I finally tasted #Lemonade and it wasn’t anything like it was portrayed to me. It was a full bodied thirst quenching tall glass of amniotic bliss… It was a rich visual embodiment of the call and response like conversations that women of the diaspora play out internally on a daily basis. It is sheer and utter blaspheme to paint Beyoncé as an “Angry Black Woman” seeking to publicly air a lovers spat…The images… so carefully crafted are delicate representations of our strength as black women… don’t you see?
It’s a celebration of life and vibrancy in face of dull toned turned backs… It’s a chin held high in face of misplaced applause… It’s the acknowledgment of the side eyes we’ve dished out to those whose very image we were trained to covet over our own… It’s an ode to the colored girl… and an antidote to the colorist. If you watched an hour of sunshine and chose to see rain… I can only deduce that it either wasn’t made for you or you were not ready to receive it.
I was ready though…I been ready. I needed this more then I knew I did… a burst of brilliant blue-black ultra violet light. So many talented womenfolk pooled together in a single contiguous heart string… lined up in Formation… calling me with their eyes saluting me, emblazoned with the symbols of our pride.
I’m glad to be alive in these strange times…these fearful, exhausting, yet awe inspiring times. I finally tasted #Lemonade and all I could muster to say out loud was thank you … Thank you to the ancestors for laying the foundation for Formation by turning lemons into Lemonade under the watchful eyes of your little girls…because you never know who you are raising until they rise up.
Tuesday night sucked… hard. The progressive movement suffered a number of losses but none more important that our loss of faith in the Democratic party as a whole.
I’m finished begging the Democratic party or anybody else to pay attention to issues that matter to me and people who look like me. I’m not going to concede in fear of Trump; if he wins it’s our own damn fault for ignoring the cries of the 99% and divesting from education, industry, and infrastructure for far too long… My generation is a casualty of trickle down economics, austerity, shitty foreign trade policy, a 15 year war, regressive racism, and the continued misguided political decisions of our predecessors…We have every right to be angry about the condition of world we are to inherit. I refuse to reward negative behavior and give up the rights my grandparents so viciously fought for me to have.
If my Grandfather were alive I know who he’d vote for…
If King were alive I know who he’d vote for …
I’m not a sell out. I’m not a sore loser whose pride is blocking a vote for Hillary…
I’m honoring my ancestors legacy by standing tall in principle surrounded by those stooped over in huddled pragmatism.
I am not easily knocked down… There is just too much on the line to be disillusioned by the expected voter and information suppression accompanied by election fraud. Those of us who know that 4 more years of the same could end in unspeakable tragedy for so many understand that we have to ride this thing until the wheels fall off. I am still on board with Bernie Sanders and if the stars align I’ll be in Philly this July channeling my Ancestors, and the millions of people who just want a fair shot at a decent life. Yes, Tuesday was disappointing but if we pull this off wouldn’t it make for a great read for future generations who will reflect bewildered by our society’s prolonged lack of empathy. I can’t wait till all of this feels like a lifetime ago but until then keep calm and Bern on.
“Ok, soooo the awards are mine? It’s official? Let me drop this single on um right quick”
Sheesh… I’m with EVERYTHING HE SAYS… EVERYTHING…
Poetry at it’s rawest, Kendrick pulled my heart out with this one.
Almost 20 years after Bernard Weinraub, of The New York Times insinuated that Michael Jackson’s HIStory album was “profane, obscure, angry and filled with rage” and “bigoted lyrics” here we are living the lyrics… Again.
It’s funny that Weinraub, the husband of now notorious Sony Pictures Chief Amy Pascal, penned the review that would doom the album and lead its single ,”They Don’t Care About Us”, to infrequent radio play and it’s accompanying short film to being banned from American TV.
I find it even funnier (and by funnier I mean terribly disturbing) that when Michael Jackson called Sony Music out for being “Racist”, the media chose to scrutinize his claims as if he were imagining things.
Yup… It only took 20 years, an insane security breach and leaked high level emails to confirm the King of Pops assertions.
Now, for some ungodly reason, Amy is able to feign an apologetic stance. Apparently after sitting down with Al Sharpton her (and her counterparts) comments are being brushed off as if they were just an off-color moment. Apparently, 20 years (at least, it hurts me to think that she was raised in a house hold where this type of thought was acceptable or funny) of egregious thoughts now can be equated to an accidental slip of the tongue…keystroke.
The fact that more people aren’t highlighting this absurdity is disheartening.
The fact that Amy hasn’t stepped down or been forced out is fucking ridiculous…
God dammit.
I just knew I could get through this without cursing but this is just too much bullshit to wade through without getting some stuck to your shoe…
Nope. Not for one second am I cool with this. You can try to distract us by focusing on the hackers themselves as opposed to what they uncovered but as an African-American Actress reading the remarks made about my people in these email exchanges, it only brings a realness to my gut notion that as far as Hollywood is concerned,”They Don’t Care About Us”.
Now, because this all just got too real, let’s jive it up again by watching the video that was banned in America…I promise you that your faith in people will be tested by how relevant the covered topics still are and by how nuts it is that they blocked an artists right to free speech because he chose to be the voice of Americans not represented by the power structure…
I guess free speech is only people who color in between the lines.
MINNEAPOLIS (October 17, 2014) – Today at the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ), Board of Directors Meeting, President Bob Butler announced that long-time supporter CNN has withdrawn support of NABJ for the 2015 Convention & Career Fair.
NABJ issued a statement last week, “NABJ Concerned About Atmosphere at CNN for African Americans“, in which NABJ expressed concern over the large number of African-American staff members leaving and being fired from the cable news network. Several African-Americans anchors have left the anchor desk or CNN altogether in the past few years.
Following the release CNN contacted NABJ President Bob Butler and informed him the association’s request for support was denied.
Since that time CNN announced a major layoff in which at least five senior managers were laid off. In the past year nearly a dozen African American managers have resigned, been laid off or were terminated.”
“I understand the company has a right to make personnel decisions,” said NABJ President Bob Butler. “There were not that many African American managers at CNN in the first place. These layoffs have hurt our members tremendously. I am severely disappointed that CNN has ended our partnership.”
NABJ was established as an advocacy group in 1975 in Washington, D.C., and is now the largest organization for journalists of color in the nation. It provides career development, educational support and other services to its members worldwide.
Six black kids from #Ferguson, MO bluntly and sarcastically educate white America about the racist reality in 2014. Recruited from the very block where unarmed black teen Michael Brown was gunned down by a white police officer, these kids ranging in age from 6 to 13 years old, use sometimes uncomfortable humor to show white people the continued racism their generation faces. Armed ONLY with statistics (hands up, don’t shoot) these articulate and adorable kids are not having it while much of white America would rather pretend racism is over.
FOREWORD BY THE EDITOR OF “LOST BELOW THE FOLD”, LAUREN CROOM
For years the Lacks family struggled to preserve the privacy of the very thing that was uniquely proprietary to them, their DNA. This family’s contribution to science can never fully be calculated. They have never seen a dime of the billions of dollars made using their cells, and yet they are still making strides in medicine by paving the way for a more ethical outlook going forward. Thank you Lacks family, for your continued endowments to science and the world at large.
Over the past six decades, huge medical advances have sprung from the cells of Henrietta Lacks, a poor, African-American mother of five who died in 1951 of cervical cancer. But Lacks never agreed that the cells from a biopsy before her death taken could be used for research. For years, her own family had no idea that her cells were still alive in petri dishes in scientists’ labs. They eventually learned they had fueled a line called HeLa cells, which have generated billions of dollars, but they didn’t realize until this spring that her genome had been sequenced and made public for anyone to see.
Lost Below The Fold 