Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Continues Centennial Celebration

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July 10, 2013

Women of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority celebrate their Centennial. (Google Images)

The women of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority will be hosting their 51st national convention in Washington, DC this weekend as part of a year-long celebration of their 100th anniversary. The sorority will kick off this leg of its Centennial celebration with the lighting of an Olympic-style torch at Howard University on July 11.

Zenitha Price of The Pittsburgh Courier reports:

“…from July 11-17, Washington, D.C., and the surrounding areas will be awash in hues of crimson and cream as thousands of the sorority’s 250,000 initiated members, who represent over 900 chapters in the United States, the Bahamas, Bermuda, Germany, Jamaica, Japan, the Republic of Korea and the U.S. Virgin Islands, join with invited guests and other well-wishers for the centennial festivities.

‘This is not only a momentous occasion for our organization, but a testament to the power of all women determined to change the world for the better and be a voice for the underprivileged and underserved,’ said National President Cynthia M.A. Butler-McIntyre in a statement. ‘The accomplishments of Delta Sigma Theta over the past 100 years give us many reasons to be thankful and require us to pause to pay tribute to our founders, past leadership, and all those who have helped us along our journey.'”

Read more at The Pittsburgh Courier. Find out more about the Centennial celebration at Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc.

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California Female Inmates Illegally Sterilized

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July 10, 2013

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Female inmates in California were illegally sterilized. (Google Images)

Numerous media outlets in the United States are reporting that 150 California female inmates were sterilized illegally between 2006 and 2010 without state approval. The report released by The Center for Investigative Reporting claims that at least 148 women received tubal ligations during that time frame. Records show that between 1997 and 2010 the state paid $147,460 to doctors to perform the surgery on inmates.

Shannon Argueta of Addictinginfo.org writes:

“According to advocates and prison inmates, the staff targeted women they believed would return to prison in the future. OB-GYN, Dr. James Heinrich, who worked at Valley State Prison for Women claims the practice was one that helped poor women who faced the possibility of developing complications from future cesarean sections. Which is entirely possible but not his real motivation, as he goes on to explain. The good doctor commented on the cost effectiveness of the surgeries, claiming that the money spent was not a very large amount, all things considered.”

Women’s rights and social justice activists are enraged over this latest report, which is a modern-day eugenics controversy.

Lauryn Hill Begins Prison Sentence

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July 10, 2013

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Grammy award-winning singer/rapper Lauryn Hill has begun serving her three month sentence for tax evasion. (Google Images)

USA Today is reporting that Grammy award-winning singer Lauryn Hill began serving a three-month prison sentence on Monday for failing to pay about $1 million in taxes over the past decade. Hill pleaded guilty last year in New Jersey to failing to pay taxes on more than $1.8 million earned from 2005 to 2007. Her sentencing also took into account unpaid state and federal taxes in 2008 and 2009 that brought the total earnings to about $2.3 million.

Hill reported to federal prison in Danbury, said Ed Ross, a spokesman for the federal Bureau of Prisons. Inmates at the minimum security prison live in open dormitory-style living quarters and are expected to work jobs such as maintenance, food service or landscaping.

Her attorney had sought probation, arguing that Hill’s charitable works, her family circumstances and the fact she paid back the taxes she owed should merit consideration. Hill will serve her time in the general population.

Tropical Storm Chantal 'Strengthening'; Nears Barbados

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July 8, 2013

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Tropical Storm Chantal forms in the Atlantic. (Google Images)

Caribbean 360 is reporting that Tropical Storm Chantal is continuing to move Westward.

The author writes:

“Tropical Storm Chantal is located near 10.1N 48.5W or 550 miles east southeast of Barbados according to the 11 am AST advisory from the National Hurricane Center (NHC).

The NHC report also indicates that Chantal “is moving west northwest near 25 miles per hour and and this general motion is expected to continue through Monday.”

Tropical Storm warnings are in effect for Barbados, Dominica, St. Lucia, Martinique, Guadeloupe, St. Vincent and Puerto Rico.

Tropical Storm Chantal ‘Strengthening’; Nears Barbados

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TheBurtonWire

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July 8, 2013

0

Caribbean 360 is reporting that Tropical Storm Chantal is continuing to move Westward.

The author writes:

“Tropical Storm Chantal is located near 10.1N 48.5W or 550 miles east southeast of Barbados according to the 11 am AST advisory from the National Hurricane Center (NHC).

The NHC report also indicates that Chantal “is moving west northwest near 25 miles per hour and and this general motion is expected to continue through Monday.”

Tropical Storm warnings are in effect for Barbados, Dominica, St. Lucia, Martinique, Guadeloupe, St. Vincent and Puerto Rico.

WondaGurl Ebony Oshunrinde, 16, Creates Beat for Jay-Z

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July 8, 2013

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Teenage producing phenom Ebony Oshurinde, 16, has a beat on Jay-Z's song, "Crown" on MCHC. (Google Images) — Teenage producing phenom Ebony Oshurinde, 16, has a beat on Jay-Z’s song, “Crown” on MCHC.
(Google Images)

Karissa Donkin of The Toronto Star is reporting that Brampton’s Ebony Oshunrinde, 16, created a beat used on “Crown,” a track on Jay-Z’s Magna Carta Holy Grail.

The teenage producer goes by the moniker of “WondaGurl” and started making beats after watching a video of Jay-Z and super producer Timbaland working together in a studio. Oshurinde, who does homework before making beats, decided to try her hand at producing beats, downloading software and experimenting at age nine, teaching herself by watching YouTube videos. Last year, ‘WondaGurl’ won Toronto’s Battle of the Beat Makers competition, motivating her to take music more seriously. She signed with Black Box and started working in the studio.

Donkin writes:

“The beat that landed on Jay-Z’s album began with a reggae song. Oshunrinde sampled the music and added her own twist using computer software.

‘It has a lot of bass and a lot of bounce,’ she explained.

She worked on her beat once and sent it to Travis Scott, a young rapper and producer from Houston who met Oshunrinde last year. He happened to be working in the studio with Jay-Z when she sent him her beat.”

The rest is as they say, hip-hop history.

“It’s a really good feeling. I want to show young people that they can do it,” said Oshunrinde, who just finished the eleventh grade.

Last Member of 65,000-year-old Tribe Dies

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July 8, 2013

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Boa Sr., the last member of a 65,000-year-old tribe has died. (Photo credit: Alok Das) — Boa Sr., the last member of a 65,000-year-old tribe has died.
(Photo credit: Alok Das)

Anny Shaw of the Daily Mail UK is reporting that Boa Sr, the last native of the Andaman Islands, has died. She was named after the tribe’s language, “Bo” and was the last person able to speak the language, which is one of the 10 Great Andamanese languages, which are thought to date back to the pre-Neolithic period when the earliest humans walked out of Africa.

Shaw writes:

“Boa was the oldest member of the Great Andamanese, a group of tribes that are the the first descendants of early humans who migrated from Africa about 70,000 years ago and who arrived on the islands around 65,000. Other groups went on to colonise Indonesia and Australia.

She lived through the horrors and hardships of the 2004 Asian tsunami, the Japanese occupation and diseases brought by colonisers in the 19th century.

Boa described the moment the tsunami struck: ‘We were all there when the earthquake came.

‘The eldest told us “the Earth would part, don’t run away or move’. The elders told us, that’s how we know.’

Professor Anvita Abbi, a linguist who knew Boa, said the tribeswoman had been losing her sight in recent years and was unable to speak with anyone in her own language.

Boa had no children and her husband died several years ago.”

Boa Sr is taking one of the world’s earliest languages to the grave. She was 85.

Akosua Report: Joseph Hayne Rainey

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July 4, 2013

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A former slave, Joseph Hayne Rainey was the first African-American to serve in the U.S. House of Representatives (1870-79). (Photo credit: www.loc.gov)

“If the colored people of South Carolina had been accorded the same advantages—if they had had the same wealth and surroundings which the gentleman from New York has had, they would have shown to this nation that their color was no obstacle to their holding positions of trust, political or otherwise. Not having had these advantages, we cannot at the present time compete with the favored race of this country; but perhaps if our lives are spared, and if the gentleman from New York and other gentlemen on that side of the House will only accord to us right and justice, we shall show to them that we can be useful, intelligent citizens of this country. But if they will continue to proscribe us, if they will continue to cultivate prejudice against us; if they will continue to decry the Negro and crush him under foot, then you cannot expect the Negro to rise while the Democrats are trampling upon him and his rights. We ask you, sir, to do by the Negro as you ought to do by him in justice.” — Congressman Joseph H. Rainey, “Speech Made in Reply to An Attack Upon the Colored State Legislators of South Carolina…” (1871)

Joseph Hayne Rainey was born on June 21, 1832 in Georgetown, South Carolina. A former slave, he was the first African-American to serve in the U.S. House of Representatives (1870-79). During the American Civil War he was forced to work on the fortifications in Charleston harbor but managed to escape to the West Indies, where he remained until the end of the war in 1865. He amassed great wealth from his work as a barber and his wife Susan’s work as a dressmaker in St. Georges and then Bermuda.

Upon his return to South Carolina, during the Reconstruction era, Rainey was a delegate to the state constitutional convention (1868) and served briefly in the state Senate. Elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1870, he was re-elected four times, the longest tenure in the House of any Black during the Reconstruction era. While in office he dedicated himself to the passage of civil rights legislation, pressing the interests not only of Blacks but also of other minorities, including Native Americans and the Chinese in California.

The Akosua Report: Facts on The African Diaspora, is written by Akosua Lowery. Follow her on Twitter @AkosuaLowery.

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Buzzfeed: 31 Signs You're a Third Culture Kid

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July 4, 2013

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Are you a third culture kid? (Google Images)

According to Ruth Van Reken, the sociologist who coined the term, “Third Culture Kid”:

“A third culture kid is a person who has spent a significant part of his or her developmental years outside their parents’ culture. The third culture kid builds relationships to all the cultures, while not having full ownership in any. Although elements from each culture are assimilated into the third culture kid’s life experience, the sense of belonging is in relationship to others of the same background, other TCKs.”

Many readers of the Burton Wire are third culture kids, children of ex-pats or multiracial families raised outside of either home countries or even third culture in terms of bi-racial (from the same country) or multi-religious families, having created an identity that encompasses both groups, yet speaks to their unique life experiences and existences.

Buzzfeed put together a list of 31 indicators that you’re a third culture kid. Are you a third culture kid? If so, tell us how so in the comments section and why this matters.

1. You can curse convincingly in five different languages.

2. To everyone’s confusion, your accent changes depending on who you’re talking to.

3. You often slip foreign slang into your English by mistake, which makes you unintelligible to most people.

4. You’re really good at calculating time differences because you have to do it every time you call your parents.

5. But you also have your computer programmed to help you out when your math fails.

Read the list in its entirety at Buzzfeed. Let us know what they left off in the comments section.

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Buzzfeed: 31 Signs You’re a Third Culture Kid

By

TheBurtonWire

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July 4, 2013

0

Are you a third culture kid? (Google Images)

According to Ruth Van Reken, the sociologist who coined the term, “Third Culture Kid”:

“A third culture kid is a person who has spent a significant part of his or her developmental years outside their parents’ culture. The third culture kid builds relationships to all the cultures, while not having full ownership in any. Although elements from each culture are assimilated into the third culture kid’s life experience, the sense of belonging is in relationship to others of the same background, other TCKs.”

Many readers of the Burton Wire are third culture kids, children of ex-pats or multiracial families raised outside of either home countries or even third culture in terms of bi-racial (from the same country) or multi-religious families, having created an identity that encompasses both groups, yet speaks to their unique life experiences and existences.

Buzzfeed put together a list of 31 indicators that you’re a third culture kid. Are you a third culture kid? If so, tell us how so in the comments section and why this matters.

1. You can curse convincingly in five different languages.

2. To everyone’s confusion, your accent changes depending on who you’re talking to.

3. You often slip foreign slang into your English by mistake, which makes you unintelligible to most people.

4. You’re really good at calculating time differences because you have to do it every time you call your parents.

5. But you also have your computer programmed to help you out when your math fails.

Read the list in its entirety at Buzzfeed. Let us know what they left off in the comments section.

Like The Burton Wire on Facebook. Follow us on Twitter @TheBurtonWire.

The Burton Wire

Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Continues Centennial Celebration

California Female Inmates Illegally Sterilized

Lauryn Hill Begins Prison Sentence

Tropical Storm Chantal 'Strengthening'; Nears Barbados

Tropical Storm Chantal ‘Strengthening’; Nears Barbados

WondaGurl Ebony Oshunrinde, 16, Creates Beat for Jay-Z

Last Member of 65,000-year-old Tribe Dies

Akosua Report: Joseph Hayne Rainey

Buzzfeed: 31 Signs You're a Third Culture Kid

Buzzfeed: 31 Signs You’re a Third Culture Kid

Follow us on Instagram @theburtonwire

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