Tasty Morning Bytes – A Raise for Metro, the Problem with Soul Food and Perverting Black History
Good morning, DCentric readers! Ready for some links?
Metro workers to receive 3 percent raise this week "Wednesday will be a special payday for thousands of Metro workers. Most of the transit agency's employees will be seeing a 3 percent boost in their paychecks as the first step in the resolution to an epic wage fight with the transit agency. Then next month, they will get even bigger checks as they are slated to receive lump sum payments for retroactive raises from the past two years." (Washington Examiner )
Go easy on the soul food "Soul food is a romantic part of black life that should be revered and remembered. It’s a treasured heritage that can be traced back through the heyday of the Black Belt to the Great Migration to our time of bondage. But for too long, that heritage has been a crutch, an excuse to deny we are suffering an obesity crisis. It’s not our fault we are overweight, we say. It’s the food we grew up with. It’s 'cultural.' Good eatin’ is good livin’. Livin’ good, but not for long." (suntimes.com)
How Personhood Mississippi Perverts Black History to Fight Abortion "Personhood Mississippi is using the infamous Dred Scott decision of 1857 to convince Mississippi voters to outlaw abortion in the state via a November 9th ballot initiative called Amendment 26. As we all (hopefully) know, Dred Scott was an enslaved African-American who sued his so-called master for his freedom. The case went all the way to the Supreme Court, which ruled that Scott and every other black person in this country had no right to sue in federal court because his blackness made him a non-citizen." (colorlines.com)
Obama Getting Close To One Million Deportations "Since fiscal year 2009, the actual number is 1,107,415. But the financial year started in October of 2008, when George W. Bush was still president, so the total under Obama is actually 982,548. On the other hand, the current numbers only go up to the end of July, so the administration may have already passed the one million deportations threshold." (Mother Jones)
‘Isn’t this the land of the free?’ Growing up in an era of Muslim stereotypes “I was born and raised Muslim, but the Islam that was being portrayed in the news was not the same Islam I had learned about growing up. Terrorism, violence and oppression did not equate with serving humanity, peace and God-consciousness. Most Muslims I knew felt the same way, so why were our voices not being heard?” (MultiAmerican)