NSU, VCU: Graduation Season Begins; Pope Leo; X Account Investigates Extortion; Civil Rights Group Goes After Meta

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NEW PODCAST - EP51 🎙️ Democrats Field a Candidate in ALL of the 100 House of Delegates Seats with Fergie Reid, Jr.

Graduation Season Begins

Below: Spring graduates at Norfolk State University, graduation day at Virginia Commonwealth University features U.S. Senator Raphael Warnock (D-GA).

Black America Celebrates Heritage of Pope Leo XIV

By Stacy Brown for Black Press USA. The Pope’s factual anthropological roots are not just symbolic. According to genealogist Jari Honora, his maternal lineage traces directly to the Black community of New Orleans’ 7th Ward, with family ties to Haiti, and census records identifying his ancestors as “Black” or “Mulatto.”

Black America is taking pride in a truth shaking up the Vatican and resonating through the streets of New Orleans: Pope Leo XIV—formerly Cardinal Robert Prevost of Chicago—has Black and Creole roots.

The Pope’s factual anthropological roots are not just symbolic. According to genealogist Jari Honora, his maternal lineage traces directly to the Black community of New Orleans’ 7th Ward, with family ties to Haiti, and census records identifying his ancestors as “Black” or “Mulatto.” “By the Europeans’ own ‘1/8th’ rules, we have a Black Pope,” noted author Elie Mystal declared. “Anyway, Pope’s grandfather is Haitian.

We kind of got a Black Pope. ‘End Woke’ is not gonna be happy about this.” Further, New Orleans historian Jari Christopher Honora also speaking to the National Catholic Reporter and Black Catholic Messenger, detailed how the pope’s grandparents married in 1887 at Our Lady of the Sacred Heart Church on Annette Street in New Orleans before migrating north. His mother, Mildred Martínez, was the first child in the family born in Chicago. “The Holy Father’s ancestors are identified as either Black or Mulatto,” Honora said. Read entire article Black Press USA

Podcast 50 🎙️ John Reid, History… and Blackmail? With attorney and former Gov. L. Doug Wilder’s campaign manager Paul Goldman

Civil Rights Group Demands Meta Restore Content Rules and Fact Checking

New letter uplifts petition with 16,000 signatures in support of content moderation and fact checking across Meta platforms in the U.S., highlights failures of a Community Notes-only model

On May 8, The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights today called on Meta to reinstate robust content moderation and professional fact-checking across its U.S. platforms. The demand was backed by a petition signed by more than 16,000 concerned individuals nationwide, urging action to curb the spread of unchecked extremism on Meta’s networks.

The civil rights org is demanding that Meta restore its content moderation and fact-checking efforts, accusing the company of enabling hate speech, misinformation, and extremist rhetoric across its platforms.

From the Leadership Conference’s statement: In a sharply worded letter sent to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Maya Wiley, President and CEO of The Leadership Conference, condemned the company’s recent decisions, writing: “Social media platforms are supposed to be places we go to connect, to learn from each other, and to organize. Instead, in capitulating to Donald Trump and the extremist MAGA agenda, you’ve made Meta’s platforms into places where mis- and disinformation flourish alongside hate speech. Exposing your users to this dangerous content is a violation of your own policy and of basic human decency. Your users are taking notice.”

Meta officially phased out its fact-checking efforts in April, part of a broader rollback of content moderation policies seen across social media in recent months. The civil rights coalition warned that this shift is leaving millions vulnerable — particularly marginalized communities — to online abuse, targeted misinformation, and real-world harm fueled by dangerous online narratives.

The group cited threats and disinformation targeting immigrants, transgender youth, and reproductive rights as examples of the harms proliferating under Meta’s diminished oversight. Wiley and other advocates are calling for immediate action to protect users, restore platform accountability, and curb the influence of hate and extremism online.

Would you like a quote from a policy expert or background on Meta’s content moderation history added to this?

The letter also tackled Meta’s strategy of implementing “Community Notes” like those on X, which have failed in preventing the spread of harmful misinformation and violent discourse. According to research from the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH):

• X’s Community Notes failed to correct 74% of misleading election posts and allowed false narratives like the Springfield, Ohio immigrant hoax to spiral into mainstream discourse, spreading disinformation and causing harm.

• Misleading posts about U.S. elections that did not receive Community Notes received 2.2 billion views on X.

• Facebook and Instagram users could encounter at least 277 million more instances of hate speech and other harmful content each year because of Meta’s decision.

Wiley highlighted “[o]ne of the clearest examples of the failure of Community Notes is the false and repugnant rumor about Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio that dominated last election cycle. The disinformation began when an X account called End Wokeness (that reportedly belongs to alt-right influencer Jack Posobiec) constructed a false narrative out of an unverified post from a small Facebook group and a picture of a Black man holding a goose: the account spread that lie to their three million followers. The post on X did not receive a user-submitted Community Note debunking the claim until four days later, but by that point, the damage was done. In this instance, Community Notes were too slow and not enough to prevent this false, anti-immigrant narrative from paving the way for dangerous policies like the SAVE Act, which would limit voters’ access to the ballot box, and the terrifying ICE abductions we’ve witnessed.”

State of the People Tour Will Be in Richmond on May 16

The State of the People Power Tour is making its war around the nation. Below is the panel that took place in New Orleans on May 8.

NEW PODCAST - EP51 🎙️ Democrats Field a Candidate in ALL of the 100 House of Delegates Seats with Fergie Reid, Jr.

Digital Detective on X Analyzes Possible Extortion Against GOP nominee for LG John Reid

An investigative report posted at the X account @VAChangeAgent walks through the details of the history of the Tumblr account in question that was suddenly deleted when a story broke related to GOP LG nominee John Reid. The well known radio host was asked by Governor Glenn Youngkin to resign from the GOP ticket as the LG nominee on April 25. There is no evidence the Tumblr account in question was connected to Reid and he remains the GOP LG nominee. Click below to read the detective work of @VAChangeAgent

Virginia Teachers Struggle as History Guide Rollout Lags

By Nathaniel Cline. Virginia teachers are still flying blind months into a new school year — trying to adapt to overhauled history standards without the full set of instructional guides the state promised to help them navigate the change.

Since early April, the Virginia Department of Education has continued to publish its history instructional guides to help ​​prepare teachers to instruct students in the state’s updated history and social studies standards.

Superintendent of Public Instruction Emily Anne Gullickson said at the Board of Education’s March meeting that part of the delay stemmed from staff adding web links to primary and secondary sources in the guides. Since then, the agency has been releasing instructional guides for its history and social science courses on a weekly basis.

The department says the instructional guides provide educators with directions for implementing the recently adopted 2023 History and Social Science Standards of Learning, which replace the 2015 version.

Danyael Graham, president of the Virginia Social Studies Leaders Consortium, said teachers have already begun lesson planning and receiving training on the 2023 standards. Educators have also been required to start integrating the standards into their instruction. However, Graham said, it has been difficult to build effective lessons without the necessary guides that clarify what teachers need to know — particularly in preparation for state assessments.

She explained that the 2015 standards, along with their accompanying curriculum framework, provided detailed expectations for what students were supposed to learn. In contrast, the 2023 standards do not include a curriculum framework and instead rely on instructional guides, which teachers are still waiting on to fully adjust their lessons. Read entire here

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