Support for Louisiana the state we’re in is provided by every day I go to work for Entergy I know customers are counting on me so Entergy is investing millions of dollars to keep the lights on and installing new technology to prevent outages before they happen together together together we power life Additional support provided by the Fred B and Ruth b Ziegler foundation and the Ziegler Art Museum located in Jennings City Hall the museum focuses on emerging Louisiana artists and is an historical and Cultural Center for Southwest Louisiana and the foundation for excellence in Louisiana public broadcasting with support from viewers like you But there are some cases one from Alabama one from Louisiana which could set really interesting precedence so I think chance against carbon the atmosphere it’s in the water is water the future of carbon capture the problem is the the cyber security problem grows as the number of people that we output
Grows the challenges of cyber security An integral part of black Greek culture explained tonight we begin with new data that shows Louisiana students are still scoring below the national average in four subjects but there is a small glimber of Hope yeah a slight bit of Celebration here fourth graders scored two percentage points higher on the
Reading on the national assessment of educational progress testing Louisiana is one of only two states to show Improvement in Reading following the pandemic and now on to other news making headlines around the state New Orleans sewage and water board is considering a rate increase despite years of public
Outcry about high water bills the last rate increase was approved in 2012 with annual 10 percent increases going through 2020. mayor Latoya Cantrell gave strong support for the increase at a meeting this week she says it’s necessary to fund critical maintenance and upgrades some city council officials
Say they are not going to approve any increase until billing issues have been resolved redrawing Louisiana’s Congressional map was under heated debate during session this year the new map Garnet criticism for limiting the black vote but the decision was ultimately left to the Supreme Court to decide how the
Districts would look more controversy has emerged this week as Republican officials asked the U.S Supreme Court to set a narrower definition of black for redistricting in Louisiana joining me to talk about the impact of this potential change is Jim Inkster who is a political analyst thank you so much for joining me
Jim good to be with you cara all right so let’s backpedal a little bit why is the U.S Supreme Court being asked to redefine what’s considered black and what isn’t Louisiana and Alabama have cases before the court determining congressional districts and an argument can be made some would say convincingly that blacks
Are underrepresented in both States because there is a big proportion not a majority but a strong minority of black citizens 33 percent in Louisiana and one-third of our districts would mean that we are underrepresented because we only have one out of six and we should based on the numbers if we’re
Just doing raw numbers have two out of six so these numbers actually matter now the question is whether this new look that the Secretary of State Kyle arduan is asking for will really make a difference because based on the early reading it only includes people who
Identify as black white and Latino so it wouldn’t involve a lot of people but cases like these set precedents and usually involve cases that might go before the court at a future time so it could be a significant case before the court and it involves us right here in
Louisiana so first I mean who is considered black in Louisiana in Louisiana we have a long tortured history in in that realm in 1970 the legislature passed a law saying if a person is 132nd black then they’re black which would mean you’d have to go back to a great grandparent who was
Black for that to happen and anybody under that category would be considered black now in 1983 that was overturned now the way these numbers are determined is through the census and if somebody checks off that they’re black and white they’re still considered to be black and
Now now this new wrinkle is the people who’ve checked black white and Latino the Republican party in Louisiana believes they should not be considered black and elections are one at the margins and sometimes these percentages mean something and this is something that they’ve decided to take issue with
And I know you’ve mentioned this before but like you said Louisiana is about 33 percent black and I I believe most of those people identify as monoracial they don’t they’re not afro-latino and they’re not you know considering themselves biracial so why again you know why pursue what’s the
Point of this Pursuit well it’s all about politics and most of us are part black or white if we live in Louisiana that’s the nature of thing here and the question is how do we identify but unfortunately in politics we’re now voting along racial lines extensively and 95 percent of the black
Citizens voted against Donald Trump twice 85 percent of the white citizens in Louisiana voted for him twice so these numbers have a politically charged element to them and it’s all about winning elections and ultimately I think that’s the underlying current behind this new Wrinkle in determining who is
White and who is Black well originally whenever people were bringing up the Congressional map and they had a lot of criticism behind it one of the biggest arguments was that it was a violation of the Voting Rights Act so if we redefine what is considered black does that argument still matter
The Voting Rights Act would seem to indicate as judge Shelly dick ruled that Louisiana is not in compliance now the Supreme Court has a case before it not only from Louisiana but also from Alabama in which they could throw out section two and if they do that then it
Really won’t matter and this case won’t matter because race will not be a factor and that’s exactly what the state of Alabama is asking for saying that in drawing Congressional lines that race should not even be a factor but as we know in the South we have a long
Tortured history with race and some people believe we’re not past it yet and that we need some kind of structure that is imposed on us from the federal government but there are some cases one from Alabama one from Louisiana which could set really interesting precedence so in conclusion this isn’t new we’ve
Done this a couple times in Louisiana defining who’s black and who isn’t for political reasons and I guess this is just the next uh the next um I don’t know the next argument the next decision in Louisiana we have a history of racially charged politics where the
State that as a people gave sixty percent of the white vote to David Duke for U.S Senate in 1990 55 percent of the white vote went to him when he ran for governor a year later and without the votes from black citizens we would have had both governor and U.S senator David
Duke so some people believe that black citizens are worthy of being counted and sometimes make decisions that are in the best interest well thank you so much for joining us and talking about this topic we’ll see what unravels from here thank you Karen it’s going to be a fascinating
Few months all right thanks Jim And now the second part of our series on carbon capture a company of the Forefront of setting new standards for carbon capture and removal by accelerating natural processes with water at the center of it I talked with ayal Harrell of blue green water Technologies the um the way we’re trying we as a
Humanity trying to combat the carbon in the atmosphere has been by many different ways uh one way was to try and reduce our Reliance and fossil fuel and we’ve seen a lot of efforts by many of the energy companies to move away from the uses of coal for example and start
You know buying offshore wind farms and solar power and whatnot and it’s a very good approach it makes sense that’s the way to go and it does reduce their overall carbon footprint however it has to be pointed out as well that even that is a carbon footprint because to build
Those Farms to operate those Farms everything has a carbon footprint and this is in a first world country take the rest of the world the rest of the world is basically relying on fossil fuel for its existence for its development you cannot take it away from
Them they will not give it away okay let’s be practical here so fossil fuel is here to stay in this form or another and ultimately carbon footprint is out there big time and one of the examples is you can take any um you can take any of the service companies big banks for
Example they don’t they’re responsible for directly releasing any uh fossil fuel based emissions uh anywhere and yet their carbon um a footprint is quite significant uh why because they have a lot of people in fancy infrastructure driving around flying around and all this it it builds up to a significant amount of emissions
And this is something that needs to be handled where where Humanity really stands a fighting chance it’s not only and it’s in water of the simple reason that by Design the way the world works is the the oceans and the lakes or water in general is where carbon goes to sleep water
Regulates carbon in the atmosphere 83 of all carbon in the atmosphere circulates through water and it’s not through the properties of water in and of itself it’s through little creatures that are called microalgae microscopic algae that is so effective in capturing carbon that it is also responsible for 50 percent of
All the oxygen we breathe on Earth despite the fact that when you compare it to trees on Earth it’s 0.5 percent of all the Green in the water it’s that little amount of biomass that generates all that oxygen of oxygen it’s just that effective we came from the attempt to
Control a water pandemia which is based on those microalgae that overpopulates now when it overpopulates that’s a problem I equate it to a cancerous tumor it’s what what is known as the natural nature-based carbon removal system that is actually a problem you want to get rid of so imagine you have this
Cancerous tumor which is in the form of a lot of biomass that captures fantastic amounts of carbon in the process of growing out of control and we’re able to come and trigger a biological chain of events within those toxic communities that causes them completely to collapse you suddenly have a huge amount of
Biomass in carbon within that biomass that drops to the bottom and varies in the sediment more importantly parts of it actually undergoes mineralization so the carbon turns into line the rest of it rely on the floor of the ocean and the lake until after a Millennia will turn into oil and into
Oil in in actual gas this is how oil and natural gas were made um through ancient algae and cyanobacteria dying dropping to the bottom and through certain chemical processes turning into those um into those substances or oil and natural gas which is why when we burn them we release all
That carbon our treatment is a very surgical approach we take a very surgical approach again the to trigger a biological and natural process it’s as if we’re pressing a red button within the toxic communities that causes the intact the entire toxic Community to collapse what happens immediately after
Is that there is no vacuum in nature as those communities collapse with all the carbon that is accumulated in them you will start seeing immediately a rebound in beneficial non-toxic species such as green algae and diatoms I don’t want to get too technical but essentially if you’re rehabilitating the world our
Column we are reintroducing biodiversity to the environment the department gets tricky is how do you calculate exactly how much carbon we have removed through this process and this is not an easy task by any stretch um we are in the process of defining methodology to calculate okay how much
Carbon is being sequestered in the process of half of a half a lot of algorithm remediation it’s a low process it needs to be validated by the scientific Community it’s not a simple one we’re expecting this to take between one and a half to two years uh it to be
Accomplished but the important thing and I’m putting here aside blue Green’s interest and saying again to the extent of humanity as a fighting chance against carbon in the atmosphere it’s in the water whether it’s us through our technology whether it’s us through our methodology the efforts and and the focus needs to
Move to where it really counts because right now all the efforts all the money is pouring the places where the impact is just negligible in absolute terms got it okay so what is the answer whether it’s you or somebody else finding out the technology and the ratio that works
Correct and Harrell is talking with Louisiana officials about some of their plans for carbon capture The NSA has designated LSU as one of about 20 top universities to study cyber security here’s Professor golden Richard and we join roughly 20 schools Nationwide now that are designated and that those schools are essentially schools that are teaching very high tech uh cyber security one um one differentiator is
Is having uh classes in research in malware analysis so this means like computer viruses and ransomware and all the stuff that people care about in the news all the time having classes that do um like deeply technical instruction in that area in particular is a differentiator and there just aren’t
That many people teaching classes like that and um you know there’s a bit of warfare as as schools try to steal each other’s faculty uh to grab someone who can teach that and then you know perhaps go after the designation is it hard to keep up
With what you need to teach it is hard it is hard to to to keep up so every day is a new day it’s not quite starting from scratch but yeah if you don’t uh if you if you don’t want to learn new things every day it’s it’s a it’s a
Terrible field to be in I mean the opposite of teaching Louisiana history or something yeah the impact on Louisiana is that students that are going to study cyber security often use that list of schools as essentially a shopping list to like to find schools that they want to study at
It also opens up new uh funding sources for LSU and you know and just the the fact that we can say we’re one of 20. job security is also tremendous for someone studying this and wanting this to be their field of of work yes there’s zero unemployment
Uh with with estimates between say 200 000 and a million empty seats with no one to sit there and is that because there aren’t enough programs to teach or just too many things happening too many things happening um and uh you know it’s it’s a fun yet difficult field and you know we’re
Trying to catch up by creating new new programs Nationwide um so yeah the problem is the the cyber security problem grows as the number of people that we output grows so yeah there’s a lot of just standard cyber hygiene things that you should you’ve been told many many times not to click
On strange email attachments sure I mean the work that we’re doing here is to develop systems that can take some of the burden off of you and and and protect you more and and so you have to worry essentially less about what you’re clicking on when you teach a class on
That how is that instruction done so just to take one example uh we teach a class on malware analysis so that’s understanding computer viruses so essentially in the first day students get a big print out of the code of a computer virus and their task is to start understanding exactly how it works
It you’re essentially thrown in the deep end and learn on the job and you know for the most part by the time that semester class is over the you know the average person coming out of the class has a pretty good handle on how to take
Apart malware and they have a lot more self-study to do right and more learning but um yeah they have a good basis for getting started LSU also offers an online cyber security boot camp to help give you tools to fight cyber crime you can check out more at lsu.edu When you think of black Greeks the first thing that probably comes to mind is stepping or strolling these are two art forms that are very unique to the black experience but they didn’t originate in America at least not fully tonight in the very last episode of crossing over
Black Greek life we explore this very sacred expression of culture These movements are precise rhythmic synchronizing with the beat made entirely by hands and feet we’ve seen it in a lot of media and it’s iconic for a reason stepping and strolling are what most people think of when they hear the phrase black Greek life it’s almost synonymous with the name
But what is it why do they do it I met up with Terrell Carter the president of the Omicron Beta Sigma chapter of Phi Beta Sigma he knows all about the history of this art form so when people think of black Greek life the first
Thing that a lot of people think of is stepping dancing all of these things but can you explain in your words what is stepping stepping is an expression right it’s it’s an expression of sound of art of creativity of imagination all wrapped into one ball right there’s a lot of
Thought that goes into step because you have to you have to marry all of those things into one Accord whether it’s your feet your hands your voice different Taps the different bases you have to make sure that all of those things fall in the right spot at the right time and
Everyone is doing the exact same thing and so from an expression standpoint it really has been a way for black greek-led organizations to express themselves and also bring a little attention to what they’re doing who they are and where they come from does every organization step once you become a
Member you tend to do it whether it’s it’s doing your probate or neophyte show is what we call them now you do the signature step so you have even if you don’t step at all after that you have your opportunity to get that step in to
Make sure that you you kind of take take hold of the tradition and show people exactly what you can do wait a second probate Dapping really dates back to when people were pledging and in the 1960s those persons were called probase they were on probation they had limited contact with their friends and peers outside of that process they were all in in terms of joining their organization toward the end of that process those new
Members then had a performance so the probates then would get together and they would be formally presented to the campus this was really the only time we saw this kind of self-expression with these groups and they had dances that they did a lot of times they would use
The popular music of the day and change the lyrics so that it would be an Ode to their organizations out of those presentations came stepping going into the 1970s and so we started to see now this emergence of this new art form okay so stepping is just a way to
Showcase I am now a part of this organization and I’m proud of it these are my letters yeah see me this is who I am but the roots of this art form have nothing to do with neophyte shows or initiations it was all about communication South African miners use the sound of their hands and gum boots to send messages to each other underground during the apartheid sometimes they’d attach bells to their feet or hands to amplify the noise it was their language to alert the other minors that they were doing well
That they were alive you know to check on them to see to keep their Spirits high it was almost like singing to him but you can’t sing so you’re making the beat and you’re just you know if you’re on a minor in a different area and you
Hear it and you know that that group is okay you know that group is is doing well they’re trying to encourage you to continue working that it’ll all be over soon because we are black Greek like organizations and a lot of the history and the the traditions and Heritage that
We have comes from our ancestors that’s kind of the way that art form has transformed and gone through Generation generation generations to where it is now to where it’s almost the same thing right we communicate with our steps to to the the audience to other Greek organizations to our brothers and
Sisters in Greek life just say this is who we are this is what we’ve been doing this is what we do as a whole uh and to express ourselves right so it hadn’t it hadn’t gone too far from the origin foreign dance represented a type of black Unity Greeks were desperately trying to
Capture by the 60s and 70s they were redefining themselves and their Blackness movement was the best way to do that so members adopted the Gumboot dance and added their own identity to it that’s when you start to see the iconic hand signs and gestures and the poses it’s
Just now it’s very evolved it’s a lot of things that go into it now that uh that wasn’t back then and depending on what type of show it is you are telling a story yeah absolutely step shows can range in their storytelling you can see a critique of
The world or a comedic number about Michael Jackson but no step showcase would be complete without a stroll so this is where people will non-greeks get kind of confused so they’re stepping and then they’re strolling what’s the difference so uh stepping is like I said it’s it’s
Building a rhythm or a beat with your hands your feet your mouth whereas strolling you’re not necessarily dependent upon yourself being the instrument right when you’re scrolling you’re scrolling to a song or a recorded beat that’s already there for you so you’re literally just filling the gaps with you know
Creative dance strolling was originally called the party walk it was a Unified Dance that Greeks did at parties it started as Just One Dance for Greeks to show off their letters and moves but then it turned into almost a necessity I think around maybe late 90s early 2000s
Is when you really started seeing that strolling was catching up with stepping and I would say 2000 and showing my age 2007-ish eightish was when you you know you started noticing like instead of having step shows you had stroll offs and people were putting a lot of time
Into coming up with strolls because they wanted to perform strolling and stepping are now an integral part of this Greek tradition and nothing compares to the first time I saw it when I was a kid I don’t think anyone can prepare for the explosion of culture you see when you
Sit down to watch a show but it fills me with absolute joy that this art form will live on for generations to come that was the very last episode of the series and I learned so much about culture and history every time I put these together and I’m so honored that I
Get to take you all on this journey with me yeah it’s great working I did also I think everyone Watson did yeah thank you so much that was great hey and thanks for everybody that’s our show for this week remember you can watch anything LPB anytime wherever you are with our LPB
PBS app you can catch LPB news and public affairs shows as well as other Louisiana programs you’ve come to enjoy over the years and please like us on Facebook Twitter Tick Tock and Instagram for everyone here at Louisiana public broadcasting I’m Andre Morrow and I’m Kara sincere until next time that’s the
State we’re in foreign For Louisiana the state we’re in is provided by every day I go to work for Entergy I know customers are counting on me so Entergy is investing millions of dollars to keep the lights on and installing new technology to prevent outages before they happen together together together we power life Foreign support provided by the Fred B and Ruth b Ziegler foundation and the Ziegler Art Museum located in Jennings City Hall the museum focuses on emerging Louisiana artists and is an historical and Cultural Center for Southwest Louisiana and the foundation for excellence in Louisiana public broadcasting with support from viewers like you
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