Oregon County Plants Trees to Honor Victims of Killer 2021 Heat Wave
Family members of people killed by record-breaking heat in the Portland area three years ago gathered over the weekend to plant trees across Multnomah County in honor of its 72 victims. Authorities say more people died from the heat in the greater Portland area that June than in the entire state over the past 20 years.
Washington State Bar Association OKs Far Lower Caseloads for Public Defenders
The Washington State Bar Association has approved far lower case limits for public defenders in an effort to stop them from quitting, to help with recruiting and to fairly represent defendants. Skeptics agree the system is breaking down but are concerned about finding more attorneys to hire. Many counties, especially rural ones, already struggle to employ enough public defenders and get almost no state funding, which some say should change.
Portland Establishes Monument Review Process
City Council unanimously votes to create policy for questioning public monuments, now classified as separate from public art.
Lawsuit Accuses Portland Police Officer of Fatally Shooting Unarmed Black Man in the Back
According to the complaint, in 2022, the officer shot Immanueal Clark in the back as he ran away.
Black Girls Do Engineer is a nonprofit dedicated to getting more Black and brown girls into STEM ...
Rose Festival Princess From Grant High School Selected
On March 14, Daniela Gray was named a Princess of this year's court. ...
Portland Rose Festival 2024 Court Member from Cleveland High School Announced
The Rose Festival Princess from Cleveland High School, Zora Forsberg, was selected March 14. ...
Portland Rose Festival 2024 Court Member from Central Catholic High School Announced
The Rose Festival Princess from Central Catholic High School, Jayda Jackson, was selected March 8. ...
Portland Rose Festival 2024 Court Member from Lincoln High School Announced
The Rose Festival Princess from Lincoln High School, Isabelle Muresan, was selected on March 12. ...
Oregon man found guilty of murder in 1980 cold case of college student after DNA link
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — A man living in the suburbs of Portland, Oregon, has been found guilty in the 1980 cold case murder of a 19-year-old college student. Multnomah County Circuit Judge Amy Baggio on Friday found Robert Plympton, 60, guilty of first-degree murder in the death of...
Oregon county plants trees to honor victims of killer 2021 heat wave
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Family members of some of the people killed by record-breaking heat in the Portland, Oregon, area three years ago gathered over the weekend to plant trees across Multnomah County in honor of its 72 victims. The event, coordinated by county and local officials...
Georgia ends game on 12-0 run to beat Missouri 64-59 in first round of SEC tourney
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Blue Cain had 19 points, Justin Hill scored 17 off the bench and 11th-seeded Georgia finished the game on a 12-0 run to beat No. 14 seed Missouri 64-59 on Wednesday night in the first round of the Southeastern Conference Tournament. Cain hit 6 of 12 shots,...
Georgia faces Missouri in SEC Tournament
Missouri Tigers (8-23, 0-18 SEC) vs. Georgia Bulldogs (16-15, 6-12 SEC) Nashville, Tennessee; Wednesday, 9:30 p.m. EDT FANDUEL SPORTSBOOK LINE: Bulldogs -3; over/under is 147 BOTTOM LINE: Georgia plays in the SEC Tournament against Missouri. ...
OP-ED: Congress Is Right: Federal Reserve’s Reg II Will Hurt Minority Communities in America
The Fed is taking every effort to promote income equality and workplace diversity and inclusion, but Regulation II would undercut its great work in this respect and cause potential harm to millions of minority families. Now that a congressional coalition has...
OP-ED: A Silent Killer No More
Data from Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City shows that more than 13 percent of African American men between the ages 45 and 79 will develop prostate cancer in their lifetimes. And Black men have a 70 percent higher rate of developing...
Message from Commissioner Jesse Beason: February is 'Black History and Futures Month'
I am honored to join the Office of Sustainability and to co-sponsor a proclamation to mark “Black History and Futures Month” ...
Ending Unfair Contracts Harming Minority Businesses Will Aid Gov. Kotek’s Affordable Housing Goals
Senate Bill 1575 will protect small businesses from state and local government’s unfair contract practices while also allowing the building industry to help the governor meet her affordable housing project goals. ...
6 former Mississippi law officers to be sentenced for torture of 2 Black men
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Six former Mississippi law enforcement officers who pleaded guilty to a long list of state and federal charges for torturing two Black men will be sentenced by a federal judge starting Tuesday. U.S. District Judge Tom Lee will sentence two defendants each day...
Supreme Court appears receptive to NRA free-speech lawsuit against a former New York state official
WASHINGTON (AP) — Supreme Court justices appeared receptive Monday to National Rifle Association claims that a former New York state official violated its free-speech rights by pressuring banks and insurance companies to blacklist the group after the deadly school shooting in Parkland, Florida. ...
Descendant of judge who wrote infamous Dred Scott decision pens a play about where we are now
NEW YORK (AP) — Writer and actor Kate Taney Billingsley has been thinking a lot about America's racial history and her family's part in it. One of her ancestors had an outsized role. Billingsley's great-great-great-great uncle was Chief Justice Roger Brooke Taney, who made arguably...
The Lionheart: Dan Wheldon documentary covers grief, loss, love and familial legacy
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) — It was 10 years after the death of their father that associates of filmmaker Laura Brownson brought her an article to read about the late Dan Wheldon. Standing below the monument on Dan Wheldon Way along the downtown St. Petersburg race course that honors...
Music Review: Kacey Musgraves’ 'Deeper Well' trades country-pop hooks for deep, folk-y meditation
Just over a decade ago, Kacey Musgraves emerged as a fresh new voice in country music – a mid-tempo storyteller with an incredible acuity both in her lyrics and in her instrumentation, knowing just when to pick up the harmonica, whistle a tune or break out the vocoder. In the years...
A new generation of readers embraces bell hooks' 'All About Love'
NEW YORK (AP) — In the summer of 2022, Emma Goodwin was getting over a breakup and thinking hard about her life and how to better herself. She decided to try a book she had heard about often, bell hooks’ “All About Love: New Visions." “I loved it. It takes seriously a subject...
Housing Secretary Fudge Resigning. Biden Hails Her Dedication to Boosting Supply of Affordable Homes
Supreme Court seems favorable to Biden administration over efforts to combat social media posts
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court seemed likely Monday to side with the Biden administration in a dispute with...
Trump seeks to appeal decision not to disqualify district attorney from Georgia election case
ATLANTA (AP) — Former President Donald Trump and other defendants in Georgia's election interference case filed...
Pro-Trump Michigan attorney arrested after hearing in DC over leaking Dominion documents
An attorney facing criminal charges for illegally accessing Michigan voting machines after the 2020 election was...
Germans thought they were immune to nationalism after confronting their Nazi past. They were wrong
BERLIN (AP) — When Sabine Thonke joined a recent demonstration in Berlin against Germany's far-right party, it...
Gambia lawmakers refer the debate on female genital cutting to more committee discussions
SERREKUNDA, Gambia (AP) — An attempt to repeal a 2015 ban on female genital cutting in Gambia was sent for...
London home Freddie Mercury bought in 1980 is for sale, minus his 'exquisite clutter'
LONDON (AP) — Freddie Mercury ’s sanctuary in London, where he lived the last decade of his life, is on sale...
Muhammad Ali was, among other things, a proud Black man.
He embraced his Blackness, and often referred to it. He is often quoted for saying he had no quarrel with the Vietcong, but less frequently quoted for saying, in the very next sentence, “the Vietcong never called me a n**r.” Muhammad Ali was unapologetically Black.
Why, in death, are White folks claiming that he “transcended” race?
White people must think it some kind of compliment to say someone “transcended” race. I consider it an insult. Race is nothing that someone has to overcome, or “rise above.” Race is not an impediment. It is simply a fact.
Muhammad Ali is “The Greatest,” he’s amazing, he’s an outstanding boxer, he’s a humanist and he is a Black man. Nothing to transcend. Something just to be.
I have never heard anyone say that a White person transcended race because, perhaps, Whiteness is not perceived as a hindrance, as something to rise above. Whiteness is perceived as the norm, and everything else is perceived as at least somewhat deficient.
This manner of thinking is what allows the likes of Donald Trump to disrespect a judge because his parents were born in Mexico. It is the kind of thinking that allows a judge to sentence a teenaged White Stanford rapist to six months in jail because he would be damaged by jail time. It is the kind of thinking, indeed, that compelled tens of thousands of people to call for the parents of a Black child who fell into a gorilla pen in Cincinnati to be investigated by Child Protective Services. It is plain and simple White privilege that allows a White person to speak of an African American icon as having “transcended race.”
Why not say that Muhammad Ali has “universal appeal”? Why not speak to his humanism and his kindness? Why is it necessary to implicitly put his Blackness down, to compliment the man while going negative on his race? He never went negative. He was essentially, and centrally, a Black man.
After all, he converted to the Nation of Islam when he was in his early twenties and had adhered to that faith for the rest of his life. His friendship with Malcolm X was likely the foundation of his unwillingness to be drafted to fight in Vietnam. Many African Americans decried his conversion, but he was so firm in it that he fought all the way to the Supreme Court to protest his elimination from professional boxing.
Through it all, Ali was outspoken and defiant. He proclaimed, “I am America. I am the part you won’t recognize. But get used to me. Black, confident, cocky; my name, not yours; my religion, not yours; my goals, my own; get used to me.”
White folks kind of got used to him, but they attributed their acquiescence to the fact that Ali had “transcended race.” What he actually did was elude them: he took no tea for their fever.
There is so much of Muhammad Ali’s life that is inspirational. Yes, he was an amazing boxer, and he was also an amazing human being. He stood for what he believed in, regardless of the cost, losing his prime years of boxing, because of his religious beliefs. He did, as he said, “float like a butterfly and sting like a bee.”
He stung with his fist and with his words. He made us smile, he made us laugh, and he made us inhale with his awesome athleticism. And when he succumbed to Parkinson’s disease, he made us marvel at his grace and dignity.
Whatever we have to say about Muhammad Ali, let’s not say that he “transcended race.” He was a Black man. A courageous man. An unapologetically arrogant man. Yes, he had universal appeal. But according to him, he was always Black.
Julianne Malveaux is an author and economist. Her latest book “Are We Better Off? Race, Obama and Public Policy is available at juliannemalveaux.com and Amazon.com.
“White people must think it some kind of compliment to say someone “transcended” race. I consider it an insult.”
Muhammed Ali Did Not ‘Transcend Race’
By Julianne Malveaux (NNPA News Wire Columnist)
Muhammad Ali was, among other things, a proud Black man.
He embraced his Blackness, and often referred to it. He is often quoted for saying he had no quarrel with the Vietcong, but less frequently quoted for saying, in the very next sentence, “the Vietcong never called me a n**r.” Muhammad Ali was unapologetically Black.
Why, in death, are White folks claiming that he “transcended” race?
White people must think it some kind of compliment to say someone “transcended” race. I consider it an insult. Race is nothing that someone has to overcome, or “rise above.” Race is not an impediment. It is simply a fact.
Muhammad Ali is “The Greatest,” he’s amazing, he’s an outstanding boxer, he’s a humanist and he is a Black man. Nothing to transcend. Something just to be.
I have never heard anyone say that a White person transcended race because, perhaps, Whiteness is not perceived as a hindrance, as something to rise above. Whiteness is perceived as the norm, and everything else is perceived as at least somewhat deficient.
This manner of thinking is what allows the likes of Donald Trump to disrespect a judge because his parents were born in Mexico. It is the kind of thinking that allows a judge to sentence a teenaged White Stanford rapist to six months in jail because he would be damaged by jail time. It is the kind of thinking, indeed, that compelled tens of thousands of people to call for the parents of a Black child who fell into a gorilla pen in Cincinnati to be investigated by Child Protective Services. It is plain and simple White privilege that allows a White person to speak of an African American icon as having “transcended race.”
Why not say that Muhammad Ali has “universal appeal”? Why not speak to his humanism and his kindness? Why is it necessary to implicitly put his Blackness down, to compliment the man while going negative on his race? He never went negative. He was essentially, and centrally, a Black man.
After all, he converted to the Nation of Islam when he was in his early twenties and had adhered to that faith for the rest of his life. His friendship with Malcolm X was likely the foundation of his unwillingness to be drafted to fight in Vietnam. Many African Americans decried his conversion, but he was so firm in it that he fought all the way to the Supreme Court to protest his elimination from professional boxing.
Through it all, Ali was outspoken and defiant. He proclaimed, “I am America. I am the part you won’t recognize. But get used to me. Black, confident, cocky; my name, not yours; my religion, not yours; my goals, my own; get used to me.”
White folks kind of got used to him, but they attributed their acquiescence to the fact that Ali had “transcended race.” What he actually did was elude them: he took no tea for their fever.
There is so much of Muhammad Ali’s life that is inspirational. Yes, he was an amazing boxer, and he was also an amazing human being. He stood for what he believed in, regardless of the cost, losing his prime years of boxing, because of his religious beliefs. He did, as he said, “float like a butterfly and sting like a bee.”
He stung with his fist and with his words. He made us smile, he made us laugh, and he made us inhale with his awesome athleticism. And when he succumbed to Parkinson’s disease, he made us marvel at his grace and dignity.
Whatever we have to say about Muhammad Ali, let’s not say that he “transcended race.” He was a Black man. A courageous man. An unapologetically arrogant man. Yes, he had universal appeal. But according to him, he was always Black.
Julianne Malveaux is an author and economist. Her latest book “Are We Better Off? Race, Obama and Public Policy is available at juliannemalveaux.com and Amazon.com.