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https://www.blackenterprise.com/bias-dating-apps-black-singles/

As more singles look for love online, research is showing the disparities Black and Asian singles face than their counterparts.

A 2024 study revealed that Black Tinder users received fewer likes compared to their white counterparts. Data has also shown that Asian men, along with Black women and men, are receiving lower rankings than all other groups on apps like OkCupid.

The findings show how dating apps enable people to quickly filter out those who are different from themselves. It ties to age-old matchmaking norms where singles met through friends or family.

“How couples meet ends up being this incredibly primary battlefield to the reinforcement of a distinction of racial, ethnic, and social class groups,” Reuben Thomas, a sociologist at the University of New Mexico, told Faith Hill of The Atlantic. “As isolating as apps can be, they are “a huge threat to those boundaries.”

Those bold enough to embrace anonymity use filters to avoid seeing people of certain races, while unconscious biases often influence who they choose to swipe right on. Jennifer Lundquist, a University of Massachusetts at Amherst sociologist, says sifting through countless options in a dating app can cause people to rely on snap judgments—often based on stereotypes—that they might not use when getting to know someone face-to-face.

Research also shows that app algorithms, which remain partially undisclosed, tend to pair users primarily based on shared traits. However, dating apps do offer a greater chance for people to connect with others who are different from themselves.

“Very few people have truly diverse networks that really match the kind of diversity you would see” on a dating app, Reuben Thomas, a sociologist at the University of New Mexico, said.

Luke Brunning, a lecturer at the University of Leeds, suggests removing barriers that encourage people from different backgrounds to interact and engage with each other.

“Having people taking the same forms of public transport and using the same parks or the same swimming pools, same public facilities, it’s not going to integrate society overnight,” Brunning said. “But it will have a kind of gradual positive impact that it definitely wouldn’t have if things were different.”

A model developed by researchers Josue Ortega and Philipp Hergovich predicted that simply increasing exposure between people of different races leads to a rise in interracial marriages. This reflects the numerous studies where participants express appreciation for the “opening of social possibilities” that dating apps offer, Gina Potarca, a lecturer at the University of Liverpool, said.

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https://www.essence.com/lifestyle/fantasia-barrinos-daughter-zion-addresses-icu-rumors/

Getty By Elizabeth Ayoola ·

The post Fantasia Barrino’s Daughter Zion Celebrates 90 Days Being Sober And Addresses ICU Rumors appeared first on Essence.

https://www.blackenterprise.com/cch-pounder-art-collection-philly/

A curated portion of the art collection of actress CCH Pounder and her late husband Boubacar Koné is on display at Philadelphia’s African American Museum and will be on display until March 2, 2025.

WHYY News reported that the exhibit features 40 pieces, with Pounder, who has previously donated to museums like Detroit’s Charles Wright and Chicago’s DuSable Black History Museum, collaborating with the Philadelphia African American Museum’s VP of Curatorial Services, Delay Duckett, to curate the collection.

Duckett described viewing Pounder’s collection at her New Orleans home as an incredible experience, but one that posed a unique challenge: selecting which pieces to feature in the museum exhibit.

“It was a feast for the eyes as we walked through. The biggest problem that I had with it was trying to narrow down what we might bring to Philadelphia,” Ducket told the outlet. “To live with artwork on that scale and that beauty — just being in that space was just amazing. You can’t leave uninspired.”

The exhibit, entitled “Shared Vision,” focuses on figures, paintings and mixed media that depicts Black bodies as sites of tension, exploring concepts related to history, identity, and relationships. As Duckett explained, portraits of figurative works create the opportunity for the work to tell a story to the viewers. 

“Historically, portraits of figurative works both real and imagined signal the power importance or virtue in their subjects,” Ducket told WHYY. “When you walk into a museum, particularly a Black museum, and experience portraits like these their power radiates over you and tells the viewer their story.”

Pounder traces her love for portraits back to her youth in England, where she frequently visited museums across Europe, including the Louvre in France. She recalled that these institutions rarely showcased portraits or representations of Black people. Often, she felt a desire to reach out and touch the art, but it was always just out of reach.

“I remember at the very top of the Louvre, tiny 20-inch-by 30-inch portraits of Arabs and ‘exotics’ were up there, and the Mona Lisa and all the other fabulous people were down below,” Pounder told the outlet. “I thought, ‘How do you get those people down here?’ That’s probably where my thinking was when I started.”

Pounder also said her decision to take up acting and dabble in art collecting was influenced by a mentor at England’s Hastings College. “I really took it to heart and I literally said, ‘Great! For the first half of the century I’ll be an actor, and then for the second half I’ll be an artist,’” Pounder recalled. “It actually doesn’t really happen like that. Life changes.”

In 2022, Pounder talked with ArtNet about the process she uses to determine which pieces of art she purchases.

“Very rarely do I buy a work without some interaction with the artists. The pandemic months improved my internet skills and now I correspond with and have text relationships with artists around the world who I collect, such as Alex Peter Idoko, who lives and works in Nigeria,” Pounder said.

She continued, “More than collecting, the way an artist sees fascinates me. An artwork is an interpretation of life from an emotional or intellectual or ancestral or spiritual inspiration that is translated onto the canvas, or hewn in wood, bent in steel, blown in glass, beaded, or collaged. Being able to feast one’s eyes on these gestures is why I collect and share with those who may only see…an image.”

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https://nerdist.com/article/the-batman-crime-families-falcone-maroni-explained-before-the-penguin/

While I don’t love the moniker, the Matt Reeves version of Gotham City, “The Batman Epic Crime Universe,” is pretty apt. While The Batman has a superhero and a terrifying serial killer at its center, the main thrust of the plot centered around organized crime and police and government corruption. Fun! We always knew Gotham’s rot ran deep, but The Batman really highlighted that. Fittingly, it’s this aspect the TV series The Penguin focuses on, despite having a recognizable comic villain as the lead. Much of The Penguin deals with the hierarchy and squabbling between two particular crime families mentioned in The Batman.

Here’s what you need to remember about the Falcone and Maroni criminal organizations and families before you dive into The Penguin.

Boss Carmine Falcone Is Dead

Carmine Falcone (John Turturro in the movie, Mark Strong on the show) was the longtime head of Falcone crime family. In The Batman, he more or less acts as the fulcrum from which all of the other plots in the movie circle. Falcone is Oz Cobb (Colin Farrell)‘s boss, and owner of the Iceberg Lounge which the Penguin runs. He tells Bruce Wayne (Robert Pattinson) of his connection to Bruce’s father, Thomas Wayne. Thomas fixed up Falcone’s mob-related wounds and later when a reporter threatened to expose Martha Wayne’s history of mental illness, Thomas asked Falcone to “put the fear of God” into the reporter. Falcone also had an affair with Maria Kyle, a dancer at the Iceberg, and is the illegitimate father of Selina (Zoe Kravitz).

The big penny-drop moment of the movie is when Batman figures out that Falcone is the rat feeding info to the police in exchange for the cops and politicians leaving him alone. Falcone murdered the reporter, and Selina’s mother, and later Selina’s friend Annika when she learned the truth about him. Part of his ratting consisted of selling out Salvatore Maroni, his criminal rival and operator of the city’s “drops” drug trade, and taking over the business. He puts Oz in charge of running it.

Through the Riddler (Paul Dano)’s clues, Batman uncovers all of this corruption and the uncorrupt members of the GCPD come to arrest Falcone. While doing so, the Riddler assassinates Falcone with a rifle in a nearby building.

The Penguin Sees a Vacuum in the Criminal Underworld

At the end of The Batman, we see the Penguin—who was vehemently against Falcone’s working with the cops—looking out over Gotham, contemplating his rise to the top. The series shows us it’s not that simple. The remaining capos in the Falcone organization aren’t going to just fall in line behind a thug like Cobb. He also has to contend with Carmine’s two legitimate children, Alberto (Michael Zegen) and Sofia (Cristin Milioti). Both have eyes on controlling the organization, and Sofia is freshly out of Arkham for apparently killing several women in the guise of the Hangman.

Salvatore Maroni Also Has a Score to Settle with the Falcone Crime Family

The aforementioned rival boss Salvatore Maroni will also appear in The Penguin, played by motherf***ing Clancy Brown. Maroni was the ruling family in the drops industry before Falcone’s involvement. Now that Carmine is no more and the big secret it exposed, Maroni sees this as an opportunity to take back what’s his. One setback, he’s still in prison. Lucky for him, his wife Nadia (Shohreh Aghdashloo) is more than capable, and ruthless, to go toe-to-toe with the Penguin and the Falcone kids.

The Falcones, the Maronis, and Their Crime Families in the Batman Comics

The criminal underworld of Gotham City as depicted in The Batman and The Penguin are not wholly new characters to the Batman mythos. In fact, many members of both the Falcone and Maroni families have appeared in comics over the past several decades in prominent ways.

Carmine Falcone

Carmine Falcone first appeared in Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli’s seminal four-issue mini series Batman: Year One from 1987. He later appeared as a main antagonist in Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale’s iconic 1996-1997 series, Batman: The Long Halloween, which serves as a major inspiration for much of The Batman and The Penguin. The backstory about Thomas Wayne tending to Carmine’s wounds with a young Bruce watching comes right out of that book. Carmine dies in The Long Halloween at Two-Face’s hand.

Sofia and Alberto Falcone

The two Falcone children also both first appear in The Long Halloween and continue on in Loeb and Sale’s other big arc, Dark Victory. (They have another brother in the comics who doesn’t apparently exist in the show.) Sofia aids her father in The Long Halloween in unearthing the true identity of the serial murderer, the Holiday Killer, who kills citizens seemingly at random during specific holidays. Holiday turns out to be Alberto Falcone himself.

Later in the 2000 event Dark Victory, Sofia Falcone returns to Gotham in the guise of the Hangman, a serial murderer taking out members of the GCPD.

Salvatore Maroni

Salvatore Maroni is a very old character indeed. He first appeared in Batman issue #66 from 1942. He’s a gott-dang Bill Finger and Bob Kane creation! As one of the city’s major crime bosses, he appears on and off over the years. His major claim to fame is that he’s the one who tosses acid in Harvey Dent’s face which leads to him becoming Two-Face. This happens in The Long Halloween as well.

Kyle Anderson is the Senior Editor for Nerdist. He hosts the weekly pop culture deep-dive podcast Laser Focus. You can find his film and TV reviews here. Follow him on Instagram and Letterboxd.

The post What to Remember from THE BATMAN’s Crime Families Before THE PENGUIN appeared first on Nerdist.