(Photo by Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for NARAS) I think I wrote my first article about being disgusted with the Grammys in 2009. The broadcast had marketed itself around Lil Wayne and his massively popular Carter III album – he was nominated for eight awards and was the feature performer. It felt like he was going to win Album Of The Year. But that distinction went to the very white and very safe Robert Plant and Alison Krauss’ Raising Sand album. The message was clear as it has always been: the Grammys are going to use young, black popular artists to bring in viewers and buzz but they aren’t going to get the recognition of having put out the best bodies of work. In other words, the black artists are there for the show and everyone else is going to get the acclaim. I wrote that same article in 2010 when Beyonce was nominated for 10 awards, was the featured performer and lost out to Taylor Swift for Album of the Year. And again in 2014 when Macklemore beat out Kendrick Lamar for Rap Album. By 2015, I’d given up on the Grammys. So I was good and prepared when Beck beat Beyonce and Taylor Swift beat Kendrick and Adele beat Beyonce. And this year, I knew there was a Jeezy’s chance in Hell of Kendrick Lamar or Jay Z winning the Album Of The Year award. We’ve been here before and waiting for white folks to acknowledge black artistry as anything more than vehicles for revenue and glorified dumb shows is a fool’s errand. Despite me punting on being emotionally invested in the Grammys, I still have to cover them. So I watch. And I’m tired of seeing the same damn thing every year. I’ve never been one to say that black artists should stop attending, giving free publicity to an organization that doesn’t truly value their art beyond the money it brings. But I think it’s time. Beyonce, Jay Z and Kendrick Lamar are black pioneers. They’ve transcended the role of “simply” musicians. They are black excellence personified in three distinct ways. And especially in the last few years, they’ve each challenged white establishments and presented unwaveringly black art that will last forever. They’re icons. And I’m sick of watching them stand in the front row and act with grace and humility while less-deserving white folks* celebrate. I hate seeing these stars have to grit their teeth, sit there and take it. I don’t know if they feel demoralized but I feel demoralized watching it. The Grammys have long lost any relevance in terms of actual music discussions among black folks anyway. We don’t sit around in hair salons or barber shops arguing about which albums are the best based on Grammys. In fact, the only time we talk about the awards are when we discuss how upset we are when black artists get snubbed. I get it, though. The Grammys have a history of prestige but with each insanely idiotic award decision, the show and its trophies loses credence. I mean, who can take an award show seriously when Lemonade can’t even win Album of the Year (and Anti can’t even get nominated). By choosing to want to erase black excellence, the Grammy award has lost its luster. It doesn’t even reflect actual “best” in any discernible way. And what happens even if Beyonce finally wins Album of the Year one day? It won’t mean those white folks who are deciding who gets awards give a damn about black folks or our art. And until that moment comes we just keep looking at legendary black people reduced to gracious bystanders. What’s the point? There’s value of forcing black art and revolutionary messages into white spaces who want to silence us, so I won’t disparage any artist who wants to continue performing. But at the same time, if a white space only cares about the monetary bottom line, which that black art provides, then I’m not sure how much it’s worth it to raise our fists in performances only to continue getting ignored by the end of the night. I’d rather see our work end up elsewhere. Because without black folks, the Grammys are just the Country Music Awards. And who gives a s*** about that show? It’s here that I should talk about the myth of black people don’t support our own award shows. Beyonce and Kendrick Lamar gave a tremendous performance at the 2016 BET Awards and the former didn’t attend last year because she just had twins. And the idea that the Viacom-owned BET Awards is an example of our awards show is a whole different problematic issue. Still, black folks show up for award shows that recognize blackness. We don’t need the Grammys. Really, if black folks stopped paying attention, then what would realistically happen? Well, the Grammys would lose relevance, viewers and the black fuel that keeps those broadcasts running. Meanwhile, we can continue to celebrate our own excellence without the annual reminder that they don’t care about us. Let the Grammys wallow in its own self-created irrelevance. That’s a fair tradeoff if there ever was one. *Bruno Mars is the exception. He absolutely deserved all the awards he got. But that doesn’t take away from the fact that the Grammys still branded its show on the backs of black folks and gave the awards to someone else. But yeah, nothing but love for Bruno. Continue reading →
I woke up ready to write about the reconciliation between formerly estranged friends Magic Johnson and Isiah Thomas. The video of their tearful hug popped up on social media and I thought it would be the thing that gave me the biggest emotional reaction of the day. Then news broke that Combat Jack died. Combat Jack, real name Reggie Osse, is an icon. His start as an attorney for early Jay-Z and Noreagaa gave way to writing about Hip-Hop and eventually launching a podcast network that put black voices at the forefront. Combat has always been and will always be known as one of those people who only cared about helping others and doing what he can to better people’s lives. The “take his shirt off of his back” cliche goes around when people pass, but it was absolutely true about Combat. The last time I saw Combat was A3C here in Atlanta. We’d known each other for years and kept in touch mostly through social media, bumping into one another on occasion. The conversation we had at A3C took me by surprise. He gave me a pep talk about my writing, my life and purpose. He spoke with his patented enthusiasm and intensity that’s only genuine. The talk boosted my confidence and sense of purpose. I went home and woke my wife up to tell her what Combat said to me. I’ve thought about that conversation a lot in the last couple of months and I understand why Combat spoke with so much passion: he cared so much about black people being as vocal as possible. He wanted our voices heard and dedicated his life to it. I’ve found myself reaching two months into the past trying to hold on to that moment again, wanting to relive it more vividly with each passing minute. So when our conversation ended, we dapped up and gave the generic phrase that doesn’t seem so generic anymore: “it’s all love.” Love. Combat is at the front of my mind but I still can’t help but think about Magic and Isiah. Because it’s all about the power of love. Magic Johnson and Isiah Thomas used to be best friends. They came up in the NBA together in the 80s, dreaming of greatness. They used to embrace before each game and celebrate one another even as competitors. They defied the silly masculine notions that opponents had to have nasty attitudes towards one another off the court. Then their relationship deteriorated in one of the nastiest ways imaginable. Miss any of @MagicJohnson and @iamisiahthomas ' emotional sit-down? Catch it again NEXT on NBA TV! #PlayersOnlyMonthly pic.twitter.com/nHSlhdbueq — NBA TV (@NBATV) December 20, 2017 Magic Johnson revealed in 2009 that he helped keep Thomas out of the 92’ Dream Team because he felt betrayed, accusing the Pistons point guard of spreading rumors about Johnson’s sexuality in the wake of his 1992 HIV revelation. Thomas denied those allegations, citing the fact he fought to allow Magic to still play after the diagnosis in the wake of players like Karl Malone protesting otherwise. And Thomas’ pre-game kiss on the cheek with Magic in the 1992 All-Star game was a pivotal cultural moment dispelling many of the myths about HIV at the time. Nobody knows the truth and after enough time passes, the truth doesn’t matter nearly as much as the pain that scabs up over it. Now, decades after their split, Johnson and Thomas have come face to face. The video that NBA TV released of the two crying as they get over their past issues has captivated social media for its raw emotion. For me, it’s a wakeup call. We live in an era where cutting people off is celebrated. And, oftentimes, cutting off toxic people in the short term is necessary and helpful. But it can also be addicting. The healthy balance between cutting people off and healing often tilts towards the easier option of just shutting someone out forever. Especially for men. Because eliminating someone who I feel has wronged me is easier than looking that person in the eye and telling him or her that I was hurt. It’s just easier to never speak again, burying memories and feelings away and fighting them when they dare to return. Magic Johnson and Isiah Thomas fought through that desire to hold on to their pride and anger. Instead, they chose love. Hearing Magic’s voice crack and seeing Isiah’s breakdown showed me how much they missed each other. They didn’t have to push those emotions to the surface again, but they chose to. Because love is a choice, and can be the hardest choice to make when given a bevy of different options. And that’s why I keep thinking about Magic, Isiah and Combat together today. Because they all chose love – especially now in a world where it’s so hard to make that choice. Magic and Isiah chose to fight through their pain to love each other again. And Combat Jack lived his life by loving on us every single day. He made love his life’s work by working for us and with us. God don’t make mistakes and the two reminders of unending love are shining brighter than the hate the world is piling on us. It’s the message Combat spread and it won’t die as long as the people he’s touched are around to spread it. Rest In Peace.
I’m Creole. Which means I’m a Black person from New Orleans who’s got so many things mixed around in my family history that it’s easy to confuse me as a White guy. There’s a substantial population in Louisiana that looks just like me. They have curly hair, light eyes and aren’t much darker than a White person who spent a week in Barbados. I have three half-sisters. One is my complexion. Two are darker. I have cousins who are fair-skinned. I have cousins who are brown. I have uncles and aunts who have been called White their whole lives. So my house would look like it’s full of a racially ambiguous group of people every Thanksgiving. For that reason, I had no concept of race growing up. I did’t even know race was a thing because I didn’t differentiate myself from anyone as a kid. When I walked outside I saw all shades of people who look like they could be in my family. Then I moved to Mississippi. My family moved to Mississippi when I was six years old and my parents enrolled me into a private, all-Black school with a strong focus on Black pride and education about our history. So naturally I was hit with the big question on my first day of school: are you Black or White? It was the first time I’d heard the question and I had no clue how to answer. I mean, I used yellow crayons when I drew myself. And as I contemplated my answer, I looked around and saw that all the kids were considerably darker than I was. I felt like, for the first time ever, I was seeing skin color. I still didn’t understand race yet, but I saw people that I didn’t think looked like me. So I answered: “I’m White, I guess.” So for a whole school day, I was a barely-literate, elementary-aged reverse Rachel Dolezal. Then recess came, and word had spread that there was a White kid on the playground. This was 1992 and White Men Can’t Jump was fresh on everyone’s minds. Naturally, when I hit the basketball court, a few of the kids decided to chant that damned movie title at me. To no end. I can still picture the kid behind the basketball goal yelling “White men can’t jump” at me while I went up for layups. I didn’t want to be White anymore. That night my dad caught me crying to myself at the grocery store. “They yelled ‘White Men Can’t Jump’ at me at school today!” I remember crying to him about it. (My dad still thinks this story is hilarious, by the way, and will bring this story up within two minutes of talking to anyone I know.) That night, my parents explained to me that I am in fact Black. They showed me Eyes On The Prize . I watched videos of my dad speaking at his friends’ funerals. I saw how White people saw me. A flood of memories I didn’t know I had came swarming to the front my mind. I remember crying that night to my dad that I thought the KKK would come and kill him. Over the course of a few hours, I realized my Blackness and what that meant about my life in America. Again, I was six. For a lot of Black people, we sort of know about our Blackness from birth and don’t get that moment of clarity about our ethnicity all at one time. For others, we have this jarring moment where we have to apply these definitions to our existences all at once. Of course, as I learn about what Blackness truly means, I understand what it means to love myself and the blessings that come from being Black. I can still pull up these memories of discovering my Blackness like it happened yesterday. And I can’t imagine what Shaun King is going through right now as he’s had to relive similar moments in tandem with embarrassing skeletons in his family’s closet. According to King, he found out he was Black at the same time he found out that his dad wasn’t his real father. And he’s had to relive this moment in front of every Twitter account and Facebook status’ watchful eye. His race and family history has become a public spectacle that’s been picked apart for the last 72 hours. He’s had to justify his Blackness and relive a moment of trauma because of a desire to discredit his contributions to #BlackLivesMatter. (And I’m not sure this is even something conservatives try to dig up if not for Rachel Dolezal. So shout out to her for that. Thanks.) Being Black is beautiful and I wouldn’t have it any other way. My Blackness is a gift and I love every moment of it. But that moment you feel the weight of your Blackness all at once brings its own level of trauma. That’s why when I read Their Eyes Were Watching God I think about the moment Janie realizes she’s Black and how it defined the rest of her life: So when we looked at depicture and everybody got pointed out there wasn’t nobody left except a real dark little girl with long hair standing by Eleanor. Dat’s where Ah wuz s’posed to be, but Ah couldn’t recognize dat dark child as me. So Ah ast, ‘where is me? Ah don’t see me.’ Everybody laughed, even Mr. Washburn. Miss Nellie, de Mama of de chillun who come back home after her husband dead, she pointed to de dark one and said, ‘Dat’s you, Alphabet, don’t you know yo’ ownself?’ Dey all useter call me Alphabet ‘cause so many people had done named me different names. Ah looked at de picture a long time and seen it was mah dress and mah hair so Ah said: ’Aw, aw! Ah’m colored!’” (2.3-8) I’ve always felt that Janie spent the rest of the book looking to reclaim the beauty she’d felt she lost the moment she realized she was Black. The trauma of finding out she was perceived as inferior led her to look for that vindication and acknowledgement of her beauty. Unfortunately, Blackness in America comes with trauma. But the beauty of Blackness is the ability to love ourselves despite how we’re trained to feel about our skin color. Shaun King found out about his Blackness in what had to have been one of the most trying moments of his life. And he’s embraced it to become one of the foremost voices to remind this country that we matter. Because he’s learned – like I’ve learned – that Blackness isn’t a burden. It’s not a curse. It’s not something to hide. It’s something to be proud of. And the defense of our Black lives is as important as any goal we’ll ever have in our lives.
Of all the images I have seen of Baltimore’s unrest, the one that strikes me most is of Geraldo Rivera, walking away from a protester saying, “Just talk to me.” Rivera was reporting there for Fox News, though he tries avoiding the young man, walking in a circle as if playing duck, duck goose . As the protester realized, Rivera had made up his mind about these demonstrators long before he arrived. Later, to Sen. Majority Leader Catherine Pugh, he called them “vandals.” Shutting down a conversation before it even begins – that is some of the most harmful behavior I have seen since demonstrations protesting Freddie Gray’s death changed to riots. I live in Atlanta, after having grown up in Frederick, Md., and interned in Baltimore for two years while attending University of Maryland, College Park. So before Rivera arrived in the city, I saw how some friends and acquaintances who lived nearby were acting just as willfully ignorant. “Remind me never to buy property in Baltimore,” an ex said, before I un-friended him on Facebook. It seems far less stressful and complicated to talk at people – like my ex trying to get a laugh – or ignore them as I was doing, than to talk with them. So to see community leaders actively call out major news outlets and their one-dimensional narratives – in Erin Burnett’s case, her insistence on calling protesters “thugs” – has been inspiring and felt important. After all, last week was the first time Baltimore had been covered by national media since The Wire, a show about the city’s plight, wrapped in 2007. When I was originally asked to write about Baltimore, I had a rough sketch of a story in mind. I wanted to talk about seeing the protests from Atlanta, then compare what I saw to one of my defining UMD experiences: a riot on Route 1 following a Maryland-Duke basketball game. The more I watched these protesters speak up, though, the more silly it seemed for me, of all people, to weigh in when I never lived in Baltimore, much less noticed the blue-light cameras in some neighborhoods – what used to be one of the city’s most visible crime-fighting tools. So I decided instead to talk to friends and family with more meaningful relationships to the city – like my friend Katherine, who lived and/or worked there for six straight years before moving to Brooklyn. She was the person who told me about the cameras. “It never gave me the feeling of being safe waiting for the city buses. It was just more like, this is a punishment because you’re not rich and white,” she said. My friend Aamir has lived in Station North for the past year and a half. He spent Monday night watching the news, seeing images of burning buildings but also interviews with kids, peeved that Baltimore built another dog park instead of a rec center. The next day he helped with a clean-up that didn’t appear on TV, though D’Angelo from The Wire showed up. “I always feel like a jerk in those situations because I have to really force myself to go these things – and people just do it,” he says. A friend’s friend, Sean, spent a few days roaming the city and posting to social media about what was happening. When he was in the Army a few years back, he worked as a military police, trained to do what the officers in Baltimore, wearing riot gear, were doing. “Learning how to operate in situations where there is civil unrest was part of my job,” he says. But he also recognized that by simply being among the thousands out and about, police could still see him as another potential cause for trouble. On Thursday, NPR publishes a four-minute story called “Baltimore Unrest Reveals Tensions Between African-Americans and Asians.” Unwittingly my cousin William had provided a response of sorts. On Tuesday night, his Korean godparents asked if he can help out with their store on Edmondson Avenue, because other stores were either closed or burned. They spent their nights there, to ward off other potential looters. “It’s a systemic socioeconomic issue rather than racial like in Ferguson, although all of those things are intertwined,” William writes by email. “Baltimore is a village with a plethora of villages in it. Each village, each hood stay within their boundaries, which is why if you drive in Baltimore, it’s different every five blocks or even block by block.” I understand that from a journalist’s perspective, what my friends told me would provide the basis for, but wouldn’t comprise an entire story. I would need to do a lot of fact-checking. Still, I was struck by how much more illuminating and complex their accounts and opinions were than the sheltered Wolf Blitzer’s – like when Katherine said this: “People who have been protesting, missing class and missing work to participate in these actions love their city too.” Just talk to people, even long after the noise dies down. This is the most useful thing I’ve done all week. I’ve learned more of Baltimore from their stories than from CNN. ===================================================================================================== Christina Lee is an Atlanta-based writer. Her reviews, essays and profiles have appeared in RollingStone.com, Billboard, MTV Networks and Gawker Media.
Of all the images I have seen of Baltimore’s unrest, the one that strikes me most is of Geraldo Rivera, walking away from a protester saying, “Just talk to me.” Rivera was reporting there for Fox News, though he tries avoiding the young man, walking in a circle as if playing duck, duck goose . As the protester realized, Rivera had made up his mind about these demonstrators long before he arrived. Later, to Sen. Majority Leader Catherine Pugh, he called them “vandals.” Shutting down a conversation before it even begins – that is some of the most harmful behavior I have seen since demonstrations protesting Freddie Gray’s death changed to riots. I live in Atlanta, after having grown up in Frederick, Md., and interned in Baltimore for two years while attending University of Maryland, College Park. So before Rivera arrived in the city, I saw how some friends and acquaintances who lived nearby were acting just as willfully ignorant. “Remind me never to buy property in Baltimore,” an ex said, before I un-friended him on Facebook. It seems far less stressful and complicated to talk at people – like my ex trying to get a laugh – or ignore them as I was doing, than to talk with them. So to see community leaders actively call out major news outlets and their one-dimensional narratives – in Erin Burnett’s case, her insistence on calling protesters “thugs” – has been inspiring and felt important. After all, last week was the first time Baltimore had been covered by national media since The Wire, a show about the city’s plight, wrapped in 2007. When I was originally asked to write about Baltimore, I had a rough sketch of a story in mind. I wanted to talk about seeing the protests from Atlanta, then compare what I saw to one of my defining UMD experiences: a riot on Route 1 following a Maryland-Duke basketball game. The more I watched these protesters speak up, though, the more silly it seemed for me, of all people, to weigh in when I never lived in Baltimore, much less noticed the blue-light cameras in some neighborhoods – what used to be one of the city’s most visible crime-fighting tools. So I decided instead to talk to friends and family with more meaningful relationships to the city – like my friend Katherine, who lived and/or worked there for six straight years before moving to Brooklyn. She was the person who told me about the cameras. “It never gave me the feeling of being safe waiting for the city buses. It was just more like, this is a punishment because you’re not rich and white,” she said. My friend Aamir has lived in Station North for the past year and a half. He spent Monday night watching the news, seeing images of burning buildings but also interviews with kids, peeved that Baltimore built another dog park instead of a rec center. The next day he helped with a clean-up that didn’t appear on TV, though D’Angelo from The Wire showed up. “I always feel like a jerk in those situations because I have to really force myself to go these things – and people just do it,” he says. A friend’s friend, Sean, spent a few days roaming the city and posting to social media about what was happening. When he was in the Army a few years back, he worked as a military police, trained to do what the officers in Baltimore, wearing riot gear, were doing. “Learning how to operate in situations where there is civil unrest was part of my job,” he says. But he also recognized that by simply being among the thousands out and about, police could still see him as another potential cause for trouble. On Thursday, NPR publishes a four-minute story called “Baltimore Unrest Reveals Tensions Between African-Americans and Asians.” Unwittingly my cousin William had provided a response of sorts. On Tuesday night, his Korean godparents asked if he can help out with their store on Edmondson Avenue, because other stores were either closed or burned. They spent their nights there, to ward off other potential looters. “It’s a systemic socioeconomic issue rather than racial like in Ferguson, although all of those things are intertwined,” William writes by email. “Baltimore is a village with a plethora of villages in it. Each village, each hood stay within their boundaries, which is why if you drive in Baltimore, it’s different every five blocks or even block by block.” I understand that from a journalist’s perspective, what my friends told me would provide the basis for, but wouldn’t comprise an entire story. I would need to do a lot of fact-checking. Still, I was struck by how much more illuminating and complex their accounts and opinions were than the sheltered Wolf Blitzer’s – like when Katherine said this: “People who have been protesting, missing class and missing work to participate in these actions love their city too.” Just talk to people, even long after the noise dies down. This is the most useful thing I’ve done all week. I’ve learned more of Baltimore from their stories than from CNN. ===================================================================================================== Christina Lee is an Atlanta-based writer. Her reviews, essays and profiles have appeared in RollingStone.com, Billboard, MTV Networks and Gawker Media.
Amanda Seyfried flashed her panties…it is the most interesting thing that she’s ever done in history of her paparazzi pics…because normally she’s unshowered, normally she’s dumpy looking, and normally we have to turn to her movies to see her naked, because she’s always down for that and has a great body for that, a body ruined by Justin Long’s penis, that must be massive, being rubbed all over her….because why else would people fall for him…I mean maybe he got apple stock for his “I’m a Mac Guy Shit”….that’s probably it…because everything else about him, and now Amanda Seyfried…scare me…except staring at pics of her panties being flashed…I’m cool with that… TO SEE THE REST OF THE PICS CLICK HERE The post Amanda Seyfried Panty Flash of the Day appeared first on DrunkenStepfather .
Niykee Heaton is some moderately talented, but not really, youtube star, who ended up getting a record deal from Timberlake a bunch of years ago for a cover she did of his song, trying to be like the other child molesting pervert popstar Usher, only going for a girl, because it’s like gay that way…. She has become a thirsty, very thirsty…this bitch has been in the dessert trying to get backstage at Coachella thirsty…riding coattails…hard…but posting slutty pics, as these girls do thanks to Facetune… Now my friends at Complex, who in case you don’t know, featured me in 2007, meaning they may miss the beat on choosing the right people, considering there are so many other fame whores willing to get naked for their editorials…but I guess this fame whore has a machine behind her, and more importantly, this fame whore looks pretty fucking good…. Here is a video… Please enable Javascript to watch this video TO SEE MORE CLICK HERE The post Niykee Heaton for Comples of the Day appeared first on DrunkenStepfather .
Niykee Heaton is some moderately talented, but not really, youtube star, who ended up getting a record deal from Timberlake a bunch of years ago for a cover she did of his song, trying to be like the other child molesting pervert popstar Usher, only going for a girl, because it’s like gay that way…. She has become a thirsty, very thirsty…this bitch has been in the dessert trying to get backstage at Coachella thirsty…riding coattails…hard…but posting slutty pics, as these girls do thanks to Facetune… Now my friends at Complex, who in case you don’t know, featured me in 2007, meaning they may miss the beat on choosing the right people, considering there are so many other fame whores willing to get naked for their editorials…but I guess this fame whore has a machine behind her, and more importantly, this fame whore looks pretty fucking good…. Here is a video… Please enable Javascript to watch this video TO SEE MORE CLICK HERE The post Niykee Heaton for Comples of the Day appeared first on DrunkenStepfather .
Her name is Sara Malakul – I like to think that I invented her – but in reality some white dude in Thailand who was trying to learn about “Thai Culture” by knocking up a Thai local did it first.. back in the 80s…. She is more than just a huge internet star with her 200,000 fans…but she’s also a model and actress who has done campaigns, actual movies, and Netflix movies…and I think she’s quite lovley… Here she is for Thai Playboy, where she’s not showing her vagina, because Thai Playboy has a now genital showing policy, since all the hot girls from Thailand actually have cocks….it’s a cultural thing…as is prostituting yourself out at 11 years old to pay for the rice for the family – thanks to nice rich British perverts on some Sex Toursim shit… All this to say, she’s one to look out for….the kind of girl that if you found out she was born a dude – you’d still want to marry her…and that’s a pretty powerful kind of girl to be…