Black Star Power... a celebration of black excellence thread on-going
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I'm smitten for a chick with natural hair and Brains. Fuck outta here Colin!
http://www.lennyletter.com/culture/a276/on-fixing-hollywoods-diversity-problem/
I remember reading a quote from Whoopi Goldberg where she talked about Nichelle Nichols's role as Uhura on Star Trek: "When I was nine years old, Star Trek came on. I looked at it and went screaming through the house, 'Come here, Mum, everybody, come quick, come quick, there's a black lady on TV, and she ain't no maid!' I knew right then and there I could be anything I wanted to be." And when I was younger, my mother would braid my hair while we watched Star Trek: The Next Generation, and I watched Whoopi play Guinan on the show, and the influence continued. Watching Whoopi and Nichelle in these roles showed me that the entertainment world and even intergalactic worlds are available to me because these women boldly went where no black woman had gone before.
Of course, not everyone needs to see their likeness in a particular position in order to reach it. Viola Davis won an Emmy for lead actress in a drama, and she was the first black woman to achieve that in the 67 years the Emmys have existed. She also just won a Screen Actors Guild award and gave a wonderful response to a reporter asking about #OscarsSoWhite by saying "Diversity is not a trending topic." Unfortunately, I read about her statement in an article titled something like "Diversity Wins SAG Awards," so it seems the topic is still trending. There were a lot of articles like that. Diversity Reigns at SAG Awards, Plenty of Diversity at SAG. I even saw one that said Diversity Makes a Comeback. What?? Where did it go? I think people are getting confused by the word diversity. Diversity didn't win a SAG award, a bunch of talented actors did.
I don't know when this started happening, but some people are using the worddiversity to mean "anyone but white people," and that's not what it actually means. If I want to put a diverse group (of anything) together, I would put together a spectrum of varying things. So if we're talking racially (and we always are), that can include white people. Like, a bag of M&M's is diverse, because they have a bunch of colors in the bag, and I'm assuming each color is evenly distributed (I've never counted the different colors in a bag of M&M's, but I'd like to think it's a good representation of a utopian society). If I opened up a bag of M&M's and it was mostly full of green M&M's and only a handful of blue and orange M&M's were sprinkled throughout, this would not be a diverse bag, and I would think, Whoever put this bag together is really obsessed with green M&M's.
Diversity isn't something that just happens to appear every once in a while. It's not going to surprise you on your birthday like, "Oh, I didn't know diversity would be here! How fun!" It's the act of inclusion, and it's something that needs to be improved upon in so many fields. But it is getting better. People are working on it, and I appreciate it. I saw Star Wars: The Force Awakens, and I teared up a lot, for many reasons, but a big one is the two main characters of the film are a woman and a black man. And there were no winks to the camera like "Rey is strong for a girl" or any mentions of Finn's race. They were just two full characters on a journey together. They both showed a wide range of emotions, and I got a true sense of their personalities and histories. I love that and want more of it.
Hopefully we'll get to a point where we can stop trying to "diversify" jobs and people will just hire qualified people who happen to have different backgrounds, and we won't even have to focus on it because that's just how people think. But we're not there yet, and it's something we still have to work on. So I want to lay out some guidelines we can use to keep each other accountable. If I walked out of the house with a crazy-looking outfit, I would want someone to tell me. If I cast a film that wasn't utilizing as many diverse voices as it could, I would want someone to tell me. I hope other people feel the same way.
There are already some guidelines used to analyze female representation in movies, like the Bechdel Test. To pass it, a film needs to have:
—At least two women in it who talk to each other, about something besides a man.
And I see that a racial Bechdel Test — which some call the DuVernay Test — exists. To pass that, a film needs to have:
—At least two people of color in it who talk to each other, about something besides race.
But these tests are mostly applied after the movies have already been made. I want to make a more specific list for people to check when they're creating, well, just about anything — books, TV, movies, etc. And these aren't hard-and-fast rules. I understand that some productions are period pieces, and if you're in a certain location at a certain time, some groups of people won't be represented. Like I wouldn't expect to see actors from Latin America in a movie about Queen Elizabeth … unless the queen had a secret Latin lover we didn't know about.
Here are some of my ideas. If you have more, add them! Let's make this a living document to help one another:
You are not diversifying your cast if the only people of color in your production are service workers or criminals. Unless the project is about service workers and criminals. And if that's the case, make sure the customers or victims aren't all white so it doesn't look like you're using race to make a good-versus-bad or rich-versus-poor comparison.
You are not diversifying your cast if the only people of color in the project fit stereotypical casting descriptions like: sassy, thuggish, urban, street, hood, spicy, fiery, flamboyant, fierce, etc. Not to say that POC shouldn't embody these types of roles, but if you can't imagine white people in these same roles, OR if you can't imagine POC playing any of the roles you've cast with white actors, you should reevaluate your script.
If there is at least one person of color in front of the camera, there should be at least one person of color on the creative team, and hopefully they can help ensure the character stays a character and not a caricature. (Ideally, you have more than one person of color in the creative team, because no one person should be responsible for speaking on behalf of their entire race. Also, the one POC you have on the team may not always be woke, so it's best to have more. Also, look up Effie Brown on Effie Brown on Project Greenlight to see an example of why diversity behind the camera is important.)
Please avoid tokenism, where there is only one person from a certain race and it's their responsibility to give their opinions on behalf of that whole race. Like if most of this character's lines start with "Well, in my hood / My crew always / When I'm with the homies, we all …," and no one else in the movie is talking like that, reevaluate your script.
Please avoid fetishism, where a character is sexualized because of their race. Also, avoid this in life.
If you are doing an artistic representation/homage/biopic of a real person of color who lived and breathed on this planet, you should cast an actor of that same race.
—What if I can't find an actor of that same race?
—Do your casting search again.
—What if I still can't find anyone of that race?
—Do your casting search again.
—What if I still can't find anyone of that race?
—I mean, I want to say do your casting search again, but if you're really strapped for time, cast a person of color of a different race who looks like that person.
—But what if I want to cast a white person with ethnic features?
— … Did you just say ethnic features?
—Sorry, I mean, I just really like this one white actor and think they can pull it off.
—Please reexamine the reason you're doing the project in the first place. If you are doing it to respect or honor the subject matter's story, then casting a white person will not do that.
Let's be open to new stories for, and from, POC. I don't have a problem with revisiting history, but I think we can produce more narratives that aren't about slavery or about someone fighting to be the first black ______. I definitely don't want to overlook these stories, because they're a part of our history and shouldn't be forgotten, but I'd like to believe that POC in this country have created more stories since slavery and the civil-rights movement that can be expressed in present day or even in the future (like Star Trek!).
All right, that's seven things. I could probably write more, but this is already getting long. And I'm sure there are things I didn't address that apply to groups I don't belong to, so please add it to the conversation. We all need to take part in this if we want things to change.
And if you're an artist or someone who creates things, and after reading this you still think, I hear you, Sasheer, but honestly diversity isn't a priority of mine, well, you can see yourself out, because you're not an artist. Our work should be a reflection of society and if you're not concerned with including all of society, then I don't really know what you're doing making art in the first place.
Diversity makes for better art and entertainment. You know who said that? Barack Obama. You know who doesn't have time to talk about the hiring practices in Hollywood because he's really busy with wars and the economy and stuff? Barack Obama. Things must be pretty bad when the president has to step in and say, "Maybe you guys should try to include everyone?" But this is a systemic issue and it's not going to get fixed overnight, so let's help one another make it better. OK, I'm going to go eat some M&M's now (also, this essay is just one long ad for M&M's).
Sasheer Zamata is a comedian and current cast member on Saturday Night Live.
More bgol appropriate :
racism and police brutality
video
http://allmyvideos.net/ac6ajz8mzinm
This week's episode of Black-ish reminded me of an idea that's been bouncing around my head for some time: Is Black-ish the best network comedy on television now? There's not really a lot of qualified competition, seeing as network comedy is pretty far down in the dumps at the moment, its glory days having faded away like the ratings for Sean Saves the World.
"Hope", this week's standout episode, showed off what Black-ish does best, and I know we're talking comedy here, but what Black-ish does best isn't actual comedy (though it is a very funny show). No, Black-ish bravely goes places most shows—even dramas—won't: headfirst into sensitive topics affecting society today. This week's episode confronted police brutality and the many cases of unarmed African-Americans who've been shot and killed by police across the country. Let's see the nerds of The Big Bang Theory even get within spitting distance of that one.
And as usual, it was handled confidently and compassionately by Black-ish's incredibly smart creator Kenya Barris, who wrote the episode. Much of its power came directly from Barris's words, as evidenced by the fact that it was almost entirely a bottle episode—an episode shot in one location—save for a few cutaways for gags. Three generations of the Johnson family gathered around the television, like many of us have done over the years, to watch another case involving police officers who allegedly shot a defenseless man being let off the hook with no charges.
Like previous episodes of Black-ish that covered heavier matter, including a fantastic episode about the N-word and another about gun ownership, all sides of the conversation were heard. Dre (Anthony Anderson) was his usual bombastic self, the upset black man harping on the police after an endless string of similar cases, while Bow (Tracee Ellis Ross) played the other side, upholding faith in America's justice system and being careful to point out that not every cop was bad. Also chiming in were Dre's parents Pops (Laurence Fishburne) and Ruby (Jenifer Lewis), older folks who had seen it all and earned their right to be stubborn and not know every detail of the current cases, and Dre's kids representing the youth of today, from Andre's (Marcus Scribner) rare awareness of each case's details to Zoey's (Yara Shahidi) seeming indifference.
But Barris wasn't interested in making "Hope" about the outrage that's plastered across 24-hour news channels when an announcement of "no indictments" comes down, or preaching the other side that the victims deserved it, because Barris knows the situation is much more complicated than putting it in black and white terms. Instead, Barris gave each of his many characters different voices in the conversation that relates to police brutality and the flawed justice system in order to encourage viewers to think. And the episode's most emotional moment came when Zoey, who had previously been perceived as uncaring about the situation like a stereotypical TV teenage girl, confessed that she did care but didn't know how to join the discussion because she felt lost and was still working out how she felt. It was Zoey's bravest moment in the series to date, and it was her voice that spoke for most of us who have also felt confused and lost amid such a delicate subject that doesn't have a simple answer.
Instead, Barris made "Hope" about the children, focusing the final act of the episode on the correct way to approach the young twins'—Jack (Miles Brown) and Diane (Marsai Martin)—curiosity about what they werre witnessing. Barris doesn't want to tell viewers how to think about the rash of police killings—in fact, he wants you to hear and understand all sides, not just the one he thinks—but he does want to offer you advice. Hope can sometimes be all you have, and it can't be taken away from children unless we just want to give up on everything. That decision—to have Dre and Bow be careful with what they said to Jack and Diane—put a lid on a potentially volatile situation but kept the discussion open and also left "Hope" inside the orbit of its family comedy genre. And that's something that Black-ish has done very well since it debuted a season-and-a-half ago.
There are other good comedies on network television, of course. There's The Goldbergs, which airs an hour before Black-ish on ABC's incredibly sturdy Wednesday night comedy block. Putting '80s nostalgia aside in a Trapper Keeper under a pile of Ranger Ricks, The Goldbergs does family comedy very well, keeping in tradition with the classics by not going too deep. The Grinder is the funniest sitcom on the lower dial, through its use of meta humor and a knockout performance from Rob Lowe. And Mom is the multi-camera comedy with more depth than we're used to seeing from CBS laughers, confronting topics of addiction with shockingly heavy storylines bookended by laugh tracks. But Black-ish is able to go deep, be funny, and identify as a sweet family comedy.
Is Black-ish the best network comedy? It's looking like it.
http://www.tv.com/shows/blackish/co...ope-review-best-network-comedy--145634848533/
‘Old but not cold’: Four very longtime friends anticipate turning 100 this year
Leona Barnes doesn’t remember when, back around the close of World War I, she met Gladys Butler, Ruth Hammett and Bernice Underwood. Growing up in Southwest Washington, they were part of the landscape, in the same way that her house and her street and her church were.
As little girls, the four played jacks and jumped rope; later they shared gossip and danced the two-step and the Charleston. Two of them lived in the same house at one point, and three of them had babies the same year — 1933. But they could not have predicted that someday they would be poised to celebrate their 100th birthdays together.
“We all are grateful, and we thank the Lord for all of us to see 99,” Barnes said as she sat this week in Zion Baptist Church in Northwest Washington with the other three, who are members there. Slapping her thigh for emphasis, she said, “If we don’t make 100, it’s up to Him — but we made the 99.”
Underwood, dressed elegantly in a flowered skirt, turquoise jacket and heels, dropped her jaw, feigning shock.
“Yes, you’re 99 years old,” Barnes said, giving her a nudge, “and looking good.”
Meet four lifelong friends who will all turn 100 this summer
Leona Barnes, Elizabeth Hammett, Gladys Butler and Bernice Underwood are lifelong friends who were born and raised in Southwest Washington. They will all turn 100 this summer. (Monica Akhtar/The Washington Post)
“It came so fast, I didn’t realize it,” Underwood said.
Making it to the triple digits together is one of many things the four friends never foresaw. When they were girls, the District had separate movie theaters for black and white patrons and separate schools for black and white students. As kids, they didn’t think much about it.
They accepted that a black girl couldn’t try on clothes or hats at the department store; she had to take a gamble that the items she bought would fit or that she would find someone in the neighborhood willing to buy them off her.
Chances were, in that patchwork of tenements and alleys in the shadow of the Capitol, someone would.
“It was a fine neighborhood,” Barnes said. “If you took sick, the next person would know about it. We were very close, closely knitted. That’s one thing that we miss. The neighbor on either side, they’d make you nice hot soup. It’s not like neighborhoods of today where sometimes you don’t know your next-door neighbor.”
In the first half of the 20th century, Southwest Washington, one of the city’s oldest neighborhoods, was home to African Americans on one side and Eastern European immigrants on the other. It had a commercial district, grocery stores, schools and churches, including Zion Baptist, a stately red church with a wrought-iron fence that was started in the 1860s by former slaves. There were a few large, elegant residences, but much of the area was a warren of small, ramshackle homes, many of which lacked electricity and relied on outhouses. Marvin Gaye was born there, and Al Jolson lived there as a boy.
The girls lived within a few blocks of each other — Barnes’s and Butler’s families even shared a house for a while. In those days of relaxed security, they could roller skate right up to the Capitol. When they were 10 or 11 the four formed a social club, with a president and a vice president.
“Our parents stood in back and listened to us talk, and then after that we would have a repast,” Barnes said. “Chicken, potato salad . . . ”
“Chitlins,” Underwood added.
As they grew up, married and had children, they witnessed the forces shaping the century. They had relatives who fought in World War II, the Korean War, and Vietnam. They felt hope listening to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., and despair during the race riots that wracked the city after his assassination.
They had their personal ups and downs. “We would fight together and our children would, too — and then we’d have a good time,” Barnes said. “We were friends, friends, friends.”
As they settled into middle age, they saw family members join the struggle for equality: Barnes’s husband and 11 other black men fought successfully to be allowed to do a higher class of work at the U.S. Bureau of Printing and Engraving. “My husband was the first black plate printer — Turner Barnes — back in 19-whatever.”
She worked at the bureau, too, until a better-paying job came up at the National Security Agency. To this day, she won’t reveal what she did there. “That’s security,” she said, pursing her lips.
Butler worked for 39 years as a housekeeper at the Metropolitan Club. Hammett was a department store stock clerk and later a supervisory key punch operator at the Office of Personnel Management. Underwood shucked oysters at a restaurant, and worked as a cosmetologist, a milliner and a money counter at the Bureau of Printing and Engraving.
Elaine Saunders, who at 80 belongs to a younger generation, remembers the figures the four cut. “Miss Bernice was always Miss Fashionista; she had her hat and gloves. Miss Leona, she always had her hat tilted to the side.”
Hammett’s son, Vernon, 60, knew he couldn’t misbehave in sight of his mother’s friends. “Every last one was a mother to me, and I respected that, and if I didn’t act right, I would hear about it.”
In Southwest Washington, people tended to live out their days in the neighborhood, and the women never imagined that their friendship would outlast its stoops and storefronts. But in the 1950s, the area was marked for urban renewal and razed, decimating the community.
Nearly everything was demolished, including Zion Baptist, whose building on F Street SW was replaced by a segment of the 395 freeway. Barnes’s church, Mount Moriah Baptist, also had to move. Their congregations scattered. Neighbors lost touch, and many found it impossible to re-create the old sense of closeness.
But from new homes in Northeast and Northwest Washington, the four women’s friendship persisted. They saw each other become grandmothers, great-grandmothers, and “great-greats.” They can still send each other into hysterics. And they share memories of places and people no one else remembers.
Such as Hammett’s father, who was a deacon of Zion Baptist; a chapel there is named after him.
“He was a dapper dresser,” said Barnes, chuckling as she recalled his white spats. “He was clean. No flies on him, nowhere.”
The years have not always been easy. All four women lost their husbands; some also lost children, including Barnes, whose son George, her only child, died last year of cancer in his early 80s.
But they have each other. Underwood calls Barnes every afternoon at 4 o’clock, to check in. “She gets tired of me calling,” Underwood said. Barnes held her tongue, and Underwood grinned. “She didn’t say no, either.”
Three of the four live on their own and still do their own housekeeping. Hammett volunteered at church and at a Veterans Affairs hospital until a few years ago and now lives with family. Underwood gets on her stationary bike every day and loves to dance. Without hesitation, she bent forward, straight-legged, and touched the floor. “I’m old,” she quipped, “but I’m not cold.”
“They say, ‘You okay by yourself?’ and I say ‘I feel good by myself,’ ” she said. “I sing to myself and I talk to myself. As long as I don’t answer myself!”
By age 92, the women thought they had seen it all. But then something happened that they would never have predicted.
“That a black man became president of the United States,” Barnes said softly. It was, she said, the best thing that ever happened to her. “I never thought in my wildest dreams that that would ever happen. That’s how far down we were.”
Butler shook her head. “I just wish that some of my parents and my sisters and my relatives could have been here to witness it.”
“The Lord carry me home, I carry that with me,” said Underwood.
At the same time, they’ve been around long enough to know that the path to justice can be uneven. Asked about the current presidential campaign, they shook their heads.
“I look at the paper and we might be going back to the same old days,” Barnes said.
“Please,” Butler said.
On the other hand, the idea that a woman could win pleases them.
“We never had one before, and I think that she would try to do more than anyone else had, because she’s a woman,” Butler said.
“We won’t be here long enough to see,” Barnes said.
But maybe they will.
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