Twitch aims to encourage diversity in esports through a new partnership bringing an official league to HBCU campuses.
The popular gaming platform Twitch announces a partnership with nonprofit organization Cxmmunity to bring an official esports league to historically Black colleges and universities.
The league will be the first of its kind in Black colleges. Engadget reports the participating HBCU students will be provided educational and scholarship support via Twitch Student and the program will help HBCUs expand their esports programs.
“As a graduate of an HBCU and knowing firsthand how we’re underrepresented and just lack the access to get into gaming, I’m excited to be working with Twitch to fulfill our mission in increasing the participation of minorities within these industries and close the digital divide,” said Chris Peay, CoFounder of Cxmmunity, according to Engadget.
Cxmmunity is a nonprofit, that according to their official website, is “committed to increasing participation in minority esports through STEAM development.
The organization announced the partnership on social media saying, “oh my, what a time to be alive.
Engadget notes that currently, over 200 North American colleges and universities have esports teams or clubs associated with Tespa, the National Association of Collegiate Esports. Out of the hundreds represented, only one HBCU is listed – Morehouse College, the historic private, all-male institution in Atlanta, Georgia.
The report continues to highlight the racial disparities in the gaming community between players and industry professionals. Engadget reports that while an estimated 83% of Black teens play video games, 68% of video game creators are white, according to data from the International Game Developers Association.
Together, Twitch and Cxmmunity hope to build a “pipeline for Black talent in the esports industry,” the companies said in a statement.
A first look into the newly-formed HBCU league will be broadcast by Twitch on the Cxmmunity Twitch channel on August 2.
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The nation’s lead spokesman on the coronavirus says the virus vaccine has been fast-tracked and likely will happen in the next year
The nation’s lead infectious disease expert testified before the House committee on the coronavirus today and says that there may be a vaccine for COVID-19 as early as 2021.
According to CBS,Dr. Anthony Fauci said, “I think it will occur,” and “within a reasonable period of time.”
Despite the speed of the process, he believes it will pass medical muster. However, he cautions that it will take some time before it can be distributed en masse.
Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Dr. Anthony Fauci, center, speaks as Vice President Mike Pence, right, and Dr. Deborah Birx, White House coronavirus response coordinator, left, listen during a news conference with members of the Coronavirus task force at the Department of Health and Human Services in Washington, Friday, June 26, 2020. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
$8 billion has been distributed by the federal government to biotech companies to develop a coronavirus vaccine, including the French company Sanofi and the British company GlaxoSmithKline, among others. China and Russia are working on a vaccine.
Fauci testified along with Dr. Robert Redfield, the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Admiral Brett Giroir, the Secretary for Health at the Department of Health and Human Services. All of them emphasized a need to have a comprehensive plan as cases surge around the country.
WASHINGTON, DC – JULY 31: Dr. Anthony Fauci (C), director of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Dr. Robert Redfield (R), director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and Adm. Brett Giroir, Assistant Secretary of Health and Human Services for Health, testifies before the House Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis hearing on July 31, 2020 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch-Pool/Getty Images)
Fauci said that one of the reasons why the U.S. has struggled to contain the virus while other countries have done better is that places like Europe shut down their economic systems by 95%. The U.S. response was to shut down just 50%.
The health experts agreed that the scattershot response hurt the mitigation of the virus which was particularly deadly in places where people are forced into close proximity – jails, assembly line workplaces, and nursing homes, according to published reports.
Fauci got into a tense exchange with Ohio congressman Jim Jordan who asked him if protests were spreading the virus and if he would recommend putting a stop to them. Fauci said that while he believed being outside in large crowds, especially without a mask leads to virus spread, it wasn’t his call to determine whether lawful protests should be curtailed.
“Any crowd, whether it’s a protest — any crowd of people close together without masks is a risk. And I’ll stick by that statement. It’s a public health statement. It’s not a judgment,” Fauci said as Jordan pressed him for a more definitive answer.
As summer moves into fall, the experts recommend Americans get a flu shot this year as even they don’t know the impact of the coronavirus once it’s combined with the annual flu season.
“While it remains unclear how long the pandemic will last, COVID-19 activity will likely continue for some time,” they said in prepared written remarks released prior to the hearing.
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A Black Lives Matter mural painted in the streets of Tulsa, Oklahoma has to go, say city officials.
A Black Lives Matter street mural painted in Tulsa, Oklahoma has been removed after city officials stated the artwork was never approved in the first place.
According to CNN, the bold lettering was displayed in the historic Greenwood District in the city’s Black Wall Street area. The artwork was created on June 18, the day before Juneteenth and two days before President Donald Trump held a campaign rally in the area.
Volunteers and artists not officially affiliated with the Black Lives Matter organization completed the mural on Greenwood Avenue. The neighborhood is noted for being the site of a historical, racially motivated massacre.
In 1921, in what’s now known as the Tulsa Race Riot, a violent white mob attacked Black residents and burned down Black-owned businesses after a 19-year-old shoeshiner was accused of attacking a white teenage girl.
According to History, schools, churches, hotels, hospitals, and homes were among the buildings torched in the attack that left hundreds of people dead and over 10,000 Black residents homeless.
Tulsa’s City Council debated the viability of the BLM mural after receiving a request from Back The Blue Tulsa who wanted to paint their own message on another street in support of law enforcement officers.
Senior Assistant City Attorney Mark Swiney says there are no laws in place to allow the art, saying “There really isn’t anything in our laws that makes a street into a canvas to convey a message or essentially make a sign out of a street surface.” He suggested private property would be best for proposed paint jobs.
City council members concluded it would not be fair to allow one statement and not the other so they decided the BLM mural would be removed.
“It’s not about the message or anything like that,” Councilor Connie Dodson said during the meeting, according to CNN. “I applaud it. It’s great. But at the same point, it comes down to yes, if you allow one, then you have to allow all of them.”
Ryan Rhoades, an artist who helped organize the painting of the BLM mural, tells CNN affiliate KOKI-TV that the decision to remove it is not surprising but it had served its purpose as a message on Juneteenth and during Trump’s visit. The water-based paint used was not intended to be permanent.
A date to remove the paint is not yet set.
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Husband and wife ran lifestyle brand Treble And Flame Co. pairs their homemade candles with expertly curated playlists for a complete experience
Treble And Flame Co. combines the hobbies and interests of a loving couple matching lush scents with curated playlists, igniting a double sensory experience.
“We met at the University of South Florida. We both went to school there. We were college sweethearts and then ended up getting married and creating a life and this business together,” Damarces Sharkey, the co-owner of Treble and Flame Co., tells theGrio.
“So that’s really a big piece of who we are as an identity. It’s a husband and wife team that started a business.”
(Credit: Lakivia Sharkey)
Sharkey, 31, and wife Lakivia, 32, launched the candle company after she realized the scented wax she loved burning may have toxic effects. With a young daughter, the couple decided to initiate their own brand that would not only burn safely for the child’s health and wellness but create income to satisfy their financial desires.
“We are a family that wants to build wealth for our family, and we understand that a great way to do that, [is to] create something that we can pass on to our daughter,” Sharkey says.
“With that in mind, we had really been kind of racking our brains to determine what kind of business we could create that was true to who we are, that would embody what we believe, which is create wealth for our family and to build our community.”
Sharkey further explains just how much their daughter’s birth changed their lives.
“Once we had our daughter, she kind of started to change her life. She became a vegetarian and just more mindful about the items that she consumed in an effort to protect our daughter,” he says.
“Some of the candles that she had from bigger name companies were paraffin candles. Paraffin comes from crude oil, so it’s not the healthiest.”
His wife researched ways their new business could benefit the environment.
“She looked into different kinds of waxes and found soy wax which is said to be more environmentally friendly because it’s from a renewable resource. So she’s like, you know what, I want to make my own candles,” he continues.
“So from there, she was kind of thinking about it and she’s like, ‘Well you know what, every time we light a candle, we listen to music. It’s a candle and music so she’s like, Well, why not do that.'”
Described as an “ultimate journey of creativity, passion, and true love” on their official Etsy Shop, the Florida based company focuses on Black culture in sound.
“Our music is representative of Black culture, and that’s a wide variety of music. So you may have an alternative R&B playlist. You may have a contemporary R&B. You might have neo-soul, you might have rap. We ventured out to do an Afrobeats playlist, and we’re looking at doing an Afro-house playlist,” he shares.
“So there are not really any limits, the true limit is making sure we stay true to who we are. We’re doing a soul Christmas like we’re not we’re not jingle bell rocking it, we’re going to do The Temptations. We’re going to have a variety of music that really celebrates our culture.”
His curated sounds are not randomly paired with her candles. The couple has a collaborative creative process that ensures a continuous flow of ideas resulting in unique themes.
“I’ll start with the playlist first and then we’ll get into the word of the candle making portion of it. Typically, we’ll just be playing music, she’ll start to go into her creative process, gathering a bunch of scents and putting them together to see what she really likes,” he describes.
“If she hears a song that she likes she’ll say, ‘oh yeah you know like this.’ When she tells me that she likes the song, I’ll start finding songs that are similar and play it. If she says that she likes it I’ll just add it to a playlist, just build as she’s going.”
Sharkey explains how the Sweet Life candle, which is a peach nectar Mandarin vanilla scent, was inspired after listening to R&B singer Chris Brown.
“She liked it and we started playing it and then we ended up making our way through a bunch of different artists and at the end of it, she came up with this candle,” he says.
(Credit: Lakivia Sharkey)
As interest in Black-owned business grows, Treble And Flame Co. works to keep up with customers and prepare new products for the remainder of the year and beyond.
“We have some pretty big things coming up, For the end of the year. We have a fall line that’s going to be coming out around September plus a holiday around the end of November,” Sharkey says.
The spring line will be out between January and February. They are looking to work with other Black-owned businesses and get into their subscription boxes.
“We’d like to make our way into boutiques, we’d like to find our way into some brick and mortar locations. It’s been a little bit limited because of the pandemic, but that’s still very much on our horizon We launched in March, and from March to today (July) we’ve amassed 606 hundred plus sales purely from online,” Sharkey says.
He states how the pandemic has shown just how important the business is to them and the communities they serve.
“It shows us that we have to be responsible for the change that we want to see. We have people that are on social media, writing, and protesting and speaking loudly about our issues,” he declares.
“We have people that are in the street, marching and doing those things. We also have to have businesses that are ready to support our people, when they want to go somewhere when they want to make a change, we have to be there. As a business not only do we have to be there, but we have to be ready to employ some of our people and also employ others to help support.”
Currently, Treble And Flame Co. candles are only available on the brand’s Etsy shop found here.
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A federal court in Canada rules that an asylum agreement with the United States is invalid due to how America treats refugees.
An agreement between the United States and Canada for over 15 years is now void after Canadian courts ruled the US is no longer a safe place for refugees.
According to BBC News, The Safe Third Country Agreement (STCA), standard since 2004, requires refugee claimants to request protection in the first safe country they reach. Now the deal has been declared unconstitutional due to the US’ harsh treatment of immigrants.
Federal court judge Ann Marie McDonald ruled that way due to the likelihood of the US to imprison the migrants, according to BBC. This decision is a win for Canadian immigration activists who have worked to help migrants turned away at the border.
Lawyers representing refugees who had been turned away challenged the agreement, arguing that the US did not qualify as “safe” for asylum seekers, BBCNews reports.
“It is my conclusion, based upon the evidence, that ineligible STCA claimants are returned to the US by Canadian officials where they are immediately and automatically imprisoned by US authorities,” Judge McDonald said in her ruling according to BBC News.
She continues “I have concluded that imprisonment and the attendant consequences are inconsistent with the spirit and objective of the STCA and are a violation of the rights guaranteed by section 7 of the [Charter of Rights and Freedoms].
Nedira Jemal Mustefa, a refugee forced to stay in the United States describes her time in solitary confinement as “a terrifying, isolating and psychologically traumatic experience,” in court documents, according to BBC News.
Maureen Silcoff, president of the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers acknowledges the practices and says they are not secret. “We’re all too familiar with the treatment that the US metes out to asylum seekers,” she told Reuters news agency, according to BBC News.
Protesters rally outside City Hall on July 12, 2020 in Seattle, Washington. Demonstrators called for the abolishment of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and its immigration detention centers. (Photo by Karen Ducey/Getty Images)
The STCA was created to establish a simple way to manage refugee claims and prevent what BBC News notes as “asylum shopping.” Since President Donald Trump took office, over 50,000 people have crossed the US/Canada border hoping for refugee status. Those claims were being processed until the COVID-19 pandemic hit.
Trump has issued multiple anti-immigrant policies. Beyond his promise to build a wall between the US and Mexico, he most recently suspended the H-1B visa that allowed foreign-born workers to work in the United States.
His administration also tried to stop college students from overseas from returning to US schools if they were learning primarily online due to the pandemic. However, the administration reversed course after pushback from colleges and universities and several states threatened lawsuits.
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