UC Berkeley: Inside Rainbow Sign, a vibrant hub for black cultural arts. “From the outside, Rainbow Sign didn’t look like much. Housed in a modest building — previously a mortuary — it sat on the corner of Grove (now MLK Jr. Way) and Derby in Berkeley, a quiet, beige house with a tasteful, arched doorway. But on the inside was a vibrant black cultural arts center — a 1970s Bay Area hub for black art, music, cinema, literature, education and civic gathering — that drew cultural icons from across the country, from Maya Angelou and James Baldwin to Huey Newton and Nina Simone.”
African-Americans
Lifehacker: Where to Find More Diverse Stock Photos
Lifehacker: Where to Find More Diverse Stock Photos. “It’s easy to find stock photos of slim white people doing stereotypical activities—women laughing alone with salad and that sort of thing. If that’s not what you’re looking for, may we suggest some of these sites that break the mold?” Only three sites unfortunately, but two of them I’d never heard of. Hopefully the Lifehacker comments will add more suggestions.
Daily Beast: Twitter Says It Fixed ‘Bug’ That Let Marketers Target People Who Use the N-Word
Daily Beast: Twitter Says It Fixed ‘Bug’ That Let Marketers Target People Who Use the N-Word. “Twitter said it fixed its advertising platform that allowed prospective marketers to target millions of users interested in derogatory words such as ‘n**ger’ and ‘wetback.’ The Daily Beast reported Friday that Twitter Ads returned 26.3 million users who may respond to the term ‘wetback,’ 18.6 million to ‘Nazi,’ and 14.5 million to ‘n**ger.'”
Carnegie Mellon: CMU Wins NEH Grant for Advanced Computer Analysis of Teenie Harris Archive
Carnegie Mellon: CMU Wins NEH Grant for Advanced Computer Analysis of Teenie Harris Archive. “A collaboration between Carnegie Mellon University’s Frank-Ratchye STUDIO for Creative Inquiry and the Carnegie Museum of Art aims to identify, annotate and organize the massive body of work of photographer Charles ‘Teenie’ Harris. The project has been awarded a National Endowment for the Humanities grant to create a set of image identification tools using machine learning and computer vision techniques. The software developed by the STUDIO will be open-source and compliant with international digital image standards, allowing the tool to be applied to collections across the globe.”
PRNewswire: Newly Completed Titles Available from Accessible Archives
PRNewswire: Newly Completed Titles Available from Accessible Archives (PRESS RELEASE). “Accessible Archives, Inc.®, an electronic publisher of full-text primary source historical databases, has announced the completion of additional titles in its African American Newspapers and Women’s Suffrage collections. The five newspapers are now fully imaged, with the XML TEI Lite DTD utilized to re-key each article at the highest accuracy level, resulting in optimum search results and clean text. MARC records also are included.”
MIT Technology Review: AI Programs Are Learning to Exclude Some African-American Voices
MIT Technology Review: AI Programs Are Learning to Exclude Some African-American Voices. “All too often people make snap judgments based on how you speak. Some AI systems are also learning to be prejudiced against some dialects. And as language-based AI systems become ever more common, some minorities may automatically be discriminated against by machines, warn researchers studying the issue.”
Atlanta Black Star: Facing Rapid Gentrification, D.C. Cultural Activist Fights to Preserve African-American Art, History
Atlanta Black Star: Facing Rapid Gentrification, D.C. Cultural Activist Fights to Preserve African-American Art, History . “With several historic D.C. neighborhoods facing fast-encroaching gentrification, longtime locals fear that the rich, Black history of the city’s Southeast region is bound to be wiped out — and soon. The rapid change has since prompted D.C. native and cultural activist Vernard Gray, 76, to launch a website called Made East River, a complete directory of people who create artistic products and offer creative services in Wards 7 and 8, according to The Washington Post.”
