Dec. 24, 2019

Remembering the Message of Christmas
By Jesse Jackson

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - On Wednesday, Christmas will be celebrated by millions of people across this country and across the world. Joy surrounds the holiday, with music in the air, lights on homes and lampposts, families gathering, presents exchanged and blessings shared.For some, Christmas is a difficult time —for the poor, for separated families, for the lonely, for the imprisoned and the sick.

Each year at this time, I use this column to recall the true meaning of Christmas.Christmas is literally the mass for Christ, markingthe birth of Jesus.He was born under occupation. Joseph and Mary were ordered to go far from home to register with authorities. The innkeeper told Joseph there was no room at the inn. Jesus was born on a cold night in a stable, lying in a manger, an “at-risk baby.”

His earthly father was a carpenter. Santa Claus wasn’t around. He is an invention of 19th century Europe.Jesus was born at a time of great misery and turmoil, with his country under Roman occupation. Prophets predicted that a new Messiah was coming —a King of Kings —one who would rout the occupiers and free the people. Many expected a mighty warrior—like the superheroes of today’s movies —who would mobilize an army to defeat Rome’s occupying legions.Fearing the prophecy, the Roman King Herod ordered the “massacre of the innocents,” the slaughter of all boys two and under in Bethlehem and the nearby region.Jesus confounded both Herod’s fears and the peoples’ hopes. He was a man of peace, not of war. He gathered disciples, not soldiers. He began his ministry by quoting Isaiah 62:1: “the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.”

We will be judged, he taught us, by how we treat “the least of these,” by how we treat the stranger on the Jericho Road. He called on us to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to care for the sick, to offer aid to the refugee.It’s an extraordinary story. Jesus was a liberator, but by his words and his example, not his sword. He converted rather than conquered. He accumulated no worldly wealth. He threw the money lenders from the temple. During his ministry, he owned no home, no land, and had no regular paycheck. His time with us was too brief, and he was crucified for his ministry.

And yet, he succeeded beyond all expectation to transform the world. The Prince of Peace, he taught us that peace is not the absence of violence; it is the presence of justice and righteousness.These days, the mass for Christ too often is viewed as a holiday and a payday for Santa, rather than a holy day, more secular than sacred. It is a time of sales, shopping and Santa, when its focus should be on the poorest among us. It is a time to stop a moment and take stock of where we are in light of the mission to bring “good news to the poor.”There is good news: unemployment is down, poverty is down, incomes have slowly begun to rise. We continue to lock up more people than any nation in the world, but at both the state and federal level, small steps are being taken to reduce the number of nonviolent offenders who are incarcerated.But surely, we have a long way to go. We are ignoring a climate crisis that threatens all of God’s creation.

The U.S. continues to waste lives and literally trillions in wars without end and without apparent purpose. Inequality is at record extremes, and the tax cut Congress passed is making it worse.Millions still struggle in this rich country to secure adequate food to eat, yet the administration is cutting support for food stamps that allow the working poor to feed their families. On our borders, the administration descended to tearing babies away from their mothers and keeping so many locked up that we have no facilities to house them. Health care, a basic human right, remains unaffordable for too many. Homelessness is rising, as adequate housing is priced out of the reach of more and more in our major cities.Jesus was not a partisan, but his birth was immensely political —both in the expectations of the people and the fears of the occupiers.

Instead of turning us on one another, he called us to our highest selves. We should not let the deeper meaning of Christmas be lost in the wrappings.In Chicago on Christmas Day, I will go with my family —as we do every year —to visit the prisoners at the Cook County Jail, one of the largest jails in this country. That reflects the real meaning of the Christmas story.In this secular age, let us remember the message of Christmas. Jesus demonstrated the astonishing power of faith, hope and charity, the importance of love. He showed that people of conscience can make a difference, even against the most powerful oppressor.He demonstrated the strength of summoning our better angels, rather than rousing our fears or feeding our divisions. This Christmas, this surely is a message to remember. Merry Christmas, everybody.

Dec. 22, 2019

Virginia Union University Ensemble in Hungary, Italy for Holiday Season
By George Copeland Jr.

Members of the Virginia Union University Select Ensemble perform with J. David Bratton and his choir, “Every Praise,” in Budapest, Hungary as part of a 28-day European tour. PHOTO/Courtesy/Virginia Union University

Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from the Richmond Free Press

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - People in Hungary and Italy are getting a helping of good gospel music this holiday as 22 members of Virginia Union University’s Select Ensemble join eight singers and musicians from around the United States — part of gospel music mega producer J. David Bratton’s “Every Praise” gospel group — to tour Europe.

The VUU students have been a “phenomenal” part of the tour, Bratton told the Free Press on Tuesday in a phone interview from Asti, a town in northwestern Italy, where the group was to perform that night.

The group left Richmond Dec. 7 for a 28-day tour to roughly 16 locales ranging from Budapest to Perugia and Rome, where they have scheduled performances through the New Year.

The students, Bratton said, “are a great representation of the heart of the school.” He said the response to the music has been so positive that concertgoers in Hungary and Italy have contacted VUU asking where they can get CDs and videos to hear more.

“The choir is extraordinary,” said Mauritzio Manfrini, tour promoter for the group in Italy. “People love them in any moment — from the beginning to the end.”

Friends and family members had the chance to see the choir in action during a live stream on social media of the choir’s sell-out concert Monday at the Teatro Nazionale CheBanca in Milan. It was their seventh sold-out performance during the tour.

The reaction from fans at home was just as enthusiastic as the audiences the choir has seen from the stage.

“My phone was blowing up with text messages and phone calls saying how amazing we sounded,” said tenor Kennard Jones, a senior from Capitol Heights, Md. “The love and support that we received from our peers was amazing.”

The VUU Select Ensemble became part of the tour in large part because of Bratton’s longtime association with VUU President Hakim J. Lucas. Bratton, a 2007 Dove Award nominee for the song “Every Praise” performed by Bishop Hezekiah Walker, is a student at VUU’s Samuel DeWitt Proctor School of Theology. He also played a key role in Dr. Lucas’ official presidential inauguration in October, when Mr. Bratton, Bishop Walker and Every Praise performed.

Bratton expressed an interest in adding VUU singers to his group for the European tour. When a choir set to join Every Praise on the European tour dropped out, Bratton said he jumped on the opportunity to utilize the school’s musical talent.

Following an open audition in October and a month and a half of rehearsals, the 22 students and eight musicians were ready to be “ambassadors for the school here in Europe,” Bratton said. “They have represented the school and the state of Virginia and the city of Richmond at the highest possible level.”

The group hasn’t solely been singing and taking in the sights of Europe. They also have provided aid in their own way. Some of their concerts have been charity events, helping to raise $5,000 for a boy with leukemia and $3,000 for victims of a house fire, VUU officials said.

“As students, we’re just so grateful for this opportunity,” Mr. Jones said, noting that for many students, it is their first time traveling outside the United States.

While the tour is scheduled to end on Jan. 3, Mr. Bratton has many ideas in the works, including plans for a live recording at VUU in 2020 and a possible tour around Easter.

Bratton said he will be joining the VUU faculty in January.

The VUU students on tour are eager about what the next few days will bring, even if it means missing Christmas with their families in the states.

“It’s just been a true blessing thus far,” Jones said. “We really can’t wait to see where this will head in the near future.”

Dec. 23, 2019

Black Spending Power Demand Corporations to Show More Love and Support for Black Culture

This Black Santa seen in CVS stores across the country is one way that corporations appear to try harder to reach African-Americans and other consumers of color. But levels of active advertising with Black media that reach Black consumers remains disappointing.

Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from Nielsen

(Trice EdneyWire.com) – African-Americans want more for themselves and from corporate America, and they express it with their dollars as they move through the consumer journey, from brand awareness to purchase, as revealed today in Nielsen’s 2019 Diverse Intelligence Series (DIS) Report on African Americans.

It’s in the Bag: Black Consumers’ Path to Purchase explores the non-linear and uniquely technologically driven road that African Americans follow to make purchasing decisions, which ultimately maximizes both online and in-person shopping options. This path highlights several differences in shopping behavior and purchasing when compared to the total U.S. population. The report also includes deeper insights into how culture, socio-economics and business influences how, why and what motivates African- American spending in a special co-authored section by advocate and media commentator Angela Rye, CEO and Principal of Impact Strategies.

“At 47.8 million strong and a buying power that’s on par with many countries’ gross domestic products, African Americans continue to outpace spending nationally,” said Cheryl Grace, Nielsen’s Senior Vice President of Community Alliances and Consumer Engagement and co-creator of the DIS Report. “This year, we wanted to help brands and marketers understand the multi-faceted process that Blacks take to buy the products they buy. There are several drivers, but culture is at the center of them all. Further, with their love for technology, they are much more savvy and conscious consumers. They are as we say, ‘woke.’ They pay attention to how companies are speaking to them. As they spend more, they want more for themselves and from the brands they support.”

Dating back to 2011, this is Nielsen’s ninth report highlighting the media consumption, purchasing habits, lifestyle interests and economic advancements of African Americans. It is the third in a theme, released by Nielsen this year following the comprehensive purchasing processes of Asian American and Latinx consumers. Key takeaways from It’s in the Bag: Black Consumers Path to Purchase include:

African-Americans are welcoming recipients of advertising across all channels. However, while the trends of the Black buying power and over-indexing in spending continue to increase, companies’ investments to advertise to them have decreased.

• African Americans are more likely than the total population to agree that advertising provides meaningful information on most platforms, including mobile (42 percent higher), television (23 percent higher), radio (21 percent higher) and the internet (18 percent higher).
• Advertising spend designed to reach Black consumers declined 5 percent between 2017 and 2018.

Physical appearance reflects a sense of cultural pride and self-expression in the Black community. This is evidenced by the top spending priorities for African Americans from everyday soap to luxury handbags.

• African Americans outspend the total market on personal soap and bath needs by nearly 19 percent ($573.6 million).
• Men are making an impact with grooming habits, outpacing the total market by 20 percent on toiletry items.
• Blacks are 20 percent more likely than the total population to say they will “pay extra for a product that is consistent with the image I want to convey.”
• They are also more likely to say they shop at high-end stores including Saks Fifth Avenue (63 percent), Neiman Marcus (45 percent) and Bloomingdales (24 percent).

While online shopping grows, African Americans continue to head to physical stores for the personal touch and feel experience—but with more discerning eyes.

• More than half (52 percent) of African Americans find in-store shopping relaxing, compared with 26 percent of the total population.
• 55 percent of Black consumers say they enjoy wandering the store looking for new, interesting products.
• When shopping, African Americans are more influenced than the total population by store staff (34 percent more likely), in-store advertising (28 percent more likely) and merchandising (27 percent more likely).

The “for us by us” trend of Black-owned brands is profoundly impacting the African American path to purchase and consumer marketplace. Black consumers support brands that align with their lifestyles and values.

• African Americans dominate the ethnic hair and beauty aids category, accounting for almost 90 percent of the overall spend.
• 42 percent of Black adults expect brands they purchase to support social causes (16 percent higher than the total population).
• 35 percent of African American shoppers are more likely to agree, “when a celebrity designs a product, I am more likely to buy it.”
• Procter & Gamble (P&G) is the largest advertiser in African American media, spending more than a half-billion dollars ($544.3 million). Five of the top 20 baby care category products come from P&G’s Pampers and Luvs brands.

Soul food drives African American consumers’ top grocery purchases. These consumers are also passionate about the environment, wanting to buy safe, locally sourced food items.

• African Americans outpace the general market on: Quaker grits ($19 million); Louisiana Fish Fry ($11 million); Glory Greens (frozen and fresh, $9.5 million combined) and Jay’s Potato Chips (nearly $2.7 million).
• 61 percent say produce is the most important category to buy local, followed by bakery and prepared foods (56 percent), eggs (55 percent) and dairy (52 percent).
• Blacks over-index the total population concerned about food safety issues: antibiotic use in animal production (by 20 percent); artificial ingredients (by 19 percent) and GMO crop development due to climate change.The biggest worry is rising prices due to trade tariffs (68 percent Blacks vs. 56 percent total population).

“Nielsen continues to unearth undeniable data and insights that highlight both the agency and power of Black consumers, and the plethora of opportunities that exist for companies that are focused on nurturing and empowering how they move through the world,” said Jonathan Jackson, former 2019 Nieman-Berkman Klein Fellow in Journalism Innovation at The Nieman Foundation for Journalism and member of Nielsen’s African American External Advisory Council.

Nielsen uses U.S. Census data to determine population estimates that inform its U.S. panels and its understanding of consumer behavior. Given the rapid diversification of the U.S. population, an accurate census has never been more important. That’s why Nielsen has signed on as a 2020 Census Official Partner with the U.S. Census Bureau, and utilized census data to show the economic and demographic impact of African American consumers.This is the second time the company has leveraged this partnership for the Diverse Intelligence Series, after the 2019 Latinx consumer report, released in August.

December 22, 2019

Five U. S. Tech Giants Linked to 'Cruel and Brutal Use of Children' in Congo Mines

(TriceEdneyWire.com/GIN) - Do kids work in coal mines?

In 1910, an estimated 2 million American children under the age of 15 were working in factories and mines for low wages and long shifts. Photographs by Lewis Hine of New York revealed the depraved exploitation of children, some as young as 8 years of age, in fields and in mines. Child labor was finally outlawed in 1938.

A century later, 15 year olds are digging tunnels in unsafe cobalt mines. Not in the U.S. but out of sight, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where protective gear is not provided and shifts may run 24 hours or more.

This month, five major companies were named in a federal class action suit filed by the Washington-based International Rights Advocates (IRA) for “knowingly benefiting from and aiding and abetting the cruel and brutal use of young children.”

The companies named are Apple, Alphabet (Google), Dell, Microsoft, and Tesla - allegedly part of a chain starting with a UK mining company selling cobalt extracted by African youths to a Brussels-based trader who then sold battery-grade cobalt to the 5 major tech companies.

A major Chinese cobalt firm was also named in the suit.

The claim was filed on behalf of 14 anonymous plaintiffs who are either guardians of children killed in tunnel or wall collapses or children maimed in such accidents.

In court documents seen by The Guardian newspaper, the Congolese families describe how their children were driven by extreme poverty to seek work at large mining sites where they worked 12-hour days, some for just $2 a day, digging and hauling sacks of cobalt-rich rocks.

The DRC has the world’s largest deposits of cobalt, an essential element of rechargeable lithium-ion batteries used to power smartphones, laptops and electric cars. “Put simply, the hundreds of billions of dollars generated by the defendants each year would not be possible without cobalt mined in the DRC,” the legal complaint says.

Lauren Lee, a spokeswoman for Dell, told Fortune magazine this week that the company was investigating the allegations in the lawsuit. “We have never knowingly sourced operations using any form of involuntary labor, fraudulent recruiting practices, or child labor,” Lee said in an email. “We work with suppliers to manage their sourcing programs responsibly.”

But IRA took issue with tech company claims: “Rather than step up to help these children with a negligible portion of their vast wealth and power, these companies do nothing but continue to benefit from cheap cobalt mined by kids robbed of their childhoods, their health, and for far too many, their lives.”

Said Terry Collingsworth, lead counsel for the child victims, “We will do everything possible to get justice quickly for the children we represent.” 

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