THE HELP (2011) | The Unaffiliated Critic

THE HELP (2011) | The Unaffiliated Critic.

……The scatological focus culminates in what is simultaneously the “comic” highlight of the film, its cathartic climax, and its deus ex machina: Minnie, in revenge for being fired, feeds Hilly a chocolate cream-pie made out of Minnie’s own shit. This turns out to be the most important story in the book that Skeeter publishes, and a source of blackmail that removes any potential threat of retaliation from the evil White Queen. Because there were no problems in Jim Crow America that couldn’t be solved with a good fecal prank…..

The Rise of the Black Nerd – Page 1 – News – New York – Village Voice

The Rise of the Black Nerd – Page 1 – News – New York – Village Voice.

I am black nerd and proud.

ABWW Heroine of the Day: Janet Collins

Ballerina and choreographer, Janet Collins (March 7, 1917 in New Orleans, Louisiana – May 28, 2003 in Fort Worth, Texas), becomes the first Black dancer to appear with the Metropolitan Opera Company…However, because of her race, she could not tour with them in parts of the deep South.

Janet Collins was one of the few classically trained Black dancers of her generation. In 1951 she won the Donaldson Award for best dancer on Broadway for her work in Cole Porter’s Out of This World. She also performed in Aida, Carmen, and was the first Black ballerina at the Metropolitan Opera. She could not tour in parts of the Deep South due to her race. In later life she taught dance.

Janet Collins was among the pioneers of black ballet dancing and paved the way for others to follow. (Arthur Mitchell, for example, joined the New York City Ballet in the year Collins retired.) In 1932, aged 15, she auditioned with success, for the prestigious Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, but as she was required to paint her face and skin white in order to be able to perform, she did not join the company.

Janet Collins struggled time and again against racism, which did not spare the world of professional ballet dancing. Not many African-American dancers and performers achieved the successful career she was able to attain. In 1951, Janet Collins became the first African American to be hired full-time by the Metropolitan Opera in New York. Marian Anderson, the first to sing there, did not perform until 1955.

Janet Collins’ dance reputation today resides primarily in her role in breaking the color barrier; the constraints on Black classical dancers were too strong for her to have a vibrant performing career. However, her original choreography, which she performed in solo tours, was clearly of note, although few records survive. In her late forties she retired, turning to religion and finding comfort as an oblate in the Benedictine order. She was also an accomplished painter. Janet Collins died in 2003 at the age of 86, in Fort Worth, Texas. In recognition of her great work and dedication, her renowned cousin Carmen De Lavallade established the Janet Collins Fellowship which would honor aspiring talented ballet dancers.

Courtesy of Harlin C. Kearsley via Wikipedia

ABWW Heroine of the Day: Aida Overton Walker

While most think of leggy white dancers when they recall the Ziegfeld Follies but some of the original women performers were black women. Ada Overton Walker (14 February 1880 – 11 October 1914), also billed as Aïda Overton Walker and as “The Queen of the Cakewalk”, was an African-American vaudeville performer and wife of George Walker. She appeared with her husband and his performing partner Bert Williams, and appeared in groups such as Black Patti’s Troubadours. She was also a solo dancer and choreographer for vaudeville shows such as Bob Cole, Joe Jordan, and J. Rosamond Johnson’s The Red Moon (1908) and S. H. Dudley’s His Honor the Barber (1911). She was born in the Richmond, Virginia in the month of February — — on 14 February 1880 — — Aida Overton’s family moved to New York City when she was young, and that is where she gained an education and considerable musical training.

Aida Overton Walker dazzled early-twentieth-century theater audiences with her original dance routines, her enchanting singing voice, and her penchant for elegant costumes. At 15 years old, she joined John Isham’s Octoroons, one of the most influential black touring groups of the 1890s, and the following year she became a member of the Black Patti Troubadours. Although the show consisted of dozens of performers, Overton emerged as one of the most promising soubrettes of her day.
In 1898, she joined the company of the famous comedy team Bert Williams and George Walker, and appeared in all of their shows — — The Policy Players (1899), The Sons of Ham (1900), In Dahomey (1902), Abyssinia (1905), and Bandanna Land (1907).Within about a year of their meeting, George Walker and Aida Overton wed on 22 June 1899. After the marriage, Aida Walker worked as a choreographer for Williams and Walker, her husband’s vaudevillian comedy duo.Since

While George Walker supplied most of the ideas for the musical comedies and Bert Williams enjoyed fame as the “funniest man in America,” Aida quickly became an indispensable member of the Williams and Walker Company. In The Sons of Ham, for example, her rendition of Hannah from Savannah won praise for combining superb vocal control with acting skill that together presented a positive, strong image of black womanhood. Indeed, onstage Aida refused to comply with the plantation image of black women as plump mammies, happy to serve; like her husband, she viewed the representation of refined African American types on the stage as important political work. A talented dancer, Aida improvised original routines that her husband eagerly introduced in the shows; when In Dahomey was moved to England, Aida proved to be one of the strongest attractions.

After a decade of nearly continuous success with the Williams and Walker Company, Aida’s career took an unexpected turn when her husband collapsed on tour with Bandanna Land. Eventually, Aida began touring the vaudeville circuit as a solo act. Less than two weeks after George Walker’s death in January 1911, Aida signed a two-year contract to appear as a co-star with S. H. Dudley in another all-black traveling show. She was celebrated for her part in the spectacular “Salome” at Oscar Hammerstein’s Victoria Theater in New York City.

After a 16-week tour of the Midwest, vaudevillian Aida Overton Walker returned to her homebase in The Big Apple in July of 1912. Impresario Oscar Hammerstein invited her to reprise her role as Salome at his roof garden theatre on Broadway and West 42nd Street in the first week of August. Houdini and Mae West were also on the stagebill along with Edgar Berger, Fields and Carroll, Dan the talking dog, and the usual “nut” acts.Critic Robert Speare reported that Aida “is the only colored artist who has ever been known to give this dance in public.” He praised her performance as “a graceful and interesting version of the dance.”

Although still a relatively young woman in the early 1910s, Aida began to develop medical problems that limited her capacity for constant touring and stage performance. The talented thespian died suddenly of kidney failure on 11 October 1914 when she was only 34 years old. The New York Age featured a lengthy obituary on its front page. She was, in the words of the New York Age’s Lester Walton, the exponent of “clean, refined artistic entertainment.”

Links of the Day

Five year old black girl disappears and no one cares
So many of the white commenters are denying, derailing the conversation and projecting their racism on this thread, it is surreal. I have never seen so much convoluted logic in some time. I asked them to name three missing black children highlighted in the national news. The silence was deafening.

Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Alums Targeted By Serial Rapist
Someone has been stalking members of my sorority since April and it is finally making national news. Our national president has sent out a message to refrain from wearing paraphernalia if you live in the Dallas area. Why did this take so long to get national press attention?

Suspect arrested in shooting of Brooklyn mom who died shielding children
Andrew Lopez says it was an accident, he was trying to kill another gang member over a cell phone. I am not a death penalty supporter, but sometimes……

“Hazel Scott’s Lifetime of High Notes“
Just another example of why my incessant bragging about my Caribbean roots is completely justified.

Plus ça change, the more they stay the same

In the advent of greater racial, ethnic and religious bigotry in the last few months, I wonder why their is so much denial and animosity in the blogosphere. I contend there are many who do not see themselves in racist but do not see this upturn in bigotry as a no big thing or don’t feel that confronting those they know with more bigoted views is worth the effort. People of color need to address the new racial racial rhetoric and realize that it is not very different than pre-civil rights rhetorical formations and hope that right thinking folks will eventually see these uptick in racial hatred is immoral and since 1968, unamerican.

These anti-black sentiments publicized recently by Tea Partier Mark Williams and Laura Schlessinger have been brewing since the early 1970′s. We really need to examine their rhetoric with post civil rights/Obama age eye. Williams basically touted that blacks are lazy. A trope whites have used since they first arrived in Africa. The new twist is that it is welfare, affirmative action and civil rights initiatives have created a culture of dependency among black folks. Even though their are more middle class black folks in America than ever before, these racially conservative pundits cannot let go of the idea that their is something inherently wrong with black people. It have nothing to do with centuries of oppression, racial terrorism and opposition to extending civil rights and American citizenry to black people. To these pundits Blacks are essentially less intelligent, lazy, immoral, violent and hypersexual and they are angry that they cannot speak about these “truths” in mainstream public discourse. The more things change the more things stay the same. Why spend the same amount of resources on education for blacks since they are not as capable as white children. Send more on incarcerating for the same crimes because they are naturally immoral and criminal. It is a little more sophisticated than pre-civil rights rhetoric but it basically the same old same old.

Schlessinger’s rant basically reflects the frustration that some whites have with the fact that they cannot express their bigoted, ignorant rhetoric as freely as they could before the civil rights movement. She is part of the white moral panic that will only grow as the demographics continue to change and people of color gain more political and economic power in this country. People like Schlessinger want to preserve a white dominated society and feel that people of color have already been “given” too much, need to stop whining and should start working hard like white Americans who are loosing their rights under the current era. She and other white as sick of hearing anything about blacks and feel that were should be grateful for what we have. Her rhetoric is similar to the ideology that slavers used to support the insanity that race based slavery was a civilizing influence on primitive Africans. As people of color we need to learn more about our history and see the parallels in the past. We need learn how to counteract this more brazen, post modern expressions of time old ideologies. 

Race, ethnicity may affect how women experience menopause, UT research says

By Mary Ann Roser/AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Saturday, July 31, 2010

How a woman experiences menopause in the U.S. might have a lot to do with her race or ethnicity, according to a recently published University of Texas study. White, African American, Hispanic and Asian women all report different experiences with their physical symptoms as well as their attitudes toward menopause — and culture is a big reason why, said lead researcher Eun-Ok Im, a UT professor of nursing.

But other factors, including biology, education, overall health and socioeconomic status, could be influential, according to the study published in July in the Western Journal of Nursing Research, as well as other research. “More in-depth cultural studies are needed to understand the reasons for the ethnic difference in menopausal symptom experience,” the paper says.

Im’s work is based on an Internet survey of 512 women in those four ethnic/racial groups between the ages of 40 and 60. It is part of a larger five-year study funded by a $1.2 million grant from the National Institutes of Health, Im said. In general, her team found that certain menopause symptoms bother some groups greatly; others, not so much. For example, hot flashes were cited as a symptom by 67.8 percent of African American women, 64.4 percent of white women and 52.5 percent of Hispanic women. Only 26.1 percent of Asian women reported having hot flashes.

Researchers don’t know why Asian women have fewer hot flashes, said Im, who is of Korean heritage. But ingesting soy products for years before menopause and generally having less body fat could be factors, said Dr. Margery Gass, a gynecologist and executive director of the North American Menopause Society, a nonprofit that educates the public and professionals about menopause.

Asians’ body mass index “is way below everyone else’s,” said Gass, who said Im’s paper was well-done and a welcome addition to the research on ethnic differences in menopause. Weight gain was cited as a menopause symptom by 54.6 percent of black women and 50.8 percent of Hispanic women in the study. It was mentioned by 45 percent of white women and 33.3 percent of Asian women in the paper. Declining interest in sex was cited more often by Hispanic and Asian women.

Overall, white women in the study were more likely to complain of menopause symptoms. Of the 41 listed symptoms, they cited 31 the most frequently, including neck and skull aches, racing heartbeat, ankle swelling, exhaustion or fatigue, difficulty sleeping, urination at night, feeling clumsy, depression, anxiousness, difficulty concentrating and grouchiness.There also were commonalities. Women, regardless of ethnicity, reported feeling hot or cold most often, with forgetfulness being the second most common symptom, the paper said.

Im published a paper in Nursing Research this year involving the same 512 women and their attitudes about menopause. Minority women, in particular, said their culture had discouraged them from complaining.
“As African American women, we are always expected to be strong women who aren’t supposed to whine about anything,” one black woman was quoted as saying. “You just take life as it comes and do what you have to do. If you are having troubles or problems, you should just pray about it and keep going. I don’t think that my culture believes that menopausal symptoms are something that you would have to run to the doctor.”

That paper said that the women in all four groups tried to see menopause as a natural part of life and face it with optimism and humor. Im said she was surprised to see that attitude showing up in most of the white women, who had in the past tended to see menopause as a dreaded loss of youth.Some gynecologists say they see that shift in their own practices.”The mindset has changed,” said Dr. Sherry Neyman, an Austin obstetrician/gynecologist for 14 years. More white women “would like to go through a more natural menopause and not seek drugs as a first line of therapy.” She sees that in patients of other ethnic groups, too.

The study says that only those with the most serious symptoms took medication and that most of the women managed menopause in other ways: “Interestingly, many NH (non-Hispanic) Asians adopted mind control strategies such as ‘trying to be optimistic’ and ‘trying to calm down’ to manage symptoms. “Im notes that because the study was based on Internet questionnaires, women with comparatively lower levels of income and education were underrepresented.

That makes it hard to generalize the results to the population, said Gass, the menopause society chief. But, she said, “this type of research certainly gives a very good idea of what is happening and alerts clinicians to the fact that various contextual items play a role” in how women experience menopause.

ABWW Health Watch: New study on vagina gel to reduce HIV/AIDS risk holds promise for women

David Ormsby,
San Francisco Examiner
July 25, 2010.
The XVIII International AIDS Conference in Vienna this week announced that a new vaginal gel has been shown to significantly reduce a woman’s risk of being infected with HIV. The microbicide gel contains an antiretroviral drug commonly used to treat people living with HIV, and was found in a clinical trial study to be 39% effective in reducing a woman’s risk of becoming infected with HIV during vaginal intercourse.

Black and Hispanic women have the highest rates of HIV infection in the country. In 2006, Chicago women accounted for 20% of diagnosed HIV infections, a percentage that has remained unchanged over the last six years. The gender gap, however, varies considerably by race and ethnicity. Women represent 29% of all HIV infections among Blacks, 17% among Hispanics, and 5% among Whites. The leading mode of transmission for women is heterosexual contact. Among female HIV infections diagnosed in 2006, 79% were transmitted through heterosexual contact, and 20% through injection drug use.

At the Chicago-based Children’s Place Association, which provides an early-learning program for HIV/AIDS-infected or affected children, the organization’s president, Cathy Krieger, is welcoming the news out of Vienna.
“If other studies confirm the vaginal gel outcomes, this could prevent thousands of new HIV infections in Chicago over the next two decades, saving the lives of not only adult women, but also improving the lives of their children.”

Krieger noted, “Approximately 65% of the mothers of the 83 children in our pre-school program have HIV/AIDS. We know that disease endangers not only the fragile health of the moms, but also puts at risk the academic and social development of their children.” And one Chicago lawmaker is promising legislative action if the gel proves effective.

“The breakthrough on HIV/AIDS prevention for women announced at the Vienna conference is deeply welcome news,” said State Rep. Sara Feigenholtz (D-Chicago), Chair of the House Human Services Appropriations Committee, the legislature’s leading HIV/AIDS expert.

“If further clinic trials were to confirm that the microbicide gel reduces HIV/AIDS transmission, I would sponsor legislation to ensure low-income Illinois women have access to the gel to save lives and save tax payers expensive HIV/AIDS treatment costs.”

ABWW Heroine of the Day: Bridget Biddy Mason

Bridget “Biddy” Mason, was a slave who moved to California with her owner in the 1850s. She eventually petitioned the court for her freedom — and that of her children— and was emancipated. She worked as a nurse and a midwife while simultaneously purchasing real estate and growing a fortune that she used for philanthropic endeavors, including founding an elementary school for black children and helping black women agitate for the vote.

In 1847, Brigham Young was starting a Mormon community in California. Robert Smith, a follower of Young and Biddy’s also moved his household and slaves (90 people in all), to Utah Territory. On this arduous 2,000-mile trek across the country, Biddy’s responsibility was to herd the cattle, prepare meals, act as a midwife, and take care of her own children. (She had three daughters, Ellen, Ann and Harriet, whose father was reputedly Smith.) In 1851, Smith moved everyone again to San Bernardino, California, where Brigham Young was starting another Mormon community.

Biddy learned through friends in the African-American Los Angeles community that California had been admitted to the Union in 1850 as a free state; slavery was prohibited. But such slave owners were rarely challenged, and if they were, they rarely lost the case. In the winter of 1855, Smith decided to move once again, to Texas, a slave state. Their departure was interrupted by the Los Angeles sheriff, who served Smith a writ of habeas corpus on behalf of Biddy.

Biddy’s daughter Ellen had been dating a free black man, Charles Owens, the son of an esteemed business owner in Los Angeles’ African-American community. Charles and his friend Manuel Pepper, who was dating the daughter of another of Smith’s slaves, helped Biddy file her petition with the court for her freedom. Since California law at the time prohibited blacks, mulattos and Native Americans from testifying in court, Biddy could not speak on her own behalf, but the judge did meet with her privately to hear her story. Robert Smith did not appear in court so, on January 19 (another source says January 21), 1856, the judge granted Biddy her freedom, as well as that of her three daughters (some sources say all the other slaves of Robert Smith were freed as well).

Biddy moved to Los Angeles, accepting the invitation to live with the Owens family. (Her daughter Ellen later married Charles.) She quickly became well regarded as a nurse and midwife, assisting in hundreds of births to mothers of all races and social classes. A couple sources say she was immediately offered a job after the trial by Dr. John S. Griffin, a Los Angeles doctor who had become interested in the case. What is certain is she soon became financially independent, saving her money and living frugally. Ten years later, in 1866, she bought a house and sizeable property on Spring Street for $250 — becoming one of the first black women to own land in Los Angeles. She instructed her children to never abandon it.

Mason was one of the first black women to own land in Los Angeles. This site is now in the center of the commercial district in the heart of Los Angeles. In 1884, she sold a parcel of the land for $1500 and built a commercial building with spaces for rental on the remaining land. She continued making wise decisions in her business and real estate transactions and her financial fortunes continued to increase until she accumulated a fortune of almost $300,000. Her grandson, Robert Curry Owens, a real estate developer and politician, was the richest African-American in Los Angeles at one time. Was the wealthiest African-American in Los Angeles at one time.

Biddy became known as Grandma Mason — generously donating money to charities (she would occasionally pay the expenses of both Black and white churchs), visiting prison inmates with gifts and aid, and giving food and shelter to the poor of all races. Needy people often lined up in front of 331 South Spring Street. One source says she also ran an orphanage in her house.

In 1872, Biddy and her son-in-law, Charles Owens, founded and financed the Los Angeles branch of the First African Methodist Episcopal Church, the first black church in Los Angeles. It is now known as 8th and Townes, and is presently housed in a modern building at 2270 South Harvard Street.

In 1851, Smith moved his household again, this time to San Bernardino, California, Smith probably did not know that California had been admitted to the Union in 1850 as a free state and that slavery was forbidden there. Mason petitioned the court and in 1856 won freedom for herself and for her daughters. She moved to Los Angeles and found employment as a nurse and midwife. Hard work and her nursing skills allowed her to become economically independent.

Biddy Mason also gave generously to various charities and provided food and shelter for the poor of all races. Lines of needy people were often forming at 331 South Spring Street. She also remembered the jail inmates whom she visited often. In 1872 she and her son-in-law, Charles Owens, founded and financed the Los Angeles branch of the First African Methodist Episcopal church, L.A.’s first black church.

Biddy Mason died January 15, 1891 and was buried in an unmarked grave at Evergreen cemetery in the Boyle Heights area of Los Angeles. Nearly a century later, on March 27, 1988 a tombstone was unveiled which marked her grave for the first time in a ceremony attended by Mayor Tom Bradley and about three thousand members of the First African Methodist Episcopal church.

Thursday, November 16, 1989 was declared a Biddy Mason Day and a memorial of her achievements was unveiled at the Broadway Spring Center located between Spring Street and Broadway at Third Street.

ABWW Heroine of the Day: Elaine Brown

Since some are confusing the actually Black Panthers with some fools who keep popping up on FOX TV, it is a good time to look back and the career of Elaine Brown. Ms. Brown is the only woman to ascend to leadership of the Black Panthers. The Panthers were ahead of the time in many ways but equality for women was not one of them. The idea of the strong black women has partial roots the black power movement and who can forget Kwame Ture’s quote “The position of women in SNCC is prone.” I saw him speak a year before he died and he was still apologizing. Huey Newton’s views about women were abhorrent.

Elaine Brown grew up in the ghetto of North Philadelphia, with a single, working mother and an absent father. Despite desperate poverty, Brown’s mother worked to provide for Elaine’s private school education. As a young woman. After graduating from Philadelphia High School for Girls, she studied at Temple University for less than a semester. After withdrawing from Temple Brown moved to Los Angeles, California to try being a professional songwriter.

Upon arriving in California with little money and few contacts, Brown became involved with the Black Liberation Movement and she began working for the radical newspaper Harambee. Soon after, Brown became the first representative of the Black Student Alliance to the Black Congress in California. In April 1968, after the assassination of Martin Luther King Junior, she attended her first meeting of the Los Angeles chapter of the Black Panther Party. In 1968, Brown joined the Black Panther Party as a rank-and-file member, studying revolutionary literature, selling Black Panther Party newspapers, and cleaning guns, among other tasks. Brown soon helped the Party set up its first Free Breakfast for Children program in Los Angeles, as well as the Party’s initial Free Busing to Prisons Program and Free Legal Aid Program. Huey Newton a Panther with extremely misogynist views stated, “A woman in the Black Power movement was considered, at best, irrelevant. A woman asserting herself was a pariah. If a black woman assumed a role of leadership, she was said to be eroding black manhood, to be hindering the progress of the black race. She was an enemy of the black people…. I knew I had to muster something mighty to manage the Black Panther Party.”

During Brown’s leadership of the Black Panther Party, she focused on electoral politics and community service. In 1977, she managed Lionel Wilson’s victorious campaign to become Oakland’s first black mayor. Also, Brown developed the Panther’s Liberation School, which was recognized by the state of California as a model school.
Brown stepped down from Chairwoman of the Black Panther Party less than a year after Newton’s return from Cuba in 1977 when Newton condoned the beating of Regina Davis, the administrator of the Panther Liberation School. In her autobiography, A Taste of Power, she states this incident was the point at which Brown could no longer tolerate the sexism and patriarchy of the Black Panther Party.

Brown eventually returned to the civil rights struggle, focusing on the need for radical prison reform. From 1980 to 1983 she attended Southwestern University School of Law in Los Angeles. In 1996, Brown moved to Atlanta, Georgia and founded Fields of Flowers, Inc., a non-profit organization committed to providing educational opportunities for impoverished African-American children. In 1998, Brown co-founded the grassroots group Mothers Advocating Juvenile Justice to advocate for children being prosecuted as adults in the state of Georgia.

In 2003, Brown helped co-found the National Alliance for Radical Prison Reform, which helps thousands of prisoners find housing after they are released on parole, facilitates transportation for family visits to prisons, helps prisoners find employment, and raises money for prisoner phone calls and gifts. Brown has continued her prison reform advocacy by lecturing frequently at colleges and universities in the US. I got to hear her speak a few years ago and she was funny, informative and has risen above many of the rumors and antipathy that swirl around her tenure as a leader in the black panthers.

In March 2007, Brown announced her bid to be the 2008 Green Party presidential nominee. Brown felt that a campaign was necessary to promote the interests of those not represented by the major political parties, especially the interests of women under 30 and African-Americans. Her platform focused on the needs of working-class families, promoting living wages for all, free health care, more funding for public education, more affordable housing, removal of troops from Iraq, improving the environment, and promoting equality. Brown intended on using her campaign to bring many minorities to the Green party in hopes that it would better represent a revolutionary force for social justice. In late 2007, Brown resigned from the Green Party, as she found that the Party remained dominated by whites who had “no intention of using the ballot to actualize real social progress, and will aggressively repel attempts to do so.” Read more about Ms. Brown on her own website.