Reading While Black

Courtesy of What About Our Daughters via Industry Ears:

The Parents Television Council released a damning report tracking BET and MTV’s afternoon programming. They tracked ever expletive, every violent act, every scene with sexual overtones. In other words, they documented what we already knew, its basically soft porn int he afternoon for the kiddies while you are at work paying for the cable that is corrupting the minds of the tots.

Well anyway, you don’t get to be one of the largest consumer goods companies in the world by being slow on the uptake. P&G in anticipation of some public outrage at the fact that they appear to be the largest funder of the Regime of B*tches, Booty and Bling, has set up a special 1-800 number for you to log whether you think they should “change” their advertising on BET or continue with their current funding of the War on Black Women, Men, and Children. If you want to participate in the poll, here are the instructions:

Proctor & Gamble Contact Information

Please call (800) 331-3774.

Then, press 1 for “English”. You will then be prompted as follows:

“Thank you for calling P&G. If you are calling about our advertising on BET & MTV, please press 1.”

(press “1″ here)

The message will then say,

“We appreciate your taking the time out of your day to share your thoughts with us. For your convenience, we’ve set up this quick and easy way for you to register your opinion. If you would like us to change our advertising on BET & MTV, please press 1. If you would like us to continue our current advertising on BET, please press 2.”

(Press “1″ here)

You will then hear - “Your opinion has been counted and is being shared with the appropriate people in our company. For more information on our company, please visit us at www.pg.com. Thank you.” END OF RECORDING!

Read more here about this heinous crime, and the lack of media coverage, lack response from so-called black leaders, and lack of care from feminist organizations like NOW.

Life without black people
A very humorous and revealing story is told about a group of white people who were fed up with African Americans, so they joined together and wished themselves away. They passed through a deep dark tunnel and emerged in sort of a twilight zone where there is an America without black people.

At first these white people breathed a sigh of relief.

At last, they said, No more crime, drugs, violence and welfare.

All of the blacks have gone! Then suddenly, reality set in. The “NEW
AMERICA” is not America at all-only a barren land.

1. There are very few crops that have flourished because the nation was built on a slave-supported system.

2. There are no cities with tall skyscrapers because Alexander Mils, a black man, invented the elevator, and without it, one finds great difficulty reaching higher floors.

3. There are few if any cars because Richard Spikes, a black man, invented the automatic gearshift, Joseph Gambol, also black, invented the Super Charge System for Internal Combustion Engines, and Garrett A. Morgan, a black man, invented the traffic signals.

4. Furthermore, one could not use the rapid transit system because its procurer was the electric trolley, which was invented by another black man, Albert R. Robinson.

5. Even if there were streets on which cars and a rapid transit system could operate, they were cluttered with paper because an African American, Charles Brooks, invented the street sweeper.

6. There were few if any newspapers, magazines and books because John Love invented the pencil sharpener, William Purveys invented the fountain pen, and Lee Barrage invented the Type Writing Machine and W. A. Love invented the Advanced Printing Press. They were all, you guessed it, Black.

7. Even if Americans could write their letters, articles and books, they would not have been transported by mail because William Barry invented the Postmarking and Canceling Machine, William Purveys invented the Hand Stamp and Philip Downing invented the Letter Drop.

8. The lawns were brown and wilted because Joseph Smith invented the Lawn
Sprinkler and John Burr the Lawn Mower.

9. When they entered their homes, they found them to be poorly ventilated and poorly heated. You see, Frederick Jones invented the Air Conditioner and Alice Parker the Heating Furnace. Their homes were also dim. But of course, Lewis Lattimer later invented the Electric Lamp, Michael Harvey invented the lantern,and Granville T. Woods invented the Automatic Cut off Switch. Their homes were also filthy because Thomas W. Steward invented the Mop and Lloyd P. Ray the Dust Pan.

10. Their children met them at the door-barefooted, shabby, motley and unkempt. But what could one expect? Jan E. Matzelinger invented the Shoe Lasting Machine,Walter Sammons invented the Comb, Sarah Boone invented the Ironing Board, and George T. Samon invented the Clothes Dryer.

11. Finally, they were resigned to at least have dinner amidst all of this
turmoil. But here again, the food had spoiled because another Black Man, John Standard invented the refrigerator. Now, isn’t that something? What would this country be like without the
contributions of Blacks, as African-Americans?

Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “by the time we leave for work, Americans have depended on the inventions from the minds of Blacks.”

Black history includes more than just slavery, Frederick Douglass, Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and Marcus Garvey & W.E.B. Dubois.

A few blogs have celebrated their one year anniversary, and I realize that mine has come and gone, but I’ve been rather quiet to justify celebrating it. But anyways, as I browsed What About Our Daughters? my eye fell on a post about Genarlow Wilson (if you don’t know, he was a 17 yr old black teen convicted of child molestation for engaging in oral sex with a fifteen yr old) whose true topic broke my heart.

ALL KIERRA Johnson wanted for her Sweet Sixteen was to wear a fancy blue gown and learn to walk in heels… It all came to an abrupt end March 7 when Kierra, of East Germantown, was found dead, half-naked on an exercise bench in the basement of a teenage boy’s house, her body covered in vomit.

–Philadelphia Daily News

I was filled with so much sorrow over this girl’s death, I wanted to cry. And if you knew me, you would know that I’m rarely moved to tears. Not because I don’t find things sad, I just want to do something when something gets me. But when read this article, I could have cried anywhere–in public, in front of strangers, anywhere. Kierra was obviously looking for love and affection in all the wrong places and her search for it ended in her lonely, brutal death.

I was just so sad as I went about my daily duties, so I flipped on the radio. I generally listen to anything, but Top 40 radio is a good old standby, but as I flipped stations and heard all of these rap and hip-hop songs, I was filled with just…disgust. Listening to the lyrics, really listening to them, made me want to vomit. It was these sort of songs, songs that glorify sex, drugs and the thug-life that influenced those boys to do what they did and for Kierra to feel so unloved that she needed to seek it from other people.

I’m a 90s baby, but I’m still young enough to remember when hip-hop became commercialized and when the corporate world began to package it as a “lifestyle” for black Americans–and how black Americans have gobbled it up for the past fifteen to twenty years. I’ve never been a person to blame any form of music for everyone’s behavoir, but what you choose to listen to does show what type of person you are. I am a witness to how the mainstream hip-hop culture has degraded black men and women into thinking that is a sign of blackness, that young boys become men based on how quickly they can lose their virginity, how many women they can pull, and just out and out disrespect for the black woman all for the sake of trying to gain some sort of status in a world they’ve been acculturated to feel has it in for them. How this “culture” has made young black girls feel the only way they can get a man is to have sex with him, to entice him by her body and little clothing, and that having his baby will keep him.

Slow jams and r&b songs about getting it on are pretty much standards in the urban music field, but they were also tempered by genuine love songs, songs about hope, and joy and peace. When I click on the radio, if the song isn’t about just getting some, it’s about “my wo/man cheated on me” or “you ain’t no good” or variations of the theme. The average rap song is just chock full of pseudo-masculine pursuits concerning guns, girls, cars and cash. No mention of loving and accepting yourself, of hope, of joy, of overcoming adversity. And it’s just gotten worse, even comparing the class of 2008 with my graduating class.

Which is a reason why I detest the Black Dagger Brotherhood and the appropriation of hip-hop for the male characters. Non-black Americans will never experience the same acculturation from hip-hop as black Americans (those non-blacks who were raised in the ‘hood only receive the brunt end of the stick regarding class, not race), so for Ward to characterize her vampires with hip-hop music and culture, without needing to experience or acknowledge the negativity and degradation, as well as the pain that goes into hip-hop, offends me deeply. The fact that she, as a white American, buys into the notion that hip-hop=masculinity just…astounds and wounds me as a black activist who struggles with what it means to be black, as well as deal with the wounds the mainstream hip-hop culture has dealt the male and female relatives of my generation.

So next time you listen to a rap song, or a hip-hop song, stop and ask yourself what message this song is sending, what is the agenda behind it, and the possible consequences of it?

The Winter Rose is the continued story of the Finnegan family introduced in The Tea Rose. As in the first installment in the series, TWR is a sweeping and climatic romance and character study set against the late Victorian era, this time, focusing on Dr. India Selwyn Jones, an aristocratic lady doctor, and Sid Malone, aka Charlie Finnegan, a king of the London underworld.

Of course their love story is star-crossed, what with India’s ambitious fiancé and rising MP, Freddie Lytton determined to catch Sid Malone to further his political aspirations, and India’s own struggle as a female doctor in the Victorian era. While the characters and plotting doesn’t cover any truly new ground, Donnelly shines when peeling back the layers of late Victorian London’s underworld and describing India’s duties as a doctor. I’m a squeamish sort, who dislikes hospitals, but Donnelly wrote the scenes in the Whitechapel clinic so well, I couldn’t wait for the narrative to return to India’s work. My attention was riveted also by Freddie’s various machinations throughout the book, for it is the schemes cooked up by he that drive the plot and the characters through the perils and pratfalls that throw wrenches into India and Sid’s romance.

Now this was a hefty book, clocking in at over seven hundred pages. For its length and breadth of settings, Donnelly did a pretty good job of keeping the pacing pretty steady. However, in order to sustain the length, there were many shortcuts concerning the characters, and by the last fifth of the book, I could pretty much predict everything that would occur. But the book ended on a pretty nice note, and it was a pleasant way to occupy a few hours.

Grade: B-