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Tiffany Haddish knows how to tell a great story. When she recounted the time she, Jada Pinkett Smith, and Will Smith took a swamp tour in Louisiana it cracked up Jimmy Kimmel and earned Haddish a partnership with Groupon. And her tale about an unnamed actor biting Beyonce turned the whole BeyHive into a determined pack of amateur super sleuths. This time around, Haddish is dishing on her rise to the top, and some of the people she’s encountered along the way, like disgraced comedian Roseanne Barr, her The Last O.G. co-star Tracy Morgan, and of course, the person behind the Beyonce incident. During her interview with the Hollywood Reporter, Haddish recounted the time she met Roseanne...and the Trump-supporting comedian wasn’t too kind. [brightcove id=5744494035001] "I don't know if you know El Segundo [a coastal California town near LAX], but if you're black and you're driving through El Segundo, you're going to get pulled over. I used to visit my friend Anna there, and it got to a point where I was calling the police officers by name. One day, we were walking around the neighborhood, and Anna says, 'Oh, Roseanne lives there.' Now, I loved Roseanne, and the next day we walked by, and she was in her yard. I say, 'Hiiii, Roseanne.' She looks at me (makes a disgusted face), and ran in the house,” Haddish recalled. “I thought, 'Maybe she don't want to be bothered today.' A week later, we walk by again, and I told Anna — she's Hispanic, but she looks white — she should say hi this time. So she says, 'Hi, Roseanne,' and Roseanne goes, 'Hey!' I thought, 'Maybe she got to know us.' Then I go back, like, a week later, I wave again and say, 'Hi, Roseanne! I love your comedy,' and she (makes the same disgusted face) and turns her head. I think, 'Fuck that bitch.' That was 2000, maybe 2001, so it's not new. She been racist, why'd you all give her a TV show?" When it came to Morgan, Haddish’s co-star on the TBS show The Last O.G., things are complicated. After the success of Girls Trip, TBS tried to remake Haddish’s strait-laced character on the show to be more like her rambunctious cinematic character and she wasn’t having it. As a result of her sudden mainstream popularity, her relationship with Morgan changed. According to The Hollywood Reporter piece: "A few days before we meet, Haddish's former Carmichael co-star Lil Rel Howery tweeted a link to an interview Morgan had just given, in which he shut down a question about Haddish. Rel included a message to Morgan: ‘Don't bite the hand that keeps you relevant!’ Haddish says she tried to get her friend to take down the post, but he flat-out refused. ‘That motherf--ker's a hater,’ Rel told her. Other comics reached out, too, and she says she told them all the same thing: ‘You guys, chill. He's probably just tired of hearing my name. It's exhausting. I'm tired of hearing my name. I could see how that could be irritating, like, 'Hello, I died, people. I'm back from the dead. Tiffany's cool, but it's me sitting here now. 'So, I get it, I'm not mad about it, I love me some Tracy.’" The wide-ranging interview covered everything from Haddish’s difficult upbringing in the foster care system, to her seemingly endless number of projects. In spite of her super interesting life, there’s one question folks really want to know: who actually bit Beyonce? After Haddish’s crazy Beyonce story hit the web, many zeroed in on fellow actor Sanaa Lathan. Though Lathan has denied sinking her teeth into Queen Bey, Haddish pretty much confirmed Lathan was the woman she referenced in her story. "I'm super good friends with her stepmom and her dad [Stan, a producer-director], and they were mad at me," she said. "They were like, 'Why would you do this to the family? You know, black actresses, you guys have to stick together, it's so hard for you guys to get work as it is, why would you try to ruin her career?' But I didn't try to ruin her career. I never said her name! I was just trying to say how Beyonce kept me from goin' to jail that night. I coulda just shut my whole career down." Read Tiffany Haddish’s entire interview over on The Hollywood Reporter.

Hello NOCers, I just wanted to let all of you know that may new podcast, That Moment, launched today. I’m happy to be part of the Hard NOC Media cipher. That Moment is a podcast dedicated to discussing particular moments in a creative’s work. A panel in a comic book, a decision to create a particular […]

You may not know the name Topeka Sam as well as you know Kim Kardashian, but you should. Sam, a prison reform activist, facilitated the viral Mic video that moved Kardashian to take a meeting with President Donald Trump to plead the case of Alice Johnson, a black woman who was granted clemency June 6 after serving 21 years for a nonviolent, drug-related crime. Though Kardashian helped put a worldwide spotlight on Johnson’s case, Sam was a major leader in a community of activists, legal professionals, and entrepreneurs who worked on her behalf for years before the day she was finally freed.

Sam, a formerly incarcerated woman herself, has advocated for female inmates’ rights, prison reform, and empowerment for women through spiritual renewal, education, and entrepreneurship since her own 2015 release. “My parents were franchise business owners for the first 20 years of my life,” Sam says. “They owned a Carvel franchise in Brooklyn, N.Y., and after that, they ran their own restaurant in Harlem until they retired. I’ve always been exposed to what [owning a business looked like]. I think it was just in my DNA, that I was going to be a business owner at some point.”

The founder of The Ladies of Hope Ministries and Hope House NYC, was bitten by the entrepreneurship bug in her youth, and she has since promoted the freedom and power of entrepreneurship as a viable and sustainable option for formerly incarcerated individuals.

“Prior to going to prison, I’d launched several small businesses, [from] a concierge service to throwing parties. I started a customized mobile-phone case boutique for brands with a friend of mine, who’s still an entrepreneur,” Sam recalls. “When I was inside, God gave me the name The Ladies of Hope Ministries and Hope House. I had a business plan and everything. …I wrote out what my ideas were, like the Bible says, ‘Write it down and make it clear, and at the appointed time, it will come to pass and will not tarry.’  That’s exactly what I did.”

In launching Hope House NYC, Sam has combined entrepreneurial knowledge with her personal experience of prison life for women, and she also uses knowledge she’s gained while serving as a Columbia University Beyond the Bars fellow, a Justice in Education Scholar, and director of dignity for the Van Jones-helmed Cut50 initiative to keep the Bronx-based facility going. At the home, women and girls affected by incarceration can get educational, vocational, spiritual, and entrepreneurial resources and housing, and find a safe space of support from other women.

“It’s everyday work, not only because you’re a social entrepreneur or systems entrepreneur, [but because] you have people’s lives in your hands,” Sam says. “You have to make sure the bills are paid so that women can remain safe [at Hope House NYC] and they can thrive in their lives. I have to make sure the resources we are providing are viable.”

She takes pride in the impact she can make through starting something she is in charge of, and knows how entrepreneurship or launching your own platform can have a positive effect on lives beyond that of the business owner.

“With entrepreneurship, it allows you to hire people who have been impacted by incarceration and give opportunities to people so that when they come home, they don’t have to worry about applying for a job and being told they’re being terminated because of a prison conviction,” Sam says. “When you think about entrepreneurship, it doesn’t mean you have to build an organization. Speaking about your experience, you get paid to speak, that’s a business. …I speak across the country. … Whatever you’re good at, you can make a business out of it. Every time a woman comes through my organization, the question I ask them is, ‘what do you want to be [moving forward]?”

Building a foundation of business smarts and tenacity helped Sam balance her process of transitioning into life after prison, sharing her story through panels and speaking engagements and fulfilling a vision to help others. She knew she had to strengthen herself through research and education in order to accomplish the freedom of running her own show.

“I think because I had the understanding of what it took to start a business, because of my past, I knew [I had to do my due diligence]. … We’re creating an entrepreneurial course and partnering with a large corporation to do it. I believe education is extremely important for people to change their lives. …Skills education leads to business, and business leads to entrepreneurship. [Through entrepreneurship], I have the freedom to do this as I want to, and I don’t have to worry about people putting [limitations] on me [as a formerly incarcerated woman.]”

Watch the Mic video that led Kim K. to go to Trump: https://www.facebook.com/MicMedia/videos/miss-alice-is-serving-life/1687918217897628/

Video of Johnson’s release:

The post Meet the Black Woman Behind the Video That Led to the Trump Clemency of Alice Johnson appeared first on Black Enterprise.

The tech industry has been hurtling forward for many years now, having an effect on all facets of our lives. From hospitality to defence, technology has a wide reach! Unsurprisingly, gaming has also been impacted by this in the long term, with massive changes to the way that we play games. Back in the early […]

The post How Technology Changed the Way We Consume Games appeared first on Black Girl Nerds.