Ospreyshire Origins: Annie Minerva Turnbo Malone

Lyrics:
Madame CJ Walker, you weren’t the first lady of that honor
You were a former client of her
From Metropolis, Illinois to St. Louis, then to the Second City was the first beauty expert of her time
Hair, face, hands
All became better with Malone’s expertise for those with melanin
She built a college just for cosmetology
Despite $14 million in her prime, you stole those formulas
Women of all colors benefited from the Poro Brand
CJ…or is it Sarah?
You’d be nothing without Annie
She lost her business, but she won’t be lost in history anymore

No woman can be attractive
Without a beautiful complexion and an innovative mind

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That’s right, everyone. Madame CJ Walker was NOT the first African-American female millionaire!

The first was none other than Annie Malone hailing from the tiny Southern Illinois town of Metropolis. She was an entrepreneur who started her own beauty and personal care business with the Poro company. Malone made so many products for different uses and she eventually opened her own cosmetology which also made her the first black owner and founder of a beauty school in America. She was charitable, opened a community center for the youth, and helped out her neighborhoods when she lived in Chicago. Unfortunately, Walker literally stole Poro formulas and made her own business, became rich, and more popular than Malone which is so tragic. I doubt they’re going to talk about that in that upcoming CJ Walker movie with Octavia Spencer.

Annie, even though I could care less about the beauty industry (the fact I have a Y chromosome is certainly the biggest reason why), but I respect you for doing for self and for giving back to the community. You deserved so much better.

I would like to give major props to Kreb for introducing me to this beauty pioneer on one of his blog posts. Dude, you’re great and I learned a ton from this post and others from you.

Fun fact about her birthplace: Metropolis is the only town of that namesake in America and it became the “official” hometown of the Superman character. There’s a museum of Superman in that town and the real life Metropolis, IL was even featured in a comic issue where Supes actually has to save it from danger. Also, this would make me second only to Sufjan Stevens who namedropped that town in a song. Hahaha!

The picture of Annie Malone is from The Freeman Institute.

The College Cheating Saga Continues! American and UK-based college/university students pay Kenyans to write their essays. (or, If entitled racist jerks insist Africans have low IQs, then why are they paying them to write essays for them?)

I found out about this story and all I can say is WOW! JUST, WOW!

In addition to the drama going on with Lori Laughlin and company in court with all of this college cheating going on, apparently there was a trend of college students in America and the United Kingdom at large where students have been caught paying Kenyans dirt cheap to write their papers for them. It’s not just undergrads, even graduate and PhD level students have gotten these Kenyans to write full-on theses and dissertations. Apparently, there are essay factories down in that country where these writers work twelve hour shifts while getting paid slave wages to write papers for the Americans and the UK. The latter has a brutal sense of irony when you consider that Kenya was a former British colony. Just saying.

You see, I went to a four year private university to get my Bachelor’s Degree. I got in on my own merits and did everything I could while working two campus jobs and I still graduated on time. I’ll let you in on a little secret during my tenure there. There were students who would fake their way in classes like reading only Cliff Notes or online summaries in the English/Literature courses I took without reading the full books, admitting to cheating in tests in classes I didn’t take with them, and those same people graduated while some are making more money than me. Well pardon me for being an honest student. I’m sorry to have a little thing called integrity to not steal, cheat, or plagiarize compared to those who claimed to have higher IQs than me.

So if I want to expose myself to plagiarized works involving Africa, I can either read some of these paid essays or watch The Lion King. SHOTS FIRED!!!

Seriously, shame on all of those students for plagiarizing their works and shame on that essay factory owner for being a part of this scandal. You wonder why I hate it when people steal and copy from others without crediting people? I bet you money these plagiarists are from far far richer families than mine (okay, I’ve been middle-class for a good portion of my life), and got away with it for years now, and have well-paying careers. Inexcusable! If honesty, integrity, and hard work were merited as much as the media lies to us, then I’d be a millionaire by now.

The video is property of African Diaspora News Channel. That’s more credit than these thieving douchebags will ever give for these paid-for essays.