3 brothers and A SISTER

The Movie Precious, From A Black Woman's Perspective

2009-11-30T11:15:00.000-08:00

Why African Americans Are Divided on Film's 'Precious'-ness

By Erin Aubry Kaplan (LA Times)

Long before it opened, "Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire" had racked up plaudits for its groundbreaking depiction of the inner life of a black, overweight, ghetto-dwelling teenage girl. But since its release, a story-outside-the-story has developed that's equally fresh and complicated: black people's reaction to the movie and what it means.

Verdicts about high-pitched movies from black viewers and public figures are usually swift and decisive -- "Do the Right Thing," "The Color Purple," and the recent Robert Downey Jr. performance in "Tropic Thunder" come to mind. But that's not what happened this time out. That's partly because the embrace of "Precious" by the white film establishment has been a bit disorienting for black folk, even off-putting. But it's also because the tough stuff in "Precious," whether you like the movie or not, is striking chords of recognition for many black people that are making them not angry or enthusiastic, but uncertain. That's new territory.

The many issues raised in the course of this one story -- class tensions, self-image, racial progress, how Hollywood bears on all of the above -- have hit black viewers squarely in the gut, rendering the usual right-brain arguments about stereotypes inadequate. For black filmgoers, assessing black-themed films is generally a political process; "Precious" has made it emotional.

That discomfit was evident recently in a packed theater with a largely black audience in Marina Del Rey. The viewers were characteristically vocal at first -- gasping, clucking tongues, even tittering at the initial haplessness of Precious (Gabourey Sidibe) and the villainy of her mother, played by Mo'Nique. But as the film got more intimate, zeroing in on issues such as Precious' illiteracy, the repeated rapes by her drop-in father and her casual wish to be white with "good" hair, people fell silent; it was as if they were no longer viewers, but participants.

They applauded at the end, but filed out of the theater much more soberly than I've ever seen a black audience file out of any performance, especially one that had a clear impact. It's quite a contrast to reviews and commentary that ranged from supportive to effusive on black-oriented websites including The Loop21.com, Racial icious.com and thegrio.com. But even the praise has a bit of apology about it, as if to allow for the fact that blacks can -- or perhaps even should -- admire "Precious" without necessarily liking it.

Not everybody is buying into the nuance. The unrelenting inner-city misery that frames "Precious," including a foul-mouthed welfare mother and an absentee father, has raised plenty of alarms among blacks, notably film critic Armond White. In his review for the New York Press, the famously curmudgeonly White excoriated "Precious" for being an "orgy of prurience," "a Klansman's fantasy," racist propaganda cast from the infamous mold of "Birth of a Nation." For White, "Precious" is bad art because it is a bad representation, a reminder that for black people, art and politics are inseparable.

Yet one of the unusual things about "Precious" is that it doesn't try to separate those things, and so forces us to think beyond the negative/positive binary that often keeps discussions about movies like this airless and superficial.

Certainly other black people share White's condemnation. But that condemnation has dimensions: C. Jeffrey Wright, writing at UrbanFaith.com, a conservative Christian site, fretted less about the images in "Precious" than about the fact there are too few black films released to provide a diversity that would make the movie less controversial. That's a fact nobody on any side of the discussion would disagree with.

Nonetheless, Wright decries the movie for its lack of what he calls "achiever values." And here we get into the thorny issue of class. For black people that means not solely money and education, but a concern about how we are being represented in public. How blacks are represented in movies always galvanizes such concern, and "Precious" is no exception.

"We just don't want to see black pathology on screen," says T. Denean Sharpley-Whiting, a professor of critical race studies and hip-hop at Vanderbilt University. "There's clearly a segment of us that worries about what white people think."

That worry, she says, is usually about representations of the black poor, a group that's long been an anathema to whites -- and to some blacks as well. "Precious" exposes that unflattering divide. "Americans despise poor people, and they really despise poor black people," Sharpley-Whiting says. "Unfortunately, we [black people] buy into it."

Widespread debate

The good news is that the Internet encouragesa broader discussion of these complexities than black people have had in the past. At thefreshx press.com, a site geared to young African Americans, one blogger who had read White's review but hadn't seen the movie wrote that he was leery of incest being portrayed as a "black" thing, but he supported a filmmaker's right to tell his own story.

Another objected to White's comparing "Precious" to "Birth of a Nation," saying that missed the real critique the film was making about the troubled internal dynamics of black communities. "We've made a lot of strides, but what are we really doing to bring those who haven't been as fortunate as our college-educated selves out of the gutter?" she wrote. "This is a very real opportunity to bring a very real problem into the mainstream where it belongs."

At Racialicious.com, a blogger named Tiffany grumbled that she was "tired of the black aristocracy getting up in arms about anything that isn't 'The Cosby Show.' " Ironically, White himself bolsters that point: When he huffs in his review that " 'Precious' hyperbolizes the class misery of our nation's left-behinds . . . the Obama-era unreachables," he's at least acknowledging those unreachables and their plight.

But how can that plight be authentically represented? Is it ever possible for a black character -- dark, light, poor, privileged, whatever -- to vault above, or through, the stereotypes and emerge chiefly as a person and not a trope? Rarely. "Precious" breaks that ground, but it feels like alien terrain because blacks have been defined by extremes for so long. In an interview with Essence.com, director Lee Daniels says the harsh themes of "Precious" should be taken at face value. "Life is life," he said. "Life is what it is."

But grim subjects such as institutional poverty, illiteracy, child rape and incest are reasons enough to stay away from any movie, and many black folks say they will bypass "Precious" for that reason -- too much of that trouble in real life, they say.

Richard Yarborough, an associate professor of English and African American Studies at UCLA, says there might be something else to the aversion for not just blacks, but all Americans. "The abject degradation of black people in 'Precious' is as close as you can get to a modern film that may be similar to a film about slavery," says Yarborough. He points out that slave-era films such as "Beloved" and " Amistad" didn't do well at the box office, and those were mainstream movies with big budgets and established directors. Those movies also presented widespread black exploitation and oppression as phenomena of the past; "Precious" has no such buffer.

"If people aren't going to see slavery in a historical context, why would they go see a movie about slavery in a modern context?" says Yarborough. He adds that the legacy of slavery -- racism -- is another issue that feels much too close for movie-watching comfort. "Racism is not dead," he says. "The immediacy of racism and the pressure it still puts on [blacks] is tremendous. We're still arguing about the Confederacy flag."

Despite these macro-level realities, it's nice to contemplate the possibility that "Precious" could start a new trend of black movies that are more individual-oriented and inward-looking. Todd Boyd, a professor of critical studies at USC's School of Cinematic Arts, says that will only happen if "Precious" makes the kind of money that Hollywood can't ignore. It grossed an impressive $11 million on 629 screens last weekend.

But, he says, don't hold your breath. One of the enduring truths about the movie business is that even a widely acclaimed black movie made by blacks doesn't guarantee that another one will be made, let alone start a trend.

"What Spike Lee was doing in the '80s was more challenging and visionary [than 'Precious'] -- and he talked stuff while he did it," says Boyd. "He's still working, he's still making movies. But nobody talks about Spike anymore. With features, it's about the money vehicles now, like what Tyler Perry is doing. The days of the small 'impact' film are over."

Erin Aubry Kaplan is a freelance writer and contributing editor to Opinion. She is a former weekly columnist for The Times and a former LA Weekly staff writer. She blogs at threebrothersandasister.blogspot.com

Daytime Queen Oprah Winfrey to Leave Syndication in 2011

2009-11-19T17:33:00.000-08:00

Reigning TV Diva To Announce Next Move on Nov. 20 Broadcast

What a bombshell!!! The incomparable Oprah Winfrey will end her long-running talk show after her 25th season draws to a close in 2011.

Word is the billionaire talk-show host will reveal her plans on her eponymous program Friday.

ABC-owned WABC New York reported the news on its Web site on Thursday afternoon; Winfrey's Harpo Productions confirmed the report. The ABC owned stations have always served as the key station group for The Oprah Winfrey Show, which is distributed by CBS Television Distribution.

Winfrey, long a source of pride and inspiration for African Americans, is starting her own cable network called OWN: The Oprah Winfrey Network in a joint venture with Discovery Communications. OWN will replace what is now Discovery Health Network on cable systems.

What remains unconfirmed is whether Winfrey will move her talk show to OWN, although that's what Hollywood blogger Nikki Finke reported earlier this month, reiterating comments that Discovery chief David Zaslav made one year earlier during a conference call.

Source

Does This Black Republican Understand Sarah Palin's Appeal? You Betcha!

2009-11-19T07:36:00.000-08:00

The GOP All Pause!

by Kevin Ross

This was the post that started it:

"Many of you know I'm a Republican. Before I give you my thoughts, however, I'm curious to know what you guys REALLY think of former Alaska Governor and GOP VP candidate Sarah Palin?"

Who could have imagined that this question would illicit such an avalanche of insightful, hilarious, disturbing, and outrageous comments from many of my African American Facebook friends?

I certainly couldn't. But I completely understand why the controversial political vixen is "Going Rogue"... all the way to the bank.

Having been on Facebook now for almost two years, I have NEVER had 55 comments on anything I posted. The closest was when I asked my over 1900 friends to use one word to describe me. That garnered about 31 replies. Even cajoling folks to recall how we met only snag 29 willing participants. Take for example this comment:

"I thinks she's a "back asswards", intellectually "dithering", bobblehead whose absolutely dangerous in her willful and purposeful stupidity and ignorance."

So for the moose-hunting darling of the GOP to have this many individuals bag, dis, clown and essentially give no dap to a "Richard Nixon in lipstick" tells me there is something extra special about this "MILF" of five and grandmother to a boy whose daddy is big on armpit hair.

And Sarah Palin is "all sorts of pissed about it." No, not just about the recent Newsweek cover featuring her looking quite fetching in a sexy jogger number that amply shows off her gams. Those liberal media news outlets are all on her doo-doo list -- particularly that porn collage called Playgirl featuring the suddenly ubiquitous and perennial thorn in her side Levi Johnston.

It's that righteous indignation that Palin has down to a science that have some on the political left and moderates on the right regularly experiencing Schadenfreude whenever the 45-year-old is knocked down a peg.

And yet everyone who gets on board the SS Sarah Smile strikes gold. Katie Couric effortlessly makes Palin look mentally numb and voila, her ratings and reputation for being a stellar journalist suddenly reappear. SNL's Tina Fey portrays a spot-on caricature of presidential candidate John McCain's unusual vice-president choice and walks away with an Emmy.

Oprah invites Palin on her show for a gabfest and reinforces, during November sweeps and the announced ending of her syndicated talker no less, why Winfrey's the queen of daytime. Associated Press reporters must really love her. With 11 reporters assigned to fact-check Palin's HarperCollins tomb Going Rogue during the midst of company layoffs, I'm sure few are complaining at AP, particularly when the alternative would be job hunting during a sustained economic downturn.

We won't even talk about the book publishing world that is thanking God-Almighty for delivering a tectonic wonder woman capable of moving 1.6 million books with lightening speed off the shelves to salvage what has otherwise been a disastrous year for many New York literary companies.

Yet despite Sarah Palin's success as a wife, a mother, politician, opinion leader and now author, large numbers of black people just are not feeling her. Another comment echoed the sentiments of many:

"Sarah Palin perfectly represents the backwards-thinking types in this country who are, more often than not, uneducated and not exposed to people of different cultures. I dislike her, not because she's a Republican, but because she stirs up so much moronic rhetoric. She does nothing to push forward an intelligent discussion. I am not even a Democrat, I'm an Independent. While I have close friends as well as my father who are Republican, I have serious doubts about the intelligence of anyone who seriously supports Palin."

While my Facebook compadres pale to Palin's 1 million plus supporters, another person who I attended college with years ago went much deeper:

"As I watched the opening ceremony of this year's RNC convention as I do every four years, I was taken aback by her nasty and snarky comments. Her divisive behavior continued on the campaign trail. As a Christian, I was struck by her dishonesty and outright unchristian-like behavior. Sarah Palin is part and parcel of the problem that has created this frenzy in the extreme right wing fringe of the Republican party. This is the same group who is now selling t-shirts using scripture to abdicate the assassination of the President of the United States.

Palin is far from stupid, but certainly media hungry and a political scab willing to cut down anyone to further her own agenda. Another LIAR in the political arena, but too slow to cover her own story.

While I wish to never hear from Sarah Palin again, she will never go away as long as she can draw the lines she gets in conservative states like Michigan. She is divisive to the country and the Republican party as a whole. What a can of worms McCain opened when he selected her. He had several excellent choices to pick as a viable female running mate, and now we will have her hanging around our neck for years."

Me, I totally get why Blacks can't stand her. When you see the overwhelmingly white men and women rabid over the barracuda from Wasilla, quite a few look like a mix of trailer park dwellers, KKK recruiters, and backwoods hillbillies. Progressive African Americans are not letting the "yahoos" back into the mix without a verbal beatdown, and thus the sometimes shrill but no less robotic, Pavlovian response whenever Palin's name is even whispered.

But I also understand why middle America, the hockey moms, NASCAR fans, Ann Coulter, and small business owners are sprung. They are among those 4 million viewers that Fox News regularly caters to. Sarah Palin is hands down the most attractive Republican candidate since Ronald Reagan stepped on the scene to die-hard, GOP enthusiasts waiting with open arms. And while people joked about how stupid and how much of a light-weight the B-movie actor was, Reagan knew how to work a camera and television screen.

Also a former governor, Reagan (who had enough sense to finish out his term before making a White House run) was a blue-ribbon superstar in that he was able to raise money and get people to buy into his bigger than life persona, all the while maintaining his common man touch. Possessing charisma and charm the likes of which had not been seen before, Ronald Reagan had the "it" factor, something no other Republican leader has had since he exited stage left.

Until Sarah Palin!

Now, do I believe the 2008 trophy candidate was qualified to be president? Absolutely not. I had already decided that I was casting my vote for then Senator Barack Obama even before Palin gave me a little wink. After her debut, I was that much more convinced that my party was going down in flames on the down-ticket races as well. Sarah Palin was a cynical choice, based on having a limited pedigree that perfectly fit all the necessary boxes: good looking, pro-gun, pro-life, pro-military, driven, and a fresh face that would fire up the base without McCain being upstaged.

As for a woman being used to trump the historical significance of an African-American ascending to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue once Hillary Clinton was pummeled in the Democratic primary, well, that goes without saying.

On so many levels, however, Sarah Palin has exemplified the same intangible attributes our current president possesses. There is something special about Barack Hussein Obama. Despite over-promising and under-delivering, Obama has the ability to captivate and mesmerize. He has tapped into the country's change zeitgeist, even if the results are mixed at best.

That in itself is no small fete. It requires a tactical, resilient individual who not only understands their brand, but recognizes that it's more potent than lightening in a bottle. At least during their 15 minutes of fame. This is why so many people unknowingly embolden Sarah Palin every time they relegate her to being a clueless tool for those who ultimately want Obama to fail and fail miserably.

Yet, these are the same citizens baffled as to why demagogue Rush Limbaugh is more popular than ever, while CNN continues to rearrange the Titanic deck chairs when it comes to their dismal ratings and dwindling influence in the hardball political journalism arena.

Is Palin academically challenged? Duh! And here is where any comparisons to President Obama end. As Oprah was very fond of saying, "He's brilliant!" Palin, well... not so much.

That notwithstanding, do Sarah Palin's other assets more than make up for her lacking of intellectual rigor? Can a audacious gal who's easy on the eyes, carries herself a certain way, has her own authentic message of hope, and who demonstrates a tenacious work ethic get over in this country (i.e. get paid and be a potential king maker) without running for president in 2012?

Res ipsa loquitur. That's Latin Sarah, for the fact speaks for itself.

Kevin Ross is president and CEO of 3BAAS Media Group and an online host for Blogtalkradio.com

10 Rules For Thanksgiving - This WILL Make You Laugh!!!

2009-11-16T10:46:00.000-08:00

Funny, But Soooo True!

1. Don't get in line asking questions about the food. "Who made the potato salad? Is it egg in there? Are the greens fresh? Is the meat in the greens turkey or pork? Who made the macaroni and cheese? What kind of pie is that? Who made it?

Ask one more question and I will punch you in your mouth, knocking out all your fronts so you won't be able to eat anything.

2. If you can't walk or are missing any limbs, sit your azz down until someone makes your plate for you. Dinner time is not the time for you to be independent. Nibble on them damn pecans and walnuts to hold you over until someone makes you a plate.

3. If you have kids under the age of twelve, I will escort the little moochers to the basement and bring their food down to them. They are not gonna tear my damn house up this year. Tell them that they are not allowed upstairs until it's time for Uncle Butchie to start telling family stories about their mommas and papas. If they come upstairs for any reason except for that they are bleeding to death, I will break a foot off in their azzez!

4. There is going to be one prayer for Thanksgiving dinner! JUST ONE! We do not care that you are thankful that your 13 year old daughter gave birth to a healthy baby or your nephew just got out of jail. Save that talk for somebody who gives a damn.. The time limit for the prayer is one minute. If you are still talking after that one minute is up, you will feel something hard come across your lips and they will be swollen for approximately 20 minutes.

5. Finish everything on your plate before you go up for seconds! If you don't, you will be cursed out and asked to stay your greedy azz home next year!

6. BRING YOUR OWN TUPPERWARE!! Don't let me catch you fixing yourself a plate in my good Tupperware knowing damn well that I will never see it again! Furthermore, if you didn't bring anything over, don't let me catch you making a plate period or there will be a “misunderstanding”.

7. What you came with is what you should leave with!! Do not leave my house with anything that doesn't belong to you. EVERYBODY WILL BE SUBJECTED TO A BODY SEARCH COMING IN AND LEAVING MY PROPERTY!!!

8. Do not leave your kids so you can go hopping from house to house. This is NOT a DAYCARE CENTER! There will be a kid-parent roll call every ten minutes. Any parent that is not present at the time of roll call, your child will be put outside until you come and get him or her. After 24 hours, I will call DSS on your ignorant azz!!

9. BOOK YOUR HOTEL ROOM BEFORE YOU COME INTO TOWN!! There will be no sleeping over at my house! You are to come and eat dinner and take your azz home or to your hotel room. EVERYBODY GETS THE HELL OUT AT 11:00 pm. You will get a 15 minute warning bell ring.

10. Last but not least! ONE PLATE PER PERSON!!! This is not a soup kitchen. I am not trying to feed your family until Christmas dinner! You will be supervised when you fix your plate. Anything over the appropriate amount will be charged to you before you leave. There will be a cash register at the door. Thanks to Cousin Alfred and his greedy azz family, we now have a credit card machine! So VISA and MASTERCARD are now being accepted. NO FOOD STAMPS OR ACCESS CARDS YET!

Why Does Rush Limbaugh Get To Have All The Fun On Syndicated Radio?

2009-11-06T09:16:00.000-08:00

Star Search

by Mark Lassiter

On his nationally syndicated Premiere Radio Networks' show, Rush Limbaugh recently called President Obama "this little boy, this little man-child president..."

How many days before Limbaugh calls for armed revolt against The White House via Fox and Friends over coffee and donuts?

The Tea Party Express 2 is a Great American event for Fox News to promote and rally behind. How are protesters empowered and financially supported by a new program claiming to be "Fair And Balanced"? Fox News sponsors the echo chamber for a tea party coming to a city near you, complete with President Obama being demonized, shot at, lynched or dehumanized. If there is a Presidential do-over before 2010 will Fox News cite treason for its high ratings?

When I listen to the single point of view that is broadcast to over 600 stations via national media behemoth like Clear Channel on a daily basis, I am reminded of the words of my former neighbor, also African American, who said with force, "we have so much talent."

Certainly, money is not a problem as Limbaugh's deal with Clear Channel Communications is the second-largest ever for a radio personality, ranking behind Howard Sterns's five year agreement with Sirius Satellite Radio in 2004 for more than 500 million dollars. According to The Los Angeles Times, Limbaugh's salary is more than the combined annual salaries of the four best paid anchors on network television.

Unfortunately, syndication has more to do with the large advertisers than it does the unique interests of the local markets. Syndicated shows have stunted the development of new local talent as they force many local businesses from marketing to local consumers as the stations can base their ad rates on 'national' levels and carry ads purchased by the syndicated show and not the local audience they are supposed to represent.

There isn't a single nationally syndicated progressive Black voice on Clear Channel (or anywhere) who has the same unchecked creative license as Rush Limbaugh. It is time for that to change along with the colors of leaves in the Fall. Business models and old systems are being reshaped by the minute. Media, both traditional and new, will experience its own epiphany when people understand how "we have so much talent" translates into becoming cultural pioneers.

There is no need for a massive cattle call along the lines of American Idol. The only issue is conforming to the clearly defined Limbaugh criteria.

The Job Description is as follows: must be angry, fearless and divisive. Must make audience uncomfortable. Host will have free reign to craft vocabulary, leverage language or bend facts in the name of truth, justice and the American Way. Forget the intellectuals. I nominate Wanda Sykes, Charles Barkley, Chris Rock, Screamin Jay Hawkins (RIP), a fired-up Cedric The Entertainer, or Chuck D of Public Enemy.

Top Ten Candidates for The Next Great Media Host

10. Wyatt Cenac - cool, simultaneously brilliant and unassuming. Emmy Award winner. His sleepy eyes mask a surgical strike at all things stereotypical. Feature 'reporter' on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. In October 2009, he worked with rapper Slim Tug on the music video "Still a Boss" as a parody of how the recession is affecting the rap community..

9. Dave Chapelle - outrageous and raw. Reminds me of Sly Stone back in the day. The question was not whether Sly would be late to his concert, but whether he would show up at all. Chapelle walked away from 50 million dollars to keep his show on Comedy Central.

8. Cris Carter - analyst on ESPN Monday Night Countdown, Sunday NFL Countdown and HBOs Inside the NFL. Passionate and willing to fight for the things he believes in. He said if he were in charge of the Dallas Cowboys he would put a bullet in Terrell Owens which caused an uproar that caused him to apologize for his comments. "C'mon man!"

7. Wanda Sykes - Emmy Award winner named one of the 25 funniest people by ntertainmentFox has her signed for a new show as reparations for Fox News Channel. I hope she does well. I miss the HBO Chris Rock Show with Grandmaster Flash as musical director.

6. Carlton Douglas Ridenhour / Chuck D - rapper, author, publisher, lecturer and producer. Politically active. Testified before Congress in support of peer-to-peer MP3 sharing. Believe the hype.

5. Chris Rock - from Saturday Night Live's Nat X to his current standup routine, Rock is more Baptist preacher than comedian as he exposes hypocrisy with a compact New York City switchblade.

4. Larry Wilmore - "Senior Black Correspondant" with The Daily Show is a good enough title to merit a promotion to the national stage. A veteran of 30 years, he has written for The Office, Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air, In Living Color and The Bernie Mac Show. His latest book, "I'd Rather We Got Casinos" sums it up.

3. Paul Mooney - "BET is owned by White people. They rewrite history. They are big liars. They don't like the messages I send. They get intimidated and get frightened." Wrote for Richard Pryor. What more needs to be said?

2. Mike Wilbon - co-host of ESPN's hit show Pardon The Interruption. His commentary on sports and society have been a staple in Washington DC for decades.

1. Charles Barkley - has crossed over to the promised land where he can say anything he wants and get away with it. The studio show for NBA on TNT is a work of art. His aspiration for public office in Alabama is a plus. Introduced to him at Jocks N Jills sports bar in Atlanta and found him to be gracious and almost as funny as he is on the set.

We have so much talent. You make the call.

Right Now, I'm In Desperate Need of A Soul Train Line!

2009-11-04T16:18:00.000-08:00

BREAKING NEWS: Louisiana Judge Keith Bardwell Resigns!

2009-11-03T15:12:00.000-08:00

White Justice Quits After Interracial Marriage Controversy

A Louisiana justice of the peace who refused to marry a couple because the bride was white and groom was black has given up his post.

Here's Keith Bardwell's one-sentence statement to Louisiana Secretary of State Jay Dardenne: "I do hereby resign the office of Justice of the Peace for the Eighth Ward of Tangipahoa Parish, Louisiana, effective November 3, 2009."

Bardwell refused to perform the ceremony for Beth Humphrey and Terence McKay because they are of different races.

When questioned about his refusal, Bardwell acknowledged he routinely recuses himself from marrying interracial couples because he believes such marriages cause harm to the couples' children. In interviews, he said he refers such couples to other justices of the peace, who then perform the ceremony, which happened in this case.

Humphrey has said she and McKay received their marriage license from the parish clerk of court, where they also received a list of people qualified to perform the ceremony. When she called Bardwell's office to ask about the ceremony on Oct. 6, Humphrey said Bardwell's wife told her that the justice wouldn't sign their marriage license because they were a "mixed couple."

Humphrey and McKay have filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against Bardwell.

By MELINDA DESLATTE of Associated Press

Change We Can Believe In??? Black High School In Chicago has 115 Out Of 800 Female Students Pregnant

2009-10-21T15:03:00.000-07:00

Of the total female student population at Paul Robeson High School in Chicago, Ill., 1 in 7 are expectant mothers. Robeson Principal Gerald Morrow blames the staggering number of pregnancies on the girls home life and absentee men who are not being the loving fathers they need to.

"It can be a lot of things that are happening in the home or not happening in the home, if you will," Morrow said, according to the network, noting that "absentee fathers" are another factor in the school's high number of teen pregnancies.

The birth rate for teens ages 15 to 19 increased 5 percent from 2005 to 2007, according to a March 18 report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Health Statistics.

Could the reasons be lack of access to sexual health education and pregnancy prevention and a lack of access to reproductive health resources. Possibly. What .about the effort to get public assistance? Absolutely.

Or could it be the highly sexualized rap videos on BET or the degrading lyrics in Hip Hop songs catering to these same kids.

Is it a culture that glorifies violence, sex and crimes against women. The same women who have grown up fatherless watching videos portray black women as sexual objects for the pleasure of rappers and their thug entourages.

Is it how rapper Lil Wayne freely plants his seed in any chickenhead willing to open her legs to him. (So far the tally of baby mamas knocked up by the rapper this year alone stands at 4. Wayne already has a 9-year-old with reality tv personality Antonia Carter)

In fact, there was a recent incident where black girls shot up his tour bus because he refused to have sex with them.

The school's students are largely from poor communities of color where teenage pregnancies can be high. At least Robeson is a school in which young women are not being thrown out or transferred to other schools. Principal Morrow notes, "We're looking at how we can get them to the next phase, how can we still get them thinking about graduation?"

Is the answer as simple as providing educational classes and centers to normalize and encourage the use of birth control methods and distribute condoms? While a teen health center is being built across the street, some are advocating for more funding for the creation and maintenance of centers such as these so that teenage pregnancy rates go down.

If only if it were that easy. having 115 pregnant students is an epidemic that is only accelerating the complete economic and social disenfranchisement of Blacks in the US!

Who's On The Outs in Black America, And Who's Stepping Up?

2009-10-18T15:43:00.000-07:00

Beverly Bond's '09 Black Girls Rock Awards
No Punches, Just Praise as Tyson, Holyfield Meet
White House Starts Newsletter Targeting African Americans

Rape a Weapon of War in Congo, Activists Say

Black Philly Murder Victim Selene Raynor: Why???

Beyonce & Lady Gaga Collaborating

McCain Tells Obama to Pardon Black Boxing Champion
Celebrating the First Black Cover Girl Katiti Kironde
Elder Bush Sees 'Ugliness' in Attacks on Obama
Fox Fires Liberal Black Analyst Dr. Marc Lamont Hill
Diddy Loses $20,000 Ring During BET Show Taping
Obama Administration Shifting Policy on Sudan

Source

Macy's Passport '09

2009-10-07T11:58:00.000-07:00

Fashion and compassion
Stars come out to raise money for HIV/AIDS

By Kathy Williamson

Santa Monica, CA - The 27th Annual Macy's and American Express Passport, where Fashion + Compassion Come Together, celebrated the common goal of raising crucial funds and awareness for HIV/AIDS organizations which a fashion show on Sept. 24 that incorporated various genres.

Featured designers at the Barker Hanger in Santa Monica included Rachel Roy, Calvin Klein, Hugo Boss and Levi's; and a visit to Venice, Italy via a live performance by opera singer Melody Moore. The show welcomed stars from the worlds of music and fashion. They included celebrity choreographer Brian Friedman; Indie bands, A Fine Frenzy (from Los Angeles); A Fine Frenzy; Zion 1 with K. Flay (hip hop group); DJ Rashida; Bria Murphy (model, daughter of Eddie and Nicole Murphy); and the Harajuku Girls. The appearances by Sharon Stone and Dame Elizabeth Taylor brought several standing ovations from the audience.

Many of the celebrities were moved to donate $500 to $5,000 including LaToya Jackson; Davy Jones (The Monkees); designer Rachel Roy; Alex Meneses (Everybody Loves Raymond); Eva LaRue (CSI Miami); Cody Longo (FAME); Josie Lauren and Cassie Scerbo (Make It or Break It); and Nichole Hiltz (In Plain Sight). Sharon's "teams" raised almost $75,000.

Dame Elizabeth Taylor asked everyone in attendance to join her in the fight against the wide-reaching and deadly disease. "As my beloved friend Michael (Jackson) said 'We are the world,' and it is up to us - it is our responsibility to take care of those who are sick and dying," which was greeted with cheers from the audience.

Macy’s Passport achieved their goal once again and will be donating over $1 million to a variety of HIV/AIDS organizations.

- Wireimage photo - Nichole Murphy and daughters.

DEATH OF BLACK MEDIA: Is Ebony Magazine Really Up For Sale?

2009-09-26T19:03:00.000-07:00

Who Will Tell Our Stories, The Internet?

The outlook for the Holy grail of black-owned publishing companies, Johnson Publishing, is bleak. Actually, beyond bleak.

Non-stop speculation has had Ebony and Jet magazines on the ropes for some time. Then the Ebony Fashion Fair traveling fashion show -- a flamboyant staple of black women's fund raising efforts since 1958 -- was canceled for the first time in its history.

And now comes word that the company synonymous with Black America is putting its flagship title, Ebony, up for sale.

According to Newsweek, Johnson Publishing's chairman and CEO, Linda Johnson Rice, is seeking a buyer or investor in an effort aimed at securing the survival of the nation's oldest African-American magazine. It's unclear whether the company's other properties, including Jet, would be part of a possible sale.

We here at 3BAAS Media Group have been addressing this issue for some time and even held an Urban New Media Conference in June to discuss what actions should be taken.

According to those familiar with the developments, Chicago-based Rice, the daughter of Ebony's legendary founder, the late John H. Johnson, has approached, among others, Time Inc., Viacom, and private investors that include buyout firms. Time Inc., the world's largest periodical publisher, already owns Essence, a monthly lifestyle, beauty, and fashion magazine for African-American women.

Viacom, meanwhile, owns BET (Black Entertainment Television). Nothing has yet resulted from any of Johnson Publishing's overtures, however. And it's unclear whether negotiations are underway between the publishing company and any of the identified parties or other potential rescuers.

It's a challenging time for print media in general, so Johnson Publishing's plight is not that unusual. Add to that the question of whether the brand can stay relevant with younger blacks, and prospects look even worse.

The fact that black-owned Johnson Publishing faces this juncture during the year when a black man -- one whose social circle the CEO belongs to -- took the White House, is tragically ironic.

Still, no magazine holds the place in the collective heart of African Americans that Ebony has had since its inception in 1945. At the same time, the level of superiority and arrogance the company has shown can not be ignored. On several occasions we have heard people express frustration over how they tried to take the company in a direction that embraced New Media and kept readers fully engaged.

Even as recent as a few months ago at the 2nd Annual Blogging While Brown conference, several attendees where mumbling about Eric Easter, Chief of Digital Strategy for Johnson Publishing. For many, Mr. Easter was coming across like he had all the answers as opposed to engaging those in the audience that have demonstrated an ability to create an online presence.

Currently, Johnson Publishing only has one photographer, Valarie Garrett, to cover the entire country for both Ebony and Jet. So even the images they once prided themselves on now coming from the record companies, studios, the celebrities themselves, or companies like Wire Image.

So the million dollar question is, "What we gon' do now???"

Source

To Hell With Boycotting Glen Beck, Show Black People The Money!

2009-09-24T20:46:00.000-07:00

Apartheid Alive and Well on Madison Avenue

By Sanford Moore

During the time when America was segregated, the late, great Nat King Cole's groundbreaking television show was canceled because Madison Avenue and its clients would not sign on as sponsors. At the time he remarked, "Madison Avenue is afraid of the dark." Not only was his comment painfully correct, but also eerily prophetic, given that 50 years later Madison Avenue is still discriminating against black Americans.

The streets of Madison Avenue are like the segregated graveyards of the past, filled with generations of unrecognized black contributions, talent and ambitions.

The New York City Commission on Human Rights, in successive investigations dating from 1968 to 2005, has documented the consistent pattern of racial discrimination enforced by the major ad agencies and their corporate holding companies. They control a constellation of marketing, media buying, communications, lobbying and PR firms in which there is also a dearth of African-American executives.

Now, it's time to get agencies where it counts -- their wallets. Recently, I appealed to Bill Thompson, the New York City comptroller -- who manages pension funds, which collectively own some $100 million of agency holding companies' stock and some $6 billion of 46 of their clients' stock -- to pressure the agency CEOs to end the illegal and discriminatory practices of their affiliates.

Like the fight to free the blacks of South Africa, which was aided by the divestiture movement led by the institutional investor community, we must now employ the same tactic in freeing black Americans from the insidious grip of the Mad Men.

Workforce statistics and documented discrimination fail to put this flagrant and purposeful discrimination in its proper economic and societal context. In 1968, the year of the first New York City Commission on Human Rights investigation, the seminal book, The $30 Billion Negro, was published.

This revealed for the first time the extent and existence of the black consumer market. In 1979, when the commission's follow-up report declared that a condition of "de facto segregation" existed for blacks on Madison Avenue, a sequel to the book, The $70 Billion Negro, was published. So while the Mad Men and their corporate clients had no aversion to reaping black dollars, they were averse to hiring black employees and executives.

The black consumer market has since grown exponentially and is currently worth almost $1 trillion to Madison Avenue's corporate clients, according to Target Market News. Yet, Madison Avenue continues to denigrate the importance of African Americans and their consumer dollars. Madison Avenue agencies are still "afraid of the dark."

This prejudice, this remnant of Jim Crow, not only discriminates against black employees, executives and vendors, but also is propagated on the greater American society. It is manifest in the paucity of black leads on network TV, and in the disproportionately low use of black models in television commercials and magazine ads.

It is reflected in the rate and revenue disparity Madison Avenue forces on black radio stations as documented by the Federal Communications Commission. In fact, Madison Avenue has created and perpetuated a "separate and unequal" marketing paradigm. It is evident in its advertising, workforce, executive ranks and allocation of client ad dollars.

As reported by Nielsen, black-targeted media received some $2.3 billion in 2008. This figure represented 1 percent of measured ad spending. The figures for Q1 2009 reveal the same "niggardly" level of spending being allocated to black-targeted media.

Of the $1.3 billion spent by the federal government via Madison Avenue prime contractors in 2006-07, only $6.1 million found its way into black media vehicles, according to Nielsen.

When confronted with these figures, Madison Avenue agencies attempt to rationalize their policies with media gibberish about "impressions delivered" and meeting arbitrarily concocted media criteria.

What is being done is the same as when blacks were declared three-fifths of a person in the Constitution. Despite Jim Crow having been declared illegal more than 40 years ago, Madison Avenue continues to enforce a condition of marketing "peonage" on black Americans and the media that serve them.

Let us not forget that one of the differences between totalitarianism and democracy is the extent to which a free media system is supported by paid advertising. Also, let us consider the historical context since Cole uttered his scathing remark. Changes include the U.S. Voting Rights Act being passed, black rule in South Africa, black CEOs running U.S. corporations, black creative expression setting the tone of America's pop culture, and the U.S.'s first African-American president. Yet Madison Avenue refuses to lift the "cotton curtain" of discrimination.

We have had 40 years of pious pronouncements by the leaders of the industry, 40 years of investigations, reports and obfuscation, 40 years of denying the significance of the black consumer market. It is time to return the favor. It is time to make the CEOs of the holding companies pay a price with their own money, to affect their compensation packages and their company's stock price.

Thus my appeal to Thompson. As the youngsters say, it's all about the Benjamins.

Sanford Moore is an industry critic, former agency executive and current black talk radio co-host. He can be reached at thecutmancv@hotmail.com.

OMG!!! Actor LeVar Burton Has A Hissy Fit After Reading Rainbow Gets Canceled! (Spoof)

2009-09-24T20:29:00.001-07:00

My Living Nightmare Of Encouraging Kids To Read Is Over

By LeVar Burton's Alter Ego

Thank god!

After 26 long years, I can finally rest easy. Twenty-six years I spent standing in front of a camera, gritting my teeth, and shilling the latest works of every hack children's book author imaginable.

For 26 years, I've told kids they could open a magical door to another world just by reading a book, when the only door it ever opened for me led to a soul-sucking career in the horrifying abyss of public television.

But now, at last, it is over. I don't have to lie anymore. I don't have to live that nightmare.

When the news came that Reading Rainbow would be canceled due to a lack of funding, I felt—well, to use a cliché like you'd find in one of the hundreds of books I pimped endlessly—like a huge weight had been lifted from my shoulders.

Every day I went to work hoping that maybe the studio had burned down, that maybe the program had been cut, that maybe PBS would finally stop squeezing the life from me drop by drop. Now that it's over, I feel the relief a bruised and broken soldier must feel when he is rescued after rotting away for decades in some dank, forgotten POW camp.

May that godforsaken show burn in hell.

At long last, I can pick up a book and read for pleasure! Haven't read one in ages. You know what I was reading during those 26 insufferable years? Scripts. Scripts for roles that went to actors who weren't stigmatized by their association with a TV show occupying the time slot right after Mister Rogers' Neighborhood.

I happen to be an accomplished actor. I starred in Roots, which was the most-watched show in American television history. My stirring portrayal of Kunta Kinte got me an Emmy nomination. But you know what? At 25 years old, when the opportunity to earn a regular paycheck working on a children's show came along, it seemed like a pretty damn good idea.

I was dead, dead wrong.

Little did I know the next quarter century of my life would be an unrelenting blur of excruciating trips to some of the most boring places on earth. Apiaries, steam trains, old mills—every week they sent me to a fresh hellhole, and every week I had to interview the dullest people imaginable.

And those humiliating books. Maebelle's Suitcase and The Jolly Postman. These were not the classics. Anyone who could glue paper between two pieces of cardboard and hire a publicist could get a book on that show. And there I was, in sheer agony, trying to keep a smile on my face while talking up Germs Make Me Sick!

Before long, people began recognizing me on the street, and inevitably they'd come over and start singing this awful, cloying tune. When I finally asked somebody what the hell it was, I was sickened to learn that it was the show's theme. I'd never heard it. They didn't play it on the set, and Lord knows I never saw one episode of that garbage when it aired.

Hoping to escape Reading Rainbow's clutches, I started taking any role I could get. I'm proud of some of them: I played Geordi La Forge on Star Trek: The Next Generation and Martin Luther King in Ali. But you know what the most challenging role of my career was? Hosting Reading Rainbow and acting like I gave a shit about getting kids interested in books.

Fact is, I couldn't care less whether kids learn to read. There, I said it.

Look, Reading Rainbow was a television program. That should tell you something right there. What I should have done is hosted a show that taught children how to watch more television. I bet they would have come up with the funding to renew that show.

All I've done for 26 years is drive to work, clock in, read my lines, clock out, go home, and cry myself to sleep. Now I'm much older, a broken man, but I've reached the end of my terrifying journey.

And do you know what's at the end? Do you what's at the end of the "Reading Rainbow"?

A giant crock of shit, that's what.

Rev. John Hunter of First AME Leads Push To Get Minority Faith-Based Community Leaner And Healthier

2009-09-21T07:15:00.001-07:00

LA Church Opens Produce Market Serving Up Nutrition

"I need to be here because I want to be healthy and keep the weight under control," said Ava Thomas, a member of First AME for over 20 years and a frequent Trader Joes and Whole Foods Market shopper.

That was the sentiment echoed over the weekend, as the nonprofit economic development and social service arm of First African Methodist Episcopal Church officially unveiled an innovative program that has the faith-based community buzzing.

FAME Assistance Corporation's new fruit and produce market, located at the corner of Western Avenue and Adams Boulevard, had Black and Latino patrons snapping up fresh-cut flowers, juices, kettle corn, teriyaki chicken, and down-home Texas barbeque.

The main stars of the show, however, were bins and bins of quality, affordable mangos, cactus pears, sweet strawberries, white corn, red onions, greens, and other delicious produce.

LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas, and State Senator Curren Price and others were on hand for the heralded ribbon cutting ceremony. The consensus by those in attendance was that the innovative program was long overdue in an area one community activist called the "food deserts" of inner-city Los Angeles.

The new market, now officially open all day on weekends, seeks to change that. Leading by example, FAME Assistance Corp. plans to expand healthful-foods education to 10 churches in the surrounding area under a three-year, $500,000 state grant targeting African American women and children, according to the nonprofit's president, Denise Hunter.

Possible initiatives include church forums and workshops, support groups, a cookbook, bulletin boards providing nutritional information and success stories about people who had changed their diets and improved their health.

Hunter, who is also First Lady at FAME, said that a grant to educate people about healthful eating was "incomplete" without offering them a way to buy those foods.

So FAME connected with Coast Produce Co., a Los Angeles firm that is one of the largest wholesalers to supermarkets and military commissaries in the area.

The firm is setting up a nonprofit arm, Fresh Hope, to take fresh produce to underserved communities and eventually supply minorities local jobs, long a vision of its owner, John Dunn. "For us to find a counterpart with the same passion and belief as us -- I do believe there's a higher power that brought us together," Dunn said.

Dunn, a fourth-generation Korean American, said he also hopes to use the market as a way to bring the neighborhood's ethnically diverse residents together. Seeing Mayor Villaraigosa speaking in both English and Spanish drove that point home.

"The warm reception from the community, the way they've embraced it, has made what we've created so meaningful. It has truly become a village-like gathering place," beamed Denise Hunter as her 8 year-old daughter Jaden sat nearby while pinadas and balloons swayed in the background.

Over the weekend, the market drew patrons of every race and offered produce appealing to particular populations: black-eyed peas and okra requested by African Americans, chiles and Mexican squash for Latinos, plantains for Caribbean immigrants. Weekly entertainment will feature local talent: a four-piece salsa band played Saturday, and the Crenshaw High School jazz ensemble performed Sunday.

Ron and Patricia Lowe, members of First AME for 17 years, have been to other Farmers Markets that are bigger, feature more variety, and have competing vendors offering the same products. But they were there with bags of purchased items because this is "something nice to see in our community."

"I'm pleasantly suprised. It's much nicer than I expected," said Patricia. Her husband chimed in as their 13 year-old daughter Crystal nodded in agreement. "It's good they have a focus on produce. That's what I like."

First AME's Senior Pastor John J. Hunter said he along with his wife Denise planned to lead the push for more healthful eating by personal example. Rev. Hunter said he would aim to triple his daily consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables, from two servings to six, and lose a quarter of his weight. But he said changing the church's food culture would be a challenge: Just recently, he said, a church member gave him a banana cake at Bible study as a "sign of love."

"Food is such a part of our fellowship," he said. "Some people say AME stands for Africans Meeting and Eating. But this is important and necessary for our community. And personally, I look forward to having to take in suits that soon will be too big for me to wear!"

Source

Are Anti-Obama Protestors One Step Away From Calling The President A N-Word?

2009-09-14T09:48:00.000-07:00

The Water Line Keeps Rising, And All We’re Doing Is Standing There

by Erin Aubry Kaplan

Worst thing first: the loosely confederated but commonly paranoid, almost proudly malevolent anti-America forces that pass for a conservative movement in this country is about two seconds away from calling our shining President Obama a nigger.

But that’s not the worst thing—actually, it may be best thing.

My husband is an American history teacher who’s been arguing for years that the racism that’s supposed to be such a thing of the national past has always stewed just below our surface, give or take an inch or two. The virulent resistance to Obama’s health-care reform efforts—and increasingly to Obama himself-- exposes this inconvenient truth more effectively than any argument that my husband or anybody else could make.

The big conservative march on Washington this past weekend paraded a grab-bag of grievances that all reduced down to one thing: Obama is an Other who doesn’t think like Us.

I wish this was so much political theater staged solely for the benefit of Fox News, et al, but I’m afraid it’s more than that. How else is it possible that the very centrist senator from Illinois, momentarily demonized as a liberal, was very quickly made into a socialist/fascist dictator with an oily smile and even oilier words who was trying to sneak Big Brother government past the loyal watchdogs of liberty and individual rights?

For many true and overwhelmingly white believers, Obama is Hitler meets the mythical black trickster Br’er Rabbit, a dread colored Communist who must be kept from power at all costs, because of course Negroes were most in need of social and economic redress, and must always be barred from the inner sanctums of capitalism.

Electing Obama was one thing, realizing we all must now follow the path he defines, whether we like it or agree with it or not, is entirely another.

The panic is setting in. Even the white folks who voted for him are rethinking their position, wondering seven months into this experiment if it was such a good idea.

It reminds me of a dynamic that black people know all too well—you get hired for a job in a burst of white generosity, but as soon as the going gets tough, you’re the first to be let go. Except that in the case of the President, he can’t be fired, at least not right away. So a certain segment of the population, including certain members of Congress, are trying to neutralize Obama with panic and character assassination.

I should have known this was coming, and I did. But I’m disheartened nonetheless.

I hardly agree with all that Obama’s doing, starting with ramping up the war in Afghanistan; I’m one of those disaffected progressives that he still calls friends. But to see him not even being treated like a president, when so much unearned respect was accorded George W. Bush for so long, is painful. It’s personal.

And it’s not just Republicans and conservatives colluding on the diss, it’s Obama’s fellow weak-kneed Democrats who either are blue dogs or who have no stomach for racial matters, and therefore say nothing; in not regularly calling out the bullshit of the opposition, they are standing with them.

Alas, President Obama looks as isolated right now as black people in high places have always been—isolation is the price of their success. The irony is that a president is elected to lead, not to be the prominent but innocuous face of affirmative action.

That’s the change Obama assumed came with the mandate of his election.

He was wrong.

ERIN AUBRY KAPLAN is the first African American in history to be a weekly op-ed columnist for the Los Angeles Times. Her musings continue to appear in the Times, Essence magazine, and on the blog 3 Brothers and A Sister. Among her many projects, Kaplan is currently working on her much anticipated book.

Do You Recall: A Poem in Honor of 9-11

2009-09-11T07:47:00.000-07:00

By Richard Ivory

Upon such sacrifices, my Cordelia,
The gods themselves throw incense.
King Lear, 5. 3

Do you recall:

See the images of our people running

through dust clouds;

trying to escape falling steel;

the still images of screams of horror

tears of anguish!

The choked filled tears of mothers having to explain

the where- abouts of a deceased husband?

Have we forgotten the 92 brave men and women who died on Flight 11?

Have we forgotten our people on United Airlines Flight 175

which hit the South Tower ;

or American Airlines Flight 77

crashing into the Pentagon?

Have we forgotten

Brave Patriots

who prevented United Airlines Flight 93,

from crashing into the Capitol

yet instead perished

on the green fields of Shanksville, Pennsylvania?

Have we forgotten America?

Did you see our people throw

themselves helplessly out of windows

to escape the scorching flames?

Do we not recall

the thousands upon thousands

who flooded the Brooklyn bridge

to escape this great terror?

And did we not recall

a Mayor who led fearlessly

as his city was awash in smoke

and in pain.

Let us never forget !

Death(s) 3,017 (including 24 presumed dead and 19 hijackers)
Injured 6,291+
Perpetrator(s): al-Qaeda led by Osama bin Laden

Source

Natalie Cole Comes Back Stronger, Better Than Ever!

2009-09-10T12:40:00.000-07:00

This Is What Triumph Looks Like!

by Errol Briggs

Natalie gave more than what we could have ever imagined or prayed for last night at the beautiful Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles. Her comeback performance was out of this world. She commanded that stage like she had never been sick a day in her life.

When I tell you that I was "almost" in Heaven last night, then you can believe it.

On Wednesday September 10, 2009, the legendary singer and famous daughter of the incomparable Nat King Cole out performed Aretha, Patti, and Chaka. Natalie wore a deep purple gown for almost the entire show before changing into an equally beautiful turquoise mini gown. She brought out Kurt Carr and the Kurt Carr Singers, and she took us literally to church. She started to do the "Holy Dance" and shouted for about 5 minutes.

When you have been through what Natalie has been through, we know why Natalie danced and shouted all night. I think His name is JESUS. The man who saved her life; The man who gave her a new kidney; The man who delivered her from drug abuse; The man who is her all in all. Don't you know a little something about this man I am talking about?

I thank God for giving Natalie a new beginning, and I thank God for placing each one of you in my life. As Natalie said last night, "When you are going through something, you think you are the only one who is going through it. We all got problems in this world, so never give up and always know that if God did it for me, He will do it for you". Well spoken Natalie!

Errol Wayne is President of Errol Briggs & Associates. Check him out over on Facebook.

Museum Officials, Business Partners, Even Florida Governor Charlie Crist Is Pulling Out All The Stops For Black Art Exhibit

2009-09-10T12:17:00.000-07:00

The Sunshine State has spared no effort to promote The Kinsey Collection, what many are claiming will be the most remarkable art and historic exhibit yet in tracing the African-American experience for Tallahassee residents. People are already feeling the impact.

Florida A&M University grads Bernard and Shirley Kinsey still consider Tallahassee a second home, and for six months "The Kinsey Collection: Shared Treasures of Bernard and Shirley Kinsey" will have residence at the Mary Brogan Museum of Art & Science. The exhibit officially opens to the public Friday and will remain here until March 21, 2010.

"I will tell you that we are projecting stronger admissions for the Brogan Museum than ever before," said Chucha Barber, the Brogan's CEO. "We have generated significant sponsorship for this exhibit, even more so than we had for the blockbuster Our Body — The Universe Within."

The list of corporate partners is a business Who's Who: Visit Florida, The Walt Disney Co., Target Stores, Progress Energy, State Farm, Edison Electric, the Anheuser Busch Foundation and AT&T, among others.

Local partner A.M.W.A.T. Moving & Storage volunteered to truck the exhibit here from Los Angeles and will take it to Washington, D.C., for its next venue, the Smithsonian Institution.

Barber said the biggest outreach is a cooperative effort with tourism marketer Visit Florida and American Express, which will promote the exhibit to more than 7.4 million people through the company's communications with its cardholders.

In Florida, the Governor's Office will join in marketing the exhibit with emphasis on February, Black History Month, she said.

Besides Los Angeles, the Kinsey Collection has been on display in Cincinnati, Chicago and in Bernard Kinsey's hometown of West Palm Beach, where it was housed at the Norton Museum of Art.

"We have had about 200,000 people see the collection, 12 to 15 million people have seen it on television, and about 2-plus million will see it at the Smithsonian," Bernard Kinsey said. "But what we're trying to do is a little different."

Continue

The Kevin Ross Show Takes On The "Evil" Barack Obama, The "Strange" Van Jones, The "Disturbed" Maia Campbell and The "Bizarre" Kinsey Collection

2009-09-09T13:16:00.000-07:00

NOT!

Although now that we have your attention, make sure you tune in Wednesday 09-09-09 as Boss Ross talks all about the controversial issues everyone's buzzing over.

What's your reaction to the insanity surrounding Barack Obama? What's next for Van Jones? How is Maia Campbell doing after the video tape looking not quite herself went viral.

Plus, we'll take you inside The Kinsey Collection, debuting this week at the Mary Brogan Musuem in Tallahassee, Florida. That's 7:00pm PST tonight, only on Blogtalkradio.

Chris Brown Doesn't Heart Oprah, But It's Hollywood That Still Has Some 'Esplainin To Do

2009-09-06T05:27:00.000-07:00

Young Black Actors Get A Few Crumbs At ABC, NBC

Chris Brown Upset with Winfrey Over Rihanna

Is Politics or Race Behind Obama's Education Speech?

Innocent Man Gets $1.8 Million After 23 Years in Jail
350,000 Hit by West Africa Flooding

Williams Sisters Reach 4th Round at US Open

Celebrated Kinsey Collection Makes A Black History Connection

Perry Bringing 'Colored Girls' to the Big Screen
Amnesty Urges Sudan to Withdraw Charges in 'Trouser Trial'
Toronto's 1st Africentric School Set to Open
Sheree Whitfield's Divorce Details Emerge
NC Man Sentenced for Threatening to Kill Obama
A Black Woman Poised for Presidential Candidate in Brazil

Costco Apologizes For Little Monkey Doll

Glenn Beck 1, Van Jones 0 as The Obama White House Strikes Out In The Game of Hardball Politics!

2009-09-06T04:03:00.001-07:00

Black Environmental Czar Done After Beck Boycott, "A-hole" Uproar

Van Jones, a newly minted policy adviser who specialized in "green jobs", has called it quits after a crescendo of criticism over his previous affiliation with a September 11 conspiracy group. But was that the real reason the brotha was "swiftboated"? Well, calling Republicans "assholes" didn't help.

After weeks of being embroiled in what Jones himself termed a "vicious smear campaign," concerning past inflammatory statements, the San Francisco based author and lecturer relinquished the desirable DC gig just as President Obama fights to regain his campaign swagger on the contentious health care debate that has even Democrats failing to get in lock step.

Jones, appointed as special adviser at the White House Council on Environmental Quality in March of this year, apologized earlier after digital content of him "keeping it real" in describing Republicans went viral. Marry to a Caucasian woman, Jones has been very outspoken nevertheless on environmental race issues that many believe have caused urban areas with a large concentration of Blacks and Latinos to suffer at the hands of eco-friendly Whites.

Adding gasoline to the blazing controversy were subsequent revelations that Jones had the audacity to signed a petition suggesting that the U.S. government was involved in the 2001 attacks in New York City and the Pentagon in Washington.

"On the eve of historic fights for health care and clean energy, opponents of reform have mounted a vicious smear campaign against me," Jones said in his resignation letter. "I cannot in good conscience ask my colleagues to expend precious time and energy defending or explaining my past. We need all hands on deck, fighting for the future," he wrote.

But did this character assassination of Jones, 40, really have more to do with the pounding Fox cable talk show host Glenn Beck has been receiving from the Color of Change organization concerning statements that Obama was racist?

In all likelihood, yes, especially since Color of Change was co-founded by Jones and to date, they have successfully convinced 57 companies to not advertise on Beck's show. Not that the polarizing media figure's ratings have suffered because of the issue. In fact, their soaring!

And now that Beck has one scalp that he can put on his mantle, things are just starting to heat up.

Source

Gardena Councilmember Steve Bradford To Join The California State Assembly

2009-09-02T15:19:00.000-07:00

The Distinguished Gentleman Heads To Sacramento

He made the announcement on his Facebook page just before midnight. With 100% of the precints reporting, Gardena city councilman Steve Bradford convincingly defeated five challengers in a Special Primary election to become Assemblymember-elect for the 51st Assembly District.

According to election results reported by the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk, Assemblymember-elect Bradford, the Democratic Party´s endorsed candidate, won the open special primary election in the 51st Assembly District with 52.9% of the vote.

His closest competitor was Democratic Party candidate Gloria Gray, who garnered 19.2% of the vote, and Republican Party candidate David Coffin with collected 17.1% of votes cast (with 100% of the district´s 158 precincts reporting).

"We engaged the voters with a clear agenda for change in the 51st Assembly District. The voters wanted a legislative representative who would focus on creating new jobs, provide residents with greater access to healthcare services at private and public hospitals, and work diligently to solve the state´s ongoing budget mess and cut the massive state deficits that inflict pain on local governments struggling to provide essential local services," said the Black pol who replaces Curren Price who now is the State Senator for the area.

Gardena Councilmember Steven Bradford is serving his fourth four-year term on Gardena´s City Council. He has been a four-time Mayor Pro Tem in more than 12-years on the city council. In March 1997, he became the first African-American to be elected to represent the people of Gardena on its city council.

Steve Bradford is the senior member on the Gardena City Council. He is widely regarded in Gardena municipal government for holding quarterly ´Up-Close´ meetings and ´Open Council´ office sessions to provide local residents and business people regularly scheduled opportunities to offer citizen´s input on Gardena city affairs.

Hot New Actor Jesse Williams Is Making People Go Terrence Howard Who?

2009-09-02T15:05:00.000-07:00

Brooklyn native Jesse Williams is intentionally trying to seduce you with those piercing hazel green eyes. Is it working???

Hollywood's new "it" guy has quite a lot on his plate, causing the Black actors IMBD page to be up almost 20% in popularity. Two films, The Cabin in The Woods and Red Tails are currently in production, he's in Sarah Jessica Parker's The Washingtoniene, and Jesse is also makingr hearts flutter in Brooklyn's Finest (Yes he is!)

Keep your eyes on this one ladies. We likey!

STOP SAYING NBC STANDS FOR NOTHING BUT CAUCASIAN, STOP IT RIGHT NOW!

2009-09-01T22:22:00.001-07:00

NBC's 2009 Fall TV Season Promo.

THOUGHTS???

Pastor John J. Hunter of First AME Church And The FAME Assistance Corporation To Aid Students In Need

2009-09-01T22:22:00.000-07:00

Black Church Focuses on Education

First AME's 5th Annual Back to School Health Fair and Giveaway is coming up on September 12 and church officials are expecting a huge turnout.

Under the leadership of Reverend John J. Hunter, the church in 2008 proudly served over 4,000 community youth and their families.

Since 2005, LA's most distinguished African-American church has given more than 10,000 pairs of shoes and backpacks filled with school supplies to children as they prepare to return to school. Throngs of volunteers from the congregation as well as community supporters help ensure that the event runs smoothly and efficiently.

"This year we will be giving away computers, bicycles, and even some surprises," stated Pastor Hunter as he celebrates his five year tenure at FAME. "We will also host an Education Weekend at FAME where teachers, school administrators, and students will partake in a prayer and annointing service as the new school year begins."

FAME Assistance Corporation, helmed by First AME's First Lady Denise Hunter, has collaborated with the businesses and private donors responsible for supplying most of the items the church distributes. "Although it's a lot of work, seeing the faces of those young people getting new shoes and supplies makes it all worth it," says Mrs. Hunter

For more information about this or any other activities, visit First AME's website.