(L-R) US Gymnastics Women Jordan Chiles, Hezly Rivera, Simone Biles, Jade Carey and Sunisa Lee. Credit: AP/Natacha Pisarenko.
STOP COMING FOR SIMONE BILES & CO.
The 2024 U.S. Olympic Women’s Gymnastic Team (aka Simone Biles, Jordan Chiles, Hezly Rivera, Jade Carey and Sunisa Lee) did the “darn” thing in Paris, winning gold in the team competition and countless medals as individuals and dominating the world’s best. But, before the Paris Olympics began, one of Biles’ former Olympic teammates from the 2021 Tokyo Olympics (MyKayla Skinner) said this year’s team lacked “talent,” “drive” and “work ethic.” Black Twitter (X) couldn’t help but notice that the 2021 silver medal-winning team had three whites and three sisters, compared to the 2024 team made up of four sisters and one white girl. Skinner’s inference was taken as furtherance of that tired and untrue stereotype about Blackfolk being inherently lazy. How can we be lazy if we built the world’s first civilizations when free, and when enslaved, built European empires for them as well? Anyway, Biles responded to Skinner on Instagram on July 31 with a pic of the 2024 squad celebrating their gold medal, with the caption, “Lack of talent, lazy, Olympic champions.”
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JAMAICAN FAM
Democratic presidential candidate current VP Kamala Harris delivering the eulogy during Sheila Jackson Lee’s ‘Celebration of Life’ service Aug. 1, 2024 at Fallbrook Church. Credit: Aswad Walker.
In my spiritual home, we, like so many others, celebrate Black August. We do so for several reasons, one of the biggest being that August is the birth month of Marcus Mosiah Garvey (Aug. 17, 1887), one of the greatest Race Men this planet has ever known. Garvey, arguably, impacted more Black people fighting for Black people than any other human in history. FYI, Garvey was born in Saint Anns Bay, Jamaica. Jamaica – the island nation that some Blackfolk, for some idiotic reason, say is not populated by Black people. These confused folk say Jamaicans and folk with Jamaican ancestry aren’t Black. Really? If that’s the case, then Robert Nesta Marley, Naomi Campbell, Colin Powell, Lester Holt, Busta Rhymes, Harry Belafonte, Patrick Ewing, Al Roker, Tyson Beckford, Sheryl Lee Ralph, Kerry Washington, Aaliyah, Luther Campbell, Gill Scott Heron, Louis Farrakhan, Bushwick Bill, Heavy D, KRS-One, Kid from Kid & Play, Sheila Jackson Lee, and the Notorious BIG aren’t Black. Make that make sense. And we wonder why Trump and crew are questioning future President Kamala Harris’s Blackness – because they see this as a “divide-and-conquer” issue based on our own people’s refusal to see Blackfolk the world over as our family. C’mon fam.
UNITED AIRLINES HUGE FUMBLE
Terrell Owens and wife Tamiko Owens on CNN. Screenshot
By now, it’s old news that NFL Hall of Famer Terrell Davis was taken off a United Airlines plane in handcuffs by FBI agents (without explanation) in front of his wife and children… on some BS. After “them laws” immediately reviewed the allegation, the Feds (who have never been friends of Blackfolk) determined Davis did no wrong despite the flight attendant’s allegations that Davis “accosted” him. It’s also old news that United never fully atoned for their mistreatment of Davis and family. But what’s new is, even after Davis was cleared of the bogus claim of assault, United banned him from future flights anyway! Now, United says the ban was issued as standard operating procedure anytime anyone is accused of harming their employees, and that they had since lifted Davis’s ban. But they neither informed Davis nor the general public of this until Davis and fam put United on blast for banning a brother who was falsely accused of wrongdoing, embarrassed and humiliated publicly in front of his family and flight passengers via the false arrest and forced to address the trauma his two sons (aged 11 and 13) and 9-year-old daughter endured. Full transparency: I have good friends who work for United. But United, what the actual hell?!?!
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