NBA veteran Jeremy Lin says he’s been called ‘coronavirus’ on the court
(CNN)As the number of violent attacks against Asian Americans escalates, former NBA star Jeremy Lin said he has experienced racism while playing basketball.
“Being a 9 year NBA veteran doesn’t protect me from being called ‘coronavirus’ on the court,” the former New York Knicks star wrote on Facebook.Lin, who currently plays for the Santa Cruz Warriors, which is the G League affiliate of the Golden State Warriors, expressed his anguish for the racism and violence targeting Asian Americans on Thursday.
In his post, Lin recounted the several ways Asian Americans experience racism, prejudice and bigotry.
“Something is changing in this generation of Asian Americans. We are tired of being told that we don’t experience racism, we are tired of being told to keep our heads down and not make trouble,” he wrote.
“We are tired of Asian American kids growing up and being asked where they’re REALLY from, of having our eyes mocked, of being objectified as exotic or being told we’re inherently unattractive. We are tired of the stereotypes in Hollywood affecting our psyche and limiting who we think we can be. We are tired of being invisible, of being mistaken for our colleague or told our struggles aren’t as real.
In 2019, Lin became the first Asian American to win a NBA title while playing for the Toronto Raptors. Lin became a household name back in 2012, when he emerged as the breakout star of the New York Knicks. His success was dubbed “Linsanity.”
Lin, who has helped other Asian-American athletes fight racist stereotypes, is the latest high-profile figure speaking up to stop the violence against the AAPI community.
Earlier this month, actress Olivia Munn joined the effort to help find a man who attacked an Asian American woman on the streets of New York while actors Daniel Wu and Daniel Dae Kim teamed up to offer a $25,000 reward for information leading to an arrest in attacks that took place in Oakland’s Chinatown.
Communities and advocates across the US have been on high alert in recent weeks following a string of recent attacks against Asian Americans.While it’s unclear what is fueling the more recent incidents, advocates and authorities have been seen pattern of targeted hate since the coronavirus pandemic began.
Cynthia Choi, co-executive director of Chinese for Affirmative Action said the anti-Asian sentiment has been linked to the false idea that Asians could be blamed for the pandemic.
Choi is also one of the co-founders of Stop APPI Hate, a coalition that has documented anti-Asian hate and discrimination since March of last year. Nearly a year since its creation, the coalition has received more than 3,000 first-hand accounts of anti-Asian incidents, Choi said.
“It’s a very fearful time, a very anxiety-ruled, riddled time because Asian Americans feel like they are experiencing so much racism and bigotry. Some are legitimately afraid to leave their homes,” Choi told CNN on Friday.
CNN’s David Close contributed to this report.
via: https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/26/us/jeremy-lin-asian-american-attacks-response/index.html
Photo Credit: CNN
A middle schooler was insecure about his haircut. So his principal fixed it himself instead of disciplining the boy for wearing a hat
(CNN) — We’ve all had at least one bad haircut in our lifetimes, and chances are, we remember how that bad haircut made us feel.
Jason Smith, the middle school principal at Stonybrook Intermediate and Middle School in Indianapolis, Indiana, understood that feeling. And that’s why it was a no-brainer to jump into action for one of his students, Anthony Moore.
Moore was wearing a hat, which is against the school’s dress code. After the student spoke with a school dean for about 30 minutes, Smith was asked to step in.
“I sat across from him and asked, ‘What’s wrong? Why are you being defiant, why are you refusing to take your hat off? It’s a pretty simple request,'” Smith said. “And he explained that his parents took him to get a haircut and he didn’t like the results.”
Smith said he and the dean thought his hair looked fine. “But you know he’s a 13 [or] 14-year-old kid, and we know social acceptance is more important than adult acceptance,” he said.
“I told him, ‘Look, I’ve been cutting hair since I was your age,’ and I showed him pictures of my son’s haircuts that I did and some of me cutting hair in college. And I said, ‘If I run home and get my clippers and fix your line, will you go back to class?'” Smith said. “He hesitated but then he said yes.”
So in the snow, Smith drove back home to get his clippers and brought them to his office to line Moore’s head up while his parents were called for consent to touch up his hair.
Tawanda Johnson, Moore’s mom, said she thought the gesture was wonderful.
“He (Smith) handled it very well to keep him from getting in trouble at school,” she said. “I’m just glad that he was able to handle that without … being put in in-school suspension.”
“He didn’t say straight out, but I feel like he didn’t want to be laughed at,” Smith said. “The barbershop and hair cuts as Black males is very important in the community and looking your best and being sharp — it’s just a cultural aspect.”
“Just from my being a Black male myself and coming through that culture and you know, I really think girls matter at that age, which [means] appearance then could matter. He was scared he was going to be laughed at and we were pretty sure no one would notice, but he was looking through his lens,” Smith said.
Smith made sure to check on Moore throughout the day, and found that he was learning and didn’t have his hat on after the touch-up.
“All behavior is communication and when a student is struggling, we need to ask ourselves what happened to this child instead of what’s wrong with the child,” Smith said. “What need is the child trying to get met and really, the future of urban education rests on that question.”
Smith said the consequence for not abiding by the dress code ordinarily would have been in-school suspension or being picked up by a parent, which, Smith said, “would have prevented him from being in front of a classroom teacher and giving him the education he deserves, so it really worked out well.”
via: https://www.kmov.com/news/a-middle-schooler-was-insecure-about-his-haircut-so-his-principal-fixed-it-himself-instead/article_8f5edff8-6032-5de5-9eb4-42f7dc71c576.html
Photo Credit: Lewis Speaks
NYC woman sues landlord for negligence after stranger raped her in apartment
A woman who was raped after opening her Manhattan apartment door to a stranger posing as a delivery man is suing the owners of the building, saying there should have been a locked door between the complex and an adjacent parking garage, new court papers allege.
The 27-year-old victim was allegedly choked unconscious and raped by homeless man Elijah Kelly at her Kips Bay apartment on 30th Street on New Year’s Eve
Kelly, 23, was arrested a few days later and a criminal rape case is pending against him. Kelly — who is not named in the lawsuit — is being held on $100,000 bail.
The woman is now blaming the owners and management company of the building — which she has since moved out of — for “allowing an unlocked door to exist between the adjacent public parking garage and the residential part of the building which had no alarm, no lock, no video surveillance which was being actively monitored,” her Manhattan Supreme Court lawsuit alleges.
The building let their tenants believe “that the building was secure when in fact it was unsecure” the court documents claim adding that the area has high crime.
The woman is suing for unspecified damages.
Her lawyer, Steven Beldock, told The Post, “A horrendous crime occurred as a result of the absolute utter negligence of the building owner and managing agent.
“He should never have been in that building.”
“They represent to the world that this is a secure building,” Beldock said. “It’s not. Anyone could walk in there.”
The owners could not immediately be reached for comment. Management company Abington Holdings, LLC did not immediately return a request for comment.
via: https://nypost.com/2021/02/26/nyc-woman-sues-landlord-for-negligence-after-stranger-raped-her-in-apartment/
Photo Credit: nypost.com
Lee Daniels hopes his new Billie Holiday film makes lynching a hate crime
At the intersection of artistry and addiction, director Lee Daniels found his connection with late blues icon Billie Holiday.
“I had to tell her story because it lived in me on so many different levels,” Daniels told The Post. “Not just as an artist, but as an artist who also struggled with addiction.”
Daniels, 61, pulls back the curtain on the troubled 1940s jazz singer’s simultaneous battles with substance abuse and the federal government in his new film, “The United States vs. Billie Holiday,” out Friday on Hulu. The movie stars Andra Day as Billie Holiday, who has already been nominated for two Golden Globes for the performance.
The harrowing tale of Holiday’s traumatic childhood and tumultuous life in the spotlight has been famously recounted in the 1972 classic “Lady Sings the Blues,” starring Diana Ross, and on Broadway in the musical “Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill,” led by Audra McDonald in 2014.
But in his tribute to the legendary songstress, Daniels chose to focus less on Holiday’s troubled past, and more on her ill-fated relationship with federal agent Jimmy Fletcher.
“It’s not a biopic,” Daniels said. “It’s really an espionage love story.”
The affair started when Fletcher was tapped by openly racist Federal Bureau of Narcotics Chief Harry Anslinger to take Holiday down for her heroin use.
But Anslinger’s true motive for targeting Holiday was to stop her from singing her anti-lynching anthem “Strange Fruit.”
“I get chills thinking about those lyrics,” Daniels said. “They’re so powerful because she called out social injustice when no one else would.”
“Strange Fruit” was originally a poem written by Jewish high school teacher and civil rights activist Abel Meeropol in 1937. The Bronx native penned the verse after seeing a haunting picture of a double lynching, and set the words to music for Holiday to begin performing at racially integrated New York City nightclubs in 1939.
The protest song infamously exposed the violence committed by white people who murdered black Americans by hanging them from trees in the segregated South.
Amid the spectacle of Holiday’s opioid abuse, extramarital liaisons — including an intimate relationship with actress Tallulah Bankhead — and repeated stints in jail on drug charges, the movie reaches a climax: a lynching scene, in which Holiday stumbles on a terrible crime.
“That was the hardest thing I’ve ever shot before in my life,” said Daniels, who also directed the Hollywood blockbusters “Precious” and “Lee Daniels’ The Butler.”
In the scene, Holiday wanders off of her tour bus and sees children crying in front of a burning cross, a signature of the Ku Klux Klan. Their father helplessly tries rescuing their mother as her limp body hangs from a branch.
At that moment, Holiday vows to continue performing “Strange Fruit,” despite the FBI’s attempts to silence her.
“She didn’t want to be a hero,” Daniels said. “She would not think of herself as a civil rights leader even though she was one. She just knew she had to sing this song.”
Daniels and Pulitzer Prize-winning screenwriter Suzan-Lori Parks wrapped the film before the nationwide demand for social justice, spurred by the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, in 2020. Daniels said he hopes the movie inspires the Senate to pass the Emmett Till Antilynching Act, legislation that would officially designate lynching a hate crime.
“I want this film to open up conversations that promote change,” Daniels said. “If we are doing the work to address systemic racism, I think we will have a better America.”
Holiday’s call for change, “Strange Fruit,” was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1978, declared the “Song of the Century,” by Time in 1999 and added into the National Recording Registry by the Library of Congress in 2002.
As for Daniels’ homage to the late Lady Day, who died of cirrhosis handcuffed to a hospital bed a few months before he was born in 1959, the filmmaker says she approved of the film.
“On the last day of shooting, I dreamt I saw Ms. Holiday sitting in a 1950s car,” Daniels said.
“I asked her, ‘Is it okay that I’m doing your movie?’
She said, ‘Are you going to do me right?,’ and I said, ‘I think so.’ Then she smiled.”
via: https://nypost.com/2021/02/26/lee-daniels-on-the-united-states-vs-billie-holiday/
Photo Credit: HULU
Teen TikToker allegedly murdered disabled sister day after going viral
A 14-year-old Pennsylvania girl who allegedly stabbed her disabled sister to death posted a now-viral Tiktok video before the murder — and her account has since been shut down, according to police and reports.
Claire Miller’s TikTok account was closed Thursday by the video-sharing app over a post she made the day before she allegedly stabbed her 19-year-old sister, Helen Miller, who had cerebral palsy and used a wheelchair.
Miller’s account, which is believed to be @spiritsandsuchconsulting, was flagged for violating the app’s “community guidelines,” which forbids users who “promote or are engaged in violence,” according to Business Insider.
It wasn’t immediately clear what the teen’s problematic TikTok video depicted, but screen shots from the time period reportedly show Miller venting about her father.
Miller was “hysterical” when she called 911 at around 1 a.m. on Monday, allegedly confessing “I stabbed my sister,” according to an arrest affidavit.
Cops rushed to the home and allegedly found Miller in blood-stained pants as she tried to wash her hands in the snow, according to police.
The teen then directed officers to a bedroom where they found Helen Miller, 19, with a fatal stab wound to her neck, prosecutors said. She was pronounced dead at 4:13 a.m.
Miller is now being charged as an adult for homicide. Cops have not determined a motive, a police official said.
Miller had amassed 22,000 followers on Tiktok before her account was taken down, though it was unclear if news of her arrest had boosted her numbers.
Tiktok didn’t immediately return a request for comment Friday.
via: https://nypost.com/2021/02/26/teen-tiktoker-allegedly-murdered-sister-day-after-going-viral/
Photo Credit: Manheim Township Police Department
Florida woman walks into jewelry store, complains and steals $15K diamond ring
A Florida woman swiped a $15,000 diamond ring from a jewelry store after making a fuss about a previous purchase, police said Thursday.
The jewel heist took place on Feb. 10 at Gold Silver Creations in Key West, according to The Miami Herald.
Store manager Bigya Niroula said the unidentified woman came into the shop and “was complaining a lot.”
“She said, ‘Can I try the ring, please?’ I said, ‘Sure,’” she recalled.
She chose a size 7 14-carat white gold ring with three diamonds.
As Niroula helped someone else, the sticky-fingered customer swapped out the pricey gem for one of her own rings and left the store, cops said.
The manager was able to snap some photos of the suspect, who was wearing a floral skin-tight outfit, leopard-print mask and her hair in two buns.
She is believed to be from Homestead but may be living with her boyfriend in Stock Island Key, near Key West, cops said.
Crime Stoppers of Miami-Dade and the Florida Keys is offering a reward of up to $5,000 for information that leads to an arrest.
via: https://nypost.com/2021/02/25/florida-woman-steals-15k-diamond-ring-from-jewelry-store/
Photo Credit: KEY WEST POLICE DEPARTMENT
Iowa State sorority member found dead from excessive drinking, hypothermia
An Iowa State University student was found dead in her sorority parking lot — succumbing to excessive drinking and exposure to the cold, authorities say.
Olivia Chutich, 21 — the daughter of a Minnesota judge — was found lying in the parking lot of the Delta Delta Delta sorority shortly before 10 a.m. Jan 22, according to the Ames Police Department.
The college junior is believed to have been lying in the parking lot for hours in temperatures as low as 8 degrees before being discovered, the Ames Tribune reported.
An autopsy revealed that the communications studies major’s death was caused by hypothermia and acute alcohol intoxication, police said.
Chutich was the daughter of Minnesota Supreme Court Justice Margaret Chutich and her wife, Allina Health CEO Penny Wheeler, according to the newspaper.
She was born in Guatemala and adopted as an infant, her obituary said.
“We weren’t perfect parents, and she wasn’t a perfect child, but we were a perfect match. And what a love story it was,” her parents wrote.
Chutich’s “vibrant spirit, heart-on-her-sleeve emotions, kindness, compassion, and glorious smile are remembered by all who crossed her path,” the death notice read.
Police do not believe foul play was involved in the student’s death.
via: https://nypost.com/2021/02/26/iowa-state-student-dead-from-excessive-drinking-hypothermia/
Photo Credit: Instagram
OK man accused of killing neighbor, cooking her heart and feeding it to others before killing 2 more is released early from prison
CHICKASHA, Okla. (AP) — An Oklahoma man who had been released early from prison in January as part of a mass commutation effort is now accused of three killings, including the death of a neighbor whose heart he cut out, authorities said.
A judge denied bail Tuesday for Lawrence Paul Anderson, who faces three counts of first-degree murder, one count of assault and one count of maiming for the attack this month in Chickasha, about 35 miles (55 kilometers) southwest of Oklahoma City.
According to the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation, Anderson is accused of killing Andrea Lynn Blankenship, 41, and cutting out her heart. Authorities say Anderson brought the heart to his aunt and uncle’s house, cooked it with potatoes and tried to serve it to them before killing Leon Pye, 67, wounding the aunt and killing Kaeos Yates, the pair’s 4-year-old granddaughter.
Anderson sobbed in court during an initial court appearance Tuesday, The Oklahoman reported.
“I don’t want no bail, your honor. I don’t want no bail,” he said.
Anderson’s attorney, Al Hoch, indicated that he will seek a mental evaluation to determine whether Anderson is competent to stand trial.
Anderson had been sentenced in 2017 to 20 years in prison for probation violations on a drug case, the newspaper reported. Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt commuted the sentence last year to nine years in prison, and Anderson was released after serving a little more than three years.
Grady County District Attorney Jason Hicks criticized the criminal justice reform that led to the commutations of hundreds of Oklahoma inmates.
“It is time that we do better,” Hicks said. “If we have the highest incarceration rate in the world, OK. We can look at our citizens and be honest with them and tell them that you’re safe. I can’t tell the people in my district today that they’re safe.”
Stitt’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday.
Jason Nelson, Oklahoma’s interim secretary for public safety, has said that the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board recommended commutation for Anderson on a 3-1 vote.
via: https://www.kmov.com/news/oklahoma-man-released-early-from-prison-accused-in-3-deaths/article_afd84224-9f72-5162-ae56-4f7aae51a608.html
Photo Credit: Grady County Sheriff’s Office via AP
Landlord accused of kidnapping tenants, dumping them in a cemetery, so he could evict them
ALBANY, N.Y. — A New York landlord is out on bail after being arrested and accused of kidnapping tenants from his property and dumping them in a cemetery 30 miles away.
The two tenants accused landlord Shawn Douglas of kidnapping them while armed from their home at his property in the South End neighborhood of Albany.
In the police report, the two accusers say they were abducted, restrained with zip ties and covered with pillowcases. They then claim Douglas dumped them off in a rural cemetery in the town of Ghent.
One person was able to free themselves from the restraints to seek help at a nearby house.
“He’s lucky they came out of that alive. They could have froze to death out there,” said Albany County Sheriff Craig Apple.
Douglas was reportedly frustrated he couldn’t evict the victims from his property because of a statewide ban on evictions caused by the pandemic. Apple said despite frustrations from landlords, there’s a legal system in place.
“My advice to both parties is to be patient. You have to be tolerant. There is a process. I didn’t invent it, so don’t call down to the sheriff’s office screaming and yelling like everybody has for the last 12 months,” Apple said.
The ban on evictions in New York expires May 1. As landlords wait for their day in court, eviction requests continue to grow. Meanwhile, the sheriff’s hands remained tied.
“We know right now, we have upwards of 100 [eviction requests], and we know there’s hundreds basically in the filing ready to go at city court, town court,” Apple said.
The Albany Police Department has not released further details about this case, but more people could be charged in connection with the alleged kidnapping.
via: https://www.pix11.com/news/national-news/landlord-accused-of-kidnapping-tenants-dumping-them-in-a-cemetery-so-he-could-evict-them
Photo Credit: pix11.com/Drew Angerer
An artist honors icons by creating Black History Month-themed playing cards
(CNN) — Kearra Johnson was in her senior year at the University of Missouri when she came up with the concept for what is now known as the Revolution Card Deck — a deck of playing cards featuring the names and faces of notable Black individuals.
Michelle Obama, Thurgood Marshall and Oprah Winfrey are just a few of the figures who appear in a set of cards.
“It’s dedicated to the dreamers — to all of the African American individuals before us who paved the way,” Johnson told CNN.
Despite praise from her peers, the Kansas City, Missouri-based graphic designer and founder of Studio Lo recalled being hesitant to take what was originally a class project and turn it into a physical product.
“I just hadn’t seen it done before,” Johnson said. “But I looked at an example from the class and I was like, ‘How would that look with a Black figure on it?'”
The 22-year-old illustrator recalled how she didn’t intend to take her design idea beyond the classroom. “That, literally, was where it was going to stay and I wasn’t going to push the product any more,” Johnson continued. That all changed when she got her first order request.
Last October, a professor at the University of Missouri came across the design on Johnson’s portfolio website. She was eager to buy a few decks as gifts for her graduate students; however, the cards didn’t actually exist.
“I didn’t want to tell her no,” Johnson recalled. “So I took that as an opportunity just to motivate me to go ahead and get them done.”
After fulfilling the professor’s five-deck order, Johnson pivoted her focus to the cards and began pushing the design.
“I’ve just been showing them to people who I think would be interested and just seeing how many eyes I can get on them,” Johnson explained. “And literally every person that I’ve shown has been excited about it — more excited than me sometimes.”
Johnson initially only printed 100 decks that she planned to sell on her own. However, curators at Made In KC, a company in Kansas City that sells locally designed products, suggested that she print more. “So then I went and got 500 more printed,” Johnson continued. The cards are now being sold in-store at all three Made in KC locations.
Starting important conversations about Black history and Black culture is something Johnson hopes can be achieved with the playing cards. She explained how the project is her creative passion mixed with an important topic.
“I think it’s always important to push [Black] culture forward,” Johnson said. “And there’s no better way to do that and than through creativity.”
Johnson currently works as an In House designer at Kanbe’s Markets, an organization that seeks to eliminate food deserts in Kansas City. Her creative skills, coupled with the idea that art can be used as a powerful tool for change, makes her job at the nonprofit even more enjoyable.
“Just being able to contribute my talents, and contribute to the bigger cause is super rewarding,” Johnson continued.
Looking back on her journey so far, Johnson explained how grateful she is to be surrounded by people who support her work and have her best interest in mind.
“I think a lot of times people kind of fear that people won’t respect or understand their idea,” Johnson said. “But, really, you just gotta be confident and people will see what you see.”
To learn more about the Revolution Card Deck and the artist behind the design, visit her website. The deck sells for $30.
via: https://www.kmov.com/news/an-artist-honors-icons-by-creating-black-history-month-themed-playing-cards/article_cbfc4569-5da1-50e8-9d9a-cf05041536a7.html
Photo Credit: Kearra Johnson