Disney themselves couldn’t have picked a better villainess to tear asunder the NYC Board of Education.
For crissakes, her name is Cathie BLACK!
Archive for the ‘5000’ Category
NYC IS THE NEW JIM CROW…
Monday, February 28th, 2011
New York City leads the nation in the re-establishment of Jim Crow laws aimed at the disenfranchisement of Black people.
The public school system is designed to fail these kids at a young age thereby arresting their development and learning capabilities long before they enter high school. The resultant is that less Black kids enter specialized schools which can prepare them for the future and most Black kids opt out of the public school system altogether.
The next phase is the criminalization of Black youth within their communities by arresting them for minor offenses such as marijuana possession and loitering. Even on the public housing properties where they reside. More Blacks were stopped and searched by the police in the previous three years than in the fifteen years proceeding those three.
All this is almost making Giuliani’s time as the chief executive of New York look like the golden age for Black youth.
What Is Africa? Who Is Africa?
Monday, February 28th, 2011
My single drop in February recognizing Black History Month isn’t going to be about the state of the African American condition here in the United States. Black people in the U.S. are more marginalized than anytime in history since the Civil War. A very small number of Blacks (under a half a percentage point) exist in the upper classes of American society. The rest of us are cannon foder. Like Sean Bell and Danroy Henry. I don’t really have any hope for us, but I held out some hope for Africa to get they shit right.
When I say Africa I mean ALL of Africa. From South Africa to Algiers. Unfortunately, all Africans don’t fux with all of Africa. The Arabian diaspora isn’t fuxing with the sub-Saharan Africans. The Islamic diaspora isn’t fuxing with the Hebrews or the Christians. Africa is still as paralyzed from the vestiges of colonialism as America. Without the civilization from the upper Nile would Egypt have been as dynamic or dynastic? Africa needs to recognize its interconnected networks.
I found myself recently reminiscing on Marcus Garvey’s dream of pan-Africanism as the events of north Africa unfolded over the past several weeks. Would other states in Africa throw off the yoke of despair from despotism? The black soil of Africa is still the epicenter for what we annually call Black History Month. Wherever they go we will follow. Revolution or evolution.
R.I.P. Dwayne McDuffie, Comicbook Pioneer…
Friday, February 25th, 2011
Quiet as we have kept it, Black dudes are disproportionately comic book nerds. The whole idea of someone bringing justice to the planet is some Black bullshit. We are the ones that need the equality. White folks are mostly Lex Luthor in that they already own all the means to production and distribution, and they don’t have any serious intentions in upsetting the apple cart, unless that means adding more apples, of course.
Dwayne McDuffie was the quintessential comic book nerd who loved the medium so much that he dedicated his life to making it bigger, better and thankfully, Blacker. McDuffie founded Milestone Media company with which he created a series of comic book titles featuring superheroes from the darker side of the spectrum.
But it wasn’t just Black superheroes that McDuffie was concerned with creating but a reference for Black kids who could see and read about the diaspora in their communities. Poor, working class, educated and wealthy Blacks were all getting their burn.
The highest salute to McDuffie’s creative talent was that Warner Brothers media allowed him to revision their staple characters. The Justice League went from being a campy, corny 1970s kids cartoon to a seriously storied animated series for the new millennium. The key to McDuffie as a writer is that he understands that comic book characters have to represent the realized world, not the idealized world. In the realized world heroes aren’t always perfect, but they keep the faith.
This should be the lesson I think I will take from Dwayne McDuffie’s unfortunately too young demise.
I’ll keep the faith that one day a Black hero will rise to save us all.
McDuffie’s last piece of work was the adaption of the All-Star Superman graphic novel into an animated feature.
In Dwayne’s posthumous honor, I have several copies of the best Superman movie I ever saw to give away to whoever tells me the name of the hottest Lois Lane of all time.
Let’s Go Mets! (Metroplitan Museum of Art)…
Monday, February 21st, 2011
I fux with the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Don’t get bamboozled by the ‘suggested’ admission price. You can give them $2 bucks and receive your admission button. That’s what I do.
The Met always reminds me of the majesty contained in the planet’s earliest cultures. Black people, or whatever they were called back then were glorious luminary beings.
And women were respected as goddesses and lifegivers.
Their beauty shined like gold in the sunlight.
A day at the Met can be a priceless experience.
Occasionally I see something that reminds me that I’m also royalty.
pics taken by Chocolate Snowflake