Page 14 - Florida Sentinel 5-3-2019

News From Around The Nation
Uber Apologizes After Troll Calls Customer Racial Slur
Uber apologized after an in- ternet troll posed as a company representative and replied to a user complaint with a racial slur.
The disturbing incident came in response to a customer’s complaint about a ride refund. A fake customer representative apologized, vowed to look into the incident, and then called the customer the n-word.
Uber was quick to address the matter after the rep’s re- sponse went viral, assuring users of the platform that they do not use vile and offensive language when responding to complaints and other concerns.
“We apologize for this offen- sive tweet and are disappointed our process to prevent some- thing like this from happening was not effective here,” an Uber spokesperson told Mashable. “Our support team is taking ad- ditional steps to help ensure this doesn’t happen again.”
As it turns out, a troll using the Twitter handle @re- alTheeCheney sparked the con- troversy by using the racist slur as his display name and then changing it after receiving the bot reply from @Uber_Sup- port. The troll is a rabid
UBER
supporter who retweets racist comments and replies from other right-leaning
users, Complex reports.
Back in October, Uber sus-
pended a driver after actresses Tara Strong and Rena Sofer accused him of verbal abuse and becoming erratic upon learning that they were Democ- rats, according to Yahoo.
A video of the incident re- portedly shows the driver say- ing to the women, “You are racist. The lefties have a mental disorder.” He also told them that they “ruined America.”
In a statement to a Yahoo Lifestyle, an Uber rep said dri- ver’s access to the service had been temporarily blocked while the situation is being investi- gated.
Meanwhile, Uber and Lyft are no longer accepting new drivers in New York City after laws were recently passed to curb the growth of ride-sharing companies, Politico reports.
Trump
New Orleans Teen Accepted Into 115 Colleges, Offered $4 Million In Scholarships
A New Orleans teenager has a big decision to make as she prepares to attend college this fall. Antoinette Love, a stu- dent at International High School of New Orleans, was ac- cepted into 115 colleges around the country, and offered nearly $4 million in scholarships.
Love, the eldest of five chil- dren, will be the first in her family to attend college, but she has yet to choose a school. The teen received a total of $3,775,230 in scholarships, which happens to be more than any other college-bound student in the country this year.
"I started applying in Sep- tember, and just kept applying and applying until my tiny mailbox at home was suddenly overflowing with letter after letter and dozens of scholar- ship offers," Love told WDSU Channel 6 News.
ANTOINETTE LOVE
Love's record number of acceptance letters bested that of a fellow IHSNO student who was accepted into 91 colleges last year, and offered $2.8 mil- lion in scholarships.
Her parents, Yolanda and Anthony Love, hope that she picks a college close to home.
Love has been beating the odds, and making her parents proud, since birth. Yolanda and Anthony were only 15
and 17, and understandably “nervous” about becoming parents, when Love was born six weeks prematurely and weighing only 4.4 pounds. As a toddler, Love survived being “viciously attacked” by a dog, her mother said.
These days, Love spends her free time helping to take care of her younger siblings, which includes a 15-year-old brother who has cystic fibrosis.
Federal Judge And Civil Rights Icon Damon J. Keith Dead At 96
Judge Damon J. Keith, a civil rights icon who became the sixth black person in U. S. history to serve on the federal court of appeals, died at his home in Detroit Sunday morn- ing surrounded by family. He was 96.
Keith, a grandson of slaves who was born July 4, 1922, in Detroit, served as a judge on the United States Court of Ap- peals for the Sixth Circuit since 1977. He graduated from West Virginia State College in 1943 before serving in a segregated army during World War II. He would go on to receive his J. D. from Howard Law School in 1949, pass the Michigan bar exam in 1950 and earn an L. L. M. from Wayne State Univer- sity School of Law in 1956.
Throughout his upbringing and even in his legal career, Keith experienced the very racial discrimination and big- otry he sought to fight against.
In a 2015 interview with Tavis Smiley, Keith said of his Detroit upbringing: “I never had a black teacher. And the Fisher Y[MCA] was right across from Northwestern High School. Blacks could not go to that Fisher Y,” said Keith. “There wasn’t a black police of-
JUDGE DAMON KEITH
ficer above the rank of ser- geant. There were no black judges. There were no black elected officials.”
In a statement to the Detroit Free Press, U. S. Six Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Eric L. Clay said: “Judge Keith was one of the most influential Fed- eral jurists of the 20th and 21st centuries ... his rulings in over 52 years on the bench had a profound impact on American life. His decisions ranged from prohibiting the Nixon Admin- istration from warrantless wiretapping in national secu- rity cases to the integration of the Detroit Police Department and the Pontiac Public Schools.’’
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer told Freep that she plans to order all U. S. and Michigan flags within the State to fly at half staff.
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