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Kitchen gadgets, tech gear, and more on sale already at Black Friday prices

Products featured here are selected by our partners at StackCommerce.If you buy something through links on our site, Mashable may earn an affiliate commission.

Cyber Monday has come early this year.
Cyber Monday has come early this year.

Image: revol

By StackCommerceMashable Shopping

There are still three more months of 2020, which means you have around 100 days to make it a better year. There is hope for us yet. Step one — treat yourself.

For one weekend only, you can slash an extra 20% off these gadgets and gizmos because why the hell not have a huge sale in September? There are deals on kitchen appliances, phone and computer accessories, sanitizing equipment, and more. Just use the code VIPSALE20 at checkout to knock down the price. 

Cashew Smart Wallet with Biometrics and Bluetooth

With fingerprint authentication and integrated Bluetooth, this wallet doesn’t just hold your money and cards — it ensures they’re

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A ‘war room’ that arms Black and Latino voters against disinformation

Umarah Mughnee, from left, Ashley Bryant and Aja Campbell of Win Black/Pa'Lante. <span class="copyright">(KIrk McKoy / Los Angeles Times)</span>
Umarah Mughnee, from left, Ashley Bryant and Aja Campbell of Win Black/Pa’Lante. (KIrk McKoy / Los Angeles Times)

As the internet lit up last month with prominent Latinos vowing to boycott Goya pinto beans, Adobe seasoning and other products after the company’s CEO lavishly praised President Trump, a backlash quickly developed on social media.

Accounts identified as belonging to Latino social media users voiced outrage about politically correct “mob” bullying and exploiting people of color.

In an online virtual war room run by a group called Win Black/Pa’Lante, activists immediately grew suspicious.

Close inspection revealed that thousands of the posts were not coming from disaffected Latinos at all, but bots.

The Win Black/Pa’Lante activists cooked up a counteroffensive, including a mock Goya foods label that exposed “recipes” for disinformation and distorting facts.

The ads and a corresponding educational campaign aimed at arming Black and Latino voters with tools to detect

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Stop Scrolling and Start Following These Black Roller Skaters

Photo credit: Pete Kotzbach
Photo credit: Pete Kotzbach

From ELLE

Quarantine Internet has inspired us to do so much: Buy tie-dye; bake bread; question whether, actually, everything is cake; and, maybe most adventurously, try our hand at roller skating.

The sport has gone viral over these past few months, prompting news reports and spikes in both Google searches and skate sales. And it’s easy to understand why: The horror of the pandemic has left many of us drenched in nostalgia and searching for activities that comply with social distancing measures, making roller skating particularly alluring. Then there are the videos being shared across Instagram and TikTok; they’re instantly soothing to watch, often featuring people gliding down the street or around a park, perhaps wearing an enviable ‘70s-inspired outfit with feel-good music set in the background. They’re 30-second visions of joy, a precious commodity during uncertain times.

But, as happens with so much of the

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Black scientists, physicians are using hashtags to uplift

Black scientists are embracing the hashtag movement that forced the nation to take a hard look at systemic racism.

As #BlackLivesMatter remains a rallying cry across the country, Black researchers and physicians are using tags including #BlackBirdersWeek, #BlackInAstro, #BlackInNeuro and #BlackInChem to lift up the achievements of their peers and call out the discrimination they face on a daily basis.

Racism has long been an issue in academia. Black scientists report high rates of both subtle and overt forms of workplace discrimination and, according to a 2019 study, are less likely than their white peers to receive funding for their research. Research published in April via the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences shows that underrepresented groups are innovative at a higher rate than their majority peers but their achievements are often overlooked.

So Black birders, astronomers, botanists, physicians and neuroscientists, many of them women, have taken to Twitter

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The Black in Fashion Council Officially Launches With 38 Participants

These brands will work with the organization and the Human Rights Campaign to put policies into practice to demonstrate their commitment to Black employees at all levels.

Looks from the Prabal Gurung Spring 2020 collection.
Looks from the Prabal Gurung Spring 2020 collection.

Back in late June, Teen Vogue editor-in-chief Lindsay Peoples Wagner and public relations specialist Sandrine Charles announced the launch of the Black in Fashion Council, a collective that calls for better, long-term representation and advancement opportunities for Black professionals in the fashion and beauty industries. Now, a little over a month later, the group has officially launched.

Thus far, 32 brands have committed to work with the Black in Fashion Council over the next three years and to collaborate with the Human Rights Campaign on putting policies that demonstrate their commitment to Black employees at all levels to practice. Participating companies include the popular resale marketplace The Real Real and the peer-to-peer social shopping app

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What is ‘Blackfishing’? Here’s why a Black publication was criticized after employing a white dating columnist

Some critics have accused a white writer of "blackfishing." Here's what that means. (Illustration: Getty Images)
Some critics have accused a white writer of “blackfishing.” Here’s what that means. (Illustration: Getty Images)

MadameNoire, a self-described “space for the unapologetic black woman,” is sticking with its mission in a new way this week — by refusing to apologize to angry readers who accuse the publication of “digital blackface” and “blackfishing,” after discovering that one of its top dating columnists is a white woman.

“She’s in digital blackface because she always uses stock photos featuring Black women/families/couples and uses ‘sis’ and the inclusive ‘we’ as if she’s a Black woman,” blasted one Facebook user about the writer, Julia Austin. “In addition, she’s been a content contributor mostly for ‘Black’ platforms including Black America Web, NewsOne and a plethora of Black radio stations.” Others echoed the criticism online: “This woman has literally hundreds of articles she wrote for MadameNoire and in a lot of them she speaks on

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Big fashion says it’s fighting racism. Black streetwear designers say not hard enough

For more than a year, Los Angeles-based streetwear designer Tremaine Emory had been working with Converse on a red, green and black sneaker inspired by Jamaican political activist and Black nationalist Marcus Garvey’s Pan-African flag and artist David Hammons’ 1990 work “African-American Flag,” an original of which was acquired by the Broad museum in Los Angeles last year.

Emory’s brand, Denim Tears, tells the story of Black people in the United States starting in 1619, when the first documented enslaved Africans arrived in Virginia; according to the designer, the brand’s logo, a cotton plant, is a direct reference to slavery. That’s why the proposed packaging for his Converse sneaker collaboration depicts a coffin covered with Hammons’ flag and a cotton wreath, as a tribute to Black Americans who have died under unjust conditions. The image is based on an art installation, “A Proper Burial, Thanks America,” that Emory debuted in

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Google ad portal equated ‘Black girls’ with porn

This article contains graphically sexual language.

Google’s Keywords Planner, which helps advertisers choose which search terms to associate with their ads, offered hundreds of keyword suggestions related to “Black girls,” “Latina girls,” and “Asian Girls” — the majority of them pornographic, The Markup found in its research.

Searches in the keyword planner for “boys” of those same ethnicities also primarily returned suggestions related to pornography.

Searches for “White girls” and “White boys,” however, returned no suggested terms at all.

Google appears to have blocked results from terms combining a race or ethnicity and either “boys” or “girls” from being returned by the Keyword Planner shortly after The Markup reached out to the company for comment about the issue.

These findings indicate that, until The Markup brought it to the company’s attention, Google’s systems contained a racial bias that equated people of color with objectified sexualization while exempting White

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Black Reddit moderators say onslaughts of racism and abuse have become the norm. Now, they’re hoping new, stricter policies can make their spaces safe.

black designated subreddits reddit 2x1
black designated subreddits reddit 2×1

Reddit; Samantha Lee/Insider

  • In June, Reddit issued a new content policy that explicitly banned “communities and users that promote hate based on identity or vulnerability,” following pressure from users.

  • Several moderators of Black-designated subreddits spoke with Insider about their experience on the platform, which they say brings community, entertainment, and an onslaught of harassment. 

  • In the past, moderators of Black communities on the platform have had to implement their own safeguards against hate speech. Tactics have included going private, banning users, and, in one case, implementing a privacy feature called “country-club mode.”

  • While many say Reddit has not been sufficiently responsive in the past, recent measures are a “good first step” in moving forward, according to some moderators. 

  • Visit Insider’s homepage for more stories.

When Reddit user TheYellowRose joined the platform in 2012, she was simply looking to “pursue memes.” But the now 30-year-old health

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Redwood City washes away Black Lives Matter street art after resident proposes a MAGA one too

The asphalt on Courthouse Square in Redwood City is bare again after having "Black Lives Matter" painted on it since the Fourth of July. <span class="copyright">(Google Maps)</span>
The asphalt on Courthouse Square in Redwood City is bare again after having “Black Lives Matter” painted on it since the Fourth of July. (Google Maps)

The 1990s and 2000s had been disappointingly stagnant years in the push for racial equality, Daniel Pease thought. He was worried for the future of his mixed-race son, just 4 years old.

“I realize the clock is ticking. We’re running out of time and I don’t want my child growing up the same way we did,” Pease told the Daily Journal of San Mateo, Calif.

After seeing photos of street art in Washington, D.C., Boston and New York City, Pease asked Redwood City for permission to paint his own Black Lives Matter sign across the pavement near Courthouse Square on the Fourth of July. City officials quickly agreed, and the city even provided him a bucket of yellow paint.

Little did Pease know that

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