Black Jesus.com

Bill Cosby Dishes Out Tough Love

Bill Cosby has been critized by some for airing the dirty laundry of inner city Black America. But I agree first hand with what he talks about. I grew up in Harlem in a 6 story walk up. None of my neighbors had more than the rest, but we had a sense of pride, hope and history. As children, we knew that all adult eyes were watching us when our parents weren't around. And if we acted up, we would be quickly corrected by another nearby adult who also told our parents what had happened. My mother would tell my teacher at each meeting, "You get him at school, call me and I'll take care of him when he gets home." 

We competed to do well in school because it is what was expected of ourselves and our parents. And we spoke the king's english better than the king, because we heard Paul Robeson, Josephine Baker,Thurgood Marshall , Dr. Martin Luther King and our parents speak in clear understandable english. Listen as Bill Cosby tells us " Black Children today are trying to tell us something, but were not listening." I think it's a hunger to know that their history is far more than slavery.  We have allowed everyone and everything else tell them that they are nothing. So many act as they feel.

The author of The African American Guide To Better English says "Stop blaming the white man for your economic woes. When you don't pick up a book and read it, the fault is yours, if you can't speak English correctly you're not going to get a good job. If you want to use your Ebonics or black English amongst yourselves, that is fine. But don't bring black speak into the work place because you will be denied opportunities.  "  BlackEnglish.com

Black Wall Street:The Untold Story Of 'Little Africa' Tulsa's Black Race Riot Holocaust

The story of the establishment, destruction, resurrection and final burning of America's most prosperous Black communities.

Taken from the documentary "Going Back to T Town".

Ever wonder what life would be like economically and socially for Black People, if there had never been integration?

Black Wall Street in Tulsa, Oklahoma - Pt. 1

Black Wall Street in Tulsa, Oklahoma - Pt. 2

Black Wall Street in Tulsa, Oklahoma - Pt. 3

Pt 4/11 Black Wall Street

Pt 5/11 Black Wall Street - This Is American History

Pt 6/11 Black Wall Street---The White Power Structure Hides The Truth

Pt 7/11 Black Wall Street-White Laws Were Passed To Take The Land Of Black People

Pt 8/11 Black Wall Street- This is out of sink but the words are powerful

Pt 9/11 Black Wall Street

Pt 10/11 Black Wall Street

Pt 11/11 Black Wall Street---The Untold Story Of America's Worse Race Riot

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Beyonce Whitewash?

Unless she's just got vitiligo -- L' Oreal has some serious explaining to do about its bleached out Beyonce ad! The ad features a severely Photoshopped Beyonce -- almost unrecognizable.

Here is another example of how the media reveals it perference for light skin Black models, who when given the opportunity will make them look lighter or near white. We have also seen this with some Black entertainers and newscasters, who seem to appear lighter on television than in person, due to make up. I strongly urge Black women not to buy the products of  any cosmetic company who does not use Black models and more importantly a cross section of light and dark models. This is the only   way this racist practice is going to stop. This is another example of the fear of dark skin. The irony is that many whites spend hundreds of millions annually on tanning products and tanning beds, while some companies like L 'Oreal use these deceptive tactics. Now you may understand that while Beyonce's supporting Destiny Child  cast may have been equally talented, their darker complexion may have made them supposedly less marketable to a cross over white audience.

Alek Wek is one of the beautiful Black models of today. Tyra speaks with a woman who always had problems with her dark skin growing up and living in america and in her home country but Alek Wek is a surpsise guest and role model for this woman. This taunting is because of self hatred and our children don't know their history!

Failed party promotion highlights color divide

Free club admission for black women with light skin tone sparks outrage

Yasmine Toney, right, was incensed when she heard about a recent club promotion allowing free admission to black women with fair or light skin.

Associated Press

DETROIT - Yasmine Toney describes herself as a “dark-skinned sista.” So when she heard about a recent club promotion in Detroit, allowing all-night free admission to black women with fair or light skin, she was incensed.

“It’s offensive,” Toney said. “It continues a negative stereotype.”

“I’m perceived to be aggressive, assertive, attitude-having ... a lot of things, because my complexion is darker,” said the 24-year-old receptionist.

The party was canceled last week after its promoter, who is black, received dozens of complaints. But for Toney and other black women, the issue reopened old, deep wounds as word of the party spread through the Internet.

How black women are viewed — and treat each other — depending on the hue of their skin, eye color, and the length and grade of their hair has long been a point of contention for many in the black community.

Many women with lighter skin frequently are accused of believing they are better than those with darker complexions. Many women with brown or dark-brown complexions complain that they too often are not treated as well socially or professionally as those with fairer skin.

“I think they get to slide in a little easier,” Toney, who is pursuing a master’s degree in counseling, said of women with lighter skin. “They are assumed to be passive and nice and sweet. I feel I have to do a little bit more. Number one, I’m black. Number two, I’m dark and I have short hair.”

Promoter: ‘I thought it was brilliant’
Ulysses Barnes, who goes by the name DJ Lish, says he canceled his “Light Skinned Women & ALL LIBRA’s” promotion after complaints rolled in from women, activists and organizations across the country.

“I thought it was a brilliant promotion at the time,” said Barnes, who has spent the last several days apologizing to people. “I didn’t anticipate any type of feedback. It was just a party thing.”

Barnes, 27, canceled future “sexy chocolate” and “sexy caramel” promotions and just wants the controversy to go away.

But Detroit author and anti-racism advocate Elizabeth Atkins believes it’s time for open, effective dialogue on how black women truly see and interact with one another.

“The celebrated standard of black beauty have been the Lena Hornes of the world,” said Atkins, referring to the fair-skinned singer and actress who became one of the most popular black performers in the 1940s and 1950s. “It’s been the fair-skinned, straighter hair, bigger eyes and pointed nose.”

Horne got her start as a dancer in the famous Cotton Club in Harlem. Most dancers at the nightclub in its early years had light or fair complexions.

Activist: Media feeds into stereotypes
Atkins and Los Angeles author and women’s movement activist Pearl Jr. say media portrayals of black women feed into the stereotypes that are perpetuated by blacks.

Women who should be embracing their shared racial and cultural heritage instead harbor suspicion and resentment, Atkins said.

“They might be talking about flowers, or the weather or a wedding,” she said, “but in the back of their minds they’re thinking: ’She’s looking at my dark skin or kinky hair.’ Whereas the lighter-skinned woman is thinking: ’She’s looking at my skin, or she’s looking at my eyes and my hair, and making all kinds of assumptions of how much easier I must have it.”’

There may be something to that perception.

A 2006 study by University of Georgia doctoral candidate Matthew Harrison shows skin color may play a role in hiring. Psychology undergraduates, most of whom were white, were given fake photos and resumes to make hiring recommendations.

Lighter-skinned women applicants were preferred over those with darker complexions but equal credentials. Light-skinned black men also were preferred over those with dark skin who had better credentials.

Such thinking is rooted in America’s slavery past, Harrison says. Lighter-skinned children of slaves and their owners were given better treatment and less strenuous household chores than darker slaves who toiled in the fields.

“That created a lot of animosity among slaves and began to replicate itself even after slavery,” Harrison said. “Once blacks were able to have their own groups, they too adhered to the whole system of lightness being better.”

One of the ways they did so was the “brown paper bag” test, in which blacks whose skin was darker than the bag’s color were denied inclusion into social events or organizations.

Not 'black' enough?
But lighter-skinned black women also complain they at times are accused of not being “black” enough.

Tamika Franklin, who works with Toney, says she was taunted as “white girl” by other black children. The 30-year-old administrative assistant has very fair skin, freckles and reddish-brown hair. She says whites appear to be more accepting of her than blacks.

“I’m closer to their shade, so they’re a little more comfortable with that,” Franklin said.

That’s because whites set the standard for what is considered attractive and acceptable, Pearl Jr. said.

“I believe they think the lighter you are and the straighter your hair, the more you resemble them and the better you are,” she said. “We have been taught as African-Americans to be less African, less dark.”

The issue is central to “Other People’s Skin,” four novellas released this month and co-authored by Atkins and three other black women. The fictional work looks at discrimination that results from “colorism” in the black community.

Atkins has a fair complexion and long, light brown hair. Her mother is black and father is white.

“People have mimicked me to my face ... that I talk white or proper,” said Atkins, who earned a master’s degree at Columbia University. “An ex-boyfriend told me I should talk more black and go to a tanning salon to get darker. Another man told me I should dye my hair brown if I wanted to do business with black people.

“We often face hatred within the race, and it’s more hurtful from your own people than the mainstream.”

Obama Inspires Caribbean Music Video

Barack Obama hasn't won the presidency yet, but he's already having an impact on music in the Caribbean.

Now one artist is about to begin a "Reggae for Obama World Tour," according to CNN. In a catchy music video called "Barack Obama" by Cocoa Tea, the artist sings "it's not about class" and touts the black and white support for the Democratic presidential candidate.

"People really are crying out. They need to see a change in Washington," the artist told CNN. Meanwhile, a calypso artist named Mighty Sparrow sings about the Iraq War on America's reputation and promotes Obama as the man to fix the problem. "The respect of the world that we now lack. If you want it back, then vote Barack," he sings.

IRAQ: Black Iraqis hoping for a Barack Obama win

Its frustrating how this sickness called racism rears its ugly head even in some war torn countries. Despite Iraq's collective efforts to rebuild, some of its lighter skinned citizens believe they are still superior to their darker brother.

Abdul Hussein Abdul Razzaq laughs wearily when asked if racism is a problem in Iraq. As a black Iraqi, Razzaq says, he faces job and social discrimination and has little chance of getting a political appointment or being elected if he ran for public office. That's why Razzaq, a longtime journalist from the southern city of Basra, is hoping that Barack Obama becomes the United States' next president. Not only will it be better for Americans, he says, it will help blacks the world over. "It will prove that Americans are recognizing that black people are just as capable as white people. It will be a historic accomplishment for black people all over the world if Barack Obama wins," Razzaq said. Racism isn't new in Iraq. Blacks were brought here as slaves from Africa more than 1,000 years ago to work for wealthy landowners in Basra, where most of Iraq's black population still lives. Today, one of the insults sometimes hurled at black people is "Abd," which means servant or slave in Arabic, said Razzaq, who has founded a political organization called the Free Iraqis Movement to press for equal rights for black people. Its goal includes amending Iraq's constitution to ban discrimination against blacks, who Razzaq says number about 2 million here, and getting blacks elected to the national parliament. He admits the effort so far has been frustrating. The movement is too broke to have a website, and it is having trouble generating support from Iraqis who fear rocking the boat during these politically volatile times. A recent visit to Baghdad to lobby political leaders to support his cause was futile, with most people advising Razzaq that his movement could be seen as sowing divisiveness at a time when Iraqis need to set aside their ethnic and religious differences to recover from the war. Another problem, according to Razzaq, is that many of Iraq's most powerful people still think of blacks as servants. Some tribal sheiks still keep blacks as slaves, he says. Razzaq regrets not launching his movement five years ago, after the toppling of Saddam Hussein's regime. "We didn't do it then because we were worried about being accused of trying of trying to stir up trouble at a time of nation-building," he said. "We had hoped the new parliament would come to include black people, but that did not happen." As he travels through the country, Razzaq carries with him the resumes and biographies of black Iraqis who he says have been denied jobs and high political appointments because of their race. If Obama wins in November, he's hoping Iraq's leaders will take a closer look at the documents and give some black Iraqis a chance. And if John McCain wins? "It will be a big disappointment," Razzaq says. -- Raheem Salman and Tina Susman in Baghdad Photo credit: Tina Susman

Black In America: HBO Documentary Lets the Stories of Black Luminaries Speak for Themselves

What Is It Really Like Being Black In White Dominated Societies? Do You Really Want To Know?

Growing up Black in America means that you become sensitive and aware as to how the term black is used in contrast to white as explain in Wikipedia:

Symbolic dualism with white Black magic is a destructive or evil form of magic, often connected with death, as opposed to white magic. This was already apparent during Ancient Egypt when the Cush Tribe invaded Egyptian plantations along the Nile River.

Evil witches are stereotypically dressed in black and good fairies in white. In computer security, a blackhat is an attacker with evil intentions, while a whitehat bears no such ill will. (This is derived from the Western movie convention.)

In many Hollywood Westerns, bad cowboys wear black hats while the good ones wear white.

Melodrama villains are dressed in black and heroines in white dresses.

Historical events A "black day" (or week or month) usually refers to a sad or tragic time.

The Romans marked fasti days with white stones and nefasti days with black. E.g., the Wall Street Crash 1929, the stock market crash on October 29, 1929 which is the start of the Great Depression, is nicknamed Black Tuesday, and was preceded by Black Thursday, a downturn on October 24 the previous week.

Black Monday, stock market crash on October 19, 1987. Black Wednesday caused Britain to pull out of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism.

Black Friday, various tragic events. (Exception: See Black Friday (shopping).) Black months include: the Black September in Jordan, in which thousands were killed.

Black July killing of the Tamil population by the Sinhalese government in Sri Lanka. Black Spring 2001 (Printemps noir), in the Berber region of Kabylia (Algeria), when the police shot and killed more than 100 people.

The Black Death, also known as the Black Plague, was a pandemic in Europe which killed tens of millions of people.

The Black Hole of Calcutta was the overcrowding of an impromptu prison cell in which many died. [edit] Expressions A black-hearted person is mean and unloving.

A blacklist is a list of undesirable persons or entities (to be placed on the list is to be "blacklisted"). Black comedy is a form of comedy dealing with morbid and serious topics.

A black mark against you is a bad thing. A black mood is a bad one (cf Winston Churchill's clinical depression, which he called "my black dog").[3] black market is used to denote the trade of illegal goods, or alternatively the illegal trade of otherwise legal items at considerably higher prices, e.g. to evade rationing.

Black propaganda is the use of known falsehoods, partial truths, or masquerades in propaganda to confuse an opponent.

Blackmail is the act of threatening to reveal information about a person unless the threatened party fulfills certain demands. This information is usually of an embarrassing or socially damaging nature. Ordinarily, such a threat is illegal.

If you sink the black eight-ball in billiards before all others are out of play, you lose. The black sheep of the family is the ne'er-do-well.

To blackball someone is to block their entry into a club or some such institution. In the traditional English gentlemen's club, current members vote on the admission of a candidate by secretly placing a white or black ball in a hat. If upon the completion of voting, there was even one black ball amongst the white, the candidate would be denied membership, and he would never know who had "blackballed" him.

This HBO documentary's aim is show 'Positively Black!'

HBO ON Tuesday, September 2, 9 p.m. HBO

“They think I’m Jewish,” he says. “I’m in the Jewish book of famous people. But as far as, you know, on the professional level, I think it’s pretty common knowledge that I’m half black or whatever. I was never really fazed by the, sort of, the color barrier, you know?”

Slash, the former lead guitarist of Guns N’ Roses, is talking. The son of a black mother and a white father, he is the first among the 23 renowned people who muse, confess and tell stories in “The Black List: Volume 1,” a 90-minute documentary scheduled to have its television premiere on HBO on Monday night. A collaboration between the portrait photographer Timothy Greenfield-Sanders, who directed it, and the film critic Elvis Mitchell, who did the interviews, it consists of a series of portraits capturing the range of what is often called the black experience.

The subjects include Sean Combs, Lou Gossett Jr., Vernon Jordan, Toni Morrison, Bill T. Jones, Serena Williams, Chris Rock, the Rev. Al Sharpton, Colin L. Powell, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Suzan-Lori Parks and Keenen Ivory Wayans.

Not everyone is as well known to the general public. Zane, a best-selling author of erotic fiction, gets a turn here, as does Mahlon Duckett, a former Negro league baseball player. Thelma Golden, the director and chief curator of the Studio Museum in Harlem, says: “One of the funniest experiences I had when I began working in the art world is that people always assumed I worked for Thelma Golden, not that I was Thelma Golden. The kind of dismissal that comes from just people’s sense that they don’t imagine you are who you are actually has been one of the most powerful and liberating things for me in my work.”

A minimalist film, without narration and with very little on the screen except people talking, “The Black List” (which had its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year) derives its considerable energy and elegance from its subjects. Mr. Mitchell, the host of the new TCM interview series “Elvis Mitchell: Under the Influence” and a former film critic for The New York Times, is never on screen. Rather, Mr. Mitchell said, he and Mr. Greenfield-Sanders played their hands behind the scenes.

The title “The Black List” is a play on words, meant to overturn the negative connotations of the term “blacklist.” This month the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, began an exhibition by Mr. Greenfield-Sanders of his “Black List” series of photographic portraits. Mr. Greenfield-Sanders, widely known for his portraits of artists and celebrities, which often appear in Vanity Fair, also photographed the wounded Iraq veterans featured in the HBO documentary “Alive Day Memories: Home From Iraq.”

The “Black List” portraits will eventually be shown in 10 cities around the country, with a stop at the Brooklyn Museum in November. Next month the 25 portraits, along with first-person essays by their subjects, will be brought together in a book, “The Black List,” to be published by Atria, a division of Simon & Schuster.

The film shows Richard D. Parsons, the chairman of Time Warner, recalling the time he accidentally burned down his house when he was a child, something that won him extra attention from his grandmother. Mr. Sharpton talks about his favorite scripture and what he learned from James Brown about embracing controversy. (“I learned manhood from James Brown,” he says.) Faye Wattleton, a women’s rights advocate, laments that her daughter missed growing up with the solidarity and values exemplified by an all-black community in the days before desegregation.

“You’re always black,” Mr. Rock says. “There’s always going to kind of be an overreaction one way or the other regarding your presence, be it good or bad.” A few beats later, he says that the “true, true equality” is the equality to be as bad as “the white man,” adding, “That’s really Martin Luther King’s dream coming true.”

Mr. Mitchell said he envisioned “The Black List” as a response to past documentaries about race that tended to be soaked in politics and sociology, with victims and experts front and center. He simply asked the subjects all the things he wanted to know about them, he said.

“What you tend not to see are films on black people radiating in the pleasure of their success and telling their stories,” he said. “You come to the point whenever you see a black person on television, it’s either a comedy or some tragic issue being spoken to. You wouldn’t think that black people could get through a competently managed day, let alone being successful at it.”

Not that Mr. Mitchell buys into the notion of a so-called postracial society, as evidenced by Senator Barack Obama’s political ascendancy or the rise of a black middle class. Mr. Powell, in the film, speaks to that issue.

“It can’t be all over as long as we have young African-American boys and girls who are not able to get the quality education they need,” he says, “or are still being held back because people are looking down on them.”

Mr. Mitchell and Mr. Greenfield-Sanders spoke in an interview at the table in Mr. Greenfield-Sanders’s kitchen, a sun-filled room in his East Village town house (a converted rectory), which doubles as his studio.

Mr. Greenfield-Sanders said he got the first whiff of the “Black List” idea as he sat there a few years ago chatting with Ms. Morrison for another photographic venture and she suggested that he shoot a book of black divas. He said her suggestion started him ruminating more broadly “about the black experience that I know” from friends like Ms. Wattleton, Ms. Golden and Mr. Jones, the choreographer.

He reached out to Mr. Mitchell, a neighbor as well a friend, and they traded ideas over lunch at a Thai restaurant around the corner. By the end of their meal they had 175 names on a napkin and a plan. They began contacting subjects, striving for a mix of disciplines, ages, perspectives. Mr. Mitchell did the interviews. Mr. Greenfield-Sanders did the portraits.

“The Black List” ends up capturing the feeling of watching and listening to people think out loud.

“Almost all of the African-American writers that I know were very much uninterested in one area of the world, which is white men,” Ms. Morrison says. “That frees up a lot. It frees up the imagination, because you don’t have that gaze, you know. And when I say white men, I don’t mean just the character but I mean the establishment, the reviewers, the publishers and the people who are in control. So once you erase that from your canvas you can really play.”

Serena Williams talks, too, about the uninformed gaze. “I said once I am the most underestimated eight-time Grand Slam champion ever,” she says.

“It’s a lot more than just hitting the ball as hard as you can,” she continues. “It’s all about strategy and moving your opponent and just really figuring them out. Like I never get credit for mental, and I just, it’s, you know, frustrating. But at the end of the day, I am very happy with me and I’m very happy with my results.”

The enterprise has been so much fun that Mr. Mitchell and Mr. Greenfield-Sanders have no intention of stopping just yet. HBO is sponsoring a “Who’s on Your Black List” contest, which invites the public to submit videos of people they nominate to be filmed, interviewed and photographed for more “Black List” volumes. Information is at whosonyourblacklist.com.

Their plan, Mr. Greenfield-Sanders said, is to keep churning out more lists of people — women, Hispanics — but to keep Volume 1’s look and template.

“It’s against every rule of modern cinema, in a sense,” he said of this new franchise. “This is just saying I trust this person’s story is interesting enough, that his or her face is interesting enough to look at for five minutes, and I’m going to be engaged.”

Martin Luther King's 45th Anniversary Of His Historic Speech is Today

I find it prophetic that Senator Barack Obama gave his acceptance speech as the first African American to be nominated for President of the United States on the very day 45 years later of Dr. King's "I Have A Dream" masterpiece. God truly works in mysterious ways. Having grown up during the Civil Rights Movement, last night's Democratic Convention truly shows me how far we have come as a country. I made sure my children sat down and watched every single moment of this historic event and we were glued to the TVeach night, watching history being made. Let us all look back and listen carefully to King's Dream. I believe it was God speaking through man. He did it with Jesus, with King and God will spoke again through Barack Obama.

For those of us who do a lot of talking about what others aren't doing, if you haven't already , its time for us not only to contribute to Barack's campaign, but also to the King Memorial. Freedom Is Not Free!

Barack Obama spoke to an audience of 84,000 at Mile High Stadium, on August 28, 2008 in Denver, CO.