they did Kap 5 years ago (nope, we still haven’t gotten over it), but what’s new?
Around the Diaspora
Wanna understand the issues driving the protests in Cuba? Listen to Afro-Cubans. Please don’t be like BLM and take your cues from the ones doing the oppression.
Trinidad is considering making the vaccine mandatory.
COVID deaths across the Motherland have spiked +40% over the last week.
Getting to the Money
Fortify your skill set and knowledge about the music industry by learning from the best. Billboard & NYU are offering “Music Industry Essentials,” a 6-module online class to help interested parties learn about marketing, emerging technologies, image development and more.
Buying Black
We’ve talked about Kin Apparel before, but we had to run it back because some of their new merch is just too creative to not share. Known for their satin-lined hoodies, they’ve also come out with reversible satin-lined pillow cases and bucket hats. Talk about a brand that’s trying to help your hair live its best, healthiest life in the streets and in the sheets. We love them for loving us.
Culture that Pops
2021 has been a very rough year for Hip Hop. We lost yet another legend as Biz Markie passed over the weekend.
The “Space Jam” sequel came through with a slam dunk at the box office over the weekend. The film starring LeBron James unseated “Black Widow,” so far the highest performing film since the start of the pandemic.
Pharrell’s Black Ambition organization, which is intended to give Black entrepreneurs a $1M boost, has finally announced a winner: Livegistics. Livegistics is a company that creates software to improve the efficiency of civil construction projects. Its founders are 2 Black men based in Detroit. Congrats to them!