America’s best weekly TALI graduates its 2023 Emerging Leaders Program cohort SEE PAGES A4-5
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www.newpittsburghcourier.com Vol. 114 No. 22 Two Sections
MAY 31-JUNE 6, 2023
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SENSELESS GUN VIOLENCE PLAGUES MEMORIAL DAY WEEKEND Singer, rapper, producer Mike ‘Tomlinese’ Tomlin among those killed by Rob Taylor Jr. Courier Staff Writer
Memorial Day, known for remembering those who lost their lives while fighting for the United States of America. It’s also a day where families head to cemeteries to lay flowers on their loved ones who died via other means. Downtown, at Point State Park, there was another remembrance on this Memorial Day 2023— for Mike “Tomlinese” Tomlin, a music artist, music producer, whose life was cut short in a shooting at a home in Wilkinsburg, May 27. Well known in Pittsburgh’s Hip-Hop community, Tomlin worked in a variety of roles for WAMO Radio (107.3), starting in 2014. None of the 100 or so friends, family and associates of Tomlin could have ever imagined that he would be a casualty of the gun violence that has plagued Pittsburgh and the region for the last three decades. However, more specifically, Tomlin’s death was part of a wave of violence in the past week, which included the death of his friend, Jerry Gardner, 30, whose body
was found wrapped in a tarp in Garfield on May 24. Over the Memorial Day weekend, two juveniles were shot on Nolan Court in Homewood, a woman was grazed in the face by a bullet near Chauncey Drive in the Hill District, and a 16-year old was shot in Larimer. Just prior to the Memorial Day weekend, a 15-year-old, Derrick Harris Jr., was shot and killed outside Oliver Citywide Academy on the North Side, and a 55-year-old man, Calvin Baldridge, was killed in a shooting at Chief’s Cafe in Oakland. “Hopefully we can come together to find out solutions for the violence,” said Khari Mosley, who is poised to become the next Pittsburgh City Councilman in District 9, “and find pathways out of the challenges that our young people are facing, so we can make our city safer.” Mosley made the walk to the Point for the balloon release for Tomlin on Memorial Day, where red balloons were released by the crowd in Tomlin’s honor around 6 p.m. Mosley told the New SEE TOMLIN A7
CLARICE BURSE LOOKS AT A PHOTO OF HER FRIEND, MIKE TOMLIN. TOMLIN WAS KILLED ON MAY 27 IN WILKINSBURG. A BALLOON RELEASE WAS HELD IN TOMLIN’S HONOR ON MEMORIAL DAY AT POINT STATE PARK. (PHOTO BY ROB TAYLOR JR.)
Why aren't more Black women valued in the workplace? Maisha Howze’s latest book is ‘a call to action’ by Rob Taylor Jr. Courier Staff Writer
Have you ever offered a suggestion, or solution, to your co-workers or supervisors at work, and it was, for lack of a better word, ignored? But then someone else later on has the same suggestion or solution, and the workplace acts like they’re the hero, like they’ve solved the Pythagorean Theorem? According to local author Maisha Howze, it happens to Black women all the time at work. In fact, her second book, “Hidden Gems: Black Women in the Workplace,” touches on that difficult subject and other topics throughout its seven
chapters and 118 pages. The book was released on March 25 during a release party at Ascender, on Penn Avenue in East Liberty. Howze pulled together a group of 25 Black women in 2022 to discuss what it was like being a Black woman in the workplace. It’s a topic that has been studied for decades. A survey concocted by the Gallup Center on Black Voices in 2020 found that Black women were “less likely to feel they are treated with respect in the workplace,” and “less likely to feel like a valued member of their team.” A survey conducted in 2022 by the consulting firm Every Level LeadSEE BLACK WOMEN A6
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MAISHA HOWZE SPEAKS ABOUT HER NEW BOOK, “HIDDEN GEMS: BLACK WOMEN IN THE WORKPLACE.” (PHOTO BY J.L. MARTELLO)