Latest news with #Black-founded
Cosmopolitan
23-05-2025
- Business
- Cosmopolitan
Chiney Ogwumike Interview on C-Suite Ballers
Multi-platform ESPN analyst Chiney Ogwumike knows exactly what it takes to excel in basketball and beyond. She has a dazzling player resume (Stanford standout! Overall No. 1 pick in the 2014 WNBA Draft! Two-time WNBA All-Star!), but she also has used the sport to craft a lane for herself to pursue her other talents and interests. "I think a lot of times people don't see athletes, or even former athletes, as having range," she tells Cosmo. But that's false, especially today when so many Black women athletes are actively pursuing and living out their multiple interests while also thriving in their sport, and even using their sport as a platform into those other endeavors. But in Chiney's role as host of the series C-Suite Ballers, she's working on changing that. The talk show series, which is powered by SheaMoisture in partnership with Uninterrupted, the athlete empowerment brand focused on telling the full scope of athletes' stories and experiences, "brings together powerful women across the sports world, from WNBA stars to analysts, influencers, and beyond," explains Kevin Tolson, head of personal care at SheaMoisture. "We see them fully," says Tolson, "not just as athletes, but as individuals, as leaders, business owners, and as culture-shapers." The Black-founded and Black-led personal care brand has always been dedicated to centering and celebrating Black womanhood, so it was a perfect alignment when it became the official skin cleansing partner of the NCAA Final Four this year. According to data from the NCAA, Black women made up nearly 30% of all women's basketball players in the 2022-2023 season, accounting for "the highest percentage of any women's sport" at the college level. And on the pro side, it's even higher: More than 70% of the WNBA is made up of Black women, per a 2022 report. "SheaMoisture has a longstanding commitment to showing up where our community is, and right now, Black women athletes are not only playing the game, they're changing it," says Kevin. "Everything is about putting Black women first. We don't want to just give Black women their flowers, we want to help them grow entire gardens." During the season 1 finale taping of C-Suite Ballers during the Final Four weekend in Tampa, the line up of guests didn't disappoint. A slew of current WNBA players popped out, like Angel Reese, Chelsea Gray, Jewell Lloyd, and more, and guests even got a to see The Big Three—Elle Duncan, Andrea Carter, and Chiney—live and in the flesh. All of the conversations were intentional, thoughtful, raw, and inspiring to the nearly all-Black female audience. "Sports is what got us started," says Chiney, "but it's also what's catapulted us." She goes on: "We have the mindset, the skillset, the determination, all those qualities that make us fierce in so many things other than just sports. So that's what I love about the series, just being able to showcase how sports and the love of hoops has allowed us to find our own lane and stand in truths." When filming wrapped, Cosmo briefly talked with Chiney about her hopes for the series, how basketball has helped facilitate her other dreams, what centering Black women in sports means and looks like for her, and more. Read the full conversation below. We talk about how sports has brought us all together, but how we have pivoted in so many different ways, to cover models to Players Association presidents to hosts and broadcasters. The list goes on. When you sit down, you know that you're safe, you're comfortable, and it's gonna be a vibe; there's no stress about it. I hope that it inspires people to know that no matter what space you enter, the energy you bring and how you carry yourself, transforms that space. It looks and feels like a space where we can be ourselves, be comfortable, lean on each other, cry to each other, but also give each other flowers. That's what I love about the series—it's showing young girls that might look elsewhere and not see themselves that this is a place to come. It's giving them an opportunity to see people in environments that they may not normally see, like Angel Reese, who was just up there. You might follow her on Instagram or watch her podcast Unapologetically Angel, but we're gonna ask you the question and we're gonna get those gems. When I'm down, I just remember that I am the only person that is me. Comparison is the thief of joy. We look at other people's pathways to success, and we're like, I want to be that person or I want to do what they're doing, not knowing that their lane is for them. Nothing can block your blessings if you stand in your own truth. My friend Andrea [Carter] reminded us of the statement during the show that, "Greatness delayed is not greatness denied," and just staying persistent to that. And then also looking at life with joy and beauty. I never thought sports would be the vehicle that allowed me to do what I'm doing or live a life I'm living. Being a talk show host is new for you, but it seems natural and effortless. How have you been engaging new muscles in this format versus being an analyst? My dream is to have my own show. I'm not saying it in a grand way—even though I am manifesting it—but I'd love to have a platform where I can lean into my voice, my expertise, and my knowledge. I've always felt like I have a mix of being able to analyze and personality, and I have a lot of friends in the industry that I love and I want to talk to them about the things that matter most. I've started doing more hosting on ESPN—when one of my teammates at ESPN is out, I host the shows. There are very few athletes that are hosts, and I would love to be one of the first on that side. This conversation was lightly edited for space and clarity.
CBS News
06-03-2025
- Health
- CBS News
Boston nursing facility sues former director, accusing him of mishandling more than $3 million
A civil lawsuit has been filed against the former director of the Benjamin Healthcare Center in Boston's Mission Hill neighborhood for allegedly siphoning funds from the facility for his own gain. Two other former employees have also been named in the suit. The skilled nursing facility has faced an ongoing battle to remain open, when the former director Tony Francis abruptly announced it would close last year. Employees then sounded the alarm about alleged financial mismanagement of more than $3 million, some of it state and federal money, that Francis allegedly pocketed for personal items including travel, clothing, spa services and food. Went weeks without paycheck Mitish Mahulkar has been working as an occupational therapist at the facility for 12 years and said he often went weeks without a paycheck. "There was incidents where I deposited my paycheck in the bank and realized later that it bounced, there was no funds to cover my payroll," said Mahulkar. The facility was recently put into court-ordered receivership to help manage its debts. "We're not going to get angry, we're not even going to be talking about getting even. What we want to do is be able to get what rightfully belongs to the Benjamin, and that's what we will pursue," said court-ordered receiver Joseph Feaster at a press conference Thursday announcing the civil lawsuit. Concerns about patients The Benjamin is nearly 100 years old, the only Black-founded, owned and operated nursing home facility in New England that now cares for 76 patients. "Some of our residents have been here for greater than 10, 15 years, this is their home," said admissions director Leslie Henderson. "We were scared, we all became advocates for our residents." Henderson is among the employees who raised concerns about alleged financial mismanagement. But the question that remains is whether the Benjamin is on borrowed time even if it can recoup some of the lost funds. Feaster said it will help but the facility still needs a more guaranteed revenue stream. Mahulkar says he can only hope for himself and his patients. "It was almost like somebody has slapped you in your face. How can a human being do that to other human beings," said Mahulkar.
Yahoo
01-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
DEI with a hard ‘ER': How the anti-DEI movement in tech is having a chokehold on Black economic progress
OPINION: The question isn't whether DEI initiatives are necessary—the data screams that they are. The real question is: Why are some folks so scared of a level playing field?Even though Black people aren't the primary beneficiaries of so-called DEI policies, we are the target of campaigns to dismantle diversity, equity, and inclusion. Let that sink in. We live in a country that is so steeped in anti-Blackness that the masses are upset at the thought of 'equity' for Black people. Enough so that they will hurt other groups to keep us in our place. When they say 'DEI,' I hear the 'n—-r' loud and clear. These DEI lawsuits, executive orders, and outcries flooding our headlines? They're not about 'discrimination against white people' or 'merit-based decisions.' They're about maintaining the chokehold on Black economic progress. As someone who's moved through elite spaces as a lawyer, founded and sold a successful tech company, and now leads a venture fund, I know tech is the new frontier for wealth creation. They know it too, which is why the anti-DEI movement is so focused on tech. And it's not just Elon Musk. Tech bros have cultivated a false myth of meritocracy in the tech, venture, and startup spaces because it makes them feel good to explain their success in these terms instead of being steeped in the same white privilege that slave-holding ancestors leveraged to build extractive wealth (which they also claimed was accumulated by 'pulling themselves up by the bootstraps'). For example, Peter Thiel, the founder of PayPal, said at an event last year, 'If you think of the woke DEI whole coalition as a combination of true laborers and useful idiots, and, you know, from the capitalists or people who are in some corrupt racket, that's probably a far more powerful coalition.' Would you be surprised to learn that Peter Thiel was born in West Germany, lived in apartheid South Africa as a child, and then went on to Stanford University and law school? Like Musk, who is South African, the ideas they are espousing aren't stemming from a commitment to talent and meritocracy over everything else. It's a deep-seated belief in white superiority, such that any advancement of Black people (and pathways that facilitate that advancement) is intolerable. Here are tweets from Paul Graham, co-founder of the pre-eminent Y Combinator startup accelerator: Are these folks really out here pretending that Black founders getting 0.4% of ALL venture capital funding is somehow…too much? When I founded my first startup in 2019, I saw firsthand how the deck is stacked against Black entrepreneurs. I never raised venture capital for that company, but I successfully bootstrapped it to acquisition, selling it to Sean 'Diddy' Combs in 2021. 'But what about merit?' they cry, while conveniently ignoring how Black-founded companies consistently deliver higher median returns compared to their white-founded counterparts. A Boston Consulting Group study found that businesses founded by Black entrepreneurs generated about $1.4 trillion in revenue and created approximately 4 million jobs. Yet here we are, watching lawsuits trying to shut down the few funds explicitly working to close this gap. Data has shown that when minority startups are funded, we actually have better outcomes. Of course, those are not the meritocracy numbers that the mainstream chooses to focus on right now. While manufactured outrage machines are suing Black-focused venture funds for 'discrimination,' the actual discrimination happening in venture capital is astronomical. The same people clutching their pearls about DEI initiatives are real quiet about how Black founders received less than half a percent of the $288 billion in venture capital deployed in 2023. They're silent about how Black women founders got just 0.123% of venture capital funding between 2021 and 2023. Because that's what they think is natural, based on what they believe we deserve and also what our abilities are. It's why 'DEI' is the go-to when they see us excelling—they cannot fathom that Black people have the merit that they stress so much when they scream meritocracy. This isn't about protecting anyone's rights. This is about protecting white privilege's monopoly on capital. When I founded Fictive Ventures, focusing on both Black founders and investors, it wasn't because we wanted to exclude anyone. It was because the existing system has been excluding us since forever, and we're done waiting for permission to build wealth in our communities. These attacks on DEI initiatives aren't happening in a vacuum. They're happening right as Black Americans are finally gaining a foothold in corporate America, right as we're building our own tables instead of begging for seats at theirs. The timing isn't coincidental – it's tactical. Why was Fearless Fund, which invests in women of color, sued for racial discrimination, but the Female Founders Fund, led by a white woman, was not sued for gender discrimination? 'But shouldn't everything be colorblind?' Wealth in America has never been colorblind. Not when billions in wealth were accumulated by working and leveraging enslaved Black people. Not when Black families have about $0.13 for every dollar of wealth held by white families. Not when redlining's effects still impact Black homeownership. And certainly not in venture capital, where Black entrepreneurs are still fighting to get crumbs from a hundreds-of-billion-dollar table. What we're seeing now is an all-out offensive to maintain the status quo by people who see racial equity as a threat to their privilege. The question isn't whether DEI initiatives are necessary – the data screams that they are. The real question is: Why are some folks so scared of a level playing field? It's because they don't want us 'DEIs' to have anything. We'll take it anyway. Khadijah A. Robinson has led an impressive career as a lawyer, entrepreneur, innovator, and investor. In 2019, Khadijah started The Nile List, an online discovery platform for Black-owned e-commerce brands. In 2021, The Nile List was acquired by Combs Enterprises and Empower Global, and Khadijah served as CEO of Empower Global for 2 years, leading all fundraising, operations, and development. Khadijah consults and coaches with a wide range of entrepreneurs personally and as the Entrepreneur-in-Residence for Black Ambition. She served as the Chief Operating Officer for The Majira Project, a business accelerator, backed by Boston Consulting Group, for underrepresented founders. She currently leads the LIFT Incubator program for STEM startups in Atlanta with the Center for Black Entrepreneurship in addition to serving as a General Partner at Fictive Ventures, the first venture fund focused on early stage Black led startups as well as Black investors. More must-reads: They want to erase us — But our history, our stories, our resilience can't be erased We must resurrect the true ideals of Dr. King this MLK Day as we inaugurate a new president Michelle Obama is every Black woman who wanted to say 'no' and not give a damn afterward
Yahoo
10-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
A boycott campaign fuels tension between Black shoppers and Black-owned brands – evoking the long struggle for ‘consumer citizenship'
Some Black consumers may be breaking up with Target this February. It all started late last month, when the retailer announced that it was ending its diversity, equity and inclusion programs. The move drew widespread rebuke from social justice organizers, including New Birth Missionary Baptist Church Pastor Dr. Jamal Bryant. Although Target said one set of its racial-equity initiatives had already been scheduled to conclude, the timing was notable: The move came just days after the White House called for a federal DEI ban, and as several other companies took similar actions. Beyond renaming its 'supplier diversity' team – now called 'supplier engagement' – and ending 'diversity-focused surveys,' Target hasn't said what the change will mean for the many Black entrepreneurs who sell everything from coffee to sunscreen on its shelves. The webpage for the retailer's Black Beyond Measure initiative, which highlights dozens of Black-founded brands and connects business owners to a program designed to 'democratize access to retail education,' remains active. But Target's critics, including Minneapolis-based civil rights attorney Nekima Levy Armstrong, view the move as a surrender to the new presidential administration's attack on equity programs. In a news conference outside Target's Minnesota headquarters on Jan. 30, 2025, Armstrong called for a nationwide boycott of the store to begin on the first day of Black History Month. While many social media users posted in support of the boycott, some Black founders whose brands are stocked by Target – and there are dozens of them – have been more conflicted. Tabitha Brown, whose products can be found in various aisles, from books to cooking appliances, asked customers to reconsider boycotting Target. Withholding their dollars, Brown insisted, will hurt Black businesses far more than the corporations that sell their products. This request for restraint garnered a mixed response on social media. Some Black consumers accused Black business owners of selling out the very racial community that contributed to their success. So, why would a Black business owner ask consumers to patronize a retailer that signaled it doesn't care about Black customers? And how did something as mundane as where people buy toilet paper and shampoo become a litmus test for racial consciousness in the first place? The marketplace has long been a battleground where Black Americans have sought to assert their citizenship. Most of the nation's biggest household brands didn't begin to take African American consumers seriously until after World War II. Before that shift, advertisements and product packaging were more likely to feature degrading Black caricatures to appeal to white shoppers, than to address Black consumers directly. This segregated commercial landscape reinforced the belief among some community members that Black people would not be taken seriously as citizens until they were taken seriously as consumers. They would need to vote with their dollars, patronizing only those brands and retailers that respected them. In my research on marketing campaigns aimed at Black women, I've examined how the struggle for consumer citizenship complicated the dynamic between Black entrepreneurs and consumers. On the one hand, businesses have long leveraged Black ownership as a unique selling proposition in and of itself, urging shoppers to view Black brand loyalty as a path to collective racial progress. Unlike their larger competitors, Black entrepreneurs relied on their racial community to stay afloat. Patronizing African American businesses could therefore be framed as a racial duty. Conversely, as African American advertising pioneers made clear, recognition from big brands was a political victory of sorts because it signaled that Black dollars were just as valuable as anyone else's. Corporate attention to Black consumers ebbs and flows in a cycle that is especially noticeable in the beauty and personal care industry. In seasons of limited competition for African American customers, entrepreneurs typically thrive, even while they struggle to meet the capital demands of a growing brand. Their success, however, beckons larger corporations, which then seek to capitalize on consumer niches they previously ignored. Two common approaches that mass market brands pursue to compete for Black dollars include acquiring smaller, established Black brands and developing their own niche products. Large corporations deployed both strategies during a period of intense expansion into the beauty market of the 1980s. Black owners tried to stave off their competition by creating a special emblem that alerted shoppers to their authenticity. Then, as now, social justice organizations, such as Rev. Jesse Jackson's Operation PUSH, also initiated boycotts and urged Black consumers not to choose 'lipstick over liberation.' Nevertheless, many Black entrepreneurs sold their brands, and by 1986 nearly half of the Black hair care market was no longer Black-owned. Parsing winners and losers within the world of Black enterprise is as difficult now as it was in earlier periods. African American business owners often possess a cultural consciousness that distinguishes their brands, even when they can't match the resources of larger competitors. And as they figure out how to survive an uneven playing field, Black entrepreneurs sometimes face accusations of betraying their racial community. In a market governed by the law of supply and demand, Black consumers benefit from increased competition. Yet, racial loyalty sometimes asks that they eschew these benefits for the sake of keeping Black dollars in Black hands. Four years ago, when Target launched its Black Beyond Measure funding initiative, it seemed that the retailer had struck a rare balance in supporting Black brands and their customers. In addition to curating a collection of products to lure shoppers, Target used the campaign as an opportunity to position entrepreneurs to flourish well beyond Black History Month. Now, as Black consumers and business owners weigh varying responses to the retailer's decision to reverse their commitment to DEI values, one question endures: Do Black dollars matter? Timeka N. Tounsel does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Yahoo
09-02-2025
- Yahoo
Who's This White Lady Who Just Joined a Famous Black Sorority? Her Badass Story Will Inspire You!
These days, it's not uncommon to see a white person joining the Black-founded Greek organizations of the Divine Nine. Though, have you ever wondered who was the first to bite the bullet? Let us introduce Joan Mulholland, the first white woman to join Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. and trust us, she was a force to be reckoned with (famous Deltas include singer Andra Day, Aretha Franklin, Cisley Tyson and Shirley to name a few). Mulholland's mugshot might be found alongside the others who were arrested by the Jackson, Miss. police during the Freedom Riders movement. The Washington D.C. native was just around 20 years old. However, she didn't just get caught up in the crowd or end up at the wrong place at the wrong time. Mulholland was about that life. Her activism began at Duke University in 1960, where her parents encouraged her to go. She'd taken an interest in the International Club instead of the other, majority white groups on campus, per the Library of Congress. She'd taken interest in sit-ins and other demonstrations, leading to confusion from her peers because why would a white woman would fight for such a cause? After the Dean of Women pressured her to stop her activism, Mulholland dropped out, per the Library of Congress. By 1961, Mulholland was joining Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee chairman Stokely Carmichael to take a freedom ride from New Orleans to Jackson, Miss. However, the group was arrested and shipped off to Parchman Penitentiary where she stayed for two months after refusing to pay bail, per The Advocate. By the time she was released, she had little options as to what she could do beyond going back to school or working. However, the riots following the desegregation of the University of Georgia encouraged her to get back in the books... but at a Black school. 'Now if whites were going to riot when Black students were going to white schools, what were they going to do if a white student went to a Black school?' she said, per the University of South Carolina. Mulholland then enrolled in Touglaoo College. There, she had the honor of escorting Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. around campus while he visited the college for a speech, per The Advocate. She considered him a 'hero' of the movement. By 1963, she'd join Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. - becoming their first white member. Following that moment she would go on to participate in the March on Washington, Selma to Montgomery March and meet other Civil Rights giants such as John Lewis and Medgar Evers. By the ripe age of 23, Mulholland participated in over 50 sit-ins and protests. Her bravery didn't come without consequence, though. According to the foundation created in her name, she was disowned by her family, targeted by the Ku Klux Klan and faced all the other havoc Black activists did during the time - all in the name of fighting for equality. Now, Mulholland is a healthy 83 years old with honors such as recognition from former President Barack Obama, the Anti-Defamation League Annual Heroes Against Hate Award and the 'I Am a Man' Award from the 50th Anniversary of King's assassination. Her son, Loki, also filmed a documentary on her life and activism, 'An Ordinary Hero: the True Story of Joan Trumpauer Mulholland.' For the latest news, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
