To quote rapper Craig G, from “The Symphony,” mm mm mm, ain’t that somethin’: Maj. Shawna Rochelle Kimbrell is the first African-American female fighter pilot ever in the United States Air Force. (Thanks to Black Spin for the tip.)
Entries Tagged 'Race' ↓
Every Day, She Breaks So Much More Than the Sound Barrier…
April 14th, 2008 — Aviation, Government, Military, Race, Technology, Work
Tight Tees!: Kwame & Christine Bring Something Sexy for Spring!
April 14th, 2008 — Controversy, Fashion, Government, Internet, Politics, Race, Sex
Thanks to Afro-American Pie for tipping me to the spring’s hottest tee (detail, above): A stylish little number, set off with mugshots of indicted Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and his former chief of staff / paramour Christine Beatty, and tastefully finished with patter from the duo’s estimated 14,000 X-rated e-mail text messages. Sassy!
Sex and the Single Slain Civil Rights Leader Survivor
April 7th, 2008 — Children, Controversy, Obituary, Race, Sex
Why, for the most part, have the ten children of both Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. never married?
Love Lives Forever…
April 4th, 2008 — History, Obituary, Race
Bravo, Gawker. Bravo, Observer.
April 2nd, 2008 — Advertising, Blogs, Controversy, Entertainment, Fashion, Magazines, Media, Race, Sports
The sole issue more amazing than the blatancy of VOGUE’s having mined crude racist imagery for their April 2008 LeBron James/Giselle Bündchen cover has been the whiteout of surrounding media on the issue.
Here, in New York, neither The New York Times, The New York Post, The New York Daily News, The New York Sun, or The Village Voice have cracked a word on this subject, online or off. Newsday wrote something, before the direct pairing of the cover and H.R. Hopps’s 1917 Destroy This Mad Brute—Enlist poster, right, was widely known. As for television, local and network, zero.
Dag…Guess I Better Throw Out My Copy of The Cress Theory
April 2nd, 2008 — Children, Media, Race
Former NYPD Blue star Garcelle Beauvais recently gave birth to healthy twin boys. She proudly appears with them on the cover of 57-year-old Black weekly, Jet, above.
According to Racialicious, however, the unusually light skin color of the Haitian-American actor’s offspring (her husband is white) seems to be annoying some people, to the site’s chagrin.
Monkey See, Monkey Doo-Doo: How VOGUE “Honoured” LeBron James by Smearing Black People with White Supremacy & Gorilla Feces
March 31st, 2008 — Blogs, Controversy, Culture, Design, Fashion, Film, Journalism, Magazines, Media, Pop Culture, Race, Sports
Everything but the helmet: LeBron James meets his doppelganger
“Vogue spokesman Patrick O’Connell said the magazine ‘sought to celebrate two superstars at the top of their game’ for the magazine’s annual issue devoted to size and shape.
“‘We think Lebron James and Gisele Bundchen look beautiful together and we are honoured to have them on the cover,’ he said.”
“But magazine analyst Samir Husni believes the photo was deliberately provocative, adding that it ‘screams King Kong.” Considering Vogue’s influential history, he said, covers are not something that the magazine does in a rush.
“‘So when you have a cover that reminds people of King Kong and brings those stereotypes to the front, Black man wanting white woman, it’s not innocent,’ he said.”
—“Vogue cover starring LeBron James is called racially insensitive by some,” Megan Scott, The Associated Press
“Lying,” photographer Annie Leibovitz’s late lover, Susan Sontag, famously said in an essay, “is an elementary means of self-defense.”
Perhaps knowing this is why both Leibovitz, right, creator of VOGUE’s controversial April 2008 cover photo, above right, and Anna Wintour, VOGUE editor-in-chief, below, both 58, have remained absolutely mute since accusations began to fly, over a week ago, that their coy image—featuring Cleveland Cavaliers point forward LeBron James, 23, and supermodel Gisele Bündchen, 27—was a less-than-subtle piece of racist indoctrination.
Rachel True…is 41?
March 28th, 2008 — Entertainment, Pop Culture, Race, TV
Forgive me: I don’t mean to put a sister’s business out in the street, but I have never been as shocked to find out a person’s age as I was during a recent chance lookup of actor Rachel True (Half & Half), right, on Wikipedia.
According to Wiki, True was born on November 15, 1966. This makes her 41 years old.
I’m sorry, but I find this absolutely mind-boggling. My wife and I became real fans of True’s gentle little farce, which ran from September 2002 to May 2006 on the now defunct UPN network. True, with Essence Atkins, played one of two San Francisco-based stepsisters, navigating missteps in careers, relationships, with their mothers, and each other. True, who I’d argue looked no older than 25 in the role—if that—played her character, Mona, with genuine pluck; the one relatively normal human being in a cast of kooks.
Apparently, Hillary Clinton’s Pastor Wouldn’t Have Been Her Pastor, Either
March 27th, 2008 — Politics, Race, Religion
“He would not have been my pastor,” Hillary Clinton haughtily told members of the press Tuesday, speaking of Trinity United Church of Christ’s Jeremiah Wright, Barack Obama’s beleaguered former pastor.
But, reports The Huffington Post, the senior pastor of the Foundry United Methodist Church in Washington D.C., where the Clintons went during their White House years, calls Wright “an outstanding church leader.”
“He has served for decades as a profound voice for justice and inclusion in our society. To evaluate his dynamic ministry on the basis of two or three sound bites does a grave injustice to Dr. Wright, the members of his congregation, and the African-American church which has been the spiritual refuge of a people that has suffered from discrimination, disadvantage, and violence. Dr. Wright, a member of an integrated denomination, has been an agent of racial reconciliation while proclaiming perceptions and truths uncomfortable for some white people to hear. Those of us who are white Americans would do well to listen carefully to Dr. Wright rather than to use a few of his quotes to polarize.”
Hillary, ducking sniper fire on the campaign trail, could not be reached for comment.
I Guess the Answer is “No.”
March 27th, 2008 — Controversy, Design, Entertainment, Magazines, Media, Race
Exactly one week ago, I ran a photo of the current LeBron James/Gisele Bündchen VOGUE cover, right, and noted, upon seeing it, “my first raw thought was that James looked bestial. They look like King Kong and Fay Wray.” (This, in the context of my reporting on a recent study that found many Americans subconsciously associate Black people with apes.)
I then asked, “Is it just me? Am I just imagining this?”
Apparently not. According to this Associated Press piece (thanks, Ray Winbush) titled, “Vogue cover starring LeBron James is called racially insensitive by some”:
the image is stirring up controversy, with some commentators decrying the photo as perpetuating racial stereotypes. James strikes what some see as a gorilla-like pose, baring his teeth, with one hand dribbling a ball and the other around Bundchen’s tiny waist.
It’s an image some have likened to “King Kong” and Fay Wray.
