Adilifu Nama, Chair of the African American Studies Department at Loyola Marymount University.
Doc Nama Makes an Incredibly Interesting Connection Between Artistic Intention and Creativity
How I Began to Connect to Hip-Hop
Recently, I explored golden age hip-hop MCs in order to gain a better appreciation of hip-hop music and culture. After listening to 14 albums from female and male MCs and recognizing their impact on MCs today, I’ve come to realize that hip-hop music and culture have been miseducated to some listeners today. This is especially true when it comes to what it means to be a Black woman and a Black man.
Until last year, I hated hip-hop music and culture because I was taught by mainstream media that hip-hop had a certain image you had to aspire to. From middle school to ninth grade, I felt pressured to listen to hip-hop music whose subjects were either materialism, a new dance craze or sex.
As a girl, I also felt pressured to be a hip-hop cheerleader for misogynoir-filled songs like Jay Z’s “99 Problems” and Kanye West’s “Gold Digger.” In high school, I would realize that Black men were pressured to aspire to an image of materialism and violence through these songs and others.
By ninth grade, I would realize that there wasn’t any hip-hop music that reflected my experiences as a Black girl. I was different from most girls because I was nerdy and artsy. I felt alienated from my Black peers, ashamed of who I was and unsure of who I could be. Since I couldn’t see my experiences reflected in hip-hop music, I found refuge in alternative rock bands like Evanescence and Linkin Park.
I wouldn’t find hip-hop music I could relate to until 2012. At that time, I would discover Angel Haze, an underground female MC. After admiring her raw honesty in her cover of Eminem’s “Cleanin Out My Closet,” I decided to explore her mixtapes and spoken word poetry.
One mixtape called “Reservation” had songs that changed my life. “Smile N Hearts” perfectly captured the sense of alienation, self-hatred and hope that I had been feeling up to that point. In addition, the song showed me that hip-hop could be poetic through a beautiful and frank interlude without music.
Read more at www.blackgirlnerds.com
10 Awesome and Successful Women in the Field of Computer Science You Should Know
Rakia Finley
Finley is the founder and CEO of Surge Assembly. The technology firm’s goal is to promote growth in terms of racial and gender diversity. Her business started in 2003-04. At that time, she was helping nonprofits in the Washington, D.C., area expand into the thriving tech world. She and her brother help these organizations with their websites and email marketing.
Kimberly Bryant
In 2011, Bryant founded San Francisco-based nonprofit Black Girls Code. Her organization has been responsible for inspiring 1,500 girls to work in technology fields such as robotics, video game design, mobile phone application development and computer programming. In 2014, she received the White House Champions of Change for Tech Inclusion award for work to diversify the tech industry.
Secret Drone Will Test Materials for Future Spacecraft
A secret drone, a Boeing-built X37B, has a mission to deliver materials to the International Space Station.
The drone first launched in 2010. It has no pilot, crew or any onboard person monitoring the ship’s control. This is a drone by the purest definition. The “secret” drone launches May 20, making it the fourth time it’s launched.
Engadget.com reporter Mariella Moon writes, “it won’t only be testing a new type of Hall effect thruster for the Air Force, it will also be carrying a collection of 100 different materials that can potentially be used for future spacecraft, rovers, rockets and other space hardware.” Hall Effect thrusters use electricity as an energy rather than chemical combustion. This makes them more efficient for small velocity changes during lengthy missions.
Project METIS stands for Materials Exposure and Technology Innovation in Space. Goals for the drone and the project is are to gather data, incorporate new materials and possibly deliver samples for on-board missions.
“Lips were sealed for the previous X-37B missions, and there is a simple and plausible explanation for this. The Hall Effect thruster was not carried on these flights. The other payloads were more secretive, and were probably not connected to any U.S. Air Force program,” according to Morris Jones for SpaceDaily.com.
Only time will tell if NASA discloses more information.
UNCF Announces Michael Jackson and Ray Charles Scholarships
The United Negro College Fund strives to make education affordable for African-American students by providing financial resources where other scholarship organizations fall short.
On May 19, the UNCF has announced that singer, dancer and King of Pop Michael Jackson along with R&B legend Ray Charles will have scholarships in their honor. Each scholarship has different requirements. However, both scholarships are only awarded to students who attend UNCF colleges and universities.
The Michael Jackson Scholarship is available to all students who are high school seniors and college students with a minimum GPA of 3.0 on the 4.0 scale. Perspective applicants will need to complete an application on the UNCF site, write an essay and submit a transcript.
The UNCF states that “the scholarship will provide an award up to $5,000 depending on the financial need of the student as verified by the attending university or college. This is a one-time award to be disbursed in September 2015.”
The Ray Charles Endowed Scholarship is for college juniors who have a 3.0. Perspective applicants will have to complete an application and demonstrate unmet financial needs. The total amount awarded to the student is up to $4,500.
Both of these scholarships are due in June. Michael Jackson Scholarship applicants would need to complete all materials by June 13. For the Ray Charles Endowed Scholarship, the date is June 14.
Theories Abound About Black Panther’s Introduction to Big-Screen Universe
When news about Black Panther joining the Marvel cinematic universe hit the Web earlier this year, there were many different theories on how he would be introduced prior to his own solo film.
In the recent Avengers: Age of Ultron, director Joss Whedon and company dropped hints about Black Panther’s homeland, Wakanda. There were hints about one of his major villains, Ulysses Klaw, and about Vibranium, which is a common resource to Wakanda. 
According to Sean Erickson of Movie Pilot, “some of the more interesting photos from the set of Captain America 3 have been of a big fight between Cap, Falcon and Crossbones taking place in what is almost certainly Black Panther’s home turf of Wakanda.”
In the past two days, there have been leaked photos of the set and villains. These photos can lead one to think that the Winter Soldier may be in Wakanda on assignment. Maybe he is en route to assassinate the ruler or rulers. From this information, Black Panther could team up with Captain America and the Falcon to take down the common menace.
There was an earlier theory that Iron Man and Captain America would have tried to persuade Black Panther to join their respective causes, but that may not be the case because Spider-Man is rumored to be in the film as well.
5 Notable Signs You Are Addicted to Gaming
You Ensure Access to Your Games on Every Device
Every gamer has to have a contingency plan. Just as I’m sure you won’t catch Bear Grylls in the middle of a jungle without a camera crew to film all his awesomeness as he eats bugs in the name of survival, so too will you never catch a real gamer without access to a compendium of games. Visiting Grandma this weekend and have a six-hour car ride ahead of you? Betta’ have that emulator installed on the Android. Ain’t no way you’ll catch me trapped anywhere tryin’ to deal with my inner thoughts and welling up with depressing emotion cause I don’t have access to at least one game that’s gettin’ the treatment right about then. Real gamers do whatever they have to not only to have access to gaming greatness to pass the time that usually is used for self-loathing by lesser people of the world, but also game saves. You’d better invest in that $10 a month for 1TB of cloud storage from Dropbox and sync those game saves because the only thing worse than not having access to your gaming library at any given point, is not having access to your last save point and being forced to start all over after you’ve already gotten into the swing of a game.
This Starfleet Machine Is Modeled After an Intergalactic Spaceship And Is the Coolest Time-Keeper You Will Ever See
Designed by MB&F, Starfleet Machine is engineered and crafted by L’Epée 1839, Switzerland’s only remaining specialized high-end clock manufacturer, founded in 1839. Starfleet Machine is modeled after an intergalactic spaceship, featuring hours and minutes, double retrograde seconds and power reserve indicator. The highly visible, exceptionally finished in-house movement boasts a remarkable power reserve of 40 days. We partnered with MB&F and L’Epée to create and distribute this distinctive version of the Starfleet Machine table clock that features bright blue domes that give it an extra dimension and a pop of color.
Source: www.vimeo.com
Two Black Scholars Elected Members of the National Academy of Sciences
The National Academy of Sciences, a prestigious organization founded on March 3, 1863, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, features this nation’s finest scientists. During the Civil War, Sen. Henry Wilson helped create the bill that would bring the NAS to reality.
The organization strives to elect the most distinguished and most qualified scientists. This year, it added two Black scientists who fit that criteria. Scott V. Edwards and Jennifer A. Richeson are currently the only Black scientists who are part of the organization.
Edwards is currently the Alexander Agassiz professor of organismic and evolutionary biology at Harvard University. In addition to his work as a professor, he is the curator of birds for the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard. “A native of Hawaii, Edwards is a magna cum laude graduate of Harvard. He earned a Ph.D. in zoology at the University of California, Berkeley. Dr. Edwards has been on the faculty at Harvard University since 2003,” according the Journal of Blacks in Higher Education.
Richeson is the endowed chair of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation in psychology at Northwestern University. At the university, she also teaches African-American studies. The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education goes on to say that Richeson has been on the faculty at Northwestern since 2005. Previously, “she taught at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire. Dr. Richeson is a graduate of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. She holds a Ph.D. in social psychology from Harvard University.”
The two were officially inducted as members of the NAS on May 11.
5 Interesting Reasons People Give for Hating Educated Black People
There are some stigmas educated Black people have to deal with that other educated groups don’t. You can’t speak proper English or wear clothing outside of hip-hop styles without being labeled as trying to be white. Most people should know that white people don’t have a monopoly on education, intelligence or class.
Name Assimilation
When people of color have children, they have to decide whether to give their child a name that is stereotypically white or a name representative of their culture and people. “Creative naming has reached every race and class, but it is largely and profoundly the legacy of African-Americans,” writes Eliza Dinwiddie-Boyd in her baby-naming book “Proud Heritage.” However, there are issues with this. In the documentary Freakonomics, economist Steven Levitt put it to the test. People with white-sounding names got more callbacks from future employers than Latinos and African-Americans with non-white names. The facts are clear: racism and prejudice are real. Parents have every right to give their children whatever name they choose, but the world isn’t always an accepting place. Hopefully, one day no one will be judged based on their name, but that day has yet to come.