Top Ten Black New Stories of 2021

As future generations look back on this year they will likely ask, “How did they survive with all of its calamities, challenges and outrages?” The simple answer is, “We have to.” The big picture shows we are resilient and yet, “not satisfied.” Things beyond our control domestically and internationally influenced a lot that ended up on my annual Top Ten Black News Stories of 2021.

My annual disclaimer, this is my list. If you agree or don’t agree make up your own list…I am not offended. So here we go. 

10. Travis Scott/Nicki Minaj /Megan Thee Stallion–

Sometimes things don’t add up. I’ll give it to Travis Scott (whose music I know and don’t necessarily listen to) has a unique fan base. Scott hails from Houston, Texas and has held a music festival billed as Astroworld. Following months of no live concerts it came back in 2021.

 As the headliner, he urged the crowd to push forward, which they did. It crushed and killed ten people. Yet he kept playing. His explanation “I didn’t know?” It was incoherent and was made worse in my opinion when he selected former Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings to be his spokesperson (she was let go after she appeared across media).

Let me be clear money, popularity, and fame do not make you an expert. Nicki Minaj, the rapper, wasn’t allowed to attend the famed New York Met Gala (a fashion show) because she wasn’t vaccinated. The excuse she used on twitter, “an  unidentified cousin’s friend in Trinidad, who was dumped at the altar by his wife-to-be because ‘the vaccine’ — presumably for COVID-19 — allegedly made his testicles swell.”

The Trinidadian government spent time and money trying to find this individual. There wasn’t any truth to this statement.

On a positive note, Megan Thee Stallion, walked across the stage to get her B.S. degree in Health Administration from Texas Southern University to honor her mother and grandmother.

9. Icons Gone – It’s difficult to put into words the number of individuals I met in my lifetime and others who had a major influence on Black Culture who have gone on to be with the ancestors. A short list includes General Colin Powell, Vernon Jordan, Cecily Tyson, Biz Markie, Michael K. Williams, Jovita Moore, bell hooks, Robbie Shakespeare, Lee Elder, Virgil Abloh, Greg Tate, Henry “Hank” Aaron and Archbishop Desmond Tutu. May they rest in power.

 

8. The Haitian Debacle at the Border – The photos told the story. Nearly 6000  Haitian Refugees huddled under a bridge near Del Rio, Texas after amassing on the Mexican border and crossing the Rio Grand River. Many of these migrants had fled Haiti to South American countries following a devastating earthquake in 2010. They found work in places like Brazil (which needed workers to help build stadiums and housing for the 2014 FIFA World Cup and the 2016 Olympics) and Chile which became a destination for Haitians fleeing the improvised Caribbean nation. Many found work and began bringing family to these foreign outposts. The emergence of Covid 19 and other economic factors like Chile’s imposition of a new restrictive immigration law sent these desperate migrants moving north with the hopes of starting a new life in the United States.

Despite their hopes and dreams things didn’t go well. Many were repatriated back to Haiti.

7. January 6^th/Who won the Election? – January 6, 2021 should have been routine in the District of Columbia. Boxes containing the results of the Presidential Election were to be opened before a joint session of Congress and certified. This had occurred so many times few except political reporters and junkies follow the activity. This was different. 

President Trump rallied his supporters to D.C. to challenge the results from inside and outside the Capitol. Several members of GOP announced they would challenge the results from the electors and wanted to put everything on hold.

They tried to convince the Vice President Mike Pence to follow their lead. He rejected the idea. Still this would be a long process with the outcome being Joe Biden would become President of the United States.

The exterior rally was billed as “The Stop the Steal Rally.” Trump supporters urged on by the President made a show of force first at the White House. President Trump then urge them to march on the Capitol where the votes were being counted.

His followers not only marched, but stormed the Capitol. This was an insurrection. They broke barriers, they battled Capitol Police, they stormed the hallways (at one point in my career I worked in the Capitol and traveled the hallways), and broke into offices and the actual chambers.

There were several brave individuals that day who kept members of congress safe. I want to point to Officer Eugene Goodman. He was able to lure the rioters away from the chambers to where his fellow officers were holding the line. It is a shame the members of Congress thwarted efforts to award him and his cohorts the Congressional Medal Honor.

6. Tigray and Ethiopia – Last year I talked about this tragedy. An ethnic minority in northern Ethiopia asked for autonomy. Ethiopia Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed rejected the idea which triggered a civil war.

It is a humanitarian disaster with some two million people displaced. Foreign militia fighters were brought in and quickly were over run by Tigray forces. Those forces began a slow march toward the Addis Ababa.

Prime Minister Ahmed called on his fellow country men and women to take up arms because the country was on the verge of collapse. A stalemate ensued after the Prime Minister used aerial drones to be beat back forces.

A new development, there are talks of ending the conflict. Let’s hope cooler heads prevail. FYI. Ethiopia Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed won the Nobel Peace Prized in 2018 and I named him one of my Persons of the Year.

5. Images/Stories on the Screen – With Covid-19 forcing us indoors our flat screens/lap tops have allowed us delved into past subject matter as well as new ideas.

I want to point to several items I watched and you should consider viewing. The Summer of Soul (Netflix), a documentary about the 1969 Harlem Summer Festival. I had a chance to talk about this film without giving away the real good parts. 

Several biopics were really well done. This includes Judas and the Black Messiah, the story about Chicago Black Panther Party Leader, Fred Hampton. A pair of Aretha Franklin Bio Pics, Respect (starring Jenifer Hudson and  Genius: Aretha (Cynthia Erivo) kept us glued to the screen.

Lastly, their were a pair of Black and White movies this year that had strong writing and characters.

Passing, which stars actress Tess Thompson, lays bare how “light-skinned” Black folk who live in two worlds and have to choose.

The other movie is Malcom and Marie. It stars Zendaya Maree Stoermer Coleman and John David Washington (Denzel Washington’s son). A night of great honor in Hollywood is upended by a snub. It’s painful to watch, but it is one of the sexiest movies without sex.

4. Murder in the Streets – Urban life has its pluses and minus. If you live in cities like Albuquerque, Des Moines, Indianapolis, Memphis, Milwaukee, and Syracuse you felt the deadly consequences. These cities recorded their highest homicide numbers ever, according to an FBI report.

Where I live, Baltimore, MD, is not immune from the carnage in the streets. For the last 7 years we’ve had more than 300 murders (331 murders as of December 1, 2021).

Life appears to be cheap. It’s more than that, cities have drug problems, mental health issues, concentrations of poverty, criminal enterprises and yes a criminal justice system that can’t be what it needs to be.  To those who have lost love ones, we hope you can find not only justice but peace.

3. Covid 19 – The pandemic has taken to many lives (as I write this the data show more there have 818,000 deaths). There is no way to describe what toll and impact his has had on those left behind. The argument on whether to vaccinate is answered by those who hesitated and asked, “Can I take the shot now that I’m in intensive care.”

Variants will be with us for the foreseeable future. Street corner logic, internet conspiracy theories, unproven treatments, and host of other misinformation has left science professionals wring their hands and shaking their heads.

Do you have the right to go down these “rabbit holes” looking like “Alice in Wonderland?” You can, but don’t expect me to cosign to your nonsense. I have to many underlying conditions. So you want me to play “Russian Roulette” with my life?

2. The Elections – Elections do matter. While a number people will point to the turnout in a Presidential Election, it’s off year elections which sometimes have the biggest impact.

The Georgia U.S. Senate race allowed this southern state to elected its first African-American U.S. Senator, Reverend Ralph Warnock, since reconstruction.

Combine this win with Jon Ossoff and it shifted the balance of power in the U. S. Senate from Republican to Democratic.

I want to point to a win for Eric Adams who will become the Mayor of New York City.  The last time “the city” had a Black Mayor was David Dinkins.

 

Adams, a former New York City cop, bested a Democratic primary field through “rank choice voting”(a first for New York). He prevailed dismissing progressive ideas and rejecting the “defund police movement.”

Lastly, there is a changing of the guard in Virginia. In a down year for Democrats, the “Old Dominion” elected a Black Female Republican, Lieutenant Governor, Winsome Sears. Sears will preside over the Virginia Senate. Her campaign included a number of moments that made individuals do a double take. The former marine appeared in a Twitter photo holding an AR-15 rifle. As you can imagine she was endorsed by President Donald Trump.   

1.Justice – Much of this year was consumed by the call for justice in the death of George Floyd. You can also add Ahmaud Arbery (killed while jogging in Brunswick, Georgia), and Duante Wright (pulled over for having an illegal air freshener). The Minneapolis Police Officer said she thought she was reaching for her taser instead she pulled her service revolver.

In each of these cases a guilty verdict was returned. Signs were not promising after a jury in Madison, Wisconsin acquitted Kyle Rittenhouse (17 years old), a vigilante, who came to the town after rioting. He was armed with an AR-15 rifle. Rittenhouse shot three people. Two died and and one survived. In testimony, the assailant  told the jury, "he feared for his life."

 

Person of the Year

Nikole Hannah-Jones – Nikole Hannah-Jones kind of landed on my radar screen when she was named Journalist of the Year by the National Association of Black Journalist (NABJ) in 2015.

Accepting the award she talked about her groundbreaking reporting on the disparities between racial groups and education in America.

Fast forward to 2019, the New York Times allowed her to tackle a subject many knew, but were afraid to talk about, the 200th anniversary of slaves being brought to the new world (Virginia).

She looked at how slavery built American capitalism. The paper quickly sold out and educators across the country clamored for the edition to be used as a teaching tool. 

Conservatives pounced including then President Donald Trump calling it a rewriting of American history – labeling it Critical Race Theory (CRT). Hannah-Jones would win the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary 2020.

An offer to teach at her alma mater, University North Carolina in Chapel Hill, as the  Knight Chair at Carolina – a tenured professor- was initially offered. It was later rejected by a conservative think tank, noting “ because of political interference and pressure by conservatives.”

A campaign to have Hannah-Jones reinstated was successful.  Hannah-Jones however, rejected the offer and has decided to teach at Howard University.

I had a chance to see her this fall at the Books in Bloom Festival in Columbia, Maryland. The event happened prior to the printing/release of  The 1619 Project, the book. She was in rare form and thrilled the audience. FYI, I love her red hair. Nicole Hannah-Jones is my person of the year.