Black woman winner, blackface and tasteless jokes at the Oscars
Commentary by Black Kos Editor Denise Oliver Velez
Okay-I give my congratulations to Octavia Spenser, for garnering Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for playing Minny.
Felt like 1940-all over again with Hattie McDaniel winning best supporting actress for Mammy and helpin' Miz Scarlet.
As promised I didn't stay awake to watch the show, and spent time yesterday reading the reviews and watching clips.
Let me not forget to mention Viola Davis, who got a nod, not a win but showed up proudly natural for the show.
Much of the criticism in the Afrosphere as well as in the MSM has fallen on the head of Billy Crystal.
Let me be clear-I have affection for him as one of my dad's former students. But someone in charge needed to think about the whole retro theme of the show-yeah it was retro all right, its theme of black and white fit right into a show with blackface skits and tasteless racial jokes. Whoever that someone was, here's hoping that next years show will be a rainbow of color and skip the color-coded jokes.
Cheryl Contee, from Jack & Jill Politics weighed in. Questions were raised over at The Griot. Kim Kane, was appalled.
Crystal quipped “I loved that movie (The Help)…when I saw it, I wanted to hug the first black woman that I saw. Which from Beverly Hills is about a 45 minute drive.”
Um... No.
I found an interesting video comment from a young white male on the whole blackface impersonation shtick:
I have strong opinions about blackface, and why it is not okay, specifically because of the historical racist baggage it carries.
Micheal Coard, who writes for the Philly Post and teaches at Temple, penned The Oscars Are Racist: African-Americans have to play demeaning movie roles to get a glance from the Academy.
Oscar’s not just a grouch; he’s also a racist. I’m not talking about Sesame Street‘s Oscar. He’s cool. In fact, he hangs out with black folks, including his best friends Gordon and Susan, lives in the hood, and is the author of a book partially entitled The Dark Genius of Oscar the Grouch. Also, he hates Fox News, which he disdainfully and accurately refers to as Pox News. So he’s cool. Very cool.
Coard has no love for the gilded statue's history. He goes on to say
I know that some of you will say that I doth protest too much. I know you’ll say that I always play the race card. And I’d agree with you. The reason I play the race card is that America (and its original colonists) has consistently dealt from the very beginning from a race deck with marked cards. That’s why whites win nearly every hand or, in this case, nearly every film award. They win by almost always naming themselves as winners, but also by infrequently naming others (i.e., blacks) as winners. The “others” have to make themselves look bad or make whites look good in order to be recognized by the Academy. Where are the white street criminals, single mothers, deadbeat dads, welfare recipients, prostitutes, crack addicts, prison inmates, and high-school drop-outs in movies and on TV? After all, there are many more white ones than black ones in this country. I guess fact is stranger than fiction.
I spent the morning with google and entered "racism Oscar's" and got a slew of hits. Not surprised.
Monica Moorehead details some history of those who didn't get wins in the past.
...Then, there is the brilliant Denzel Washington, who won the best lead actor Oscar in 2002 for playing a corrupt cop in 2001’s “Training Day.” This win was really a token gesture to cover up the fact that Washington should have won Oscars for his powerful portrayals of Malcolm X in the film of that name in 1992 and jailed boxer Rubin Carter in “The Hurricane” in 1999. That Washington did not win for portraying real-life political figures was a conscious snub made by the white, male-dominated Academy. Will Smith was also nominated in 2002 for playing Muhammad Ali in “Ali.”
Whitaker won his award for playing Uganda leader, Idi Amin, in “The Last King of Scotland” in 2007. The situation is even worse for African-American female actors. It took 47 years for Berry to win the first Oscar for lead actress since Dorothy Dandridge became the first Black woman to be nominated in the same category in 1955 for “Carmen Jones.” Berry won for her role in “Monster’s Ball,” portraying a woman who had an affair with a white jailer who executed her spouse.
The Oscar-nominated Black female actors who were passed over for best lead Oscars besides Dandridge and Davis include Angela Bassett, Diana Ross and the legendary Cicely Tyson, for her beautiful portrayal of a sharecropper’s spouse in “Sounder.” And what about a film like “Pariah,” which didn’t receive any recognition at all from the Academy? This 2007 independent film was directed and written by Dee Rees, a Black woman, and tells the story of a Black teenager, played by Adepero Oduye, who comes out as a lesbian. The film, shot on a $500,000 budget, won the 2011 Independent Spirit John Cassavetes award. It took four years to get released to the public. The producers include director Spike Lee and a Black woman producer, Nekisha Cooper. Another snub during this year’s Oscars is that Demián Bichir, a Mexican-American actor, did not win the best actor award for his moving role as an undocumented immigrant living with his son in Los Angeles.
So I ate my popcorn and went to sleep. I know quite a few of you promised you were going to watch, so I will be interested in hearing your take on it all.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
News by dopper0189, Black Kos Managing Editor
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I wrote about this when it started, now we can see how it's developed. Part art project, part community-based educational curriculum, Question Bridge is a series in which black men of nearly every demographic have intimate conversations with one another about their lives ColorLines: An Artist’s Rare, Intimate Conversation About Black Masculinity.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
While the installation is currently featured at museums in Atlanta, Brooklyn, Oakland, Calif., and Utah, it’s also toured the country everywhere from the Sundance Film Festival to jails in northern California. Made from 160 interviews conducted over four years, the project came to life due to the work of a creative team of nearly a dozen artists, actors, film producers and academics.
In many ways, Question Bridge began over 15 years ago when artist Chris Johnson, a professor at California College for the Arts, did a shorter version of the project. Back then, the project was meant to generate discussion between people in the black community. Years later, one of his students, Hank Willis Thomas, discovered it and helped reimagine a narrative—along with the Open Society Foundation—centered uniquely in the experiences of black men. As Thomas put it to Colorlines.com, “I saw the magic of using video as a way to mediate this conversation where people actually are really listening to the questions instead of just having a knee-jerk response.”
Johnson and Thomas created the series in collaboration with Bayete´ Ross Smith, while Delroy Lindo, Deborah Willis and Jesse Williams service as executive producers.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Will Minorities Ever Play A Major Role In Hollywood? Black Voices: Academy Awards: Study Shows Lack Of Diversity Continues In The Film Industry
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It's no secret that demonstrating diversity isn't exactly Hollywood's strong point--and that fact becomes more painfully obvious on Oscar night. Although the industry has made major strides, a new University of Southern California study reveals there's still a long way to go.
According to the report, which analyzed the Academy Award's Best Picture nominees from 1977-2010, a vast majority of actors and directors are white and male. The study found that less than one percent of all directors across the 180 films in the sample were African American, and of over 1,400 speaking characters, only 11.6 percent were black, 1.9 percent were Hispanic and 7 percent were Asian. Women made up only 36 percent of those roles.
For African Americans and Asians, these numbers are a slight increase from a similar 2008 study that found that they represented 7.1 percent and 4.9 percent, respectively. However, Latinos saw a slight decrease from 2.8 percent in 2008 although they purchased almost 30 percent of movie tickets in 2010.
The findings align with a recent Los Angeles Times study that found both Blacks and Hispanics account for two percent of academy members. While industry insiders acknowledge the need for change, they say the limitation in academy membership growth means the landscape is slow to change.
"We absolutely recognize that we need to do a better job," writer-director, Phil Alden Robinson, told the news outlet. "If the industry as a whole is not doing a great job in opening up its ranks, it's very hard for us to diversify our membership."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Part of me didn't want to include this because it's the typical "people of color competing with each other" narrative, but I included it because I've been in the students situation much of my life. New York Times: To Be Black at Stuyvesant High
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
LIKE a city unto itself, Stuyvesant High School, in Lower Manhattan, is broken into neighborhoods, official and otherwise. The math department is on the 4th of its 10 floors; biology is on the 7th. Seniors congregate by the curved mint wall off the second-floor atrium, next to lockers that are such prime real estate that students trade them for $100 or more. Sophomores are relegated to the sixth floor.
In Stuyvesant slang, the hangouts are known as “bars.” Some years ago, the black students took over the radiators outside the fifth-floor cafeteria, and the place soon came to be known as the “chocolate bar,” lending it an air of legitimacy in the school’s labyrinth of cliques and turfs.
It did not last long. This year, Asian freshmen displaced the black students in a strength-in-numbers coup in which whispers of indignation were the sole expression of resistance. There was no point arguing, said Rudi-Ann Miller, a 17-year-old senior who came to New York from Jamaica and likes to style her hair in a bun, slick and straight, like the ballerina she once dreamed of becoming.
“The Asian kids, they’re just everywhere,” she said.
When the bell rings and the school’s 3,295 students spill out of classrooms into the maze of hallways, escalators and stairs like ants in a farm, blacks stand out because they are so rare. Rudi was one of 64 black students four years ago when she entered Stuyvesant, long considered New York City’s flagship public school. She is now one of 40.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"It doesn't sound like the United States, but that didn't happen that long ago," said author Isabel Wilkerson. The Commercial Appeal: 'The great migration' tales sad, shocking
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Segregationists were regular customers at a black brothel, and the irony made it into Arrington High's weekly newsletter. In a punishment common in those days, white men had High, who was black, committed to a Mississippi insane asylum.
He spent months there before some brave black and white men helped him escape -- by hiding him in a wooden coffin with air holes.
He was cargo for the half-day train ride to Chicago, one of several Northern cities to which black people journeyed in search of a better life. The year was 1958, near the end of a 55-year year stretch in which more than six million black Americans fled the South for the North and West.
The years between 1915 and 1970 are the subject of Isabel Wilkerson's book, "The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In 2003 in Grutter v. Bollinger former Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, writing for a 5-4 majority, said that in 25 years the use of race in university admissions should no longer be necessary. After leaving the bench, she added that this wasn’t meant as an expiration date. ColorLines: The Dark Cloud the Supreme Court Just Cast Over Affirmative Action
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
But yesterday the Supreme Court agreed to review the lower court’s decision in Fisher v. University of Texas—and now all bets may be off for the future of affirmative action in higher education.
The long odyssey begins with the Bakke case in 1978, in which the court struck down a quota system. But in Justice Lewis F. Powell’s concurring opinion he argued that diversity played an important role in exposing students to perspectives and points of view different from what might occur in nearly all-white classrooms. Therefore, achieving diversity in the classroom was a compelling reason to consider race, as long as the admissions process carefully balanced race as one factor among many that were reviewed.
This rationale for affirmative action became the norm for many colleges and universities, until it was appealed to the Supreme Court in 2003 in the case of Grutter v. Bollinger. The admissions programs at the University of Michigan and its law school were sued by plaintiffs claiming that even a limited use of race in admissions constituted unconstitutional discrimination against white applicants. The Supreme Court upheld the law school’s plan in an opinion written by Justice O’Connor while striking down the undergraduate admissions system. The problem with the university program was that it gave too much weight to the consideration of race, while the law school survived constitutional scrutiny by a single vote because it had adhered more closely to the Powell rationale from the Bakke case.
For many in the civil rights community, affirmative action seemed to once again be settled law. The main concern was whether Justice O’Connor’s 25-year prediction for the legal life of affirmative action would hold true.
So in the aftermath of Grutter many colleges and universities, shaped its admissions policies to conform to what the court said was constitutionally permissible.* Reserving a set number or percentage of seats for students of color was clearly unconstitutional. It was also unlawful to base an admissions decision on race, if that trait became the determining factor.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Black Borrowers Face Higher Hurdles, Study Shows Black Voices: Lending Discrimination.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Qualifying for a loan in today's tight credit market is hard. But add race to the mix, and a borrower's odds can go from bad to worse, a new report suggests.
In a study of loans created on Prosper.com, a peer-to-peer lending website where applicants are encouraged to include a personal photo, researchers found that black borrowers are 25 to 35 percent less likely to receive funding than a white borrower with similar credit.
The report, entitled "What's in a Picture? Evidence of Discrimination From Prosper.com,"studied 110,000 loan applications from the popular lending website created between June 2006 and May 2007.
"By far the biggest factor was race," said Devin Pope, co-author and assistant professor at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Of the 110,000 loans studied, about 5,000 were home finance or repair related.
Part of the reason for the stark discrepancy, Pope told AOL Real Estate, is that the online lending market is less regulated than its brick and mortar counterpart, where discriminatory practices are more easily identified.
But that doesn't preclude racial discrimination from real-world borrowing entirely. In fact, a closer probe of mortgage lending practices during the housing run-up revealed that African-American and Latino borrowers were more frequently offered high-interest, sub-prime mortgages than their white counterparts, even when they qualified for better terms.
The investigation led to a historic settlement in which Bank of America agreed to pay $335 million to settle widespread claims of discriminatory lending at its Countrywide unit. The Department of Justice cited over 200,000 cases in which black and Latino borrowers were charged higher fees and interest rates without regard for their credit profile.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Voices and Soul
by Justice Putnam
Black Kos Poetry Editor
The Clown Car that is the Republican Candidates for the Presidency would be an hilarity, if these clowns weren't driving around with open cans of gasoline spilling and lit cigars in every clown's mouth.
Invoking the most base of human selfishness and hate, these clowns address the masses as if they are exalted saints sent from heaven above to correct the unruly children of Earth. But their face paint gives them away; and the brightly-colored wigs.
Unfortunately, those lacking the experience of reason and analysis, see the face paint and wigs as perfectly natural. They see nothing unusual with cigars and spilling cans of petrol, while a laughing mob of harlequins careen around boulevards and highways.
When the Greeks translated from the Aramaic, what was to become Ecclesiastes, which was then translated to Hebrew, then Latin and finally English; something was lost in the translation. Where we have come to define Ecclesiastes as a gathering, or a church; the original Aramaic defined the term as one who is contemplative and meditates on the existence of God.
How a personal meditation morphed into the Church is one I'm sure the Clown Car can pontificate upon.
And they would still be wrong.
Speech
How struck I was by that face, years ago, in the church mural:
Eve, being led by Christ through the broken gates of Hell.
She’s been nominated for the position of Featured Saint
on the Icon of Belief, up against the dark horse candidate—
me: fever-ridden and delirious, a child in Vellore, unfolding
the packet around my neck that I was ordered not to open.
Inside, a folk cure, painted delicately in saffron.
Letters that I could not read.
Why I feel qualified for the position
based on letters I could not read amounts to this:
Neither you nor I can pronounce the difference
between the broken gates and the forbidden letters.
So what reason do we need to believe in icons or saints?
How might we otherwise remember—
without an image to fasten in that lonely place—
the rock on which a Prophet flung himself into fever?
Without an icon or church, spell “gates of Hell.”
Spell “those years ago unfolding.”
Recite to me please all the letters you are not able to read.
Spell “fling yourself skyward.”
Spell “fever.”
-- Kazim Ali
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Welcome to the Front Porch
Front porch music “Living Proof” by Mary K Blige, which was cut from Oscar consideration.