GRANT FOR TUSKEGEE SCIENTIST, DR. HADIYAH-NICOLE GREEN

"Dr. Hadiyah-Nicole Green, an assistant professor at Tuskegee University, is one of less than 100 black female physicists in the country. She recently won a $1.1 million grant to develop a cancer treatment involving lasers and nanoparticles"
Read More: http://www.al.com/news/huntsville/index.ssf/2016/01/cancer_treatment_is_personal_f.html#incart_most-read_news_article

STATE OF THE UNION ADDRESS TONIGHT

I don't think the lame duck thing is going the way the republicans want it to.

Hee-hee

ASHLEY'S SACK TO GO TO THE AFRICAN AMERICAN SMITHSONIAN

The image below is a flour sack, several inches of it rolled up as it is a few feet long. It seems it was used as a sort of make-shift suitcase by a little girl named Ashley when she was sold away from her mother, Rose, to another slave master at 9 years of age.

Apparently, Rose had enough time to give her daughter a few things before she was taken away. A granddaughter embroidered the story of the sack some years later in 1921)


For some reason, I always imagined little black children being taken away suddenly, in the middle of the night or snatched away while the mother was deep in some field. I thought of black children as being stolen in a more literal sense. I guess I didn't allow myself to have a stronger sense of what a white person owning you feels like. Being owned is hard to imagine in a truly three dimensional way.

"We are selling your daughter. Say your goodbyes." 

How do you go on living after that? 

There's a little more information here at the link below. But I must warn you that the first sentence is annoyingly ignorant. It says, "We don’t know why the master decided to sell the 9-year-old girl."

But sure we do. We do know the reason the white man (or white woman) decided to sell the 9 year old girl. He was punishing the slave or he needed the money.

http://www.journalscene.com/article/20151230/SJ01/151239984/  

The Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture is due to open in the Fall of 2016.  You'll be able to see the sack in person at that location. 

10 MAKEUP LINES FOR WOMEN OF COLOR

Feeling Rebloggy

http://blog.franchesca.net/post/136765790317/10-makeup-brands-for-people-of-color

MISTY COPELAND ANNOUNCE'S SCHOLARSHIP TO ENCOURAGE BLACK GIRLS INTO BALLET

MISTY COPELAND -

"I am proud to help other African American dancers reach their dreams both abroadand at home. Ballet in the City presents the 2016 Misty Copeland Scholarship for African American dancers to continue their dance training and increase their opportunities."



Misty Copeland's hair, body, and skin color is different from the white girls with whom she dances. And she had to fight her way into ballet. The video below contains a reading of one of her rejection letters.

I'm so proud of her for making it.
I'm even prouder of her for talking about it.
I'm proudest of her giving back unapologetically to the black community




I'm looking to see the documentary on her life if I can. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqZkfDEoQDI  But I fully plan on reading her biography this year. 





SCHOLARSHIP IS FOR GIRLS OR GUYS 13 to 18
SEE LINK AND SCROLL TO BOTTOM OF PAGE
http://www.balletinthecity.org/programs---events.html




THIS MAY BE A MORE DIRECT LINK TO SCHOLARSHIP INFO
http://www.balletinthecity.org/assets/the-2016-misty-copeland-scholarship-information-(2).pdf

BLAME FOR ERIC GARNER'S DEATH LAID AT BLACK FEMALE OFFICER'S FEET

Kizzy Adonis, a 14-year NYPD veteran, was one of the supervising officers at the scene of Garner’s death during his arrest 18 months ago for selling illegal loose cigarettes.

Adonis told investigators “the perpetrator’s condition did not seem serious and that he did not appear to get worse,” according to an internal report by the NYPD.

But Adonis also said that she “believed she heard the perpetrator state that he was having difficulty breathing.”

http://www.clutchmagonline.com/2016/01/nypd-charged-black-female-sergeant-in-eric-garner-death-investigation-but-not-cop-who-choked-him-to-death/

I don't know how to feel about this.  If they were ever going to charge ANYBODY for Eric Garner's death Daniel Pantaleo should have gone down first.  So yes, this is an example of racism at its finest. 

But I still don't know how to feel about this. 

I could understand her being pressured to write this or that by white superiors while trying to think about how to keep her job to pay rent or kids school clothes etc. I wouldn't like it. But maybe I could try to understand succumbing to that.

But she was standing there?

There's film of Garner's death --and she's not in it. Was she way off to the side somewhere? Could she be so far off to the side that it was almost like she was back at the office while this was happening on the street? I kinda doubt the possibility of this scenario. So I'm confused.

If she WAS in the immediate vicinity, has she seen so many choke holds that this did not affect her? If she was in the immediate vicinity and it did affect her, why don't we hear her screaming at Pantaleo to let Garner go? Why did she write what she wrote in her report? I need a lot more information. Don't you? And why is this the first we're really hearing about Adonis after all this time? Is this NYPD's way of saying "ha-ha" and f-you black community? I kinda think it is. Don't you? And I'd bet a lot of money she's being punished for admitting that she heard Garner saying he was having difficulty breathing. The quotes together seem like she was trying to tell the truth and please white management at the same time. I'm not sure there too many of us of any age who hasn't been caught up in something a lot less serious but similar. 


I wonder if she wrote her statement before or after the video came out? Regardless of what her true level of responsibility for Eric Garner's death is, I want to know who initiated this attack on Kizzy Adonis, when, why, and how come it took this long. Don't you?

UNSKINNY ASIAN, WOMEN IN MIRRORS,

"Growing up as an Asian American, I knew I would never have the long legs or double-lidded blue eyes of the models that graced the TV screens and magazines I saw...I recognized it would be biologically impossible for me to achieve the majority of Western beauty standards, and I was okay with that.

Instead, I contented myself with believing I could do fairly well by Asian standards. My nose was upright, my hair was sleek and straight. Surrounded by petite Asian adults, I also assumed that I would grow up to be the same way. Effortlessly, easily, thin...."

~X O JANE

source: printerest

But then came puberty...



Read More:  

http://everydayfeminism.com/2015/12/growing-up-asian-and-unskinny/

Honestly? I'd never thought of an Asian woman having this problem and for exactly the reasons the author described.

As I was reading this article, I felt the author's pain because she is actually living out a scenario that I  literally don't even want to visit.

I love the art and architecture of  some of Asian countries, and have drooled over friends photos. But I've never seriously thought of going on vacation in Asia.  And I didn't REALLY realize that the reason I hadn't seriously considered a vacation in Asia was because I was worried about my body size being unacceptable in those countries...not until I read this article, not until I heard some of my own thoughts coming out of her cyber-mouth.

I've always had body image issues.

When I look back at myself, in pictures, I can see photos where there was a bulge here and bulge there that I didn't like. Who can't see things they don't like in pictures?

However, there are also photos, years worth of photos, where I looked damn near cookie cutter perfect. Not white model beauty standards, black American style cookie cutter perfect. But I wasn't even happy about my size even then. I couldn't see it in the mirror because I was miserable because of the numbers.

 Size 10 on top. Size 12 on the bottom.  My mother was size 10 when she got married. I'm supposed to be size 10.  I'm size 14. Okay I'm down size 12 again. WAIT! What? Vanessa Williams is size 6? Whitney Houston is size what?  Wait, I can't do those sizes.  It's okay. My mother was size 10 when she got married. Why aren't I a size 10 too?

Okay I'm working out a lot, 1.5 hours a day,  because I'm bored in a new city. It's gonna be okay.  Size 10 on top. Size 12 on the bottom again. Wait body fat is way down, but now my thighs are too big. Wait a minute. How come I never noticed I have butt for days but no hips  And  why am I still not quite a  %$#*&%  *#&%* SIZE 10!!!

I'm better now. Much.  But I still have those days when....  

I've come to realize that I simply have the years and years long habit of picking myself apart -- and not just in ways related to weight either.

Like young girls and young women everywhere I used to constantly be in the mirror looking at weight, face, hair and what constitutes attractive but not too attractive/too sexy clothing... and yes, my own skin color. 

For whatever reason, when I was a teenager, I wanted what white girls and light girls had, male attention, but without wanting my skin color to change. I like my skin color. I always have.

Actually, "always"  may be too a strong word.

When I was about 5  and first started going to a predominantly white school, the white girls wouldn't speak to me or even look at me. When I told my mother  "I wish I was white,"  my parents immediately told me what I was supposed to think and feel.  So I shut up and parroted back what I was supposed to say.  But my wish to be white didn't last long in any case.

As I stared in the mirror, I couldn't bring myself to wish my own face away. And I would have had to wish my own face away in order to be white or even light. I do not have white features therefore I cannot do white skin, light skin, or lank straight hair and look "normal." I couldn't articulate that at 5 or 6 years old. But I could see it.

When my little brother went through the same wounding 4 or 5 years later, I  realized that I never actually looked in the mirror and wanted my face to change and neither did my brother; we just wanted what the white people had - easily made friends and acceptance.
I think it's easy to mistake these pains we get in relationship or due to lack of relationship for evidence that we are fundamentally unacceptable. I think most of us know this in our heads.

And I agree that self acceptance is the first step to healing. But I don't think self-acceptance is the last step in any healing process.

We may not like society's unhealthy messages. But we need society. We need healthy interdependence on one another.

When I realized that friendship and acceptance was the problem and not my skin color, my mind was corrected on the skin color issue almost instantly.  There was not, is not, the same struggle for self-acceptance in regards to skin color as there has been with size and beauty -- not for me.

There was no essential struggle with me liking my own skin.

So my own mind being corrected wasn't the end of the problem because the real  problem was lack of friendship and acceptance for 8 hours of my 12 to 14 hour day.  Mind corrected though, I took the next step. I gained the confidence to discern who was worthy of friendship and who was not. Taking proactive steps to make worthwhile friends, the final step, took care of the real problem.  

I can't help but think that body image issues require a similarly patterned response.


That is, self-acceptance is only the first step because your size is not actually the real problem. I think our lack of confidence to do X is the real problem. So while working on self-acceptance I wonder if it's even more productive to think about what you're going to do with your new found confidence.


Once you are acceptable to you, will you be bolder about your style choices? 

Once you are acceptable to you, will you take surfing lessons? 

Once you are acceptable to you, will you ask men or women that you find attractive out?  

Once you are acceptable to you, will you tell Aunt Sally to worry about how empty her own head is instead of how full your ass is? 

What's going to happen when you are completely acceptable to you?


I'm not at 100% as far as being completely acceptable to me. Some days I can fluctuate down to 50% acceptable to me, especially when the PMS hits. But I know what I'm going to do. I'm doing it right now. I'm adding see China to my bucket list.  

GABRIELLE UNION'S "BEING MARY JANE" RENEWED FOR FOURTH SEASON

I had very little doubt that the show would be renewed. It's an excellent show from the creator of "Girlfriends," Mara Brock Akil.

From Variety.com 

"For its third season this fall, in Nielsen’s “live plus-3” estimates, “Being Mary Jane” averaged 2.1 million viewers, a 1.2 rating in adults 18-49 and a 1.1 in adults 18-34. It ranked among the top five scripted cable series in all categories every week it aired.

Created by Mara Brock Akil, “Being Mary Jane” revolves around a successful broadcast journalist Mary Jane Paul (played by Union), and her professional and private life."

Read More: http://variety.com/2016/tv/news/being-mary-jane-renewed-season-4-bet-gabrielle-union-1201673312/



REPOST:
10 WAYS I LOVE BEING MARY JANE

1. Mary Jane is human. That is...

-she's kind, 

-she's gentle, 

-she's a ride or die chick loyal but sometimes fails

-she's bossy, 

-she loves hard but not stupid (for very long)

-she's judgmental, 

-she's right, 

-she's wrong, 

-she vacillates and equivocates,  

-and she walks softly and carries a big stick 

     to answer the front door at night (her baseball bat)

-AND when she's horny she's horny and she scratches that itch.

I know "being human" shouldn't be "a thing" But being black and female on three dimensional is so rare on television that it absolutely is "a thing."


2. Because of her character's job position as a television news personality, real life black current events can be introduced into the show via Mary Jane interviewing someone real like 'The Guerrilla Gardner.' He was actually a guest star and spoke on real issues.

3. Mary Jane, herself, is not always the most interesting character on the screen.  Her friends and family are going through some stuff . And sometimes when they are handling things badly or when they are handling things well -  divorce, depression, loss of custody of children- she, as the main character, has no answers. Sometimes Mary Jane is just there to listen. And when she does Mary Jane symbolically listens to black women (all women) everywhere.

4. When Mary Jane's niece talked about not being the right size or color to be attractive to black men, there was no neat Brady Bunch wrap up or conclusion-- just like real life. There was the niece coming to an ugly conclusion, bitter tears, hollow reassurances, and the scene ended on a down note-- just like real life. That made me unhappy at first. But it was so completely real, I couldn't really criticize it. I just couldn't.

5. Strong black woman doesn't live here, not in this series. Mary Jane hesitates when she should be moving. And sometimes she jumps ahead with her mouth when she should stop and think with her mouth in the closed position. And when people don't wind up being who she thinks they are, she cries and loses control. 

6. She does nerd things that are dear to my heart like having inspirational quotes all pinned up all over the place.

7. Her female friend and work partner Kara argue a lot but they always have one another's back in the end.  I swear, only feminists like Mara Brock Akil create female characters that have real fights over real stuff having nothing to do with silly misunderstandings and/or men.

8. Motherhood is examined from a variety of angles. Her relationship with her mother has turned out to be a lot more interesting than I thought it would. And one of the most powerful scenes I've ever seen about a woman and how she feels about being failing to be what society expects her to be as the female parent comes from Kara. And that's not tied up with a pretty bow either.

9. Race, class, and poverty and how these things impact one another is an undercurrent in this series. Mary Jane's family isn't quite a mixture of the Huxtables (The Cosby Show) and the Evans' (Good Times) But there's a mixture of earning potentials  and therefore questions about what success looks like in its various forms and also what one should or shouldn't be willing to do for money.   

10. The light-skinned black female characters look unmistakably black just like all the other characters. That is, most of the light-skinned women do not look like chocolate dipped white girls and/or puerto-rican or deliberately chosen for their racial ambiguity - like most of the paper bag test passing female characters in the movie "Dope" and half of the people in Lee Daniels' productions. 

I don't agree with all the conclusions and decisions the characters come to, but most everything in "Being Mary Jane" feels true to black female-hood to me. This series feels as ground breaking to me as the Mary Tyler Moore show was back in the 1970s.



CONCLUSION:  

Shonda Rhimes  and Kerry Washington have the political murders and melodrama thing going on

AND

Shonda Rhimes and Viola Davis have the ruthless murder mystery thing going on

BUT IT IS

Mara Brock Akil and Gabrielle Union that have created the most three dimensional black woman that television has ever seen. I feel like "Being Mary Jane" is televisoin history in the making. I'm hoping more people will see how special this series really is.

-----------

By the way, Gabrielle Union is wearing some kick@$$ dresses.

And there is such an eclectic selection of music being used in the series. It's not all black and female. But it is heavily female, quite a bit black, and some of the songs are from other countries.

I can't believed I passed on "Being Mary Jane" for so long.  I know why I did though.

A) I skipped it because I'd heard about Mary Jane's first boyfriend and the whole thing sounded a little too Olivia Pope to me (And I was still mad at myself for getting hooked on Scandal in the first place.) 
B) The first half of the pilot, "Being Mary Jane," the movie, seemed like it was going down stereotype lane with an ex-drug addict brother and a baby daddy chasing niece.  But these two characters, only two among many supporting characters, jumped up, turned around and did a split into 3 dimensional characters that I actually value more than I thought I would.  

So here I am
in the here and now.

I adore Mary Jane, her family, and her friends. And I can't wait to see what Mara Brock Akil, also the creator of "Girlfriends" does next.

Black Feminists Rocking In This Post

Mara Brock Akil

Shonda Rhimes

Kerry Washington

Viola Davis

Gabrielle Union

REMEMBERING ZORA NEALE HURSTON

"Actually I think all the time that I write, I am writing about love or its absence... which is how people relate to one another and miss or hang on to it ... or are tenacious about love."

~Zora Neale Hurston (Bakerman 60)

In “Their Eyes Were Watching God,” Zora Neale Hurston explores the effects of race and gender on developing one’s identity.

There is often a discrepancy between personal identity and the identity formed exogenously by members of society, which makes it difficult to develop a true understanding of oneself. In Hurston’s novel, Janie is able to move past the opinions others have of her and become the woman she wants to be, but not before she is subjected to the limitations placed on her as a result of being a black woman. Hurston’s symbolic use of the mule, a pear tree in blossom, and Janie’s hair illustrate the development of Janie’s womanhood and independence, as well as her ultimate triumph over her domineering husbands and the constrained society in which she lives.

Normally, when one thinks of race and discrimination, the focus is on one race putting another [race] down. However, in some cases, members of the same race can be just as discriminatory and unsupportive of one another. Hurston explores this idea of inner-race discrimination in her fictional depiction of Eatonville, Florida.

Eatonville serves as a way for black people to escape from the racism present in the rest of the United States (Patterson 34). However, this enclave of racial separateness is not lacking in discrimination.

In "Their Eyes Were Watching God" Hurston explores the re-creation of white racism by blacks against other blacks, and black women specifically sexism, and patriarchy. If you didn't notice that when you were reading, then "feminism" is just common sense to you. Congratulations. Give it another read

Read More:
http://www.ericrettberg.com/modernamericanauthors/?p=760

COSBY SCANDAL PROVES BLACK WOMEN'S LIVES STILL DON'T MATTER

Statute Of Limitations and other technicalities saved Cosby in Los Angeles. Los Angeles declines to indict (January 2016)
http://www.msn.com/en-us/tv/news/bill-cosby-escapes-criminal-charges-from-la-da-over-2008-and-1965-incidents/ar-AAgrKxD?ocid=spartandhp



Feeling Rebloggy

The support of Cosby by black men and women who might otherwise consider themselves freedom fighters in the struggle for black liberation has been perplexing at best and hypocritical at worst, especially when considering that some of Cosby's alleged victims were black, too.

It reveals the dangerous limitations of a black politic of liberation that is concerned with white racial supremacy but not cued into the violent reality of intra-community misogyny and sexual assault. This lack of dual focus has harmed black women throughout history.

~Darnell L Moore

"The Bill Cosby Scandal Proves Why Black Women's Lives Still Don't Matter"

WRITTEN BY A BLACK MAN THAT "GETS IT"
PLEASE DO READ MORE: 

http://mic.com/articles/121957/the-bill-cosby-scandal-proves-why-black-women-s-lives-still-don-t-matter#.id8byIQeE