Hate It or Love It Most Popular Posts

April 29, 2010

MEET BABY 1 IN A MILLION....



Beautiful eyes right?

According to recent Studies, the chances of an Afro-American baby with blue eyes being born are 1 in a million. There are “brown” people with light eyes, usually light brown, green or gray, but they also share the Anglo-Saxon characteristics such as pug nose and Light hair, but a baby with all the physical characteristics of the afro-American race with blue eyes was almost impossible. Seems like Globalization is working right? It will be more common to see mixes like this one day after day. This baby has 19 months now and since he was 12 months old got a full contract and a life insurance with Paramount Pictures; you will see him in movies, commercials and magazines very soon!

WHEN LOVE GOES TERRIBLY WRONG....R.I.P.


Tumi McCallum was a beautiful girl, her parents were NYU professors. She obviously had options. What on earth did she see in someone like Michael Cordero who ended up killing her in a jealous rage with his bare hands? Pop the hood.

Even the defense lawyer cried.

There wasn’t a dry eye in a Manhattan courtroom Wednesday as two NYU professors spoke out against the jilted lover who killed their daughter.

“He smashed her beautiful face,” Teboho Moia, the mother of strangle victim Boitumelo (Tumi) McCallum, 20, wrote in a statement read by prosecutors.

“My beloved Tumi was silenced forever at a young age because she made a wrong choice about who to share her love with,” the grieving professor wrote.

“You barehandedly killed my child, your hands are stained forever with her blood.”

The victim’s angry father stood up to face killer Michael Cordero, who was sentenced to 25 years as part of a plea deal.

Robert McCallum claimed Cordero stalked his daughter before killing her in her mother’s Greenwich Village faculty apartment.

“Tumi was scared of you in the end,” he said. “I did everything I could to protect her, but you went behind my back to get to her one more time.

“You are a very dangerous person,” he said. “The fact that you stole from her tells me you were cold-hearted.”

The parents weren’t the only ones crying. A courtroom clerk wiped her eyes. Even Cordero’s defense lawyer wept.

So did Cordero as he turned to apologize to the family.

“I know what I did was wrong,” he said.

Yet he failed to offer an explanation for the brutal crime.

“It was just something that happened,” he shrugged, after declaring his undying love for the victim.

April 28, 2010

A CHILD'S PRAYER...CLASSIC

Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray for God my soul to keep;
Or if I die before I wake,
I pray for God my soul to take.

April 27, 2010

THIS IS WHAT PERFECTION LOOKS LIKE...APRIL





AND THE WINNER IS....


Congratulations to Tyra Sanchez for winning Season 2 of RuPaul's Drag Race last night.

THIS IS HOW NEGROS END UP BEING TRICKED

STATISTICS ON AFRICAN-AMERICANS AND PLASTIC SURGERY...

BLACKS: African-Americans underwent an estimated 990,000 procedures last year, up 5 percent from 2008, according to the group. The most popular surgical procedures for African-Americans reportedly are:

1. Liposuction
2. Nose jobs
3. Breast reductions

April 26, 2010

TAKE NOTE....THIS IS HOW A GROWN MAN IS SUPPOSED TO DRESS....WITH SWAGGER...



HE LOOKS GOOD...

ARCHIE COMICS FIRST OPENLY GAY CHARACTER....FUNNY (NOTE THE OPENLY)



New York, NY (April 22, 2010): Archie Comics, home of the famous Riverdale High students Archie, Betty, Veronica, Reggie and Jughead, is about to welcome a new classmate this fall! On September 1st, Kevin Keller, Archie Comics' first openly gay character, will be welcomed into the town of Riverdale.

"The introduction of Kevin is just about keeping the world of Archie Comics current and inclusive. Archie's hometown of Riverdale has always been a safe world for everyone. It just makes sense to have an openly gay character in Archie comic books," stated Archie Comics Co- CEO, Jon Goldwater.

VERONICA #202 features the full-issue story, "Isn't it Bromantic?" that introduces Kevin, Archie Comics' first openly gay character. Kevin Keller is the new hunk in town and Veronica just has to have him. After Kevin defeats Jughead in a burger eating contest at Pop's Chocklit Shoppe, she desperately latches onto him. Mayhem and hilarity ensue as Kevin desperately attempts to let Veronica down easy and her flirtations only become increasingly persistent.

LIKE FATHER, LIKE SON....GOTTA LOVE THE SMILE...





(THE MOM IS PRETTY CUTE HERSELF)

April 20, 2010

IS THE WORLD COMING TO AN END???


Natural disasters and other acts of nature around the world have given new rise to talk about the coming Apocalypse (end of the world).

Giant earthquakes such as the one that killed over 250,000 Haitians this year, and the 8.8 magnitude earthquake in Chile that knocked the earth off its axis and shortened our days, has given new life to theories about the end of our days.

Last week, an active volcano (pictured above) on the European island of Iceland near Greenland in the Atlantic ocean, erupted spewing tons of thick ash into the cirrus stratus where commercial airliners fly at cruising altitude of 30,000 feet.

For that reason, airports all over the world cancelled flights and grounded jets leaving thousands of people broke and stranded far away from home. For many travelers the earliest possible flight home could be May 12. But travelers say they are strapped for cash now and they are wondering how they will pay for hotel rooms and food. The cancellations have so far cost airlines $250 million.
Many people think the end is near as a result of the onslaught of viruses (HIV, H1N1), deadly earthquakes, tsunami’s, volcano eruptions, and other acts of nature that has killed millions of people.

Others say the natural disasters and epidemics are a sign that Nature is attempting to bring the earth’s human population into balance before it’s too late — just as nature does with the animal and insect population.

They point to the fact that the recent deadly natural disasters mainly has affected densely populated areas, such as Haiti, where birth control isn’t practiced as diligently as it is here in the states.

If the earth becomes over populated, the earth’s resources such as food and water will be quickly used up, leading to widespread famine and starvation.

If it weren’t for natural disasters keeping the earth’s population within reasonable limits, the sheer numbers of humans occupying every inch of land would eventually lead to the extinction of the human race on earth.

It is said that a volcano eruption similar to the one on Iceland killed off the dinosaur population millions of years ago (they choked to death on the ash).

Others say the natural disasters all lead up to 2012, the year that marks the end of the Mayan calendar, the first known calendar dating back to the 6th century BC (before Christ). Supposedly the calendar predicts a catastrophic destruction of earth because it records no more dates after 2012.

But they said the same thing about the year 2000 (Y2K).


FROM: SANDRAROSE.COM

April 13, 2010

BEATING THE ODDS....GOOD NEWS

This is what it looks like to beat the odds.
Tyki Nelworth, 18, was accepted to the United States Military Academy at West Point last week after enduring a lifetime of obstacles that would have stopped most people from accomplishing much of anything.

Nelworth's mother is in jail, his father is dead and he has had no permanent home. At one point, he was taken from his mother because of suspected child neglect, and his sister told him he was a "crack baby."

The Los Angeles high school student could have ended up in a gang or on the streets. Instead, the football team captain and student body president will graduate with a 4.2 GPA from Washington Preparatory High School and now is headed to one of the nation's most elite institutions in the fall to become a cadet.

"For me to make it to West Point, that's a big statement," Nelworth told the Los Angeles Times on Thursday. "It means the sky's the limit."

It should come as no surprise that Nelworth's unlikely story has attracted a lot of attention. In Los Angeles, churches and community organizations raised money so he could attend his prom.

"I'm just overwhelmed," Nelworth told the L.A. Times. "I honestly didn't know that there were so many people that cared for me. It's something I definitely won't forget."

Nelworth's acceptance comes with a four-year scholarship. The high school's alumni association paid for Nelworth's $2,000 deposit.

"We have to let him know that his efforts have not gone unnoticed," Laquitta Cole, an alumni board member, told ABC News. "He could've chosen to be a drug dealer, he could've chosen to be in a gang. But he chose to succeed."

SEXY BALDIES....





April 12, 2010

TODAY'S HEALTH LESSON....POPPERS...

HISTORY-
Direct, concentrated inhalation of amyl nitrite and the other light alkyl nitrites leads to a non-specific relaxation of smooth muscle, resulting in coronary vasodilation and decreased systemic vascular resistance and left ventricular preload and afterload. Sir Thomas Lauder Brunton (March 14, 1844 - September 16, 1916), a Scottish physician, is famously-associated with the use of amyl nitrite to treat angina pectoris.

EFFECTS-
Inhaling nitrites relaxes smooth muscles throughout the body, including the sphincter muscles of the anus and the vagina. It is unclear if there is a direct effect on the brain. Smooth muscle surrounds the body's blood vessels and when relaxed causes these vessels to dilate resulting in an immediate increase in heart rate and blood flow throughout the body, producing a sensation of heat and excitement that usually lasts for a couple of minutes.

Alkyl nitrites are often used as a club drug or to enhance a sexual experience. The head rush, euphoria, and other sensations that result from the increased heart rate are often felt to increase sexual arousal and desire. It is widely reported that poppers can enhance and prolong orgasms.

While anecdotal evidence reveals that both men and women can find the experience of using poppers pleasurable, this experience is not universal;some men report that poppers can cause short-term erectile problems.

HEALTH RISKS-
Alkyl nitrites has similar adverse effects as other volatile substances. Acute intake of poppers may cause asphyxia, arrhythmias, cardiovascular depression, carbon monoxide poisoning, hepatorenal toxicity, methemoglobinemia, neurologic dysfunction, mucosal, pulmonary, skin irritation and facial dermatitis. With chronic use neurological damage may occur. Alkyl nitrates are immunosuppressive in animal studies and kaposi's sarcoma, a form of cancer has been associated with heavy chronic misuse of alkyl nitrates; laboratory tests have also found evidence of mutagenic effects. However, a recent study failed to find an association with akyl nitrates and the development of kaposi's sarcoma. Swallowing alkyl nitrates can cause serious acute medical complications and may result in death. Accidental aspiration of amyl or butyl nitrites may lead to the development of lipoid pneumonia.

Other risks include burns if spilled on skin, loss of consciousness, headaches, and red or itching rashes around the mouth and nose.

TYLER PERRY'S "OTHER" ISSUE WITH HOMOSEXUALITY....

Tyler Perry’s Why Did I Get Married Too? shocked absolutely no one by placing a strong #2 in last weekend's box office battle with a $30 million dollar take, but what was shocking and surprising to me was one very blatantly homophobic scene in the movie, as well as the history of stereotypically homophobic elements to Perry's movies that haven’t yet been thoroughly examined.

If you haven’t seen the movie and plan to, be warned there are heavy spoilers ahead.

The last third of the movie finds Janet Jackson’s Dr. Particia Agnew and her husband Gavin (Malik Yoba) engaged in a bitter divorce that gets increasingly ugly due to his battle for half of the royalties from her book sales.

In retaliation, she attempts to humiliate him by bringing an enormous birthday cake to his office and presenting it to him and all of his coworkers filled not with a stripper, but with a flamboyantly gay black man dressed in a miniskirt and neon-colored wig who pops out of the cake in a spray of glitter and gyrates suggestively while It’s Raining Men plays in the background.

I’m not making this up, Tyler Perry did. The point of contention here is not that the gay man in question is in drag or effeminate, but that he is used as an over the top spectacle to challenge the masculinity of a character perceived as acting outside of masculine norms by claiming entitlement to his wife’s earnings.

What makes a bad situation even worse is that during this man‘s “performance,“ Jackson’s character is screaming a litany of homophobic remarks toward her husband along the lines of (and I’m paraphrasing only slightly) “If you want to be a bitch, here you go!” and “Here’s your bitch!”

So, for all of us who are keeping score, gay men are: outrageously feminine, objects of scorn and ridicule for respectable heterosexuals, and freaks that can be used to make an embarrassing public spectacle out of one’s enemy. Yep, got it.

Due to a well-documented history of general awesomeness surrounding gay folks, I’m inclined to give Ms. Jackson a pass on this, but Mr. Perry gets no such luck. In fact, this is only the latest example of homophobia I’ve noticed in his movies.

The original Why Did I Get Married was a similar-sized box-office hit that also had its own share of questionable portrayals of gays. In a very brief scene near the beginning, a flamboyant older white gay couple (dressed in pink, no less) is seen giving attitude to Tasha Smith’s firecracker of a character Angela. Her reaction to the two, while not as blatantly homophobic as the treatment of the lone gay presence onscreen in the sequel, portrays yet another takedown of obviously gay characters for the desired approval of Tyler Perry’s predominantly African-American, churchgoing audience.

But Perry can be an equal opportunity offender. His movie Madea Goes to Jail featured - what else - a big, butch, tattooed lesbian hell bent on “claiming” the pretty young inmate and prostitute played by Cosby kid Keisha Knight Pulliam. I’ll leave the irony of a man who made his fortune by dressing in drag trading in offensive images of gays in his movies up to others comment on.

What I will say is that once is curious, twice is upsetting, but three times borders on pathological, and it leads one to wonder why Perry feels the need to include such deeply negative and stereotypical images of gays in his movies.

Of course, Perry’s movies are predominantly made for the aforementioned African-American, churchgoing audience, but believe me when I tell you that there is a sizable fan base of gays of all colors who are fans of his movies for their absurd melodramatic shock value alone. It's true that the films themselves are mostly badly written and stiffly-acted morality tales with lessons right out of Sunday School, plot twists telegraphed in strokes so broad a toddler could see them coming, and characters who lack the depth to be one-dimensional.

But the camp value of these movies is off the charts, made even more so by the fact that the product isn’t delivered with a John Waters-style wink, but with the stone-faced determination and gravity of a mediocre talent determined to "Make A Point" with all the subtlety of a fist going into a cheating wife’s face (2008’s The Family that Preys).

The end result can actually be quite delicious, especially when he corrals people who should really know better (Angela Bassett, Viola Davis, Kathy Bates) into these hot messes, and especially when a pro like Kathy Bates delivers her lines with a gleam in her eye that suggests she knows exactly the kind of trash she’s participating in.

That said, when I’m ripped out of the trashy fun of his movies by the ugliness of scenes like the drag-queen-stripper-in-a-cake scene. I can only wonder why Perry feels the need to ruin the guilty pleasure of his movies with such blatant and mean-spirited homophobia. There have been thorough takedowns of the messages in Perry’s movies written from many perspectives and I‘ll be shocked if this is the first gay one, but what they all boil down to is that Perry is simply giving the audience what they want.

By serving these images up to an audience all too ready and willing to receive them, he‘s playing into an idea of homophobia and gays that has its roots in the church. For all of his movies’ moralizing and faith-based messages about being a Good Christian, audiences are told through this imagery that it is okay to ridicule the few deeply stereotypical gays that he allows into his inner sanctuary of representation onscreen.

Of course, homophobia is not something that is exclusive to the Black community. African-American moguls like Oprah Winfrey and Tyra Banks are aware of the perception of heightened homophobia within it, and choose to fight that perception and enlighten the same target audience with positive and multidimensional portrayals of the LGBT community in their various projects. They are aware of the power of the images they’re broadcasting to the masses.

Perry is as well, and that‘s the problem. To present homophobic imagery and language to a specifically targeted heterosexual, churchgoing African-American audience reeks of a filmmaker’s intent that is insidious and quite disturbing.

Whether I’ll see another of Tyler Perry’s movies is something I cannot answer. My enjoyment of them, much like my enjoyment of Why Did I Get Married Too?, was stopped dead in its tracks by the ugliness of the scene and the general creepiness of the homophobic elements within it.

The decision to include this gay man in drag, this image to a predominantly African-American audience is indicative of a man who has the power to present images of themselves to an audience that is starved for representation and instead chooses to use that power to further marginalize gay members of that community who are already on the fringes.

Whether Tyler Perry is giving his audience what they want or what he thinks they want is up for debate, but in the future I just may be averting my eyes to whatever he has to offer.

MAKING HISTORY....PROUD MOMENT....


A Gary, Indiana native will make history next month as the first black valedictorian from the University of Notre Dame.

Katie Washington, 21, is a biology major and minor in Catholic social teaching with a 4.0 GPA.

“I am humbled,” said Washington to the Northwest Indiana Times. "I am in a mode of gratitude and thanksgiving right now.”

University officials said they couldn’t recall ever having a black valedictorian, and don’t keep record of their race.

The valedictorian has been accepted to five schools, including Harvard, but she plans to pursue a joint M.D./Ph.D. at Johns Hopkins University, according to nwitimes.com.

"Katie works so hard," Washington’s mother Jean Tomlin said. "I told her when she went to Notre Dame, 'You are representing your family, your church and the city of Gary. Make us proud.'"

She has definitely made her family proud and is following in their footsteps. Her father is a doctor, her mother and sister are nurses, one brother is completing his residency and another brother who works for British Petroleum.

"I have had so much support, people who really wanted to see that I reached my full potential,” Washington told nwitimes.com. “They all had my best interest at heart."

Washington will address the class of 2010 at commencement on May 16.

April 8, 2010

EYE CANDY...IN THOSE JEANS





NOTE TO BLACK RESIDENTS....GET READY TO SAY GOOD BYE TO HARLEM

NEW YORK - Many communities are little more than tracts of real estate. Harlem is not one of them. Known as the "Black Capital of America," Harlem is a one-of-a-kind culture. Beyond being a physical location in upper Manhattan, it is hallowed ground for many blacks.

It is where the famous Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s and 1930s occurred, where the intellectual life of black artists flowered and entertainers found a safe space to hone their skills. During these years, writers such as Zora Neale Hurston, Jean Toomer, W.E.B. DeBois, Alain Locke, James Weldon Johnson, Countee Cullen, Claude McKay and Arna Bontemps worked here. They joined musicians such as Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie, Billie Holiday and Charlie Parker to forge a movement that became an essential part of America's cultural history.

These great artists are gone, and most of the grand old clubs of that period have disappeared, victims of gentrification. Connie's Inn, where Fats Waller played, is now a parking garage. Small's Paradise has been replaced by an International House of Pancakes. The famous movie theaters -- the Victoria, the Lafayette and the Regent -- have been demolished. The once-familiar facades on Harlem's best-known thoroughfare, 125th Street, have made room for chains such as Old Navy, Seaman's, Staples and Starbucks.

This physical metamorphosis means that the demographics of the area are rapidly changing, too. A harsh truth for many U.S.-born blacks in central Harlem is that they no longer are the majority. They are outnumbered by a combination of African-born blacks, whites from lower Manhattan and Hispanics from east Harlem seeking affordable housing.

"In Manhattan, there are only so many directions you can go," said Joshua Bauchner, a white resident who moved to a Harlem town house in 2007. "North to Harlem is one of the best options." With the influx of outsiders who have money comes hardship for many longtime black residents.

Neil Smith, director of the Center for Place, Culture and Politics at the City University of New York Graduate Center, neatly describes what is happening:

"Gentrification -- the buying up and rehabilitation of land and buildings, whether by families or developers, occupied or abandoned -- means a rising tide for all, leading inevitably to displacement next door, down the block, or two streets away."

Four of my relatives, along with their children, are being displaced from the street where they have lived comfortably since the 1970s. When they told me in 2001 that they were participating in demonstrations against the plan to locate Bill Clinton's post-White House office in a high rise at 125th Street and Lenox Avenue, I suggested that the former president was reaching out to blacks, trying once again to demonstrate solidarity and empathy.

They argued that Clinton's very presence would "jack up" the prices of housing and rents for small business people. They turned out to be right. An unintended consequence was that prices for almost everything began to soar. In 2001, for example, the top price for a brownstone terrace house in Harlem was $400,000. Five years later, that same type of house was worth $4 million. Prices have been rising since. Unfortunately for low-income blacks, Harlem has more brownstones than any other part of Manhattan that are waiting to be remodeled.

My fiercely proud relatives now have about six months to find new housing. Their old tenements are being demolished to make way for high-end condos, fancy shops, restaurants, a private preschool and an office complex. The old reliable coin laundry, bodegas, barbershop and West African Hair Weave shop will be history after the heavy equipment arrives.

Two of my relatives are moving to Newark, a city they hate. But the price of housing is affordable there. They will be forced to spend several hours commuting to work each day, and their children will have to transfer to schools in a different state.

Although gentrification has brought many good things to this part of upper Manhattan -- lower crime rates, cleaner streets, more shops and restaurants, quieter nights and more racial and ethnic diversity -- many longtime residents see these changes as bad trade-offs for the sense of community they are losing forever.

In a New York Times article, Mindy Fullilove, a professor of clinical psychiatry at Columbia University, compared the predicament of Harlem's displaced residents to "root shock," the condition that plants experience after they have been uprooted, "the pain of losing one's beloved neighborhood." My other two relatives have not found new homes for their families in or near Harlem. And time is running out. They feel cheated because they stayed in Harlem during the bad years -- the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s -- when the area was a wasteland of drugs, prostitution and murder, when many law-abiding residents fled and never looked back.

Their mistake, like that of most other longtime Harlem residents, was renting rather than owning their homes. And gentrification is disproportionately cruel to low-income renters. As other groups with money and real estate savvy continue to move in, Harlem, the Black Capital of America, will become a mere memory.

IN CASE YOU DIDN'T KNOW....(I WOULD NEVER GO THERE AGAIN)

JAMAICA has been placed at the top of a list of no go destinations for gays according to a press release issued by Cheapflights UK, a travel agency website.

“Believe it or not, there are still several places in this modern world where being gay is actually illegal and can result in abuse and even arrest in some cases,” the release stated.

The list is of no go destinations completed by Fiji, Poland, Nicaragua and Mauritius.

Buggery is against the law in Jamaica and is punishable by a sentence of no more than 10 years at hard labour.

Despite reports from local and international gay groups that gays are persecuted in Jamaica, police blotters indicate that the majority of murders involving gays are the result of lovers’ quarrels and not homophobic attacks.

The website listed the top five destinations that are welcoming to gays as the US cities of Los Angeles, San Francisco, New Orleans, Amsterdam in Holland and Provincetown in Massachusetts.

SOME THURSDAY WTF....NO COMMENT...

April 7, 2010

SPIRIT AIR IS ON SOME BULLSHIT...


Spirit Airlines has decided that it wasn't making enough money from extra fees. It will now start charging $25-45 for CARRY-ON luggage. *Scratching my head*

(WHO EVEN FLIES ON THIS AIRLINE)

WILL CHARTER SCHOOL HELP FAILING PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEMS?

There is a quiet storm brewing in American schools. While the nation is keeping close watch on health care reform and the nation’s economies, the base of our school system, traditional public schools, are failing and may have a new competitor. When Bush was in office, the question of traditional public school vs. charter schools was hotly debated. Many suggested that charter schools should not be expanded because they undermined traditional public schools, didn’t protect their employees, and were not successful at educating students despite their promise. However, under the Obama administration, there is much less public debate and quietly charter schools are being advanced as a solution to the dilemmas of urban education. The quiet arrival of charters should be raising questions and debate, but it is not.

The No Child Left Behind Act signed in by George W. Bush in 2002 placed a great deal of weight on schools to equalize student test scores by 2014. Well, we’re 4 years from the deadline and we’re about as close to that goal as we are Jetsons flying cars. Recently, Barack Obama introduced his education reform blueprint, which takes aim at creating college and career ready students by 2020. The bill places a great deal of emphasis on teachers and school administrators to turn around sinking schools and offers consequences for the failure to do so.

No one wants a failing school and only a few know how to successfully turn around a failing school. On top of that, failing schools are often located next to other failing schools which makes a failing school district. Few know how to turn around a failing school, but nearly no one has shown us they know how to turn around a failing district. The issue is not just creating success in one school, but creating success in multiple schools!

In Obama’s Blueprint for education there are four options for turning around failing schools, one of which is a restart model. Under a restart model, a failing school is closed and re-opened under the management of a charter organization. At best, this would mean a failing traditional public school would be replaced by an effective charter school and students wouldn’t miss out on much opportunity. At worst, this means a failing traditional public school will be replaced by an ineffective charter school and students will continue to be locked out of opportunity.

There is a growing belief that charter schools and non-unionized teachers are better for producing the results we want amongst our children. This would be great, if it were true. The sad fact about charter schools is that their performance, on average, is no better than traditional public schools. While we are encouraged by the success of a few high performing charter schools, we must realize they are celebrated because they are the exception, not the rule. Most charter schools look like public schools: full of people working hard but not clear on how ensure a quality education for all students.

Increasingly, charter schools are being presented as the option for failing urban school districts, but there may not be enough good charter schools to go around. There is heavy pressure for Obama to lift the cap on the number of charters, but at the rate at which traditional public schools are closing in cities like Detroit who could possibly open enough schools that will serve our children well?

As we rush to open up cities to charters, we have to seriously ask: Are these better alternatives? Are there enough new schools to go around to deal with the closing of so many traditional public schools? What do we want the relationship between traditional public schools and charter schools to be like as they sit side-by-side? These questions will set the stage for the next 15 years of education, but too few of us are asking them.

The boat of American education has been sinking for a while and now there is a current that could serve to lift our hopes or further sink our ship with false promises. The reality is that American public schools are under-preparing our children for a global economy across the board. The schools that Black and poor children often attend in urban areas are not just under preparing but failing our children. The next few months and years will determine if charter schools mean a greater chance at success or are the next step in re-shuffling the same failed educational pieces for the Black youth of this country.

April 5, 2010

HOLA PAPI....





T. PERRY'S NEXT MOVIE...SOMETHING DIFFERENT

For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf is a 1975 stageplay by Ntozake Shange. First performed at the Bacchanal, a woman's bar outside of Berkeley, California, it was first produced in New York City at Studio Riobea in 1975; produced Off-Broadway at the Anspacher Public Theatre in 1976; and produced on Broadway at the Booth Theatre that same year.

The play was first published as a book in 1977 by Macmillan Publishing, followed by a Literary Guild edition in October 1977 and Bantam editions beginning in 1980. A heavily edited version of the play was made into a TV movie in 1982 featuring Shange, actresses Laurie Carlos and Tony Award winner Trazana Beverly from the stage production, dancer Sarita Allen, and with early-career performances by Alfre Woodard and Lynn Whitfield.

"...all sorts of people who might never have set foot in a Broadway house — black nationalists, feminist separatists — came to experience Shange's firebomb of a poem. ...[T]he disenfranchised heard a voice they could recognize, one that combined the trickster spirit of Richard Pryor with a kind of mournful blues."

Structurally, For Colored Girls is a series of 20 poems, referred collectively as a "choreopoem", performed through a cast of nameless women, each known only by a color: "Lady in Yellow", "Lady in Purple", etc.. The poems deal with love, abandonment, rape, and abortion. The performances of the seven actresses are focused on their specific stories; i.e., Lady in Blue's visceral account of a woman who chooses to have an abortion; and Lady in Red's tale of domestic violence.

Lady in Brown embodies youthful determination as she runs away from home to live with Haitian liberator Toussaint L’Ouverture. The end of the play brings together all of the women for “a laying on of hands,” where Shange evokes the power of womanhood as the Lady in Red begins the mantra “I found God in myself/ and I loved her/ I loved her fiercely.”


Lionsgate announced that it was teaming up with Tyler Perry's 34th Street Films for a film adaptation of For Colored Girls. The film will be written, directed and produced by Perry. Shange confirmed that Janet Jackson, Mariah Carey, Kimberly Elise, Phylicia Rashad, Jurnee Smollett, Whoopi Goldberg, Kerry Washington, Jill Scott, and Macy Gray will star in it. Filming is set to begin in 2010 and will be released on January 14, 2011.