bill bilichik(or is it billicheat?)has the playbooks of other teams and uses them to win superbowls and nobody says nothing about stripping him of his titles or tainting his legacy. could lovie smith,tony dungy or mike tomlin get away with that? a white cop kills an unarmed,facedown black male(while another cop has a knee on his head)who's fully surrendered by shooting him point blank in the back. could a black cop get away with murdering a white man like that? george bush LIES under oath about weapons of mass destruction in iraq and sends american troops to iraq on the basis of a lie and it's not made a big deal. could barrack get away with that? holla back.
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My 3D Prototype of Earth Squadron Game Is Ready For Download and Testing. It's been about 10 years since my last video games so I'm ramping my skills back up for the Earth Squadron 3D Shooter Video Game. This is just a one room demo. Right now it's PC only. The faster your computer the better. To Check it out go to www.EarthSquadron.com
Let us return to W.D. Griffith's Birth of A Nation: one of the racist movies of all time, as well as one of the biggest money makers in film history. Birth of A Nation was the slavery ideal come to life; and two families: the Cameron and the Stoneman were pivotal to its plot."Dr. Cameron and his sons are gently benevolent "fathers" to their childlike servants. The servants themselves could be no happier. In the fields they contentedly pick cotton. In the quarters they dance and sing for their master. In the big house Mammy joyously goes about her chores. All is in order. Everyone knows his place. Then the civil war breaks out and the old order cracks."Danny Bogel Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies, and Bucks: An Interpretive History of Blacks in American Films 1973 p.12The war years are terrible! In the South there is [title card/Birth of a Nation]: "ruin, devastation, rapine and pillage!" Lions, and tigers and bears --oh my! Reconstruction begins and now a band of uppity Northern darkies and low life Yankee carpetbaggers enter the picture. They corrupt the former slaves -- who then turn on their good and loving masters.Who will save the South?Into this conflict, Griffith introduced Lillian Gish: as "Flora Cameron;" of the first -- if not the first Silver Screen virgins. As Flora Cameroon, Gish played a frail, blond teenager menaced by Griffith's next creation: "Gus," the "brutal, Black buck." Gus was the Southern nightmare of the Black rapist come to life. Of according to Southern mythology, the only reason Black men wanted freedom was so they could rape White women -- picking cotton 16 hours (and without pay) had nothing to do with it. Cast beside Gus, Flora became an icon: a blond symbol of virginity.Copyright Valjeanne Jeffers-Thompson 1997, 2009 all rights reserved
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Between the mid-1890s and 1915 movies became America's most popular form of entertainment as film mythology gradually took shape. Black characters in this early motif were portrayed in Black face. Mammy made her debut around 1914. And American theaters introduced the tragic mulatto to the pantheon of Black mythology. She would become the darling of the dreamweavers: my word for filmmakers. After all what do movie makers do but sell dreams?The stage mulatto served to reinforce popular notions about white superiority.The merest drop of Negro blood was a taint from which there was no redemption:...[Yet] a character's white blood was [also] responsible for any positive features heor she might have. A mulatto in these mixed blood plays avoided a tragic end onlyif, just before the curtain rang down, it became clear that he or she was really all white.Daniel Leab. From Sambo to Superspade,pp.10-11.In these early films the mulatto was likable -- because of her White blood. Thus audiences were sympathetic to the poor creatures plight -- she would have been happy but her cursed Negro blood!Of course the symbolism of the tragic mulatto myth is paper thin. She (most tragic mulatto were women) is a mythic being fight a battle between good and evil with herself. Her "good" side is obviously her White side: the side with Caucasian blood. But look closer: her white persona is also her goddess or virgin persona. In contrast, her Black persona is her "evil" (whore) side. And tragic mulatto were often depicted as promiscuous, cold-hearted creatures.Thus, Black women when not portrayed as Mammies became Jezebels on screen: just as they had been portrayed by the slave master; and just as filmmakers continued to portray them well afterslavery's demise.Copyright Valjeanne Jeffers, 1997, 2009 all rights reserved
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Monthly Harlequin, a manga-style magazine for girls http://tinyurl.com/8b5znn********************************************Baen Books and The National Space Society have announced the third annual Jim Baen Memorial Writing Contest. The word limit: 8000 words. Near futuristic. No space opera or paranormals. Deadline April 1 http://williamledbetter.com/contest"Tir Na Nog [Press] will be launching a new incarnation of 'Fantastic Stories' as a quarterly magazine, with Warren Lapine as the editor. The first 8.5" x 11" issue will have a January 2010 cover date, andshould be available in September 2009...Fantastic Stories will start reading unsolicited submissions in March or April of this year, and will be paying, on acceptance, 4-10 cents per word for new fiction (2 cents per word for reprints of storiesthat first appeared on the web). Checks will go out with contracts. While Lapine, personally, prefers hard sf and magic realism, he'll be reading all sorts of sf/f/h for the magazine."http://sfscope.com/2009/01/warren-lapine-returns-to-sf-wi.htmlcommunity.livejournal.com/specficmarkets
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Now, in Fisherman’s Alley at the Salty Dog, Citizens sat in booths lining the walls or perched on bar stools. Among the laughing crowd were Mark and Layla, sharinga drink at the bar.Mark was thin with short, unruly blond hair and green eyes. His companion Layla had skin the color of cocoa beans, with full lips. Her kinky, brown hair was twisted into two braids.He smiled into her eyes. “How’s your Mum doing?”“Alright…tired of working double shifts.”“What time’s she going in tonight?”“Midnight.““Want me to come over?”Layla grinned over her beer. “Yeah.”“I’ll be there about 12:30.”Layla was a skin popper -- a placid addict. She shot up between her thighs, so that she didn’t have to wear long sleeve shirts. She thought Mark didn’t know.Beside them sat Joan, a woman with burnt sienna skin and slanted, brown eyes, staring morosely into her glass of juice.Across the room her lover Toki grinned up at Keith, another activist, then cut her eyes over at Joan to see if her flirting was making Joan angry. It wasn’t.Sitting in a booth behind them was José, slender and tan, with hazel colored eyes. Beside him was his mate Consuela, a buxom, sepia colored woman, with a heart shaped face and curly, shoulder length hair. Petite Estella and her heavily muscled lover, Parco, shared their booth.Two enforcers walked into the bar and the crowd tensed. Both were Fuchsia. The older officer had a reddish complexion, his ample stomach hanging over the waistband of his trousers. But his companion had the scrubbed, fresh face look of a rookie.“Take the back,” the beefy officer said to his partner, “I’ll start up here.”“Ok, searg.” The rookie approached Toki and Keith’s table. “Papers!” he ordered.Keith and Toki reached into their pockets and handed him two black booklets.These identity papers listed their personal history, including their legal right to live and work in Topaz. Yet Keith’s ID had something that Toki’s didn’t. His draft status.Every male citizen, sixteen and older, was required to carry a copy of their military record. This record always listed a citizen as ready for service, ready but declined, because of mental or physical handicap or discharged.If a man’s ID didn’t list one of these categories, he was, in the eyes of planet law: “a draft dodger.” A man hiding from his required duties as a soldier.The peacekeeper glanced through the booklets and handed them back, moving to the female Citizen at the next table over.His partner had already inspected The Salty Dog’s first booth, and was now standing before José and Consuela’s table. “Papers!” the enforcer barked. They hastily complied. “Papers!” he said again to Estella and Parco.Estella handed the man her ID. But her burly man hesitated. “I don’t have mine with me.” Parco grinned, exposing a missing front tooth. “I -- I left ‘em at home.”“Then you might as well come with me now!” The enforcer flashed a nasty grin. “It’s illegal not to carry identity papers -- and you know it!”Reluctantly, Parco handed over his ID. The officer flipped back to the service record section. It was blank.“Just like I thought!“ he exclaimed. “Alright, let’s go!…I said, let’s go!” As Parco stood, the beefy man hit him in the mouth with his fist, drawing blood, “Stinkin’ draft dodger!” and Parco staggered back against the table.“Parco!” Estelle cried. “You ain’t got to do that!”“Shut up! Or I’ll take you in too! Come on Cecil!” he called to the younger officer.They strutted out, their prisoner walking stiffly in front of them. “Try to run,” the older man said, “and I’ll shoot you in the back!”They left the grill and the crowd followed.“Pigs!” Estelle spat. “You’re not takin’ my man!”As they stepped out into the street, Keith called out: “That far enough!”The enforcers whirled around to face the mob. “Who you talking to, boy?” The older one snarled.“He’s talking to you!” a redheaded, Fuchsia man shouted.“You should know better!”“And you should know better than to come down here, and try to drag one of us outta here to send to that rich man’s war!”“It’s a noble cause!” the younger enforcer yelled.“And you’re a damn fool!” Keith shot back. “You’re not takin’ him!”“I can have a van here in under a minute!” the older man bellowed, his face turning a deeper shade of red. “I can identify all of you!” But he was trembling.Estelle stepped forward, pulling a metal box from her dress. At the touch of her thumb, a knife popped out. It was six inches long and very sharp.“Not if we cut your stinkin’ hearts out!”Mark stood behind the crowd, his hand resting on the small of Layla’s back. This is about to get real ugly. They’re gonna kill ‘em, and there’s gonna to be hell to pay -- for all of us.He glanced over at José and Consuela. They stood to his right, at the edge of the crowd…out of the enforcers’ line of vision. Mark locked eyes with José, then Consuela. The Bronze man nodded, and they inched away from the group.José blurred behind the older enforcer. There were gasps from the crowd as -- in one smooth motion -- he snatched the enforcer’s taser from his belt, and struck him between the neck and shoulder blades. The officer collapsed in a boneless heap.At the same time, Consuela wrapped her arm about the younger man’s throat, and the other about his forehead, holding his head immobile.They had to change to do this. It took superhuman control to let only a little of their power come forth -- to stop hair from covering their bodies, their muscles fromswelling.Both were sweating from the effort. José kept his head down until his eyes were hazel again. Until he could speak without growling. Consuela ducked her head behind the enforcer’s.But not before she looked into Parco’s face. Not before his jaw dropped, when he gazed into her yellow eyes.Estelle pushed through the crowd and wrapped her arms about her lover.“Popi --!”Parco stood frozen unable to believe what he’d just seen.José inclined his head to the right. “Go!”Hands clasped, they took off running up the street. By nightfall, the enforcers would be searching for Parco. The lovers would have to go into hiding now, melting into the homeless underground of draft dodgers, and homeless squatting in Topaz’s castoff buildings.“I’m going to let you go,” Consuela whispered into the young officer’s ear. “Don’t turn around for fifteen minutes. If you do, I’ll kill you!” She released him…and released her gift.José took her hand. They turned their backs to the crowd and raced away.Behind them, their warriors whistled and applauded.She felt herself traveling at a great speed, into a wide tunnel, bombarded with colors, textures, images… She was seated upon a throne…Dancing in a lush jungle……Chased by fanged dogs through a snow covered wood…Girded for battle, axe in hand…Then, in a plume of smoke, the images faded…They stood before a heavy oak door, exquisitely carved with the shapes of wolves, cats and other beasts. Karla opened it and they stepped out...Behind them, the doorway vanished.The two gazed up at the black and gray buildings towering over them. In the distance, smoke escaped from the tops of rounded towers. Vehicles rode past them, belching fumes from their tailpipes.To their right, an entire block had been flattened into debris. The air had a foul odor, and both recognized the stench of pollution that was illegal in their own time. They’d traveled 400 years into the past. To the most violent era Tundra had ever known.The Time of Legend...excerptCopyright 2008 Valjeanne Jeffers all rights reserved
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Formerly a Purple Magazine blog article.The Power of Self Affirming Imagesin the Edutainment of Childrenlit:PurpleZoeI am currently fawning over a regal barbie doll, named Nichelle.Her skin is like darkest chocolate before any additives are infused, and you can see in this barbie doll, the image of beauty which many young girls of color have been socially engineered to struggle recognizing.Image is powerful.Yes, progress has been made, but there is still a ways to go, before the pseudo-narcissism of racist culture, and the poisons it has dropped are outshined by the “bling” of enlightenment.In attempting to wipe out or subjugate a race, the techniques of psyching out an opponent by attacking their confidence have been employed. Children however innocent, have been targeted by this treatment, and the images of their likenesses have not been set up before them as heroes.Their heroes were hidden, stolen and painted over, leaving them with unbefitting likenesses which told them that they were less, and even… criminal in nature.The power of archetype is strong.We emulate our myths. So where then are the beautiful myths of the displaced Kush/Kemetian descendant (African) in the mainstream market? Why do we not see more anime that bears an accurate likeness of Asian culture? I’m all for unity, but I’ve seen most anime created in the likeness of Europeans. How is that unity, when other cultures barely have a moment to enjoy what's beautiful about their own culture?When caring for your child, be sure to expose them to many cultures, as unity is the prime objective, but also keep in mind (especially in the case of children of color) that their image should be seen in Angelic representations, fantasy heroes, and in loving communal representations, as image has been used as a tool of psychological warfare and it’s now time to restore the empowered images for the generations here and those to come. The way to rebirth is with healing images.Casting Storm (a black woman) for X-Men as a treacherous skeezer who betrayed Rogue by swinging more than one ep with her boyfriend Gambit behind her back, as well as casting a white women in the role of Elektra who is an obvious Hispanic character, while making the only movie to date with a comic book ‘black’ heroe who is in essence a dweller of hell, in the Spawn flick, tells us everything we need to know about what our children are being told about themselves.Let’s fix that.Truth always comes out. It has to happen sometime.Let it be now.Interesting links for artistsof underrepresented culture:attisgarden.com (Brand Epps is mindblowing)http://www.myspace.com/mantatakhan (Mantatakhan's art is meta-level)ghettomanga.comscritchandscratch.com
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Posted by A J Harper on January 31, 2009 at 3:47pm
I want to put together a catalog of Black Sci-Fi/Fantasy novelsPlease add five books that should be included,I'll start1. The Seer Legacy of Stone & Spirit by Iya Ta’Shia Asanti2. Meji by Milton Davis3. Immortal by Valjeanne Jeffers4. Marvelous World by Troy Cle’s5. Night Biters AJ Harper
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I'd like to be very dramatic and say: "the sexiness of American films came to a screeching halt during the 1930." Sounds pretty good doesn't? still friends, films aren't automobiles. There is always a time lag -- a period of incubation -- between action and reaction.What's more, a closer look at the sexual freedom of the 1920s shows that it was nothing more than an illusion. For example Three Weeks is the story of a woman having a very satisfying love affair and then returning to an unhappy marriage. Great! That takes care of three weeks, how about the next 80 years?And did you know that before 1929 it was taboo to depict any physical contact between Black men and women. Hallelujah was the first movie in film history to portray a kiss between African Americans -- so terrified were the White dream weavers of opening the Pandora's box of Black sexuality.And with a sleight of hand Hollywood lifted one taboo, Black physical contact, and invoked another: the 1934 Production code. This code banned all sexuality on screen. Within this motif Native American women stepped out of the shadows and into Fallen Women roles. Hollywood was still using White actresses to play Native American roles but as awful as these films were, maybe that wasn't such a bad idea. White women from this point forward would be whores or goddesses; Black women that curious mixture of goddess and servant: Mammy. Women were de-sexed. And would remain so until the 1940s.Mammy had actually emerged during the 19th century idealization of slavery: as part of the Victorian family fairytale (Paula Giddings. When and Where I Enter.) This plantation family included: Old Marsa, the stern but fair patriarch; Missy a tolerant angel of mercy; a plantation full of grinning darkies; and Mammy, the plantation nanny and nursemaid. This "family" was the slaveholders answer to abolitionists: slave owners were trying desperately to save that peculiar institution --even as slavery took it last dying breath.She [Mammy] was first and foremost asexual and consequently she had to befat (preferably obese); she also had to give the impression of not being cleanso she was the wearer of a great dirty headrag; her too tight shoes from whichemerged her large feet were further confirmation of her bestial cow-like quality.Her greatest virtue of course was her love for white folk whom she willingly andpassively served (bell hooks/ 1981/p84/ Aint't I a Woman)Mammy was the ultimate in racist, sexist mythology and prefigured the 1930s myth of Aunt Jemima; appearing in such films as Gone with the Wind (193).White actress, Mae West, was the sensation of 1933. That is until the Production Code shut her down.Her voice radiated irony, her eyes sized up potential lovers as though theywere sides of beef, and her hips mesmerized a nation (Bergman, 1971; p56).If anything, West was a parody of the fallen woman. She preferred dating wealthy men and draped her body with diamonds and furs she brought with their money. Yet despite the fact that West was a gold digger she was in control -- of her body and her finances: she could not be manipulated, refused to be solemn about her body and made it clear she liked her pleasures and like her freedom (Bergman, 1971). And her lighthearted attitude about sex reduced it social consequences to so much rubbish. When Cary Grant asks Mae: "Haven't you ever met a man who could make you happy?" her answer was liberating: "Sure. Lots of times." (Bergman, 1971; p56).Copyright Valjeanne Jeffers-Thompson 1997; 2009 all rights reserved.
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I’m ecstatic to announce that earlier this week I sold my first adult novel to DAW Books. The book is titled Who Fears Death? and it is possibly the most terrifying book I’ve ever written.I started writing it just after my father passed in 2004 and the very nature of the story plagued me with nightmares as I was writing it. It also plagued several of my friend with nightmares when they read it. The story is relentless and unflinching. It was inspired by the genocide in the Sudan and written just after the passing of my father (I started it a week after). There is deep deep African magic. There is terrible violence, but there is beauty too.David Anthony Durham, author of Acacia, said this about Who Fears Death?: "Nnedi Okorafor has embarked on a rather stunning literary journey. In several wonderful novels and short stories, she has tapped into diverse traditions that date back into the dawn of humanity’s first storytelling ventures. She uses this material toward a forward-looking complexity that, I believe, predicts the coming face of global speculative fiction. Her latest novel for adults, Who Fears Death?, is urgently topical, at times brutal, and always wholly original. It’s no surprise she’s been racking up awards. There are more to come, surely."It is scheduled for release in early 2010. My YA utterly insane fantasy novel, tentatively called Sunny and the Leopard People (this title is going to change) is scheduled for release in the fall of 2010.In other news, the paperback of The Shadow Speaker comes out in March. Watch for the book trailer.Nnedi
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Why is it? – A man wakes up in the morning after sleeping under an advertised blanket on an advertised mattress and pull off advertised pajamas? Takes a bath in an advertised tub, shaves with an advertised razor, washes with an advertised soap, put on advertised clothes, sits down to breakfast of advertised coffee, put on an advertised hat, rides to his office in an advertised car, writes with an advertised pen.. Then he refuses to advertise, says that advertising doesn’t pay, and then, if business isn’t good enough to advertise ... he then advertises it for sale. So, if you believe in your business and Want to build it. ADVERTISE. With at said, we would like to extend a hand to you to advertise your products on BlackScienceFictionStore.com. We are extending the initial entry to the store till Friday, January 30, 2008. For all members with merchandise such as books, movies, comics etc. Please send your 35 dollar payment so we can get you and your products listed on BlackScienceFictionStore.com If you are serious about making money selling your products please join us to sell your work in our BlackScienceFictionStore.com site that will be launched February 1, 2009. What better time to sell Black Science Fiction than on Black History Month? We really want to jump start the consumption of black science fiction and we need the support of each of you. To sweeten the deal we plan to E-blast 40 thousand individuals and media outlets about the store. That will benefit all those who are onboard and listed. We want at least 20 vendors in the store to make a strong showing. We have great things in store for Black Science Fiction and we want us all to be a part of it. If you have already sent in your payment please disregard this message. Also, you can send payments via PayPal to: info@thedigitalbrothers.com Sincerely, Jarvis “J. Bernard” Sheffield BlackScienceFictionSociety.com The Digital Brothers 121 Oak Valley Circle Smyrna, TN 37167
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The business of films is the business of dreams.Michael Woods 1975 America in the Movies...Our time machine sets down at the turn of the century. America is young, fresh and full of ambition. Across an orange and purple tinted dawn walks Eve...she is still beautiful, still hopeful that some one will recognize her true, true name. She doesn't know that soon she will be exploited by the Hollywood dream machine... Let's roll forward to the year 1915: W.D. GrIffith's notorious classic The Birth of a Nation is about to debut.Audiences are squirming in anticipation...
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BLACK SCIENCE FICTION STORE OFFICIAL DEADLINE TODAY For all members with merchandise such as books, movies, comics etc. Please send your 35 dollar payment so we can get you and your products listed on BlackScienceFictionStore.com If you are serious about making money selling your products please join us to sell your work in our BlackScienceFictionStore.com site that will be launched February 1, 2009. What better time to sell Black Science Fiction than on Black History Month? We really want to jump start the consumption of black science fiction and we need the support of each of you. To sweeten the deal we plan to E-blast 40 thousand individuals and media outlets about the store. That will benefit all those who are onboard and listed. We want at least 20 vendors in the store to make a strong showing. We have great things in store for Black Science Fiction and we want us all to be a part of it. If you have already sent in your payment please disregard this message. Also, you can send payments via PayPal to: info@thedigitalbrothers.com Sincerely, Jarvis “J. Bernard” Sheffield BlackScienceFictionSociety.com The Digital Brothers 121 Oak Valley Circle Smyrna, TN
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So I've committed myself to working hard for my screenwriting organization, (The Organization of Black Screenwriters), and screening films for the Los Angeles Film Festival, but I have to make time for my own writing, especially my short stories.My goal this year is to take weekend trips out of town for my own personal writing retreats. I find that I am most inspired when I am in a new place, or sitting in church. (Not that my church is boring, but Rev Michael Beckwith of Agape International inspires me so much, I often find myself writing a story in my head while he is talking to the congregation.)So now I'm looking for sacred places to write. One of the best I found was on a camping trip I took to the Redwoods. My partner and I pitched our tent, ate, then went exploring. I wrote in my journal at the time that it was like walking in the presence of God. There is a vibration there among those ginormous trees. They are ancient beings, and we treated them as such. I wanted to run back and grab a boom box and play "Natural Mystic" for those Redwood trees. The energy there was palpable. There was an electrical current in the air, and I remember my scalp was tingling, and the air was misty. It took a little work to breath. Like breathing mystic chords of memory.Maybe that's where I will go next when it gets warm. Back to the Redwoods with my Ipod and speakers. I'll play Bob Marley's song, and sit there writing. I think I'll bring my digital recorder too, because I swear, if I left that thing over night on voice activated, I believe I would come back and hear voices on it. And then I would freak out, cuz the Redwood tress may start walking like in "Lord of the Rings".Sounds like a plan. Maybe they will tell me some stories and I'll write "The History of the World: A Redwood Tree Perspective."
Well, Juno Books became an imprint of Pocket Books. Juno published Wind Follower. Now, this may be good news but it might not be. Juno's been going toward urban fantasy. I like folkloric fantasy. Exploring tribal culture and what makes tribes. Current novel is Constant Tower which needs an agent cause it's neither urban fantasy nor does it have a female protag which is what Juno wants. But it's such a great book! What to do!I have another novel, Daughters of Men, which many folks loved and which was a near miss with an agent at Maass and with Dorchester and the editor at Juno said it needed a lotta work. Now, it would fit into the urban fantasy genre perfectly. So I could try working on it. Aaargh, to revisit a book I haven't worked on in about four years! But I suppose those characters are part of me because I love them very much.But I'm also working on my serial killer-succubus novel. Can I juggle all three? Will see. Might have to send a note to the Juno editor telling her my issues and wondering.Now, the weird thing about the Pocket alliance is that many of us Juno authors don't fit into the new Juno. What will Pocket do with us if we don't write urban fantasy? I'd like to think that being black and a Christian, Pocket might have a place for me because they have a Christian line and they might have a black line or a fantasy line. Not sure what's going on. Who knows? I'll only give that to God. This is one of those moments when the talk must become the walk and the rubber hits the road. I say that I trust God, right? I say that the word of God is powerful to change every situation, right? So will I walk around the house thanking God for this opportunity and for what he is going to do with me now that I'm ostensibly at Pocket Juno? Or will I look at the pathological truth and go about repeating that, especially since Juno might be putting some books out of print or remaindering them? Lord knows, how much money Wind Follower made for them!Promotion comes neither from the east nor from the west. Let me trust in God.
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Male dominated institutions, especially corporate interests, see the dangers posed to them by love's escape. Women who love themselves are threatening. But men who love real women, are even more of a threat. Naomi Wolf The Beauty Myth.Mainstream media has been described as one of the most widespread tools of social control. Through films,TV, music and videos we learn what to eat and what to hope for; where to live, what to desire and what to dream. Mainstream media impacts these values in such subtle ways that it's downright scary. From day to day, hour to hour we are ingesting them -- values racism, sexism, classism and we're not even aware of it.As Meehan, author of Ladies of the Evening found that some of the roles models we see on TV we ignore. Not many of us, for example, want to learn how to be a prostitute. But many other fantasy characters we see are parents, neighbors and lovers and these we do pay attention too.People learn how to behave from television and film roles models just as they emulate real ones. Research has even shown that we can take on the attitudes, ideas etc from popular culture's portrayal of our group (e.g. Black women) then go on to make assumptions about how we think other groups might behave (e.g. Black men)! Many are afraid to disagree with these stereotypes because they're afraid of being laughed at or called an outsider -- so they spread in what has been called a spiral of silence (Price, 1989).If all of this sounds like science fiction consider the OJ Simpson trial: the defendant in question a Black male celebrity and former pro football star accused of murdering his white wife, Nicole Brown Simpson and her male friend, Ron Goldman. Psychologists Friedland and Potash commented that we, as a culture, looked upon OJ as fallen hero and that we were both betrayed and stunned.And the media's gory coverage of Simpson trial, including the manipulation of Blacks and Whites into opposing boxing corners, makes one wonder just who and what was being tried? Simpson's guilt or innocence or a man's right to own and abuse his property -- his property in this case being Nicole, especially since he was paying the bills? (As a case in point I talked several white men who swore that he was innocent!) Or perhaps the millions of Black folk who've been screwed by the judicial system were on trial and Nicole and Ron were sacrificed to their collective rage?Hallis has described TV News as an ideological medium: providing not just information and entertainment but pockets of consciousness -- clues for reacting to social and political reality. (From Bell Hooks Yearning. ). I couldn't agree more.Valjeanne Jeffers-Thompson Copyright 1997, 2009 all rights reserved.This is from a book entitled The Story of Eve which I finished in 1997 and never published. Much of the research is, I admit, dated; but I'm astounded at how much of it still applies to how we view and ingest media. Anyway I've been threatening to post some of it for months so here goes:) Comments and critiques are welcomed:)
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Hello everyone, Earth Squadron is steadily working towards our goals with the project. However, due to the economic downturn the action figure has been put on hold for several months. It will definitely be complete during the summer. The storyline is complete with new additions to the ever growing universe. Even with the setbacks we’ve come to understand that everything happens for a reason. We’ve been privy to some new software that we are in the process of mastering which will increase the quality of our product. Here are the goals that we have set for the projects Comic Books Action Figures 3D Movies 3D Video Games I am very excited about the things we have in store. If you would like to help the project along we would be more than happy to accept any donation that you would like to commit to help the project along. Send PayPal payment to info@thedigitalbrothers.com
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Formerly a Purple Magazine blog article.The Power of Self Affirming Imagesin the Edutainment of Childrenlit:PurpleZoeI am currently fawning over a regal barbie doll, named Nichelle.Her skin is like darkest chocolate before any additives are infused, and you can see in this barbie doll, the image of beauty which many young girls of color have been socially engineered to struggle recognizing.Image is powerful.Yes, progress has been made, but there is still a ways to go, before the pseudo-narcissism of racist culture, and the poisons it has dropped are outshined by the “bling” of enlightenment.In attempting to wipe out or subjugate a race, the techniques of psyching out an opponent by attacking their confidence have been employed. Children however innocent, have been targeted by this treatment, and the images of their likenesses have not been set up before them as heroes.Their heroes were hidden, stolen and painted over, leaving them with unbefitting likenesses which told them that they were less, and even… criminal in nature.The power of archetype is strong.We emulate our myths. So where then are the beautiful myths of the displaced Kush/Kemetian descendant (African) in the mainstream market? Why do we not see more anime that bears an accurate likeness of Asian culture? I’m all for unity, but I’ve seen most anime created in the likeness of Europeans. How is that unity, when other cultures barely have a moment to enjoy what's beautiful about their own culture?When caring for your child, be sure to expose them to many cultures, as unity is the prime objective, but also keep in mind (especially in the case of children of color) that their image should be seen in Angelic representations, fantasy heroes, and in loving communal representations, as image has been used as a tool of psychological warfare and it’s now time to restore the empowered images for the generations here and those to come. The way to rebirth is with healing images.Casting Storm (a black woman) for X-Men as a treacherous skeezer who betrayed Rogue by swinging more than one ep with her boyfriend Gambit behind her back, as well as casting a white women in the role of Elektra who is an obvious Hispanic character, while making the only movie to date with a comic book ‘black’ heroe who is in essence a dweller of hell, in the Spawn flick, tells us everything we need to know about what our children are being told about themselves.Let’s fix that.Truth always comes out. It has to happen sometime.Let it be now.Interesting links for artistsof underrepresented culture:attisgarden.com (Brand Epps is mindblowing)http://www.myspace.com/mantatakhan (Mantatakhan's art is meta-level)ghettomanga.comscritchandscratch.com
