MIAMI — On Sunday, after the San Francisco 49ers beat the Dallas Cowboys as quarterback Brock Purdy was giving an on-camera interview to NBC Sports, Niners’ defensive lineman Nick Bosa entered the frame wearing a white hat that said “Make America Great Again.” He pointed at it in the frame and left.
The NFL hasn’t released a statement and has not criticized Bosa. It is a stark contrast to how Colin Kaepernick, a former Niners quarterback, was treated when he kneeled during the national anthem in protest of police brutality toward Black people.
There was none of the “shut up and dribble” that Black basketball players who’ve voiced their political views have heard. There is a clear double standard.
As ESPN analyst Ryan Clark so eloquently voiced on The Pivot Podcast, the double standard Black athletes face when voicing their political views is palpable: “I do think that the shut up and dribble thing that always is told to LeBron James when he speaks up against police brutality, to Colin Kaepernick, when he speaks up against police brutality, to all of these athletes who were involved in movements in 2020, it only seems to go to the athletes that look like us, to the people that are speaking for the marginalized and the minorities, as opposed to the majorities.”
Clark continued: “I’m just waiting for all the people who comment under political and sports things (like) “shut up and dribble” or to tell him to shut up and rush. But they ain’t gonna say it because they feel the exact same way he does.”
At this rate, we will be waiting for a long time.
An exhibit of famous Black pioneer aviators inside Florida Memorial University’s new aviation museum at FMU’s William Lehman Aviation Center on Thursday, October 24, 2024, in Miami Gardens, Florida. (Photo by: D.A. Varela/Miami Herald)
INSIDE THE 305:
Florida Memorial University opened its new museum, Blacks in Aviation: A Legacy Beyond the Skies, an ode to Black aviation pioneers. The museum pays homage to groundbreaking aviators such as Bessie Coleman, the first Black woman to earn a pilot’s license, and Miami’s own Barrington Irving, the first Jamaican-American to fly solo around the world.
The museum features 10 Black aviators, including astronauts Mae Jemison and Guion S. Bluford Jr., the first Black astronauts to go to space. An exhibit on the Tuskegee Airmen, including replicas of items worn by the airmen, is also featured in the new museum.
The University also released its theme song for the school’s homecoming, “It’s Our Time,” by Slip’N’Slide Records featuring artists Mike Smiff and Ronnie V.
Arrests for possession of small amounts of marijuana have decreased since the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office announced it would no longer prosecute the cases in August 2019. But a Miami Herald analysis of data from the Miami-Dade Clerk of Courts shows that more than 4,200 people have still been arrested for misdemeanor marijuana possession since the announcement — and that nearly 60% of the defendants were Black. (Illustration by: Matthew Billington for the Miami Herald)
An investigation by Miami Herald reporters Aaron Leibowitz and Madeline Everett revealed that many Black people were jailed for misdemeanor marijuana charges despite it being legal in Florida. According to their reporting, more than 4,200 people were locked up on misdemeanor marijuana charges over the past five years.
Nearly 60% of those cases were brought against Black defendants, despite Black people making up just 18% of Miami-Dade’s population. In at least 97% of the cases, prosecutors ultimately dropped the charges, according to a Miami Herald analysis of data from the Miami-Dade Clerk of Courts.
Reporters told the story through Fred Johnson, who was 33 years old when he was arrested for the first time.
On a Friday night in June 2023, shortly before midnight, Johnson was smoking a joint as he led a golf cart tour of Ocean Drive for his business.
A police officer walking the strip approached Johnson and asked him and several tourists to step out of the cart. Johnson was placed in handcuffs. Outside the Clevelander hotel, about a half-dozen officers surrounded Johnson and searched him, finding three baggies with a total of an eighth of an ounce of cannabis inside, according to an arrest report. Johnson was arrested and spent about 17 hours in jail before being released on bond.
“It was very embarrassing and very traumatizing,” Johnson told the Miami Herald. “I didn’t know why I was being treated the way I was being treated.” Johnson’s marijuana arrest came nearly four years after Miami-Dade’s top prosecutor, State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle, in 2019 vowed to stop prosecuting such cases after hemp — a substance that looks and smells like marijuana — was legalized in Florida.
President / CEO of Girl Power Rocks afterschool program, Thema Campbell is photograph inside her office on Tuesday, September 25, 2024, in Miami, Florida. (Photo by: Carl Juste/Miami Herald)
Miami Herald breaking news reporter Milena Malaver wrote a compelling profile on Thema Campbell and her organization Girl Power Rocks, which focuses on “educating and empowering what Campbell calls ‘at-promise girls.’”
As Malaver writes: Thema Campbell was raised in her Mama Hattie’s house, along with dozens of other children in rural Georgia. Some were family, some were friends and some were strangers, but each had a place in Mama Hattie’s home.
“She had a strict hand as far as discipline is concerned, but she could heal you if you got sick,” said Campbell, talking about her grandmother, Hattie Skinner Bacon, a wet nurse for white families. Campbell moved to Miami in 1976 and now dedicates herself to improving the lives of girls in Miami-Dade County. She is the founder and CEO of Girl Power Rocks, which she started in 2000.
Girl Power Rocks has several programs dedicated to educating and empowering what Campbell calls “at-promise girls.” “I’m talking about the girls that we used to call ‘at risk’, and we want to change that, because these girls have a lot of promise,” she said. “They’re so smart and they’re brilliant. And they’re resilient and persistent and funny and beautiful.”
The Wayans Brothers: Clockwise from top right, Marlon, Damon, Shawn, and Keenen Ivory.
OUTSIDE THE 305:
The Wayans Brothers have announced a reboot of the The Scary Movie franchise, a parody of classic horror film “I Know What You Did Last Summer,” according to Deadline. The movie is set to shoot next year and was developed by comedic brothers Marlon Wayans, Shawn Wayans and Keenen Ivory Wayans.
By next year, Howard University expects to be classified as a Research-1 institution, meaning this could increase the number of research grants it qualifies for to attract more students, The Chronicle of Higher Education reported. Should this happen, it would make the HBCU the only Black university with this status.
Untitled by Paul Lalibert Courtesy of Waterloo Center of the Arts
HIGH CULTURE:
Art from the Haitian masters will be on display this weekend at the Little Haiti Cultural Complex. Residents will also be treated to love performances as it unveils 16 replicated paintings currently on display at the Waterloo Center of Arts in Iowa. Festivities at the center started at 5 p.m. Friday with the unveiling of the work and an opening reception.
By RAISA HABERSHAM/Miami Herald
