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By Melissa Noel ·Updated March 14, 2024

A supermarket in Connecticut is being criticized for allegedly sending an employee home due to the red coloring in her braids.

The incident involves 18-year-old  employee Dior Pinnock, daughterof former NFL player Andrew Pinnock, who works at a ShopRite supermarket in Enfield, Connecticut. Pinnock’s daughter was reportedly asked to leave work due to the red braids she had in her hair, NBC Connecticut.

“There’s a point in time where you have to stand up for yourself. You can’t be pushed around, and you can’t just let things slide, so that’s what this stand was for,” Andrew Pinnock said.

The local NAACP chapter alleges the store’s actions violate Connecticut’s Crown Act, prohibiting discrimination against hair rel="tag">Connecticut Shoprite The CROWN Act

The post Former NFL Player Alleges Connecticut Supermarket Discriminated Against His Daughter Because Of Her Hair appeared first on Essence.

Originally Published Mar. 19, 2019

Are you having one of those days when you’re buried in paperwork while your boss piles on a list of unrealistic demands and a difficult co-worker manages to get on your very last nerve? If so, then it may be time for you to step away from your desk and take some time to meditate.

We’ve all had tough days like this while working on the clock. However, we don’t always deal with the stress of challenging situations and people at work in a healthy way. That’s why BLACK ENTERPRISE invited entrepreneur, wellness expert, and author Quentin Vennie to share advice on how and why we must meditate.

Stay Calm at Work

Vennie explained why it’s imperative for everyone, especially working professionals, to give themselves a mental break and practice mindfulness.

“So often throughout the day, we’re faced with so much adversity, so many things, so much stress, [and] we’re trying to multitask,” he said. “Sometimes I think it’s important to just take yourself outside of that. Focus your attention on one thing and move forward from that point.”

In a nutshell, here is why Vennie says mindfulness is crucial for success:

• We are what we think
• You can’t be faithful and fearful at the same time
• Focus on what you want to accomplish
• Gratitude is the best mechanism to defeat depression

Vennie also talked about using meditation as a tool to overcome affliction. Watch the full interview below.

Overcoming It All

Vennie, who says meditation has personally helped him overcome drug addiction and severe depression, was also recognized as a 2017 BE Modern Man of Distinction, where he shared his story. Here’s an excerpt:

I was born and raised in a single-parent household on the west side of Baltimore. My father was a heroin addict, and by the time I was 12 I had been shot at and spent more time visiting prisons than most of the people I was close to. Despite spending a lot of time in my old neighborhood in West Baltimore, I went to predominantly white schools in the suburbs of Baltimore County. I experienced racism, discrimination, prejudice, you name it. I was diagnosed with acute anxiety and mild depression when I was 14, and then diagnosed with severe generalized anxiety and panic disorder, and mild to severe major depressive disorder, at 26. I endured a two-year addiction to my anxiety medication, survived an accidental overdose and two failed suicide attempts, but was fortunate to discover a wellness system that saved my life (yoga, meditation, and fruit/vegetable juicing). Not only did it help me get off all medications, but it also made my anxiety and depression easier to manage.

I started telling my story of my battles with anxiety, depression, and addiction in 2012 when I first started my journey into sobriety, and on May 30th of 2019, my first book, Strong in the Broken Places: A Memoir of Addiction and Redemption Through Wellness was published in the U.S. and Canada, and published in Australia and the U.K. on July 1st. I was able to successfully turn my trial into a triumph that has positively impacted people worldwide.

Now, it’s time for you to meditate with us! Follow along with this 14-minute meditation session guided by Quentin below.

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It’s no secret that there has been a change at Revolt, but that doesn’t change the mission of the platform. The purpose of the company remains the same with an added feature that has gripped the world and is essentially the future. With the advancement of artificial intelligence, Revolt has reimagined narratives that go in a different direction that make the public think.

Revolt, which celebrated its 10th anniversary in 2023, is looking forward to the next version of REVOLT WORLD again taking place in Atlanta in 2024, the company is not changing its expectations of success.

Revolt CEO Detavio Samuels, who gave BLACK ENTERPRISE a look into the future of Revolt, says the company will introduce new programming, new structure, and better programming.

“What’s not changing is the vision and the mission,” Samuels says. “In other words, our purpose is still the same. We are here to shift the narrative for Black people globally by building the most powerful black storytelling engine on the planet, powered by creators, right? So that hasn’t changed.”

What Samuels describes as “the new era of entertainment” takes place where most people live and breathe—on social media.

“So what we see is important for media brands in the future is to no longer be singled lane-focused. You can’t just be a cable company. You can’t just be a tech company. You’ve got to meet these people where they are and all of the experiences that they personally choose to consume in.”

As Black History Month ended, Revolt rolled out a campaign that reimagined history, but from the Black perspective—and with the power of A.I.

“I was tired of lying and so when the agency brought me this idea around reimagining or imagining new worlds through the transformer, the power of A.I., I jumped on it,” Samuels says. “It allows us to bring new narratives to our culture, new narratives to our audience, ideas that would have cost millions to do if you went out and produced them. But we can do it in real life for free.

“If people aren’t up on it yet, it’s just basically a retelling of history in general, but from a Black perspective, with us being the ones controlling the narrative, if not the narrative, at least the historical aspects of what’s going on, who came up with the idea for that particular.”

Revolt, Samuels says, is also launching a women’s channel.

“We’ve been building our women’s audience over the last few years. We want to try to super serve them in ways that we don’t see in the marketplace. We want to find and identify entertaining content for Black women, but we also want to create a platform that enables them to lead their own revolution, champion their causes, amplify their voices.”

Along with mentioning particular projects that will delve into the history of important Black moments that the world needs to know about, Samuels wants to bring in creatives and do a “creative residency in-house” for Revolt.

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