Racial Justice

REJECTED AND RESUBMITTING PROPOSAL WITH AFROMOJI + DREADMOJI. Let's tell Unicode that #AfroHairMatters!! Emoji are a universal language of self expression in a world that interacts in digital spaces. Afrocentric users don’t have emoji that reflect our natural selves as they mirror Eurocentric beauty norms. Afrovisibility is a way to shift global Black hair discrimination to to celebration and education.  I am fighting for Afromoji because our hair and culture matters. I submitted an official Afro Hair Emoji proposal last year for potential acceptance in their 2020 selection, along with your 65k+ signatures and a viral media storm worldwide. They rejected our proposal citing the "curly hair emoji was designed to reflect a variety of hairstyles." The message behind the campaign is that our hair is more than a hairstyle, but an entire culture unrepresented in digital conversations. Afro hair has been long neglected in universal beauty norms, which you see globally from actors and newscasters told their natural hair is unprofessional to children being suspended from school for natural hairstyles. We should celebrate of the cultural and historical richness of our roots, onscreen and IRL! The addition of the Afro Hair Emoji would help diversify cultural representation and digital inclusivity.  Sign our petition to support the natural hair movement and empower more users to celebrate not only their skin, but the hair that they’re in. This petition will prove the urgency and value of an Afro Hair emoji. Thank you for your support! Sign, share and tell your friends why #AfroHairMatters! ❤️ xx, Creator Rhianna Jones @xx_rhiannajones  and Designer Kerrilyn Gibson @kerrilynnoelle

On November 15, 1984, 5-year-old Jerrod Hessling witnessed the beating, rape, and stabbing death of his babysitter. When asked to describe the killer, he said, without hesitation, that it was a white male. Another child present during the murder saw a white man’s tattooed arm reach inside the house to open a sliding glass door. Yet somehow, the lawyers in the case determined that Kenneth Clair, a dark-skinned African-American homeless man who had been squatting next door, was the killer. When Jerrod saw him on the witness stand and insisted they had the wrong man, the prosecution chalked it up to youth and trauma and pursued the death penalty for Kenneth Clair. To this day, 31 years later, Mr. Clair sits on San Quentin’s death row, awaiting his execution date. [UPDATE: I was recently made aware that the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals secretly overturned Mr. Clair’s death sentence and changed it to life in prison without parole. This is mixed news -- his life is spared, but he no longer has the right to an attorney under habeas corpus laws, and he has not been granted a retrial. That means the exonerating DNA evidence will NOT be seen in court. We now have to focus our energy on asking Governor Jerry Brown and California State Attorney General Kamala Harris to investigate the case and exonerate Kenneth Clair for this crime he did not commit. It is Mr. Clair’s only remaining chance for justice. ] But that’s not the biggest bombshell in this case -- in 2008, forensic testing revealed that DNA found on the murder victim did not match Clair’s. DNA taken from a glove found at the scene also did not match. It matches another individual, but the Orange County District Attorney insists that “confidentiality is required” concerning this evidence, and for 7 years now, the identity of the person whose DNA does match the swab has remained a secret. In the interest of justice, we must call on the Orange County DA and California state lawmakers to demand that the DNA evidence be turned over to Kenneth Clair’s defense. Since his conviction, Clair has struggled with ineffective counsel. He wanted his lawyers to work at investigating the crime, rather than simply trying to free him from death row, but they never did. His plea for substitute counsel even made it to the U.S. Supreme Court in 2012, and he did eventually receive a switch of counsel. Finally, he is being represented by people who are dedicated to his exoneration. But their hands are tied without this crucial DNA evidence, and more of Clair’s precious life is wasting away in prison as they fight to obtain it. Please sign my petition: Obviously the Orange County District Attorneys office, with their current district attorney Tony Rackauckas will continue withholding exculpatory evidence from the defense. The only alternative is to both Mr. Rackauckas out of office. So our goal now is to fight this battle both by rallies and at the voting box. If you cannot vote, we still need your donations and also your time if you can volunteer. OUR MAIN MESSAGE IS THAT THE DNA IS NOT KENNETH CLAIR'S. WE DO NOT CARE IF THE DA'S OFFICE CONTINUES TO WITHHOLD THE RESULTS ANY MORE........  NOW OUR MISSION IS TO EXONERATE KENNETH CLAIR. "IF THE DNA SAYS NO .........YOU HAVE TO EXONERATE AND LET KENNETH CLAIR GO......."  

The President of the United States, have tweeted an extremely racist statement via his official twitter account on 03/16/2020 6:51 PM, the statement is the following "The United States will be powerfully supporting those industries, like Airlines and others, that are particularly affected by the Chinese Virus. We will be stronger than ever before!" We demand Donald Trump to apologize to all the Chinese for making such a racist statement. 

My name is Natasha, and I am an activist for a women's health and environmental charity--but that’s not the only reason why I’ve made this petition. For more than 15 years, my mother sought medical attention for a lump on her right breast. However, her primary care physician neglected to send her to a specialist for further examinations of her lump, claiming that it was just calcification. She had to be her own advocate, found a new PCP, and insisted on further tests. At age 60 my mother, Luisa, was diagnosed with an aggressive form of breast cancer, and is currently undergoing chemotherapy treatment, following her double mastectomy surgery this past August. In 2007 her younger sister, Betty, died of breast cancer at age 43. Genetic testing found no hereditary explanation for my mother’s diagnosis, but rather that the disease was contracted through environmental factors. For decades, my mother often used permanent hair dye and chemical straighteners, due to a lack of awareness of the harmful ingredients they possessed.  Hair products are made up of more than 5,000 chemicals, many of which contain carcinogens. Most of these harsh chemicals are rarely listed on the product labels, making it nearly impossible for consumers to know exactly how they can impact their health. Researchers suspect the link between hair dyes and chemical straighteners, and an increased association of breast cancer, can be traced back to the toxic ingredients in hair products that we inhale and absorb through our skin during use. In December 2019, new research found that women who used permanent hair dye or chemical straighteners were at higher risk of developing breast cancer--and this disproportionately affects women of color like my mother, who consume more toxic hair products than anyone else. Use of hair dye is associated with about a 45 percent higher risk of developing breast cancer among Black women (compared to a 7% higher risk for white women). That is an unacceptable health risk. One in eight U.S. women are diagnosed in their lifetime with breast cancer, and about 41,760 women in the United States are expected to die in 2019 from it. It is the most commonly diagnosed cancer among Black women. Black women--who continue to be medically overlooked in a myriad of ways--are also diagnosed at a later stage and consequently die at a higher rate after diagnosis. I won’t let this happen to my mom without a fight. This is why I am urgently calling on all leading hair product manufacturers and cosmetics regulatory bodies to act now and ban all toxic chemicals from hair dyes and straighteners.  These alarmingly toxic chemicals are harmful and not needed in hair dye and chemical straighteners, and their life-threatening impacts are thoroughly preventable. Fortunately we are seeing more and more corporations embracing chemical-free options, and we would like to urge leading hair care manufacturers and cosmetics regulatory bodies to take action to ensure that women’s lives are protected from unnecessary cancers. In order to save lives, it is therefore crucial that we urgently bring about change so that these harmful substances are removed from commonly used hair products.  In the meantime, I appeal to women who use those products to avoid buying them. Boycott these companies who continue to put these carcinogenic products into the hands of women--in spite of the scientific evidence of their role in increasing breast cancer risk. These companies are killing women slowly. Please sign and share so that together we can stop harmful chemicals from ever ending up in hair dyes and straighteners in the first place. Thank you for fighting for my mom, and for women everywhere. Natasha  Link to NIH study: https://bit.ly/2LYckzt Campaign hashtag: #ToxicFreeHair