Black Kos, Week In Review - The first Woman Neurosurgeon in the United States

Commentary: Black Scientists, Explorers, and Inventors By dopper0189, Black Kos Managing EditorDr. Alexa Canady-Davis was the first Woman and first African American to become a Neurosurgeon in the United States. She was born Alexa Irene Canady on November 7, 1950 in Lansing, Michigan. Her parents were professionals; her father, Dr. Clinton Canady, Jr. worked as a dentist and her mother, Elizabeth Canady (née Golden) was a professional educator and national president of Delta Sigma Theta, Inc., a Black sorority. Graduates of Fisk University and civil rights activists, they married on Elizabeth’s nineteenth birthday. Early in their marriage, Clinton served in World War II and after, graduated from Meharry Medical College. Elizabeth would be the first African-American elected to the Lansing Board of Education.The Canady couple strongly and lovingly instilled in Alexa and her younger brother, the values of being educated and industrious so she worked diligently. Reared outside of Lansing, the Canady children were the only African-American students in their school environments. Alexa often faced obstacles of racism and sexism that hindered her advancement. There are even accounts of educators sabotaging her learning and accomplishments, including one who regularly switched Canady’s exceptional work with that of a low-achieving student. However, Alexa was powerfully encouraged by her parents, especially her mother, to continue to excel. Nominated as a National Achievement Scholar in 1967, she graduated with honors from high school.Matriculating the University of Michigan, Alexa Canady selected to major in mathematics and became a member of Delta Sigma Theta, like her mother. However, she soon experienced the same struggles as those during her earlier school years. The stress of facing these obstacles were so severe, she considered dropping out because, according to her biography profiled on Changing the Face of Medicine website, “I had a crisis of confidence.”However, after her junior year, she attended a university summer program for minority students where she worked in the genetics laboratory of Dr. Art Bloom. She also attended a clinic on genetic counseling. After this experience, she “fell in love with medicine”, according to the aforementioned website. On it, Canady credits Bloom as one of her mentors who “opened my eyes to the joy of life.”Remaining enrolled, Canady changed her major to zoology and graduated with a Bachelor of Science from the University of Michigan in 1971. Receiving minority fellowships based significantly on her academic work, she entered the University of Michigan Medical School, where she graduated cum laude, earning her M.D. in 1975. All too often, Alexa Canady was underestimated and discouraged. However, she remained inspired to continue on her path in medicine.She initially studied internal medicine. Some of her professors attempted to dissuade her because she was an African-American woman but fortunately, her advisors supported her. After her first two years, she elected to switch her focus and began to study neurosurgery. Canady delved into this specialty and her active involvement extended to attending conferences and networking. In 1975, she ultimately received an internship at Yale-New Haven Hospital. She was the first Black and first female accepted into this prestigious program.The same obstacles of racism and sexism challenged her. There is one instance, featured on the Changing the Face of Medicine site that Canady recalled. She relayed, “As a young Black woman completing her surgical internship at Yale-New Haven Hospital in 1975, on her first day of residency, [I] was tending to [my] patients when one of the hospital’s top administrators passed through the ward. As he went by, [I] heard him say, ‘Oh, you must be our new equal-opportunity package.’”Read more here-->~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~News round up by dopper0189, Black Kos Managing Editor~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Former President Barack Obama is bringing his star power to the Harris-Walz campaign in the final days before Americans cast their votes for the 47th president of the United States. The Grio: Obama seen as ideal to rally Black voters for Kamala Harris, but some see limitations~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Many Democrats see Obama, the 44th president and America’s first Black commander-in-chief, as an effective and, perhaps, necessary surrogate for mobilizing the broad and diverse coalition of voters he garnered in both the 2008 and 2012 presidential elections. He is especially deployed this election cycle to talk directly to Black voters.Austin Davis, the lieutenant governor of Pennsylvania, a crucial battleground state that Obama will visit next week, told theGrio that former President Obama is “probably the most effective surrogate we have in the Democratic Party today ... He can move numbers.”As the predecessor of Donald Trump, Obama has a level of understanding about the former Republican president’s record and can “educate” Black communities about why a second Trump administration is a threat to them, says Jamarr Brown, executive director of Color of Change PAC.He told theGrio, “Barack Obama, being our first Black president, still sits very well in our community.”Brown added, “So President Obama campaigning in places like Las Vegas, campaigning in Arizona and Georgia, going to Wisconsin ... it’s going to be super important.”~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~LOL LOL LOL The property Giuliani must relinquish is expected to fetch several million dollars Associated Press: Rudy Giuliani ordered to turn over NYC apartment and 26 watches to Georgia election workers~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Rudy Giuliani must turn over sports memorabilia and other prized possessions to two Georgia election workers who won a $148 million defamation judgment against him, including his New York City apartment, more than two dozen luxury watches and a 1980 Mercedes once owned by movie star Lauren Bacall, a judge ruled Tuesday.But U.S. District Judge Lewis Liman in Manhattan also said Giuliani does not have to give the election workers three New York Yankees World Series rings or his Florida condominium — for now — noting those assets are tied up in other litigation.The property Giuliani must relinquish is expected to fetch several million dollars for Ruby Freeman and her daughter, Wandrea “Shaye” Moss. They won the $148 million judgment over Giuliani’s false ballot fraud claims against them related to the 2020 presidential election. They said Giuliani pushed Donald Trump’s lies about the election being stolen, which led to death threats that made them fear for their lives.Under Tuesday’s order, Giuliani must relinquish within seven days his Manhattan apartment, estimated at more than $5 million, as well as his interest in about $2 million that he says Trump’s 2020 presidential campaign owes him for his services.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Ansché Hedgepeth is appalled that despite her lawsuit, brutal child arrests continue in D.C.Washington Post: She was arrested 24 years ago for eating a french fry on the Metro~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~It was 24 years ago that Ansché Hedgepeth got the nickname heard around the world, a name she hated as a kid: “French Fry Girl.”She was 12 when a Metro cop handcuffed and arrested her, took the laces out of her sneakers, put her in the back of a squad car, drove her to police headquarters and fingerprinted her. Her crime? Eating a fry in a D.C. Metro station.Her case made international news and made her a figure in the confirmation of Supreme Court Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., who ruled in a 2004 opinion that Hedgepeth’s Fourth Amendment rights were not violated, even if the transit officers overreacted.“No one is very happy about the events that led to this litigation,” Roberts, then a circuit judge on the U.S. District Court in D.C., wrote in that opinion.“A twelve-year-old girl was arrested, searched, and handcuffed. Her shoelaces were removed, and she was transported in the windowless rear compartment of a police vehicle to a juvenile processing center, where she was booked, fingerprinted, and detained until released to her mother some three hours later — all for eating a single french fry in a Metrorail station,” Roberts wrote. “The child was frightened, embarrassed, and crying throughout the ordeal.” ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Centering Black feminism and anti-racism, Paulino’s work is being celebrated from New York’s High Line to the Tate Modern. The Guardian: Afro-Brazilian artist Rosana Paulino is suturing the past to the present~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~In 1865, the French photographer Augusto Stahl made images of a naked Black woman in Rio de Janeiro. They show the unidentified woman – Stahl didn’t bother to record her name – facing the camera, in profile, and from behind, in a sequence that inevitably recalls police mugshots.Stahl was working for the Swiss-American biologist Louis Agassiz, a professor of natural history at Harvard University, who had commissioned photos of “pure” Black people to support his racist theories, such as the idea that miscegenation would lead to inferior human beings.“The images affected me deeply, but I didn’t know what to do with them,” said the Brazilian artist Rosana Paulino, 57, who recalls first encountering them while reading a book in 2011. “I took a photo of the page and put it in a drawer.”About a year and a half later, she transformed it into a work of art, Assentamento, named after the altars of Afro-Brasilian religions. The photographs, printed life-size on fabric, are adorned with embroidery of a heart, a foetus and roots. Each one is then cut into four parts and “sutured” together – with some misalignment, to represent the psychic and physical scars borne by generations of black Brazilians. Each picture is flanked by two mounds of paper clay arms piled up like firewood to symbolize the way Black bodies were consumed as fuel for Brazil’s economic growth.This year, Assentamento was one of the main attractions of the first solo exhibition by a Black female artist held at the Buenos Aires Museum of Latin American Art (Malba), which was visited by 72,000 people between March and June.Rosana Paulino’s Assentamento (2013), on view at the Buenos Aires Museum of Latin American Art (Malba) in 2024. Photograph: Felipe Bozzani~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~It is mined in Africa, traded in Dubai and lucrative for warlords and jihadists. The Economist: Gold is booming. So is the dirty business of digging it up~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~“It keeps getting worse and worse,” sighs Camry Tagoe, an activist in Accra, the capital. “If you look at Google maps, Ghana has turned from green to brown.” Over the past month Mr Tagoe has helped organise protests across the city that call for an end to “galamsey”, or wildcat gold mining. Long a way of getting by in the west African country, it has exploded in recent years, damaging forests and polluting water. The protesters blame politicians, many of whom own mining firms, for letting the practice get out of control. Galamsey is a crucial issue ahead of elections on December 7th.Ghana, the largest gold producer on the continent, exemplifies Africa’s new gold rush. The gold price has doubled since 2019, to a record high of more than $2,700 per troy ounce, promising higher margins for industrial miners but also encouraging more artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM). Nearly half of the roughly 1,000 tonnes of gold produced in Africa every year is mined in this way. It is the largest source of jobs in rural Africa, save for farming, so a sustained gold boom could mean higher incomes for some very poor people. At the same time it could damage ecosystems and people’s health. Much ASM is legal, but a lot is untaxed and unregulated. In a report in May Swissaid, an NGO, estimated that the amount of smuggled gold more than doubled from 2012 to 2022. Once again, African states are missing out on the full benefits of a commodity boom.The latest rush has several new elements. The first is the breadth of the irregularity: there are 12 countries, including Ghana, that each account for at least 20 tonnes of smuggled gold every year (see chart). The second is that, despite the artisanal label, a lot of ASM is fairly industrial, partly because of Chinese miners and their bulldozers and excavators. In Ghana some are infamous. Last year Aisha Huang, dubbed the “galamsey queen”, was sentenced to prison for mining without a licence, among other offences.Another feature is the growth of Dubai as a refining hub. Gold exports from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) went up more than 60-fold between 2002 and 2022; gold is now the most valuable export from the UAE after hydrocarbon products. The Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime, an NGO based in Geneva, argues that Dubai’s “no questions asked” approach to African gold encourages illicit trade. In 2022 around two-thirds of the African gold imported into the UAE was smuggled from African countries, according to Swissaid. (The UAE says it is not accountable for other countries’ records and that it is adopting policies to curb money-laundering using gold.)~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~WELCOME TO THE FRIDAY PORCHIF YOU ARE NEW TO THE BLACK KOS COMMUNITY, GRAB A SEAT, SOME CYBER EATS, RELAX, AND INTRODUCE YOURSELF.