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https://madamenoire.com/1205866/target-everspring/

Earlier this year, I started paying more attention to the products that I was using on my body and began my transition to clean beauty. However, I was surprised when my fixation on labels and ingredients grew and I began to focus on the cleaning products that I was using around the house.

While researching non-toxic household cleaning products, I remembered Everspring, the natural all-purpose cleaner I had purchased one year prior, and began digging to find out if the line had other product offerings. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that they did. In fact, the line features more than 70 Earth-friendly household items that range from laundry detergent to candles. It also didn’t hurt that the products are well-priced, too.

“Everspring is a great example of how we’re listening—and responding—to the evolving needs of our guests in a way that’s uniquely Target,” said Christina Hennington, senior vice president, general merchandise manager, Target in a statement last spring. “Guests can feel confident they’re purchasing essentials for their home that include ingredients and components they want and have the efficacy they need to get daily routines done. And, at prices nearly 20 percent less than comparable brands and a focus on fresh design, Everspring offers guests another compelling reason to stock up at Target.”

While I haven’t even scratched the surface of what Everspring has to offer yet, I did want to highlight some of my household favorites.

Lavender & Bergamot Laundry Detergent

One of my favorite products from the Everpsring line is the laundry detergent. While many commercial detergents contain harsh toxins and carcinogens, this item is non-toxic and made from mostly plant-derived ingredients. I had my reservations about using a natural detergent because I love for my laundry to have a fresh scent that lasts, but my concerns quickly subsided. Every load came out just as clean as they did when I used regular detergent and they had a lasting fresh scent. Best of all, $10.99 will get you 100 ounces.

Lemon & Mint Dishwasher Packs

The next thing that I was excited to try was the dishwasher packs. Although I always keep them up high and out of reach, there’s always the concern that my daughter would somehow get her hands on one and try to eat one and get sick. I was pleasantly surprised that the naturally-derived dishwasher packs from Everspring cleaned my dishes just as well as any other dishwasher packs without the harmful chemicals. Of course, they should still be placed out of the reach of children.

Lavender & Bergamot All-Purpose Cleaner

The all-purpose cleaner is ammonia-free and cleans exceptionally well. It has a subtle scent that is derived from 100 percent natural fragrances and it’s made of a 91% biodegradable formula.

Citrus  & Basil Multisurface Cleaning Wipes

I use multisurface wipes for cleaning just about every surface in my house including my daughter’s highchair tray and toys due to their non-toxic qualities. These are sturdy — very sturdy — and I also find it extremely convenient to keep a pack or two in the car for unexpected spills and messes.

https://www.essence.com/celebrity/pop-smoke-remembrance/

By Brooklyn White ·December 31, 2020December 31, 2020

Pop Smoke, the Canarsie-born rapper behind “Dior,” was tragically killed in Los Angeles in February 2020. He was a bright performer who was bringing a classic New York flavor back to hip-hop, while infusing his work with the sounds of UK Drill. Though his career was short, his impact on American youth and hip-hop is indelible.

The rapper, born Bashar Barakah Jackson, had begun gaining serious momentum during spring of 2019, with the release of “Welcome to the Party.” The high-octane track was celebrated in part because of it’s incorporation of drill, a music style with roots in Chicago, and an expansive scene in the United Kingdom as well. His ability to bridge regional gaps made his name come up in conversations that also mentioned U.K. grime artist Skepta and rapper Sheff G.

But Pop Smoke was adamant about making it known that hisaria-label="HipHopDX (opens in a new tab)" href="https://hiphopdx.com/reviews/id.3623/title.review-pop-smokes-meet-the-woo-2-is-brooklyn-strong#" target="_blank">HipHopDX.

Critics were excited about his capabilities as an artist and looked forward to the resurgence of danceable music that just felt good. “I love his energy, his vibe, his song,” Hot 97’s Funk Flex said to the New York Times in 2019.

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA – DECEMBER 15: Rapper Pop Smoke performs onstage during day 2 of the Rolling Loud Festival at Banc of California Stadium on December 15, 2019 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Scott Dudelson/Getty Images)

The 20-year-old was carving out his own lane with clear influences—hisaria-label="a fan (opens in a new tab)" href="https://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/hip-hop/9417336/50-cent-interview-pop-smoke-album" target="_blank">a fan—while expressing his striking sense of originality, methodology, and humor. Vol. 2 peaked at No. 7 on the Billboard Top 200 Albums, while “Dior” hit the #1 spot on the Hot 100 just days after he was killed.

“It’s New York, and not even just New York, it’s Brooklyn,” fellow Brooklyn rapper DonMonique said over the phone. She had recently received a cosign from Pop Smoke for a viral freestyle. “This is a really big L for us. He didn’t start the whole ‘Brooklyn drill sh–,’ but the first time I heard of Brooklyn drill was because of Pop Smoke,” she added.

Law enforcement officials concluded that Pop Smoke was shot during a home invasion in a California home he was renting. On February 19, he succumbed from his injuries at a nearby hospital—four people have since been charged with his death. His passing was a cruel reminder of how hip-hop eats its young, often when they are at their brightest.

In the days after his passing, young people blared the late rapper’s music in the streets of Brooklyn, channeling his distinct energy and honoring his legacy.

Complex‘s Eric Shelton documented Pop Smoke’s funeral procession, writing, “People danced on top of cars, yelled ‘Woo!’ any chance they could get, and sang along to the lyrics of Brooklyn anthems like “Welcome to the Party,” “Dior,” and “Shake the Room.”” There was a spirit of camaraderie present, one that attendees believe was only made possible by the rapper.

In early July 2020, Pop Smoke’s 50 Cent-executive produced first studio album, Shoot for the Stars, Aim for the Moon, was released, debuting at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100. Featuring vocals from Quavo, Future, Lil Baby and more, the project was an indication of where the rapper’s artistry was headed and just how bright his future was.

Pop Smoke was charismatic and Canarsie to the core. He had found fans in kids across the country, and in industry staples like Nicki Minaj, because he was comfortable in his role as an innovator. He was as confident as they come and knew that the work he was doing would have a lasting impact. “This drill shit is the sound of New York,” he said in his final interview. “This is what New York sounds like now.”

TOPICS:  #music celebrity

The post Gone Too Soon: Pop Smoke’s Reign Was Just Beginning appeared first on Essence.

https://blacknerdproblems.com/displacement-is-the-timely-and-necessary-graphic-novel-you-needed-to-read-yesterday/

There is a Zora Neal Hurston quote that seems etched into my mind whenever I think about this year, whenever I think about 2020. It is simply: “There are years that ask questions and years that answer.” This has been an incredibly long year, for so many of us it seems a lifetime has come and passed before our eyes: the pandemic, the call heard around the world to end police brutality, the damages from natural disasters like fires and hurricanes…and all the tragedy. It’s been a hard year that’s not even over yet.

Yet, what has helped keep me sane? Reading. 2020 has been a year of so many great debuts, especially in the graphic novel market. Published in August, Kuku’s Hughes’ Displacement caught my eyes: “A teenager is pulled back in time to witness her grandmother’s experiences in World War II-era Japanese internment camps.” I was intrigued and wanted to read more. Soon, I found myself immersed into a narrative about family ties, the stories that don’t always get shared, and the immense power that both memory and trauma can hold in life–over generations.

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INTERRUPTED

Displacement opens to the author and her mother visiting an older section of San Francisco, opening to see a glimpse of where Hughes’ grandmother once grew up. There’s disappointment from mom as it is a place that…just doesn’t exist anymore. There’s sighing and walking about to find ancient history: the house where the grandmother and her immigrant parents lived until 1942 before they were forced from home and into the American Incarceration camps that many Japanese Americans were made to go. Many never saw their former homes again. Mother and daughter continue walking, the author feels out of place as it she has no connection to this place, to the history contained here and she feels distanced from the branch of her family that she’s never knew that once lived here.

It is a strange, somber, and unsettling tone that sets the graphic novel and even more so she experiences the first of what she later calls the fog–that transports her back in time. The first of many “displacements” from her current day to a time from an era past where she’s transported to a time where she sees her grandmother, young,  talented, and on a crash course to be a part of American History that doesn’t always get talked about. Later after that brief interlude to the past, Hughes is happy to go back home, as they had been visiting California.

She’s happy to put distance between her and that young woman, her grandmother, whom she never got to meet. She’s never had the courage to inquire and learn more about the people who came before her, especially her grandmother. This is not cowardly. There are lives of people who don’t get talked about too often in our families–the trauma and circumstances that wrap around their lives impact ours and our parents, too. Also…sometimes, there is never the right time to ask. Yet to her surprise, once home she’s assaulted by more fog, being displaced again and again and for longer times to the past. 

ATTENTION

Once Hughes’ displacements in time get longer and longer, she finds herself face to face with the past. She has to wake up and go to bed in the very camps where Japanese American were incarcerated and see first-hand the levels of injustices that were thrown her way.  This is the true heart of the book, I believe. This is where the graphic novel’s narrative truly shines and captures a young woman struggling to understand what she previously thought was ancient history and having to deal with the dehumanizing actions done to people.

Reimagining what life was like during these years is trending troubled water that wrenched my heart as a reader. These were immensely difficult times, and the author fleshes out life in these camps, the young people she came to know–their personalities, their hopes and dreams. The ones who resisted in quiet and large ways. The ways families were strained and how people in general preserved.

What cannot be understated is the tackling of Hughes’ heritage as a biracial American here in this book and the threads she pulls together connecting her and the story she always wanted to write. One illustrative example is one of her earliest displacements when she finds herself in a line waiting to be shipped off, she stumbles and is helped by a young man also in line. When he asks if she’s in the right place, she’s shook but reflects that even if she had been there during that time, she’d be waiting in line with her mom. But no, she would not have deserved to be there. No one in that time period did.

Later during her longest time displacement, she privately asks her roommate, Aiko, my favorite character-a bespectacled older teenage girl, to teach her Japanese–she is fiercely opposed to it. Other than it being forbidden, she thinks it useless, growing up with Japanese American immigrant parents. Teaching Hughes will be useless in this country where even the very sound of the spoken language would be seen as fascist by most of the country. Hughes is disappointed and expecting the younger crew to be more passionate about their heritage. It is something she starts to understand herself but is saddened anyway–deep down she wants to connect deeper with her roots and learn more about her family.

HOME

As one of the best graphic novels published this year, Hughes’ debut carries so much depth, so much weight. I cannot wait to start seeing this work in classrooms and on syllabi across the country. What I know for sure is that Hughes’ Displacement is a deeply personal, thoughtful, and careful work that has been in the works for a long time. In the afterword, the author writes that this book is a work of fact, fiction, history, and memory…so there were people she wrote and illustrated to flesh out the pages of this powerful read: what was on the minds of the youth in these camps?

How did people respond to democracy and having a say in how they were treated? Where there queer people existing in these places? How did the people make life just a little more bearable during these times? Hughes’ artwork fills the pages recreating this time period and there are scenes that could light up the night sky with the depth of emotion she places on the page. Scenes like when receiving a small and unexpected gift that inspires a well of gratitude and connection to the people around her to scenes of being conflicted about a “loyalty questionnaire” passed across the camps that terrified and split whole generations and communities because of the uncertainty of the times were brilliantly places for bookmarks and, sometimes, tears on my end.

Our connection to the past is not lost, and Hughes brings the book to a beautiful close that is closure for her own family’s story about the parts of history filled with silence and sometimes, shame–and a fierce desire to not forget the past in order for similar tragedies and atrocities not to be repeated. Not now. And not in the future. At least, not without any of us not standing up for what we know is not right.

For books by authors and illustrators of the Asian Diaspora, Displacement is a newer, worthy addition. For literature detailing the experiences of Japanese Americans: the Issei, the first generation-people who emigrated from Japan to make this country their home and their children, the second generation, the Nisei who made up the first generation born in the U.S., Displacement is well researched with much care. For lovers of graphic novels, history buffs, students, and the ones ever curious about the lives of those before us, Displacement is a promising book to have and immerse yourself in.

Displacement ends on a note of closure for Hughes’ family and shared histories, but the graphic novel also ends on a call to action for the readers. This book is a layered and timely graphic novel that I count as one of the best that I’ve read all year. It is also one that I keep rereading, because I love that the story feels like a coming age tale but one dropped into history of the past. The author is reclaiming parts of herself through her mother, through her grandmother and even her great-grandmother and noting that memories are powerful things, powerful tools to take with us into the future while never forgetting the past and the people we’ve come from.

SCORE: 9.7 Very Cherished Carvings Found Once Again Out Of 10

Kiku Hughes is a cartoonist and illustrator based in the Seattle area. Her work has been featured in Beyond Anthology volumes 1 and 2, Short Box #6 and the Alloy Anthology. She creates stories about identity, queer romance, and compassionate sci-fi. Displacement is her first graphic novel, and it is a story she’s wanted to share for as long as she can remember. See more of her on Twitter and on her personal website. She also put together this AMAZING playlist inspired by the book here!

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The post ‘Displacement’ is the Timely and Necessary Graphic Novel You Needed To Read Yesterday appeared first on Black Nerd Problems.

https://madamenoire.com/1208411/drew-sidora-husband-sex/

In a preview for the newest episode of The Real Housewives of Atlanta, Drew Sidora‘s husband, Ralph Pittman, makes it known that what’s he’s seeking from their marriage is “respect and sex.” The couple, who sat together for a marriage counseling session, have a tense interaction about his expectations in their relationship and his feelings concerning her mother’s treatment of Drew’s father.

In the clip, the couple is sitting side by side across from their counselor. In an outdoor setting, the two begin to air out their dirty laundry in what looks to be a juicy upcoming episode.

When the counselor asks, “So Ralph, what would be your goals that need to happen in your relationship?” he responds, “respect and sex.”

Drew is then seen putting her head down and just smiling out of pure embarrassment. The counselor encourages Ralph to explain himself, asking, “What’s the preferred frequency for that?” 

“I would say minimum, minimum three times a week,” he said. “And I think that’s really, truly, very, very conservative.”

Then, when he’s asked what respect would look like in the relationship with his wife, Ralph throws major shade saying, “Respect would be someone not emasculating me. Drew tries to treat me like her mom treated her dad, and that’s never going to work with me.”

After that, the counselor asked Drew for her opinion on whether Ralph’s thoughts on her mother’s behavior were valid. While shaking her head, Drew got understandably defensive. 

“That’s not true. I mean I allow him to be the man that he is,” she said. “You know I see who Ralph is. I know he’s not my dad and I’ve had to let go of those expectations.”

Ralph, who was silently laughing as Drew spoke, then briefly put his hand on her shoulder. In a sarcastic and patronizing tone, he looked to her and said, “Okay.”

Drew seemed offended by the gesture and asked him, “What was that?” to which he replied, “You looked like you were about to cry.”

Looking less than comforting or caring as he pretended to console his wife, Drew told him, “That wasn’t even real.”

With a little bit of bickering and more dismissiveness from Ralph towards Drew and her feelings, the clip ends. This isn’t the first time we’ve seen the awkward and contentious dynamic between the couple, but it’s always quite cringe-y to watch. While Ralph has already proven himself as a domineering and alpha male type of husband, here’s to hoping the couple’s counseling might make him change, or at least help him be a little bit nicer to Drew.