By Stacy M. Brown, NNPA Newswire Senior National Correspondent
@StacyBrownMedia

Remember “Beauty of the Week,” Jet magazine’s famous page 43, which featured Black women college students, actors, nurses, and everyday girls in swimsuits?

Now, anyone can be a beauty of the week or even grace the cover as the iconic publication re-sets digitally and where readers and fans can go to myjetstory.com and upload their photos and create a personalized Jet cover.

“Everybody has a Jet story,” Daylon Goff, the president of Jet, said during a 30-minute interview on the National Newspaper Publishers Association daily show, Let It Be Known.

“I’m always rocking Jet merchandise, and when someone finds out what I do for a living, they immediately give me their Jet story. Unprompted.”

For Goff, that’s all the fuel he needed to help in what he calls the re-set of Jet.

“It’s super exciting for me to be able to take this on,” Goff insisted.

“When you hear ‘Beauty of the Week,’ you don’t have to even say Jet beauty of the week. It’s synonymous. I get those conversations from both men and women at least three times a week.”

Founded in 1951 by John H. Johnson, Jet proved a mainstay in primarily Black households across America.

Like Ebony, founded six years earlier, Jet chronicled Black life in America and provided a lens into the African American community that mainstream media either ignored or misrepresented.

Goff recalled the disturbing but necessary images Jet published in 1955 of Emmett Till’s body after he was lynched and tortured.

“We had to be bold because you have that full ownership and understanding of the significance of that story,” Goff related.

“Jet was to the Emmett Till story what Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook live was to George Floyd. It started a movement. It wasn’t like little Black boys and men weren’t getting killed in Mississippi in 1955, but when you saw it on those pages, you felt you had to do something.

“The same way when you saw on social media George Floyd’s murder, you had to do something about it because it wasn’t as if before that moment, Black men weren’t getting killed by the police.”

While Jet told real stories about real people, most readers began with page 43.

With the re-set, Goff said one shouldn’t expect an immediate return of the Beauty of the Week.

“It was relatable and owned by our community,” Goff explained.

“The Beauty of the Week was a college student at Fayetteville, a nurse, secretary, or actress. Relatable people that we all thought were attainable. But how can we be relevant to our audience in a world that’s different and the way we consume information and get information?”

For instance, Goff wondered what would happen if Rihanna were chosen as the first beauty.

“Then Lizzo fans could say, what about her? And if we choose Lizzo, RuPaul could say, what about me?” Goff stated.

“People would have every right to say that Jet is saying ‘I’m not beautiful.’”

Indeed, Jet was social media before Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.

Going viral in pre-social media days meant being on the cover of Jet.

Goff, whose background is brand marketing, understands that the Jet re-set is a challenging assignment.

But he’s thrilled to take it on.

“I call this being re-fueled by Jet. We can be relevant to our audience in a world that’s different, and the way we consume information and get information is different,” he stated.

“I also have to be relevant to an audience in a way that Ebony isn’t cannibalized. And we can do that. If we compare Ebony and Jet to iconic television characters, Ebony is Claire Huxtable, and Jet is Martin [Lawrence]. They both speak to the Black experience but in a different way.”

The key, Goff said, is figuring out how to keep Jet around for the next 70 or so years.

Basketball legend Charles Barkley still refers to Jet as the Black ‘bible,” Goff said, but the challenge is to ensure that a younger generation connects with the publication.

“Talking to 20 and 25-year-olds, I’m sometimes surprised that they are familiar with Jet,” Goff said.

“People never threw away Jet. They put them in boxes, and I’m sure there’s a ton in someone’s attic. You just had to hold on to them. There’s a spark from the younger generation; for me, it’s about igniting that spark.

“The great part about the next generation is that they also grew up with this computer in their pocket and can find and search for knowledge. So, we need to ensure that our iconic brands remain for years.”

I’m still in Manhattan, performing in Oakland resident Ishmael Reed’s off-Broadway play now at Theater for the New City.

I’m not a New York tourist, I’m more like a working resident. Acting like a New Yorker.

That’s not to say I’m brash or rude, but when it comes to whether or not there’s protests over the possibility of an impending Trump indictment, most New Yorkers seem more concerned with when the cold weather is going away, not when Trump is going away, or with any repeat of Jan. 6.

And if anyone wants to “take back the government” in the name of Donald Trump, I’d like to see them take on the NYPD.

I’m actually still quite immersed as an actor in Ishmael Reed’s “The Conductor.” In Reed’s play, a fictional Indian despot’s actions impact Indian Americans who face a wave of xenophobia and are forced to flee to Canada on an “underground railroad.”

Hence, the need for a “conductor.”

Turns out everyone who is feeling some heat may need to flee the U.S.

“The Conductor” runs through March 26. Get tickets so see in person or live-streamed here:

https://theaterforthenewcity.net/shows/the-conductor-2023/

Reed wasn’t so prescient to include the possibility of a Trump indictment (or four) in a storyline but  I now wonder if the twice-impeached former president of the United States will soon need a “conductor.”

To get to Canada? After all that he’s said about Justin Trudeau?

I was thinking out loud on this issue with Asian American Studies Professor Daniel Phil Gonzales on www.amok.com (Episode 489/481).

We go straight to wondering if Trump will get convicted for any of the cases that are brewing. From minor to major, they include the hush money/Stormy Daniels/falsifying of documents case in New York; the voter fraud and possible racketeering case in Georgia; the Mar-a-Lago stolen presidential documents case; and possible federal charges connected to the Jan. 6 insurrection.

If Trump is ensnared in any or all of them, would he even have the courage of a Martha Stewart to don a matching orange jumpsuit? Or does he just flat out leave the country?

Gonzales says he leaves. But to where?

I think Trump has his Putin parachute ready under his left arm. And under his right arm, there’s his North Korean parachute fashioned together with love letters from Kim Jong Un.

Ah, a former president in exile because he dared to be president again?

That’s the narrative the Republicans are drumming up, as if all this is simply a political “witch hunt.” We won’t know till we see any official charges.

Republicans can opine about the legal process, but it’s another thing to intimidate the New York DA with threats of congressional investigations.

What’s worse is that law-and-order Republicans can’t see their blind spot when it comes to the respect for the rule of law when their own fearful leader is the possible perp.

Trump’s reaction was simply to go off half-cocked, not even knowing what the charges are. But most appalling is his “go to”—the call for violence.

“Protest, protest, protest,” Trump wrote in his social media posts over the weekend, prompting calls for “civil war” among his base. Trump respects the law so much, his best response to a possible indictment in New York is to throw a dictator’s tantrum.

This is a man who doesn’t understand American democracy and didn’t deserve to be president even once.

And it’s not just the GOP leaders under Trump’s spell, but even some in our communities still supporting the twice-impeached former pres.

When it comes to Asian Americans running for president, Nikki Haley is still mum. But there’s one presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy, the anti-woke Indian American rushing to Trump’s defense.

“This will mark a dark moment in American history and will undermine public trust in our electoral system itself,” Ramaswamy said, undermining a standing criminal investigation by  Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.

We should all be rooting for Bragg, a Harvard College and Harvard Law graduate who grew up in Harlem and knows what it’s like to be stopped by police for no good reason other than one’s race. Bragg has said his prosecutors will not be intimidated.

If Bragg’s indictment comes down this week or next, Trump will be treated both like a former president, and a common criminal. No man is above some kind of perp walk, right?

That’s never happened before in history. Will it make him more popular? That’s Chris Rock’s spin. But no democracy-loving American I know would ever vote for an indicted outlaw for president.

And once Bragg lights the wick, it should clear the way for Fulton County, Georgia DA Fani Willis, another African American with a keen sense of justice, to explode on the scene.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) has decried all the politics and said he just wants to see equal justice for all. What a hoot.

We all do, especially those of us in the BIPOC community, where equal justice is too often hard to come by. Ask Tyre Nichols’ family in Memphis.

Me?  I can’t wait to see the first presidential mug shot.

NOTE: I will talk about this column and other matters on “Emil Amok’s Takeout,” my micro-talk show. Occasionally Live @2p Pacific. Livestream on Facebook; my YouTube channel; and Twitter. Catch the recordings on www.amok.com.

By Tanya Dennis and Vanessa Russell
Although California Senate Bill 357 was intended to alleviate arrests of willing sex workers under anti-loitering laws, it opened up a Pandora’s box loophole that hinders the ability of law enforcement to halt human trafficking, especially of young Black and Brown girls. This segment continues to explore the history that led to this latest form of exploitation in Oakland.
It was 1980: The beginning of the end for the Black family and Black community as we knew it.
Crack cocaine was introduced to the United States that year and it rendered unparalleled devastation on Black folks. Crack is a solid smokable form of cocaine made by boiling baking soda, cocaine, and water into a rock that crackles when smoked.
The tremendous high — especially when first smoked — and the low cost brought temporary relief to the repeatedly and relentlessly traumatized members of the Black community.
What was unknown at the time was how highly addictive this form of cocaine would be and how harmful the ensuing impact on the Black family when the addicted Black mother was no longer a haven of safety for her children.
The form made it easy to mass produce and distribute, opening the market to anyone and everyone, including many Black men who viewed selling crack as their way out of poverty.
These two factors — addicted Black women and drug-dealing Black men — would lead to the street exploitation for sex as we know it today.
Encouraged to try it free initially, most poor, Black women in the 1980s used crack cocaine in a social setting with friends. When the free samples disappeared the drug dealer offered to supply the women crack in exchange for allowing him to sell their bodies to sex buyers.
The increase in the supply of women willing to exchange sex for crack — a.k.a. the “sex for crack barter system” — caused the price of sex to decrease and at the same time increased the demand for sex because more buyers could afford it.
The desperation of the women to get their hit of crack made them willing to endure any form of abuse and treatment from buyers during sex, including unprotected and violent sex.
It also pushed desperate Black women onto the street to pursue sex buyers, flagging down cars and willing to have sex anywhere actively and desperately. Street prostitution grew and buyers were able to buy oral sex for as little as $5.
This sex-for-crack barter system resulted in a dramatic increase in sexually transmitted diseases including HIV and AIDS, both of which are disproportionately represented among Black people.
It also resulted in unplanned pregnancies by unknown fathers, which then resulted in children born addicted to crack who were immediately placed in the foster care system where they were often abused and/or neglected.
For his part, the Black man who engaged in the mass production and distribution of crack was often killed by gun violence while fighting over drug territory or incarcerated for long periods of time as use and sales and distribution of crack carried longer sentences than powdered cocaine.
Crack unleashed an entire chain of new trauma upon the Black family which then all but collapsed under this latest social attack that had started with chattel slavery, followed by Jim Crow, redlining, school segregation, food deserts, et. al.
Exploitation was and is at the root of the crack cocaine epidemic. It is the latest weapon used to prey upon Black people since the beginning of our time in the United States.
The sex industry and legislation like SB357 have only increased harm to Black people who have been historically oppressed with racist laws and epidemics including crack. More must be done to restore the Black community.
Tanya Dennis serves on the Board of Oakland Frontline Healers (OFH) and series co-author Vanessa Russell of “Love Never Fails Us” and member of OFH.
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Tanya-Leblanc/publication/236121038_Behind_the_Eight_Ball_Sex_for_Crack_Cocaine_Exchange_and_Poor_Black_Women/links/0c9605162c8f362553000000/Behind-the-Eight-Ball-Sex-for-Crack-Cocaine-Exchange-and-Poor-Black-Women.pdf?origin=publication_detail