barack-obama

Remember when former President Obama lifted the longstanding trade and travel embargo in Cuba, and travelers and vintage car-lovers alike rejoiced! Welp, looks like Trump is taking his number 2 pencil eraser to THAT progression.Because, of course he is. His. M.O. is basically “wipe away any significant Obama policies,” so there’s that.On Friday, the Trump administration announced a new policy restricting travel and spending between the United States and Cuba, per TIME. Trump confirmed it via a speech in Miami stating that he was, “canceling the last administration's completely one-sided deal with Cuba.”"The previous administrations easing of restrictions on travel and trade does not help the Cuban people. They only enrich the Cuban regime," Trump noted. "The profits from investment and tourism flow directly to the military."As we know, Trump has a penchant for exaggeration. The new policy isn’t so much “canceling” Obama’s as it is adding some restrictions to the existing policy. Per a White House fact sheet, the new policy will restrict non-academic individual travel and restrict travel-related transactions geared toward Cuban military monopoly-owned entities. Cuban-Americans will still be able to travel to the country and send remittances."My action today bypasses the military and the government to help the Cuban people themselves," said Trump. Trump confirmed that he would only be open to a new deal renegotiation if the Castro government made significant changes including political freedom release, political party legalization, among other things. "We will not be silent in the face of communism, oppression," Trump noted."America will always stand for liberty and America will always pray and cheer for the freedom of the Cuban people," he...

Your boyfriends had dinner last night without you.Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau was back in his home district of Montreal last night, and guess who else was in the city?Number 44, president of your heart, Barack Obama.While Michelle was busy hanging out with Tim Cook and inspiring the youth, her husband was in our northern neighbor to give a speech at the Palais des congrès.Obama spoke about youth and leadership, and the BBC reports, climate change.“In Paris, we came together around the most ambitious agreement in history to fight climate change,” Obama told the crowd at the Palais, “An agreement that even with the temporary absence,” you see that shade, temporary absence — you crack us up, Barack, “Of American leadership will still give our children a fighting chance.” Preach!We all know Obama’s all for COP and all against Trump, we can hear you saying now, Tell us about the good stuff.Well, Justin took Barack to one of his favorite restaurants in the city, a place called Liverpool House.They sat beneath a sign that read “Restaurant,” so everyone would know where they were.They wore matching outfits of pale blue shirts and dark slacks; Obama sadly didn’t have his shirt unbuttoned halfway down his chest the way he’s been doing lately. Maybe cause he didn’t want Michelle to get jealous. Justin called Barack his “sibling” and later said the two talked about how they can get teens and young adults “to take action in their communities.”Tonight in Montreal, @BarackObama and @JustinTrudeau discussed their shared commitment to developing the next generation of leaders. pic.twitter.com/170ze83igl— The Obama Foundation (@ObamaFoundation) June 7, 2017On Instagram and Twitter, Justin thanked Barack for his “insights.”How do we get young leaders to take action in their communities? Thanks @BarackObama for your visit & insights tonight in my hometown. pic.twitter.com/EwJXPEkN3w— Justin Trudeau (@JustinTrudeau) June 7, 2017The two leaders drank wine, ate shrimp, oysters, halibut, steak, lobster pasta and strawberry shortcake while 200 security guards watched over the crowd that gathered to watch them eat from across the street.Good food, nice wine, nice conversation, mutual respect and a crowd of well-wishers … when was the last time you had a date that dope?Anyway, let's take our minds off that with a few pictures Barack and Justin.Feel better? Us,...

Is Stephen Curry looking to dominate yet another sport?In an interview with David Feherty that aired on the Golf Channel this past Monday night, Curry said,  "I’ve thought about it," when asked about joining the world of professional golf.According to MSN, Curry's favorite sport other than basketball is golf and he loves to play the NBA offseason.He calls it "1B on [his] list of passions." Since he enjoys the game so much, it looks like it's not outside the realm of possibility that the two-time MVP will head to the PGA after retiring from the NBA. Per Feherty, Curry even once said that he preferred a green jacket from the Masters Tournament over an NBA championship.“I have the passion for the game, I think, to fight through whatever it would take,” the 29-year-old player said. “I don’t know if it’s in the cards after I’m done playing, but I will still be playing golf until (my NBA career) is over.” It's unsure when that will be since he's still in his prime at the moment.Of course, Curry doesn't think he can just waltz his way onto the green. He definitely respects the craft noting, "I don't think I could, obviously, just jump out there … it'd be a lot of work that would go into it."Who would join in Steph Curry's dream golf outing? Tiger Woods, Barack Obama and his father Dell Curry. He's already well on his way, scratching off two of those on his list: his father and Obama.So ... Tiger Woods, what's...

Obama seemed to come from nowhere.It was as if he’d been created fresh hours before his DNC speech, the perfect candidate, perfect husband, perfect American, perfect man.A new book by Pulitzer Prize winner David J. Garrow tries to figure out just where Obama came from, and how he came to be the president he was. Called Rising Star: The Making of Barack Obama, the book, according to The Washington Post, is dark, tough on Obama, and more than a little messy.Garrow’s Obama is a man who is coldly calculating, and who made himself what he needed to be in order to get what he wanted: the presidency of the United States of America. The book alleges that young Obama was a fiction writer who wanted to change communities; that he identified as multicultural, and lived with a woman he loved who was not Michelle, but a woman of Japanese-Dutch ancestry named Sheila Miyoshi Jager.Things were wonderful; the couple was in love — Barack asked her to marry him. She wanted to, but her parents told her to wait a while, until she was older.Jager took their advice, and then there was a change. “He became … so very ambitious,” almost overnight, Jager told Garrow, “I remember very clearly when this transformation happened, and I remember very specifically that by 1987, about a year into our relationship, he had already had his sights on becoming president.”After that, Jager says, the couple became, “an island unto ourselves,” especially as Obama began to craft his political persona. No longer would he allow anyone to call him “Barry,” no longer was he mixed, no longer was he uninterested in Christianity. And no longer could he date a white woman.“The lines are very clearly drawn,” friends remember Obama saying as he discussed running for office, “If I am going out with a white woman, I have no standing.”Garrow writes, “He felt trapped between the woman he loved and the destiny he knew was his,” and describes very public fights, as well as passionate arguments between the couple in front of their friends that always seemed to end with the two making a quick exit for loud make-up sex.The next part you know: Obama went to Harvard. Jager went to Korea for her dissertation, upset — Barack had asked her to come to Cambridge with him, to put her career on hold.Garrow has some juicy tidbits about Obama at Harvard as well — that he wasn’t the cool young man we imagine, but a slightly insufferable know-it-all, saved socially only by the fact that he did actually have to intellect to back up his constantly running mouth.And too, that while dating Michelle, Obama continued to see Jager behind her back once she’d won a prestigious teaching fellowship at Harvard thanks to her time in Korea. Obama and Jager cut off all contact after Barack and Michelle got married; despite this, Garrow reports that the couple we all now think of as goals got off to a rocky start, with Michelle pressuring Barack to leave the political scene for a high paying job in law, much to his constant irritation.And there’s more, from Obama’s cocaine habit to his dismissiveness with his children — Garrow’s book is a tome, over 1,000 pages — and he has very carefully uncovered all of the things our former president did that were maybe not the best.If you’d like to find out more and check it Garrow’s profile for yourself, the book is out now from William...

Seems like Washington talking heads have been drinking all that drained swamp water.Yesterday, there was the Sean Spicer-April Ryan debacle, and also Bill O’Reilly apologizing for talking about Rep. Maxine Waters’ hair.Now, while Maxine Waters was busy being too busy for this sort of foolishness, and Twitter used the opportunity to turn a day of negativity into a #BlackWomenAtWork positive, Democratic consultant Angela Rye was trading barbs with former Illinois representative and current talk radio host, Joe Walsh.This is why you served ONE term in the house, playboy. You're listening skills? Wack. Reading comprehension? More wack. #trollELSEWHERE https://t.co/HaC4O2pOI2— a. rye✊🏾 (@angela_rye) March 28, 2017Try again, you LAME! You guys STAY TWISTING WORDS! https://t.co/WYjgCFWOMw— a. rye✊🏾 (@angela_rye) March 28, 2017That’s just a little sampling of how things went down.Apparently not one to know when he’s beaten, Walsh appeared with Rye on CNN today to continue his defense of Sean Spicer and Donald Trump while complaining that Rye and others are all too quick to pull the race card.Walsh was also called on to defend himself for this tweet he sent out yesterday:.@angela_rye And your way wrong on your main point Angela. We LOWERED the bar for Obama. He was held to a lower standard cuz he was black. https://t.co/OMXphLZUTj— Joe Walsh (@WalshFreedom) March 28, 2017Rye framed her frustration at the accusation that Obama was held to a lower standard than other presidents by rolling out facts about our current commander-in-chief. Trump, Rye said, has “not one, not two, but three baby mothers,” is “someone who took a loan from their father that they call a small loan of $1 million,” “someone who discriminated against people who were just trying to find spots in his housing facilities” and “someone who took out full page ads calling for the deaths of five young black and brown boys.” She asked if Obama could have been president had even one of those things applied to him.Walsh had no response. When asked directly about his tweets yesterday, Walsh refused to take the out offered by the anchor, instead doubling down. “We elected our first black president. That was a big deal. And because of that, we lowered the standard,” he said, and also attacked the media, saying that Obama, “was held to a very low standard because the media so loved him.”That went over well with his CNN host, as you might imagine. It was very clear at conversation’s end that no minds were changed, sadly. Still, if nothing else, the sparring match allowed Angela Rye to express something on national television that I’m sure many of you lovely Blavity readers have felt. “It’s very frustrating,” she said, “I’m tired of people telling me that black people are beneath a standard when we have to be twice as good all the time.”Check out the full video...

I've known I was not “straight” all my life. I was sure I was gay around age 14. And it was challenging being young and gay - and black.In those early years, when I was discovering myself and attempting to find people to relate to, seeking out in others something that is invisible to the eye, and complicated for oneself to even recognize, felt impossible.Today, when it comes to LGBTQ visibility, it’s a lot more widespread. There are actors (Neil Patrick Harris comes to mind), major city council members (New York City’s James G. Van Bramer), musicians (Sam Smith is super vocal) and news anchors (hey, Anderson Cooper). It also seems to be a requirement now for new TV shows to include an LGBTQ character. There’s a bit of real representation. Almost.Those examples are all great and inspiring and stuff, but in real life, where’s the prominent, influential, black LGBTQ figure? And even more inconspicuous, the prominent, influential, black LGBTQ couple?A few days ago, I went to the world’s greatest resource for answers. Google.I searched “famous gay couples” and here’s what sprung up in my browser:Photo: Google (screenshot)Wanda Sykes makes a cameo with her beautiful French wife, Olivia Lou (she jokes that she’s “a minority in her own home” that includes her 5-year-old white twins), but are you expecting me to believe that there aren’t ANY prominent, black gay couples?!I’m not talking about the gay couples you see daily on social media sites (that’s too easy), but a preeminent public couple that mirrors a Jay Z and Beyoncé (or at least a John Legend and Chrissy Teigen) level of visibility and influence. A major black LGBTQ couple that isn’t caricatured, drama-filled or attention seeking, but authentic, settled and positively progressive.Let me slow down and back up a bit.You’re probably wondering why it matters? Who cares? Or maybe you’re even saying that a public figure’s relationship is really none of our business.That’s fair.However, to not see gay black couples on major platforms in major mainstream media outlets is unrealistic. There has to be a few out there in upper echelons. I also believe that the representation of even just one would be a huge step forward in the LGBTQ community, and society as a whole.Most of us operate on social constructs whether we care to admit it or not, and for the most part, it’s not necessarily a terrible thing (racism, or hate of any kind, is terrible though, but that’s another conversation). Social constructs are why most people aspire to attend college, live in monogamous relationships and also decide to get married (often in that order). But I can tell you first hand as a gay man, I have never had that.A serious desire for marriage? I legally couldn’t jump the broom until a couple of years ago. A homemaking partner of a working, money-making man? That idea is unfathomable. A monogamous public relationship? How, when the idea of holding hands in open view still frightens many black gay men more than Lorena Bobbitt with a butcher knife? To see a major, public, black gay relationship would teach, inspire and strip away negative notions for many. Wouldn’t you agree that the positive image of Barack and Michelle Obama’s relationship has influenced the formation of many strong, loving, black heterosexual relationships? What if there was a black LGBTQ couple representing in a similar way?Photo: Pete Souza—The White HouseWhy aren’t there any visible major, black LGBTQ partnerships? The African American community could partially be the blame...In 2012 when Frank Ocean (sort of) came out, there was a lot of love shown (some might even say that the revelation made him more popular than he already was), but everyone wasn’t with it. More recently, upon releasing his sophomore album Blonde (a full four years after his initial coming out), he still experienced lots of homophobic hate, with plenty of it coming from our own black community.Photo: TwitterAnd in an excerpt from a 2011 New York Times piece, CNN News anchor, Don Lemon, undeviatingly expressed his fear of being a black man and coming out:“It’s quite different for an African-American male,” [Lemon] said. “It’s about the worst thing you can be in black culture. You’re taught you have to be a man; you have to be masculine. In the black community they think you can pray the gay away.” He said he believed the negative reaction to male homosexuality had to do with the history of discrimination that still affects many black Americans, as well as the attitudes of some black women.We can point to religion, the push for black men to portray a macho position, or a “standard” he must uphold for the black community, but whatever the case, when your own shuns and ridicules you for living in your truth, why would one take it further and expose their black love to it as well? Sounds like double trouble, and who wants to live through that on a daily basis?We can’t deny that public figures are powerful emblems that have shaped how we lived and viewed the world for generations. Gay public figures are finally adding to that. We now need to see important, real, black LGBTQ couples to normalize a view of love that totally exists, but is less than barely regarded.I returned to Google that night some days ago to do a “hetero" version of the search I performed earlier (simply “famous couples” this time).Here’s what I found:Photo: Google (screenshot)Yes. Just a few sprinkles of major, public, black straight love, but unlike its gay counterpart, at least it’s...

If you’ve had the opportunity to visit the National Museum of African-American History and Culture in Washington, D.C, you can attest to the fact that the experience is nothing short of breathtaking. The meticulous planning of every detail that goes into the placement of the close to 37,000 objects on display contributes to the flow, aesthetic, and overall experience. Organizing these artifacts in a way that powerfully communicates the stories of the many trailblazers, visionaries and history makers who helped shaped this great nation is no small feat, but design firm, Ralph Appelbaum Associates executed the job with precision.It was announced on Tuesday that the New York-based firm responsible for some of the country’s largest and most notable museum designs, including the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., and the Rose Center for Earth and Space at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, has been tapped by the Obama Foundation to lead the planning for the exhibits at Barack Obama’s presidential library in Chicago. “We are honored to lead this incredible exhibition design team and to collaborate with the Obama Foundation to help develop a presidential center that reflects the dynamism and openness of the Obama presidency and encourages and supports civic engagement,” founder Ralph Appelbaum said. Appelbaum, who also helped to design the exhibition spaces in former President Bill Clinton’s library in Little Rock, AK., will work together with a team of Chicago firms, that know the city and the South Side very well, to design the exhibition spaces in Obama’s library and museum when it’s built in Jackson Park. Obama met with community leaders in Chicago last week to begin fundraising for the construction of the library. We look forward to seeing Obama’s Presidential Library house his legacy on the South Side of Chicago.Never miss a headline! Sign up for Blavity's daily...