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List Serve

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I need your help. I started putting together a list of the artists,
musicians, photographers, filmmakers, actors, who share our
vision for the “non profit”.

The working rule that I used is that these are artists who, take
intellectual risks, can use our support and share our vision of
diverse representations of African Americans in entertainment.
(If you can help me clean that sentence up a bit, please do. It
seems a bit clunky).

Men (music)
De La Soul
Dwele
Lupe Fiasco
Little Brother
Mos Def
Nas
Jay Electronica
Jazzy Jeff
The Roots
Talib Kweli

Women (Music)
Amel
Black Lily Foundation
Chrisette Michelle
Erykah Badu
Floetry
Jill Scott
M.I.A
Santo Gold

Groups
J Davey

Photographers
Carrie Mae Weems
Gordon Parks

Filmmakers
Gina Prince-Bythewood- Love and Basketball
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Saana Hamri- Something New
Leslie Harris- Just Another Girl on the IRT
Spike Lee- Do the Right Thing
Kasi Lemons – Eves Bayou
Sterling Macer Junior- Park Day
Vanessa Middleton- 30 Years to Life
Cauleen Smith- Drylongso

Organizations
The Brooklyn Young Mothers Collective
The Center for Young Womens Development
Center on Criminal and Juvenile Justice
The Door
Prop 36.org
Rap Coalition
Sustainable South Bronx
Sisters in Cinema

Policies that Affect Black Families Disproportionaly
(Working List of Policies that we will lobby against)
Gun Free Schools Act of 1994
The Rockefeller Drug Act
3 Strikes
Mandatory Minimums (Crack Sentencing)

Please add on in the comments, along with their respective category.

Another question. I am thinking of building into the website, a location
where moms/dads can share solutions they have found, related to parenting
(dealing with the court, dealing with child’s teachers, learning disabilities,
discipline, budgenting, dealing with the police).
If you are a parent and a reader, what would encourage/discourage
you from using such a forum?

A Response to CNN’s " Black in America"

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They need to call it Trife in America.

There is nothing that I couldn’t have learned from watching that show
that I wouldn’t have picked up from living with Black people, talking to
my homies, and reading internet message boards.

That show should be called, Black Pathology: A Presentation
for White Folks.

Seriously.

All of us know a Single Black dad raising his kids and facing
housing issues, someone who is being evicted, a “successful”
Black woman who has decided to date white dudes, and a middle
class Black couple that has been married 20 years.

AND???????????

This, IS NEWS?

Why should we be excited about the hardships of the black
family being presented on CNN?

I think its because we expect someone else to save us. For reals homie.

C. Dubb and I go back and forth at least three times a day
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profit will be and each day we get closer.

Do you KNOW how much more difficult it is to talk about a
SOLUTION than to go on and on about the problems.

Let me ask you again.

Do you KNOW how much more difficult it is to talk about a
SOLUTION than to go on and on about the problems.


The bugged out thing about the entire show is that I knew
every “talking head” they interviewed.

The academics, the Hollywood writers, the magazine editors.

How much more effective would the series had been if it were focused on
on who makes money off of our poverty and how the every day person can
contribute to changing the situation.

Would they ever make a White in America show?

Why not?

From Gossip Girl to Ghetto Girl: What Messages Are We Sending?

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From Ghetto Girls to Gossip Girls, just what are our girls reading?

I had been thinking about Gossip Girl, as recently read an article
in the New York Times which featured a dissertation by Dr. Naomi
Johnson. In her study she analyzed the brands being mentioned in the
pages of the three titles, Gossip Girl, The Clique and A-List and
came to the conclusion consumption is the new femininity for
the girls in these books. Michael Winerip reports,

She examined three series, with combined sales of 13.5 million ? ?Clique,? ?Gossip Girl? and ?A-List? ? and found, on average, there was more than one brand mentioned per page, 1,553 brand mentions in 1,431 pages of the six books she had read.

Massie, the lead ?Clique? character, doesn?t wear miniskirts and sandals. She wears Moschino minis, Jimmy Choo sandals, and Chanel No. 19 on her thin wrists, rides in a Range Rover, drinks Glaceau Vitamin Water and totes her books in a Louis Vuitton backpack.

Dr. Johnson concluded that romancing boys was no longer the primary objective of this new generation of romance novels, as it had been in the good old days of the 184-book series ?Sweet Valley High.?

In the new romances, she wrote, ?brands are more important than romantic relationships to female protagonists? popularity.?

Two weeks ago, Ruth LaFerla wrote about the impact that the show, Gossip
Girl, is having on the fashion industry. She writes,

Now the show?s sense of style is having a broader impact, in the retail marketplace. Merchants, designers and trend consultants say that ?Gossip Girl,? which is in summer reruns on the CW network before returning Sept. Most possibly they are viagra generic sildenafil black advertising propaganda to hurt tadalafil’s name. This sort of medication female viagra presents symptomatic and precautionary therapy. Not many sportsmen can bounce back so levitra without prescription click this page readily after making huge mistakes which very nearly cost him the rest of his career. Oily fish such as salmon and tuna or any other. viagra in india online 1, just in time for back-to-school shopping, is one of the biggest influences on how young women spend.

Fans stride into boutiques bearing magazine tear sheets that feature members of the cast and ask for their exact outfits. Or they order scoop-neck tops and hobo bags by following e-commerce links from the show?s Web site.

?The show has had a profound influence on retail,? said Stephanie Solomon, the fashion director for Bloomingdale?s, adding that it appeals not just to teenagers but also to women in their 20s, the daughters and the younger sisters of the generation that made ?Sex and the City? requisite viewing for aspiring glamoristas.

I was immediately reminded of this article when I came across the
Street Lit Review last Sunday. While the Gossip Girl genre is targeted
towards middle class white girls, the Ghetto Girl genre is targeted
towards low income Black and Latina girls.

If I were fifteen, I would be reading Ghetto Girl Lit and Gossip Girl as well.
However, it wouldn’t have ended with that. I would be consuming
some Walter Dean Myers, some Ntozake Shange and some Rosa Guy
as well.

The issue isn’t that the girls are receiving the messages about sex.
As a teenager, you are always seeking out what you parents say
you should have. Its natural. In middle school we really thought
we were doing something reading Go Ask Alice and A Hero Ain’t Nothing
But a Sandwich. However, our reading habits were diverse.

The covers of the Ghetto Girls books are a bit racy, as the desire is to
catch the young girls attention. What I found in Street Lit Magazine was
that the covers of the Grown Girl Lit , Ghetto Girls big sister, looked
awfully similar to covers of prison skin rags, KING, SMOOTH etc. It is
as if the line between stripper chic, rap videos and adult fiction is being
blurred.


If the Gossip Girl genre is about consumption and sex and the Ghetto Girls genre
is about drug dealers, sex and fast money and faster cars, what exactly
do we expect our girls to become when we are sending them these
messages through entertainment?

The Road Less Traveled

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Guilt and shame are two of the primary tools that we use to control
each other. Think of the last time you had a conflict with another person.
How much of the conflict arose from the fact that they were trying to either
assert control over you, guilt you into doing something or shame you because
of who you were?

I read a book in April, The Road Less Traveled, and it made it crystal
clear the way guilt, shame and control factor into our day to day lives.

Apparently, last April was when I was suppose to read it because within
6 days of each other I lost my job and my roommate read me the riot act,
so I decided that it was time to move. The job situation, I anticipated and
already had begun to make moves to transition to another gig. The roommate
situation caught me off guard, and came across as a clear desire to assert
control over me, when it appeared that was I vulnerable and without
options. Clearly, that was a bad move on her end.

In the midst of all these life changes I was reading “The Road Less Traveled”.

The book is incredible for three reasons. First it sets forth the nature of control
and how human beings would rather control others than control themselves.

Second, it sets forth a definition of love as “the willingnesses to extend yourself
for the spiritual growth of another”.

Thirdly, it talks about what it means to love each other and to love children.

I am always fascinated when I hear people talk about how they arn’t going
to spoil their kids. It is easier said then done. When you are tired,
and they are whining or crying and giving them that new bratz doll or video
game will bring you a moment of peace, it is easy to see how we get on the road to
spoiledville. Dr. Peck addresses the issue of love and discipline when he
writes,

Love is not simply giving, it is judicious giving and judicious withholding as well. It is judicious praising, judicious criticizing. It is judicious arguing, struggling, confronting, urging, pushing and pulling in addition to comforting. It is leadership. The word judicious means requiring judgment, and judgment requires more than instinct. It requires thoughtful and often painful decisionmaking.

Once we recognize that life is a series of problems to be solved then we
are in the position to make things happen. Dr. Peck addresses this issue
when he writes,

Life is difficult….Most do not fully see this truth that life is difficult. Instead they moan…Life is a series of problems. Do we want to moan or do we want to solve them. Do we want to teach our children to solve them?

…Discipline is the basic set of tools we require to solve life’s problems. It will be come clear that these tools are techniques of suffering, means by which we experience the pain of problems in such a way as to work them through and solve them successfully, learning and growing in the process. When we teach ourselves and our children discipline, we are teaching them and ourselves how to suffer and also how to grow.

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why I have the courage to criticize hip hop, is because
I have found the courage to criticize myself. It isn’t easy. No one wants
to have their personal contradictions staring them in the face. It makes you
feel like an idiot. However, I know that life for me, is always, changing
and moving, and I rarely have the same problem twice. Dr. Peck talks about the
importance of self examination when he writes,

Examination of the world without is never as personally painful as the world within and it is certainly because the pain involved in a life of genuine self examination that the majority steer away from it. Yet when one is dedicated to the truth this pain seems relatively unimportant- and less and less important (and therefore less painful) the farther one proceeds down the path of self examination.

I often write about hip hop and the problem with our passive acceptance of the
messages we get from Hip Hop and the media at large. I was reminded
of this in Dr. Peck’s chapter on love. In the following paragraph, he discuses
the way that passive dependence can impact a persons life. He writes,

Passive dependent people lack self discipline. They are unwilling or
unable to delay gratification of their hunger for attention. In their
desperation to form and preserve attachments they throw honesty
to the winds. They cling to outworn relationships when they should
give them up. Most important, they lack a sense of responsibility for
themselves.They passively look to others, frequently to their own
children, as the source of their happiness and fulfillment, and therefore
when they are not happy or fulfilled they basically feel that others are
responsible.

I started this post off talking about guilt and shame. Last night, I was reminded
of both guilt and shame and of how children are socialized to treat each other.
We say that “kids are mean”, but in reality they aren’t. They are taught at a young
age that to make yourself feel better you have to pounce verbally or physically
on someone else.

I watch people. I watch the little things that they do that indicate a desire
to control the situation they are in. The desire to control others runs deep.
Birkhold said something amazing to me yesterday about control that
I haven’t quite been able to shake. He said that one of the
reasons that I feel the way that I do is because I am more vulnerable than
I am in control and that this is a sign of being a healthy human being.
I, of course don’t like it. I feel like I am standing at the edge of a cliff, looking
over it.

However, I know that being around people who like to control me and others
feels like a hazing ritual so it is affirming to know that while it is uncomfortable
at the moment, that the discipline and the ability to sit with the suffering is
being cultivated.

When was the last time someone tried to assert control over you?

How did you handle it?

Do you see yourself as a “control freak”? If yes, how do you
reconcile your desire to control others with the avoidance of
wanted to control yourself?

I Knew I Would Never Be the Same

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I knew that I would never be the same when, while researching
the Beyond the Down Low post, I read a passage in Keith Boykin’s
book where he describes affirming the rage or questioning the rage.

I am rage sensitive. It comes from watching the world around me,
as a child, be eaten alive by addiction. In many ways rage operates
like a stray bullets, taking out whatever is in its path.

In the book, Boykin was discussing how he was speaking at an event on
AIDS, and the women stood up and said “Sure they would have you here,
you are one of them”, one of them meaning that he is a gay man.
Apparently the womans husband, cheated on her and left her for a man.

It was at that moment where Boykin pointed out that she wanted
him, to affirm her rage, but instead he questioned it by telling her that she
has a right to be angry but a conference about Black people and HIV
isn’t automatically about Black men who are in the closet and
to presume that it is the same is apart of the problem that leads them
to being closet in the first place.

When you read the paper, or watch the news, think about whether the story
you are reading is raising questions or affirming passively held values,
be they healthy, racist, sexist or pathological.

I think about affirming the rage or questioning the rage when I go back and
forth with C.Dubb about what this non profit is going to look like.

I think about it when I say to myself, that there are so MANY people getting
money off of poverty that anything we do MUST be committed to being about
solutions. No more talk about the problem. ((Problem))((Solution)).

I think about affirming the rage or questioning the rage when I read Michael Eric
Dyson talking a whole bunch of yak about Tupac, as if Pac was the second
coming. Pac was an artist. He had potential. Sadly he did not live up to it.

Sometimes Dyson man reads like he is Pac’s publicist.

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unwillingness to question Pac or Hip Hop at all.

However, if Dyson questioned Pac he may begin to question other things,
and who know’s where that may lead.

Its almost like we need a conference where we criticize each other, then decide to
take action on the issues that arise.

But that would mean taking time from Fox News appearances, conferences,
the Black Literature circuit and actually figure out sustainable ways to address the
sh-t “we” talk about on Fox News, at conferences and on the Black
Literature circuit.

I thought of how the rage was affirmed when I picked up Street Lit Review.
In many ways it is a magazine with great potential. But most of its
reviews are thinly disguised pressed releases. But for one article
on the challenges of ghost writing, I learned nothing new about street
lit that I couldn’t have easily picked up by browsing a book table at
Fulton Mall.

What really got me was the pages in the magazines displaying the covers
of the books. Many of them looked like stills from an R. Kelly or Young Joc
video.

All I could think was, “Is this what we think of each other?”

Often times, I evaluate Black art by asking myself, if II came from
another country and knew zero about African Americans, what
would this piece of music, book, tv show, tell about
me about Black folks?

This is NOT to say that every piece has to be on some Fight the Power.

Because that is nonsense.

However, it must be noted how much both street lit and how much
of Snoop, 50 and Weezy says about us, as a people to each other and to
the world.

I thought of affirming the rage or questioning the rage when I was
reading Black Issues Book review and Melody Guy, senior editor at
One World Ballentine said, in defense of street
lit, “You can’t force them to read James Baldwin. There is a reason
why people are choosing these stories and maybe we should
look at what is causing this hunger”.

I know what causes the hunger, the same thing that sustained my appetite
for Mobb Deep, sustains and feeds desire for these stories
which ultimately play the role in feeding the dysfunction within us.

The Baldwin statement interesting for two reasons.
First, since the 4th, I have been reading
Baldwin to get a handle on how to write about my family
in an accessible an effective way.

Two, Baldwin always questioned the rage.

In many ways, the folks who want more diversity in Hip Hop,
are like the folks who want more diversity in Black book titles.

I wonder what will happen when we decide enough is enough
and that we will support both the musicians, writers and fine artists
who create images that aren’t hella corny like a back to school special,
see the above Ice Cube movie, yet aren’t so pathological they make
me want consider homicide because the ________ is enough.