“You Smell Like Dinner”…and Sweet White Womanhood: True Blood S4 E2 Roundtable

"Therein lies Sookie’s dilemma–submit to ownership and be 'protected' or risk the consequences of being 'untrue.'"




"Ah True Blood. We hate that we love you. This week’s roundtable – featuring Amber Jones, Alea Adigweme, Jordan St.John, myself and Kendra Pettis – had quite a bit to say on the usual suspects. Laffyette’s growing Orientalism and our mistrust of Jesus; more speculation about Tara’s boo thang; a few cackles about poor, paranoid Arlene (who, may in fact be right); and the evolving Jessica-Hoyt saga. But what shocked us all is how much time we spent talking about Sookie – who has recently realized her privileged status is in danger after her year long absence." Read Here

GREAT READ.

States outlaw miscarriages, Florida drug tests welfare recipients, media’s obsession with dead white girls

Episode #326 of Citizen Radio: Several US states seek to turn pregnant women into criminals, Florida begins drug-testing welfare recipients despite the fact that Gov. Scott has ties to one of the companies doing the screenings, Jamie yells at the media for its obsession with the Casey Anthony trial, public workers don't receive their pensions, and for some reason, that's not a crime, and a man dies in New York while protesting helmet laws...when he falls off his motorcycle. Also, several of your write in to tell Jamie he's not racist. Thanks!



Listen Here

Stranded: The stateless Haitians

"For many Haitians fleeing dictators and poverty at home and looking for work in the cane fields, the Dominican Republic has long been a refuge. However, possibly a million Haitians or people of Haitian ancestry are now being affected by the adoption of a new law concerning citizenship in the Dominican Republic. Many descendants of Haitian workers living in the Dominican Republic could face deportation to Haiti or be forced to live outside the law, with no legal status in the country.

...


Sonia Pierre, a Dominican human rights activist, says the changes in Dominican citizenship laws have made hundreds of thousands of Dominicans of Haitian descent, in effect, stateless. She points to a landmark international court decision in 2005 calling on the Dominican government to end its discrimination against this population. But the government did the opposite - it hardened its policies and began retroactively withdrawing citizenship from Dominicans of Haitian descent.

Claiming that it is only trying to "clean up" its civil registry rolls, the government now systematically refuses to issue identity documents to Dominicans of Haitian descent. Officials often deny these documents because someone has a Haitian-sounding last name or "looks" Haitian.

Sonia Pierre's organisation, the Movement of Dominican-Haitian Women (MUDHA), has documented thousands of cases where the government is systematically denying rights to Dominicans of Haitian ancestry. Those affected come from all walks of life - schoolteachers, lawyers, community organisers, doctors, entertainers, caregivers, students, and military officers. Now these people are in danger of becoming stateless in the country of their birth and residency." Read More

Black & White & Red All Over (1997)

I have no idea why my mother and aunt allowed me to watch this movie with them, but that openness is the type of stuff that I am grateful for.



"No, the six black friends hanging out together in a Boston apartment over a Thanksgiving weekend, watching television, drinking beer and smoking "blunts", are not waiting for Godot, although it sometimes feels that way. The characters in their 20's who inhabit ''Black and White and Red All Over'' are caught up in a wave of black-on-black violence that is receiving sporadic coverage on a local television station. Exactly how they are connected to these events is revealed only in bits and pieces as the story unfolds. Even by the end of the movie, much is still unexplained.

Set in the near future, the film, directed and written by DeMane Davis, Harry McCoy and Khari Streeter, has the style of a semi-improvised docudrama. Drenched in a mood of ominous claustrophobia, it evokes a black urban society so caught up in lethal turf wars that at times the apartment seems like a bunker. Most of the crucial events in the drama take place offscreen.


The movie has flashes of grim humor. One scene is photographed from the point of view of a "blunt" that the characters are passing around. When they talk back to the continuously playing television, their banter about the programming, particularly on the Black Entertainment Network, has a bitterly funny edge." Read More

Black?

Dellusions of Grandeur. The funny part is the 1st girl's whole style is "black". I blame the parents tho.

Peace to the ones at the end tho.

Oscar nominations an all-white affair

"Setting aside the more obscure, technical categories, when it comes to the best picture award along with the major nominations for acting, writing and directing, there are, ahem, zero people of colour in the Oscar race this year.

There are so few significant African-American characters in any of the 10 films nominated for best picture that comedian Aziz Ansari did a bit about it at the Producers Guild Awards Saturday night, wondering why there couldn't have been at least one black kid checking his Facebook account in The Social Network, adding that things were so white that in 127 Hours, when James Franco's hiker character cuts off his arm, it doesn't even turn black.

It's hard not to notice how few minorities had any visible roles in this year's most lauded films. The Social Network offers us a virtually lily-white Harvard; The Fighter is set in an oh-so-white, blue-collar Boston neighbourhood; The King's Speech depicts an all-white, upper-crust, 1930s-era London; Toy Story 3, like most Pixar films, is set in a fantasy suburbia without any obvious references to minorities; and True Grit takes us back to the Old West, where the only black faces I can remember seeing are that of a manservant and a stable boy.

And if you're wondering about lead actor nominee Javier Bardem, he's from Spain." Read More

Los – Freedom of Speech x Next Black President (Video)

Los "Freedom of Speech" x "Next Black President from john colombo on Vimeo.

ummm...ok. i dig...kinda.

...

nevermind. i dig it. its dope.