Listen Live
Listen Live Graphics (Indy)
Nine Dead After Church Shooting In Charleston

Source: Chip Somodevilla / Staff / Getty

Baltimore’s 2015 Murder Rate Is The Highest In 16 Years

In comparison with November 2014 where there were 187 homicides in Baltimore, the city has nearly doubled that number with a staggering 300 murders in 2015, as determined by police data. The previous record was 305 homicides in 1999. Following the death of Freddie Gray, riots and instances of police brutality have dramatically increased. [Time Magazine]

Video Footage Of A Chicago Teen Shot 16 Times May Start An Uprising In Chicago

The family of Laquan McDonald does not want a dash cam video released that shows the 17-year-old being shot 16 times by Chicago police. According to the family’s attorney, the graphic nature of the shooting may further exacerbate already destructive behaviors in the city. Freelance journalist, Brandon Smith requested the video be released as apart of The Freedom of Information Act which allows citizens the right to view information and documentation from the government. A judge will rule on the case November 19th. [Time Magazine]

Twitter And Uber Investor Meets With #BlackLivesMatter Activist

Chris Sacca, one of the major investors in Twitter and Uber is perplexed as to why the multi-billion dollar companies lack diversity. “Look at the user base of Twitter: You have black users over-indexed, but you don’t have any representation of that audience in the upper management of the company. That’s weird,” he said. One of the few black women engineers that make up 2% of Twitter’s employees, Leslie Miley, recently left the company due to it’s inability to embrace change. Sacca seems interested in being apart of the solution; he recently met with one of the social media leaders of the #BlackLivesMatter movement. In a photo caption with Deray Mckesson, Sacca vaguely tweeted, “There is so much work to do.” [Buzzfeed]

Spike Lee Finally Receives His Long Overdue *Honorary* Oscar

Will Smith, Denzel Washington, Samuel Jackson and Wesley Snipes were all on deck to pay homage to Spike Lee as he received his honorary Oscar at the Governor’s Award. The Chi-Raq director called for more diversity behind the scenes in Hollywood. “Everybody in here probably voted for Obama, but when I go to offices, I don’t see no black folks [other than] the brother man security guard who checks my name off the list as I go into the studio” he began. “It’s easier to be the President of the United States who’s a black person than be the head of a studio [who’s black] or head of a network.” He smiled while saying, “Let’s leave Oprah out of it. She doesn’t count.” [Buzzfeed]

Ava DuVernay’s Distribution Company Blazes A Trail For Other Filmmakers Of Color

The Selma director recently rebranded her distribution company, ARRAY to help more artists get their films into theaters. DuVernay’s latest passion projects are Out of My Hand and Ayanda. In Out of My Hand, director Takeshi Fukunaga tells the story of a immigrants transition from poverty in Liberia to isolation in New York. In Ayanda, a South African woman in Johannesburg must learn how to be a business woman after her father’s auto repair business is willed to her. Both films open this weekend in Los Angeles and New York, and will show in several cities, including Atlanta, Baltimore, Houston, Seattle and Boston. [Clutch Magazine]

RELATED STORIES:

Is Baltimore Trying To Buy The Silence Of Police Brutality Victims?

Spike Lee Claps Back At ‘Chi-Raq’ Critics: ‘There’s a Difference Between Humor And Comedy’

 

MORNING MINUTE: Baltimore’s 2015 Murder Rate Is The Highest In 16 Years  was originally published on hellobeautiful.com