Health

‘Empire’ Star Jussie Smollett Still a Social Activist

Published

11 years ago

July 23, 2015

Oakland Post

Jussie Smollett (AP Images/Invision)

By Freddie Allen
NNPA Senior Washington Correspondent

WASHINGTON (NNPA) – Before he was Jamal Lyon, the sensitive, talented gay son of drug dealer-turned-music mogul on the hit television show, “Empire,” Jussie Smollett, was a social activist.

Smollett, 31, said that the root of his activism, his ability to speak openly and honestly about sex was always his mother, because she set the tone for who he was, what he was and what he believed in.

“My voice has always been linked to this fight before anybody new anything about my voice,” said Smollett, adding that you don’t need a television show or a hit record to make a change in the world your community.

Smollett continued: “The work doesn’t start with ‘Empire.’ My mother didn’t give us a choice of whether or not we wanted to be activists or not, that was built into us.”

His father, Joel, emigrated from Russia and Poland. His mother, Janet, is mixture of African, Native American and European. In addition to Jussie and Jurnee, an actress, the couple had four other kids: Jake, Jocqui, Jojo and Jazz

All six Smollett children appeared together in the ABC TV program, “On Our Own,” which was broadcast 1994-1995. The Smollett siblings played a family reared by the oldest brother after both parents had died in a car accident.

Jurnee starred in “The Great Debaters,” “Eve’s Bayou,” and appeared in episodes of the Cosby show.

Jussie, a native of Santa Rosa, Calif., currently serves on the board of the Black AIDS Institute (BAI), a Los Angeles-based think tank focused solely on ending the AIDS epidemic in the Black community.

Smollett recently sat on a panel on HIV/AIDS and the role of the Black family in fighting the epidemic at the Essence Festival in New Orleans. Smollett was joined by Otis Harris, a 28-year-old gay man living with HIV from Dallas; Harris’ mother, LaTongia Harris-Amadee, and Leo Moore, a clinical scholar with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation at the University of California at Los Angeles. Award-winning journalist Soledad O’Brien moderated the panel.

According to national surveys by the Kaiser Family Foundation, 66 percent of Black Americans say HIV rarely, if ever, comes in family discussions– including 30 percent who have never talked about HIV with anyone in their family.

According to the Black AIDS Institute, more than 60 percent of parents of Black children said that “they are ‘very concerned’ that their son or daughter will get HIV,” compared to about 20 percent of White parents.

“Families in general play such an important part in the fight against HIV and AIDS because families,” said Smollett. “It’s not just Black families but the family as a whole – the village. It takes that village to get rid of the stigma to get rid of the shame so that people feel like they have someone to talk to.”

In 2013, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), launched a national campaign that identified stigma and complacency as two critical challenges to ending the AIDS epidemic in the United States.

Declining awareness and concern about HIV among the American public may lead some to underestimate the continued need or action to fight the epidemic, a fact sheet on the campaign said.

“Young people who have grown up without seeing the epidemic’s devastating effects may be particularly vulnerable,” the fact sheet said. “For example, a study among young black gay and bisexual men in 20 major cities found that among those who thought they were at low risk of infection, nearly one in five was, in fact, already infected with HIV.”

The fact sheet noted that in 2011 the Kaiser Family Foundation reported that not only are people reporting that they’re reading and seeing information about HIV in the U.S. 30 percent less than they were in 2004, but less people also named HIV, “as the nation’s most urgent health problem.”

According to the International Centre for Research on Women (ICRW), HIV-related stigma can result in the loss of income, loss of marriage and childbearing options and the loss of hope and feelings of worthlessness.

“We live in a nation that we’re about shaming,” said Smollett. “Cultural shaming, religion shaming, sexuality shaming and gender shaming, there’s so much shame. It’s time for people to step up and say, ‘enough is enough.’”

Smollett added: “We have to remember that Black lives matter. We also have to remember that we can not pick and choose when Black lives matter.”

Phill Wilson, the president and CEO of BAI, agreed.

“If we’re serious about the ‘Black Lives Matter’ movement, we need to talk about all the things that are important for us to live longer healthier lives,” he said,

And that dialogue must include decreasing the number of new HIV infections, getting people into treatment that need it and ending the AIDS epidemic, said Wilson.

Smollett said that even though Black people have been oppressed since we were enslaved and shipped to this continent, we still helped build this nation and this world.

“We can not sit idly by while our children, our fathers and mothers, our sisters and our brothers, our nieces and nephews, and our uncles and our aunts are dying and are being left to feel ashamed for who they are,” said Smollett.

Smollett said that ending the AIDS epidemic is not about gender or sexuality or race it’s about taking responsibility for you and yours, which is the human race.

“Everybody wants somebody to oppress, let’s not be that way,” said Smollett. “Lets spread love. Let’s make sure that everybody knows that they have someplace to go in life, so that they don’t feel alone.”

Oakland Post

Posts by Oakland Post

Up Next

Experimental Eye Drops Could Soon Be Used To Treat Cataracts

Don't Miss

Report: Teen Use of Morning-After Pill is Climbing

Oakland Post

Click to comment

Activism

COMMENTARY: The Biases We Don’t See — Preventing AI-Driven Inequality in Health Care

For decades, medicine promoted false assumptions about Black bodies. Black patients were told they had lower lung capacity, and medical devices adjusted their results accordingly. That practice was not broadly reversed until 2021. Up until 2022, a common medical formula used to measure how well a person’s kidneys were working automatically gave Black patients a higher score simply because they were Black. On paper, this made their kidneys appear healthier than they truly were. As a result, kidney disease was sometimes detected later in Black patients, delaying critical treatment and referrals.

Published

6 days ago

February 10, 2026

Oakland Post

Sen. Akilah Weber Pierson, M.D (D-San Diego). File photo.

By Sen. Akilah Weber Pierson, M.D., Special to California Black Media Partners

Technology is sold to us as neutral, objective, and free of human flaws. We are told that computers remove emotion, bias, and error from decision-making. But for many Black families, lived experience tells a different story. When technology is trained on biased systems, it reflects those same biases and silently carries them forward.

We have seen this happen across multiple industries. Facial recognition software has misidentified Black faces at far higher rates than White faces, leading to wrongful police encounters and arrests. Automated hiring systems have filtered out applicants with traditionally Black names because past hiring data reflected discriminatory patterns. Financial algorithms have denied loans or offered worse terms to Black borrowers based on zip codes and historical inequities, rather than individual creditworthiness. These systems did not become biased on their own. They were trained on biased data.

Healthcare is not immune.

These biases were not limited to software or medical devices. Dangerous myths persisted that Black people feel less pain, contributing to undertreatment and delayed care. These beliefs were embedded in modern training and practice, not distant history. Those assumptions shaped the data that now feeds medical technology. When biased clinical practices form the basis of algorithms, the risk is not hypothetical. The bias can be learned, automated, and scaled.

For us in the Black community, this creates understandable fear and mistrust. Many families already carry generational memories of medical discrimination, from higher maternal mortality to lower life expectancy to being dismissed or unheard in clinical settings. Adding AI biases could make our community even more apprehensive about the healthcare system.

As a physician, I know how much trust patients place in the healthcare system during their most vulnerable moments. As a Black woman, I understand how bias can shape experiences in ways that are often invisible to those who do not live them. As a mother of two Black children, I think constantly about the systems that will shape their health and well-being. As a legislator, I believe it is our responsibility to confront emerging risks before they become widespread harm.

That is why I am the author of Senate Bill (SB) 503. This bill aims to regulate the use of artificial intelligence in healthcare by requiring developers and users of AI systems to identify, mitigate, and monitor biased impacts in their outputs to reduce racial and other disparities in clinical decision-making and patient care.

Currently under consideration in the State Assembly, SB 503 was not written to slow innovation. In fact, I encourage it. But it is our duty must ensure that every tool we in the healthcare field helps patients rather than harms them.

The health of our families depends on it.

About the Author

Sen. Akilah Weber Pierson (D–San Diego) is a physician and public health advocate representing California’s 39th Senate District.

Oakland Post

Posts by Oakland Post

Activism

As California Hits Aging Milestone, State Releases Its Fifth Master Plan for Aging

“California’s Master Plan for Aging started a powerful movement that is shaping the future of aging in our state for generations to come,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a statement, calling the initiative a “future-forward” model delivering real results for older adults, people with disabilities, and their families.

Published

7 days ago

February 9, 2026

Oakland Post

iStock.

By Bo Tefu, California Black Media

On Jan. 27, California released its Fifth Master Plan for Aging Annual Report,titled “Focusing on What Matters Most,” outlining the state’s progress and priorities as its population rapidly grows older.

The report, issued by the California Health and Human Services Agency (CalHHS), provides updates on the Master Plan for Aging’s “Five Bold Goals”: housing, health, inclusion and equity, caregiving, and affordability.

The report comes as Californians aged 60 and older now outnumber those under 18 for the first time, a demographic shift expected to accelerate over the next decade.

Launched in 2021, the Master Plan for Aging takes a “whole-of- government” and “whole-of-society” approach, coordinating state agencies, local governments, community organizations, and private partners. The annual report highlights significant milestones, including more than 100 California communities joining AARP’s Age-Friendly Network and $4 million in state funding awarded to local organizations to develop aging and disability action plans in 30 communities statewide.

The report also underscores California’s leadership at the national level, noting that dozens of states have followed its example and that federal legislation inspired by the plan was reintroduced in the U.S. Senate in December 2025.

CalHHS Secretary Kim Johnson emphasized the plan’s focus on equity and resilience amid ongoing challenges.

“The Master Plan for Aging continues to provide a vision, a focus, and a platform for collaboration,” Johnson said. “Equity is at the center of all that we do.”

Looking ahead, the report notes that by 2030, one in four Californians will be age 60 or older, positioning the Master Plan for Aging as a central framework for meeting the state’s long-term social, economic, and health needs.

Oakland Post

Posts by Oakland Post

Community

Candidates Vying for Governor’s Seat Debate at Ruth Williams–Bayview Opera House in San Francisco

The gubernatorial debate participants included Antonio Villaraigosa, former Los Angeles mayor; Matt Mahan, San Jose mayor; Betty Yee, former California state controller; Xavier Becerra, former U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services, and attorney general of California; Steve Hilton, political commentator and political adviser; Tom Steyer, entrepreneur, and Tony Thurmond, California’s superintendent of public instruction.

Published

7 days ago

February 9, 2026

Oakland Post

The gubernatorial debate was hosted by KTVU’s Greg Lee, KTTV’s Marla Tellez and KTVU’s Andre Senior. The candidates are (l.-r.): Xavier Becerra, Steve Hilton, Matt Mahan, Tom Steyer, Tony Thurmond, Antonio Villaraigosa, and Betty Yee.

By Carla Thomas

On Tuesday, Feb. 3, seven candidates took the stage at the historic Ruth Williams–Bayview Opera House in San Francisco for the gubernatorial debate, hosted by the Black Action Alliance (BAA) in partnership with KTVU and sister station KTTV Fox 11 in Los Angeles.

For many voters, it marked a first opportunity to hear directly from several candidates seeking to lead the nation’s most populous state.

Crucial topics and issues addressed throughout the debate included housing, crime, immigration, climate change, health care and homelessness.

The debate was moderated by KTVU political reporter Greg Lee alongside KTVU’s Andre Senior and KTTV Fox 11’s Marla Tellez.

Candidates also addressed inflation and the rising costs across the state, impacting everything from groceries to childcare and health care.

Thurmond vowed to generate 2.3 million units of housing by placing 12 units on each parcel of available land in the 58 counties of California. Steyer agreed that billionaires should pay their fair share of taxes.

Hilton wanted to cut taxes, help working-class families, and end the Democrats “climate crusade and insane regulations.”

Yee offered a more transparent governmental approach with accountability, given the state’s debt.

Gonzalez said, “This debate was a great way to see who has great ideas and who has substance.”

“It’s important to have the debate within a community that requires the most,” said business leader Linda Fadekye.

Attendees included State Controller Malia Cohen, representatives of the National Coalition of 100 Black Women, the National Coalition of 100 Black Men, the San Francisco African American Chamber of Commerce, and Black Women Organized for Political Action, among others.

Event host, the Black Action Alliance (BAA) was established to amplify the voices of the Bay Area’s Black community, whose perspectives have too often been overlooked in politics and public policy.

Loren Taylor, CEO of BAA, said it was important to bring the event to the Bayview in San Francisco and shared his organization’s mission.

“The Black Action Alliance (BAA) stands for practical, community-driven solutions that strengthen public safety, address homelessness, support small businesses, expand affordable housing, and ensure access to quality education—issues at the heart of the Black experience in the Bay Area,” said Taylor.

California’s primary election will take place on June 2 and the general election will take place on Nov. 3.