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Source: Screen Rant

I don’t have to know anything about the Hunger Games to know that it’s leaving its mark on American culture in some huge ways. This weekend, the movie made the third highest-grossing debut in North American box office history raking in $155 million. It’s also exposed something we knew was true about black men, women, and children in real-life but apparently also carries over into fictional cinema—we cannot be innocent, good, or cared about instinctively.

I know nothing about Suzanne Collins’ novel except for the fact that the book has cultivated a Twilight-Harry Potter-cultish-like following of which my little cousin is a part of. As is expected with diehard fans, there are going to be indiscrepancies between the way they visualized things in the book and how they are portrayed on film, but I don’t think anyone expected so much outrage over the character of Rue, played by Amandla Stenberg, a biracial black girl.

Call me crazy, but if I’d read page 45 of the novel and saw this sole description of Rue, Amandla is exactly who I would have expected to see on screen:

“…And most hauntingly, a twelve-year-old girl from District 11. She has dark brown skin and eyes, but other than that’s she’s very like Prim in size and demeanor…”

Apparently for “Hunger Games” readers, dark brown is like the “I’m the same color as you” comments I get from white people during the summer when they come back from an island vacation and think we’re skin twins. They thought Rue would be a dark-skinned white person, and to say they were disappointed that Rue was played by a black girl would be an understatement. The Tumblr Hunger Game Tweets, set up to expose people who talk a bunch of ish but aren’t really fans of the book, as evidenced by their lack of knowledge, caught a startling number of angry responses to Amandla’s character that weren’t just about being shocked that she was black, but more so her blackness changing their entire opinion of the character and the movie. Tweets ranged from:

“Why does Rue have to be black not gonna lie kinda ruined the movie” to

“I was pumped about the Hunger Games. Until I learned a black girl was playing Rue” to

“Kk call me racist but when I found out Rue was black her death wasn’t as sad. #Ihatemyself” to

“Sense when has rue been a n***er” I don’t even have time to go into all that is wrong with that statement.

The viewers weren’t too thrilled about Lenny Kravitz playing Cinna either, although since his dark skin wasn’t mentioned in the book, they weren’t totally blindsided into liking a black person. As for another character named Thresh, there apparently was no clue he’d be black either, despite this description: “The boy tribute from District 11, Thresh, has the same dark skin as Rue, but the resemblance stops there. He’s one of the giants, probably six and half feet tall and built like an ox.”

Another tweeter sent this reaction on the collective inclusion of black characters:

“Cinna and Rue weren’t supposed to be black. Why did the producers make all the good characters black smh”

The most ironic twist in all this discussion is when it comes to the lead character Katniss no one has said a word. That’s most likely because the producers cast a blonde-haired, blue-eyed girl by the name of Jennifer Lawrence as a character that was described in the book as having olive skin and straight black hair. To their credit, they did manage to dye her hair dark— it all sort of reminds me of Elizabeth Taylor and Angelina Jolie playing Cleopatra. The lack of outrage over that change proves this argument is not about incongruences, it’s about the inability for black people to be seen as anything but villains in real life and in cinema.

What’s worse is we talk day in and day out about how we need to change the images on the screen. We need more positive images of black people, we need to be seen in leading roles, but will it make a difference? If we’re talking about black films the people who need to see these images likely won’t even bother to watch the movies. And in this case we see that having positive images didn’t challenge any of the viewers internalized ideals about black people, it simply made them view the portrayals as unrealistic, even making them angry that they had somehow been tricked to care about a little black girl when they didn’t think she was a little black girl. If we can’t soften the youth when it comes to stereotypes and prejudices about black people through an entertainment medium of all things, what can we possibly do that will make a difference?

Since buzzfeed and other sites have run stories about these fans’ racist reactions to the film, Hunger Games Tweets has proudly reported that the number of tweets about Rue and Thresh being black has greatly reduced, but I wouldn’t count that as a victory just yet. I’m willing to bet those people have only stopped commenting because they don’t want to see their twitter accounts blasted across the Internet. No one has had a sudden change of heart about the audacity of movie producers invoking sympathy for a black character. Of course, the fans’ reactions aren’t totally startling considering all that’s going on around us in black America today, but to say they’re disturbing, yet sadly, somewhat expected, would be an understatement.

Are you familiar with The Hunger Games at all? Do you think having more positive images of black characters in films is really the answer in situations like this?

Brande Victorian is a blogger and culture writer in New York City. Follower her on Twitter at @be_vic.

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Source: clutchmagonline

Well, some of us got our wish. Just yesterday we were wondering why President Barack Obama hadn’t made a statement about the murder of Trayvon Martin. While some argued that this was a matter the president shouldn’t speak on, others cited the fact that he reached out to Sandra Fluke after Rush Limbaugh called her “sl*t.” Up until yesterday the White House had remained silent.

But just this morning the President hosted a press conference in which he cautiously and thoughtfully addressed the ongoing case.

The president said, “I think  all of us have to do some soul searching to figure out how does something like this happen.”

But he said his main message was for Trayvon’s parents.

Watch the video below

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Source: thegrio.com

From theGrio.com

There is no question that the killing of Florida teenager Trayvon Martin has captured the nation’s attention. The local police department’s allegedly inadequate investigation and insistence that the shooter George Zimmerman remain free, with no criminal charges, has led to an eruption in social media, the creation of numerous online petitions, and even for the Justice Department to launch an investigation into possible civil rights violations of the slain teenager. One voice has been missing from the public outcry: President Barack Obama.

As the first black president, Barack Obama is frequently called on to comment on public controversies, particularly when that controversy involve issues of race. When he commented on the arrest of Professor Henry Louis Gates, saying the police officer who arrested the diminutive Ivy League professor acted “stupidly” the criticism that followed was loud and swift. Since then, the president and the White House have appeared to be much more careful when wading into the waters of public debates.

That hands off policy remained throughout the case of Oscar Grant’s shooter and the execution of Troy Davis, to the angst of many who feel the black president should express the frustrations of black America when one of our own is facing such horrific injustice.

But in the case of Trayvon Martin, that desire is misguided. In fact, by making any public statements about the ongoing investigation, the White House could derail the family’s efforts to seek justice for their son.

Read the rest of this story at theGrio.com.

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Source: Necole Bitchie

From NecoleBitchie.com

We now know more about what happened to poor Trayvon Martin, the 17-year-old kid who was killed by a neighborhood watchman, George Zimmerman, while returning home from the store back in February. Police haven’t arrested  Zimmerman yet because he claimed self-defense, but now the FBI and U.S. Justice Department are finally investigating the murder as a possible hate crime. The 911 tapes were released over the weekend which gave everyone just a taste of what really happened that night but ABC News got a hold of call logs on Trayvon’s phone that show he was talking to his 16-year-old girlfriend seconds before he was killed and she heard everything that happened firsthand.

The girl would only talk to attorneys who recorded her statement and her parents won’t give out her name, but she said when she was talking to Trayvon as he was walking back home in the rain and he was telling her about this strange guy who was on a phone following him:

“He said this man was watching him, so he put his hoodie on. He said he lost the man. I asked Trayvon to run, and he said he was going to walk fast. I told him to run but he said he was not going to run.”

Trayvon did eventually decide to run but he was eventually cornered.

“Trayvon said, ‘What, are you following me for,’ and the man said, ‘What are you doing here.’ Next thing I hear is somebody pushing, and somebody pushed Trayvon because the head set just fell. I called him again and he didn’t answer the phone.”

Read the rest of what Trayvon’s girlfriend had to say at NecoleBitchie.com. 

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  Racism
• Should Black Folks Feel Obligated To Speak To Each Other?

Source: Bossip

It’s one thing to be discriminated against by someone of a different race, but it’s a shame when black people have to endure racism from one of their own. That’s the accusation nine black employees of the Tukwila School District in Washington have brought against their black superintendent, Ethelda Burke.

An attorney for the staff members, which range from vice principals, to teachers, and dispatchers, filed a complaint of racial discrimination against Ethelda, and even included anecdotes about her behavior. One group of female staffers at Showalter Middle School said the superintendent once referred to them as slaves.

“I couldn’t believe my ears she would refer to professional African American women as slaves,” teacher Sandra Goins, said.

Driver trainer and district dispatcher Doc Fells had his own story.

“She said to me you have to stop being a big, black man scaring our white drivers, and it numbed me.”

J.D. Hill, athletic director and head of transportation, also shared a disturbing nickname the superintendent gave him.

“When I walked into her office she said ‘Hey, J-Dark, how are you doing?’ J-Dark was my name for Ethelda, my pet name for a month, in a professional environment.”

Despite the glaring inappropriateness of the superintendent’s behavior, the staff members said they had a difficult time coming forward and filing their complaint.

“For me, I feel a sense of betrayal,” said Marva Harris, a school security officer who Ethelda called a slave. “That I’m betraying her, because she’s a black woman.”

Bus driver Ritchie Coleman feels the same.”If she wasn’t a person of color, me personally, I would have gone after her long before now,” he said.

Joan Mell, the attorney representing the employees, has written a letter asking the board to immediately suspend the superintendent. So far, the district, the superintendent, and the board have all declined to comment on the situation.

What do you think is the appropriate action for Ethelda Burke? Have you ever had a situation where another black person was racially discriminatory toward you?

Brande Victorian is a blogger and culture writer in New York City. Follower her on Twitter at @be_vic.

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The more things change the more they stay the same. You would think one’s exposure and confrontation with racism would decrease as you climb the rungs of success but that’s not always the case. Take for example a gift international music icon, Janet Jackson, received while she was on tour.

Source: @JanetJackson

This little doll is Maria. Janet recently tweeted a picture of the doll with the accompanying text:

During the tour, I was given this doll named Maria. She was advertised as lifelike. How does Maria make you feel?

Well. I don’t know how Maria makes you feel but I can tell you that she doesn’t exactly solicit warm fuzzies from me. I find the act of giving a doll like Maria to be more chilling than Maria herself. Clearly, this individual is sick and perhaps a bit dangerous. But Maria also raises a whole lot of questions. Who gave her this doll? How did they get it to Janet Jackson? What message were they trying to send? And perhaps most importantly, when will our country (and others) be done with the racially motivated or racially ignorant shenanigans and attacks?

How does Maria make you feel?

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I do not have the words to fully express the sadness, grief and flat out anger I am experiencing over the senseless death of Trayvon Martin.  But that only pales in comparison to what his family might be feeling.

Martin, a 17-year old Black teen, was gunned down by George Zimmerman, a 28-year old White Hispanic man in the Central Florida town of Sanford late last month. Zimmerman, who was the self-appointed neighborhood watch, claims that he’d shot and killed Martin after the teen allegedly started an “altercation.” But Martin’s real crime was being a suspicious black male in the wrong community at the wrong time.

If you haven’t listened to the 911 calls from Zimmerman and the various perspectives, which were revealed on Friday, you can listen to them here, but be warned, they are a hard listen. In one tape, Zimmerman, who had spotted Martin from inside his parked car, tells the dispatcher that there had been a few break-ins lately, and now there was another suspicious guy in his Twin Lakes gated community. He describes the SUS as a young black male wearing a hooded sweatshirt.  He looked like he might be on drugs and “up to no good,” he says to the dispatcher.  Later, he says that the SUS is retreating in the other direction from his vehicle. He then exits his car and follows the SUS. The dispatcher tells Zimmerman that it is not necessary to follow him. But Zimmerman, frustrated, had already lamented that: “These a**holes always get away.”

In another tape you can hear what appears to be a muted bang followed by a young man in the distance crying repeatedly for help and then a loud pop that silences the wailing completely. Other callers reported hearing the same thing as well and described for the police dispatchers the end result: Martin, lying on the ground, dead.  Later it would be revealed that Martin was far from a SUS  - just an unsuspecting teenager, who was visiting his father and just so happened to be walking back from the store with a can of sweet tea and a bag of Skittles to share with his younger sibling. For that, his life was silenced. And 28-year-old Zimmerman, who claims he was acting in self-defense, has yet to be arrested or charged with a crime.But as much as this story pains me, this post isn’t about the vicious murder, instead it’s about one of the witnesses: a 13-year old Black boy named Austin, who just so happened to be out walking the family pet and observed what happened. He and his family tells the Miami Herald:

“I don’t know that it was the person on the [ground] who was screaming, but to me it sounded like a kid who was crying. It was a yell for help, and I think it was Trayvon. Austin wasn’t sure if the person was in a fight or had slipped and gotten hurt. Austin’s boxer puppy got off the leash so the boy went chasing after the dog and lost sight of the scene for a moment. Then, he heard a gun go off. He ran home and told his sister to call the police. The boy, who is black, has been rattled ever since. He feels angry and disconcerted, and wonders whether he’s at risk too. That people can stereotype like that makes you scared, he said. Austin’s mom said he’s been acting out in school and seems mad all the time.”

As gut wrenching as it is to read about the death of Martin, it is equally as heartbreaking to think about what this witness must be going through. Not only did he see a murder in his front yard but has to live with the “what if” questions, the fears of his own safety and the confusions of how this, in the time of our first Black president, could happen? Prior to the murder, he probably was a normal teenager, close in age to the victim. He lived in a neighborhood that was overwhelmingly white (including Hispanics who classify themselves as white), therefore considered safe away from all the urban crime we hear about in inner city Black communities. He probably saw Zimmerman “patrolling” the neighborhood on a few occasions. He might have even had a conversation with him, maybe found himself too under the surveillance of his neighbor’s watchful eye.  He probably wondered if those interactions were just the result of an overzealous busy body or a precursor to the paranoia of a bigot.

He probably has those same questions about his friends he met within his diverse neighborhood.  And the teachers and staff at his school too. Prior to witnessing the murder of a kid close in age and hue to his, he probably believed in a colorblind society and was taught to respect every one of all races.  But watching the video of a bewildered little Austin as he speaks about how sometimes people get stereotyped and how he fits into this stereotype as the person who got shot, you can almost see the trepidation in his eyes, as if he is pondering what if that had been him. And maybe one day, it might be him.

There’s a scene in the movie “Spinning into Butter” in which Sarah Jessica Parker’s character comes to grips with what possibly may be her racist outlook on the world.  She talks about stepping onto a bus and evaluating where she’s going to sit from her highest preference to be seated next to a white woman, but if that’s not an option she’ll sit beside a white man.  If there are no other seats available she can stomach sitting next to a black woman and god forbid in the event where she doesn’t want to stand she would have to muster up the courage to sit next to a black man.  And let’s not forget the episode of ABC’s “What Would You Do?” that aired the other night where in a social experiment with actors playing an interracial couple in a small Utah town, many of the residents reacted to interracial dating like it was the Black Plague (no pun intended), to the point where two older white women shed tears at the thought of **gasp** races mixing.  It’s no wonder why the black man is angry.  He’s been casted as the dark and dangerous villain in a production for which he didn’t even audition.

As a black woman, I can relate to questioning if every slight or snub was based solely on the color of my skin, but I could never understand how my male counterparts must feel when gesturing to help an older woman with the door as she clutches her purse before realizing that he’s “one of the good ones” or hearing the door locks click on a family’s mini-van as soon as he walks by. Some men are unable to release the resentment they experience from being racially profiled on a daily basis, and they end up bringing it home with them and taking it out on the ones that are closest to them. I don’t even necessarily mean through more destructive behavior like substance abuse and domestic violence; sometimes the frustration alone can greatly contribute to a tense living situation that’s challenging for the whole family.  I can remember biting my tongue as a child and not approaching my father for at least an hour after work because he needed time to wind down after feeling the need to defend himself and his strong opinions on social issues when talking with his white colleagues.  In relationships, I can recall regularly being a strong sense of support for partners who at one time or another dealt with social and structural racism on a daily basis; struggling to be successful through situations that attempted to limit them to being a stereotype (the white supervisor who thought it was OK to refer to him as “boy” or a casual racist joke among colleagues).

Source:Ibtimes.com

A lot of people have gone Lin-sane lately, and it’s not just sports fans. Of course New Yorkers and those who support the Knicks are grateful for what Jeremy Lin’s athletic prowess has brought to the team, but others who are watching the social commentary time clock say the recent scandal surrounding racist terms used in reference to the Chinese American basketball player serve as a teaching moment for the black community.

With the good there always comes some bad, and unfortunately when the Knick’s lost their first game under Lin’s reign, we saw the bad come out of a writer and a news anchor who alluded to the loss as a “chink in the armor.” The dismissed writer who created the offensive headline insists the use of the racial slur was an honest mistake, while the suspended anchor said his offense was unintentional. Regardless, ESPN took action against both. But what do racial slurs used against an Asian man have to do with black people? Let sports commentator Stephen A. Smith tell it, our hypersensitivity to racism has paved the way for incidents like this. On an episode of ESPN first take, he said:

“The black community has to recognize that we share a level of culpability in any kind of incident like that that transpires because the heightened sensitivity that exists in our society today we have a lot to do with.

“That heightened level of sensitivity has had a contagious effect on other communities so suddenly everybody is sensitive because their saying, ‘well if the black community gets to be sensitive about anything that may be perceived as racist what about what I find racist.’ Then you have people from the white community saying, ‘wait a minute, what about what we find offensive,’ and then the Hispanic community, ‘what about what we find offensive,’ now you have folks from the Asian community saying, ‘what about what we find offensive,’ and the list goes on and on…. And here’s what happens, we’re in an unforgiving society now…

“You have to get to a point where you don’t erase what you’re sensitive to but you have to be forgiving from the standpoint that if somebody apologizes genuinely, let’s try to be a bit more forgiving because if we’re not, other people aren’t going to be so forgiving when something goes down with us—whether its other ethnic groups or the homosexual community.”

Sounds like a Roland Martin reference. While I agree that black people ought to use the R word sparingly, are we really to blame for the disciplinary action taken toward these careless employees? I will say there seems to be a growing trend of calling for immediate dismissals of writers, commentators, etc. who cross the racial lines, and employers are no longer willing to take a chance and wait for backlash before implementing immediate disciplinary action against offenders. But rather than these calls for action having to do with a lack of compassion, as Stephen Smith suggests, I think they are more so an example of  people who are tired of racial attacks being swept under the rug.

Look at this future Oscar winner rocking her TWA! Viola Davis graces the cover of L.A. Times Magazine this month and she’s looking like we’ve never seen her before.

Not only is she showing her natural, she’s also wearing some fabulous threads by Jason Wu. Check out some of the pictures below:

She also spoke with Andre Leon Talley, contributing editor of Vogue about how her childhood helped her get into character for The Help.

On using real-life experience to draw on for her role in the The Help.

“I have stories of being spit on.  You have to realize I was in a predominantly white culture … And third grade was the worst because every day after school I would wait at the door and the bell would ring. And as soon as the bell rang I ran as fast as I could from the front door to my house, which was at least a mile away, because I would have eight to nine boys with sticks, bricks, anything they could find, who were ready to kill me.”

On what her mother told her about bullying“She said, ‘Viola, I want you to take my crochet and needle and you put it in your pocket and if they stop you again you tell them you’re gonna [stab] ‘em.’”

On how her life defined her career

“Having it hard made me build so much character … You have to actually say, ‘Is the world going to define me or am I going to define myself.’”

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