Woo, somehow I let a week go bye, and didn't get around to posting anything. A lot has been in motion for me. A lot has been discussed last week. We had a blizzard hit the East, we had Stacey Dash speak outside of her race's party line, we Aunt Viv clap back on Will and Jada. So much fun last week. Of course my pictures mainly reflect my experiences but I'll surely add some commentary.
Embarrassing city crippling snow. (Tuesday night)
So last week, the St. Louis area got a minor dusting of snow. Its had to write about and take serious after seeing the deluge of snow on the East. But it happened, I took some pictures because well snow is pretty when you only get 2 inches of it. Of course this 2 inches caused school closures and a whole scene here. Quite embarrassing to me, but I also understand it since people here lose their ability to drive aggressively defensive.
While this snow is coming down, we get blessed with a video from JanetHubert aka Aunt Viv version 1.0. (people who had tv in the 90s know who I am talking about). Janet, made some very good points and it got a meta-discussion going. Will and Jada might not be the people who necessarily have a case about being slighted by the academy, They very well could of boycotted this over others being snubbed, but please there hasn't been a Will Smith movie where I felt was Oscar worthy for him as an actor or the movie itself. Furthermore, Janet makes great points in calling out the real travesties that have occurred where the Smith family has been silent, not to mention the fact that Will hadn't shown solidarity with his fellow black actors in their time of need.
The real argument though is the academy awards. As I understand this, there has not been fair representation of black actors and actresses being nominated for this prestigious award, nor have films that have deemed Oscar worthy been nominated. My personal opinion is that while there have been some notable performances that have been snubbed (Selma comes to mind). The anger is misdirected. Looking at past Academy award winning movies, and the actors/actresses that have won, it appears there is a certain feel to these movies, and as such you never see black actors and actresses in these movies. Never might be a bit strong. But its rare. Take the 1999 movie American Beauty, I loved that movie , but its a very unique piece of art. I can't think of many movies that fit that mold with a leading black actor/actress and that's disappointing. This isn't an indictment on black actors and actresses, but more so on the industry. I don't know if works like American Beauty are offered to those of color. But clearly these are the "types" of movies that win. I use American Beauty as an example as any race could of been featured in that movie and the same story could of been told. Two recent Black men who've won were Jamie Foxx and Denzel. Collectively those two roles were amazing. For the very reason that it didn't look like Jamie acting like Ray Charles or Denzel acting like a crooked cop. You believed the role and no longer saw Jamie or Denzel, but rather their characters. Will Smith has never achieved that, as far as I'm concerned its always Will Smith acting like _____insertCharacterHere____. Which is not Oscar worthy. Let me take that back, there is one movie that was believable that Will performed in, and could of won an academy award for: The Pursuit of Happiness. That was good work and as such Will was nominated for best actor. He was bested by fellow black actor Forest Whitaker.
With all that said, there should be hanger. Selma deserved to be nominated and most certainly, David Oyelowo deserved a nomination for his role as Martin Luther King.
All of this lead to ">Stacey Dash's comment on the matter. She stated that the real issue is that there aren't enough opportunities (as I stated above as well), and that with BET awards and image awards there is a promotion of segregation, and perhaps if we want equality those should be gone. There is some truth to the statement. Since there are these awards designed by the black community for "urban" artists, why the furor over the academy awards in themselves. Most noted is that John Singletary also espoused statements that supported was counter to the popular opinion of black people, yet he's left alone.
Its rather immature to see the responses of people who disagree with Stacey. Name-calling (cooning, need to trade in her race card) its uncalled for. She stated an opinion. Big deal. And what's crazy is her initial sentence is ignored. There aren't roles for black people in academy winning movies. That is the crime. But no one ever wants to do root cause analysis on the job or in real life. Its annoying that we have this culture of, well you don't agree with me therefore you are stupid. Not that you made a stupid comment that shows lack of intelligence. You're considered stupid for not agreeing with the Party (race) lines.
These extracurricular things dominated my time in terms of facebook debate and conversations. its all silly. I have yet another topic for another day. I'd like to know how backwards St. Louis area public schools are in terms of teaching black history. I don't know if I was well educated on my own or if my Honors & AP History classes in my Indiana high school did an above average job of teaching all of history. It sure seems that way as a high percentage of my fellow black people I meet in the Saint Louis area paint a picture that details a school life where the only time they learned black history was during black history month. Disturbing if you ask me.
Now for the REST pictures for the week.
Do screenshots count in my quest for a picture a day. I think so.
Deep freeze Thursday.