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In a new public service announcement released on Monday, former president Barack Obama urged people to sign up for health insurance before the December 15th deadline. “No jump shots. No ferns. No memes,” Obama tweeted Monday morning. “Not this time. I’m going to give it to you straight: If you need health insurance for 2019, […]

The post Barack Obama Urges Obamacare Sign-Ups In New PSA appeared first on Essence.

The Grammy- nominated rapper credits her soon-to-be ex with making her wiser and more

Meet Shanae Jones, an herbalist and the founder of Ivy’s Tea Co., an organic line of locally-sourced, handcrafted teas, tisanes, and herb-infused sweeteners. Inspired by childhood teatime with her grandmother, Jones launched Ivy’s Tea Co., and combined hip-hop and herbalism so she could teach herbalism in a fun and refreshing way—while making the holistic health and tea market more inclusive.

Consumers of Ivy’s Tea have purchased teas to help with a variety of ailments such as the flu and severe menstrual cramps:

“Our ‘Sister Sister 2’ tea relies on stinging nettles, a mineral-rich herb, to help women manage menstrual pain,” said Jones. “We’ve also had a customer use our ‘What the Flu?’ tea to make Elderberry syrup for herself and her daughter. ‘What the Flu?’ is a blend of elderberries, ginger root, and turmeric to help support the immune system, especially during the fall and winter seasons when we’re resting less, eating fewer leafy vegetables and getting much less sun than usual — these all help improve the immune system, too.”

In addition to selling herbal tea, Jones provides a wealth of online education and provides philanthropic support to make an impact on the lives of others—specifically in the black community. If Jones has her way, you’ll never look at a cup of tea the same way again. We caught up with Jones to talk tea culture, benefits, and holistic medicine myths and misconceptions.

What makes Ivy’s Tea Co. so unique? 

Consider this: What if your hot beverage connected with your identity? Most of us cannot say that our experience buying tea (or coffee or kombucha or any other wellness beverage for that matter) really connects with who we are. Current herbal tea companies on the market are just not inclusive — at all. The others that verge outside of typical western herbal remedies bring to the market what I would call wellness porn — really pushing a strict and regimented lifestyle that includes hours of meditation, ritualism, and yoga, but some people just want herbal tea. And Ivy’s Tea Co. provides that. We’re committed to bringing -lack culture to the herbal tea company industry.

Beyond that, our teas are high quality, organic, and hand-blended by an herbalist. Many come to our site intrigued by the catchy product names (e.g., Green Bae, Pusha Tea, #TrapTea Holiday Gift Set) and funny product descriptions, but they all walk away informed about some aspect of herbalism and that’s what makes us so unique.

Our most popular selling tea is our staple tea and the first tea we brought to market, Rise & Grind, a black tea with coconut and vanilla. It’s a full leaf black tea full of flavor with a hint of coconut, the vanilla rounds out the sip.

Let’s talk about some of the myths or misconceptions of holistic medicine. If a person has a certain illness, like high blood pressure, do they have to choose holistic medicine in lieu of prescribed medicine? Or can they choose both?

Of course, you can choose both. That’s true holistic living — being balanced in accordance with your own body and lifestyle. With the right health care professional, an informed consumer will find that holistic medicine can work well with prescriptions from your doctor. Sometimes, there are contraindications between herbs and prescribed meds, which is why it’s so important to talk to your doctor before you begin any herbal medicine regimen. On the flip side, holistic medicine is not always taking herbal medicine, sometimes it’s meditation, journaling, spending more time with family and friends, taking a vacation, etc.

Ivy’s Tea

Does alternative medicine only offer placebo effects?

No way. I’ve seen alternative medicine work; not just for myself, but for others. It requires time, patience, and a lifestyle change. Take something like insomnia for example. Many people end up using herbs to treat the symptoms and not the cause. While you can use conventional medicine to treat symptoms, most times, herbal medicine just doesn’t work like that.

Can you share your perspectives on the importance of holistic medicine, especially in communities of color who suffer more from heart disease, diabetes, etc?

Holistic living, particularly as it pertains to simple dietary changes, for example, can make significant improvements in the lives of black and brown people. We’re not even talking about going to the health food store and spending money on expensive essential oils or superfood powders. We’re talking about eating more fresh fruits and vegetables, adding garlic and ginger to the diet, using more spices, etc. Holistic living can be one of the most affordable ways to improve the quality of life.

As it pertains to heart disease and obesity, your diet can change your DNA – your diet includes what you eat, but also what you see, what you speak, and what you feel. Making that change with holistic living from the inside out (or the outside in, depending on your circumstances) can be the biggest act of self-love and self-care.

The post Shanae Jones is Using Herbalism and Hip-Hop to Change the Way You Think of Tea and Holistic Health appeared first on Black Enterprise.

Michael Arceneaux, author of I Can’t Date Jesus: Love, Sex, Family, Race, and Other Reasons I’ve Put My Faith in Beyoncé, is breaking barriers and assisting in bringing necessary diversity to our bookshelves. Arceneaux is all shades of amazing – he’s a black, gay, millennial man from Houston, Texas, doing his thing. When BLACK ENTERPRISE asked how he feels about the ceilings he has crashed through, he replied, “I have a habit of being extremely hard on myself because I’m always thinking about the next goal, but I have tried very hard to make sure that I take in this moment as much as possible.”

He’s also very aware of societal stigmas that keep marginalized folks back. “I’m Black, I’m gay, I’m country, and from a working-class family,” he said, adding, “I am proud of myself for getting to this point. I am also truly happy that I am helping make it easier for others like me to share their stories, and ideally, take them even further.”

Becoming The Cardi B of Lit

The New York Times best-seller list is an unfathomable dream for most authors. The allure of it has always been there, but the difficulty and rarity of it happening has left many discouraged. Arceneaux, however, says he’s honored to join this elite class of writers. “I’m fortunate and very much grateful that everything aligned the week my book was released and I was fortunate enough to make the list.” He added, “Now, other black writers, black queer, and queer writers, southern black writers, or some combination of these can cite my book in their proposals and show publishers that our stories are not niche.”

It wasn’t a stroke a luck, however. Arceneaux is a brilliant writer with a unique, hilarious style. The former Howard University grad has been writing for many years for the likes of Essence, Complex, and The Root. He has also been featured on BET, MSNBC, VH1, The Breakfast Club, and CBS.

Needless to say, he has built a solid platform and name for himself in the industry. He is a blue-tick certified, Wikipedia-page-having, New York-Times-appearing real deal. A very humble and admirably transparent real deal. He mentioned that he received the news of making the list on a terrible day,

“I was questioning aspects of my life and choices and then my agent called me while I was at the gym and everything just felt lighter in that moment. It reminded me that I am going to be okay because I always am. Also, made me think of my friend Nakisha, who always tells me to chill out because every goal I said I would achieve eventually happens.”

While so many have been grabbing his best-seller off of shelves, his parents aren’t tuned into this aspect of his life and still have not read it. The family members who have, on the other hand, are proud of him and have opened up to him in ways they hadn’t before. As for his friends, some are getting a kick out of the response he has been receiving. “I think some of my friends – like the ones who don’t live in NY – are kind of surprised at the different types of people who know I am alive. One, in particular, could not believe so many white folks showed up to a book event I did in Baltimore. My response at the time was, ‘Me either, but I told you I was gon’ crossover and become the Cardi B of lit.'”

Life Has Been No Crystal Stair

The most difficult part of the author’s journey was getting others to believe what he already knew – that there was an audience for books like his. “Getting people to believe black gay me was not ‘niche’ and finding the balance between writing to support myself and working on my book, which ideally would get me over that hump.”

Getting an agent and publisher behind him wasn’t an easy feat for Arceneaux either. “I had envisioned a book idea some eight, nine years ago, but it took a very long time to convince the people necessary to make it happen (an agent and a publisher) to get behind me.”

I Can’t Date Jesus & Future Projects

I Can’t Date Jesus: Love, Sex, Family, Race and Other Reasons I Put My Faith in Beyoncé launched on July 24, 2018, from 37 Ink/Atria Books/Simon & Schuster. His publishing house describes the book as, “A timely collection of alternately hysterical and soul-searching essays about what it is like to grow up as a creative, sensitive black man in a world that constantly tries to deride and diminish your humanity.”

There have not been many books I’ve read this year that made me laugh out loud, while at the same time reflect and question the world around me. Arceneaux’s book did just that. It was both humorous and inspiring. To my surprise, he didn’t think too much about the message while writing.

“I don’t really intend anything for the reader beyond making them laugh and making them think. I knew that I set out to write the book I wish I had growing up, but I try not to think too much on what the reader will take from what I write. I like to hear them tell me. And honestly, the response has been overwhelmingly positive. So many different types of people have reached out and it means a lot because there was concern from people I met in publishing about the book — that my identity made me have limited appeal. Meanwhile, white folks in their 70s are constantly emailing me to say they love my book with plenty of references they have never heard of (like Pimp C lyrics).”

It is no surprise that so many resonate with his words. His book grabs you from the very first sentence in the dedication, sharing the story of being told by an old high school classmate that he’d end up working at Burger King because he majored in journalism. Fortunately for fans of Arceneaux’s writing, he has a new book coming out, entitled I Don’t Want to Die Poor. “It will be an expansion of the themes I touched on in an essay I penned for the New York Times’ Sunday Review about my struggles with private student loans. I think we need more stories about how many of us live with that debt.”

In five years’ time, he feels that he will still be writing books, but Arceneaux has much more in mind to use his voice to help the world around him through honest dialogue and laughter. “I plan to still be writing books but, I’ll be working primarily in television. I want to write and create shows, appear on camera, etc. I want to do speaking events, too, but I love television and I really want to lend my voice to the medium. My book was just the start of what I plan to make a long life of storytelling and shaking s–t up.”

Some Final Words for Beyoncé

Arceneaux’s love for Beyoncé is clear from the very beginning of the book, when he references the span of time since he last went to church by the amount of Beyoncé albums that had come out. The mentions of Queen Bey are side-splitting and his disdain for people who do not support her (Beytheists) is equally amusing. With this in mind, I had to know what he’d want her to know if she were to read this article. “Please read my book, my Lord and gyrator and fellow Houstonian. I talk real good about you. Also: girl, can you do that rap album for me already?”

If Arceneaux intrigues you, you’d love his book and rants on Twitter.

The post ‘I Can’t Date Jesus’ Best-selling Author Michael Arceneaux On Writing appeared first on Black Enterprise.