TARAJI P HENSON TO HOST BLACK GIRLS ROCK

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Talk about a dream team. Page Six reports that Taraji P. Henson will be the host of BET's Black Girls Rock Awards honoring Issa Rae this August. Held at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark, NJ, Black Girls Rock is an initiative to empower Black girls to take charge and live their life through the arts. These awards serve as a reminder of just how much they can achieve...

Specifically, 2017's awards will be honoring Issa Rae, creator of HBO's Insecure, which just started airing its second season. Rae will be given the Star Power Award, but many other important women will be receiving honors of their own.

~Refinery29.com

 And adding to the Black Girl Magic, Internet Famous Up and Comer Franchesca "Chescaleigh" Ramsey will be writing some of Taraji's material for her

Look For Black Girls Rock on BET

Sunday, August 20, 2017

* * * * * 
From An Taraji P Henson Interview

with Refinery29.com

What do you think is the biggest lesson you learned while working on Hidden Figures? 

“Don’t complain about your situation, because it is what it is. The question is: What are you going to do about it? If Katherine Johnson sat around and complained and complained and complained, would we be on the moon? Would we be on our way to Mars?" 

"We all need to stop being lazy and pay attention. As a people, with the last administration, we got lazy. We were like: Everything is going good, we’ve got a Black president, LGBT people are getting their rights, it's all good. We got lazy. And then this happened. So when people ask what to do next, I want to say: Wake up, everybody! We’ve got work to do. Pay attention, read, research, figure out what you can do in your own backyard that will make a difference."

http://www.refinery29.com/2016/12/133485/taraji-p-henson-movies-hollywood-pay-diversity-interview

All I can say to that is, Amen 

BLACKCHICKROCKED.BLOGSPOT.COM

SHONDA RHIMES IS MAKING SURE ALL BLACK GIRLS KNOW THEY ROCK

REPRESENTATION MATTERS

So, I  hope everyone knows by now that the images that wash over black girls and black women from childhood to old age has an effect. The other thing I hope everyone knows is that white boys are the only ones that regularly walk away from television sets with their self-esteem increased instead of decreased.

Black folks could have told you that a year or two after television was invented. That's why black people, like so many other people of color, have often said to themselves, "We have to make our own."

Before we get to just how far Shonda Rhimes black female reach goes, let's look at where black female representation has already been.

As I look back over the last 40 years I see that black film is much like white film in that it is up to 80% male dominated. 

That 80% is fairly consistent with a Netflix documentary I saw recently which said women are only making 17% of the movies we are seeing. In that documntary, I found out that the woman that directed Twilight was replaced by a male director after making ALL THAT MONEY.

Yes, I know the Twilight movies were a bonafide, certified, boring mess --all of them. But young girls loved the books those movies were based on.  The studio had a prefabbed audience that almost couldn't be lost. Why replace the director with a man? Even if the director was whacked out in some way. Why wouldn't you make sure you found another woman director to tell a teenage girl angst love vampire story?  

That documentary, in turn, made me think about how Ava DuVernay was originally tapped to direct The Black Panther but walked away when the male producers didn't want to follow her vision(?)


A study of Spike Lee's movies alone has led me to the conclusion that it's a good thing that Spike Lee isn't just directing movies. If he wasn't producing movies like Pariah and giving directors like Darnell Martin their start, I think you'd find the sexism in his movies is damaging to most black girls looking for themselves in his movies.

I know I kinda feel like we should count ourselves lucky when we really weren't in some of Lee's movies...but still. 

The other thing you would find in a detailed analysis of Spike Lee movies is  a bit surprising. White women might give the light women in Spike's movies a run for their money as far who he's given the starring roles to. Check it out for yourself. Look at the top 3 or 4 roles of each movie. Most of the women (when there are any women with  lead roles / speaking roles) are light or white.

John Singleton, F. Gary Gray, Antoine Fuqua, and Denzel Washington usually ignore black women in their movies.  

With maybe one movie-exception a piece, there's usually "a good black woman" wife or girlfriend that's all but silent who sends the man off into action and agency with a smile and a wave. If there are women in their films (that have more than a few lines) they are either mommy or sexing somebody up. Again, there have been exceptions like Poetic Justice and Set It Off But they've been just that -- exceptions. And lesser black male directors --films released online only-- lean even stronger into the colorism for black women zone.

 Maybe it was unrealistic to think black men were ever going to focus on black women's well-being to the tune of 50%

They can't really know black women's experience, as they've demonstrated by their response to various items in the news - Cosby, Brown, Rice, Parker.  

But black men could have lovingly interrogated mothers, lovers, wives, and others in order to tell the other 50% of the black story when they control of 80% of the mass media narrative. 

I mean, aren't we  --most black and brown people regardless of gender-- complaining about white people being totally disinterested in how a full one-third of this country (people of color) see themselves? That complaint is rather hypocritical of black men to make if they can't make the same effort demanded of white people for black women, right?

And frankly, imperfectly done or not,  it irritates me to see a black male director move on to a mostly mostly white project before he's done one or none stories centered on black women.

Or maybe the path forward is to do what Spike Lee has done. Maybe the path forward for black men to support black women is to make sure they produce black women's content.  The other thing black men could also do  are the things Spike Lee hasn't done like clean up their own content as far sexism, misgynoir, colorism for black women etc.


Another glaring example of the lack of interest that black men have in black women's stories is what movies haven't been made as a feature film.

Harriet Tubman's life has not been made into a feature film in 1960, 1970, 1980, and 1990 --over and over again when she freed slaves, was a union spy, and led a white union army on a raid to free slaves. When she retired she made one of the first senior citizens homes. Why would you make Solomon Northrup and Nat Turner's stories in the feature films first if you had all that material in Harriet Tubman?

So if you didn't already know, you know now.

For black girls and black women even in "black movies," probably 80% made by men, are not "good" psychologically and emotionally. That's probably one of the reasons Beverly Bond created Black Girls Rock.

Other black feminists like Shonda Rhimes have taken one more step to figure out that "We have to make our own" means "Black women have to make their own."

Shonda has black women centered in her creations and the actors, directors and musicians earning real money. The black women that she has helped (mostly black feminists) are also going on to make even more black female content.

Ava DuVernay, already a movie maker when she went to Shonda, must have come on board at Shondaland to do an episode or two as practice for the pace of television. After DuVernay did that she went on to make Queen Sugar, which is blowing critics away right now.

Angela Bassett went from the movie screen right into television movie making by directing Whitney.  She's directed an episode of television here and there where she's already acting, American Horror Story. Now there's a rumor she's going to get even more practice doing television by directing future episodes of Scandal

Viola Davis, who is in Shondaland's  How To Get Away With Murder already had a production company. JuVee gave us the movie Lila and Eve.  But her new visibility (and the new money?) is enabling her to go further. Kerry Washington's fame and Shonda created money has enabled her to take Confirmation (Anita Hill's story) to HBO as well.  
In fact Viola Davis and Kerry Washington (Scandal) both have deals to make content with ABC. And Viola has a Harriett Tubman project she's working on too.

Kerry Washington's female led police drama called  "Shots Fired is going to be on FOX though. It looks like Gina Prince-Bythewood (Love & Basketball) is going to be directing. 

• The cast includes Sanaa Lathan (The Best Man Holiday, The Perfect Guy), Helen Hunt (As Good As it Gets), Aisha Hinds (Under the Dome, True Blood), Tristian Wilds (The Wire, 90201), DeWanda Wise (The Mentalist), Edwina Findley (Get Hard, Middle of Nowhere), Alicia Sanz (From Dusk Till Dawn), Marqus Clae, Shamier Anderson (Race), Clare-Hope Ashitey (Suspects), Stephen James (Race, Selma), and more.

Sanaa Lathan in "Shots Fired"
Preview Below

Audra McDonald (Private Practice) probably didn't have her career enhanced directly as she probably already had so many Tony Awards that she needed a bigger house to hold them all. But the increase in her visibility probably enabled her to carry Billie Holiday's story to HBO to a much wider audience than she would have gotten to on Broadway.


Shonda Rhimes has black actresses we have seen that much in decades working. And she has a bunch of black musicians earning royalties too. She uses a lot of black music on her shows. 

Shonda's also working on reducing colorism for black women too

And it is important that the colorism be cleaned up because that is washing over us from black male content without us noticing it much. On TheRoot.com there's a list of the favorite black television shows. The top three of the list in order is The Cosby Show, A Different World, and The Fresh Prince Of Bel Aire. 

What I see now in those shows, that I didn't see before when I was a kid, is light skinned girls were the teenagers, the ones to date and lightly explore their sexuality while the dark skinned girls are either little kids or side kicks you only see periodically. And I promise you I didn't notice that A Different World featured all biracial women except one, plus a white woman too.   

I think the entire black community has suffered from not noticing the level of colorism that washing over us constantly in the 1980s -- and from black content too. 

Black women creators aren't doing the colorism thing so much. Maybe they have more power these days to buck up against the white led establishment in Hollywood in 2016 as opposed to 35 years ago. Whatever it is that has changed black women content creators are creating an important level of support for black women of all shades.

Light denial needs to be broken down just like white denial does.

Before black women like Shonda Rhimes, Mara Brock Akil (Girlfriends, Being Mary Jane), and Ava DuVernay started moving into making black female content, a black actress could win a major award and find herself with no place to go next.

I remember worrying about Taraji P Henson after her Oscar nod (Tyler Perry put her in a leading role and created some high priced demand according to her biography, Around the Way Girl: A Memoir )

Now, thanks to Shonda, even a black actress from Broadway, like Saycon Sengbloh (who was in Danai Gurira's play Eclipsed) has a follow up gig. Sengbloh is going to be on Scandal in 2017.  Maybe she'll do directing or go on to have a production company next.

So it's no accident you are seeing more and move black female faces, and more black female content. Shonda Rhimes and other black women have been very deliberate in bringing it to you
And one of the new black actresses, Aja Naomi King (How To Get Away With Murder)  joined her celebrity to John Lewis and HBCUs who are trying to get out the black vote in one of the crucial swing states. 



In other words, sistah's are doing it for themselves in a big way right now. And I can't wait to see Shonda's next effort, a Romeo and Juliette based period piece called Still Star-Crossed 


Onward and upward sisters.
* * * * * * * * * * *

TO ALL MY WEIRD BLACK GIRLS

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To the girls who dance when there is no music. The girls who see pretty flowers and think they would be perfect in her ‘fro. The girls who stay in their beds for days watching Sci-Fi shows on Netflix. The girls who go to midnight premieres of Marvel movies, because that is the only way to see them properly. The girls who actually did not find Courage the Cowardly Dog creepy as a child. The girls who own box sets of Avatar: The Last Airbenderand Naruto. The girls who still belt the lyrics of “Bring Me to Life” by Evanescence. The girls who still listen to Avenged Sevenfold and Jimmy Eat World. The girls who are unapologetically themselves. Also known as the ‘weird’ black girls — this is for you.

Society has an idealized perception of a black person. They feed into the stereotypes and think that everyday black people are loud, obnoxious, “ghetto,” etc. If someone does not fit this description, they are an outsider. This also holds truth within the black community on a smaller scale. Some black people think that all black people should act alike, and if one person strays away from the way we are “supposed” to act, they are abnormal. The ideal black woman, for instance, is not one that engages in cosplay. She does not LARP (live action role play). She is supposed to listen to the same music, care about the same things, and engage in the same activities as her counterparts. If she doesn’t, she is judged and not considered “normal.”

~by Blavity

Read More and Revel In It
http://blavity.com/to-all-my-weird-black-girls/

FEMALE SUPERHEROES WRITTEN BY WOMEN

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Jazmin Truesdale grew up reading comics. But, as she got older, she lost interest in the catchy crime-fighting plots and the mostly male casts of characters.

“When you get older you start to notice more things like sexism and racism in the entertainment you consume, and I was becoming more put off by comics,” Truesdale told The Huffington Post. Rather than turning away from her interest, however, she dove into it head-on, dreaming up a squad of heroines that better reflects the lives of real women reading comics today. 

“In the superhero industry, there are many physically powerful women and people of color but none of them are truly empowered,” Truesdale said. “They’ll show up for a comic issue or two and then disappear into the superhero void.”

~ Huff Post

Read More on how
Aza Comics is going to change the comic world.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/aza-comics-female-superheroes_us_572a55f3e4b0bc9cb0459461?section=women&

ON SHONDA RHIMES' SHOT CALLER AWARD

SHONDA RHIMES IS
A CHAIN OF EVENTS
ALL HER OWN
AS FAR AS CEILING BREAKING GOES

Shonda Rhimes took the stage and spoke about how she brings a feminist vibe to television. She said that her success with Scandal made the casting of How to Get Away with Murder a no-brainer for the network. She spoke directly to her daughter, telling her that her generation is the one that matters. 

“Your slates are blank your paths are clear your stories are whatever you decide,” Rhimes said. “You are the builders of the 21st century.”

She said that once you start getting awards, you are more history than future. “Don’t look up here to us, put us in your rearview mirror,” she said. “Change the world. Then change it again.”

http://www.curlynikki.com/2016/04/6-powerful-moments-from-2016-black.html 

Before we do what Shonda says and put her in our rearview mirror, we have to learn from what she's done. So let's look as some of this Shot Caller's well known and lesser praised accomplishments all together at one time. 

I. OWNS A NIGHT OF TELEVISION 
As the slide show below says, Shonda's the first black person to own a night of television. Her shows take over ABC every Thursday Night. 

- "Grey's Anatomy," 
- "Scandal," 
- "How To Get Away With Murder." 
- She's even got an off season thriller taking HTGAWM's place during the its off-season called "The Catch"

What the slideshow doesn't say is that Shonda's the second person of any color to own a night of television.The first one to do this was Norman Lear (maybe thirty or forty years ago?) And she's teaming up with Norman Lear for a documentary series called "America Divided" that will explore inequality in America. America Ferrera and Common will be a part of this project. 

II. OPENED THE DOOR FOR
BLACK FEMALE LEADS ON TELEVISIONShonda proved that multiple black characters with major roles can help carry a television show, (Grey's Anatomy) Then she proved a single black actress can lead a television show (Scandal, HTGAWM).

When Kerry Washington stepped onto the little screen as "Olivia Pope" there hadn't been a black woman in the lead role since a sitcom named "Julia" starring Diahann Carroll in the 1960s. There was a 40 year gap between Kerry and Diahann...until Shonda got her legs under herself with a white female led show then followed up by creating Scandal for a black actress, soon followed by HTGAWM.




In my opinion, Shonda paved the way for most if not all of shows starring black women on prime time network television right now, and a couple of shows on cable stations too.


III. COLORISM CEILING BROKEN 
Shonda even broke the colorism barrier with Viola Davis and Aja Naomi King on How To Get Away With Murder. Even Cicely Tyson is a part of that ceiling breaking.



I can't remember seeing two dark skinned actresses star in anything that wasn't a FUBU movie or television show, much less three.

Don't hear me saying that those FUBU movies are not important. I hope we always have them. I like black movies made by black people that accurately reflect a facet or three of black culture. But being able to capture 4 to 5 times more than 13% of the U.S. population makes--black people in the lead roles with white people in supporting roles --makes you Shonda a ceiling breaker and a gatekeeper, both.

IV) DIRECTORS AND PLAYWRIGHTS RISING
I don't see Ava DuVernay (Selma, Queen Sugar), Mara Brock Akil (Being Mary Jane), and Danai Gurira (The Walking Dead, Eclipsed) making all the strides they've made recently as a coincidence.

Shonda broke the ceiling for black women in entertainment, period. We, black women, were all but gone from main stream media except for Bill Cosby in the 1980s and a few Tyler Perry flicks. We were even mostly missing from ensemble cop and hospital shows over the last few decades.

...until Shonda's Grey's Anatomy.

V) PUTS BLACK ACTRESSES 
AND BLACK FEMALE DIRECTORS TO WORK
She even put Debbie Allen, Regina King, and Ava DuVernay to work directing her shows. Marla Gibbs, Lynn Whitfield, Loretta Divine, and Diahann Carroll have been back on television a little more often thanks to Scandal and HTGAWM.  
VI) MOTOWN SOUND BACK ON TV

And I hear a lot of black music from days gone by on Thursday nights too. So, old Motown greats are probably getting paid a little too.

VII) She puts her feminism (and Kerry's and Viola's) out front. She's made no bones about creating roles for women that were more 3 dimensional and human -like men's roles have always been. Shonda's protagonists want things, want people, are competitive, screw up, get angry, have sex, the are take action to take what they want and aren't always nice about it.  

CONCLUSION: SHONDA DIDN'T DO ALL ALONE, 

AS IF 

IN A VACCUUM, BUT SHE DID IT MOSTLY ALONE

I think race being out in the open a lot more due to having a black president helped Shonda Rhimes and others navigate white Hollywood. It wasn't entirely her own talent that's gotten her so far. But it was her own talent that allowed her to keep on stepping despite the white Hollywood back lash that is #OscarsSoWhite. And I think she was able to do so because she's smarter than a lot of folks of any color inside or outside of Hollywood. 

So like I said before, if black actors and black directors etc., had taken a page out of Shonda's book a while back, #OscarsSoWhite might not have come to pass.



HOW SHONDA RHIMES CHANGED TELEVISION
A SLIDE SHOW
SEE MORE AT THE LINK BELOW
http://www.bet.com/shows/black-girls-rock/2016/photos/celebrants/10-ways-shonda-rhimes-impacted-television.html#!022816-celebs-ShondaRhimes-GettyImages-508779092

BLACK GIRLS ROCK HONOREE: AMANDLA STENBERG

Feminist, Activist, and Cultural Appropriation Teacher all before she turned 17.  All she was in "The Hunger Games" as "Rue" was cute. But I didn't know she was an awesome black feminist until her video "Don't Cash Crop On My Cornrows" went viral. I've been following her, along with thousands of others, ever since.  Amandla absolutely deserved to be honored at Black Girls Rock in 2016.  The comic book series she is creating, "Niobe: She Is Life"  is the proof.
  



A writer at NY MAG summed my feelings up perfectly. She perfectly described why things like "Black Girls Rock" is needed, was needed decades before it began in 2006. 

"I sometimes think about how I would have approached life differently if I could tell my younger self the things I know now: that I am worthy, that I’m a valuable contributor, and that my differences [as a black female] are an asset instead of a handicap. I got emotional when Amandla received her award because in many ways I feel she mirrors the woman I would have become had I believed in myself more at a younger age. In her speech, she talked about how her blackness is a blessing, and I couldn’t help but think,Gosh, I wish I had all my sh*t figured out like her at age 17.

~Ashley, NY Mag

Too many pop up ads for me to recommend the link. But here's the source of the Black Girls Rock discussion

http://nymag.com/thecut/2016/04/black-girls-rock-is-the-celebration-we-deserve.html#

I didn't know that this is the reason why this 17 year old feminist is my hero until I read this. I knew Amandla Stenberg is a hero of mine, but I didn't know why.  If I had known, I wouldn't have been able to say it better myself.  

I'm trying to imagine the force that must be her mother.   A mother can't create an Amandla on her own. Amandla is her own person making her own choices like anyone else. But her mother almost has to have given her the freedom and tools to build herself into who she has become. I can't believe I'm waiting to read the autobiography of a 17 year old. Maybe I'll only have to wait until she's 34.  That's only another 17 years. No problem. I'll wait.

Amandla and Mom(?)

In the meantime, here's a a link to the hard copy of her comic book here:


And here is the less expensive kindle version of  Niobe: She Is Life #1

BLACK GIRLS ROCK: DANAI GUIRIRA

"Danai Gurira is unstoppable."

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"As the sword-swinging Michonne on the hit zombie apocalypse drama, AMC's The Walking Dead, the Zimbabwean actress and playwright is also making history on Broadway by creating the first all-black cast and crew with Eclipsed. She's also signed on to play the mother of late rapper Tupac, Afeni Shakur, in the highly anticipated 'Pac biopic All Eyez On Me"

Danai is a 2016 Black Chicks Rock Honoree 


Read More:
http://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/hip-hop/7318917/walking-dead-danai-gurira-afeni-shakura-tupac-biopic-black-girls-rock

As "Michonne" on 'The Walking Dead:

DANAI GURIRA MAKES HISTORY

ON BROADWAY 

read more
http://thankherforsurviving.blogspot.com/2016/03/danai-gurira-makes-history-on-broadway.html

SICK OF READING ABOUT WHITE BOYS AND DOGS, 11 YEAR OLD STARTS HER OWN BLACK GIRL BOOK DRIVE

Having grown tired of her school's reading syllabus, Dias decided to start #1000BlackGirlBooks, a book drive with the aim of collecting 1,000 books where black girls take the lead:

"I told [my mom] I was sick of reading about white boys and dogs," Dias said, pointing specifically to "Where the Red Fern Grows" and the "Shiloh" series. "'What are you going to do about it?’ [my mom] asked. And I told her I was going to start a book drive, and a specific book drive, where black girls are the main characters in the book and not background characters or minor characters.”

The little black girls rocks for real. This girl will go far. Remember her name: Marley Dias.

Read More:

http://nymag.com/thecut/2016/01/girl-starts-1000blackgirlbooks-book-drive.html?mid=fb-share-thecut