Article posted on Atlanta Blackstar (click link for original)

This is quite interesting…

 

By

Tanasia Kenney

December 9, 2016

A photo of a Black man gladly shaking hands with a Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard is enough to raise a few eyebrows. Critics have called him crazy for trying to befriend members of the notorious hate group, but blues musician Daryl Davis remains undeterred in his quest to change the hearts and minds of white bigots.

According to the Los Angeles Times, Davis, a traveling blues musician who’s played with the likes of Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis, has spent the past few decades collecting over a dozen Klan robes from members who’ve disavowed their white supremacist views. Now, a documentary chronicling his idealistic journey is set to debut in Los Angeles on Friday, Dec. 9.

The film, “Accidental Courtesy” by director Matt Ornstein, follows Davis as he travels to Confederate memorials, churches and even Klansmen’s homes to try and inform white supremacists of the history of Blacks in America, while opening their eyes to the unnecessary hatred they’ve harbored toward African-Americans for so long.

His goal? To find ways of coming together as a nation, especially during this trying time of heightened racial tensions between Black and white Americans. For the musician, fostering tough conversations about race is a major part of fighting racism.

“How can you hate me when you don’t even know me?” Davis asks in the film. “Look at me and tell me to my face why you would lynch me.”

With frustrated Americans still reeling from the recent back-to-back shootings of unarmed Black men by police and the inflammatory nationalist rhetoric that propelled Donald Trump to the U.S. presidency, many could argue that this is one of the most divisive times in our nation’s history. Over 1,000 hate crimes and acts of intimidation have happened since the election, but Davis said this isn’t history repeating itself; rather, it’s history that never went away.

“I did not vote for Donald Trump and I do not support him, but I believe that Trump is the best thing to happen to this country in a long time,” Davis said in an interview. “He’s bringing out the country’s ugliness. There’s no turning a blind eye anymore.”

Naturally, critics of Davis’ idealistic outlook on repairing race relations has ruffled a few feathers, prompting push back from the Black community. One of the robe-collecting Black man’s critics is a well-known activist out of Baltimore named Kwame Rose, who marched through the city streets following the death of Freddie Gray.

“Infiltrating the Klan ain’t freeing your people,” says Rose during a sit-down with Davis in the film. “You’re uneducated about the reality of most of the people who look like you. … Stop wasting your time going to people’s houses who don’t love you, a house where they want to throw you under the basement. White supremacists can’t change.”

Even members of the NAACP have chewed him up and spit him out.

“[He said] ‘You know, we’ve worked hard to get 10 steps forward,’” Davis recalls. “‘Here you are sitting down with the enemy having dinner. You’re putting us 20 steps back.’”

So why the fascination with getting white supremacists to change their ways?

In a sit-down with The Atlantic last year, Davis chronicled his early childhood overseas, as well as his first brush with discrimination in the U.S. He recalled having cans, bottles and rocks thrown at him during a Massachusetts Boy Scouts march in 1968, as he was the only Black scout there. Years later, the head of the American Nazi Party came in as a speaker to his 10th-grade class, telling him, “We’re going to ship you back to Africa. And all you Jews out there are going back to Israel. If they don’t leave voluntarily, they will be exterminated in the coming race war.”

And that’s when his interest in everything race related was piqued.

In the years since his journey began, Davis has joined an all-white country band, attended KKK rallies and accepted a “certificate of friendship” from the Traditionalist American Knights of the KKK, The Los Angeles Times reported. He’s even the godfather of former Klan Imperial Wizard Roger Kelly’s granddaughter.

Kelly was one of the first to extend his hand and hand over his robe to Davis when he quit the Klan. Twelve other ex-Klansmen followed suit, according to The Atlantic. The blues musician said he hopes to one day showcase all of his collected Klan memorabilia in a “Museum of the Klan.”

Davis said he didn’t originally set out to “convert” white supremacists, only to foster discussion around race issues in order to put a dent in racism. He said some of them simply changed themselves after multiple conversations with him.

“The most important thing I learned is that when you are actively learning about someone else, you are passively teaching them about yourself,” Davis said. “So if you have an adversary with an opposing point of view, give that person a platform. Allow them to air that point of view, regardless of how extreme it may be.”

Hey, they don’t have to be “politically correct” with this information.

Just tell it like it is.

The Melanin-Dominant have superior temples, baby! This is nothing new, unless you’ve been sipping the Western philosophy nonsense (which most of us have our entire lives.)

Ho-hum, Ho-hum.

The truth always makes its way back to the surface one way or another. You can only hide and suppress it for so long. 

 Spread the knowledge. Let the truth set our people free!

Originally posted on Atlanta Blackstar (click link for original)

Various scientific studies have shown that human populations respond differently to immune system challenges. But a newly published cell research study suggests that humans of African descent have a genetic advantage over their European peers.

According to findings from two studies published in the Journal Cell, people of African ancestry have a stronger immune response to infection than do people of European ancestry. The first-of-its-kind findings could lead researchers to future treatments in reducing chronic illness in African-Americans.

The first study, led by Luis Barreriro, assistant professor at the University of Montreal’s Department on Pediatrics, was conducted by extracting white blood cells from 175 Americans; 80 from African decent and 95 from European descent, DailyTech.com reports. Those cells were then injected with salmonella and listeria bacteria, as researchers monitored the response in a controlled lab environment.

Researchers found that almost 24 hours after infection, the white blood cells of Black Americans had destroyed the harmful bacteria three times faster than the white blood cells of European Americans did.

“The strength of the immune response was directly related to the percentage of genes derived from African ancestors,” Barriero said. “Basically, the more African you have in your genome, the stronger you’re going to respond to infection.”

The second study, which analyzed genetic differences in RNA sequencing between African and European genomes, found that the introduction of Neanderthal variations into the European genome resulted in decreased pro-inflammatory immune responses to infections of people of European ancestry. Researchers from the Pasteur Institute in France suspect that the genetic variations between African-Americans and whites can be traced to the fact that Neanderthals helped colonize Europe, not Africa, before they went extinct.

While both studies concluded that African-American immune systems are more effective at fighting off bacteria and infections, Barriero made sure not to label the immune systems of African descendants as “better” than ones of European descent. The downside to having a strengthened immune system is that leaves African-Americans susceptible to developing inflammatory auto-immune diseases like Lupus and Crohn’s disease, he noted.

“The genes and pathways we’ve identified constitute good candidates to explain differences we are seeing in disease between the two population groups,” Barriero stated. ” … Our results demonstrate how historical selective events continue to shape human phenotypic diversity today, including for traits that are key to controlling infection.’”

There’s been a long-held belief that African-Americans are genetically inferior to whites, highlighting the role that racial bias plays in the fields of medicine and science. Another study published earlier this year examined racism among medical professionals and its impact on disparate health outcomes between Black and white patients.

“Implicit bias and false beliefs are common — indeed, we all hold them — and it’s incumbent on us to challenge them, especially when we see them contributing to health inequities,” the report read.

Per DailyTech.com, future cell research studies will examine the influence of other factors like environment and behavior on differences in immune response. It’s hoped that future studies like the ones conducted by Barriero and French researcher Lluis Quintana-Murci of France’s Pasteur Institute will finally put these myths of Black inferiority to bed.