, I investigated Italian-American screen icons and their half century-long Black American fandom through the fallacy of the American Dream, the spectrum of whiteness, and masculinity:
Someone recently wrote that a sign of gentrification is the lack of sound and I’m about to fall down another rabbit hole of the colonialist history of noise and volume from Black people.
There is a viral tweet going around that shows Judy Garland in blackface next to a still of her in "The Wizard of Oz" and it's like, what is this supposed to prove?
She was a drugged up, abused child actor who later became a civil rights advocate.
This info isn't hard to find.
Instead of making fun of Marie Kondo for having a less-than-tidy home now with three kids, you could see her vulnerability as another affirmation that life be life-ing sometimes and we don't stay the same in thoughts or rhythm.
If I say "go to CVS, girl," that means to go and get a pregnancy test. Since when do they do abortions at the convenience store?
And this is why I always say to stay outta women business because look at this foolishness right here.
Come on and look at it.
You women are disgusting and homicidal. Why are y’all so casual about murdering children? Like why is that the first thing you think of? twitter.com/MorganJerkins/…
One of my favorite things about Marilyn Monroe: her support and admiration for Ella Fitzgerald. Marilyn helped in getting Ella booked at bigger venues like the Mocambo in Los Angeles, and made sure she was being treated well.
Airbnb is collapsing and that's great news.
We back in hotels. Plush robes and slippers, baby.
No extra cleaning fees, baby.
We getting homes, baby.
Time to heal!!!
- Everyone should be housed.
- Landlords who turn closets into bedrooms should be heavily fined.
- Rental units <650 sq ft should not be worth more than a certain amount in rent
- Every unit should have A/C and heat. If not, rent should be significantly reduced.
Growing up, we used to joke that Black people could make a beat out of anything: cookware, a lunch table, our hands and knees
Was that ingenuity born out of the oppression from the Black codes of America and the slave codes in the Caribbean?
Oh it was the Stono Rebellion of 1739 that did it. Rebels used drums to communicate.
Drums are a powerful instrument in the diaspora.
They not only can signal a rebellion but they can also catalyze the Holy Ghost and call the ancestors or spirits forward into a space.
This forced outrage also reminds me of when someone made a mention of Jane Fonda being a white woman as if she wasn't a civil rights activist whose work with the Black Panthers alone is well documented.
Again, this literature isn't hard to find.
If you are a thirteen year old on barbiturates, who is being taken advantage of by almost everyone who is supposed to protect you, what then? How do you think that affects decision making?
Have some compassion.
So much of the discourse about EEAAO being reductive because it focuses on the importance of being kind and good in the spite of it all reminds me of when I went to a Black alumni conference at Princeton back in 2015 and Toni Morrison was there… 🧵
There is a reason why SZA has a song called "Drew Barrymore" and Drew appears in the video.
There is something about this woman's resilience that spans across generations. She is "out there", a member of an elite acting dynasty, yet so accessible.
Love her.
It’s not reductive or low brow to love a good message. It doesn’t make one smarter to be drawn to pain and misery.
And if goodness makes one childish, hey, maybe connecting with our inner child selves should happen. At least as kids we were more curious and less rigid.
Let’s be clear. Anyone who was raised in the 70s and early mid 80s are tougher than any of us will ever be.
Why? Because they survived The Neverending Story.
And I, for one, applaud you.
She was being interviewed on stage and she said that evil doesn’t interest her as much as goodness. Goodness is what has made her think more deeply and critically because evil can be done quite easily.
Ursula Le Guin echoes this too. Evil can be banal. What is wrong with good?
After watching "The Woman King" (and loving it), the internet campaign intended to derail its success because of the Dahomey Kingdom's involvement in slavery looks even more ridiculous, and, might I add, dangerous.
I’ve been thinking about that Morrison talk for years esp now with people insulting others for being moved by EEAAO.
People want goodness. They want to believe and hope. That should inspire and shake up our intellectual sensibilities even if we didn’t like it ourselves.
No matter what station I am in life or how much money I plan to make, I will never be too good for Cheesecake Factory.
Pass me the Bible menu and the brown bread.
Prince Harry, his wife Meghan and her mother were involved in a "near catastrophic" car chase after being followed by paparazzi, according to his spokesperson.
https://news.sky.com/story/prince-harry-and-meghan-involved-in-near-catastrophic-car-chase-12882989…
Another thing I loved about Marilyn Monroe: she had a personal library of over 400 books.
Notable works:
"An Anthology of American Negro Literature"
"Invisible Man"
Khalil Gibran
Dostoevsky
Plays by Molière
Tina Turner, showing off her estate in southern France to Mike Wallace.
MIKE WALLACE: You feel like you deserve all this?
TINA TURNER: I deserve more.
#RIP
I don't know how to explain this--and I hope I'm not alone--but these stories about gun-related murders are making me more and more afraid to leave my home.
It's not paralyzing but I feel it in my chest every time I put on my jacket.
Also would like to add that other Black performers, like Dorothy Dandridge, performed at the Mocambo.
But owners thought Ella being both Black and not skinny would diminish the glamour of the venue.
Marilyn put a stop to that.
One of my favorite things about Marilyn Monroe: her support and admiration for Ella Fitzgerald. Marilyn helped in getting Ella booked at bigger venues like the Mocambo in Los Angeles, and made sure she was being treated well.
Colin Farrell: "Ireland is a fairly friendly country."
Jamie Lee Curtis: "No, no, no. Ireland is an *incredibly* friendly country."
Watch the full #ActorsOnActors conversation: https://wp.me/pc8uak-1lBPlT
Some professional news: I'm starting my own newsletter called Lorain, in honor of Toni Morrison's birthplace.
I will go more into the details of what this new space will offer in this thread but first, here are the reasons why I'm going down this new path 🧵 :
If you live in New York, you need to go to Marcus Garvey Park in Harlem to see an Afro futurist reinterpretation of “Twelfth Night.”
It is so good. So, so good.
AND! It’s free!!
Free.
Don’t wait.
Unprecedented scenes in Iran: woman sits on top of utility box and cuts her hair in main square in Kerman to protest death of Mahsa Amini after her arrest by the morality police. People clap their hands and chant “Death to the dictator.”
#مهسا_امینی
Stop staying together for the kids. They know you're miserable. They're probably miserable watching you be miserable. Stop the misery and start the papers.
Boycotting the south is not the way and will never be the way.
How can you expect to help when you're neglecting the people who will be most impacted by these draconian policies?
During the Haitian Revolution, the plantation fires were so large and widespread that a person could go out on their balcony in the middle of the night, open the paper, and be able to read it.
Basically everyone has a “John Lennon beat his wife” style fact that they cant stop themselves from sharing if anything even tangentially related comes up in conversation
You want complex stories of the diaspora yet salivate to destroy all endeavors to do that. History is complicated, and learning history will make you uncomfortable at times.
No one is here to infantilize you with sanitized portraits of people. They are artists. Not your mother.
There's something about women celebrities, from Jennifer Coolidge to Leslie Jones, those in their 50s and 60s, telling us it ain't over till we're dead that's extremely helpful.
I don't know if it's a culture shift but it's a shift for me. Personally.
Let me tell you something, if you a billionaire with an alleged side baby, you gotta pay me more than $30,000 to shut up.
I better have a permanent residence in the Carlyle, all my future kids' colleges paid off, and three Afghan hounds before you even walk out that door.
Tory Lanez's family and friends are banding together to help him avoid prison time ... and they're going after the jury, the music industry, Jay-Z and even suggesting Tory is a sacrificial lamb to do a solid for African American women. https://tmz.com/2022/12/26/tory-lanez-petition-change-org-megan-thee-stallion-guilty-appeal/?adid=social-twa…
How often are Black writers asked to profile non-Black public figures?
I can count on one hand how many times I've been asked and still have a few fingers left over.
I don't get what the end goal is. You want diversity yet turn up your nose at the contours of what REAL diverse stories entail.
You already know how hard it is to get a Black female-centered film made.
The motives are simply nasty, and I'm not going to be convinced otherwise.
It blows my mind when people in the comments and QTs get mad at protestors for being disruptive.
What do you think a protest is, saying "please" and "thank you" while handing out dandelions? https://twitter.com/RebsBrannon/status/1654973123916095488…
I won’t say “Happy Juneteenth” because it feels weird.
So I’ll say, I thank the ancestors for all that they were, and I thank all of you descendants to be here in this moment in time despite efforts to annihilate us.
Thank you for you. Thank them for all of us. 🕯🧿
It’s almost like Black people have been trying to warn people of this for years and we were deemed as not understanding their “cool” and “subversiveness”
Because those same men expected Ciara to be heartbroken, dejected, and single after what happened with Future.
So to see another man, who’s richer, attractive, and more decent, love her well, it jams them up.
So in short: They hate him for loving a Black woman.
I’m in Atlanta right now celebrating one of my best friends for her bachelorette party weekend.
I’m her maid of honor, which is really an honor.
I’ve had a great deal of mimosa but I feel very pretty and happy.
, I decided to write something about the great Tina Turner, and how her life should be honored in all of its capacities, not through the prism of abuse, suffering, and men's presences:
Shane Hawkins, the 16 year old son of the late Taylor Hawkins playing the drums during “My Hero” with the Foo Fighters during the tribute show to his dad, has me
Shaquille O'Neal sells his Auntie Anne’s pretzel franchises, says “Black people don’t like pretzels that much”
https://bet.com/article/pixue4/shaquille-oneal-sells-his-auntie-annes-pretzel-franchises-black-people-dont-like-pretzels-that-much…
I am feeling jealous of all the male writers of past and present who got wives to handle everything while they worked on big projects.
Because I am knee deep in work, I would love a hearty stew or chicken paillard, and who's gonna cook it? 'Cause it ain't me.
I’ve been writing professionally for almost a decade but the love I received for my Vanity Fair article sure was something.
I’ve been on a natural high since it dropped.
Thank you 💕
Researching ethnic groups' migratory patterns is my jam. But when speaking to scholars about how and when Italian immigrants and African-Americans intersected with the labor force, particularly in the south, it blew my mind:
Tonight I told an older Black woman that it’s good to see her and she replied, “Good to be seen.”
I never heard that response.
I love it.
I’m gonna use it.