an essay by science-fiction author Octavia E. Butleroriginally published in Essence magazine in 2000
“SO DO YOU REALLY believe that in the future we’re going to have the kind of trouble you write about in your books?” a student asked me as I was signing books after a talk. The young man was referring to the troubles I’d described in Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents, novels that take place in a near future of increasing drug addiction and illiteracy, marked by the popularity of prisons and the unpopularity of public schools, the vast and growing gap between the rich and everyone else, and the whole nasty family of problems brought on by global warming.
“I didn’t make up the problems,” I pointed out. ‘All I did was look around at the problems we’re neglecting now and give them about 30 years to grow into full-fledged disasters.’
“Okay,” the young man challenged. “So what’s the answer?”
“There isn’t one,” I told him.
“No answer? You mean we’re just doomed?” He smiled as though he thought this might be a joke.
“No,” I said. “I mean there’s no single answer that will solve all of our future problems. There’s no magic bullet. Instead there are thousands of answers–at least. You can be one of them if you choose to be.” [Read more]
Mar 2, 2007
originally posted @ cracked.com - written by Ethan Ryan and Jack O’Brien
We’d like to point out that we’re aware of the fact that some of the cartoons listed below did not originate in the ’80s. However, they were on during the ’80s, that’s when we watched them, so they’re ’80s cartoons to us. It’s like when we refer to bedwetting as “late ’90s behavior.” Without further ado…
CARTOON: The Smurfs
LESSON: Communism works!
For naysayers who point to the Former Soviet Union as proof that communism is inherently flawed, may we merely direct your attention to Smurf Village, where everyone shares everything, wears similar utilitarian clothing, battles Gargamel and his turn-Smurfs-to-gold get rich quick schemes and obeys the dictates of a bearded, red hat-wearing, benevolent authority figure. Quoth Comrade Papa: “From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.†Really, he actually said that.
How it affected us as adults: Secret communist agendas ceased being dangerous, or really any adjective of consequence, years ago. The worst thing communism does these days is make Ivy League students waste a couple of years wearing ugly clothes and attending boring meetings. However, the sexual politics of Smurf Village, with its one female for every 30 guys, did go a long way towards preparing us for freshman year of college.
[Read more]
Sep 23, 2006
Who’s Your Hero? … The VIBE Mag Rebuttal.
by Chuck D
…. When I was first asked to do an interview answering to VIBE’s concern about reality shows and the mismanagement of female images in media, I straight out flatly refused. I’m neither arrogant, elitist, nor bitter, its just that the problems with the topic are beyond articles, sound bites, and special one off tele, broad, or even webcasts. It’s worthy of dissertation, educational curriculum, and books of new social science containing cultural analysis yet to be published and exposed. Quite frankly I had my reservations until Danyel Smith took over the magazine (one which to me has had the tendency of coming off like a cultural coloring book). I wish the mag and VIXEN a testosterone-less good look and luck. And it’s the main reason agreeing to the issue here at hand.
[Read more]
Aug 5, 2006
Mike Believe of exittheapple re-visions Fat Albert footage as a video for Biggie’s “Things Done Changed.” In its time, Bill Cosby’s “Fat Albert & the Cosby Kids” addressed a lot of often serious issues faced by inner city youth. In Biggie’s time, it could be argued he did much the same, although perhaps with a different perspective. The goal of this piece was to find common ground between the two icons from different eras. click here to view … (more)
Jul 18, 2006
excerpted from No Money Down, a collection of Cobb’s essays forthcoming from Thunder’s Mouth Press in April 07. You can read more of his work at www.jelanicobb.com
————————————
.
We could have known that it would come to this way back in 1896. That was the year that Paul Lawrence Dunbar dropped a jewel for the ages, telling the world that “we wear the mask that grins and lies.†The poet’s point was that beneath the camouflage of subservient smiles, black folks of the Jim Crow era were hiding a powder keg of other emotions, waiting patiently for the chance to detonate. The thing is, Dunbar never got the chance to spit bars with 50 Cent or throw in a guest collabo on a Mobb Deep album. If he had, then he would’ve known that grins and lies were only half the story.
These days, camouflage is the new black. Glance at hip hop for less than a second and it becomes clear that the music operates on a single hope: that if the world mistakes kindness for weakness it can also be led to confuse meanness with strength. That principle explains why there is a permanent reverence for the thug within the music; it is why there is a murderer’s grit and a jailhouse tat peering back at you from the cover of damn near any CD you picked up in the last five years. But what hip hop can’t tell you, the secret that it would just as soon take to its deathbed is that it this urban bravado is a guise, a mask, a head-fake to shake the reality of fear and powerlessness in America. Hip hop will never admit that our assorted thugs and gangstas are not the unbowed symbol of resistance to marginalization, but the most complacent and passive products of it.
We wear the mask that scowls and lies.
[Read more]
May 6, 2006
here is a NY Times article about the matter.
———————————
An accelerating exodus of American-born blacks, coupled with slight declines in birthrates and a slowing influx of Caribbean and African immigrants, have produced a decline in New York City’s black population for the first time since the draft riots during the Civil War, according to preliminary census estimates.
press ‘more’ to read the rest here. or see the original piece @ the nytimes.com [Read more]
Mar 9, 2006
this clipping is from a cleveland newspaper and reposted courtesy trula mama. it’s a few years old and contains some inspiring comments from Gordon Parks, widely accomplished photojournalist, writer, and filmmaker.
all we can think, when elders pass over with the frequency that we’ve seen of late, is of that quote from frantz fanon: “each generation must, out of relative obscurity, define its mission, fulfill it, or betray it.”
They made me cut the cord. Let me be clear they didn’t “make me” but when a room full of women who are medical professionals hold surgical scissors in your direction and say “who wants to cut the cord” then they all look at you, you can’t NOT do that. I know its sounds weird to some people but I didn’t want to cut the chord. I’m glad I did but I really like to leave the professional work to the professionals, even the easy stuff.
