She Real Cool.

Author of my favorite poem, "We Real Cool"

My Ambitions as a (BLACK) Blogger

There's nothing that centers focus like purpose, and now I have found a tangible purpose/goal/intention for these here blogs that I be writin'. Not that they aren't their own reward as it gives me a platform on which I can expose the complexities of that which is deep but not profound, I am now hoping to make a niche for myself within the black blogosphere.

I'm looking to enter into the 2010 Black Weblog Awards and maybe even be recognized as a viable blog in the culture catagorey. There's some months before submissions, so I have plenty of time.

*Sniff* *Sniff* I think I smell a new years resolution coming on?

C.R.E.A.M.

"I have no business with some $250 sunglasses, but eventually I'll find some; business that is."

I've been eyeing these for a while now, but every time I show em to one of my friends they gawk at the price and give me the old school mother phrase: "Girl, I could make you some of them for free." Well please ladies, I wish you would.

Sammy Sosa Ain't The Only One

This documentary explores the global popularity of "de-racialization" procedures (Michael Jackson, Sammy Sosa).

I can feel a growing consciousness on our collective self-esteem issues, particularly our grapples with self-hate (Precious, Good Hair). This just confirms that it's a problem transcending the black community and plaguing people of color across borders and overseas. Very disheartening. In the words of the illustrious Saul Williams, "What have you bought into? How much will it cost to buy you out?"

literacy.

Use it in a sentence. Here's mine:

"Ayohenia is quite affable."

C.R.E.A.M.

"Hmm, where's that extra $2680 I had lying around?"

In Cased You Missed It: Beyonce's Thanksgiving Special

Why? Because I love to hate her and hate to love her.

The 'Precious' Debate

I read "Push" in the 9th grade, it was memorable for two distinct reasons: it's written phonetically in the voice of the main character Precious, an illiterate black teenager growing up in Harlem in the late 1980's. The second thing that stuck out, was the raw gritty nature of Precious' world that seemed bound by Murphy's Law (whatever can go wrong, will).

As a film lover with an emphasis on black films, I was very excited when I heard how well the movie based on the novel did at Sundance last year. I thought it was progressive: here's a film with an all-black cast, black director, based on a book by a black author...seems tight, right? And even after seeing the film I'm not ready to say that it's all wrong. The debate is that stories about the dysfunctional black family always seem to get the spotlight rather than films that show the spectrum of our experience (The Cosby Effect). Not to say that these films aren't made, they just don't tend to get the same backing and distribution as movies like Precious, or Monsters Ball, or...the list is long, too long, I just mentioned two films by Lee Daniels because he's on the hot seat. Just as he was when Halle Berry won an Oscar for her controversial dysfunctional role in Monster's Ball.

This NY Times article presents it best. In it, there were two quotes that resonated with me and help best contextualize the "problem" with a movie like Precious.

"A white artist can make a movie about a family of 10 drug addicts, and the public sees it as a movie about 10 drug addicts, not 10 white drug addicts...a black artist can make that film too, but you have to be aware of the history." -Nathan McCall, Novelist, Professor

This lends perspective into the notion that black filmmakers have a responsibility to be mindful of the history of racism in Hollywood, and not contribute to an industry that has sought to limit the image of African Americans as: dysfunctional, illiterate, docile, monstrous, immoral people since inception (Birth of a Nation). And for that reason, I think Precious does more to reinforce negative beliefs about African-Americans, and with the graphic nature of the film it probably aids in creating new stereotypes as well.

Another argument in defense of the film comes from LaToya Peterson of Racialicious.com. In response to the review given by film critic Armond White who said: "Precious is full of racist cliches, it is a sociological horror show." Peterson offers this,

"[Mr. White] is flattening the black experience, and in that way, he denies our humanity."

Ideally, it's an ugly truth but key elements of Precious' story aren't so unfamiliar to the black community. Incest, self-hate, illiteracy, etc, these things exist. They aren't always so obvious or apparent as in the character Precious, and they don't only exist in the black community. I respect the artistic expression of Daniels bringing Precious to the screen, and Sapphire who wrote the book. The story of Precious isn't that different from the plight of Celie (The Color Purple), or Pecola (The Bluest Eye), I suppose those stories don't do much to uplift the black community either, huh?

I don't think the problem is in movies like Precious, its in the lack of movies that show our full potential and full experience. But then again, if you aren't part of the solution...

Oprah Bows Out Gracefully

Life without Oprah!? Not that I watch Oprah. But I do take for granted that there is an Oprah there for me to not watch. Without Oprah, why I'll be forced to...to...to ignore the Tyra show more intently! =(

In all seriousness, say what you want about her, but Oprah is a staple for success in the black community and a great source of pride. It is definitely the end of an era in daytime television, and pop culture.

Wal-Mart Don't Like Black People

I'd be lying if I said it but I wish it were true: "I haven't stepped foot inside a Wal-Mart since last christmas season when that security guard was trampled by those greedy shoppers." But my affinity for DVD's lured me in there more times than I'd like to admit. If I can help it I go to Target, definitely the lesser of two evils but not nearly as dubious. Check out the latest with your favorite low-priced chain retailer.

Been Gone For a Minute

Now I'm back with the jump off!

It's embarrassing how long it's been. I mean you don't have to scroll too far to see that the last time we spoke we were still talking about Kanye West and Taylor Swift. BUT she was on SNL last week and she brought the incident up so to my defense I'm not totally irrelevant.

Since the last time, I been to Ghana, been to DC. Remained silent and missed out on some very blog-worthy posts, but all that's in the past and I'm gettin back into the swing of things. But the absence did some good, it wasn't all in vain. My time spent in Ghana especially has led me to reshape and modify my opinions/stance on blackness, society, celebrities, myself. Not just solely because of what I was exposed to there, but rather the time I had to sit and think and reflect on everything.

So bear with me, read if you like. And hopefully Deep But Not Profound (DBP) will keep getting better with time.

Kanye West's Award Tour

For me there is a fine line between insightful commentaries on the happenings of celebrities as their influence relates to everyday life (Chris Brown & Rihanna), and just plain non-sense gossip drama of little to no importance to anyone who isn’t in that arena (Kanye West & Taylor Swift).

Of course regardless of whether or not I want to blog about it, or acknowledge it, I am nonetheless tuned into the frequency that bombards me with useless info about pop culture fun facts. (MTV, CL, MTO)

In the days following Kanye West’s infamous stunt at the VMA’s there has been a lot of commentary leading on up to the white house, bringing Kanye to make an impromptu appearance on the Jay Leno show to apologize (for the third time) about his rude interruption of Taylor Swifts acceptance speech at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards which aired last Sunday.

The incident itself was rather entertaining, a drunken Kanye unexpectedly grabbing the microphone to give shouts out to Beyonce` who lost the category of “Best Female Video” to Swift, a teenage country music star. To add insult to injury, Beyonce` ended up winning the overall catagorey of “Best Music Video” and ‘humbly’ offered her acceptance speech to Taylor Swift after she was so rudely cut off by West.

After gaining backlash from all angles, Kanye released many subsequent apologies via his blog, and now the Leno show, admitting that he was wrong, and offering his support of Swift in her future endeavors.

I’m so over celebrities and all their drama. From Chris Brown to this stunt. It all reminds me of a song off of Kelis’s last studio effort, “Kelis Was Here”. On that album there is a track called Circus where Kelis compares the exclusive circle of celebrities to that of a circus, “Come join our circus where we all wear masks, lie to our fans and expect it to last, could it be that the joke is on us, masquerading like we are the ones.”

This is especially frustrating for me for a couple of reasons: because I visit Concrete Loop more than any other site, because I have a genuine interest in understanding the psychology of celebrities, or just the concept of being “famous”, and because I’m young, I like music, I like pop-culture. It becomes a problem though, when I find myself directing time and energy that could be spent philosophizing about “real life” to formulate speculative opinions on whether or not Amber Rose is a bad influence on Kanye West.

It gets old fast and I’m convinced that celebrities maintain their celebrity by manipulating the interest of “regular people” like me, so that we become so interested in the superficial details of their life we forget to give value to their actual talent and neglect to hold them accountable to…anything.

They can do whatever they want. Kanye West shouldn’t single handedly have this much influence over the media, I’ve read headlines saying that he’s getting ‘crucified’, he’s getting called names, Obama called him a 'jackass'. Who cares? Instead of feeding into a useless media frenzy like he’s created in the past for similarly outrageous stunts, and then rapped about to secure his reputation as irreverently keeping it real, we should afford it the same attention that would be paid to the equivalent situation if it were to happen in everyday life. There is no intellectual or important analysis of anything that ever involved: MTV, Kanye West, Taylor Swift, or Beyonce, it’s all for show. And it’s all to make you forget that at the end of the day, these people don’t care about you, they just care that you care about them. My friend Adenike said it best when she interrupted one of those back and forth, “…but Beyonce’s video was better than Taylor Swift’s…” to say these words that I’ll end this blog on: "What you don’t know is that Beyonce is somewhere on the beach, smoking a $100 laughing about all of this and not thinking about yo ass.”