Sunday, May 1, 2016
The Coolest One in the Room
From The Huffington Post -
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/obama-white-house-correspondents-dinner-2016_us_57226a0ee4b0b49df6aab899
 |
| President Obama blows a kiss & drops the mic at his final White House Correspondents Dinner - April 30, 2016 |
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/obama-white-house-correspondents-dinner-2016_us_57226a0ee4b0b49df6aab899
He Said WHAT?
HOW THE REACTION TO LARRY WILMORE’S “NIGGA” DROP AT THE WHCD WAS PEAK WHITE TEARS, EXPLAINED
http://verysmartbrothas.com/how-the-reaction-to-larry-wilmores-nigga-drop-at-the-whcd-was-peak-white-tears-explained/
Quote
From The Root -
Professor’s Op-Ed Is Final Blow for Confederate Statue
"For 20 years, I have walked by that towering granite and bronze eyesore glorifying the nadir of America’s past. For 20 years, I have listened to cries for its removal. For 20 years, we have been plagued by confusion, compromises, excuses and half measures. One hundred twenty-one years is too long. Twenty years is too long. Twenty more weeks is too long. We’ve waited long enough. It's time for the statue to go. . . ."
Ricky L. Jones, chair of Pan-African Studies at the University of Louisville on the 121-year-old Confederate monument.
http://www.theroot.com/blogs/journalisms/2016/04/op_ed_is_final_blow_for_confederate_statue.html?wpisrc=newsletter_jcr:content%26
Professor’s Op-Ed Is Final Blow for Confederate Statue
The 121-year-old monument at the University of Louisville is coming down in part because of the words of an African-American academic.
"For 20 years, I have walked by that towering granite and bronze eyesore glorifying the nadir of America’s past. For 20 years, I have listened to cries for its removal. For 20 years, we have been plagued by confusion, compromises, excuses and half measures. One hundred twenty-one years is too long. Twenty years is too long. Twenty more weeks is too long. We’ve waited long enough. It's time for the statue to go. . . ."
Ricky L. Jones, chair of Pan-African Studies at the University of Louisville on the 121-year-old Confederate monument.
http://www.theroot.com/blogs/journalisms/2016/04/op_ed_is_final_blow_for_confederate_statue.html?wpisrc=newsletter_jcr:content%26
Friday, April 29, 2016
The Blessings & Burdens of Being the First
An excerpt from The Washington Post -
Being first is never easy. Living with the label can be just as hard.
By William Wan April 22, 2016
When the United States elected its first black president in 2008, it felt like a turning point — a cultural milestone for our country, a moment of grace in its fraught history of race relations, the fulfillment of an equality long promised by our founding fathers.
Seven years later, a new turning point awaits: What next?
No one knows. By their very nature, such “firsts” thrust us into uncharted territory.
But ask other black pioneers about their experiences, and they agree on this: Being first is never easy, but life afterward can be just as hard — both for the person who broke the barrier and the country at large.
Like Obama, they endured the challenge and scrutiny of breaking barriers, and they emerged with victories of their own: the first black governor. The first black billionaire. The first black Ivy League president.
If becoming a first requires determination and sacrifice, they say, then life after that first takes an equal amount of patience and perspective.
The label, they say, is something you contend with for the rest of your life — questioning it, probing for what it means, striving to preserve an identity outside of it and, if you’re lucky, learning to harness its power in a way that helps others.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/national/obama-legacy/first-black-heroes.html?hpid=hp_hp-more-top-stories_olp-afterthefirst-906pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory
Being first is never easy. Living with the label can be just as hard.
By William Wan April 22, 2016
When the United States elected its first black president in 2008, it felt like a turning point — a cultural milestone for our country, a moment of grace in its fraught history of race relations, the fulfillment of an equality long promised by our founding fathers.
Seven years later, a new turning point awaits: What next?
No one knows. By their very nature, such “firsts” thrust us into uncharted territory.
But ask other black pioneers about their experiences, and they agree on this: Being first is never easy, but life afterward can be just as hard — both for the person who broke the barrier and the country at large.
Like Obama, they endured the challenge and scrutiny of breaking barriers, and they emerged with victories of their own: the first black governor. The first black billionaire. The first black Ivy League president.
If becoming a first requires determination and sacrifice, they say, then life after that first takes an equal amount of patience and perspective.
The label, they say, is something you contend with for the rest of your life — questioning it, probing for what it means, striving to preserve an identity outside of it and, if you’re lucky, learning to harness its power in a way that helps others.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/national/obama-legacy/first-black-heroes.html?hpid=hp_hp-more-top-stories_olp-afterthefirst-906pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory
Passing the Test, or Not
An excerpt from Salon -
Failing the “DuVernay Test”: 6 signs your on-screen black character is a tired stereotype
Exhibit A: Eddie Murphy's new film "Mr. Church," which has been dubbed a "spiritual sequel" to "Driving Miss Daisy"
2. Does your character exist to serve white people or aid them in a quest for fulfillment?
In a 2001 speech, director Spike Lee coined the phrase “Magical Negro” to describe the phenomenon of black characters whose only job in life is to the servants, mentors, and spiritual guides for white people. The most famous example is the jolly, apple-cheeked “Uncle Remus” from Disney’s “Song of the South,” who reads the stories of Brer Rabbit to a group of white children. The TV Tropes website sums up the awfulness of Disney’s Remus in its entry on this trope: “Even the horrors of Jim Crow can’t dampen his determination to be a cheerful mentor for the children.”
Lee, however, called attention to movies like “The Legend of Bagger Vance,” “What Dreams May Come,” and “The Green Mile,” which respectively cast Will Smith, Cuba Gooding Jr., and Michael Clarke Duncan as Christ figures that come to earth to teach white people about forgiveness and redemption. If they are not literally God, like Morgan Freeman in “Bruce Almighty,” they act as his messengers or stand-ins. In “Dreams,” Gooding Jr. plays Albert, a guide tasked with helping the film’s Dante character, Chris Nielsen (Robin Williams), find his Beatrice in the afterlife. Albert doesn’t have depth, flaws, or conflicts because he’s a ghost; ghosts don’t need character development.
http://www.salon.com/2016/04/29/failing_the_duvernay_test_6_signs_your_on_screen_black_character_is_a_tired_trope/?source=newsletter
Not Making Out Like Bandits
An excerpt from The Atlantic -
Despite the common perception that women make out better than men in divorce proceedings, women who worked before, during, or after their marriages see a 20 percent decline in income when their marriages end, according to Stephen Jenkins, a professor at the London School of Economics. His research found that men, meanwhile, tend to see their incomes rise more than 30 percent post-divorce. Meanwhile, the poverty rate for separated women is 27 percent, nearly triple the figure for separated men.
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/04/the-divorce-gap/480333/?utm_source=nl-atlantic-daily-042916
The Divorce Gap
There’s a common perception that women siphon off the wealth of their exes and go on to live in comfort. It’s wrong.
Despite the common perception that women make out better than men in divorce proceedings, women who worked before, during, or after their marriages see a 20 percent decline in income when their marriages end, according to Stephen Jenkins, a professor at the London School of Economics. His research found that men, meanwhile, tend to see their incomes rise more than 30 percent post-divorce. Meanwhile, the poverty rate for separated women is 27 percent, nearly triple the figure for separated men.
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/04/the-divorce-gap/480333/?utm_source=nl-atlantic-daily-042916
Honoring His Mom
This video clip was sent to me by a dear friend. It is in English with Arabic subtitles. I hope that this won't be a distraction of the powerful message being presented.
Thursday, April 28, 2016
Shining Bright
From The Huffington Post -
100 Percent Of Seniors At Chicago School Admitted To College For 7th Year In A Row
These young men at Urban Prep Charter Academy are what black excellence looks like.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/100-percent-of-seniors-at-chicago-school-admitted-to-college-for-7th-year-in-a-row_us_5722273ee4b0b49df6aa5aaa?utm_hp_ref=black-voices
Quote
From The New York Times -
John Boehner on Ted Cruz:
“I have Democrat friends and Republican friends,” Mr. Boehner told David Kennedy, an emeritus history professor, at the event. “I get along with almost everyone, but I have never worked with a more miserable son of a bitch in my life.”
http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2016/04/28/john-boehner-ted-cruz/
John Boehner on Ted Cruz:
“I have Democrat friends and Republican friends,” Mr. Boehner told David Kennedy, an emeritus history professor, at the event. “I get along with almost everyone, but I have never worked with a more miserable son of a bitch in my life.”
http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2016/04/28/john-boehner-ted-cruz/
A Helping Hand
An excerpt from Upworthy -
 |
| We did this sweet lady's lawn today. She is 93, the neighbors told us that she been out their trying to cut her own lawn . Have no fear, raising men lawn care is going to make sure her lawn is done every two weeks ! Making a difference in our community ! Terrence Stroy |
Smith is the founder of Raising Men Lawn Care Service, a group that's lending a hugely helpful hand to neighbors in need.
Smith, a student at Alabama A&M University in Huntsville, launched his organization so elderly folks, single parents, and people with disabilities — those who may not "have the time, resources and/or money to manicure their yards" — could still have well-kept lawns free of charge.
"The typical response is tears of joy," he told Upworthy of his group's impact.
http://www.upworthy.com/why-a-photo-of-this-93-year-old-and-her-lawn-mowers-is-going-viral?c=upw1
Wednesday, April 27, 2016
Brothas on Blast
An excerpt from Very Smart Brothas -
WHERE “BECKY” COMES FROM, AND WHY IT’S NOT RACIST, EXPLAINED
What is Lemonade?
Remember when you were a kid, and your grandma left you alone in the kitchen, and said “don’t take any cookies from the cookie jar,” but there were like 17 cookies in the jar, so you took one thinking she wouldn’t notice, but when she came back in the kitchen you started acting all guilty like you know she knows you took a cookie? Well, if you’re a man in a relationship with a woman, both Lemonade the album and the short film are that cookie jar. The only other thing that’s ever made this many men this self-conscious is Lexington Steele.
It’s that bad, huh?
Let’s just say that 60% of the men in America are spending this week vacillating between feeling bad for Jay Z and being mad at Jay Z for doing whatever he did with Becky With The Good Hair and putting the spotlight on all of us. It’s one thing to do some fuckshit when you have 600 million to fall back on. You might be forgiven. You’ll be memed. But forgiven. It’s another thing if your girl is paying your wifi bill. And your Netflix bill. And your electric bill. You have much less of a rope. You’re practically ropeless. And there are A LOT of ropeless niggas out there, and I’d imagine they’re all very mad at Jay Z.
http://verysmartbrothas.com/where-becky-comes-from-and-why-its-not-racist-explained/
Tuesday, April 26, 2016
Nature vs. Nuture
An excerpt from The New Yorker -
Why are identical twins alike? In the late nineteen-seventies, a team of scientists in Minnesota set out to determine how much these similarities arose from genes, rather than environments—from “nature,” rather than “nurture.” Scouring thousands of adoption records and news clips, the researchers gleaned a rare cohort of fifty-six identical twins who had been separated at birth. Reared in different families and different cities, often in vastly dissimilar circumstances, these twins shared only their genomes. Yet on tests designed to measure personality, attitudes, temperaments, and anxieties, they converged astonishingly. Social and political attitudes were powerfully correlated: liberals clustered with liberals, and orthodoxy was twinned with orthodoxy. The same went for religiosity (or its absence), even for the ability to be transported by an aesthetic experience. Two brothers, separated by geographic and economic continents, might be brought to tears by the same Chopin nocturne, as if responding to some subtle, common chord struck by their genomes.
One pair of twins both suffered crippling migraines, owned dogs that they had named Toy, married women named Linda, and had sons named James Allan (although one spelled the middle name with a single “l”). Another pair—one brought up Jewish, in Trinidad, and the other Catholic, in Nazi Germany, where he joined the Hitler Youth—wore blue shirts with epaulets and four pockets, and shared peculiar obsessive behaviors, such as flushing the toilet before using it. Both had invented fake sneezes to diffuse tense moments. Two sisters—separated long before the development of language—had invented the same word to describe the way they scrunched up their noses: “squidging.” Another pair confessed that they had been haunted by nightmares of being suffocated by various metallic objects—doorknobs, fishhooks, and the like.
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/05/02/breakthroughs-in-epigenetics?mbid=nl_TNY%20Template%20-%20With%20Photo%20(33)&CNDID=27124505&spMailingID=8841059&spUserID=MTE0MzE0NDEyNDUyS0&spJobID=902696804&spReportId=OTAyNjk2ODA0S0
Same but Different
How epigenetics can blur the line between nature and nurture.
BY SIDDHARTHA MUKHERJEE
Why are identical twins alike? In the late nineteen-seventies, a team of scientists in Minnesota set out to determine how much these similarities arose from genes, rather than environments—from “nature,” rather than “nurture.” Scouring thousands of adoption records and news clips, the researchers gleaned a rare cohort of fifty-six identical twins who had been separated at birth. Reared in different families and different cities, often in vastly dissimilar circumstances, these twins shared only their genomes. Yet on tests designed to measure personality, attitudes, temperaments, and anxieties, they converged astonishingly. Social and political attitudes were powerfully correlated: liberals clustered with liberals, and orthodoxy was twinned with orthodoxy. The same went for religiosity (or its absence), even for the ability to be transported by an aesthetic experience. Two brothers, separated by geographic and economic continents, might be brought to tears by the same Chopin nocturne, as if responding to some subtle, common chord struck by their genomes.
One pair of twins both suffered crippling migraines, owned dogs that they had named Toy, married women named Linda, and had sons named James Allan (although one spelled the middle name with a single “l”). Another pair—one brought up Jewish, in Trinidad, and the other Catholic, in Nazi Germany, where he joined the Hitler Youth—wore blue shirts with epaulets and four pockets, and shared peculiar obsessive behaviors, such as flushing the toilet before using it. Both had invented fake sneezes to diffuse tense moments. Two sisters—separated long before the development of language—had invented the same word to describe the way they scrunched up their noses: “squidging.” Another pair confessed that they had been haunted by nightmares of being suffocated by various metallic objects—doorknobs, fishhooks, and the like.
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/05/02/breakthroughs-in-epigenetics?mbid=nl_TNY%20Template%20-%20With%20Photo%20(33)&CNDID=27124505&spMailingID=8841059&spUserID=MTE0MzE0NDEyNDUyS0&spJobID=902696804&spReportId=OTAyNjk2ODA0S0
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