Solange Knowles Writes Love Letter From Jamaica, Lensed By Jackie Nickerson For Dazed Magazine | Archives

Solange Knowles Writes Love Letter From Jamaica, Lensed By Jackie Nickerson For Dazed Magazine | Archives

Talent Solange Knowles is styled by Katie Shillingford in ‘Runaway Bay’, lensed by Jackie Nickerson for Dazed Magazine Spring/Summer 2018. Knowles pens a seven-part thank you and reflection on Jamaica. She begins:

I’ve been following Joni. First through her words, then through her truth, then through her melodies and the way I dance and drown in them. Then through her jazz, through chords that ease themselves into one another without ever showing their shadows. Through her exodus. To Topanga, and then to Laurel, and now to Runaway Bay, without even trying to find her.

I’ve been looking at photos of this house in Runaway Bay for five years. Wanting to know if it could tell my secrets. If it could hold me. If I could write music, and drink wine, and draw sketches, and sleep well naked and invent new ways to say how I feel. If I could burn my sage, and wash my hands with Florida water right there on the porch until I feel renewed. 

Solange was referencing legendary singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell who spent time in Jamaica, unable to sing or birth lyrics. Instead, writes Vogue, Mitchell painted on the walls of the bedroom of Itopia, a stone-walled house built in the 1600s as part of the Cardiff Hall estate on the North Coast of Jamaica.

Solange posted a now-deleted Instagram message: “Joni Mitchell painted murals in this house. I wrote songs in this house.”

The name ‘Runaway Bay’ comes not from the fact that this is a perfect getaway spot in Jamaica. That would be modern marketing. ‘Runaway Bay’ was an escape route for slaves The area is rich in caves, giving runaway slaves both shelter and secrecy as a place to regroup before choosing whether to remain on the island and move on. Read The Jamaica Maroons and the Danger of Categorical Thinking.

Another gift in the photo shoot is Shillingford’s choice of Paolina Russo’s athletic corset, worn on the cover. Russo won the prestigious L’Oreal Professionnel Young Talent Award at the Saint Martins BA fashion show in May 2018. She is now working on a Masters at Saint Martins, with industry eyes lasered on her prodigious talent and visionary future in fashion.

Can GirlForward's Superior Program Structure For Refugee Girls Be Applied To American Girls?

Can GirlForward's Superior Program Structure For Refugee Girls Be Applied To American Girls?

The Austin, Texas branch of Girl Forward, a nonprofit founded in Chicago in 2011, is run exclusively by millennial women for high-school age refugee girls. Politico profiled the group in November 2018, landing in Austin. because Texas is second only to California in its refugee population.

GirlForward is predicated on the notion that refugee girls face particular hardships due not only to the tumultuous circumstances of their upbringing and relocation but also their gender. “Oftentimes, our girls haven’t been able to pursue education in the same way their brothers have,” Shannon Elder, 24, GirlForward’s Austin development manager, observes. “In countries of conflict, girls’ access to education can be much more limited than it is for boys,” said Arielle Levin, who runs the mentorship program. GirlForward recruits refugees through Austin nonprofits, schools, and word of mouth. It tries specifically to recruit the oldest daughter in a family, reasoning that they are usually shouldered with the heaviest burdens. “A lot of my family don’t speak English,” said Storai Rana, an 18-year-old refugee from Afghanistan, “so there was so many responsibilities of things I had to do. Like I had go to the bank, to the market,” she said.

Girl Forward attempts to help its girls lead lead full and rich lives, moving behind tangible tools like opening a checking account or learning how to use the local library.

Fatima Mirzakhail, an 18-year-old refugee, told Politico’s Ethan Epstein that her initial optimism on arriving in America and leaving her war-torn country of Afghanistan soon evaporated. “In Afghanistan I felt like I was in a box, and I couldn’t fly anywhere.” Fatima explained. Her expectations that life in America would be so different soon evaporated. Before becoming part of Girl Forward, “I was crying all the time, hating myself,” she said.  Now Fatima is blossoming “planning on attending a local community college next year before transferring to UT. “

Jane Fonda Chosen For Producers Guild of America's 2019 Stanley Kramer Award On Jan. 19 in Beverly Hills

Jane Fonda Chosen For Producers Guild of America's 2019 Stanley Kramer Award On Jan. 19 in Beverly Hills

Two-time Oscar winner, producer and activist Jane Fonda will receive the Producers Guild of America’s 2019 Stanley Kramer Award at the 30th annual Producers Guild Awards on Jan. 19 at the Beverly Hilton Hotel.

Fonda is the second individual, sharing the honor with Sean Penn in 2010, to receive the recognition. The award is usually given to a film, like  ‘Get Out’ in 2018 and ‘Loving’ in 2017, and its producers as an achievement or contribution that illuminates and raises public awareness of important social issues.

Jane’s contributions are many, but they include celebrating her 80th birthday last December by raising $1.3 million to lower the teen pregnancy rate and improve the overall health and well-being of young people in the state of Georgia, and the Women's Media Center, which she co-founded with Gloria Steinem and Robin Morgan to make women and girls more visible and powerful in media. 

This year, Fonda starred in the summer box office hit ‘Book Club’ and was the subject of the HBO documentary ‘Jane Fonda in Five Acts’, chronicling her life and her activism. Next month the fifth season of her comedy series ‘Grace and Frankie’, which she executive produces and stars in, will begin streaming on Netflix.

Eye: Dior Lady Art #3 Is 11 Women Artists Worldwide, Inspiring 2019 AOC Study of Their Extreme Talent

Dior Lady Art #3 Is 11 Women Artists Worldwide, Inspiring 2019 AOC Study of Their Extreme Talent

Dior Creative Director Maria Grazia Chiuri launched her third Dior Lady Art project in early December 2018, at Miami’s Art Basel. For the first time, this third edition of the maison’s creative initiative, Dior Lady Art, is comprised of an all-woman cast of 11 artists transforming the classic Lady bag into works of art, The bags will now launch in January 2019 in expanded artistry by the same women at select Dior outlets worldwide. (See prior Dior Lady Art projects here. )

Earlier this week, Vogue.com profiled Danish jeweler and ceramist Jo Riis-Hansen, and her words got my attention. “I think the world is so fast,” says Riis-Hansen from her hometown, as her children, 10 and 6, play in the background. “I love fashion, I do, but it’s so fast. I think jewelry needs to slow down a bit, too. [When you buy a piece of jewelry] I think it’s important to [ask]: Where does it come from? Who is this person that made it? Did someone actually put real human or spiritual energy it? That doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t buy the fast-fashion [stuff], I’m just pursuing another way of making jewelry, one that [fulfills] a personal need for me, to be able to put all these emotions into [my work].”

In our fast-paced, digital and often disposable world, we rarely understand the answers to Riis-Hansen’s questions. Yet, it’s well known that younger people, in particular, are very focused on these questions about the projects they are buying into.

It’s my intention to answer these questions around my own GlamTribal Design Collection. But after installing this rather laborious entry around Dior Lady Art handbags, it occurs to me that we have a wonderful foundation from which to explore these women artists — their work, their philosophies around art, life, politics and all related topics. We can track their exhibitions and their communities, the experiences that have informed their artistic visions in an ongoing project throughout 2019.

As opposed to this post being just another fashionable data bit in the glut of information on the Internet, we will slow down a bit and really understand the women artists who were chosen by Dior Creative Director Maria Grazia Chiuri to represent this great luxury brand in its third Dior Lady Art initiative.

Are CZ-USA, Kansas City, KS Made In USA Rifles The Top Gun Used To Poach Big Game In Africa?

Kathi Lee Austin of ConflictAwareness.org

Are CZ-USA, Kansas City, KS Made In USA Rifles The Top Gun Used To Poach Big Game In Africa?

Now that all the holiday food is settling into our fat cells for a long winter's nap, and Trump has pissed all over our country in the worst Christmas Day message I've ever heard, let me begin by saying that I did not just like the FB page for “CZ-USA, Kansas City, KS,” rifles, thinking that my closest friends might have a total meltdown.

If I liked the company, them this post would tag their wall, but then I would be bringing down a hornet's nest of gun lovers on my wall, and -- in retrospect -- I don't really want to do that. Elephant killer Donald Trump Jr -- or just 'Junior' as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez calls him -- would probably show up in person to give us all a big lecture on the thrill of killing wild beasts. Speaking of wild beasts, his father is absolutely behaving like one. Sorry, I digress.

However, this New York Times article How Did Rifles With an American Stamp End Up in the Hands of African Poachers? hit me between the eyes this morning, and they were barely open. NOTHING IS DEFINITE YET, and of course, the gun manufacturer 'CZ-USA' denies, denies, denies that they have anything to do with the reality that their rifles -- not the ones manufactured by their parent company in the Czech Republic -- are being investigated as being the #1 rifle poachers are using to kill the elephants, rhinos, lions, tigers -- you name it -- in Africa.

Like somehow “CZ-USA, Kansas City, KS,” got carved into the metal. It's a branding mistake. You know . . . like Trump makes major branding mistakes every day. This is just all about bad marketing.

While this is not a girl's only investigation, one lady in particular is in the lead: Kathi Lynn Austin.

SC Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Votes Against Trump Immigration Rules After Cancer Surgery

SC Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Votes Against Trump Immigration Rules After Cancer Surgery

As the Trump wrecking machine increasingly rattles much of America, progressives, Democrats and centrists alike got an unexpected blow in the gut on Friday with news that beloved Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, 85, was in surgery at Sloan Kettering Hospital in New York. Notorious RBG, as the pop icon Justice is called, is recovering from her third bout with cancer with the removal of two nodules from her left lung.

Sloan Kettering doctors insist that Ginsburg’s lung cancer did not spread to other areas of her body, leaving weeping Americans believing that she will make a full recovery.

Weeks ago, Ginsburg fell in her office, fracturing several ribs. During her treatment, scans revealed the cancerous growths. Even cancer surgery didn’t get in the Supreme’s way, as Her Honor cast a deciding vote from her hospital bed against US President Donald Trump’s attempts to place new restrictions on migrants seeking asylum in the US.

EYE: Misty Copeland + Calvin Royal III By Albert Watson For Pirelli 2019 Calendar | Misty On Offering New Black Role Models

EYE: Misty Copeland + Calvin Royal III By Albert Watson For Pirelli 2019 Calendar | Misty On Offering New Black Role Models

AOC drops into Vogue Italia as Misty Copeland, the first African American Principal dancer of the American Ballet Theater, talks about her appearance in the 2019 Pirelli calendar. Photographer Albert Watson pairs Copeland with Calvin Royal III, an ABT soloist since 2017 . Valentina Bonelli interviews Misty about her battles to bring diversity into the world of classical ballet.

Misty Copeland has long articulated the intense degree of racism embedded in classical ballet in America and across the world. George Balanchine imposes a singular vision of a ballet dancer as a person with light skin and the lithe, ultra-low BMI body of a teenager.

Copeland speaks to Vogue Italia of the social media criticism of her with words that ring true to those hurled at tennis great Serena Williams. The bodies of both black women are unsuitable for greatness with their too developed muscles, abundant breasts and dark skin tweet the social media harassers.

Grateful for former president Barack Obama giving her a White House platform to join creators in advancing an expanded vision of black talent in the arts, Copeland believes that the momentum has established new roots in black communities — in spite of the Trump effect.

Manhattan Judge Rules That Harvey Weinstein Case Will Proceed To March 7 Pre-Trial Hearing

Manhattan Judge Rules That Harvey Weinstein Case Will Proceed To March 7 Pre-Trial Hearing

Disgraced Hollywood media mogul Harvey Weinstein, a key catalyst behind the widely-revived #MeToo movement, will be going to trial. On Thursday Judge James Burke rejected Weinstein’s legal request to dismiss the remaining five counts of sexual misconduct and rape charged by the Manhattan District Attorney’s office. The case is scheduled for a pre-trial hearing on March 7. The judge previously dismissed one of the initial sex counts involving allegations by Lucia Evans.

Vanity Fair writes that the courtroom was packed with reporters and supporters of the Time’s Up movement. Actors Marisa Tomei, Kathy Najimy, and Amber Tamblyn joined Time’s Up President and CEO Lisa Borders, who said that she was “relieved that Harvey Weinstein failed” in his efforts to have the charges dismissed.

The case remains complicated, especially after the dismissal of one count against Weinstein. With the case proceeding, Judge Burke’s rulings around evidence will heavily influence the case.

Attorney Alan Dershowitz, who was brought on by Weinstein’s lead attorney Ben Brafman as a consultant, says defense emails contradict claims that the sexual encounters were forced.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg Film 'On the Basis of Sex' Draws Sold Out NYC Crowd With Clinton + Steinem

Ruth Bader Ginsburg Film 'On the Basis of Sex' Draws Sold Out NYC Crowd With Clinton + Steinem

“She’s not a superhero; she’s a woman like many others of her generation,” Mimi Leder, director of the Ruth Bader Ginsburg biophic ‘On the Basis of Sex’ told the packed audience at New York’s Walter Read Theatre director on Sunday. The audience included Gloria Steinem (wearing an RBG-inspired Lingua Franca sweater that read “all rise”) and former Secretary of State and 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. Vogue writes that RGB received a hero’s welcome from an audience that gave her a standing ovation at every opportunity.

“She is an exceptional woman who changed the culture with her intelligence and her eloquence, “ Leder continued, emphasizing the reality that themes of her story are universal: “She didn’t go into the law to become a champion for equal rights. She went into the law because she thought she could do that job better than any other.”

“I ask no favor for my sex,” Ginsburg’s voice says at the end of the film. “All I ask of our brethren is that they take their feet off our necks.”

Justice Ginsburg’s nephew Daniel Stiepleman wrote the script for ‘On the Basis of Sex’, and her daughter Jane helped edit the movie script.

Alexi Lubomirski Captures Sean O'Pry In 'Who's The Daddy?' For GQ UK December 2018

Alexi Lubomirski Captures Sean O'Pry In 'Who's The Daddy?' For GQ UK December 2018

Top model Sean O’Pry makes quite an impression in ‘Who’s The Daddy? styled by Luke Day. Alexi Lubomirski is behind the lens for British GQ’s December 2018 issue. The dazzling O’Pry sent Working Mother Magazine swooning. They wrote: British GQ’s December 2018 Issue Is All About Working Dads — and It’s About Time.

The issue challenges the traditional notion of what it means to be a man with a career and children. And GQ UK is not kidding around. An article on expectant fathers taking an antenatal class with the charity Working With Men is no fluff piece. And while these real-life dads to be don’t look like Sean O’Pry, we say “good work, guys!”

Five Reasons Why 2018 Was A Big Year For Palaeontology

Five Reasons Why 2018 Was A Big Year For Palaeontology

By Julien Benoit, Postdoc in Vertebrate Palaeontology, University of the Witwatersrand. First published on The Conversation Africa.

A lot happened in the world of palaeontology in 2018. Some of the big events included some major fossil finds, a new understanding of our reptile ancestors and a major controversy whose outcome could rewrite human history. The Conversation Africa asked Dr Julien Benoit to discuss five important moments in palaeontology you may have missed during 2018, and what they mean – particularly for Africa and its place in the story of human origins.

Gisele Bundchen Wears Sensual Elegance By Nino Muñoz For Harper's Bazaar Australia Jan-Feb 2019

Gisele Bundchen Wears Sensual Elegance By Nino Muñoz For Harper's Bazaar Australia Jan-Feb 2019

Supermodel Gisele Bundchen is styled by Kristen Ingersoll in Dior, Stella McCartney, Tom Ford, Reformation and more. Nino Muñoz captures Gisele in ‘The New Sexy’ for Harper’s Bazaar Australia Jan-Feb 2019.

Gisele is promoting her new book and Harper’s shares the excerpt about the rise of a serious condition of anxiety towards her life at age 23:

For 23 years, I've also been an image without a voice. I have this in common with lots of women. Haven't most of us gotten the message that our voices aren't worth hearing, whether we're being ignored in a meeting, or criticised online, or reduced to a bunch of body parts? Allowing myself to be open and vulnerable — not—her, but me, Gisele—is very scary. I won't be able to detach or hide anymore. At the same time, take it from me: nothing feels stranger than to be the object of someone else's projections. To be known but also unknown no longer feels right to me. Life is not always easy, nor is it a fairytale, and we all go through challenges, no matter who we are. By speaking up, I hope I can inspire other women to do the same, especially at a time when women need to support other women more than ever. After all, changes only come about when we are willing to stand for what we believe.

{. . . }

Finally, things came to a crisis point. It was the weekend, and I was in my apartment in New York. I'd booked a massage to help me relax, aware that the muscles in my body were growing more tense every day. By now my panic attacks — that's what my doctors were calling them — had been going on for nearly six months. At the time I was living on West Eleventh Street and the West Side Highway, overlooking the river. My apartment was on the ninth floor. It was small but airy and full of light, with lots of windows and a big deck outside. But suddenly in the middle of my massage, I just couldn't be there anymore. I couldn't catch my own breath. Making some excuse, I got up, pulled my towel around myself and went outside onto the deck. It was a beautiful night. There was the water and the lights in the distance, and as much air as I needed, but I still couldn't find my breath. It felt like everything in my life was going to kill me. First it was airplanes, then elevators. Then it was tunnels and hotels and modelling studios and cars. Now it was my own apartment. Everything had become a cage, and I was the animal trapped inside, panting for air. I couldn't see a way out, and I couldn't stand another day of feeling this way. The idea swept over me then: Maybe it will be easier if I just jump. It will be all over. There's a solution. I can get out of this.

EYE: Chinyere Ezie Educates Prada On Why Fat Red Lips On Black Bodies Are Not Good Trinkets In America

EYE: Chinyere Ezie Educates Prada On Why Fat Red Lips On Black Bodies Are Not Good Trinkets In America

The best paragraphs in Robin Givhan’s WaPo commentary “Seriously, Prada, what were you thinking?: Why the fashion industry keeps bumbling into racist imagery” isn’t the narrative around Prada’s utter stupidity in their SoHo window display of items from their Pradamalia collection.

AOC readers know that we do not hop on the bandwagon of every alleged act of fashion industry cultural appropriation or racism. But Givhan is correct and we concur: what in goddesses name were you thinking Prada?

Let’s take a different approach here because Givan has done a superb job of also telling the experience of Chinyere Ezie’s reaction upon seeing the Prada store window in Soho. We will quote liberally in a moment, but let’s back up even further and introduce Prada to this woman. From her website:

Chinyere Ezie (Cheen-Yer-Ray Ay-Zee-Ay) is a nationally recognized civil rights lawyer and social justice activist who specializes in constitutional litigation and anti-discrimination work. In 2016, Chinyere was named one of the country's Best LGBT Lawyers Under 40. 

Chinyere is a Staff Attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights where she focuses on racial justice, gender justice, and LGBT rights work. Chinyere previously worked as a Staff Attorney at the Southern Poverty Law Center LGBT Rights Project, where she was lead counsel for transgender rights activist Ashley Diamond in her suit against the Georgia Department of Corrections. Chinyere also worked as a Trial Attorney at the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission where she successfully represented employees who had been subjected to discrimination--securing a $5.1 million dollar trial verdict. 

Chinyere is a William J. Fulbright Scholar and a graduate of Yale University and Columbia Law School, where she served as President of Columbia Outlaws and Editor in Chief of the Columbia Journal of Gender and Law. 

She also clerked on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit and worked as an associate at Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen, and Hamilton LLP in New York City.

In her free time, Chinyere enjoys photography, graphic design, and spending time with her wife and puppy.

Based on her stellar credentials, Chinyere Ezie more than qualifies as Prada’s target customer, although she is not one. Now, via Robin Givhan’s narrative, we share Ezie’s experience on meeting up with Prada’s SoHo window. Personally, I think all the great African goddesses were her spirit wings in this painful life episode, quietly hopping as invisible spirits on her shoulders when Ezie left DC’s National Museum of African American History and Culture for the return trip to New York.

Life In A Heavy Space

LVMH Acquires Luxury Travel's Belmond Hotels | Will Bernard Arnault Help Save The Elephants

LVMH Acquires Luxury Travel's Belmond Hotels | Will Bernard Arnault Help Save The Elephants

AOC awoke Saturday morning to news that LVMH has set in motion the acquisition of Belmond Hotels. “Belmond, a fast-growing company based in London, offers its wealthy customers some of the most opulent travel experiences money can buy in settings like the Hotel Cipriani in Venice, the Copacabana Palace in Rio de Janeiro and Orient Express trains connecting major European cities,” wrote The New York Times.

LVMH, the world’s largest luxury company based on revenues from brands like Christian Dior, Louis Vuitton and Fendi, offered to pay $25 a share for Belmond, a premium of more than 40 percent on the company’s closing price, in a deal valued at $2.6 billion.

The deal emphasized the limitless financial resources available to the world’s very rich customers. as well as the ongoing move away from buying ‘things’ and the growing appetite for ‘experiences’. This transition to the value of ‘experiences’ is pronounced among the entire younger generation, regardless of income, and dovetails well with their environmental concerns over accumulating more stuff.

Perhaps it was no coincidence that Friday’s Porter Edit had a sponsored post from Belmond Africa, based in South Africa and Botswana. The luxury hotel jumping off point gave us an opportunity to update the hot topic of the well-being of Botswana’s elephants, the largest elephant population in Africa and one that has been relatively stable until disputed reports of almost 90 dead elephants hit headlines in September.

Mitch Landrieu Launches E Pluribus Unum Fund For Racial Reconciliation With Backing By Emerson Collective

Mitch Landrieu Launches E Pluribus Unum Fund For Racial Reconciliation With Backing By Emerson Collective

The removal of the statue of Confederate President Jefferson Davis in New Orleans, was the second of four Confederate monuments scheduled by then New Orleans mayor Mitch Landrieu for relocation in advance of the city’s 300 anniversary. The larger-than-life image of Davis atop an ornate granite pedestal roughly 15-feet high was erected in 1911, nearly 50 years after the end of the war, and commissioned by the Jefferson Davis Memorial Association.

A month earlier workers dismantled an obelisk that was erected in 1891 to honor members of the Crescent City White League who in 1874 fought in the Reconstruction-era Battle of Liberty Place against the racially integrated New Orleans police and state militia.

Two other works were also removed in the summer of 2017: a bronze statue of Gen. Robert E Lee that has stood in a traffic circle, named Lee Circle, in the city’s central business district since 1884, and an equestrian statue of P.G.T. Beauregard, a Confederate general. 

Former Alabama Senator and Attorney General in the Trump Administration Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III bears the Confederate general’s name.

Protests on both sides of the Confederate statue debate were fierce, prompting Mayor Landrieu to make an eloquent, emotional and gifted speech on the subject of removing the Confederate monuments on Friday, May 19, 2017.

The full text of Landrieu’s speech was published by The New York Times. I consider it to be one of the best speeches I’ve ever heard — from its sweeping beginning to its soul-wrenching end.

Thank you for coming.

The soul of our beloved City is deeply rooted in a history that has evolved over thousands of years; rooted in a diverse people who have been here together every step of the way — for both good and for ill. It is a history that holds in its heart the stories of Native Americans — the Choctaw, Houma Nation, the Chitimacha. Of Hernando De Soto, Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, the Acadians, the Islenos, the enslaved people from Senegambia, Free People of Colorix, the Haitians, the Germans, both the empires of France and Spain. The Italians, the Irish, the Cubans, the south and central Americans, the Vietnamese and so many more. Read on.