24 November 2010

A Decade of Daring: Access Strategies Fund Celebrates 10 Years

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By Talia Whyte
The Access Strategies Fund celebrated its tenth anniversary Nov. 10 with a gala at the Villa Victoria Center for the Arts. The organization’s mandate is to “provide non-partisan funding and technical assistance to 501 (c)(3) organizations to build the civic participation and power of people of color, diverse women, low-income people, immigrant communities, and other groups that have been denied power in Massachusetts communities.”

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19 November 2010

Books Behind Bars: Literacy and Incarceration in Massachusetts

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By Talia Whyte

Literacy advocates gathered at the Nonprofit Center in Chinatown Nov. 6 to collect donated books, which will be redistributed to prisons around the country. The issue of literacy is a concern to communities of color because the vast majority of U.S. prisoners are black or Latino, and most statistics show that 40 percent of prisoners are functionally illiterate.

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11 November 2010

Black Women Working Out: Being Fit and Fabulous

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By Talia Whyte

I have been a fitness fanatic for as long as I can remember. Early every morning I get up to run for about an hour either outdoors or at my gym. Some days of the week I will also do weight training with a sprinkling of yoga practices thrown in. So, I was shocked and saddened to read in Essence magazine recently that one third of black women either don’t exercise enough or don’t exercise at all because they don’t want to mess up their hairstyles. Considering that 77 percent of black women are either obese or overweight, the hair excuse is very disturbing.

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4 November 2010

Mass Decision 2010: Voter Expectations of Deval Patrick

taliawhyte WGBH CORI, Democrat, Deval Patrick, economy, education, housing, Massachusetts

By Talia Whyte

Supporters of Gov. Deval Patrick and Lt. Gov. Tim Murray gathered at the Park Plaza Hotel Nov. 2 to see if their candidates made it first to the finish line. Most of the people I spoke to at the beginning of the night were skeptical about who was going to win because the race between Patrick and Baker was too close to call in the last few days. Many people in the room were actually shocked when the first precinct results showed that not only was Patrick leading in large margins, but virtually all the Massachusetts Democratic candidates were winning their races.

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