Afrofuturism Scholar
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‘Bronx Ghetto Tours’ Make Fun of the Poor (by TheYoungTurks)
The South Bank Show - Clive Barker
(Source: youtube.com)
This is one of those conversations I’m tempted to join but can’t. As someone who grew up Black and poor in the US, the descendant of slaves, and as someone who reads and studies deeply on education in poor and working class Black communities, it’s just too frustrating to engage those who have easy answers about what other people should do for themselves to overcome structural racism and poverty. I just can’t.
But that aside, my problem with the Obamas is that they are not the mommy and daddy of “Black America” (which doesn’t exist). He is the president of the richest, most powerful nation on Earth, responsible for developing and executing policy to make our nation live up to its democratic ideals. That’s his job—but instead, time and time again, he kowtows to millionaires and billionaires, and pushes education policies which hurt poor people most, which make it more difficult for poor people to help themselves. So his moral pronouncements to Black folks—and never to whites—are a distraction and beside the point. And moreover, hypocritical.
As for Michelle, if I do recall, she went to Princeton on affirmative action, a program which has now been largely gutted. And I’m sure she was the beneficiary of other civil-rights era anti-poverty initiatives as well, most of which are also gone. So I don’t need to hear from her either. Indeed, there is a conversation to be had within black cultural spaces about how we treat one another and how we support one another and hold on and dream. But the Obamas are not qualified to lead that conversation, and it is not their place.
This is what social work researchers and practitioners conclude should be Obama’s priorities: http://www.naswdc.org/advocacy/2012%20NASW%20Obama%20Document.pdf
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“We’ve organized them all here in our Resource Library for the public."
Does Organic Labeling Have a Placebo Effect?
As you’d imagine, most of the respondents enjoyed the food labeled “organic” a whole lot better than the “non-organic” version. At least, they felt it was “more nutritious” and “lower in fat and calories.” (Kind of strangly, the respondents preferred the taste of the “non-organic” cookies, at least until you take into consideration that when people want their junk food, theywant their junk food.) But the most important aspect of the study, the part that, no doubt, plenty of food manufacturers have already discovered using their own methodologies and test groups, is the final question asked of the respondents.
After tasting the “organic” and “non-organic” foods and talking about their various feelings, they were asked how much more they’d pay for the organic variety:
They were willing to pay up around 16 to 23 percent more.If only we were so lucky.
Read more here.
(via posttragicmulatto)
In December 2012, vaccine tragedy hit the small village of Gouro, Chad, Africa, situated on the edge of the Sahara Desert. Five hundred children were locked into their school, threatened that if they did not agree to being force-vaccinated with a meningitis A vaccine, they would receive no further education. These children were vaccinated without their parents’ knowledge. This vaccine was an unlicensed product still going through the third and fourth phases of testing.
Within hours, one hundred six children began to suffer from headaches, vomiting, severe uncontrollable convulsions and paralysis. The children’s wait for a doctor began. They had to wait one full week for a doctor to arrive while the team of vaccinators just carried on vaccinating others from the village. More children became sick.
When the doctor finally came, he could do nothing for the children. The team of vaccinators, upon seeing what had happened, fled the village in fear.
Complete Obama Speech at Morehouse Commencement
(Source: youtube.com)
http://www.clutchmagonline.com/2013/05/girl-bye-zoe-saldana-claims-people-of-color-dont-exist/
Girl, Bye: Zoe Saldana Claims “People of Color” Don’t Exist
Actress Zoe Saldana has been inserting the proverbial foot in her mouth in recent weeks. The “Colombiana” starlet has been media blitzing for the upcoming “Star Trek Into Darkness” film and leaving a trail of disrespect in her wake. A fellow Clutch editor, Yesha Callahan, thinks Saldana needs a dictionary and a clue. I concur and also think she needs to enroll in an Introduction to Critical Race Theory course ASAP.
During an interview with BET, Saldana candidly discussed how she views race, alleging “there’s no such as people of color.”
When asked how she racially-identifies, Saldana responded:
I find it uncomfortable to have to speak about my identity all of the time, when in reality it’s not something that drives me or wakes me up out of bed everyday. I didn’t grow up in a household where I was categorized by my mother. I was just Zoe and I could have and be anything that I ever wanted to do…and every human being is the same as you. So to all of a sudden leave your household and have people always ask you, “What are you, what are you” is the most uncomfortable question and it’s literally the most repetitive question. I can’t wait to be in a world where people are sized by their soul and how much they can contribute as individuals and not what they look like.
She wasn’t done retorting.
I literally run away from people that use words like ethnic. It’s preposterous! To me there is no such thing as people of color cause in reality people aren’t white. Paper is white. People are pink, it’s a bit ridiculous when I have to explain to a human being, that is an adult like I am, that looks intelligent but for some reason I have to question his intelligence and explain to him as if he was a two year old, my composition in order for him to say, “Oh I guess I can chill with you, I can work with you.” I will not underestimate a human being and I will not allow another human being to underestimate me. I feel like as a race, that’s a minute problem against the problems we face just as women versus men, in a world that’s more geared and designed to cater towards the male species.
That is a situation that, I spend time thinking about, and working towards ending that, I guess we could talk about that.
Saldana’s decision to accept the role of Nina Simone as a labor of “love” makes her view of race and racism all the more puzzling. It appears as if donning Blackface and depicting Simone has done little to connect the actress with the crooner’s spirit. You can’t portray Nina Simone without realizing how intricately race was intertwined with her life and career.
In fact, communities of color must contend with race and racism daily, from the school-to-prison pipeline to the slow siphoning of resources from our schools. But I guess for women like Saldana, we’re post-racial, Simone’s legacy be-damned.
Maybe the ultimate fixer, Olivia Pope Kerry Washington, can hip her fellow thespian to the truth about post-racial fantasies.
