I googled "black movies for 2011" and I found the following link, click here. I don't know about you, but after watching the Academy Awards last night (actually since hearing the list of nominees last january) you would think that no one of color did any thing worthy of Oscar contention this past year. I think Kimberly Elise did an extraordinary job in For Colored Girls. So did Michael Ealy. That they weren't even acknowledged should be a crime. Even Whoopi Goldberg's acting was excellent, as was Tessa Thompson. The movie itself? No comment. How about Kerry Washington and Anthony Mackie in Night Catches Us?
Note: I only watched the Academy Awards because I knew Halle Berry was going to do a tribute to the late Lena Horne. Immediately after the tribute I changed the channel.
I know that personally, I try to go above and beyond to make sure I am recognized. At every annual performance review, my boss always informs me that I exceeded the goals set for me.
Years ago for a company that for which I worked, was sold to Humana, and we had to reapply for our jobs. There were 18 underwriters applying for 10 underwriting positions. I was the only person of color, and I had the least years of service at the time. During the interview preparation, they told us we didn't have to wear formal clothes to the interview, and we didn't even have to submit a resume. They gave us a form to complete, but knowing what needed to be done to not be overlooked, I wore my conservative suit, tie, white shirt and dress shoes, and I submitted a resume and list of references. There were at least 9 underwriters who worked for the company much longer than I, but I was able to keep my job and and alot of them were let go. My boss told me afterwards than when I went to the interview wearing my suit and having my resume, they knew I meant business and that I wasn't about to be passed by. She said she knew I was going to keep my job.
In my current job I collect every email where someone in Sales has complimented me for doing something quickly and helping them when they were in a time crunch, or when my boss thanked me recently for going above and beyond and never having complained once. I keep them in a file, to be presented at my next performance review because I want to be acknowledged.
What can be done to make sure that movies made for us ( the few high quality movies) don't get overlooked? And what can be done to make sure more of these movies are made?
28 February 2011
27 February 2011
Note to self
Don't tell God how big your storms are, tell your storms how big your God is
Don't tell God how big your storms are, tell your storms how big your God is
Don't tell God how big your storms are, tell your storms how big your God is
Don't tell God how big your storms are, tell your storms how big your God is
Don't tell God how big your storms are, tell your storms how big your God is
Don't tell God how big your storms are, tell your storms how big your God is
Don't tell God how big your storms are, tell your storms how big your God is
Don't tell God how big your storms are, tell your storms how big your God is
Don't tell God how big your storms are, tell your storms how big your God is
Don't tell God how big your storms are, tell your storms how big your God is
Don't tell God how big your storms are, tell your storms how big your God is
Don't tell God how big your storms are, tell your storms how big your God is
Don't tell God how big your storms are, tell your storms how big your God is
Don't tell God how big your storms are, tell your storms how big your God is
Don't tell God how big your storms are, tell your storms how big your God is
Don't tell God how big your storms are, tell your storms how big your God is
-- My friend Sanda Abiori has this as her email signature. I see it and it gives me peace of mind, reminding myself that God is bigger than all my problems combined.
Don't tell God how big your storms are, tell your storms how big your God is
Don't tell God how big your storms are, tell your storms how big your God is
Don't tell God how big your storms are, tell your storms how big your God is
Don't tell God how big your storms are, tell your storms how big your God is
Don't tell God how big your storms are, tell your storms how big your God is
Don't tell God how big your storms are, tell your storms how big your God is
Don't tell God how big your storms are, tell your storms how big your God is
Don't tell God how big your storms are, tell your storms how big your God is
Don't tell God how big your storms are, tell your storms how big your God is
Don't tell God how big your storms are, tell your storms how big your God is
Don't tell God how big your storms are, tell your storms how big your God is
Don't tell God how big your storms are, tell your storms how big your God is
Don't tell God how big your storms are, tell your storms how big your God is
Don't tell God how big your storms are, tell your storms how big your God is
Don't tell God how big your storms are, tell your storms how big your God is
-- My friend Sanda Abiori has this as her email signature. I see it and it gives me peace of mind, reminding myself that God is bigger than all my problems combined.
26 February 2011
Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.--Frederick Douglas | |||
25 February 2011
24 February 2011
The beautiful flaws we have
23 February 2011
21 February 2011
& Again
"This year, mend a quarrel. Seek out a forgotten friend. Dismiss suspicion and replace it with trust. Write a letter. Give a soft answer. Encourage youth. Manifest your loyalty in word and deed. Keep a promise. Forgo a grudge. Forgive an enemy. Apologize. Try to understand. Examine your demands on others. Think first of someone else. Be kind. Be gentle. Laugh a little more. Express your gratitude. Welcome a stranger. Gladden the heart of a child. Take pleasure in the beauty and wonder of the earth. Speak your love and then speak it again."
— Howard W. Hunter
— Howard W. Hunter
20 February 2011
19 February 2011
Maintenance
Sometimes jealousy and hate can tear down walls and relationships or prevent them from being built. Sometimes all it needs is one little opening-like our own insecurities or self-doubt in some cases.
--Alexgeorge
we must always be rebuilding the temple. -t.s. eliot
 |
| Ctesiphon, Iraq |
Sometimes jealousy and hate can tear down walls and relationships or prevent them from being built. Sometimes all it needs is one little opening-like our own insecurities or self-doubt in some cases.
--Alexgeorge
we must always be rebuilding the temple. -t.s. eliot
18 February 2011
17 February 2011
Everyday's a fight
Nothing worth having, comes without some kind of fight.
--Bruce Cockburn
When I was a kid, I had a friend whose father owned a boxing gym. The gym was our playground after school, and he taught us how to box. I had become really good at boxing, but when his father passed away and his family converted to Islam, my mother forbid me from communicating with him.
Anyway (back on track), I became an expert in fighting bare-fisted, but since then I've only done it mentally-actually I've only had to fight twice, and that was to protect my sister when we were in junior high school and guys were trying to bully her.
I'm tired of having to fight. I want to sit back and chill and enjoy life and enjoy the rewards of all my hard work, and I do work very hard.
One day...
16 February 2011
14 February 2011
Happy (possible) Birthday, Frederick Douglas
Question-- why did his mother, Harriet Bailey, give him February 14 as his date of birth? Everywere I look, it says it's not his real birthdate but his mother gave it to him as that date.
(from a payphone in Perth)
You call every other week, and I don’t answer.
I listen to your voice hearing you say the things I like to hear, but it’s too late to do anything about it, and that’s why I just listen, remembering the way your hand fit in mine, knowing your nuances and your body movements-and I don’t answer-
This morning you called and said "if my father hadn't died we'd still be together."
I almost called you back. But I didn't.
(you said your crazy soon to be ex-husband might have my phone tapped)
You keep calling, and I don't answer. One day you'll get the hint.
Je me demande où elle est?
He who finds a wife finds a good thing, And obtains favor from the LORD. Proverbs 18:22
...and the best new artist is...
After she won, Bieber fans went on an Internet rampage, attacking her Wikipedia page, adding insults, taunts and pro-Bieber messages after the page listed her as "Best New Artist" winner. By this morning, the page had been scrubbed clean of insults.
"I certainly did not expect to even be considered for that type of nomination," Spalding told Entertainment Weekly. "Me being a little old jazz musician and everything."
But who is she?
The Portland, Oregon-born multilingual singer and upright bass player released her first record, Junjo, in 2006. She followed it up with Esperanza, in 2008, and made major waves in the jazz world. She appeared on the Late Show with David Letterman and Jimmy Kimmel Live, and President Obama invited her to perform at the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize Concert. In 2010, she released Chamber Music Society, which garnered her the "Best New Artist" nomination.
I have to admit to not having heard of her until Prince chose her to be part of BET's tribute to him. On her upright bass she did her rendition of " If I Was Your Girlfriend," her version of which has been in heavy rotation for me for a while. Ater researching her music on youtube and her history on wikipedia, I bought all of her music. I love every cd.
Besides, being that I'm a huge Prince fan, any artist he likes, I tend to like as well.
Here's a listen
There's a crack in the pavement
Amore, vous ont un mauvais cas d'être là-bas. Le seul
traitement est ici.
11 February 2011
10 February 2011
09 February 2011
when words are unnecessary
sometimes the silence between two people say more than words could ever say.
alexgeorge
alexgeorge
08 February 2011
The one thing
I spent a long time agonizing over my one thing, only to discover I've always known what it is. Actually what they are. Second is writing. Before my speech pathologist introduced me to the poetry of Langston Hughes, e.e. cummings, and Gwendolyn Brooks, I had another love, realizing it was such, when I was 6. My grandfather loved to cook. Even after he retired, he cooked at a homeless shelter every day, for free, up until the day he died.. Cooking, to him was as normal as sleeping or breathing. He even passed away while cooking, doing something that brought him happiness.
Growing up, my mother and her sisters never learned to cook, and my earliest memory is of me sitting on a barstool in the kitchen, watching my grandfather cleaning a bucket of chittlin's and frying catfish, and watching his girlfriend bake cakes and pies. My first love was/is cooking. When I was 12, he decided I had the knowledge and skills to make the entire Thanksgiving dinner while he sat on a chair and coached me. It was an intimidating experience, but I pulled it off. He did help me, only minimally. I made turkey and dressing, chittlin's, potato salad, fried chicken, candied yams, collard greens, corn bread, spaghetti, coleslaw, a coconut cake and a couple sweet potato pies- our usual Holiday meal. And I remember watching my mom and sister and uncles and aunts and cousins devour the food. I experience that feeling everytime I cook or bake something for dates, friends or family.
How about you? What is your one thing? Are you doing it and if not, why not?
07 February 2011
The Lombardi Trophy comes home!
Congrats to the Green Bay Packers, my home team, on their SuperBowl Win!
 |
| Aaron Rodgers |
06 February 2011
04 February 2011
03 February 2011
Casey
I’m collecting all the lies told to me about me to protect me and I’m looking for the truth in each of those lies in order to discover who I really am. I’m making a new self from all the love of which I was deprived and from the bits and pieces of the love I did receive.
02 February 2011
LOL
A woman had 50 yard line tickets for the Super Bowl. As she sat down, a man came along and asked her if anyone is sitting in the seat next to her.
"No," she said, "the seat is empty."
"This is incredible," said the man. "Who in their right mind would have a seat like this for the Super Bowl, the biggest sporting event in the world, and not use it?"
Somberly, the woman says, "Well... the seat actually belongs to me. I was supposed to come here with my husband, but he passed away. This is the first Super Bowl we have not been to together since we got married in 1967."
"Oh I'm sorry to hear that, that's terrible. But couldn't you find someone else - a friend or relative or even a neighbor to take the seat?" The woman shakes her head, "No, they're all at the funeral."
Sent to my email today by a coworker
"No," she said, "the seat is empty."
"This is incredible," said the man. "Who in their right mind would have a seat like this for the Super Bowl, the biggest sporting event in the world, and not use it?"
Somberly, the woman says, "Well... the seat actually belongs to me. I was supposed to come here with my husband, but he passed away. This is the first Super Bowl we have not been to together since we got married in 1967."
"Oh I'm sorry to hear that, that's terrible. But couldn't you find someone else - a friend or relative or even a neighbor to take the seat?" The woman shakes her head, "No, they're all at the funeral."
Sent to my email today by a coworker
As I grow older
I have almost forgotten my dream.
But it was there then,
In front of me,
Bright like a sun--
My dream.
And then the wall rose,
Rose slowly,
Slowly,
Between me and my dream.
Rose until it touched the sky--
The wall.
Shadow.
I am black.
I lie down in the shadow.
No longer the light of my dream before me,
Above me.
Only the thick wall.
Only the shadow.
My hands!
My dark hands!
Break through the wall!
Find my dream!
Help me to shatter this darkness,
To smash this night,
To break this shadow
Into a thousand lights of sun,
Into a thousand whirling dreams
Of sun!
--Langston Hughes
Happy Black History Month
01 February 2011
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