In 2022, most American cities are still separated along racial lines.

“We don’t have a lot of diversity in Milwaukee, so to speak. It’s a good place to live, but if you are a Black man or woman, it has its challenges,” said Shiquita Mann.

Mann is the product of policies that have embedded her city with segregation. 

“Even when you go into certain stores, people are looking at you as if you do not belong,” Mann said.

She is also the product of a meaningful effort to change segregation.

Six miles from Mann’s basement is the Milwaukee night market.  It's where she sells candles and builds her business.

In most American cities, barriers, both physical and political, separate racial and ethnic communities. In Milwaukee, North Holton Street is the literal dividing line between the mostly-Black neighborhoods to the west and the mostly-white neighborhoods to the east. 

“You drive through white Milwaukee. The streets are clear. There’s no trash. The neighborhoods are great. The houses, you don’t see any houses that is owned by the city. As soon as you hit into the Black areas, you see abandoned houses. You see there’s trash everywhere. We literally can drive from one block and then go to the next block, and you can tell the difference. That’s how real it is,” Mann said.

By most metrics, Milwaukee is the extreme. A Berkeley study ranked it America’s fifth most segregated city. For decades, all but two of its suburbs had housing covenants that prohibited Black families from living in residential areas. But it’s part of a country in which two-thirds of white Americans say they have zero non-white friends, and nearly half of Black Americans say they have zero non-Black friends. 

Angela Damiani said she helped launch the night market in 2014 in an effort to bring more people together.

“There are emotional barriers too, where people don’t feel like they belong, like they’re allowed to go to places, and the market has been like this access point for people to see each other, to be, like, human together,” Damiani said.

 In 2021, the market began reserving 10 spots for vendors of color. They sell art, food, and items of all sorts to a crowd of all backgrounds.

“We are in some of these spaces where I couldn’t even imagine there will be," Mann said. "For example, the night market. I couldn’t see myself here, but here I am. I’m learning now to embrace. If I’m in a space where I don’t see me, this is my time to shine.” 

As Dr. Kenyani Davis makes her rounds at the Community Health Center in Buffalo, New York, she is still trying to process it all, after a mass shooter murdered 10 members of the neighborhood she serves.

"It's a community that got affected, especially when you're talking about a hate crime," Dr. Davis said. "It was every emotion at once."

In the days that followed, her team got to work — something they have always done.

"If they needed us in a medical component, we were there," Dr. Davis said. "If they needed us as community leaders, we were there. If they needed us as friends, if they needed us just to create an open space, we were there." 

Across the city, other organizations recognized the need for mental health services, too. 

"We were in the crowd with the community in front of Tops praying, crying, just being there, an ear for them to to express themselves," said Melissa Archer, New York Project Hope program coordinator.

When it came to treatment, Archer, a psychiatric nurse practitioner, noticed people on the city's east side, made up of mostly Black residents, were hesitant to seek help.   

"People want to see people that look like them so that they don't have to explain certain things they feel," Archer said.

SEE MORE: What Buffalo, NY Is Like Two Months After Tops Mass Shooting

According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, only one in three Black adults with mental illness receives treatment.

The National Alliance on Mental Illness say that's mostly due to socioeconomic challenges, stigma surrounding mental illness and mistrust of the medical industry. Black people are often victims of health care bias when those providing the treatment lack cultural awareness.  

"I think one of these things that this event has shed light on and empower people to do is to speak the truth," Dr. Davis said. "When we were there, we had people saying, 'We are angry at White people."

For community leaders in Buffalo, that meant offering more counselors with shared experiences and cultures. 

Part of the healing process means meeting people where they are, and for some mental health professionals, that meant setting up shop two minutes from where the incident took place.

The Buffalo Urban League team says the numbers have increased since moving into the neighborhood and making more Black counselors readily available, all thanks to temporary funding from FEMA through New York Project Hope.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the number of racial/ethnic minorities within the psychologist workforce more than doubled between 2000 and 2019, increasing 166%. However, researchers predict that increase will still be inadequate to meet the demands of minority patients.

In the meantime, doctors there say they'll continue to stand in the gap for as long as possible.

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Federal prosecutors allege a 24-year-old soldier enlisted in the military so he could become better at killing Black people.

CNN and Rolling Stone reported that the Department of Justice charged Killian M. Ryan on Aug. 26 with one count of knowingly making a false statement on his application for a secret security clearance.

An Army spokesperson confirmed to CNN that Ryan was discharged on the same day for "serious misconduct."

According to the news outlets, the Justice Department began investigating Ryan for lying on an official form. During their probe, they found that he allegedly engaged in violent and racist online activity.

Although his criminal charges are unrelated to his racist online communications, federal prosecutors detailed their findings in court documents, the media outlets reported.

According to the news outlets, during their investigation, the Justice Department found Instagram messages of Ryan detailing how he planned to use combat training to kill Black people.

The news outlets reported that Ryan is charged for lying on an application for security clearance.

According to court documents, the then-21-year-old said he had not seen his biological father in 10 years. Still, it was later discovered that they had been corresponding through Instagram, where they both allegedly engaged with accounts that “associated with racially motivated extremism," the media outlets reported.

More than 8,000 people were victims of bias-motivated incidents in 2021, according to the FBI.

The crimes varied from intimidation and assault to rape and murder.

The FBI says 64.8% of the victims were targeted because of their race or ethnicity and 15.6% were targeted because of sexual orientation. Biases toward religions, gender identity and disability were also contributing factors in smaller percentages, the FBI said.

Most of the incidents, 32%, happened at or near a person's home. Nearly 17% occurred on highways, roads, alleys, streets and sidewalks,

The FBI says most of the suspects, 56.1%, are white. Black or African Americans accounted for 21.3% of the suspects. American Indians or Alaska Natives followed with 1% each.

The FBI's data, however, appears incomplete. For 2021, the data came from 11,834 participating law enforcement agencies. In 2020, the FBI received information from more than 15,000 agencies.

The FBI blames a shift in how data is collected. It says some law enforcement agencies, some large, didn't transition to a new data collection system in time to be represented in the report.

"As more agencies transition to the NIBRS data collection with continued support from the Justice Department, hate crime statistics in coming years will provide a richer and more complete picture of hate crimes nationwide," the FBI stated.

DENVER, Colo — Preserving jazz history is preserving Black history.

"I'm sitting here at Dazzle, which is the premier jazz club in the entire Rocky Mountain region,” said Purnell Steen, a pianist and jazz expert.

Steen comes from a long line of musicians.

“My cousin has been deemed to be the greatest living singer. I'm speaking of five-time Grammy Award winner Dianne Reeves," Steen said. "And my cousin, Charles Burrell, who is 101 years old, by the way, is also the last living musician who played for Billie Holiday.”

Steen says jazz grew because of the African American diaspora from the south.

“Jazz came out of the African American church when the various nations of Africans came to this hemisphere," Steen said. "Many of them came from disparate countries and spoke different languages. The only commonality, the only nexus they had was through the melodies, and these melodies became the roots of what became known as the Negro spirituals. So like 'Wade in the water, wade in the water, children', that's an old Negro spiritual.”

He says the sacred music became the rudiments of early jazz. Between the 1920s and 1950s, the Five Points neighborhood in Denver became known as the jazz capital of the western U.S.

“He was always writing on something, actually writing on paper towels. He had his little dog with him and said ‘Oh, man, this is the best damn music I've heard. Oh play, keep playing’. I mean, his language was spicy, to say the least. And he said that this is the 'Harlem of the West'. It was Jack Kerouac, the author.”

Steen says he’s trying to preserve its history and the music even more so after seeing so many jazz clubs close down during the pandemic.

“It's been tough," said Matt Ruff, who is a part-owner and general manager of Dazzle. "You know, we've had a lot of jazz venues that have closed. The Jazz Standard in New York is one of the big ones. Locally, Live at Jacks and the Old Chapultepec both have shuttered their doors, all because of COVID. Music is food for the soul. I know that that's a very that's a cliché statement, but it's very true. And the arts in general are things that people use to get over difficult times and through difficult times."

He says Dazzle was able to keep its doors open thanks to a supportive community and virtual performances.

“Allowing musicians the ability to perform in front of an audience, at least in front of a virtual audience, and also to receive tips and get paid for things like that as well,” Ruff said.

Ruff hopes as the pandemic calms that more clubs open up again. However, Steen is concerned part of the decline of jazz has been due to musicians becoming esoteric.

“They want to be able to walk out and say, "It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing', you know, instead of listening to toots, bells, squeaks and stuff that actually I don't understand.”

That has made him even more determined to preserve the significance and cross-cultural lines that the music blends.

“The foundation of jazz is the Blues," Steen said. "So I want to keep this part of the African footprints and the legacy of music. I want to preserve it as much as possible.”

He says the founders of Jazz have put their stamp on places around the world. They just have to make sure the winds don’t blow it away.

“And you've got to do something," Steen said. "You've got to tap your foot, snap your fingers, bob your head, shake your body. And hopefully we can preserve that.”
 

Danielle Wade became well-known on Instagram for her posts about fashion and beauty products, but in the past four years, her feed has evolved after experiencing infertility.

“I found it to be very helpful and very therapeutic, actually, just talking about it because hiding that part of my life and just posting these beautiful photos in beautiful clothes and perfect makeup just didn't seem as genuine when I was struggling going through this process of trying to conceive,” Wade said.

Now, the lifestyle blogger and content creator says she's known as a woman who helps other women thrive during infertility.

“I've learned more people in my personal life have gone through infertility because I started talking about it,” Wade said.

Wade says she quickly realized there weren’t many other women who look like her being open about infertility. She wanted other Black women trying to conceive to know they’re not alone.

“Black women tend to report infertility issues at a higher rate than white women or non-Hispanic women," Wade said. "However, they're also the least likely to be able to access the care and treatment that they require to support and assist them in that process of going from having infertility to actually being able to successfully get pregnant.”

Dr. Yashica Robinson is an OBGYN and the owner of Alabama Women’s Wellness Center. She says there are many reasons disparities exist for Black women facing infertility.

“People of color are experiencing fertility at two-times the rate of their white counterparts,” Dr. Robinson said.

“The environmental stressors we know that plays a significant role in how our bodies function and our ability to carry our pregnancies to term," Dr. Robinson said. "Other contributing factors would be pre-existing medical conditions, obesity, hypertension, diabetes and our ability to access health care and optimize these health conditions prior to pregnancy.”

Infertility treatments are also very expensive, making them difficult to access.

“For those of us who don't have private insurance and we obtain our insurance through the government, then it doesn't cover those treatments at all,” Dr. Robinson said.

Dr. Robinson says physicians won’t even offer treatment as an option if they don’t feel it’s accessible to the patient. She says that assumption is sometimes made just through racial biases.

Lilly Marcelin is the founder and executive director of Resilient Sisterhood Project. It's an education and advocacy nonprofit that aims to empower women of African descent regarding common, but rarely discussed, diseases of the reproductive system that disproportionately affect them.

“So if you go on our website you’ll find a lot of well-researched information about complications with fibroids, endometriosis, polycystic ovarian syndrome, breast cancer, cervical cancer,” Marcelin said.

She says she felt inspired to create the nonprofit after talking with many Black women about their experience with reproductive health issues and attempts to seek care.

“Some of them revealed to me that as soon as they stepped in, just the way that they were received or looked at, they felt that somehow there was an assumption about can they afford to pay,” Marcelin said.

That reason is why Wade searched for a Black physician.

“I actually was specifically trying to find a Black fertility doctor, male or female, just kind of wanted to see if I could get connected with someone who looked like me, maybe better understood my health history and what specific experiences I was having in this process, dealing with health care, dealing with infertility," Wade said. "And I had no luck with that.”

Wade is currently in her first round of in-vitro fertilization. It’s the next step for her after four years of trying other methods. She plans to continue being transparent with her Instagram followers about her exhausting journey of trying to conceive.

“I want to be normal to talk about loss when it comes to infertility and miscarriages and stillbirths," Wade said. "I want it to be normal to talk about all the creative ways you have available to you to have babies. I want it to be normal for all insurances to cover all infertility treatment.”
 

Experts say disturbing videos surrounding the recent deaths of two men will take a psychological toll on many in the black community.

The images of the moments leading up to the deaths of George Floyd and Ahmaud Arbery have spread widely.

A psychology professor we spoke to says seeing those videos is comparable in a lot of ways to trauma.

“What concerns me most about it is people don't realize the impact of that and being exposed to it,” said Dr. Rheeda Walker, a professor of psychology at the University of Houston and the author of the recently released book,

“The Unapologetic Guide to Black Mental Health.”

Echoing these concerns, Rwenshaun Miller says the distribution of these videos is piling on during an already stressful time. Miller is the founder of a nonprofit aimed at increasing awareness for black mental health, called

Eustress, Inc.

“Especially during the time of a pandemic, you would think that you know one of the main concerns would be us addressing the issues when it comes to the virus, but now we also still have to deal with the weight of being black in America,” said Miller.

The National Alliance on Mental Illness notes that African Americans are 10% more likely to be impacted by psychological stress. However, only about 30% of black Americans with a mental illness will get treatment each year.

Both Miller and Walker suggest writing as a form of coping. Miller says it's good to have someone you can trust to talk it out with. Walker even takes it a step further, saying you could join or contribute to advocacy groups to channel your emotions into positive efforts toward change. Both strongly suggest taking breaks from social media or the news.

“Watch what you consume. It's one thing for us to be aware of what's going on, but then it's another thing to be obsessed with it,” said Miller.

“We want to be informed, that's important. We want to know what's going on, but maybe take it in smaller doses or maybe turning things on later in the day rather than starting the day with this exposure,” said Walker.

Walker says it's important to pay attention to your feelings. Don't just ignore them. And even if you're a bit overwhelmed, it's okay to step back.

Day of the Dead is a holiday that originated in Mexico. In Spanish, it’s called "Día de los Muertos." Nohemi Valencia-Bustillos has grown up celebrating it.

“Día de los Muertos is a celebration that we honor the ones that have passed away,” Valencia-Bustillos said.

She says the intent isn’t to mourn those we have lost, but rather to spend time with them. That’s why it’s common to lay out a photo of the person and a few of their favorite things. This year, Nohemi’s altar – called "ofrenda" in Spanish – is an ofrenda inclusive of many more beyond her family and friends.

“My ofrenda, I decided to dedicate it on the lives lost due to COVID, but I specifically focused on people of color and our older generation.”

She says she wanted to focus on people of color because they’ve been disproportionately impacted by COVID-19.

“On my ofrenda, there are 11 candles," Valencia-Bustillos said. "Those are the people that I know that passed away due to COVID.”

APM Research Lab, a nonpartisan research and analysis division, assembled a database that tracked the impacts of COVID-19 across different racial and ethnic groups during the first year of the pandemic. Craig Helmstetter is the lab’s managing partner.

“What we found over time is that the rate of death was pretty similar between white Americans and Asian Americans, but it was pretty different for other groups," Helmstetter said. "For example, for the Black population, death rates were twice that of the white and Asian population. For the Latino and Pacific Islander populations, death rates were about two and a half times the Asian and white populations. And for the Indigenous population, the death rate was over three times that of the white and Asian populations.”

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the factors that affect health equity include discrimination, health care access, educational gaps, and occupation.

“For example, populations of color are more likely to work in the service industry, more likely to work in part-time jobs without benefits,” Helmstetter said.

Helmstetter says there’s no evidence this is due to any biological or genetic differences between the groups.

“So, that leaves us with structural or systematic explanations as to why the death rates for COVID-19 are higher among certain populations of color.”

Valencia-Bustillos says it’s been really hard for her community to cope with so many lives lost.

“The older generation, it was a little harder because most of them were in a nursing home, so I had a great aunt who was in a nursing home and died in a nursing home and us as a Latin community, we gather around on their deathbed until they pass," Valencia-Bustillos said. "So this year, when we weren't allowed to, it was a very difficult time for us.”

However, she says she’s grateful for a holiday like Day of the Dead because she gets to sit with her loved ones in spirit. She's also happy to see people from different cultures joining in on the Mexican tradition.

“I love it," Valencia-Bustillos said. "I love seeing all of us come together and celebrating our past. I feel like it makes us united. We all have someone in our lives who we've lost and making an offering is just something we can all share.”

 

LOS ANGELES, Calif. – For the first time in its 18-year run, “The Bachelor” has named a black leading man.

The reality show announced Friday that 28-year-old Matt James will star as the bachelor for the 25^th season.

Good Morning America reports that James was originally cast as a suitor on Clare Crawley’s upcoming season of “The Bachelorette,” which has been delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

ABC hopes to air Crawley’s season of “The Bachelorette” this fall, with James making his debut on “The Bachelor” afterwards in 2021.

GMA says James is a real estate broker, entrepreneur and community organization founder. The North Carolina native graduated from Wake Forest University, where he majored in economics and played football.

James also seems to be friends with former contestants Hannah Brown and Tyler Cameron, who both appear on his Instagram page.

The casting announcement comes after years of fans demanding diversity and just days after the franchise’s first black bachelorette, Rachel Lindsay, said she would cut ties with the show if a black bachelor was not cast, Variety reports.

ATLANTA, Ga. — Just about every morning, Monicha Taylor hits the gym. She says it helps with productivity before logging on to work at her kitchen table.

“My favorite thing about it is the flexibility that you get,” Taylor said.

Her current public relations job makes it possible for her to work from home, but just like 25 million other Americans, she was unemployed the first few months of the pandemic.

“It was super frustrating, honestly, and scary," Taylor said. "I live alone and I have to take care of myself, so I just wasn't sure how I was going to come out of this or how I was going to stay afloat.”

Since graduating college in 2017, Taylor has been able to stay afloat thanks, in part, to freelance opportunities through Black Girl Group.

Founded by Stephanie Alston, Black Girl Group is a creative staffing platform that connects men and women of color to companies seeking more diverse creative talent.

“Let’s say they're looking for a graphic designer," Alston said. "They'll come to us and we will vet out the top three candidates for them and then we'll send those candidates over for them. They'll interview those candidates and if they decide to hire, then a relationship with them is made and then that person is able to move forward in that role.”

Alston says the idea came to her in a dream. Her goal is to diversify companies all over the U.S. by bringing people of color to the table.

“Being in PR in the past and being the only Black woman in the room on several occasions, what I realize is that oftentimes either there was not enough representation at the table or there was representation where people were afraid to speak up because they were fearful that they would be retaliated against if they did speak up,” Alston said.

Bringing women of color into the workforce is critical right now. Demographics professor Rogelio Saenz at the University of Texas-San Antonio says Black and Latina women have been the most heavily impacted by job loss during the pandemic.

“Childcare disproportionately falls to women and then with women, they also had elder care as well,” Saenz said.

Saenz’ report shows the highest peak of unemployment happened in April. Latinos had the highest unemployment rate at nearly 19%, followed by Blacks at 16.4% and whites had the lowest at around 13%.

“With respect to who was able to work from home and there that was also a significant difference, that it tended to be much more likely to be people with higher levels of education and also more likely to be whites compared to African Americans and Latinos,” Saenz said.

“The Band-Aid that was often put on the struggles that women of color face in the workplace, it was ripped off,” Alston said.

Saenz says the lack of opportunity for higher education and well-paying jobs among women of color is an issue of sexism and systemic racism. Because of that, he says the types of jobs many women of color have are in the service or tourism industries, those heavily affected while we were in lockdown.

The need for diversity became essential and noticed after George Floyd was killed in late May of 2020. Alston says that's when companies started making commitments toward diversity.

“It is unfortunate that the death of George Floyd, you know, was one of those things that propelled us into that," Alston said. "But at the same time, we are now able to give more people opportunities to sit at the table who may have otherwise never had the opportunity before.”

Taylor says her long-term goal is to become an entrepreneur like Alston, propelling women of color into high-paying and meaningful jobs.

RICHMOND, Va. -- Markeisha Harris-Minor is a young entrepreneur who has always considered herself to be a resource to people. And she has always wanted to do it, as she says, on a macro level.

So, last December, she came up with an idea for a new app she calls Blocal Search.

What is it?

“This is a nationwide directory and app for locating Black-owned businesses all across the country," Harris-Minor, CEO of Blocal Search, said.

Harris-Minor said she was constantly seeing the Black dollar recycle in front of her eyes. That’s why she said it was important for her to find an avenue that would allow the money to stay in local neighborhoods, especially in a moment in time where a demand to support Black businesses is on the rise.

“Because we all know that buying Black right now, it’s something that’s important. It may look more trendy or what have you, but I want to make sure I’m pushing it to be a lifestyle, so just kind of changing that focus and perspective, like why am I really buying Black?” she said.

Ajay Brewer, owner of Brewer’s Café on the city’s south side, added his business to Blocal Search this year.

“I’ve had several people tell me that they’ve found me through Blocal, so any sort of search engine that creates that sort of awareness for us is really priceless. It’s created revenue for Brewer’s Café for sure," Brewer said.

Harris-Minor said she has over 150 local businesses -- like restaurants, juice bars, beauty supplies, family dentistry, and more -- in the app.

The number is even higher nationwide. Blocal has promoted about 4,000 companies across 160 cities since the app launched in February.

“Blocal at minimum is going to be a directory, but this is going to be a brand that I’m building to really make sure that we’re able to have a sustainable community that we’ve had in the past and be able to create the generational wealth that we all are looking for our families,” she said.

Blocal Search is available to download on your phone by going to your App Store or on Google Play. You can also get more information here.

This story was originally published by Rob Desir at WTVR.

BUFFALO, N.Y. — It’s all about hair care at one particular hair salon in Buffalo.

High Klass Hair Salon is where you'll find Christina Bishop, who also started a new​ business this month with her 7-year-old son.

"Our new business venture is Kyle Jackie Hair Care," said Bishop.

And who is Kyle?

"Kyle is my boss. It’s great working for him. He’s an amazing boss," said Christina.

You could say they're pretty close. Kyle Bishop-Winfield is her 7-year-old son.

Kyle Jackie's Hair Care

“I sell hair care products...hair care products for boys only. Because I was tired of using girl products," said Bishop-Winfield.

The pair would go to the store to get hair products for his long braided locks but found everything was pink or girly.

"So I’m like, okay, there’s a need for boys to have products designed for them," said Bishop.

The second-grader helped design the bottles and test the products.

And this business venture doubles as a tribute.

In 2017, Kyle's father passed away from a heart attack at 25 years old.

Christina Bishop

"Before he passed, he would always talk about how much he loves Kyle’s hair, so it was a thing, I was like I’m never gonna cut his hair," said Bishop.

That’s the inspiration behind his non-profit, Kyle’s Gifts from Heaven. Some of the money made from products goes to buy gifts for other children who have lost parents.

"Each year, we gift children some of the specific gifts on their Christmas list from their parents in heaven," said Bishop.

Kyle's Gifts from Heaven

This way, his dad stays involved in his progress. He's even immortalized on the label of his non-profit.

This pair hopes the all-natural products instill confidence in boys everywhere, including Kyle.

"It’s a more enjoyable experience. He enjoys getting his hair done because it’s his products, it’s for boys, and he created it," said Bishop.

Those products do say for boys only, but they’ve had adults, girls, and all kinds of people buy and use the products.

You can check out the whole range by clicking here.

Taylor Epps at WKBW first reported this story.

Data released from the Labor Department showed the U.S. economy lost 140,000 jobs in the month of December, and it appears women accounted for all of the job losses.

For the month of December, the data show men overall gained 16,000 jobs, while women lost 156,000, for a total loss to the economy for that month of 140,000.

Not just women, minority women. The data shows Black and Hispanic women lost jobs in December, while white women gained. In December, Hispanic women have the highest unemployment rate at 9.1%, followed by Black women at 8.4%, with white women at 5.7%. The data does not break out other racial or ethnic identities in unemployment rates.

Overall, the unemployment rate in this country in December was 6.7%.

For months, analysts and economists have been pointing to the number of women leaving the workforce, for two main reasons. Women, and especially women of color, disproportionately work in some of the hardest-hit areas of the economy like retail, restaurants, education and hospitality.

Second, women have been more likely than men to leave a job to stay home with kids who are remote learning or whose daycare has closed.

"Those sectors are less likely to have flexibility, so when employers are inflexible or women can't come to work because of caregiving responsibilities — they have to exit the workforce," C. Nicole Mason, president and CEO of the Institute for Women's Policy Research, told CNN.

December’s Labor statistics were a blow to the economy, after analysts had expected small gains the report showed a huge drop. This was the first time since April that U.S. employers overall cut jobs.

In April, 22 million jobs were cut, and according to the December jobs report, the economy still has 9.9 million fewer jobs than it did before the pandemic.

Of those 9.9 million jobs that have not returned since February, the Labor Department says roughly 5.4 million were held by women and 4.4 million were held by men.

CINCINNATI —

A 40-year-old hiring and promotion policy that helped more women and minorities in the Cincinnati Police Department has been ruled unconstitutional.

The policy was born out of the 1981 consent decree, an effort to improve diversity within the ranks of the Cincinnati police department.

A federal ruling acknowledges that the consent decree has "positively affected the composition of CPD." But a federal judge ruled Thursday that the race-based and sex-based initiative is no longer needed.

The consent decree was signed onto by several parties including the city of Cincinnati, Cincinnati police department and Department of Justice in 1981, at a time women and minorities faced discrimination in hiring and promotion in the department.

The consent decree contains race-based and sex-based hiring and promotional goals for each recruit class and sergeant cohort. Under those goals, the department aimed to make each recruit class 34 percent Black and 23 percent female and to fill 25 percent of sergeant openings with black and female candidates.

According to the federal ruling, in July of 1980, 9.9 percent of the department was Black and 3.4 percent was female.

In January 2021, 28.3 percent of the department was Black and 22.9 percent was female.

The police department has 90 days to confer with the Department of Justice and submit modifications to the consent decree.

"We certainly wish the DOJ did not take this action as the consent decree has been important to our progress," Mayor John Cranley said in a statement. "We are evaluating all options to appeal and will do so if possible. We won't stop pressing our case."

The reconsideration of the hiring and promotion rule was prompted by a lawsuit filed by Erik Kohler, a Cincinnati police sergeant.

"Erik Kohler was promoted, but his promotion was delayed because the city promoted other candidates for sergeant ahead of him simply based on their race, even though they had a lower score on the promotional eligibility list," said his attorney Zachary Gottesman.

The federal ruling Thursday does not apply directly to Kohler's case but Gottesman said it is a win for them.

"Race-based and gender-based promotion and hiring programs can be legal if they meet very strict criteria, and the city has known for years and years that their policy did not comply with those legal requirements," Gottesman said.

Millions of Americans have been given the COVID-19 vaccine after the FDA approved two in December. However, an analysis of available data shows Black, Hispanic and other ethnic groups are being vaccinated at lower levels than white Americans.

Based on data from 16 states that share the race/ethnicity of those getting vaccinated, the proportion of vaccinations among Black and Hispanic Americans is smaller in each state than the proportion of COVID-19 cases among Blacks and Hispanics, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation and CNN.

“For example, in Mississippi, Black people account for 15% of vaccinations, compared to 38% of cases and 42% of deaths, and, in Delaware, 8% of vaccinations have been received by Black people, while they make up nearly a quarter of cases (24%) and deaths (23%),” according to the Kaiser Family Foundation analysis of available data.

They said similar disparities exist for Hispanic Americans in the states providing data. Although there are smaller gaps between cases and vaccination rates for Asian Americans, the available data is “limited.” They have created charts to track the available data on vaccination rates among race and ethnic groups.

The CDC reports racial and ethnic disparities in the rates of COVID-19 infection, hospitalizations and deaths. In a report earlier this month, their data showed Black and Hispanic Americans are dying of COVID-19 at a rate three times higher than white Americans, and are being hospitalized at a rate of four times higher.

Those looking at the early vaccination data are hopefully, however, that as the COVID-19 vaccines are rolled out to more of the population, the racial and ethnic gaps will become smaller.

The vaccine has only been available to health care workers and long-term care facilities, and is only now becoming available to those 65 or 70 and older, depending on the state, and some front line workers.

“Different patterns may emerge as the vaccines roll out more broadly,” the Kaiser Family Foundation reported, urging states to make equity the focus of their vaccine roll out campaigns.

Safety looks different for everyone. And in communities of color, there’s often a mistrust of the health care system.

“We don’t really trust. We’ve been used as guinea pigs for a really long time,” Rose Marie Allen said.

With so much concern about COVID-19, there’s now a stronger effort to make sure everyone has equal access to vaccinations, especially in predominantly Black neighborhoods.

“To have this in Five Points, where a lot of the African American community is, is huge,” Jessica Newsome said.

This vaccination event is part of the Colorado Vaccine Equity Task Force, which exists to ensure all groups are informed about their options and have the opportunity to get vaccination shots for free.

“This is what success looks like,” said Maisha Fields, Advisor to Colorado Governor Jared Polis.

Fields is also a registered nurse and says getting people of color vaccinated is all about location and trust.

“If we’re going to be intentional about making sure that everyone has equal access to the vaccine, we’re going to have to go to those communities and we’re going to have to go to places that are trusted in those communities to make sure that they are vaccinated,” she said.

Places like Brother Jeff’s Cultural Center.

“This is about, if you want the vaccine, you should have access to it,” JeFF Fard said.

Fard runs the center and says he’s allowing it to be used as a vaccination site so citizens who are often overlooked or underserved have access.

“You see the demand. You see folks taking advantage of the opportunity and it makes all the difference in the world,” he said. “And a matter of fact, it could mean the difference between life and death.”

There are statistics that show African Americans are being disproportionately affected by COVID-19, so vaccination clinics held at places like cultural centers could save even more lives.

Many of the people who showed up at Brother Jeff’s Cultural Center say they’re much more comfortable getting vaccinated by someone who looks like them.

“They appointed me to a Black nurse, and I felt comfortable immediately because I know that she understands me and my body,” Allen said. “And more than anything she understood my fears.”

Fears that could be eased, one shot at a time.

INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. — Zoe Doll is loved by girls all over the country. Healthy Roots Dolls CEO and founder Yelitsa Jean-Charles says her own childhood experience inspired the creation of Zoe. She says she never saw dolls that looked like her growing up.

“It has an impact on your self-esteem," Jean-Charles said. "I know that I struggled with loving my natural hair. I know that when my parents tried to give me a Black doll, I actually started crying because it wasn’t the one that I saw in the commercials with the long blonde hair and all that jazz.”

That reason is why so many parents are introducing their children to Zoe. Parents like Veronica Armstrong who is Cameron's mother. Ten-year-old Cameron says most dolls she sees don’t look like her.

“If it’s nothing close to how you look or your skin tone it’s kind of disappointing and annoying,” Cameron said.

She calls Zoe her "mini me." She likes to pretend Zoe is hosting her own video channel.

“They kind of go on like crazy adventures," Cameron said. "Well not really crazy, but I pretend the other one broke their foot and has to go to the hospital.”

Jean-Charles says she wants Zoe to help girls love their curls. That’s why her hair is made out of a unique fiber that can be washed and styled.

“I didn’t learn how to take care of my hair naturally until I was around 20 years old," Jean-Charles said. "Which is crazy because this is the hair that grows out of my head. How am I not going to know how to love it and nurture it as it is and rock it?”

Cameron’s mother had a similar experience.

“I’m Dominican and my mother is half Asian, so we had really different hair texture and my mother actually didn’t know how to do my hair,” Armstrong said.

Now, they get to work on styling curly hair together, hopefully helping other young girls to see themselves in a positive light.

“I love my hair because it’s a very great and beautiful texture," Cameron said. "It’s of course boingy and wavy and just very beautiful hair.”

“The parents are telling us that the first thing that the kids say is ‘oh my God it looks just like me’ and it’s like yeah, while the doll is not a carbon copy of this kid’s face, the fact that they’re able to see something that resembles them closely for once, that’s a big deal,” Jean-Charles said.

Successfully getting humans into space and back is risky business. However, it was made possible less than a century ago thanks to help from some extraordinary Black women known as ‘Hidden Figures’.

“My name is Duchess Harris and I’m the co-author of a book called ‘Hidden Human Computers: The Black Women of NASA’ and my grandmother was Miriam Daniel Mann and she was one of the first hidden human computers at NASA," Harris said.

Harris, and American studies professor, has dedicated a lot of time to researching the legacy of her grandmother.

“The Hidden Figures were Black women who were human computers at NASA," Harris said. "And human computers were women who checked the math of engineers who were men and this was because women weren’t allowed to become engineers until the mid-1960s."

They were called human computers because this was before IBM mainframe computers. Acting NASA chief historian Brian Odom says their calculations were essential to engineers.

“When they’d get all this data back from a test – wind tunnel testing, any type of testing like that, plotting trajectories – it was the job of those women to kind of crunch the numbers, to do the math,” Odom said.

Harris says her grandmother had the opportunity to go to college, which was a big deal considering she was born only 40 years after slavery was abolished. However, women of color like her first broke into the space industry out of necessity.

“When World War II broke out, NASA needed Black women to become computers because there weren’t enough educated white women to fill up the spots that were needed because the men were deployed because of the war,” Harris said.

That brought Mann into the highest-paying job a Black woman could get at the time.

“She was in the entering class in 1943 of 11 Black women who passed the Civil Service Exam," Harris said. "And so she went off to work with an 8-year-old, a 7-year-old and a 6-year-old, and the 7-year-old was my mom.”

Harris says her grandmother started the job shortly after President Franklin D. Roosevelt desegregated federal jobs, but not the physical workspace itself. So the Black women were sectioned off to the west side where there were ‘colored’ signs to label things like the restroom. Mann did not like those signs.

“They were actually on the wall, you could slide them off, and she’d put them in her purse and then she’d bring them home and my mother and my uncles would laugh about how their parents would fight about it because my grandfather thought of course she’d get in trouble, she’d get fired and he didn’t want her to lose the income,” Harris said.

More than 70 years later, Harris and Odom says it’s extremely important to recognize the contributions of these women.

“Our job at NASA is to inspire," Odom said. "To inspire people to enter into these very hard fields, difficult fields from a training standpoint, difficult from a professional standpoint, and to reach into underserviced, underrepresented groups. Females are unfortunately still part of that. African Americans definitely, African American females.”

“If people don’t know what women have done before them, sometimes young boys don’t think of women as authority figures and young girls don’t think that they can aspire for these positions,” Harris said.

Odom says without these hidden figures, we likely wouldn’t be where we are today.

“You’ve got to have a diversity of ideas if you want to do the hard things of space exploration and scientific discovery at that level. It takes everyone and it take that intermingling of ideas from multiple perspectives,” Odom said.

Video above from 2020: Birdwatcher asks people to stop making death threats against the woman who called the cops on him

The white woman who was widely condemned and fired after a videotaped dispute with a Black birdwatcher in Central Park filed a lawsuit against her former employer, accusing the company of not doing an investigation before her termination because of her race and gender.

In her federal lawsuit, Amy Cooper said the company, Franklin Templeton, "nurtured" the idea of the confrontation last May as "a racial flashpoint, characterized as a privileged white female 'Karen' caught on video verbally abusing an African American male with no possible reason other than the color of his skin."

File video: Central Park confrontation

She said in the lawsuit it wasn't racism that led her to call police but fear, because she was alone and being "aggressively" confronted, and that the company would have known that with an investigation.

Cooper, who had been working as a portfolio manager at the investment firm until she was fired in the backlash to the call, accused the company of discrimination, saying an investigation would have been done if she were not a white woman.

"We believe the circumstances of the situation speak for themselves and that the company responded appropriately. We will defend against these baseless claims," Franklin Templeton said in a statement.

The confrontation between Cooper and the man, Christian Cooper, who is not related to her, began over her dog being unleashed in a section of the park where that was prohibited.

Christian Cooper posted video on social media at the time telling her to go to another section of the park. The encounter escalated, with Amy Cooper warning him that she would call police and tell them there was an African American man threatening her life.

Related video: Birdwatcher asks people to stop making death threats against the woman who called the cops on him

She then did call, saying she was being threatened.

She was also charged with filing a false police report, which was dismissed in February after she completed a diversionary counseling program. Prosecutors said the program included education about racial equality and five therapy sessions.

In the lawsuit, she said Christian Cooper had a history of confrontations with dog owners over their animals being off-leash, and that it was his "practice and intent to cause dog owners to be fearful for their safety and the safety of their dogs."

Christian Cooper had no comment.

Video above: North Carolina student says she was forced to cut her braidsIt was her last home softball game of the season, and Nicole Pyles, a sophomore at Durham Hillside High School in North Carolina, had just hit a double. Her hair, braided with beads and tied in a bun at the bottom of her neck, was the last thing on her mind.It quickly, however, became a focal point of the April 19 game. First, a coach on the opposing team claimed they couldn't see her jersey number, Pyles said. Pyles, 16, said she tucked the braids into her sports bra and continued playing. But then, later that same inning, it came up again.A coach on the opposing team pointed out the beads to the umpire, Pyles said. Beads in hair, according to the rulebook, weren't permitted. So despite playing four prior games with the beads, the umpire gave Pyles a choice: Either take the beads out, or don't play."I asked why is this now an issue ... and he said it's a rule, there's nothing he can do," Pyles told CNN.So Pyles' said her teammates gathered around, attempting to take the beads out of the hair. Because they were wound so tightly, they had to cut some of the hair out in order to remove all the beads, Pyles said."I felt dehumanized," Pyles said.Now, Pyles' family is attempting to get the rule changed."Everyone's hiding behind the rules of the game," Julius Pyles, Pyles' father, told CNN. "If there was a rule, it should've been applied in the beginning, (not in) their last game."Rule is 'culturally biased and inappropriate,' school district saysPyles' experience is a familiar one.In one of the most famous examples, a Black high school wrestler in New Jersey was forced to cut his dreadlocks off in order to compete in a tournament, after being told his hair wasn't in compliance with league regulations.In 2020, another Black high school student was told that if he didn't cut his dreadlocks to comply with the district's dress code, he wouldn't be able to walk at graduation. And there have been similar incidents all across the country.Julius Pyles says he has reached out to multiple people with Durham Public Schools and the North Carolina High School Athletic Association. Though DPS has publicly supported Pyles, the NCHSAA has not. "Durham Public Schools supports our students' right to free expression and opposes unreasonable or biased restrictions on Black women's hairstyles," the district said in a statement Wednesday, regarding the April game. "We believe the blanket ban on hair beads is culturally biased and problematic. We support our student, Nicole Pyles, and believe this rule should be amended."The district went on to encourage the NCHSAA and the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS), of which NCHSAA is a member and thus dictating rules across North Carolina high school sports, to review the policy, calling it "culturally biased and inappropriate."Rule may be addressed next month, national organization saysBut Commissioner Que Tucker, of the NCHSAA, stated that the rule is "not new.""When the violation was noticed by an umpire, the proper determination of illegal equipment was verified as supported by NFHS Rule," she said in a statement to CNN. "Further, according to NFHS Softball Rule 3-5-1, prior to the start of a contest, it is the responsibility of each coach to verify to the plate umpire that all his or her players are legally equipped, and that players and equipment are in compliance with all NFHS rules."Tucker called the experience "truly unfortunate," but said the coach's duty is to ensure players are aware of the rules before playing.The rule regarding beads in hair was first enacted in 2012, according to Karissa Niehoff, executive director of the NFHS. It was instituted to "minimize the risk of injury" to athletes during competition, the organization said.Though the NFHS did not say if the rule would be amended, Niehoff did say the NFHS Softball Rules Committee will "address hair beads and other adornments at its annual meeting next month."The rule as it stands, though, is discriminatory, Julius Pyles said."It's 2021, and now my child is being a part of something that should be dead and gone. I didn't serve this country to then be discriminated against," said Julius Pyles, a veteran.

CINCINNATI — A trial vaccine for COVID-19 is slated to happen soon at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital as researchers hope for a good representation of the minority population hit especially hard by the pandemic.

"What we're looking at is a way to try to prevent the infection,” said Dr. Robert Frenck, director of the hospital’s infectious diseases division and the lead doctor on the trial.

The crucial vaccines, sponsored by Pfizer, will take about 18 months to complete.

"If everything went super, super perfect, maybe the end of this year," he said. "But I think maybe the likely scenario would be trying to hope for something next spring."

Frenck said the vaccine itself can’t give patients COVID-19, since it doesn’t contain the whole virus.

"It's just going to try to make your body make antibodies against the part of the virus that we think it critical for the virus to be able to cause an infection,” he explained.

But aside from finding an urgently-needed COVID-19 vaccine, there’s another challenge.

“One of the things we're interested in is trying to have minority populations participate in the trials, too."

He says the black population in the U.S. is just 14% -- yet they represent 33% of total coronavirus deaths. That means finding members of minority populations to take part in the trial is a top priority.

May 11 is the target date for the vaccinations in this study. Researchers will screen patients to make sure they are not already carrying COVID-19.

To sign up, contact Children’s Hospital Medical Center.