QUANTICO STAR: AUNJANUE ELLIS GOES ACTIVIST ON THE RED CARPET

BABY ESTER'S BOOP OOP A DOOP

BABY ESTER  and BETTY BOOP

No. Elvis was not the first person to rip off black music. Lot's of white people have done that before and since. 

But a lot of people don't know that Ester Jones known as "Baby Ester" in the Cotton Club was the original Betty Boop. Here is a little snippet of Baby Ester (Ester Jones) singing:

There are even cartoon some images of Black Betty Boop in some old cartoons. Here is a few seconds of Black Betty Boop in "Popeye."  

But how did Betty Boop get bleached white, you ask?

Ester was famous in the Cotton Club for singing "Boop Oop A Doop" Helen Kane, the white woman who became famous as "Betty Boop" went to the Cotton Club with her manager one night. Kane began singing "Boop Oop A Doop" soon after and became famous for it.

Eventually Kane sued a huge film producer named Max Fleischer for stealing HER image in the creation of the "Betty Boop" charactere. Her manager, acting as a witness during the lawsuit, told the court exactly where Kane got her act.

Kane's manager didn't "confess" to getting the act from Baby Ester either. He just stated it as fact (listen to video at the end).  It was simple for white folks to do this back then.

Kane considered herself as owning the image and incorporating the scatting into her act after taking it from a black woman.  And Kane could do this because black people had no rights white people had to respect in the 1920s and 30s.

But I consider Betty Boop as taken back to black.

COME HALLOWEEN
I EXPECT TO SEE A FEW BLACK BETTY BOOPS OUT THERE

* * * * *

KNOW YOUR HISTORY
SHORT VIDEO ON "THE REAL BETTY BOOP"

A CULTURAL APPROPRIATION QUICKIE

Watch the video first.
It's a little more than 15 seconds.

Sometimes I think the young folk think that this is all there is to standing against Cultural Appropriation. They get so instantly angry without thinking much about cultural sharing etc.

BUT THEN

I accidentally watch a piece of something like Justin Bieber's "Sorry" video. And it's like I'm Petty Crocker's and Daffy Duck's first born child. I find myself screaming just like "Dad"

"MINE! MINE! MINE! 

MOFOS,  IT'S MINE!!!"

Just a screen shot.
No Justin Bieber videos allowed here

If you decide to go find the Bieber video and watch white girls mock/mimicking black girls for yourself, please do tell me what music they are dancing to. I promise you they can't possibly be dancing to the music Beiber is singing along with.

Can't be.


A REAL LESSON 
ON CULTURAL APPROPRIATION AT THIS LINK

AMANDLA STENBERG'S
"DON'T CASH CROP ON MY CORNROWS"
http://thankherforsurviving.blogspot.com/2015/06/dont-cash-crop-on-my-cornrows-cultural.html

NATE PARKER, CHRIS ROCK, AND THE FOURTH WAVE

It's happening


I feel it.

Can't you feel it, too?


The change is coming!

It has already happened within groups of black feminists and womanists. But soon, the same change will move through the rest of the black community.

•  The first wave will begin with non-feminist black women.

 They will demand that black men include them every single time they talk about race and racism and be especially irked -- no IRATE --- when black men do NOT talk about the effect of racism on black women when the women's situation in the same job IS WORSE.

•  The wave after that will come from black men with black daughters

These black men will speak on the plight of black men and black women at the same time whenever they speak about race and racism's effect. However, they will not confront their brothers. They will not do clean up on aisle 3 by taking black men who forget black women exist (when talking about racism) to task.  

•  The third wave will come from black men with black daughters who do feel responsible for checking their boys because they know these fools are raising sons and daughters that might affect his girl children...or worst his boy children.  

These black men will become irate and talk about other black men like dogs when they do NOT talk about the effect of racism on black women whenever they talk about racism's effect on black men --especially when the situation for black women IS WORSE than it is for black men

• The fourth wave will come forth from black men who do NOT HAVE CHILDREN but DO realize they have black wives, lovers,girlfriends, sisters, aunties, and female cousins that they care about more than they care about themselves.

These black men will become irate and talk about other black men like dogs when they do NOT talk about the effect of racism on black women in the same job --especially when the situation for black women IS WORSE than it is for black men

                       correction brought to you by

Okay.

Seriously?


I don't care what Nate has said before or since. But I'd like this to never leave his lips again. White people don't get to whine about the life's unfair pain while not acknowledging white privilege. Black men don't get to whine about e-race-sure unless they talk about black women's e-race-sure too--especially when the black female e-race-sure is worse due to the racism and sexism combined.


Some artifacts of racism really ARE specific to black men. I think? But most things aren't.

Black men going to jail 6x the rate of white men? Okay. Black women are going to jail at a rate of more than 3x the rate of white women. That doesn't give black people --men and women both--  license to ignore what's happening to black women

School to Prison pipeline exists for black boys? Okay. School to Prison Pipeline exists for black girls too. AND I've also read of a school to poverty pipeline exists for girls as well. I don't know if the pipelines for black girls overlap at all, but it's not a completely wild @$$ guess to assume these pipelines add to one another as well depending how and when you do the counting.

Dear Black Men,

Black women hold up half the sky.

Forget the "Queen" crap. We know you're really saying you're going to give us the world on a platter and address us as "Queen" for so long as we as acknowledge you're the one that's really important, the one that's really making all the decisions, and that we don't get to be in charge of jack unless you die. We don't need fake worship. We need respect as if we're more than half of the black population. We need partnership.

 - - - - - -
Yes, I again acknowledge that I just had an extended Petty Crocker Moment.

But if it's time to get petty with white women feminists and demand they clean up their own crap then it's waaay past time for petty with black men, especially those that are supposedly pro-black. They remember themselves and forget black women way too often.

This crap irks the hell out of me.  Yeah, I know he "just forgot" Black men are always "just forgetting" And a lot of black women follow them in "just forgetting." A lot of black people "just forget" to show up for black women dead at the hands of police in the same numbers they do for black men. They forget so much that the hashtag #SayHerName had to be added back to a black female created movement called #BlackLivesMatter.

I'm petty. And I'm here to stay petty. Stop forgetting black women. If Chris Rock can remember us most times he speaks extensively on race, then other black men can too.

READ MORE NATE'S  ONE DIMENSIONAL THOUGHT ON BLACKS IN HOLLYWOOD PLUS HEAR MORE ON HIS UPCOMING FILM ON THE NAT TURNER REBELLION, "THE BIRTH OF A NATION"
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/birth-of-a-nation-star-nate-parker-says-few-acting-roles-for-black-men-have-integrity_us_569ffa07e4b0d8cc10988cad?

OBAMA PLEDGES 4 BILLION TO COMPUTER SCIENCE IN U.S. SCHOOLS

Feeling Rebloggy




"By some estimates, just one-fourth of K-12 schools in the US offer computer science that includes coding. Only 28 states allow computer science courses to count towards high school graduation, and many districts struggle to make the field a priority. Meanwhile, the demand for such skills is only increasing. Jobs in computing are growing at twice the national rate of other types of jobs. By 2020, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there will be 1 million more computer science-related jobs than graduating students qualified to fill them."

~Wired.com

Read More: 
http://www.wired.com/2016/01/obama-pledges-4-billion-to-computer-science-in-us-schools/

LISTEN: my father speaks Urdu

By Shailja Patel.

OBAMACARE THE REPUBLICAN JOB LOSS LIE

I hope everybody knows that the economy improved due to a variety of factors and policies under President Barack Obama. 

But should you need to show someone some evidence on how the republicans straight lied about the economy collapsing under the weight of Obamacare, there's plenty of data available and pretty little graphs at the link below.  



http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/jan/29/ted-cruz/ted-cruzs-pants-fire-claim-health-care-law-nations/




*************************************

NATE PARKER'S RESTORATION OF BLACK HISTORY

Yeah. "The Birth Of A Nation" is another slave movie. But the story of Nat Turner, the story of a slave revolt is a different sort of slave movie. Very different. This is not going to be anything like "12 Years A Slave." It was no small achievement to show that 12 Years A Slave showed 3 or 4 different types of white people treating black people like animals. "The good white slave master's" reputation was shown as the horror it really was and white women's full participation in slavery was shown as well. More than that "12 Years A Slave," just like Octavia Butler's book "Kindred," showed us just how helpless a black person of superior intelligence could be made by the system of slavery. Yet, same as always, the black people in 12 Years A Slave were helpless victims that manage to carry on courageously through slavery no matter how they badly they are beaten.

The Story of Nat Turner is not that story. But a white man named William Styron wrote a book called "Confessions of Nat Turner" tried to turn Nat Turner's rebellion into the same old story. As with "Uncle Tom's Cabin," the characterization of black people was so comfortable and familiar to white folks that Styron won a prize for that book, the Pulitzer Prize in Styron's case.

In Styron's "Confessions Of Nat Turner," Instead of envisioning these real black people as planning then taking part in a slave revolt daring and courageous like....mmm... I dunno..... like the white actors in "Black Hawk Down," "Sniper," .or any one of the last two or three movies about Iraq or Afghanistan or Benghazi where the white guys live, fight, and die for one another heroically.

Instead of the black men in Styron's book being shown as intelligent and courageous, AS THEY MUST HAVE BEEN to achieve what they achieved, they were portrayed as child like in their thinking, stumbling through then lucky or unlucky at spots, and ultimately pathetic. Nat Turner and those that followed him stumbled through their "rebellion" in that book. And I can't quite remember, but I don't remember the white people as being portrayed as getting what they deserved at any given point.

No. I am not tired of slave movies There are so many stories of slavery that have NOT been told. And, in my opinion, Harriett Tubman's story should have been told on a big screen with a big budget. Her story is much larger and more primary. And it's way past time to see black women do more than survive rape during slavery.

Still, I'm looking forward to Nat Turner's rebellion told from the standpoint of those not trying to defend themselves and their ancestors. And if this movie is done correctly-- and it should be if Nate Parker wrote the screenplay, produced and directed it-- you're going to see a black historical hero story. And I need more of those. 

One of the best things about this movie though? It's a little thing that's not a little thing. This movie has the same title as a racist movie put on in 1915 that's famous. I'm not sure if they still teach people about this movie in grade school, but they should. The 1915 version of "Birth Of A Nation" spread and solidified black stereotypes and empowered the Ku Klux Klan. In the Post-Reconstruction period, that movie was one of the deadliest things to happen to black people as a whole. It brought white people together mentally, as I understand it. It was instrumental is shoring up support for codifying Jim Crow.

Cast Of The Birth Of A Nation
Sundance Premiere January 25 2016

But now there's a 2016 "Birth Of A Nation" movie. Now, when people look up the movie "The Birth Of A Nation" online they're going to find Nat Turner's heroics instead of the KKK's. So this movie, if it does well, will help erase and/or de-legitimatize two ugly depictions of black people. It'll get rid of Styron's book as the Nat Turner image maker. Nate Parker's "Birth Of A Nation" is nearly the direct opposite of the 1915 racist version of a movie with the same name. I think this is one of the slave movie worth seeing. And for long as they are popular, let me say it again. Somebody please make a Harriett Tubman movie and I wanted see Octavia Butler's "Kindred" too -- A sci-fi slave movie. Why not get them both done while the iron is still hot? Read More on Nate Parker's struggle to get this movie made.  
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/features/birth-a-nation-slave-revolt-857177

LEADED AND UNLEADED

IF SHONDA WERE A BLACK MAN #OscarsSoWhite WOULDN'T BE A THING

WANNA KNOW WHY?

If a black man had done what Shonda has done for black women over the last few years, black people (men and women) would be shouting her name and pointing at her as an example of how to move through Hollywood.


And people would have started following her path years ago. Therefore, no #OscarsSoWhite because the Oscars wouldn't be so white.

She's good. And she knows how good she is. That's why she pulls no punches and gives no damns when she gets an award. When she got the Norman Lear Award, she said.  

“I’m going to be totally honest with you, I completely deserve this.” 

This video is only a minute long and it's awesome

Shonda Rhimes Talks Diversity
"I totally deserve this" - watch Shonda Rhimes powerful PGA speech!
Posted by ET Canada on Monday, January 25, 2016

When Shonda achieves, people look at work and say "Where are the leading black men?" in a way they never ask about leading black women characters

- when a Denzel film comes out,
- when a Will Smith film comes out,
- when a Spike Lee films comes out, or
- when a John Singleton movie comes out.

I actually read a black man critique the way Olivia and Harrison interact in  Shonda Rhime's "Scandal" by saying, "Olivia acts like he is her subordinate."


I remember thinking, "Does he need the other half of his brain re-inserted, a dictionary, or his superiority gland removed. Olivia Pope plays Harrison's boss. He is her subordinate. Sexism knows no color. Believe this.

And Denzel Washington and Will Smith have had more white and/or non-black actress co-stars than you can shake ten sticks at, so I'm really not hearing any mess about "Where are the black male leads?"

For me it comes down to more than, "Why should I care where they are too?" That is a fair point considering how little reciprocal concern we get as far as representation in the main stream media. But that's not the reason I don't care about where the black male stars are. I fear that if black men become over-present in shows like "Scandal" or "How To Get Away With Murder," or "Being Mary Jane" for that matter, the black women will be come e-raced, accessories, or stereotypes and caricatures ala "Precious" or "Empire."

On a similar note, Black Lives Matter was started by black women but the deaths of black women were still e-raced in the presence of the deaths of black men. It still galls me that #SayHerName became necessary to reinsert black women into black community concern. And Sandra Bland's death happened as this re-insertion was occurring. But I wonder if  #SayHerName is gone already. I mean, as we speak, how many people are trying to figure out what happened to Gynnya McMillen?  

But back to the point.

If Shonda Rhimes was a black man, the only questions would be on how do we copy her success? People would be doing what she did.

And let me tell you how she did it.

   

Rhimes started off with what white people wanted to see or were willing to see. That's a no brainer, yes?

Her first series, "Grey's Anatomy"  had a white woman lead at least one person of color as a central character (an Asian woman) and minor actors (black male and female)

Her second series, "Private Practice,"  had the same white female lead with the black characters that were more central.

Her third lead character in her third series was black, but not too black, Kerry Washington as Olivia Pope in "Scandal."

Her fourth lead character in her fourth series, "How To Get Away With Murder" is all the way black, dark-skinned, complete with afro hair (Viola Davis) and has other central black characters in it.

By the way, this is how black feminists and womanists roll (Shonda, Kerry, Viola)

Now that Shonda has knocked that glass ceiling out. I'm hoping steps one and two of her program for Hollywood success aren't necessary for some of the up and come-ers.


 Happy Belated Birthday Shonda Rhimes. I promise you, some of us have sense enough to be happy you were born.