Showing posts with label black twitter. Show all posts
Showing posts with label black twitter. Show all posts

Friday, January 16, 2015

Academy Award Snubs Lead to Viral Hashtag #OscarsSoWhite

photo selma_ver2.jpg

The Academy Awards bore most of us senseless because: (A) many of us out in the heartland aren't able to see some of the films, and (B) the choices leave us scratching our heads. And whenever I see a movie that I think is Oscar-worthy, you can bet it will be immediately snubbed by the Academy, or thrown a "special effects" or "costumes" award. Another complaint I have is they often highlight films about women falling apart mentally or being victims of violence. So I don't even click on Oscar stories anymore.

But this week's Oscar snubs couldn't be swept under the rug as Hollywood chose to ignore actors of color and the movie "Selma" and Twitter rose to the occasion with the hashtag #OscarsSoWhite started by @ReignOfApril and picked up by the national news media.









MTV Interview with April Reign @ReignOfApril
“It’s disconcerting that every single year, we can count the people of color who are nominated on one hand,” April Reign, the attorney and blogger at ReignOfApril.com who started the #OscarsSoWhite hashtag, told MTV News over the phone. “That really needs to change. It’s not because there’s a lack of quality films that star or feature people of color; that’s not the issue. There was an article in The Atlantic recently which indicated who the Oscar voters are. They are 94 percent white, 76 percent male, and the average age is 63 years old … and they might not be as interested in seeing ‘Selma.’”
. . . “How is it that you can nominate a film for Best Picture, but then not nominate it for anything in any of the other categories?” Reign asked. “How is it a Best Picture if the screenplay isn’t nomination-worthy, or the actors, the actresses, the director, the cinematography? If nothing else is Oscar-worthy, then what makes it a best film? I’m happy for the nomination, but part of me says, ‘Maybe they just threw us a bone.’”

From USA Today
. . . Thursday's 2015 Academy Awards nominations, which have come under fire for a glaring lack of diversity. Social media erupted after the slate revealed that the 20 contenders for lead and supporting actor and actress are all white for the first time since 1998.
"It was a total blow, it was like getting hit in the stomach," says regional Fox network film critic Shawn Edwards, who runs the website ILoveBlackMovies.com. "It was like, 'Here we go again.' "
. . . Selma, centered around Martin Luther King Jr.'s civil rights struggle, received two nominations, for best picture and best song. The film's Golden Globe-nominated director Ava DuVernay, who would have made history as the first female African-American director nominee, was notably shut out. So was her much-touted star David Oyelowo.

From Entertainment Online
Not only were the acting categories filled with white men and women, the Academy also seemed to snub women as a whole in other major categories such as directing and original/adapted screenplay. We're looking at you, Angelina Jolie, Gillian Flynn and Ava DuVernay.
"I guess white men can *finally* have their day in the sun, you know? #OscarNoms," tweeted another user.
The last time the acting contenders were only white was in 2011, and before that it hadn't occurred since 1998.

















Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Wednesday, May 14, 2014

#BringBackOurGirls and the Hashtag Police

photo shutterstock_98718980-300x233.jpg

Ann Coulter was the most obvious critic of Michelle Obama after she held up a sign with the hashtag #BringBackOurGirls in her weekly address ~ see my Previous Post:

Twitter Punks Ann Coulter After She Mocks Michelle Obama



Unfortunately, there are others on Twitter who fancy themselves the "Hashtag Police" - forever dissing any hashtag that they don't find important or worthwhile. Or they say because everyone isn't an "expert" in what the hashtag is about, then they are just "armchair activists." Thank you, Captain Obvious, but we can't all go to Nigeria and help the FBI and Special Forces hunt down Boko Haram.

Some people freaked out that President Obama dared to send help to Nigeria, alternating between despair that America hasn't helped much before, and anger that there might be 'boots on the ground" - the same argument we hear about Ukraine and Syria and lots of other places.

Others implied that the hashtag was useless because the members of Boko Haram wouldn't read our tweets anyway, while others pointed out that Boko Haram has killed other children in the past, so why worry about a mere 200 young girls? Just GIVE UP People!!!

So I guess because GOP members like Ted Cruz or Paul Ryan don't read our tweets, we should stop tweeting about them, too? And if there's an atrocity in the world, such as fracking or pollution or pushing animals to extinction, we should ignore it because the world is just evil and it's ARMCHAIR ACTIVISM!

And it's all Obama's fault anyway because he keeps doing things that Presidents do and all of that is evil so JUST GIVE UP, PEOPLE!!!

It's rather baffling that no one complained about the #BundyRanch hashtag for a month, but suddenly 200 girls go missing and they don't think #BringBackOurGirls is a helpful hashtag? It's a strange phenomena for sure.

I think this is an important debate, so I'm going to post both sides here, via Twitter.


















































































Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Twitter Punks Ann Coulter After She Mocks Michelle Obama

photo ccd34612-51ae-4d53-b563-8118188ea456.jpg
Tweeted by Atchka!

On Mother's Day, Michelle Obama gave her weekly address in which she spoke about the 200 Nigerian girls who were kidnapped by the cruel terrorist group Boko Haram. Mashable tweeted a picture from the video of the First Lady holding up a piece of white paper with the twitter hashtag #BringBackOurGirls and it immediately drew fire from the right. Among the many critics of our FLOTUS was the ever-nasty Ann Coulter, right wing polemicist and caustic conservative. She took a photo of herself appearing to pout and holding up a piece of paper which read "#BringBackOurCountry," an echo of the conservative "I want my country back" nonsense started by the Tea Party and Sarah Palin in 2008.

As usual, Coulter's goal was to prove that somehow Conservatives are suffering much more than anyone else, certainly more than some frightened children forced by armed gunmen into child-marriages or God-knows-what in the jungles of Nigeria.

The insensitive Narcissism and Self-Pity in Coulter's tweet rubbed Twitter the wrong way, and her prank boomeranged right back at her through a hilarious twitter meme as people erased her original message and added their own. It couldn't happen to a nastier person. I hope it never ends.




White House Transcript
Like millions of people across the globe, my husband and I are outraged and heartbroken over the kidnapping of more than 200 Nigerian girls from their school dormitory in the middle of the night.
This unconscionable act was committed by a terrorist group determined to keep these girls from getting an education – grown men attempting to snuff out the aspirations of young girls.
And I want you to know that Barack has directed our government to do everything possible to support the Nigerian government’s efforts to find these girls and bring them home.
In these girls, Barack and I see our own daughters. We see their hopes, their dreams – and we can only imagine the anguish their parents are feeling right now.

. . . These girls embody the best hope for the future of our world…and we are committed to standing up for them not just in times of tragedy or crisis, but for the long haul.
We are committed to giving them the opportunities they deserve to fulfill every last bit of their God-given potential.
So today, let us all pray for their safe return... let us hold their families in our hearts during this very difficult time…and let us show just a fraction of their courage in fighting to give every girl on this planet the education that is her birthright. Thank you.






















Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Tuesday, July 30, 2013

Don Lemon Logic ~ Shoe Shines, Litterbugs and Belts

photo 2c67cfce-160e-47f9-b316-aa38b019154e.jpg

Previous Post:
CNN's Don Lemon Blames the Black Community for Trayvon Martin Racism

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

CNN Transcripts Saturday July 27, 2013
DON LEMON: Michael Skolnik, I talked in that segment about the so-called thug culture that the hip-hop and rap community promotes, and you are a -- you are a proponent for hip-hop and rap. You don't believe that we should stop saying the n-word.

MICHAEL SKOLNIK, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, GLOBALGRIND.COM: Don, I think your comments sounded like a conservative preacher on a Sunday and certainly Bill O'Reilly should welcome you on his show. I'm disappointed in you --

LEMON: Yes, but -- go ahead, I'll let you finish.

SKOLNIK: Here's the thing. You are talking about sagging pants. I've heard the rap for years. Let's not talk about sagging pants and let us talk about why we incarcerate 2.2 million people in this country and why young kids look up to guys who come out of jail. We waged a war against black and brown people 40 years ago, the war on drugs and it failed miserably and now we are reaping the repercussions.

LEMON: But Michael, -- Michael --

SKOLNIK: Yes.

LEMON: Not every black kid is in jail and there are rules and people should know where that style comes from whether it's a black kid or a white kid whether it's Justin Bieber or any -- that is glorifying prison culture. Who wants to see someone's butt crack?

SKOLNIK: No. The community has been destroyed. Black men went to jail as diseased drug addicts and they came out as criminals because they taught them criminal behavior in prison. We destroyed the black community.

LEMON: Then why do you have to glorify that through rap and hip hop culture?

SKOLNIK: It's not glorifying it, it's a reflection of our society. Our society incarcerates 2.2 million people more than anyone else in the world. It's a reflection, it's a mirror. Don't break the mirror. Look at yourself.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I have likened privilege to an intoxicant, one that will have you tripping so hard that you will think you don’t have it. Privilege, I have said, is one “helluva” drug. Inhale enough and you will start believing that you are among the oppressed. At its essence, however, privilege is simply the liberty not to know. I watched in horror this week as a colleague suffered a “contact high”.
A swift kick to the backside, or “tough love” as CNN anchor Don Lemon calls it, will not tear down the strictures of race, class and gender in this country. To say so gives rise to the aspersion that distressed communities are simply the manifestation of a collective moral failing.
. . . Despite his self-professed humble upbringing, Lemon betrayed a nascent understanding of the societal and political pathologies that left generations of devastation in their wake.
~ Goldie Taylor on The Grio

Whether you know it or not Don, when you jump on O’Reilly’s racist bandwagon, you come across as a clueless sock puppet…a sell-out, who has lost touch not only with the black community, but with your own soul, as well.
When you raised those five points you broad-brushed the entirety of my community just like O’Reilly does with his “fire-ready-aim” approach to ranting about how terrible and deserving of scorn black people are.
~ Kwik on Daily Kos

Don Lemon is a friend of mine, but on then score I think that Mr. Lemon has missed the boat. The reality is we can’t blame the victims. We can’t blame people who are victimized by a vicious attitude that profiles them.
Bill O’Reilly has advanced no profound commitment to or sympathy for African-American people. He’s constantly lecturing us from his bastardized podium where he condescendingly throws out nuggets of wisdom to us without understanding the existential and moral crisis that attend the kind of victimization of black people.
Are we going to say white culture is pathologized because it refuses to take care of its children? Its kids are going to hell in a hand basket because they are on meth and they don’t care about the fundamental structure of the family?
We can indict the white family. There’s a lot of negativity, there’s a lot of dismissiveness, there’s a lot of crass materialism that refuses to care for the other.
~ Michael Eric Dyson on MSNBC's Martin Bashir











































Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Sunday, July 28, 2013

CNN's Don Lemon Blames Black Community for Trayvon Martin Incident



photo facepalm-Uhura.gif

DON LEMON, HOST: We're going to take a break from the headlines to talk about something I've had on my mind for quite some time now. So much so that I felt compelled to bring back our segment where we hold politicians, leaders, and pundits accountable for what comes out of their mouths. It's time now, again, for “No Talking Points."

The Trayvon Martin murder case got just about everybody talking about race, and not just specifically how it related to the case. It got some, many on the political right, wondering why the so-called liberal media wasn't talking about other problems in the black community.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIPS)
JUDITH MILLER, FOX NEWS CHANNEL: Let's talk about race. Let's talk about black-on-black violence.

DAVID WEBB, TALK RADIO HOST: The outrage that I have is in the lack of really the national attention to what is an epidemic of crime in the black community committed largely by blacks.
(END VIDEO CLIPS)

LEMON: Why aren't we talking about it? Good question. Actually, that's not a good question. We talked about it many times on this show and on CNN. It's actually a good deflection as I've said a number of times to a number of guests here on CNN and also on the radio.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: David, do not that false equivalent. That is not…

WEBB: No, I'm not trying to equivocate

LEMON: But, listen, crime happens all the time and because a crime happens, it does not mean that you should shift the focus from what happened here. Let's stick to this particular point so continue and let's talk about this case.
(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: So, that's the reason I didn't want to discuss at length crime in the African-American community or how to fix other ills that seem to be plaguing the community in general. But now that the jury has reached its verdict, one that everyone must accept, it's time now for some tough love on the subject. Someone on another network got the chance to go first because I couldn't go during the week. I'm only here on the weekend, so listen to this.



(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BILL O’REILLY, FOX NEWS: The reason there is so much violence and chaos in the black precincts is the disintegration of the African-American family.
(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: He's got a point. In fact, he's got more than a point. Bill?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
O’REILLY: Raised without much structure, young black men often reject education and gravitate towards the street culture, drugs, hustling, gangs. Nobody forces them to do that, again, it is a personal decision.
(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: He is right about that, too. But in my estimation, he doesn't go far enough. Because black people, if you really want to fix the problem, here's just five things that you should think about doing. Here's number five, and if this doesn't apply to you, if you're not doing this, then it doesn't apply to you, I'm not talking to you. Here's number five. Pull up your pants. Some people, a lot of them black, gave me flak for saying that recently on the “Wendy Williams Show."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: If you're sagging, it means I think your self-esteem is sagging and who you are as a person it's sagging. Young people need to be taught respect and there are rules.
(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: Sagging pants, whether it's Justin Bieber or no-name Derek around the way, walking around with your ass and your underwear showing is not okay. In fact, it comes from prison when they take away belts from the prisoners so that they can't make a weapon. And then it evolved into which role a prisoner would have during male-on-male prison sex. The one with the really low pants is the submissive one. You get my point?

Number four now is the N-word.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIPS)
RAPPER JAY Z: For our generation, what we did was we took the word and we took the power out of that word.

ACTOR/COMEDIAN CHRIS ROCK: We took this word, and we made it into poetry.
(END VIDEO CLIP)


 LEMON: I understand poetic license, but consider this: I hosted a special on the N-word, suggesting that black people stop using it and that entertainers stop deluding yourselves or themselves and others that you're somehow taking the word back.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: By promoting the use of that word when it's not germane to the conversation, have you ever considered that you may be just perpetuating the stereotype the massa intended acting like a nigger?
(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: A lot of African-Americans took offense to that, too. And I wondered if I gave the right advice, I really did. But confirmation came the very next day on my way home when I exited the subway on 125th Street in Harlem. This little kid in a school uniform, no older than 7 years old, he was crying his eyes out as he walked down the sidewalk with his mother. I'm going to be honest here, she turned to him and she said, “I'm sick of you. You act like an old ass man. Stop all that crying, nigger.” Is that taking the word back? Think about that.

Now number three: respect where you live. Start small by not dropping trash, littering in your own communities. I've lived in several predominantly white neighborhoods in my life. I rarely, if ever, witnessed people littering. I live in Harlem now, it's an historically black neighborhood. Every single day I see adults and children dropping their trash on the ground when a garbage can is just feet away. Just being honest here.

Number two: finish school. You want to break the cycle of poverty? Stop telling kids they're acting white because they go to school or they speak proper English. A high school dropout makes on average $19,000 a year. A high school graduate makes $28,000 a year. A college graduate makes $51,000 a year. Over the course of a career, a college grad will make nearly $1 million more than a high school graduate. That's a lot of money.

And number one, and probably the most important: just because you can have a baby, it doesn't mean you should. Especially without planning for one or getting married first. More than 72 percent pf children in the African-American community are born out of wedlock. That means absent fathers. And the studies show that lack of a male role model is an express train right to prison and the cycle continues.

So, please, black folks, as I said if this doesn't apply to you, I'm not talking to you. Pay attention to and think about what has been presented in recent history as acceptable behavior. Pay close attention to the hip-hop and rap culture that many of you embrace, a culture that glorifies everything I just mentioned, thug and reprehensible behavior. A culture that is making a lot of people rich, just not you. And it's not going to. That said, though, the political right is not off the hook.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KIRSTEN POWERS, FOX NEWS: If conservatives are so concerned about black-on-black crime, it's a little concerning the only time I hear them talking about it is when they want to stick it to the black community.
(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: And that's today's "No Talking Points."













































































Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Tuesday, July 23, 2013

Obama's Critics of Color ~ Smiley, West and Malco

photo c6519968-5999-46de-93ba-1cc550dc9e2a.jpg

Previous Posts:
The President's Amazing Impromptu Speech About Race and Trayvon Martin
Obama Speech Brings Out Haters, Concern Trolls and Emotopians

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


AMY GOODMAN: But President Obama, speaking about his own life experience, going from saying, "Trayvon Martin could have been my child," to "Trayvon Martin could have been me"?

CORNEL WEST: Well, no, that’s beautiful. That’s an identification. The question is: Will that identification hide and conceal the fact there’s a criminal justice system in place that has nearly destroyed two generations of very precious, poor black and brown brothers? He hasn’t said a mumbling word until now. Five years in office and can’t say a word about the new Jim Crow.
And at the same time, I think we have to recognize that he has been able to hide and conceal that criminalizing of the black poor as what I call the re-niggerizing of the black professional class. You’ve got these black leaders on the Obama plantation, won’t say a criminal word about the master in the big house, will only try to tame the field folk so that they’re not critical of the master in the big house. That’s why I think even Brother Sharpton is going to be in trouble. Why? Because he has unleashed—and I agree with him—the rage. And the rage is always on the road to self-determination. But the rage is going to hit up against a stone wall. Why? Because Obama and Holder, will they come through at the federal level for Trayvon Martin? We hope so. Don’t hold your breath. And when they don’t, they’re going to have to somehow contain that rage. And in containing that rage, there’s going to be many people who say, "No, we see, this president is not serious about the criminalizing of poor people."
We’ve got a black leadership that is deferential to Obama, that is subservient to Obama, and that’s what niggerizing is. You keep folks so scared. You keep folks so intimidated. You can give them money, access, but they’re still scared. And as long as you’re scared, you’re on the plantation.
~ Dr. Cornel West in an interview with Democracy Now


. . . we must never kill innocent people in the name of self-defense. But then I thought about our drone policy, which makes us the George Zimmerman of the world in terms of killing innocent folk in the name of self-defense.
. . . I applaud his words, but I'm still waiting for action.
~ Cornel West on CNN






TAVIS SMILEY (21 July 2013): What's your sense of how the media and not just Fox News, but beyond that your read as you've been watching this, how the media handled this case?

 CORNEL WEST: I think that it's been decrepit though brother. You get a focus on some of the upper middle class folks or what I call the Rent-a-Negro phenomenon on MSNBC.

 TAVIS SMILEY: Ha ha ha ha ha!

 CORNEL WEST: And how this affects them personally and what they can say to their kids and they feeling distant and alienated from the state. Well many of us have been feeling alienated an over against the state for forty something years.


























TAVIS SMILEY: I appreciate and applaud the fact that the president did finally show up. But this town has been spinning a story that's not altogether true. He did not walk to the podium for an impromptu address to the nation; he was pushed to that podium. A week of protest outside the White House, pressure building on him inside the White House pushed him to that podium. So I'm glad he finally arrived.
But when he left the podium, he still had not answered the most important question, that Keynesian question, where do we go from here? That question this morning remains unanswered, at least from the perspective of the president. And the bottom line is this is not Libya, this is America. On this issue, you cannot lead from behind.
What's lacking in this moment is moral leadership. The country is begging for it, they are craving it. And I disagree with the president respectfully that politicians, elected officials, can't occupy this space on race. Lincoln did, Truman did, Johnson did; President Obama did. He's the right person in the right place, at the right time. But he has to step into his moment. I don't want him to be like Bill Clinton, when he's out of office, regretting that he didn't move on Rwanda. I don't the president to look back, David, and realize that he didn't do as much as he could have in this critical moment.
~ Tavis Smiley on Meet the Press, July 21, 2013
















photo 8deb11f0-8311-4742-9e72-9a89788e524b.jpg

To be brutally honest, the only reason people are even aware of Trayvon Martin is because it became a topic within mainstream news and pop culture. Meaning: News directors saw it as a profitable, sensational story. Hundreds of blacks die annually in South Side Chicago without even a blurb. Trayvon isn't in the mainstream news for any reason other than ratings and profit. The news coverage on the Zimmerman case almost implies that the killing of this young black man is somehow an anomaly and I resent that.
In this country, if it isn't streamlined through mainstream media and pop culture, it doesn't seem to warrant national debate. Our "government" continues to wreak havoc on our civil liberties and there is little to no protest from the black community because of media diversion tactics that keep such pertinent issues out of mainstream media. But if Jay-Z or Rihanna were to make mention of it, we'd suddenly be jolted out of our sugar comas and protesting on freeways.
. . . If we really wanted to ensure Trayvon Martin's killing was not in vain, we'd stop perpetuating negative images that are now synonymous with black men in America. We'd stop rapping about selling drugs and killing niggas.
. . . So before going back to popping molly and getting Turnt Up, I urge you to consider the implications of your actions. Your child's life may depend on it.
~ Romany Malco on Huffington Post















photo susan_1.jpg











Posted by at 1 comment:
Labels: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)