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Giorgia Meloni, the leader of Fratelli d'Italia, at a meeting in Palermo for the 2022 Italian elections. (Francesco Militello Mirto/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

MY THOUGHTS BEFORE YOU READ THE ARTICLE

I apologize, recently, I have been courteous and not manipulated or coerced a reader's mind with my thoughts, before. But I am compelled this time from my own energies.... you see , as a Black person from the USA whose bloodline has been in the USA too long. I am used to hearing from blacks or whites of the multiracial acceptance of Europe. The old black lindyhop teacher who teaches all age groups in finland. that kind of thing. I have sad it a billion times, most humans despise immigration when it next door. Many countries in Europe never dealt with immigration. This goes back to European empires, where people from Indochine rarely traveled to france. People from the gold coast rarely traveled to england. People from Nova spain rarely traveled to Spain. But, quietly, the European Union, and the poverty in humanity has pushed into europe enough immigrants for the european local farmer or small town resident to notice and as usual, all hell broke lose. 

Europeans love coming to New York City, they spend money, see the rainbow, but they go home to a white village usually, and they can make a diary of their journey. But, dealing with immigration next door is another cultural being and it is clear most Europeans in Europe are not ready. 

I do think of angela merkel who once said, germans must teach people how to be german. I said she was right then and she is clearly right in hindsight. 

But what does this have to relate to Black people in the USA. well... the Black community in the USA has historically had a tribe in itself that is related to other black tribes in the usa , financially rich. Said black rich have always pushed or supported immigratory activities in the usa. 

They were the ones always pushing the black kids de segregate the schools, not get more money for black schools. Desegregate the white communities, not get more money for black communities. 

Meaning, a large percentage of black people support the immigration of non blacks into the black community and the act of blacks immigrating into non black communities. 

I find it funny how europe, often touted by financially wealthy black people as accepting to immigration, is showing the truth we all know to immigration. No one wants the immigrants near them. Russia/China are closing up shop. Texas is sending immigrants to New York. European countries are proving putin is not a european outlier. If Putin holds out, Russia will have destabilized the european union and exposed the countries that stood quietly against russia while changing many countries in Europe into their honest selves. 

I wonder can the black community in the usa be honest?

Immigration, crime propel Europe's move to right, analysts say

Melissa Rossi

·Contributor

Thu, September 22, 2022 at 4:27 PM·10 min read

In Europe, political analysts are pointing to Sweden and Italy as possible harbingers of a political mood shift across the continent driven by a growing wariness of immigrants as well as anger over rising crime rates.

The startlingly strong performance of the far-right Sweden Democrats in this month’s Swedish parliamentary elections and polls showing that the nationalist Brothers of Italy (Fratelli d'Italia) party is poised for victory in this weekend’s contests in that country have both been spurred by those two issues, analysts told Yahoo News.

“Gang violence in Sweden was the issue in the election,” said Gunilla Herolf, a researcher at the Swedish Institute of International Affairs who specializes in European integration. It’s a problem, she added, that is weighing on every Swede. “Some are furious. Some are just terribly upset.”

In Italy, “security issues are being exploited by right-wing forces,” sociologist Giovanna Campani told Yahoo News.

At a glance, the two countries share relatively few commonalities. Sweden is a wealthy, cohesive welfare state, which over the past 90 years has typically been led by leftist coalition governments. By comparison, Italy’s economy, which is burdened by massive debt, is reeling. Costs of living are soaring, and over the past decade, its government has changed nearly every 18 months. But in both places, rising crime and misgivings about immigrants are prompting a political realignment.

The Sweden Democrats, originally formed as a neo-Nazi party in 1988, were one of four right-leaning parties that won a combined 176 of 349 seats in Sweden’s Parliament in last week’s election, besting the center-left coalition by six seats. Now, details of which parties will partake in the new coalition government, and how much influence the Sweden Democrats will actually have, are being hammered out. Despite being ostracized by mainstream Swedes, the party won 20.5% of the vote, elevating it from the fringes to Sweden’s second-most popular party. Its campaign in Sweden — where 20% of the population is now foreign-born, and the country has become known as “the gun violence capital of Europe” — was built on promises to control crime perpetrated by young migrants and to deport some foreign-born Swedes.

Jimmie Akesson, the new leader of the Sweden Democrats, insists his party has shed its fascist leanings, though the party remains staunchly anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim and keeps pounding home its messaging linking foreign-born Swedes and crime. The party points to recent crime trends showing that drug-peddling armed gangs have emerged in some migrant communities during the past five years. In 2021, Sweden experienced some 360 gang-related shootings and 47 deaths; by September of this year, 47 had already died in shootings.

“Sweden used to be a completely peaceful country — and safe,” Brussels-based Roland Freudenstein, vice president of the independent think tank GLOBSEC, told Yahoo News. “Now it’s become one of the most unsafe places in Europe” — not only because of its gang shootings but also because of high number of incidents of rape. “So that’s brought an end to the political correctness,” he said. “Even the [liberal] Social Democrats are talking about immigration, law and order, and getting tough on crime.”

The rate of armed violence is growing faster than anywhere else on the continent, according to a 2021 report by the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention. “The increase in gun homicide in Sweden is closely linked to criminal milieux in socially disadvantaged areas,” according to the report.

Until recently, it was all but taboo in Sweden for mainstream politicians to acknowledge the problem.

“That's why the Sweden Democrats are gaining in popularity,” said Eric Adamson, a Stockholm-based project manager at the Atlantic Council’s Northern Europe office. “They were the only ones talking about this” in recent years. Both socially and politically, he said, the topic had previously been off limits for Swedes to discuss.

In Italy, a Sept. 25 snap election necessitated by the July collapse of the government of Prime Minister Mario Draghi seems likely to result in the most conservative leadership there since Benito Mussolini seized power in 1922. The likely new prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, has also run on an anti-immigrant platform, vowing to mobilize the Italian navy to prevent African refugees from reaching her country.

Like Sweden, Italy has also been dealing with rising violent crime, though much of it doesn’t involve the immigrants who have sought safe haven there in recent years. Youth gangs of Italians, which some 6% of Italian teens are believed to belong to, are becoming a nightmare for the country, especially around Naples and the south, though some African migrants appear to be starting to form them as well.

This June, however, an estimated 1,500 African youths went on a rampage in the northern town of Peschiera, breaking windows, roughing up tourists and allegedly sexually assaulting young women on a train. Matteo Salvini of the League, a right-wing political alliance he formed with Brothers of Italy and Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia for the upcoming election, lambasted the attack. Meloni, the Brothers of Italy leader, who has promised to protect Italy from “Islamization,” seized on the uproar, posting a video on her Twitter account of an African man allegedly raping a woman in broad daylight.

The bigger issue for Meloni, however, may be the changing face and complexion of Italian citizens. The woman who promotes “God, homeland and family” frequently laments Italy’s low birth rate and fears the extinction of Italians and their replacement by immigrants from Africa, a conspiracy she has accused the government of the European Union of orchestrating. “The EU is complicit in uncontrolled immigration, the invasion of Europe and the project of ethnic replacement of European citizens,” she wrote on her website in February.

Campani thinks there are a number of factors at work in Italy that end up working in the right’s favor — including anger over the bureaucracy of the European Union, which imposes rules on many aspects of Italy’s government, such as the treatment of migrants, how to utilize COVID funds, what sorts of energy to invest in and how to handle its debt crisis.

Meloni has promised to challenge Brussels’ authority, vowing that if she’s elected to lead Italy’s government, “the fun is over.”

If she does become prime minister, Freudenstein said, European policymakers will find “a more pugnacious and feistier Italy.”

“She’s a fresh face — and I think Italians want to try out something new,” he added.

According to a December 2021 YouGov poll of residents in 10 European nations, both Italy and Sweden were among the top three European countries saying that the number of foreigners allowed to immigrate to European countries has been excessive — a statement with which 77% percent of Italians and 73% of Swedes agreed.

In April, young migrant men, protesting the planned burning of the Quran by a Swedish provocateur in towns across the country, kicked off riots in three cities that injured more than 100 Swedish police — just one disturbing event that forced then-Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson, a Social Democrat, into admitting a problem with violence among some migrant communities, and the existence of “parallel societies” of many foreign-born in Sweden. “Segregation has been allowed to go so far that we have parallel societies in Sweden,” she told reporters. “We live in the same country but in completely different realities. We will have to reassess our previous truths and make tough decisions.”

The issue in Sweden, said Herolf of the Swedish Institute of International Affairs, isn’t immigration itself. It’s the mafia-like Eastern European clans and gangs that made it into the country along with legitimate asylum seekers and refugees.

“There are people coming into Sweden who bring criminality with them,” she said, including some from the former Yugoslavia. “But there were also loads of decent hardworking people from there too. So [previously] we didn’t want to talk about that and risk hurting the good people.”

What’s more, she said, it’s now widely recognized that Sweden has taken in far too many refugees since 2015, when the civil war in Syria broke out creating a refugee crisis, and that the government in Stockholm has been reticent to force them to integrate into Swedish society. “We have a responsibility to make demands on them to learn Swedish, to join in Swedish society," and not just live in foreign bubbles.

“Sweden has been an extremely tolerant and antiracist country,” Johan Martinsson, a political science professor and research director of the Laboratory of Opinion Research and the Citizen Panel at the University of Gothenburg, told Yahoo News. He pointed to an incident in 2002 when a politician suggested that foreigners should be given a basic language test before being given citizenship. “It was considered an outrage,” Martinsson said. “He was called a racist for even suggesting it.”

The increasing popularity of nationalist, anti-immigrant parties in Europe, such as Marine LePen’s rise in France, underscores the need for mainstream politicians to openly admit to issues as they emerge, and to stop worrying that acknowledging them simply reinforces the radical right, said Freudenstein. “Integration policies for migrants have to become much tougher,” he added, and governments need “to be tougher about language, about [banning the wearing of] burqas, and about prohibiting afternoon [Islamist] schools where children unlearn what they learned in the morning about women’s rights and the separation of church and state.”

Freudenstein, for one, is concerned about what the rise of far-right parties will mean for the cohesion of the European Union — all the more with soaring energy prices and potential shortages, even the possibility of natural gas rationing — as the continent heads into the colder months. “We know a crisis winter is coming,” he said. “And it’s going to reinforce this feeling of ‘Let’s try something new,’ and the feeling that the structures and powers in place have failed.” He points to the growing possibility of “a severe recession that will dramatically increase social tensions.” The next six months will be crucial, he believes, and will “decide the future of politics in Europe.”

ARTICLE

https://news.yahoo.com/immigration-crime-propel-europes-move-to-right-analysts-say-202748280.html

Students pour out of a Jewish school, known as a yeshiva, in Brooklyn, June 8, 2022. (Jonah Markowitz/The New York Times)

New York Lawmakers Call for More Oversight of Hasidic Schools

Eliza Shapiro, Brian M. Rosenthal and Nicholas Fandos

Tue, September 13, 2022 at 7:51 AM·5 min read

NEW YORK — Top New York officials voiced grave concerns about the quality of education in Hasidic Jewish private schools on Monday, a day after The New York Times revealed that many of the schools taught only rudimentary English and math and virtually no science or history.

Two Democratic congressmen — Jerrold Nadler, chair of the House Judiciary Committee, and Hakeem Jeffries, chair of the House Democratic Caucus — said they had serious concerns, with Nadler saying it was clear that some of the Hasidic schools were “utterly failing.”

“It is a paramount duty of government to make sure that all children — whether it’s those educated in parochial, private or public schools — are provided a quality education,” said Nadler, the senior Jewish member of the House, whose current district encompasses a major Hasidic neighborhood and who was himself yeshiva-educated. “It is our duty to all New York students to ensure that the law is enforced.”

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Jeffries, who represents parts of central Brooklyn, called for “a rigorous inquiry in order to make sure that the health and well-being of all children is protected.”

Daniel Goldman, who recently won a contested Democratic primary for a new congressional seat that includes Hasidic areas in Brooklyn, said he hoped the schools would work to comply with the law, adding that the Times report “paints a damning picture of an inadequate secular education that does not comply with state law.”

At the state level — where politicians routinely court the cohesive Hasidic voting bloc — the state Senate majority leader, Andrea Stewart-Cousins, said she was concerned about the lack of secular education in the Hasidic schools.

“The allegations in the story are deeply disturbing and must be addressed,” she said.

State Sen. Julia Salazar and Assemblywoman Emily Gallagher, both Democrats who represent heavily Hasidic Williamsburg, Brooklyn, said they were particularly alarmed by accounts of corporal punishment in the schools and would introduce legislation to ban such punishments going forward.

Other leaders, including Gov. Kathy Hochul and members of a powerful state education board, showed less willingness to criticize the Hasidic schools.

Hochul, a Democrat who has sought to appeal to Jewish voters before this fall’s gubernatorial election, declined to take a position on the Hasidic schools. She is ahead in polls, but, only a year after taking office, is still forging relationships with key groups across the state.

“People understand that this is outside the purview of the governor,” Hochul said Monday at an event in Harlem.

Although the state Board of Regents, not the governor, controls the state education department, Hochul is the most powerful politician in New York and can have significant influence over education issues.

For their part, members of the Board of Regents made no mention of the Times report in discussions Monday before an expected vote on new rules that would hold private schools, including the Hasidic schools, known as yeshivas, to minimum academic standards.

An attorney who has represented many Hasidic yeshivas, Avi Schick, recently said that Hochul’s chance of being reelected this November could be threatened by the Regents vote, even though the governor has not taken a public position on the rules.

Other New York Democratic officials either did not respond to inquiries or declined to comment Monday about the Hasidic schools, including Sen. Chuck Schumer, the majority leader; Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand; and Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, chief of the House Democratic campaign committee.

New York Republicans, including Rep. Lee Zeldin, defended the schools and criticized the Times report. At a campaign event outside City Hall on Monday, Zeldin, who is running for governor against Hochul and is Jewish, suggested that public schools ought to be emulating “the values” of Hasidic schools, not the other way around.

Other state Republicans said they believed the government should not interfere with private religious education or parents’ ability to choose where their children are educated.

Benine Hamdan, the long-shot Republican candidate challenging Goldman in Brooklyn, said she opposed the state regulations, taking a shot at critical race theory. “While public schools are teaching CRT and sexuality, Hasidic schools should continue to have the right to teach Judaism,” she said.

“At my core, I believe all parents have the right to choose the educational setting they think is best for their children,” said Mark Martucci, a state senator who represents a district just north of New York City and added that he had toured yeshivas and had been impressed by the students.

In a state where Republicans are largely locked out of power, the party has been increasing its outreach to Hasidic voters who have consistently voted for Democrats in local elections but have begun favoring Republicans, including former President Donald Trump, in national races.

Published on Sunday, the Times investigation showed that Hasidic schools appear to be operating in violation of state law by denying thousands of students a basic education. The community operates more than 100 all-boys schools across Brooklyn and the lower Hudson Valley, which have received more than $1 billion in government money over the past four years alone.

The schools typically provide only 90 minutes a day of secular instruction, just four days per week, and only for boys ages 8 to 12. As a result, the students are failing to learn secular subjects at extraordinarily high rates, the Times found. More than 99% of students who took standardized tests in 2019 failed, according to state data.

At a news conference Monday, Mayor Eric Adams of New York City said he was “not concerned” about the Times’ findings but stressed that his administration was continuing a long-delayed city investigation into some Hasidic schools.

“I’m not going to look at a story. I want a thorough investigation. I want an independent review, and that’s what the city has to do. And we’re going to look at that,” Adams said. The mayor added that any instances of child abuse in the schools should be reported and investigated.

Over the past few years, Hasidic leaders have made keeping government out of schools their top political priority and have relied on officials elected from their community to help block the regulations.

One Hasidic politician, David Schwartz, a Hasidic district leader in Brooklyn, disputed reports of problems in the schools, including regular use of corporal punishment, saying, “I and my community — tens of thousands of caring parents and educators — are unfairly being paint-brushed due to the accounts of a few.”

© 2022 The New York Times Company

ARTICLE

https://www.yahoo.com/news/york-lawmakers-call-more-oversight-115132238.html

MY THOUGHTS

I want to first restate the key points in the article. 

• The white jewish schools are operating with some level of illegality for an extended time
• government officials at the federal level <senator chuck schumer> new york state <governor hochul> or new york city level <mayor adams>are so frightened of the white jewish voting block aside the white jewish financial power that none have accepted the findings as true publicly while all want an extended time of deliberations which they would not give the black community or any part of the black community
• The defenders of the white jewish schools say parents have the right to place children where they want and to preserve the heritage in their community, in this case jewish. I think of the Black descended of enslaved MOVE movement in philadelphia and how a black mayor treated them for wanting to preserve their own culture.
• The white jewish schools , over one hundred all boys schools at least, received over one billion dollars in four years while providing per week only four days with ninety minute secular instruction. 
• More than ninety nine percent of students in the white jewish private schools who took standardized tests failed in 2019, this is 2022. 

Now what is my position. I don't care about: the white jewish schools whether committing illegality or not, the financial power of the white jewish community in New York City, the influence by the white jewish community on government officials<federal, state, city>, the white jewish community's heritage or culture being preserved or maintained, or the failure of white jewish students. 

What I care about is the Black community all throughout humanity and in particular, the black community in New York City.

The Black community in New York City doesn't have a large private school system internally and yet Black teachers in public schools have been removed for the crime of disagreeing with administrators, on a first time offense, not for years of neglect doing their job. 

I know the black community in NYC is fiscally poor, it started that way for enslaving black people was legal when new york was new amsterdam before the creation of the United States America. Sequentially, the Black community in NYC doesn't demand the trepidation from elected officials even though it historically votes as a block too. 

From the Black Panthers to The Nation of Islam to the Rastafarians the Black community in NYC tends to have the loudest opposition internally to heritages or cultures from within a community. I can see a Black newscaster in New york city asking, what does it mean to have a Black school. 

The black children of New York City have a financially impotent Black adult community, which includes me, who in majority, I am part of the black adult minority, continually preaches to them about merit or equality or voting while providing black children in new york city nothing. The black adult community in new york city, includes me, have failed the black children of new york city hiding behind a cheap veil of individual decency or merit when in truth we black adults are just flat broke and are too proud to admit it. Any Black adult who reads this, stop telling black children about the need to be more educated and start making money and giving it to black kids regardless of their scholastic quality. Any Black adult who reads this, stop telling black children about competitive spirit and start making sure governments give money for black kids to enjoy life more regardless of their demeanor. Any Black adult who reads this, stop telling black kids what they have to do and start telling black kids what you can't do, admit your impotency your weakness your poverty and tell the truth of you to black children.

I feel sorry for Black Children in new york city. I was once one, and while I was fortunate in the time span of  my childhood from a homelife perspective or communal perspective, I despised local media in new york city which was and is ninety nine percent white owned. White owned new york city media never stopped reminding black children how they needed to do better in my childhood days, comparing black children to various children anywhere with one thing in common. At the time of comparison they are better than black children in New York City. While the same white owned news media of New York City, couldn't find time to discover how the French don't count the schools in the Balieues as part of their main surveys to the world , the japanese don't count the children who don't come to school at higher rates, the schools in the white towns or villages in the midwest where the curriculum is lower isn't admitted in the assessment to comparing the black children in new york city. Black children in NYC have been falsely attributed as consistent failures when in truth it is a mere trick of statistics. Any thing can be proven statistically, anything, the key is in the details. Black children in education have been attacked by statistical warfare and black adults, like me,let it happen.

Tijan Njie as Robert Pilatus and Elan Ben Ali as Fabrice Morvan in the upcoming Milli Vanilli biopic, 'Girl You Know It's True' | CREDIT: DENIS PERNATH, COPYRIGHT: LEONINE STUDIOS / WIEDEMANN & BERG FILM

MY THOUGHTS

I rather it be the Frank Farian story. What convinced him to use two black models from germany and have them have lyp synching careers? I think that kind of story could had led to discussions of how white artists from the USA or Europe made careers being talentless and living off of black artists. I think that was what made Farian who was old enough to see this, be inspired to create and orchestrate milli vanilli. and then in the second act of the film. The fact that he was able to labeled blameless by the media as the producer of milli vanilli while also able to place all blame on milli vanilli, like either of them paid for the singers who were totally complicit as well. so... as always, the film has potential but I would had gone another way.

THE ARTICLE

Milli Vanilli biopic first look teases controversial music duo's looming vocal storm
Girl You Know It's True is produced by Netflix's Dark masterminds Quirin Berg and Max Wiedemann.
Joey Nolfi
By Joey Nolfi September 01, 2022 at 11:48 AM EDT

Girl, you know it's true: A Milli Vanilli biopic is on the way, and the studio behind the planned project has unveiled a first look at its stars.

Lead actors Tijan Njie and Elan Ben Ali appear in the new photo as Robert Pilatus and Fabrice Morvan, the faces of the ill-fated German-French pop duo who notched three No. 1 singles in the United States in the late '80s. It was later revealed that the pair had taken credit for vocals actually provided by several other singers, including John Davis, who died in 2021.

Matthias Schweighöfer will star as Milli Vanilli producer Frank Farian in the Leonine Studios- and Wiedemann & Berg–produced film, currently titled Girl You Know It's True.

Simon Verhoeven will direct from a script he wrote. Producers on the film include Quirin Berg and Max Wiedemann, who previously worked on the Oscar-winning international film The Lives of Others, the Oscar-nominated movie Never Look Away, and Netflix's popular thriller series Dark.

The movie's plot follows the duo's scandal, which was allegedly orchestrated by Farian and saw the frontmen lip-syncing to the voices of other artists who were only credited as background vocalists on their official releases.

Milli Vanilli initially won a Grammy for Best New Artist in 1990, though they ultimately returned the award.

Controversial filmmaker Brett Ratner was previously working on a Milli Vanilli biopic, though that project was dropped by production company Millennium Media in February 2021, after its announcement received intense backlash in the wake of Ratner being accused of sexual misconduct in 2017. (Ratner "categorically" denied the allegations through his attorney Marty Singer at the time.)

Girl You Know It's True does not have a release date yet, but it is expected to film in Munich, Berlin, Capetown, and Los Angeles before wrapping in December.

ARTICLE URL

https://ew.com/movies/milli-vanilli-movie-first-look-photo/

IN AMENDMENT

beverly hills cop 4...many stockholders of the redstone company want the white jewish clan to sell the firm to an investment firm. But they are being adamant against it, which I think is the better strategy. but, having said that, they don't have the money for a high quantity of big budget films, thus why fox sold its movie division to disney and at&t sold warner bros with debt to discovery channel.  The screenwriter to this film is a former law enforcer so I don't know how funny this will be. I am not a true fan of beverly hills cop so I can't speak for the audience or the fanbase.

My intial reply to the video

nina simone was a polymath... the problem with black people when we gather in public is, for events meant for music or community, march on washington/summer of jazz/ jazzmobile/million man march/black film festival.. black people don't produce violence. But, we do produce violence when the tipping points are reached. ... I disagree with both of you. I don't think the lack of media outlets wanting to display the Summer of Soul is a shame. Ownership matters folks. You both mentioned how Gil Scott Heron or the Last Poets were not on the bill. But that was and is part of the problem. White people own media outlets that allow all spectrums of the white community to speak. Name me one Black owned media outlet that serves five unique black segments in the black community? Yes, my parents remember that concert. To be blunt, Harlem has a long history of similar events. That famous photo at Duke Ellington's house is not a joke. Harlem between the 1920s -1970s had the greatest collection of black entertainers for a region in any city in the usa. The recording of the concert was a surprise for my parents. ... Don, no one is a complete encyclopedia:)

Someone somewhere in the internet stated the Black community ended the great era of Black Music in the 1970s, I oppose that position. The following is my reply

We didn't end it. All musical eras end. To be blunt, the black community in usa had many great musical times after the war between the states. The st louis/to harlem slide jazz era. The big band era. The R&B initial era. Motown. Many great black songwriters in each of those eras. We didn't end , we changed. Black people in the usa's music changes as we change. The reason why we made the blues is cause right after the war between the states, many of us had a sadness, a blue mood. When we started growing more financially positive, actually getting whites to allow us to own businesses or get paid to do ork while still being nonviolent <not saying all black people wanted that but I comgress>, we turned the blues into rhythm and blues. After world war II when the black community oddly enough had large financial growth for individuals, we created rock and roll from R&B which is from the Blues. We created Funk as a blues version of the motown sound. Where motown was manicured black music for the white audience, in the same vein as scott joplin's minstrel music, which he did alongside his ragtime works. Ragtime was in my view, a piano version of jazz, which was started with horned instruments in new orleans.  Jazz progressed from the northern expansion. Starting from the storyville's of new orleans to St Louis, to Chicago to HArlem, to every bar from Shanghai to Berlin to Rio de janeiro to calcutta to Cairo all around the earth, jazz was played at one time, a rare achievement for one art form. So much so that colleges throughout humanity teach jazz. Many surviving jazz musicians were able to financially survive being the first jazz teachers in schools where only white jazz teachers may exist today.  No, black music changes as black people change. House Music comes from the urban black community, which in the vein of funk fuses all the many prior musical forms from Blues or Jazz. But with a larger technological capability than Funk, which began using tech in unique ways for music. We didn't end it. Today you can hear way too many excellent black blues musicians under 50, black jazz musicians under 50. White owned media companies dominate the industry and they prefer pop music, which is hat Motown or the Ragtime was. All three are intended to appeal to mass audiences, be good to sell. All three evaded or try to evade cultural friction. So, all is good, the black musical heritage lives in the black community for me, and continuous to grow or change, becoming more global, having more linguistical width than in the past, more cultural variance. All is good. 

Movies That Move We video Review

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6L1bNVo8gYU
 

Congrats to Jordan Peele side all the creators involved in NOPE

Box Office: Jordan Peele’s ‘Nope’ Opens to No. 1 With $44 Million

By Rebecca Rubin

Audiences responded with a resounding “yep” to Jordan Peele’s science-fiction thriller “Nope,” which topped the box office with its $44 million debut.

Those ticket sales were slightly behind projections of $50 million and fall in between the results of Peele’s first two films, 2017’s “Get Out” (which opened to $33 million) and 2019’s “Us” (which opened to $71 million). “Nope” may not have cemented a new box office record for Peele, but it demonstrates the director’s popularity at the movies and marks a strong start for an original, R-rated horror film.

In fact, “Nope” stands as the highest opening weekend tally for an original film since “Us” debuted more than three years ago. Yes, that includes Quentin Tarantino’s star-studded “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,” which started with $41 million in July 2019.

“The opening isn’t as big as ‘Us,’ but it’s still extremely impressive,” says David A. Gross, who runs the movie consulting firm Franchise Entertainment Research. “The weekend figure is far above average for the genre.”

It’s worth noting that Peele’s sophomore feature “Us,” a scary story about menacing doppelgängers, enjoyed an especially huge opening weekend because it followed the runaway success of the Oscar-winning “Get Out.” After his directorial debut captured the zeitgeist by delivering scares while encouraging audiences to think, fans of the filmmaker were more than a little eager to watch Peele’s next mind-bending nightmare. Though Peele still has outsized goodwill with audiences, box office expectations for “Nope,” another anxiety-inducing social thriller, should have been comparatively a little more Earth-bound.

“Nope” cost $68 million, which is significantly more than “Get Out” (with its slender $4.5 million budget) and “Us” (with its $20 million budget). So the movie will require a little more coinage than Peele’s past films to turn a profit. Word-of-mouth will be key. “Get Out” and “Us” were wildly successful in theaters, with each collecting $255 million at the global box office. “Nope” does not open at the international box office until mid-August.

“Nope” reunites Peele with “Get Out” star Daniel Kaluuya — and adds Keke Palmer and Steven Yeun to the mix — in the story of siblings who live on a gulch in California and attempt to uncover video evidence of a UFO. Critics were fond of “Nope,” which holds an 82% on Rotten Tomatoes. Audiences gave the film a “B” grade, the same CinemaScore as “Us.”

Universal’s president of domestic distribution Jim Orr points out that “Nope” is appealing to all demographics; according to exit polls, 35% of ticket buyers were Caucasian, 20% were Hispanic, 33% were African American and 8% were Asian. He says that’s a good sign in terms of its theatrical run.

“We’re thrilled with the results this weekend,” Orr says. “Jordan Peele is an incredible talent. His films are layered and thought-provoking and ridiculously entertaining.”

Since “Nope” was the only new movie to open this weekend, several holdover titles rounded out North American box office charts.
...

ARTICLE LINK

https://variety.com/2022/film/box-office/nope-box-office-opening-weekend-jordan-peele-1235324105/

Post Script NOTE: the purple outfit in the article linked above

I admit, I don't know how she will do in government for she has no experience in government. But I wish her well as vice president of Colombia. Government is complicated and all too often nasty absent the media's view. but I am happy for Francia Márquez, but especially the larger Black community in South America. The reality is, even though Black people from the usa dominate the identity of Black Americans the truth is, from Ecuador to Bahia, is a much larger population of black people than in North America or the Caribbean. My only concern for Black people in South America is their dangerous mirroring of Black North Americans in government affairs. I realize Francia Marquez is in that line but I hope she learns the lessons of Black people in the Caribbean the center of the american continent or Black people in North America... don't be silly. Take this opportunity to lead Black people in colombia and greater south america with wisdom with focus with efficiency with community with collectivity, even while peaceful or nonviolent. Don't mirror the likes of Kamala Harris, the likes of Barrack Obama, the likes of John Lewis, the likes of maxine waters, the likes of corey booker , the likes of eric adams, the likes adrienne adams, the likes of Clarence Thomas, the likes of Colin Powell, the likes of condoleeza rice, please don't mirror the likes of all the Black charlatans in government in North America or elsewhere like Nelson Mandela in South Africa.  Think on Black people , plan for Black people, like Winnie Mandela, like Malcolm X, like Jean Jacques Dessalines, like Adam Clayton Powell jr, like Shirley Chisholm. 

Gustavo Petro is Colombia's first leftist leader
Gustavo Petro, a former rebel and a longtime legislator, won Colombia's presidential election Sunday, galvanizing voters frustrated by decades of poverty and inequality under conservative leaders
 
BY JULIE TURKEWITZ

BOGOTÁ, Colombia — For the first time, Colombia will have a leftist president. Gustavo Petro, a former rebel and a longtime legislator, won Colombia’s presidential election Sunday, galvanizing voters frustrated by decades of poverty and inequality under conservative leaders, with promises to expand social programs, tax the wealthy and move away from an economy he has called overly reliant on fossil fuels.

His victory sets the third-largest nation in Latin America on a sharply uncertain path, just as it faces rising poverty and violence that have sent record numbers of Colombians to the United States border; high levels of deforestation in the Colombian am*zon, a key buffer against climate change; and a growing distrust of key democratic institutions, which has become a trend in the region.

Petro, 62, received more than 50% of the vote, with more than 99% counted Sunday evening. His opponent, Rodolfo Hernández, a construction magnate who had energized the country with a scorched-earth anti-corruption platform, won just over 47%.

Shortly after the vote, Hernández conceded to Petro.

“Colombians, today the majority of citizens have chosen the other candidate,” Hernández said. “As I said during the campaign, I accept the results of this election.”

Petro took the stage Sunday night flanked by his vice-presidential pick, Francia Márquez, and three of Petro’s children. The packed stadium went wild, with people standing on chairs and holding phones aloft.

“This story that we are writing today is a new story for Colombia, for Latin America, for the world,” Petro said. “We are not going to betray this electorate.”

He pledged to govern with what he has called “the politics of love,” based on hope, dialogue and understanding.

Just over 58% of Colombia’s 39 million voters turned out to cast a ballot, according to official figures.

The victory means that Márquez, an environmental activist who rose from poverty to become a prominent advocate for social justice, will become the country’s first Black vice president.

Petro and Márquez’s victory reflects an anti-establishment fervor that has spread across Latin America, exacerbated by the pandemic and other long-standing issues, including a lack of opportunity.

“The entire country is begging for change,” said Fernando Posada, a Colombian political scientist, “and that is absolutely clear.”

In April, Costa Ricans elected to the presidency of Rodrigo Chaves, a former World Bank official and political outsider, who took advantage of widespread discontent with the incumbent party. Last year, Chile, Peru and Honduras voted for leftist leaders running against candidates on the right, extending a significant, multiyear shift across Latin America.

As a candidate, Petro had energized a generation that is the most educated in Colombian history, but is also dealing with 10% annual inflation, a 20% youth unemployment rate and a 40% poverty rate. His rallies were often full of young people, many of whom said they feel betrayed by decades of leaders who had made grand promises but delivered little.

“We’re not satisfied with the mediocrity of past generations,” said Larry Rico, 23, a Petro voter at a polling station in Ciudad Bolívar, a poor neighborhood in Bogotá, the capital.

Petro’s win is all the more significant because of the country’s history. For decades, the government fought a brutal leftist insurgency known as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, with the stigma from the conflict making it difficult for a legitimate left to flourish.

But the FARC signed a peace deal with the government in 2016, laying down their arms and opening space for a broader political discourse.

Petro had been part of a different rebel group, called the M-19, which demobilized in 1990 and became a political party that helped rewrite the country’s constitution. Eventually, Petro became a forceful leader in the country’s opposition, known for denouncing human rights abuses and corruption.

On Sunday, in a wealthy part of Bogotá, Francisco Ortiz, 67, a television director, said he had also voted for Petro.

“It’s been a long time since we had an opportunity like this for change,” he said. “If things will get better, I don’t know. But if we stick with the same, we already know what we’re going to get.”

The win could also test the United States’ relationship with its strongest ally in Latin America. Traditionally, Colombia has formed the cornerstone of Washington’s policy in the region.

But Petro has criticized what he calls the United  States’ failed approach to the drug war, saying it has focused too much on eradication of the coca crop, the base product in cocaine, and not enough on rural development and other measures.

Petro has said that he embraces some form of drug legalization, that he will renegotiate an existing trade deal with the United States to better benefit Colombians and that he will restore relations with the authoritarian government of president Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela, all of which could create conflict with the United States.

About 2 million Venezuelan migrants have fled to Colombia in recent years amid an economic, political and humanitarian crisis.

Petro believes the economic system is broken, overly reliant on oil export and a flourishing and illegal cocaine business that he said has made the rich richer and poor poorer. He is calling for a halt to all new oil exploration, and a shift to developing other industries.

He has also said he will introduce guaranteed work with a basic income, move the country to a publicly controlled health system and increase access to higher education, in part by raising taxes on the rich.

“What we have today is the result of what I call ‘the depletion of the model,’ ” Petro said in the interview this year, referring to the current economic system. “The end result is a brutal poverty.”

His ambitious economic plan has, however, raised concerns. One former finance minister called his energy plan “economic suicide.”

Petro's critics, including former allies, have accused him of arrogance that leads him to ignore advisers and struggle to build consensus. When he takes office in August, he will face a deeply polarized society where polls show growing distrust in almost all major institutions.

He has vowed to serve as the president of all Colombians, not just those who voted for him.

On Sunday, at a high school-turned-polling station in Bogotá, Ingrid Forrero, 31, said she saw a generational divide in her community, with young people supporting Petro and older generations in favor of Hernández.

Her own family calls her the “little rebel” because of her support for Petro, whom she said she favors because of his policies on education and income inequality.

“The youth is more inclined toward revolution,” she said, “toward the left, toward a change.”

©2019 New York Times News Service

https://www.forbesindia.com/article/news/gustavo-petro-is-colombias-first-leftist-leader/77421/1

IN AMENDMENT
Odd how I read this in the new york times, but the exact article is elsewhere online. why is the times online article user blocked. I guess they are making money off of subscribing and the delay from their website to the larger web
 

I wonder how many Black women have reached orgasm before 30 while interacting with a black man. The only way is to ask all black women and no one has done that for any question. all polls are merely averages. But I bet most black women have never reached an orgasm in their entire life time side any man and that includes sadly, my fellow Black men. 
The article below deals with a film that is a fiction about a woman on a quest to have an orgasm who never did before and is a mother of adult children and the wife of a deceased man.
But I think the topic is true. Many of my fellow males, including me, can be insensitive to women in intimate scenarios and that leads to women not being pleased. I know for sure, through offline talks that many men, not all but many, believe all every woman needs is a thick penis in them to be aroused and that simply is a lie. 
But it is a lie that many men have been taught to be truth by other men, especially their elders in their homes. 
But I wonder, I think if every black woman can say by her third intimate experience with a black man she had an orgams, regardless of when that will be a nice communal achievement of change.

Emma Thompson and the Challenge of Baring All Onscreen at 63
The actress made the choice to disrobe. Still, she says, it was the most difficult thing she’s ever done in her four-decade career.

By Nicole Sperling
June 15, 2022
It’s the shock of white hair you notice first on Emma Thompson, a hue far more chic than anything your average 63-year-old would dare choose but one that doesn’t ignore her age either. It’s accompanied by that big, wide smile and that knowing look, suggesting both a wry wit and a willingness to banter.

And yet, Thompson begins our video call by MacGyvering her computer monitor with a piece of paper and some tape so she can’t see herself. “The one thing I can’t bear about Zoom is having to look at my face,” she said. “I’m just going to cover myself up.”

We are here across two computer screens to discuss what is arguably her most revealing role yet. In the new movie “Good Luck to You, Leo Grande,” directed by Sophie Hyde, Thompson is emotionally wrought and physically naked, and not in a lowlight, sexy kind of way.

Thompson plays Nancy, a recently widowed, former religious schoolteacher who has never had an orgasm. At once a devoted wife and a dutiful mother harboring volumes of regret for the life she didn’t live and the dull, needy children she raised, Nancy hires a sex worker — a much younger man played by relative newcomer Daryl McCormack (“Peaky Blinders”) — to bring her the pleasure she’s long craved. The audience gets to follow along as this very relatable woman — she could have been your teacher, your mother, you — who in Thompson’s words “has crossed every boundary she’s ever recognized in her life,” grapples with this monumental act of rebellion.

“Yes, she’s made the most extraordinary decision to do something very unusual, brave and revolutionary,” Thompson said from her office in North London. “Then she makes at least two or three decisions not to do it. But she’s lucky because she has chosen someone who happens to be rather wise and instinctive, with an unusual level of insight into the human condition, and he understands her, what she’s going through, and is able gently to suggest that there might be a reason behind this.”

Thompson met the challenge with what she calls “a healthy terror.” She knew this character at a cellular level — same age, same background, same drive to do the right thing. “Just a little sliver of paper and chance separates me from her,” she quipped.

Yet the role required her to reveal an emotional and physical level of vulnerability she wasn’t accustomed to. (To ready themselves for this intimate, sex-positive two-hander that primarily takes place in a hotel room, Thompson, McCormack and Hyde have said they spent one of their rehearsal days working in the nude.) Despite a four-decade career that has been lauded for both its quality and its irreverence and has earned her two Academy Awards, one for acting (“Howards End”) and one for writing (“Sense and Sensibility”), Thompson has appeared naked on camera only once: in the 1990 comedy “The Tall Guy,” opposite Jeff Goldblum.

She said she wasn’t thin enough to command those types of skin-baring roles, and though for a while she tried conquering the dieting industrial complex, starving herself like all the other young women clamoring for parts on the big screen, soon enough she realized it was “absurd.”

“It’s not fair to say, ‘No, I’m just this shape naturally.’ It’s dishonest and it makes other women feel like [expletive],” she said. “So if you want the world to change, and you want the iconography of the female body to change, then you better be part of the change. You better be different.”

For “Leo Grande,” the choice to disrobe was hers, and though she made it with trepidation, Thompson said she believes “the film would not be the same without it.” Still, the moment she had to stand stark naked in front of a mirror with a serene, accepting look on her face, as the scene called for, was the most difficult thing she’s ever done.

“To be truly honest, I will never ever be happy with my body. It will never happen,” she said. “I was brainwashed too early on. I cannot undo those neural pathways.”

She can, however, talk about sex. Both the absurdities of it and the intricacies of female pleasure. “I can’t just have an orgasm. I need time. I need affection. You can’t just rush to the clitoris and flap at it and hope for the best. That’s not going to work, guys. They think if I touch this little button, she’s going to go off like a Catherine wheel, and it will be marvelous.”

There is a moment in the movie when Nancy and Leo start dancing in the hotel room to “Always Alright” by Alabama Shakes. The two are meeting for a second time — an encounter that comes with a checklist of sexual acts Nancy is determined to plow through (pun intended). The dance is supposed to relieve all her type-A, organized-teacher stress that’s threatening to derail the session. Leo has his arms around her neck, and he’s swaying with his eyes closed when a look crosses Nancy’s face, one of gratitude and wistfulness coupled with a dash of concern.

To the screenwriter, Katy Brand, who acted opposite Thompson in the second “Nanny McPhee” movie and who imagined Thompson as Nancy while writing the first draft, that look is the point of the whole movie.

“It’s just everything,” Brand said. “She feels her lost youth and the sort of organic, natural sexual development she might have had, if she hadn’t met her husband. There is a tingling sense, too, not only of what might have been but what could be from now on.”

Brand is not the first young woman to pen a script specifically for Thompson. Mindy Kaling did it for her on “Late Night,” attesting that she had loved Thompson since she was 11. The writer Jemima Khan told Thompson that she had always wanted the actress to be her mother, so she wrote her a role in the upcoming film “What’s Love Got to Do With It?”

“I think the thing that Emma gives everybody and what she does in person to people, and also via the screen, is that she always somehow feels like she’s on your side,” Brand said. “And I think people really respond to that. She will meet you at a very human level.”

The producer Lindsay Doran has known Thompson for decades. Doran hired her to write “Sense and Sensibility” after watching her short-lived BBC television show “Thompson” that she wrote and starred in. The two collaborated on the “Nanny McPhee” movies, and are working on the musical version, with Thompson handling the book and co-writing the songs with Gary Clark (“Sing Street”).

To the producer, the film is the encapsulation of a writer really understanding her actress.

“It felt to me like Katy knew the instrument, and she knew what the instrument was capable of within a few seconds,” Doran said. “It isn’t just, over here I’m going to be dramatic. And over here, I’m going to be funny, and over here I’m going to be emotional. It can all go over her face so quickly, and you can literally say there’s this feeling, there’s this emotion.”

Reviewing “Leo Grande,” for The New York Times, Lisa Kennedy called Thompson “terrifically agile with the script’s zingers and revelations,” while Harper’s Bazaar said Thompson was “an ageless treasure urgently overdue for her next Oscar nomination.”

The obvious trajectory for a film like this should be an awards circuit jaunt that would probably result in Thompson nabbing her fifth Oscar nomination. But the film, set to debut on Hulu on Friday, will not have a theatrical release in the United States.

Thompson doesn’t mind. “It is a small film with no guns in it, so I don’t know how many people in America would actually want to come see it,” she said with a wink.

That may be true. But more consequently, because of a rule change by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences that reverts to prepandemic requirement of a seven-day theatrical release, “Good Luck to You, Leo Grande” is not eligible for Oscar consideration, a reality that the director Sophie Hyde is not pleased with.

“It’s really disappointing,” Hyde said. “I understand the desire to sort of protect cinema, but I also think the world has changed so much. Last year, a streaming film won best picture.” She argued that her film and others on streaming services aren’t made for TV. They are cinematic, she said, adding, “That’s what the academy should be protecting, not what screen it’s on.”

Thompson, for one, seems rather sanguine about the whole matter. “I think that, given the fact that you might have a slightly more puritanical undercurrent to life where you are, that it might be easier for people to share something as intimate as this at home and then be able to turn it off and make themselves a nice cup of really bad tea,” said Thompson, laughing. “None of you Americans can make good tea.”

Nicole Sperling is a media and entertainment reporter, covering Hollywood and the burgeoning streaming business. She joined The New York Times in 2019. She previously worked for Vanity Fair, Entertainment Weekly and The Los Angeles Times. @nicsperling

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/15/movies/emma-thompson-good-luck-to-you-leo-grande.html

IN AMENDMENT

Again, the problem with Black people is we talk about finance in such a legal way, White people make money based on whatever it takes, not within a system. and the reality is, black people's leaders in the usa have chosen to lead the legal way for their own agenda , which doesn't help black people en large.

Lavish Money Laundering Schemes Exposed in Canada
Government officials in the province of British Columbia were aware that suspicious money was entering their revenue stream, but took insufficient steps to stop it.

By Catherine Porter, Vjosa Isai and Tracy Sherlock
Published June 15, 2022
Updated June 17, 2022
VANCOUVER — Self-professed students were buying multimillion-dollar homes in the Vancouver area, with dubious sources of income, or none at all.

A family of modest means transferred at least 114 million Canadian dollars to British Columbia.

Loan sharks cleaned their dirty money by giving garbage bags and hockey bags full of illicit Canadian 20 dollar bills to gamblers who took it onto casino floors.

Those were just some of the findings from a long-awaited report into money laundering in Canada’s western province of British Columbia, which after two years of testimony was finally released by a special commission on Wednesday.

Canada is a “major money laundering country,” with weak law enforcement and gaps in its laws, that put it on a list of countries that included Afghanistan, China and Colombia, according to a 2019 report by the State Department.

Few places in Canada launder as much money as the province of British Columbia, specifically the region around Vancouver, which has one of the country’s biggest underground economies. The province has earned an international reputation as a haven for “snow washing” — a term for money laundering in Canada, according to government officials.

Billions of dollars a year have been laundered there by criminals, using tactics such as gambling in casinos, buying and selling luxury goods and taking out residential mortgages that are paid off in cash installments small enough not to trigger any alarm bells.

British Columbia’s gambling industry is a cash cow for the provincial government. At its height in 2015-2016, gambling generated a record 3.1 billion Canadian dollars in revenue, about one-third of which went to the government and was used to finance hospitals and health care, community organizations and other projects.

The commission was tasked to delve deeply into how bad money laundering in the province had gotten, and whether regulatory organizations, as well as the government itself, had failed to stem it, or even worse, turned a blind eye to it. While the report found no evidence of corruption, some elected officials were aware that suspicious funds from the gambling industry were entering the provincial revenue stream, but took insufficient action to stop it. One official, the minister then responsible for gaming, took no action.

The report, more than 1,800 pages long, lays out the staggering scope of money laundering in the province and sets out more than 100 recommendations for addressing it.

The province should create an anti-money laundering commissioner and a dedicated money laundering investigation and intelligence police unit to address this “corrosive form of criminality,” the report says.

“Money laundering is fundamentally destabilizing to the society and the economy that we all want for the province,” Austin Cullen, the head of the commission and a former British Columbia Supreme Court Justice, told reporters on Wednesday. “Sophisticated money launderers have used British Columbia as a clearing house or a terminus for laundering an astounding amount of dirty money.”

The provincial government announced the inquiry in May 2019 after a series of government-sponsored reports found what the commission called “extraordinary” levels of money laundering in the real estate, casino, horse racing and luxury car sectors, fueled in part by the illegal drug trade.

Books, podcasts and news reports had raised the alarm across the country, accusing gangs in China of importing fentanyl to the Western province, and then laundering the proceeds through casinos and high end real estate, helping to further inflate housing prices in a city already deemed the most expensive for housing in the country.

A 2019 report to the province estimated that in the prior year, up to 5.3 billion Canadian dollars in laundered money flowed through real estate investments in British Columbia, inflating housing prices by as high as 7.5 percent because they were purchased with the proceeds of crime as a way to clean — or legitimize — that money.

The commission, headed by Mr. Cullen, a well-respected judge, has been a constant drum beat across the country throughout the pandemic, hearing from almost 200 witnesses, including a former premier, a government minister accused of ignoring warnings about money laundering in casinos because they offered huge revenue for the government, and police officers alleging their investigations into illicit gambling were shut down for similar political reasons.

Witnesses told the commission how one scheme worked. Rich gamblers from China flew in, wheeling hockey bags stuffed with tens of thousands of Canadian 20 dollar bills to play baccarat at private salons inside Vancouver-area casinos. The money was suspected to come from loan sharks connected to Chinese criminal gangs and drug traffickers. The loan sharks laundered their drug money by lending it to the gamblers, who would in turn repay them with clean money deposited to bank accounts in China or Hong Kong. This became known as the “Vancouver Model.”

Specialized gambling police and lottery investigators raised an alarm but found their investigations shut down or blocked, or even worse, they were fired, the commission heard. The betting limits in casinos were hiked to 100,000 Canadian dollars per hand, allowing even more money to be laundered.

British Columbia’s Attorney General David Eby, who has been campaigning against money laundering for many years, told reporters earlier this month he hoped the report would offer his government a road map for turning the province and Vancouver, “into a model for fighting money laundering instead of a center where it takes place.”

Already, the British Columbia government has taken some steps to combat the problem. It has tightened the rules at casinos, requiring gamblers to declare their source of funds and in 2019, launched a public land ownership registry, requiring certain real estate holders in the province to disclose their owners, particularly those hidden behind shell companies, trusts, partnerships and other “beneficial owners.”

Correction: June 16, 2022
An earlier version of this article incorrectly described the actions that the Cullen commission report said provincial government officials in British Columbia took to address money laundering in the gaming industry. The report said that some officials took actions that were insufficient and that one official took no action, not that all officials took no action.

Catherine Porter, a foreign correspondent based in Toronto, has reported from Haiti more than two dozen times. She is the author of a book about the country, “A Girl Named Lovely.” @porterthereport

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/15/world/canada/canada-money-laundering.html
 

as a fellow truth telling writer, I realize it takes time for us to learn how to be commercial writers, a finesse must be learned that I haven't, that Rod Serling was able to learn on the go so to speak, that I think most of the most profitable writers today comprehend

An Early Run-In With Censors Led Rod Serling to ‘The Twilight Zone’
His failed attempts to bring the Emmett Till tragedy to television forced him to get creative

Jackie Mansky

April 1, 2019

In August of 1955, Emmett Till, an African-American boy from Chicago was abducted, beaten, and shot while visiting family in Mississippi. A nation divided by race dug in its feet in the aftermath. While Jet magazine disseminated photographs from the open-casket funeral, showing the full mutilation of the 14-year-old’s corpse, another story played out in the courtroom. That fall, an all-white jury acquitted the two killers, both white, of all charges.

The miscarriage of justice proved a galvanizing point in the Civil Rights Movement. Rod Serling, a 30-year-old rising star in a golden age of dramatic television, watched the events play out in the news. He believed firmly in the burgeoning medium’s power for social justice. “The writer’s role is to be a menacer of the public’s conscience,” Serling later said. “He must have a position, a point of view. He must see the arts as a vehicle of social criticism and he must focus the issues of his time.”

Soon after the trial concluded, Serling, riding off the success of his most well-received teleplay to date, felt compelled write a teleplay around the racism that led to Till’s murder. But the censorship that followed by advertisers and networks, fearful of blowback from white, Southern audiences, forced Serling to rethink his approach. His response, ultimately, was “The Twilight Zone,” the iconic anthology series that spoke truth to the era’s social ills and tackled themes of prejudice, bigotry, nuclear fears, war, among so many others.

Tonight, “The Twilight Zone” enters another dimension led by Jordan Peele. Peele has emerged as one of Hollywood’s most interesting auteurs, using a toolbelt of humor, horror and specificity to explore the human experience, especially through the construct of race. That through line can be found throughout his body of work from the witty sketch-comedy episodes of “Key & Peele” to his latest offering, the box-office record-setting Us. His perspective makes him a natural choice to step in as host and executive producer of the buzzy reboot coming to CBS All Access.

But unlike Serling, Peele will also be able to take the franchise in a direction that the dramatic writer wanted to go but was never able to get past the Cold War censors during the original show’s run from 1959-1964. For all that his Oscar-winning directorial debut Get Out, for instance, shares the DNA of “The Twilight Zone,” Peele’s allegory about black people in white spaces is direct in a way that Serling could never have been. To get on air, the story would have been forced to compromise in some way—camouflaging its intent by setting the story on a distant planet or another time period. Peele commented on that in a recent interview < https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/26/arts/television/jordan-peele-twilight-zone.html >  with Dave Itzkoff of the New York Times: “It felt like, if Serling were here, he’d have a lot to say and a lot of new episodes he couldn’t have written back in his time,” he said. 

Few examples tell Serling’s struggles better than his attempt to bring the Till tragedy to television. Already, when he first pitched the idea to the advertising agency representing the U.S. Steel Hour, an hour-long anthology series on ABC, Serling was pre-censoring himself. Aware that he’d have to make concessions to get the script on screen, he sold the representatives on a story of a Jewish pawnbroker’s lynching in the South. When the idea was greenlit, Serling worked on that script as well as an adaptation for Broadway, where he knew he would have the freedom to tell Till’s story more directly, centering that plot around a black victim.

But Serling misjudged just how restrictive 1950s television could be. After he mentioned that his script-in-progress was based on the Till murder trial in an interview with the Daily Variety, papers around the country picked up the scoop. Thousands of angry letters and wires from the likes of white supremacist organizations followed, threatening both Steel Hour and ABC, who quickly capitulated and ordered changes to Serling's script. Recounting the incident several years later during an interview < https://books.google.com/books?id=C_Z1DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA137&lpg=PA137&dq=to+suggest+an+unnamed+foreigner,+then+the+locale+was+changed+from+the+South+to+New+England,+and+Im+convinced+they+would+have+gone+up+to+Alaska+or+the+North+Pole+using+Eskimos…except+I+suppose+the+costume+problem+was+of+sufficient+severity+not+to+attempt+it.&source=bl&ots=HUvHNRKWDW&sig=ACfU3U0-tiDUmMXyHM37Ig7rlkS6entsrQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjoxrPwkKbhAhUGj1kKHT0zBAcQ6AEwAHoECAkQAQ#v=onepage&q&f=false   ;

“Station owners and advertising agencies were afraid to offend any segment of their white audiences, even racists, for fear of losing income,” explains < https://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/20/arts/television-radio-battling-the-bottom-line-in-tv-s-earliest-days.html >  journalist Jeff Kisseloff, author of The Box: An Oral History of Television, 1920-1961. As television gained a national audience in the 1950s, the creative freedoms that permeated the earliest days of the medium were quickly being pushed out in an attempt to sell to a white consumer market. Black purchasing power wasn't taken into account. “[A]s late as 1966, one study indicated that black performers constituted 2 percent of the casts of commercials,” according to research < https://books.google.com/books?id=PP1tHJN8h6AC&printsec=frontcover&dq=james+l+baughman&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjoxsr8o6fhAhUMxVkKHdQhAdMQ6AEIKjAA#v=onepage&q=james l baughman&f=false>  by media theorist James L. Baughman. The great Nat King Cole surmised the situation at hand succinctly, “Madison Avenue is afraid of the dark.” 

When Serling's teleplay,“Noon on Doomsday,” finally aired on April 25, 1956, any hint of the South was removed from the plot; not even a Coca-Cola bottle could appear, lest viewers invoke the idea of the region. Instead, the opening crawl made clear that the story was set in New England. (Really, all that mattered was that it was set far away from the South: “I’m convinced,” Serling said in the Wallace interview, “they would have gone up to Alaska or the North Pole…except I suppose the costume problem was of sufficient severity not to attempt it.). The victim was now depicted as an unknown foreigner. “Further,” Serling fumed, “it was suggested that the killer in the case was not a psychopathic malcontent but just a good, decent, American boy momentarily gone wrong…”

It should be noted that some details of this ordeal might be exaggerations on Serling’s part or conflations of the two scripts he was working on simultaneously for stage and screen; Rod Serling Memorial Foundation board member Nicholas Parisi cautions in his recent biography of Serling that “a good deal of myth has crept into the narrative surrounding the production of ‘Noon on Doomsday.’” For instance, the Jewish Southerner that Serling said was initially cast as the victim, he writes, actually appeared in a draft of the theatrical script, instead. The unknown foreigner was already in Serling’s initial teleplay draft.)

Whatever the case, by the time everything was said and done, the message that aired in the teleplay of “Noon on Doomsday” was thin and garbled. When Serling read the New York Times’ review of it, he realized just how so. In a letter to a friend, he wrote: “I felt like I got run over by a truck and then it back[ed] up to finish the job.” Meanwhile, his relationship with the Theater Guild, whom he’d sold an option of the Broadway script and also produced the teleplay, had soured. Despite attempts to salvage it, the theatrical version of the story was not performed or published in his lifetime.

But Serling wasn’t done with the Till tragedy. Once again, this time for CBS’ “Playhouse 90” series, he attempted to tell the story of a lynching in a small town, this time setting the plot in the Southwest. After haranguing from CBS executives, Serling had to move the story back 100 years, erase any direct allusion to Till, as well any black and white racial dynamics in the script. Unlike “Doomsday,” however, this production, titled “A Town Has Turned to Dust,” still communicated, if more universally, Serling’s desired message on prejudice and hatred. The closing soliloquy, delivered by a journalist signing off a telegram to his editor, already had the feel of the best of the “Twilight Zone” epilogues Serling himself would go on to deliver:

Dempseyville got rain tonight for the first time in four months. But it came too late. The town had already turned to dust. It had taken a look at itself, crumbled and disintegrated. Because what it saw was the ugly picture of prejudice and violence. Two men died within five minutes and fifty feet of each other only because human beings have that perverse and strange way of not knowing how to live side by side, until they do, this story that I am writing now will have no end but must go on and on.

Scholar Lester H. Hunt argues that the lessons Serling took from the experiences of “Doomsday” and “Dust” laid the groundwork for what was to come in “The Twilight Zone.” Based on the censors, Hunt writes in an essay < https://books.google.com/books?id=qOfuslNpHE4C&printsec=frontcover&dq=twilight+zone+rod+serling&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjA7ILt0KLhAhXpx1kKHQe8C_oQ6AEIWDAI#v=onepage&q=twilight zone rod serling&f=false > , “[Serling] changed, rather abruptly and driven by the pressure of circumstance, from an artist who thought it was his highest calling to comment on the problems of the day by depicting them directly to one who commented on principles and universals involved, not merely in the problems of the moment, but of human life itself.” 

Or, as Serling himself later put it, “If you want to do a piece about prejudice against [black people], you go instead with Mexicans and set it in 1890 instead of 1959.”

Serling had also learned his lesson from his earlier dust-up with the Daily Variety. In his interview with Wallace, he demurred about whether or not his new show would explore controversial themes. “…[W]e're dealing with a half-hour show which cannot probe like a [Playhouse 90 production], which doesn't use scripts as vehicles of social criticism. These are strictly for entertainment,” he claimed. After Wallace followed up, accusing him of giving up “on writing anything important for television,” Serling easily agreed. “If by important you mean I'm not going to try to delve into current social problems dramatically, you're quite right. I'm not,” he said.

Of course, that couldn’t have been further from the case. His missteps with adapting the Till tragedy for television forced him to realize that to confront issues of race, prejudice, war, politics and human nature on television he had to do so through a filter.

The Twilight Zone is actually a term Serling borrowed from the U.S. military. Serling, who served as a U.S. Army paratrooper in World War II, an experience that marked many of the stories he went on to write, knew it referred to the moment a plane comes down and cannot view the horizon. As the title of the anthology drama, it spoke to his mission for the show: to be able to tell bold stories about the human conditions on screen by obscuring the view somehow.

As Peele steps into Serling's iconic role, he does so knowing he has a chance to speak more directly to those concerns. The veil that held Serling, who died in 1975, back has lifted somewhat, opening up the narrative for bolder stories to now enter “The Twilight Zone.”

ARTICLE

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/early-run-censors-led-rod-serling-twilight-zone-180971837/?fbclid=IwAR1iVtrTGDd8Fq7zQTTZflU7ZbSMTFhKEV1M8BOFoGdYyKhwmYi8OZp4QlA

IN AMENDMENT

to see some pretty photos, I wish my underater train design could had been implemented , fortunate engineers

China completes Rail Line around Taklamakan Desert on the old Silk Road
By baronmaya 

China has finished the new Hotan-Ruoqiang rail line and completed the circle around the huge Taklamakan Desert on the old Silk Road.

Ancient Silk Road travelers cursed China’s largest desert as Takla Makan, an ominous Persian-Turkic expression that translates as “Enter and you may never Return.”

Undeterred by its sandstorms and merciless terrain in the oblong basin north of Tibet’s glacier-packed peaks, China has announced the completion of the final section of a Taklamakan Desert railway loop line, the world’s first to encircle a desert.

Elsewhere, China is constructing Maglev train systems capable of hurtling passengers and freight hundreds of miles per hour, including an underwater route near Shanghai to reach tiny offshore islands.

These latest railways increase China’s military, industrial, agricultural and political prowess, amid escalating rivalry with the USA over each nation’s capabilities.

The Taklamakan Desert railway loop also allows Beijing greater access to rebellious Xinjiang province’s Kashgar, a distant southwestern city near vulnerable borders with India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Kyrgyzstan.

Kashgar and elsewhere in Xinjiang comprise a large population of restive Muslim Uighurs of ethnic Turkic origin.

The railway loop also enables exploitation of the Tarim Basin oilfield, estimated to cover 350,000 square miles, or 560,000 square kilometers, under the Taklamakan’s huge dunes and shifting sands.

According to China’s official Xinhua news agency, workers tighten the screw of the rail and finished the final Hotan-Ruoqiang link on September 27, 2021. From the oasis town of Hotan, an existing line continues to Kashgar.

This railway line runs through the southern edge of the Taklamakan Desert,” said Yang Baorong, chief designer of the final 513-mile section. Sandstorms pose a serious threat to railway construction and operation, as tracks can be buried underneath.

Tickets to use this newest link are expected to go on sale in June 2022, allowing travelers to ride the entire loop to encircle the Germany-sized Taklamakan, which is second only to the Sahara Desert in size.

The Taklamakan loop is hailed by Beijing as a way to help the region, especially Xinjiang’s impoverished southern edge near northern Tibet.

That edge includes an existing Golmud-Korla Railway which now joins the new loop. Other trains already go south from Golmud to Lhasa in Tibet, and future plans envision continuing those tracks south from Lhasa to Nepal’s capital Kathmandu.

More than 2,000 years ago, Bronze Age inhabitants buried mummies in the Taklamakan, according to a French-funded excavation. As the desert expanded southward, ancient kingdoms crumbled into ruins or were buried.

These included the flourishing Loulan kingdom on vast Lake Lop Nur, before its water evaporated in the 5th century.

By constructing a railway around the desert, Chinese engineers have recreated Silk Road caravan routes that linked China and Europe by skirting the Taklamakan’s rim.

Buddhist monks also trudged those routes spreading their religion east, until medieval sea routes replaced hazardous overland treks to East Asia.

The Taklamakan Desert parches 124,000 square miles and is about 600 miles east to west.

It bulges up to 260 miles across, flanked by the snow-capped Tian Shan range on the desert’s north and the Kunlun Mountains along its southern curve. Rugged Pamir peaks form its western ridge.

The railway had to cross, or route around, elevations up to 5,000 feet. Grass grids were laid across 165 million square feet of dunes which were virtually devoid of plant life, officials said.

Anti-desertification programs planted 13 million seedlings. In the harshest, most unpredictable zones – battered by sandstorms and smothered by swollen dunes – engineers designed lengthy bridges above chaotic sand.

Closer to Beijing meanwhile, a Maglev train project is starting in Shanxi, a north-central province. Magnets allow Maglev train carriages to float without wheels.

The high-speed train uses superconducting magnetic levitation technology to disengage from the ground to eliminate frictional drag.

This Maglev uses “a near-vacuum internal duct line to dramatically reduce air resistance, to achieve travel speeds of more than 1,000 kilometers-per-hour.

China already boasts the world’s fastest commercial Maglev on a 19-mile route in Shanghai, linking Pudong Airport to an urban metro system on the city’s edge within seven minutes, at up to 268 mph.

Nearby, a bullet train is preparing to zip under the sea at 155 miles-per-hour. Construction is well underway,” the UK-based website IFL Science reported in May 2021.

It would be “the world’s first underwater bullet train, which would extend nationally from Ningbo, a port city near Shanghai, to Zhoushan, an archipelago of islands off the east coast.

Covering a 47.8-mile stretch of almost entirely newly-built railway, the new route will include a 10-mile underwater section.

Verified post
https://weibo.com/2286908003/LxXRGg1aU

Article
https://cosmoschronicle.com/china-completes-rail-line-around-taklamakan-desert-on-the-old-silk-road/
 

AMERICAN BLACK FILM FESTIVAL ANNOUNCES 2022 TALKS, PANELS AND TOP LINE TALENT FOR 26TH ABFF JUNE 15-19, 2022

Following is the schedule of 2022 ABFF talk series events to date.

Live Events
Thursday, June 16, 2022
The NFT Masterclass for Creative
NFTs have risen as one of the hottest topics in the entertainment industry. Understanding the intellectual property issues in NFTs is essential to our protection and advancement. This session will address the ABCs of NFTs, including copyright, trademark, publicity issues and tax matters surrounding NFTs. Instructed by Kimra Major-Morris, attorney at law.

Leading From Within 
Presented by Prime Video

From the suffrage movement to the civil rights movement, history has shown us we all win when Black women lead. Join three Black women executives from Prime Video for an intimate discussion on how they are leading the charge to create content across series and features that all audiences will love.

Moderators: Latasha Gillespie (head of diversity, equity and inclusion, Prime Video)

Panelists: Amber Rasberry (senior executive development, Movies – am*zon Studios),

Lauren Anderson (co-head Content and Programming, am*zon Freevee) and Larissa Bell (development executive, am*zon St.)

The Black Beauty Effect Panel 
Presented by Black Experience on Xfinity

An intimate discussion on the global impact of Black Beauty in the upcoming docuseries, The Black Beauty Effect. This discussion will highlight black women and their overall impact in the beauty industry, despite its historical exclusion and oppression of black women.

Panelists: Andrea Lewis, series creator, Kahlana Barfield Brown, beauty expert, Whitney White, natural hair entrepreneur, CJ Faison, executive producer

Funding Your Story: The Nuts and Bolts of Film Finance
Presented by the Motion Picture Association

You can be a great storyteller and writer of words that captivate the masses. However, you can’t share that story with the world without having a financing plan in place to get the story made! In this panel, representatives from major studios and a lead film finance company will provide an overview of the variety of ways content creators can finance their production. As each panelist has a unique background in the film finance world, this panel will provide filmmakers with a basic understanding of what to expect when putting together a financing package.

Moderator: John Gibson, vice president, External and Multicultural Affairs, Motion Picture Association

Panelists: Donyelle Marshall, LATAM business and tax analyst, Florida Office of Film and Entertainment; Chiquita Banks, Esq., senior vice president, TPC; Graham Lee, Esq., vice president, Tax Counsel-Production, Paramount; Brian O’Leary, Esq., senior vice president Tax, NBCUniversal (Invited)

Bel-Air: Clips and Conversations  
Presented by Comcast NBCUniversal

Peacock presents an intimate conversation with the cast members from Bel-Air about celebrating Black on-screen characters and discussing story themes such as love, family and relationships.

Moderator: Scott Evans

Panelists: Rasheed Newson, Adrian Holmes, Cassandra Freeman, Coco Jones, Akira Akbar, Jimmy Akingbola and Jordan Jones

Bust Down in Laughter with NBCU’s Comedy Crew
Presented by Comcast NBCUniversal

Join talent from NBCU’s hit comedies for a lively conversation about celebrating and shaping Black culture through stories of family, friendships, love and joy on TV.

Moderator: Danielle Young, journalist and host of Real Quick

Panelists:  Nicole Byer, Phil Augusta Jackson and Carl Tart from NBCU’s “Grand Crew” and Sam Jay, Langston Kerman, Jak Knight and Chris Redd from Peacock’s “Bust Down”

Shoot Your Shot
Presented by ALLBLK

ALLBLK, the first and largest streaming service for Black TV and film from AMC Networks, is partnering with the American Black Film Festival (ABFF) to kick off a nationwide casting call for the co-star of its latest original production, “Judge Me Not.” A new hour-long psychological/legal drama created by TV icon, Judge Lynn Toler.

“Judge Me Not” focuses on a millennial Black female attorney navigating mental health issues, a rocky romantic relationship and a volatile family, who shocks everyone when she wins a judicial seat at 31. Once there, she fights her demons while managing the chaos of a busy court.

25th Annual HBO Short Film Award Showcase
Presented by Warner Bros. Discovery and HBO

Five finalists will compete in ABFF’s HBOÒ Short Film Award. The prestigious showcase will celebrate 25 years of HBO’s commitment to recognizing the next generation of diverse, artistic and creative talent at ABFF.  This year’s groudbreaking directors with diverse style of filmmaking are: Sherif Alabede (Another Country), Elisee Junior St. Preux (Aurinko in Adagio), Gia-Rayne Harris (Pens & Pencils), Destiny J. Macon (Talk Black) and Rebecca Usoro (The Family Meeting)

Friday, June 17, 2022
Masterclass: Legal Aspects of Indie Filmmaking
Presented by Arrington and Phillips

This seminar will introduce filmmakers to the legal and business aspects of independent filmmaking. From conception to distribution, attendees will learn all the basics needed to make, produce and distribute their own independent film. Instructed by Marvin Arrington and Vince Phillips.

Johnson: Clips and Conversations
Presented by Bounce TV

Join the cast and producer of Johnson for a conversation around the anticipated return of season two. Johnson focuses on life-long best friends and their sometimes-complicated journey of love, friendship, heartbreak and personal growth as told from the Black male perspective.  The show is executive produced by Eric C. Rhone and Cedric The Entertainer’s A Bird and A Bear Entertainment.

Moderator: David J. Hudson, head of Original Programming for Scripps Networks

Panelists:  Deji LaRay (series creator and show runner); Thomas Q. Jones (show runner, “P- Valley,” “Luke Cage”); Philip Smithey (“Switched at Birth,” “The Rookie”); and Derrex Brady (“NCIS,” “First”) with Earthquake (“The Neighborhood,” “Chappelle’s Home Team – Earthquake: Legendary”) and Eric C. Rhone (executive producer)

Finding Happy: Clips and Conversations
Presented by Bounce TV

Meet the cast of Bounce’s newest series, Finding Happy, a show created about, for and by Black women. The dramedy follows Yaz Carter as she navigates her loving-but-complicated family, her stagnant career and a merry-go-round of unrequited love as she looks to find her happy. The show is executive produced by Eric C. Rhone and Cedric The Entertainer’s A Bird and A Bear Entertainment.

Moderator: Keisha Taylor Starr, chief marketing officer for Scripps Networks

Panelists: B. Simone (MTV’s “Wild ‘n Out”); Kim Coles (“Living Single”); Marketta Patrice (“Black Jesus”); Angela Gibbs (“Hacks,” “The Fosters”); and Kendra Jo (series creator and show runner)

A Champion of Independent Black Film: Celebrating the Legacy of Michelle Materre
Presented by Meta

Michelle Materre, prolific film distributor, professor, curator and fervent supporter of women and BIPOC filmmakers, passed away in March. To honor her decades as a champion of independent film and her mission to lift the voices of underrepresented people in cinema, ABFF and Daughters of Eve Media will present a roundtable discussion featuring trailblazing and renowned women filmmakers.

Moderators: Terri Bowles and Dr. Michele Prettyman

Panelist: Ayoka Chenzira

Fierce Female Filmmakers of TriStar Pictures
Presented by Sony Pictures Entertainment

Join three trailblazing fierce, female, filmmakers — Gina Prince-Bythewood (Love & Basketball), Kasi Lemmons (Eve’s Bayou), and Nicole Brown (TriStar Pictures President) for an intimate sit-down conversation as they open up about their highly anticipated Sony Pictures releases: The Woman King starring Viola Davis, and the Whitney Houston biopic I Wanna Dance with Somebody starring Naomi Ackie. This conversation will dive into the importance, power and future of Black film while providing a sneak peek of what audiences can expect in their upcoming releases via exclusive content.

Moderator: Brett King, vice president, Creative Programming, Diversity and Inclusion for Sony Pictures Entertainment

Panelists: Nicole Brown, president of TriStar Pictures; Kasi Lemmons, director, I Wanna Dance with Somebody; Gina Prince-Bythewood, Director, The Woman King

Flipping the Script: Defining your own Path to Success presented by Warner Bros. Discovery Equity and Inclusion
Presented by Warner Bros. Discovery

Over the last few decades, the road to stardom and success in Hollywood has changed significantly. With the emergence of the digital age, social media and waves of new talent, many are finding success, their own way and on their own terms. This engaging and motivating panel discusses the impact of breaking into the entertainment industry both traditionally and non-traditionally; and ways to stay relevant in an ever-changing production landscape that is no longer one size fits all.

Moderator: Karen Horne, senior vice president, Warner Bros. Discovery, Equity and Inclusion

Panelists: Salli Richardson-Whitfield (Winning Time and The Gilded Age, HBO), Carlos King (Love & Marriage Franchise, OWN), Ashley Blaine Featherson-Jenkins (Trials to Triumphs Podcast, OWN), Bashir Salahuddin (South Side, HBO Max), Diallo Riddle (South Side, HBO Max). Networking Reception to follow. RSVP and COVID vaccination required.

“This Is Us”: From Script to Screen
Presented by Comcast NBCUniversal

Go behind the scenes of NBC’s beloved drama “This Is Us” with actress and writer Susan Kelechi Watson, writer and producer Eboni Freeman and producer Christiana Hooks. Delve into a poignant conversation about the final season and the episode “Our Little Island Girl: Part Two” that is centered on Beth Pearson and was co-written by Susan and Eboni. Learn about the show’s unique approach to bringing multidimensional narratives to life by reflecting on the past, inspiring the future, and creating beautiful stories that transcend generations.

Moderator: Danielle Young, journalist and host of Real Quick

Panelists: Susan Kelechi Watson, actress and writer; Eboni Freeman, writer and producer; Christiana Hooks, producer

Life Of A Showrunner 
Presented by UPS

This panel examines the road to becoming a television showrunner, the duties and demands it entails, career strategies to be considered, the parameters of creative control as well as the freedom it affords and what running a writers room looks like.

Panelists: Robin Thede (A Black Lady Sketch Show), Rikki Hughes (The Hype), Randy Huggins (BMF)

ABFF Comedy Wings Showcase
Presented by Warner Bros. Discovery and HBO

A night of laugher hosted by Aida Rodriquez and introducing: Marshall Brandon, Cherie Danielle, Shanna Christmas, Rob Gordon and Alan Massenburg

Saturday, June 18, 2022
Academy 365
Presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is a 95-year-old organization that has long been known for the Oscars, often called “Hollywood’s biggest night.” But what goes on the other 364 days of the year? In this panel, key leadership shares how the Academy engages their membership of over 10,000 members on a year-round basis and leads industry initiatives that celebrate the history of film, amplifies its global community of artists and advocates for increased representation across the industry.

Moderator: Scott Evans, Access Hollywood

Panelists: DeVon Franklin, governor-at-large; Christine Simmons, chief operating officder, Academy; Shawn Finnie, executive vice president, Member Relations and Awards, Academy; Meryl Johnson, vice president, Digital Marketing, Academy

Best of ABFF Awards Presentation 
Hosted by Dondré Whitfield

Join us for the announcement of the festival winner of this year’s competitions including: Best Narrative Feature, Best Director, Best Screenplay, John Singleton Award for Best First Feature, Best Documentary, Best Web Series and HBO Short Film Award. This event will be live-streamed on ABFF PLAY.

Cocktails, Conversations, and Financial Facts with LisaRaye McCoy
Presented by Prudential Financial

Actress and Entrepreneur LisaRaye McCoy will share her journey with money, finances, and setting financial goals from her life on the South Side of Chicago to her life in the film industry. Prudential financial professionals will be available to answer financial questions.

Moderator: Delvin Joyce (Prudential Financial Planner & Founder of Prosperity Wealth Group)

The Leading Man
Presented by Cadillac

A panel of esteemed male actors examine the images of Black men in film and television, share stories about their journeys to success and discuss the messages they wish to convey to boys and young men in the community.

Moderator: Malinda Williams

Panelists: Trevante Rhodes, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Michael Ealy

Critter Fixers: Clips and Conversation
Presented by Disney+

Join veterinarians Dr. Terrence Ferguson and Dr. Vernard Hodges as they discuss some of their most unique animal cases and provide great tips and techniques to help care for your pets.

Moderator: Jill Tracey, Morning Show co-host on WHQT Hot 105 Miami

Panelists: Dr. Terrence Ferguson, Dr. Vernard Hodges

Closing Night Screening   
Rap Sh!t

Courtesy of Warner Bros. Discovery and HBO Max

Rap Sh!t follows two estranged high school friends from Miami, Shawna and Mia, who reunite to form a rap group.
Cast: Aida Osman (Shawna), KaMillion (Mia), Jonica Booth (Chastity), Devon Terrell (Cliff,) RJ Cyler (Lamont), Executive Producer and Writer: Issa Rae (for HOORAE); Executive Producer and Showrunner: Syreeta Singleton; Executive Producer: Montrel McKay (for HOORAE); Executive Producers: Dave Becky and Jonathan Berry (for 3 Arts Entertainment); Executive Producer: Deniese Davis

Hip hop duo Yung Miami and JT of City Girls serve as co-executive producers, along with Kevin “Coach K” Lee and Pierre “P” Thomas for Quality Control Films and Sara Rastogi for HOORAE. Sadé Clacken Joseph directed the pilot. Rae’s audio content company Raedio will handle music supervision for the series.

Sunday, June 18, 2022
ABFF Community Day
Sponsored by the Greater Miami Convention and Visitors Bureau (GMCVB)

The festival, in partnership with the Greater Miami Convention & Visitors Bureau, presents a day of entertainment curated for family audiences.

Virtual Events available on ABFF PLAY https://abffplay.com/

Life As Entrepreneurs
Presented by Morgan Stanley

A discussion exploring what it takes to build a family brand, the importance of being financially literate, and the value of building generational wealth.

Panelists:  Husband and wife team DJ Envy and Gia Casey

Mathis Family Matters
Presented by Comcast NBCUniversal

E! Entertainment presents an intimate conversation with the cast of E!’s new docuseries, “Mathis Family Matters” about representation, the black family on television today, their personal experiences and perspectives around diversity both in front of and behind the camera. To further the dialogue regarding unscripted television, they will exchange thoughts on the importance of Black producers ensuring that our stories aren’t overlooked and we are represented equally in today’s diverse culture.

Moderators: Ebony Magazine  

Panelists: Judge Greg Mathis, Linda Mathis, Jade Mathis, Camara Mathis, Greg Mathis Jr., Amir Mathis

Universal GTDI’s Five Years of Creative Impact 
Presented by Comcast NBCUniversal

In celebration of Universal’s Global Talent Development & Inclusion (GTDI) five-year anniversary, this panel spotlights friend-of-GTDI director Jude Weng, accompanied by four incredible alumni who have participated in GTDI’s flagship programs. Moderated by Rotten Tomatoes Awards Editor Jacqueline Coley, this panel aims to highlight the participants’ journeys towards establishing a career in the industry, as well as provide their perspective on how they view representation and access in the industry.

Moderators: Jacqueline Coley

Panelists: Jermaine Stegall, Juel Taylor, Jude Weng, Marielle Woods

Gate-Opening: Black Exec Round Table
Presented by Lionsgate and Starz

A candid conversation with Black development executives at Lionsgate and Starz demystifying the studio system, providing helpful guidance and insight into the initial development stages to support rising Black filmmakers.

Moderator: Kamala Avila-Salmon — head of Inclusive Content at Lionsgate

Panelists: Kathryn Tyus-Adair, senior vice president of Original Programming at Starz, Jade-Addon Hall, vice president of Current Series at Lionsgate TV, Aaron Edmonds, vice president of Production and Development at Lionsgate

ABFF 2022 sponsors and partners to date include Warner Bros. Discovery & HBOÒ (Founding); Cadillac, City of Miami Beach, Greater Miami Convention and Visitors Bureau (GMCVB), Sony Pictures Entertainment, Prime Video (Presenting); American Airlines, Comcast NBCUniversal, Meta, Bounce TV, Black Experience on Xfinity, UPS, IMDb (Premier); ALLBLK, Prudential Financial, Variety, TV One, Netflix, Starz, Disney+, Onyx Collective (Official); Accenture, Motion Pictures Association (MPA), A&E, The SpringHill Company, The Boston Globe, Color Of Change, Confluential Films, Arrington & Phillips, Fulton Films, BET Her, Morgan Stanley, Miami Beach VCA, Frankfurt Kurnit Klein & Selz, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (Supporting); Endeavor Content and DC Office of Television (Industry).

https://www.blackenterprise.com/american-black-film-festival-announces-2022-talks-panels-and-top-line-talent-for-26th-abff-june-15-19-2022/

In this very community I stated and state that one of the problems the Black populace in the USA has is the lack of one attempted idea in its history? 
Do you know what that is? 
No it isn't starting businesses. It isn't going to ivy league schools or historical black colleges. It isn't becoming elected officials. It isn't joining the USA military or a local law enforcement. It isn't having many lawyers or doctors or business owners. 
The Black populace in the USA  has financially tried everything, as individuals or groups. 
The Black populace in the USA has governmentally not tried everything, as individuals or groups. 
Yes, Black populace has many independent voters, people who vote based on candidate agenda, in the voting stream. 
The one major absence in the Black populace historically or modernly is a Black Party to Governance. I rephrase, the Black populace in the USA has never had a rival to the Republicans or Democrats solely for the Black populaces benefit.

Now, why is that? The answer is long winded , a long history, but simple in function. From the Black minority that fought with the colonists against the British <the Black majority were enslaved> to Frederick Douglass who publicly opposed Haiti, leaving the usa, or Black segregation from whites to former president Barack Obama. Many, usually most in history, Black leaders in the USA support a positive phenotypical integration to Whites. 
A Black party of governance by default is segregatory in nature. Sequentially, that is why it has not been attempted with the vigor of Black business communities in white cities or Black membership in the US military or other ventures, all of which demand positive integration with whites at their heart to work 
But, a white man in the article given in total below, states a simple truth. 
The USA government has a need to be restructured that goes beyond a law being passed. He doesn't suggest a new party of governance is the answer. He suggest the answer is a change in the membership of the donkeys or the elephants. A membership change with those willing to be effective over alliances in public or private or to institutional structures.
But I argue, from the NAtive American populace to the Black populace < descended of enslaved plus not descended from enslaved> each peoples of color in the USA <non white europeans>  have specific needs that can not be handled by one party of governance. 
I restate, in the USA no one party can help everybody. Every party of governance has to fail somebody. 
Thus, Black people in the USA don't need to be an option, they need to be the purpose. 

ARTICLE

EZRA KLEIN

What America Needs Is a Liberalism That Builds
May 29, 2022

Early in Joe Biden’s presidency, Felicia Wong, the president of the liberal Roosevelt Institute, told me < https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/03/podcasts/transcript-ezra-klein-interviews-felicia-wong.html >  that Biden was badly misunderstood. He’s been in national politics for decades, and so people look at him and “default to a kind of old understanding of what Democrats stand for, this idea that Democrats are tax-and-spend liberals.” Wong thought he wanted more: “What Biden is trying to push is much more about actually remaking our economy, so that it does different things and it actually regularly produces different outcomes.”

I think Wong was right about what Biden, or at least the Biden administration, wanted. But its execution has lagged its vision. And the reason for this is uncomfortable for Democrats. You can’t transform the economy without first transforming the government.

In April, Brian Deese, the director of Biden’s National Economic Council, gave an important speech on the need for “a modern American industrial strategy.” This was a salvo in a debate most Americans would probably be puzzled to know Democrats are having. Industrial strategy is the idea that a country should chart a path to productive capacity beyond what the market would, on its own, support. It is the belief that there should be some politics in our economics, some vision of what we are trying to make beyond what financial markets reward.

Trying to build clean energy infrastructure is a form of industrial strategy. So is investing in domestic supply chains for vaccines and masks and microchips. For decades, the idea has been disreputable, even among Democrats. You don’t want government picking winners and losers, as the adage goes.

The argument, basically, is this: When governments bet on technologies or companies, they typically bet wrong. Markets are more efficient, more adaptable, less corrupt. And so governments should, where possible, get out of the market’s way. The government’s proper role is after the market has done its work, shifting money from those who have it to those who need it. Put simply, markets create, governments tax, and politicians spend.

It’s remarkable, the assumptions that lurk beneath what’s taken for common sense in Washington. Consider the phrase “winners and losers.” Winners at what? Losers how? Markets manage such questions through profits and losses, valuations and bankruptcies. But societies have richer, more complex goals. To criticize markets for failing to achieve them is like berating a toaster because it never produces an oil painting. That’s not its job.

So I won’t say markets failed. We failed. Growth slowed, inequality widened, the climate crisis kept getting worse, deindustrialization wrecked communities, the pandemic proved America’s supply chains fragile, China became more authoritarian rather than more democratic, and then Vladimir Putin’s war revealed the folly of relying on countries we cannot trust for goods we desperately need.

No one considers this success. Deese, in his speech to the Economic Club of New York., declared the debate over: “The question should move from ‘Why should we pursue an industrial strategy?’ to ‘How do we pursue one successfully?’”

I am unabashedly sympathetic to this vision. In a series of columns over the past year < https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/19/opinion/supply-side-progressivism.html , https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/12/opinion/yellen-supply-side-liberalism.html , https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/13/opinion/berkeley-enrollment-climate-crisis.html , https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/16/opinion/biden-obama-economy.html > , I’ve argued that we need a liberalism that builds. Scratch the failures of modern Democratic governance, particularly in blue states, and you’ll typically find that the market didn’t provide what we needed and government either didn’t step in or made the problem worse through neglect or overregulation.

We need to build more homes, trains, clean energy, research centers, disease surveillance. And we need to do it faster and cheaper. At the national level, much can be blamed on Republican obstruction and the filibuster. But that’s not always true in New York or California or Oregon. It is too slow and too costly to build even where Republicans are weak — perhaps especially where they are weak.

This is where the liberal vision too often averts its gaze. If anything, the critiques made of public action a generation ago have more force today. Do we have a government capable of building? The answer, too often, is no. What we have is a government that is extremely good at making building difficult.

The first step is admitting you have a problem, and Deese, to his credit, did exactly that. “A modern American industrial strategy needs to demonstrate that America can build — fast, as we’ve done before, and fairly, as we’ve sometimes failed to do,” he said.

He noted that the Empire State Building was constructed in just over a year. We are richer than we were then, and our technology far outpaces what was available in 1930. And yet does anyone seriously believe such a project would take a year today?

“We need to unpack the many constraints that cause America to lag other major countries — including those with strong labor, environmental and historical protections — in delivering infrastructure on budget and on time,” Deese continued.

One answer — the typical Republican answer — is that government can’t do the job and shouldn’t try. But the data doesn’t bear that out. The Transit Costs Project tracks < https://transitcosts.com/what-does-the-data-say/ >  the price tags on rail projects in different countries. It’s hard to get an apples-to-apples comparison here, because different projects are, well, different, and it matters whether they include, say, a tunnel, which is expensive for all the obvious reasons.

Even so, the United States is notable for how much we spend and how little we get. It costs about $538 million to build a kilometer (about 0.6 mile) of rail here. Germany builds a kilometer of rail for $287 million. Canada gets it done for $254 million. Japan clocks in at $170 million. Spain is the cheapest country in the database, at $80 million. All those countries build more tunnels than we do, perhaps because they retain the confidence to regularly try. The better you are at building infrastructure, the more ambitious you can be when imagining infrastructure to build.

The problem isn’t government. It’s our government. Nor is the problem unions — another favored bugaboo of the right. Union density is higher in all those countries than it is in the United States. So what has gone wrong here?

One answer worth wrestling with was offered by Brink Lindsey, the director of the Open Society Project at the Niskanen Center, in a 2021 paper < https://www.niskanencenter.org/state-capacity-what-is-it-how-we-lost-it-and-how-to-get-it-back/ >  titled “State Capacity: What Is It, How We Lost It, and How to Get It Back.” His definition is admirably terse. “State capacity is the ability to design and execute policy effectively,” he told me. When a government can’t collect the taxes it’s owed or build the sign-up portal for its new health insurance plan or construct the high-speed rail it’s already spent billions of dollars on, that’s a failure of state capacity.

But a weak government is often an end, not an accident. Lindsey’s argument is that to fix state capacity in America, we need to see that the hobbled state we have is a choice and there are reasons it was chosen. Government isn’t intrinsically inefficient. It has been made inefficient. And not just by the right:

Highlight : What is needed most is a change in ideas: namely, a reversal of those intellectual trends of the past 50 years or so that have brought us to the current pass. On the right, this means abandoning the knee-jerk anti-statism of recent decades; embracing the legitimacy of a large, complex welfare and regulatory state; and recognizing the vital role played by the nation’s public servants (not just the police and military). On the left, it means reconsidering the decentralized, legalistic model of governance that has guided progressive-led state expansion since the 1960s; reducing the veto power that activist groups exercise in the courts; and shifting the focus of policy design from ensuring that power is subject to progressive checks to ensuring that power can actually be exercised effectively.

The Biden administration can’t do much about the right’s hostility to government. But it can confront the mistakes and divisions on the left.

A place to start is offered in another Niskanen paper, this one by Nicholas Bagley, a law professor at the University of Michigan. In “The Procedure Fetish” < https://www.niskanencenter.org/the-procedure-fetish/ >  he argues that liberal governance has developed a puzzling preference for legitimating government action through processes rather than outcomes. He suggests, provocatively, that that’s because American politics in general and the Democratic Party, in particular, are dominated by lawyers. Biden and Kamala Harris hold law degrees, as did Barack Obama and John Kerry and Bill and Hillary Clinton before them. And this filters down through the party. “Lawyers, not managers, have assumed primary responsibility for shaping administrative law in the United States,” Bagley writes. “And if all you’ve got is a lawyer, everything looks like a procedural problem.”

This is a way that America differs from peer countries: Robert Kagan, a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley, has called this “adversarial legalism” and shown that it’s a distinctively American way of checking state power. Bagley builds on this argument. “Inflexible procedural rules are a hallmark of the American state,” he writes. “The ubiquity of court challenges, the artificial rigors of notice-and-comment rule making, zealous environmental review, pre-enforcement review of agency rules, picayune legal rules governing hiring and procurement, nationwide court injunctions — the list goes on and on.”

The justification for these policies is that they make state action more legitimate by ensuring that dissenting voices are heard. But they also, over time, render government ineffective, and that cost is rarely weighed. This gets to Bagley’s ultimate and, in my view, wisest point. “Legitimacy is not solely, not even primarily, a product of the procedures that agencies follow,” he says. “Legitimacy arises more generally from the perception that government is capable, informed, prompt, responsive and fair.” That is what we’ve lost — in fact, not just in perception.

Rebuilding that kind of government isn’t a question of regulatory tweaks and interagency coordination. It’s difficult, coalition-splitting work. It pits Democratic leaders against their own allies, against organizations and institutions they’ve admired or joined against processes whose justifications they’ve long ago accepted and laws they consider jewels of their past.

The environmental movement cheers when Biden says he wants to decarbonize and fast. But if he said that in order to achieve that goal, he wanted to reform or waive large sections of the National Environmental Policy Act to speed the construction of clean energy infrastructure, he’d find himself at war. What if he decided to argue not just that government workers should be paid more but also that they should be easier to both hire and fire?

I’ve spent most of my adult life trawling think tank reports to better understand how to solve problems. When I go looking for ideas on how to build state capacity on the left, I don’t find much. There’s nothing like the depth of research, thought and energy that goes into imagining health and climate and education policy. But those health, climate and education plans depend, crucially, on a state capable of designing and executing policy effectively. This is true at the federal level, and it is even truer, and harder, at the state and local levels.

So this is what I have become certain of: Democrats spend too much time and energy imagining the policies that a capable government could execute and not nearly enough time imagining how to make a government capable of executing them. It is not only markets that have failed.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/29/opinion/biden-liberalism-infrastructure-building.html

Alice (2022)
Today’s episode of MTMW was inspired by the real events of Mae Louise Walls Mills family who were victims of peonage and not freed until 1963. Keke Palmer’s character, Alice, runs away from an existence that is deeply entrenched in 1800s customs and practices, and into a new century where black people are no longer chattel. She questions what freedom really means to her in this new world she’s walked into and how she’s going to obtain it for the family she left back on the plantation. Join the conversation! Share your thoughts in the comments below or in our Facebook group!
Video Review Link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ikr-GsGRadU

Facebook group
https://www.facebook.com/groups/162792258578547/

COMMENTS

circa 3:20 some articles concerning the millers
the article the director saw , dated january 6th , 2006
https://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/story?id=129007&page=1
a people article
https://people.com/archive/the-last-slaves-of-mississippi-vol-67-no-12/
a reference on the African American Literary Book Club
https://aalbc.com/tc/profile/6477-richardmurray/?status=1830&type=status

3:23 I searched, in certain legal quarters, Peonage is when a free person is being financially enslaved as opposed to slavery when a person is legally enslaved. I concur to you Nike, slavery is slavery. The need to not use the word peonage comes from nonblack plus some blacks in the usa trying to create distinction in the relationship between blacks side nonblacks before and after the war between the states. For example: a black man's father before the war between the states was legally enslaved, or a slave, which was immoral; but after the war you are a peon , as a free person being taken advantage of by your fellow citizens. Now even though your father worked on mr blanc's plantation before the war and you are working on mr blanc's plantation after the war. The legal scenario of the two is important in legal settings even though the functionality of enslavement to another is purely the same. Remember, nonviolence demands power through the rule of law. 

3:59 peonage is not illegal for convicted criminals still. and remember, have all 50 states acted in line to the federal government? thus the Walls Mills family in the 1960s scenario.

7:16 krysten ver linden also wrote it 

7:58 also freedom in fiscal capitalism is about ownership. One must be free in the mind but, financially, owners are the most free in fiscal capitalism. And, all to often black people do not own for all our various employments, whether respected or disrespected

9:47 I love your statement, she goes from dressing like harriet tubman to foxy brown. Is Alice in her revenge story, the antithesis of Solomon Northrup sitting in the carriage near his white savior as patsy yell out his name and faint.

11:11 great question, is it horror? is it time travel? ... I think the definitions, plural,  of horror or time travelling stories are numerous enough to say yes to both questions, depending on the definition chosen. Maybe with adjectives , historical horror or conditional time travel, many others besides you or me can come on board?

ARTICLES

Sisters: We Were Modern-Day Slaves
ByABC News
January 6, 2006, 12:42 PM
• 5 min read

Dec. 20, 2003 -- As Mae Miller tells it, she spent her youth in Mississippi as a slave, "picking cotton, pulling corn, picking peas, picking butter beans, picking string beans, digging potatoes. Whatever it was, that's what you did for no money at all."

Miller and her sister Annie's tale of bondage ended in the '60s — not the 1860s, when slaves officially were freed after the Civil War, but the 1960s.

Their story, which ABCNEWS has not confirmed independently, is not unheard of. Justice Department records tell of prosecutions, well into the 20th century, of whites who continued to keep blacks in "involuntary servitude," coercing them with threats on their lives, exploiting their ignorance of life and the laws beyond the plantation where they were born.

‘Don’t Run Away — They’ll Kill Us’

The sisters say that's how it happened them. They were born in the 1930s and '40s into a world where their father, Cain Wall, now believed to be 105 years old, had already been forced into slave labor.

"It was so bad, I ran away" at age 9, Annie Miller told ABCNEWS' Nightline. "But they told my brother they better come get me. I ran to a place even worse than where I were. But the people told my brothers, they go, 'You better go get her.' They came [and] got me and they brought me back.

"So, I thought Dad could do something about that," she said. "You know, I told him, said, 'I'm gonna run away again.' He said, 'Baby, don't run away. They'll kill us.' So, I didn't try it no more."

The Millers' story came to light recently when Mae Miller walked into a workshop on the issue of slave reparations run by Antoinette Harrell-Miller, a genealogist.

"She said, 'I have to tell you my story. My dad is 104. He's still living. He has some stories that he can tell you when we were still held in slavery,' " Harrell-Miller recalled.At first, Harrell-Miller needed some convincing, but, "When I looked at the living conditions of the family, I understood very clearly how it's possible for people to live like that. Driving down to the deltas of Mississippi, looking at the house that they lived in, it was hard to believe that people would live in houses like that."

Now she not only believes the story, she has become something of a guardian angel in Mae Miller's life. The Miller sisters and their father, hospitalized for the past several months after suffering a heart attack — have joined a class action lawsuit in Chicago seeking reparations for the 35 million African-Americans who are descendants of slaves.

Ron Walters, a political scientist who's an advocate for slavery reparations, also believes the Miller sisters' story.

"I believe it because it is plausible," Walters said. "One of the things I think we know is that these letters [archived early in the 20th century by the NAACP] tell us that in a lot of these places, that they were kept in bondage or semi-bondage conditions in the 20th century — [in] out-of-the way places, certainly where the law authorities didn't pay much attention to what was going on."

‘Reckon It Had to Be Slavery’

Class action suits are always stronger when the plaintiffs include someone whose personal experience dramatically illustrates the wrong that's been done. It does not get more dramatic than the story the Miller sisters told about life as slaves in Mississippi.

"It's the worst I ever heard of, so I don't know what you name it," Annie Miller said. "It was very terrible. So, I reckon it had to be slavery for it to be as bad as it were."

"They beat us," Mae Miller said. "They didn't feed us. We had to go drink water out of the creek. We ate like hogs. We didn't eat like dogs because they do bring a dog to a certain place to feed dogs. We couldn't have that."

Mae Miller said she didn't run away because, "What could you run to?"

Annie Miller was frightened to discuss the experience her family left behind 42 years ago.

"They said, 'You better not tell because we'll kill 'em, kill all of you, you n----rs,'" Annie Miller said. "Why would you want to tell anybody that you was raped over and all that kind of mess? You don't tell. Who would you want to tell? I don't want to tell you. I don't want to tell nobody."

"We thought everybody was in the same predicament," Mae Miller said. "We didn't know everybody wasn't living the same life that we were living. We thought this was just for the black folks.

"I feel like my whole life has been taken," she said. "You know, they did so much to us."

ABCNEWS' John Donvan contributed to this report.

Article link
https://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/story?id=129007&page=1

The Last Slaves of Mississippi?
By Bob Meadows
Updated March 26, 2007 12:00 PM

With every step into the overgrown thicket, Mae Miller’s breathing becomes more labored. “My heart is beating so fast,” she says. “I can’t believe I’m back here.” It’s not the unsteady footing in this field in Gillsburg, Miss., that’s giving her pause; it’s the memories. Some 50 years ago, Miller says she and her parents, Cain and Lela Wall, and her six siblings were held like slaves on this land and surrounding farms. “We been though pure-D hell,” she says today. “I mean hell right here on earth.”

The story that Miller, 63, and her relatives tell is a sepia-toned nightmare straight out of the Old South. For years, she says, the family was forced to pick cotton, clean house and milk cows—all without being paid—under threat of whippings, rape and even death. They say they were passed from white family to white family, their condition never improving, until finally, hope that life would ever get better was nearly lost. Technically, the Walls were victims of “peonage,” an illegal practice that flourished in the rural South after slavery was abolished in 1865 and lasted, in isolated cases like theirs, until as recently as the 1960s. Under peonage, blacks were forced to work off debts, real or imagined, with free labor under the same types of violent coercion as slavery. In contrast with the more common arrangement known as sharecropping, peons weren’t paid and couldn’t move from the land without permission. “White people had the power to hold blacks down, and they weren’t afraid to use it—and they were brutal,” says Pete Daniel, a historian at the Smithsonian Institution and an expert on peonage.

By the 1940s, according to records in the National Archives, only rare cases of long-term peonage survived, mostly in rural areas and small towns. That places the Wall family—who say they lived in drafty shacks with grass-filled pallets for beds on white-owned farms until 1961—among a tiny minority. The family’s story might not be known at all if it weren’t for the work of a New Jersey lawyer, Deadria Farmer-Paellmann. In 2001 she began a national effort to claim reparations from corporations that long ago profited from slavery. She scoured the country for descendants of slaves and learned about the Wall family from Louisiana genealogist Antoinette Harrell. Farmer-Paellmann still marvels that the end of slavery had made no practical difference in their lives, even after the advent of TV and jet travel. “They didn’t know blacks were free, that’s what’s so incredible about their story,” says Farmer-Paellmann. “They thought freedom was for whites only.”

Mostly out of fear, but also of shame, Mae Miller says she never breathed a word of her family’s history, even to her own children, until 2001. Mae’s father, Cain Wall Sr., she says, was born into peonage in St. Helena Parish, La. Census records place the date around 1902, though the family says he is even older. Now in frail health and bed-bound, he married when he was 17 (his wife died in 1984) and by the mid-1930s, the family says, was living across the Mississippi border in Gillsburg, working the fields for white families who lived near each other or attended the same church—the Walls (a common name in the region), the McDaniels and, mostly, the Gordons.

While blacks in nearby towns like Liberty, Miss., attended school, owned businesses and protested Jim Crow laws that denied them civil rights, life in the countryside was a very different matter. The Walls had no electricity, phone or radio. Trips to town, to visit relatives, even to church, were forbidden. Once during World War II, according to the family, Cain Sr. escaped from the Gordon farm. Within two hours he was picked up by two white men; they said they were taking him to a military recruiting station in Jackson, but immediately returned him to the farm. The Amite County school district, where Gillsburg sits, records the six oldest children being enrolled in the fall of 1951—but none of them recall going at that time. “I went to school for a little while in the seventh grade, but I was a lot older than all the other students,” Mae says. “I couldn’t read or write.”

Meals were whatever they could catch—rabbits, birds, fish—and the white family’s leftovers. Beatings with whips or even chains were common, they say, for slacking off or talking back. “The whip would wrap around your body and knock you down,” says Mae’s sister Annie, 67. Mae remembers her father once being beaten so badly that she and her siblings climbed on his fallen body to protect him.

The most crippling violence began when Mae was about 5. She vividly remembers the morning she and her mother went to the Gordon home to clean it. They were met by two men—faces she recognized. One tugged on Mae’s long hair, she recalls. She tried to hide in her mother’s skirt, but he grabbed her and pushed her to the floor. Both she and her mother were raped that morning. “I remember a white woman there saying, ‘Oh no, not her, she’s just a yearling,'” Mae says. “But they just kept on and on.” Mae says her mother begged the men to spare her daughter, and a white women cleaned her up after the attack. That was the first of numerous times she was raped, she says. “They told me, ‘If you go down there and tell Ol’ Cain, we will kill him before the morning.’ I knew there wasn’t anyone who could help me.”

All these years later, it’s impossible to prove Mae’s recollections. There is no legal documentation of the atrocities she describes. “Back then, we did what we had to do to live,” says Mae. “We thought everyone was in the same fix.” When contacted today, a member of the Gordon family has vastly different recollections of that era. Durwood Gordon, 63, a retired propane truck driver now living in McComb, Miss., recalls the family worked for his uncle Willie, a dairy farmer who died in the ’50s, and cousin William Gordon, who was 84 when he died in 1991. “I just remember [Cain Sr.] was a jolly type, smiling every time I saw him,” says Durwood, who was younger than 12 when the Walls worked there. To him, the rape charge is unbelievable. “No way, knowing my uncle the way I do,” Durwood says. “I knew him to be good people, good folks, Christian.”

The Walls finally found freedom in 1961, while working for another family in Kentwood, La. Mae, about 18, refused one morning to clean the house. After the owner threatened to kill her, she ran away. “I don’t know what got into me,” she says. “I remember thinking they’re just going to have to kill me today, because I’m not doing this anymore.” The furious white farmer kicked her whole family off his land.

Not knowing where else to go, most of the Walls stayed near Kentwood. Mae got her first paying job, working in a restaurant for a white lady. “I kept waiting for her to be mean, but she treated me well,” she says. But her past left scars she couldn’t run from. Around 1963, she married Wallace Miller, a construction worker, and wanted to start a family. But a doctor told her that her reproductive system had been damaged, likely from the rapes. Devastated, Mae eventually adopted four children.

Well into her 30s, Mae went back to school and learned to read and write. She became a glass-cutter in the 1970s, a job she held for 20 years. “I started out at a dollar an hour but it seemed like a million to me,” she says with a smile. After her house burned down in 1995 and an injury prevented her from working, she was homeless until 2003. But Mae began cleaning houses and rebounded: With the help of a real estate agent whose office she cleaned, she bought her current house with no money down.

Mae finally broke the family’s silence in 2001 when she attended what she thought was a public lecture on black history. In fact, the church meeting was about the slavery reparations campaign. Incredibly, it was only then that the family learned their life on the white-owned farms had been illegal. “I couldn’t believe it. How could somebody do that to another person?” wonders Mae, her voice bitter. In 2003 they joined a suit that is slowly moving through U.S. District Court in Illinois. But for Mae, the distant possibility of winning compensation for her family’s struggle is only one reason to share her history. “I’m really just glad this story is out there,” she says. “It might bring some shame to the family, but it’s not a big dark secret anymore. It’s out there, and it’s not hounding me anymore.”

Article link 
https://people.com/archive/the-last-slaves-of-mississippi-vol-67-no-12/
 

Black American Millionaires

My comments in the post

@Delano black people with money have existed in the usa when it was colonies of the british empire. Black people with money are not more profitable than white people with money but have slowly grown , without enslaving or murdering other peoples for their land. 

The question is, is the goal of the black community ins the usa to have communal strength or to be a collection of individuals? 

@Delano for the record, I am not opposing the Black community in the USA , not the world or another country but the USA , being a set of individuals. But the only problem is, a community of individuals can't then ask/demand for collective or communal strength. 

@Delano well, I said ask/demand. The point is not about weakness or strength but strategy. 

I think history shows from frederick Douglass to today, the Black community in the usa is led by leaders who want to be nonviolent or positively integrate to nonblacks. They guided the black community in the usa to be a community of individuals. the problem is, most black people in the usa did and do not want that and moreover, have not handled what that means. 

@ProfD one question, can you describe what a liberated black people in the usa look like? I am not refuting your statement, about what will not influence liberation for black people in the usa, but how do you define said liberation? Note I am not asking about the process or the path, I am asking about how you define the end.

@Delano yes, the old saying, strong people lead themselves... history proves that isn't a lie but isn't the truth either. 

A person can lead themselves and be strong and not help their own community, especially in the usa. I think many black people have been strong in the usa post war between the states, they have led themselves to individual profit. Now does that mean the black community has improved since the war between the states, well...

@ProfD I quote you

  Quote

Independently capable of generating  and sustaining wealth in all realms (mental, physical and spiritual). 

 

Complete autonomy and self-sufficiency in all areas of human activity. 

If that is the destination, I will firmly say that can't happen in the usa for the black community, can it? complete autonomy or self sufficiency, in the usa for the black community demands black people control natural resources and have the militaristic means to defend said resources. Can that actually happen in the usa ? In another country, especially a black one, meaning has mostly black people in it, possibilities exist. but in the usa, this can't happen right? 

I may comprehend you wrong, but I don't see that level of autonomy of self sufficiency for the black community in the usa. where am I miscomprehending you?

@Mel Hopkins the black community in the usa has changed right? it has gone through multiple phases since the end of the war between the states right? the modern black community has more members with a multiphenotypical background, has more members from a recent immigration standpoint, these factors are huge. the black community in the usa in the 1960s didn't have so many recent immigrants from the islands/africa/asia/south america/europe as today. and the black community circa 1865 was the most monolithic culturally/financially/heritagewise than ever after. I think the demography of the black community has changed alot in a relative short time. And I want to add having friends who came as children to the usa from places in africa, clan members who saw how black people immigrating from the caribbean were treated in the black community in the early 1900s , that the black community in the usa was forced to accept alot of new members without its want, to be blunt. Look at the white community in the usa. Even though white jews or catholics have been in the usa from the 13 colonies era, it took a very long time for the white protestants to truly embrace white jews or white catholics. Whereas in the black community, the impotency of the black community meant new black folk from latin america, from africa, from asia, had no communal restriction from Black DOSers anywhere near what white protestants gave white jews or catholics. So I concur about new ways but the black community in the usa hasn't had time to settle as a community since the war between the states and that can be problematic when you are trying to organize. 

@ProfD yes, and you answered perfectly, My reply is not a condemnation of your answer, which you seem to suggest. TO a country like Nigeria or Jamaica I have nothing to say about your definition of the goal. BUT, the USA is not Nigeria or Jamaica. 

I am not dissecting your definition. I am not debating if it can be applied. I am debating one thing, if it can be applied in the usa. . I think it is fair to ask can that destination be achieved in a country like the usa that is not only black people. What about the native american? based on how you define the goal for black people in the usa, if the native american wants the same freedom and whites want the same freedom <which of course they do > then all of these peoples can't have the same goal in one space. I am not talking about process but the ability of the usa as a multiracial society to provide freedoms for all its races. 

I argue, the usa can't allow all races to have freedom as you define freedom for the black community. That isn't an insult to your point merely a continuation of discussion

I apologize, if I poorly move on to my centerpoint of discussion

@Mel Hopkins I again, communicate poorly, my point isn't that strong people lead themselves. I agree partially to @Delano because, one can thrive and their community not thrive. I think the black community in the usa is exhibit A of a community where individuals thrive but the community rottens. from the end of the war between the states to today, it can be argued, black individuals have thrived as presidents/supreme court jusitces, billionaires, millionaires, but the black communities black churches/historical black colleges, negro leagues, institutions are clearly less than in the past, the nation of islam as well..., every single black organization gets weaker over time in the usa not stronger. so... the strong individuals, if you judge strength by financial success or position in government,  are leading themselves, but that is not making a great black community in the usa. 

I communicated very poorly again, I have learned through personal experience , that no heritage ever dies, it becomes small somestimes, sometimes it becomes really large, but it never dies completely. My point is that the black community in the usa since the war between the states has never been able to settle itself and thus through white negative influence <reconstruction/kkk/jim crow/big city governments during white flight> or constant new groups of black people coming in everywhere <from jamaica/haiti/trinidad/nigeria/ghana/south africa/various places in europe/various places in south america/ various places in asia> the black community in the past or now doesn't have enough time to find a center, cause new black groups or new white negative influences are always coming. The DOSers dislike of so many Black modern immigrant groups, or vice versa,  is my proof. 

@Mel Hopkinsisntitutions are the symbols of a communities strength. 

As a computer engineer I have experience with peer to peer networks, peer to peer networks by default are individual collections. They are very loose and while they can create in a quick amount of time utility their great weakness is the lack of a center. Which is the symbol of community. 

Black is a phenotypical race, not an ancestry race, like german american, but you are correct in population numbers. it is racially fair to compare to black americans to white americans but ok. 

Mel I comprehend the strategy you refer to. Maybe you think I don't. You or @Delano I don't think comprehend my point. I think the black community in the usa at the time of the war between the states was being led by black leaders to be what it is now. That was why Frederick Douglass pushed for black integration to whites. You speak of enslaved africans but frederick douglass despised the back to africa movement or even black people leaving the usa. His viewpoint is what you consider modern.  I think if you back track my comments in this group they will confirm I have said this many times. but the end result of that, can not deliver a collective freedom for a majority of black people in the usa. And I must add, black communities in different countries have different situations. the usa is not the place for the kind of communalism that many black people in the usa clearly want or need. I am not knocking your stated strategy but I am opposing the idea that said strategy is an improvement as much as an eventuality based on the history of the black community.

EVOLVE isn't aiming to be a large agency. Osaka's agent, Stuart Duguid, who also left IMG for Evolve, said the company may only take on one or two other athletes. Duguid explained the business is mostly about "building Naomi’s business from $50 million a year to $150 million a year."

ARTICLE

https://sports.yahoo.com/naomi-osaka-to-launch-her-own-sports-agency-in-latest-barrier-breaking-move-150154335.html

UNCONFIRMED

Of the top 100 athletes only two are women.

First is NAomi Osaka and second is Serena Williams

Top 100 Highest-Paid Athletes in the World 2022 – Sportico.com

NOPE trailer, my thoughts, article

MY THOUGHTS
ok... What did i see... the main characters, kaaluya and keke palmer live in some western usa area, black cowboy heritage ok.. this is a financially base area. From a simple glance this is the intercontinental railroad movie, black horse riders, an asian with a cowboy hat on  so that is the human side... what is unnatural three things: a cloud that is very thick, and is being influenced. Dust clouds exists but they don't come absent a slow growth of dust. So a thick cloud on a sunny day at ground level at speed absent dust around is unnatural. Next is a body lifting from the ground straight into space. This reminds me of a film with julianne moore about a woman who is trying to remember her child and creatures foreign to earth actually control humanity and use it for experiments. In the film's case to see if the love of a child occurs before or after a child exits the womb. In the film whenever anyone became a threat the aliens lifted them into the sky like they are on a string. functionally a specific while potent  gravitional field is being generated. In my mind maybe a neutron array. but the kind of device to house such a system, right now escapes me. Last is the two fingered fist of a creature under a blanket/cloth/cover bumping fist to a human being. ... A sense of surveillance and a robotic system is present. ... so putting all these things I saw together... I think what we have here is humanity is under the control of creatures, whose descendency is unknown, maybe they are ancient pre humanity , like the guyver , or they are truly extraterrestrial. These creatures are looking for another creature, maybe it is related to them , maybe it is not , but it is also not human. And I think it travels by a cloud... in my mind I think of cowboys and aliens a little as well.  A story where the influence of the alien is one and done, no Nope 2 and Nope the return or Nope Nope. 

ARTICLE
'Nope': Jordan Peele explains meaning behind his mysterious new movie's title

LAS VEGAS – Jordan Peele is doling out a few more details about his cryptic new thriller. 

The comedian-turned-filmmaker behind "Get Out" and "Us" returns to multiplexes this summer with "Nope" (in theaters July 22), a sci-fi/horror flick starring Daniel Kaluuya, Keke Palmer and Steven Yeun.

After premiering a terrifying teaser during this year's Super Bowl, Peele gave convention-goers at CinemaCon a clearer look at what's in store with the debut of the movie's first full-length trailer Wednesday.

Given that it won't be released to the public for "several more weeks," Peele asked the room full of theater owners and journalists to keep the trailer's secrets to themselves. But it's safe to say the new footage earned raves on social media, with people calling it "super cool," "ominous and creepy," and that Kaluuya and Palmer – playing scheming siblings who train horses – are "absolute stars." 

Introducing the trailer, Peele said he wants to "retain some mystery" around "Nope," whose plot fans have feverishly tried to decipher online.

"Some (theories) get kind of close," while others "are nonsense," Peele said. But he would allow that it's "definitely a ride," describing it as a movie for "the person who thinks they don't like horror movies." 

As for the film's monosyllabic title, Peele explained that it was inspired by the reactions he hopes "Nope" elicits. 

"I love titles that reflect what the audience is thinking and feeling in the theater," he said. "Especially Black audiences: We love horror, but there's a skepticism, like, 'You're not gonna scare me, right?' I'm personally going to thrive on the times I hear 'Nope!' in our theater (when the film is released)." 

Peele, who won the best original screenplay Oscar for "Get Out" in 2018, said he sees it as his "privilege and responsibility to try and make new films and tell original stories.

"Until someone tells me I can't, my plan is to bring these new ideas and new dreams and new nightmares to the big screen." 

https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/movies/2022/04/27/nope-jordan-peele-trailer-cinemacon/9561322002/

I enjoy Danny Glover in age of dragons
Anyone else a fan of the old syfy channel original movies , age of dragons is my favorite and not merely cause danny glover is having the time of his life, but cause, it isn't trying to sell anything more than the fun of this little story

I Ask this cause when people talk about tyler perry's movie studios and the movie studio the black women is making and them not being utilized I remind people someone has to pay for the movies to be made in these studios and a lot of movie making is small budget films, with little chance of making their money back.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_the_Dragons

I quote JohnRys Davies about another syfy channel original film
You understand we're not comparing ... Dragon Storm with Lord of the Rings. Stephen directed this in god knows how many days – I think it was only like 21 days. It's a low-budget, rapidly made, and rather delightful little sci-fi squib

LIST of scifi channel original films
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Sci_Fi_Pictures_original_films

The following is spike lee's list of films to watch, he provide to his students. 
How many have you seen? What are your favorites? 
I reply below

I saw: Rashomon<one of my favorite kurosawa>, Yojimbo, Ran, Rear Window<jimmy stewart>, Vertigo<the woman who loves jimmy stewart when she dresses as the love interest>, North by Northwest<stuntwork>, Bonnie and Clyde<>, Ace in the hole<one of my favorite newspaper movies, kirk douglass is great:)>, Bridge on the river kwai<a great period piece, a little untrue but...>, lawrence of arabia<what happened to lawrence in that turkish officer's camp>, On the waterfront<I could had been a contender>, La Strada <anthony quinn:)>, godfather I and II, PAtton <george c scott is his character actor best>, MAd MAx I And II<I am surprised for this entry, but the action is lovely, and the fiction is a genre starter, how many apocalyptic movies is merely mad max, the Night rider!!!>, The battle of algiers <this is what river kwai isn't, much rawer>, The Last Detail <very few films deal with the military police like this film, honest end too, very honest>, West Side Story <Anita, stick with your own kind, if only the world heard her>, The Train <Jon VOigt and Eric Roberts, the end is a painting, the film is very visual, you feel the environment>, The Maltese Falcon <The stuff dreams are made of>, The treasure of sierra madre <this is one of my favorite films and in terms of mineral movies, put this next to there will be blood and they both ring very true>, MArathon man <Not a fan , but the performances are strong>, Boyz in the hood <the first film he placed that has a majority black cast, wouldn't be my first choice and I am not a fan of the film but ok, for me, daughters of the dust has to be near first as a mandatory, I think ceddo as well from sembene, but ok again>, Black Orpheus <it is a film in portuguese , and in brasil it is not as well known, though the soundtrack reverberated all over the world, white man wrote it but it is a fantasy film, and that is underrated>Raging bull <not a fan, but loved the performance by the brother who played sugar ray robinson>, apocalypto <still one of the most honest films about indigenous people in the american continent and the coming doom of their world at the hands of immigrants>, casablanca <here's looking at you kid, campy at some level, nice romance>, thief<like rollerball, this movie was ahead of its time, the thief character and the environment is just never before seen and immitated after>, cooley high <the third majority black cast on his list, a comedy, Many black people in the usa love comedy, I am neutral>, I Am cuba <who is betty:) it is in spanish, the shot for the revolutionary procession, taken without breaking from that distance is magic>, one flew over the cuckoo's nest<a 70's classic, the look inside insane asylums is blunt and honest>, district 9 <south african, but white not black... it will make you think a little of alien nation but a twist in that it deals with an extra challenge of immigration but in a way you may not expect>, in the heat of the night <some honesty, the detective story is the best part, at the end, both cops are united as cops which in itself is interesting>, white heat <I saw it but I have forgotten>, to kill a mockingbird <when you see brock peters in this compared to the pawn broker it is revealing to his greatness as a thespian>, chinatown <how many ships can you buy? what is it you want you don't already have?.. the answer is magic>, Black Rain <it is rare japan is viewed from this angle in a hollywood film, reminds you of japanese films, dealing with law enforcement>, singing in the rain <lovely dance numbers, and the female lead was in her first film i think >, PAths of glory <one of my personal favorite military movies, wonder if das boot is in this, paths of glory is still blunt in a way few military films are>, spartacus <I'll tell him who his father was, that voice:) >, Dr STrangelove <its a screwball parady on war movies that is quietly serious, that is the pary that makes it a rare gem, it is trying to be funny, but it is also trying to be serious>,  kung fu hustle <when helen of troy screams:) you will know what I mean if you saw this film>, Close encounters of the third kind <open hand, tilt hand, close hand, open hand, tilt hand>, empire of the sun <not a fan of this film , but a rare appearance of japanese>, Cool hand luke <the chain gang sheriff in this film has become a standard parody character, the penal system in the usa is dirty though and this film does reflect some of it and also the connection many have in it, as they are poor or desperate or destitute>, badlands <Like a baby between silence of the lambs and bonny and clyde, the end is shocking at some level, makes perfect sense in the usa, but also alittle shocking in some ways>, the wizard of oz <funny it came out the same year as gone with the wind and harvey and a host of others.. was adud until t.v showed it to families, judy garland's voice, magic>, an american in paris <the dance routines, lovely>, lust for life <I oppose this film as an artist, I have nothing against van gogh but I oppose this film and it is brilliant, the performances, the honesty about artists loneliness, frictions with other artists, but I oppose this film >... my final assessment is no daughters of the dust. No Ceddo. No Oscar Micheaux. Wow! Spike, no micheaux. "Body and Soul" is a must for black cinema. "City of Joy" can get a shout, love om puri. his choices but I say ahh, I think he gave some directors too much or repeated too much. No horror in there. Where is "eyes without a face" or "diabolique" I think "Mississippi MAssala" deserves a shout. but hmmm 
https://likewise.com/list/Spike-Lees-Watch-List-The-Greatest-Films-Ever-Made-5c4788b29d2f4319981925af

March 31st 2022, the last day of Women's History Month in the year 2022

In a segment on Metrofocus, Gloria Browne Marshall, author of the book "She Took Justice" spoke about many things. Her key point is also the main theme of the book, the role of Black women in the USA as agents of litigious behavior. The word litigious was originally a slur. The idea being one who goes to court with an unhealthy passion. I think Black women in the USA see litigious behavior as mandatory for the non-violent while positively active progression in the Black community in the USA or for each Black individual in the USA. 
I restate, Black women see in the legal code in the USA an empowerment against non-blacks but also against men. It is not that the law in the USA is perfect or a complete work. The law in the USA has in its elements, a lack of allowed collective bias that exists in many legal codes. That lack of a collective bias gives room for the individual to grow. 
The historical proof to my assertion is the role of Black women in non violent movements in the Black community in the USA from the end of the war between the states to the time this prose was written. Black christian churches or groups, the national association for the advancement of colored people, the garvey movement, the historical black colleges movement financially supported by white religious groups, the Negro league, the Black Panthers for self defense. Black women historically make up a majority of said groups administrative members or members in whole. 
I recall a Black woman from texas, her Black clan still own their house from the late 1800s,  stated a story from past generations. In the tale, the matriarch of the family, told two nephews to leave for Chicago. The nephews wanted to enact violence upon the whites who have never stopped harassing this black clan for this house or land. The local white community successfully obtained most of the land or homes from said Black clans black neighbors. But, even though before during or after the nephews were sent north, whites harassed the Black clan, the female leaders of said clan always fight in the courts. They don't accept violent measures. 
Litigious behavior from Black women is not meant to demand fairness or guarantee justice. The litigious behavior is about the self. It is the collective concept from a majority of Black women, an unproven point on my part, that nonviolent response only has one true battleground and that is courts. why? Sometimes one does not have money. Sometimes one does not have the ability to leave. The Black community in the USA is, common in history, financially impotent or culturally locked. Sequentially, absent use of arms which do cost money, what way can one battle for their rights? the courts. 
Black men or women in the USA want betterment for the Black community in the USA or beyond. But Nat Turner to the DC Snipers show many examples of Black male ideas of betterment involve a use of violence that most Black men desire or accept, even if they do not exhibit, while most Black women oppose, in the USA. 
You have to believe in the rule of law. Most Black men clearly do not. Black women do not think the Statian law is structured or utilized efficiently, or fairly, but they hold onto the idea that the USA's system of law at its core has human equality in it. That quality can not save all from a punch or bullet or violence, but said quality offers someone who may be alone, may be fiscally poor, maybe abused a pathway to overcome violence, without being violent. The USA law does not make winds stop fires or produce blades to cut ropes or adjust minds to Black enemies whether they be non black or not. But the USA law has a strength in its elemental philosophy , while slow or requiring long term patience beyond any individuals time to live, that can outmuscle the rule of might or money or violence all through a firmness of belief that any human can have in any condition. 
Black women, a phenotypical gender group, are the heart of the USA's mythos. Black women have guided all other women, to the Native American woman's benefit whose male partner has been mostly killed, or against the White woman whose actions show a desire to replace her male counterpart while not desire any equality across the board. And while white men battling with arms created the USA, its existence as a functional multiracial community is born from Black women's litigious behavior. 
To Black men in the USA, we have always had a hard time accepting the leadership of Black women. The evidence is ever present. From Black churches after the war between the states opposing Black women as pastors. To administrations of many organizations from Black churches to the nation of islam to the national association for the advancement of colored people to historical black colleges to the Black panthers for self defense, having very few publicly touted Black female leaders while Black women made up a majority of their administrations or did a majority of their logistic work. Black men , sadly perhaps a majority, desire the domination the white man has over the white woman. All I Can say is to not change your heart. IF you want violence, make it. Black history whether in the USA or Haiti or Mexico or Brazil or Venezuela or Guyana or Nigeria or Ethiopia or India or Indonesia or Philippines or Australia in the most recent centuries is full of whites from there or somewhere abusing blacks. But, Black women in the USA and through the USA to the global Black community show a determination to prove the Black community can thrive everywhere absent the rebuttal of violence that men in general favor. Do not get in Black women's way. Help them even if the best way is to leave. 

MetroFocus: April 28, 2021
https://www.pbs.org/video/metrofocus-april-28-2021-umxxzv/

Roughly a decade ago, Civil Rights Attorney and John Jay College of Criminal Justice Professor Gloria Browne-Marshall started work on what would become “She Took Justice: The Black Woman, Law, and Power -- 1619 to 1969.” The book reveals the courage Black women have demonstrated in the face of overwhelming racial prejudice and gender oppression. She joins us to discuss these true American heroes.

She Took Justice from Gloria J Browne-Marshall
The Black Woman, Law, and Power – 1619 to 1969
https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/she-took-justice

her twitter
https://twitter.com/GBrowneMarshall/

Khabarla HAriya is a newspaper in India, run completely by women. But the women are not parsi which literally means persian or from the time of this writing, Iran. They are Dalits, who are considered one of the lowest caste, along with Siddi's. What do you have to comprehend about Asia. The indigenous people of India/Pakistan/all the parts of former Siam which was a chinese tributary state, current Philippines or Indonesia are all Black. Black defined as a skin of a dark brown. But like North Africa, said countries in asia  have been dominated by whites of Asia or Europe, for centuries. Sequentially, most of the people in power in places like Egypt or India are not indigenous to those countries. In egypt, most fiscally wealthy egyptians are actually eastern european descended, from the mamluks. While most fiscally wealthy Indians are of Iranian descent. 
In India, people in the USA commonly called Black are called Dark or Dallit or Siddi or similar. In asia Black is considered representing Black people of Africa. But not all Black people are African. The eskimo is indigenous but not Black. The Seminoles, a collection of indigenous groups, are indigenous like the Eskimo, but they are Black. 
The video linked below speaks for itself. But the points to take is the idea of litigious behavior, non-violent behavior as vital to the growth of Black women, especially against male aggression, primarily from Black men.  India is a nuclear powered country. A fiscally wealthy country. Its people's are Black. Its leadership is white, ala Egypt or South Africa. So consider this when you think on the persistence of Black women when they speak on Black men's behavior.

their website
https://khabarlahariya.org/?msclkid=65565c22af0411ec85bbc88e5fdec258

their youtube
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbvNC1RcIdlM2Kzn-QnjFng

I shared Harriet Washington's book before but I will share it again

Medical Aparthied
The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present
https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/medical-apartheid

her twitter
https://twitter.com/haw95

Bill Maher referred to men in general , or his the polls he cited refer to men in general, but I offer a question. 
To black men in any relationship, married or girlfriended, do you lust for your significant other?
I did not say  like or love. I said lust. Offline I asked Black men, who are not strangers, in various places. Do you want to make love to your wife? I should had asked, do you want to fuck, but that style is not common to my offline speech. 
And the question is, do you want to fuck? 
Making love is beautiful, erotic, pleasurable. While lust is clearly carnal, a thing of the body, it has its own purity or power. 
Now you may ask, what does male lust toward women matter in the context of women's empowerment. I say a lot. As women group, individually or collectively, men need to learn to do in majority what we have not been guided by past male generations or in media we own to do. Desire strong women. How many people see porn movie's entitled, gangbang ass blasters 16? From porn to music videos to many films, males are not presented or guided to desire a strong woman. Strength defined as independent from males or others in general. The independent woman is a difficulty, the independent woman is a challenge, the independent woman is mentally deranged. The woman you lust for is a living toy, a mechanical servant, an affordable commodity. 
I have always viewed lust as partly about what you like to touch. From Black women berating black men in the home for their illegal activity while making money to Black women trying to be reporters while their communities starting with their husbands deem them antagonistic to the order of the world, Black men have to embrace the beauty of Black female independence. But that independence is not leading to a world where men are needed for money or opportunity. That independence is leading to a world where men are needed for three things with no attachments made of rings or papers or religion or clothing or money or bank accounts but supported by patience. The three things are love, liking, lust. 

“Hey Chris, I won’t be at the Academy Awards, and I won’t be watching,” she said in the video. “But I can’t think of a better man to do the job at hand this year than you, my friend.”
I shared Jada Pinkett's quote cause I recall a video of Chris Rock's response to Pinkett at the Oscars. No I have not watched any Oscars in my life and yes, this past weekend as well. I recall Rock replied in a video saying "we don't want you here"
My point is, Pinkett didn't focus on anything but the academy awards but Rock's reply was very personal. His words, and I didn't hear his whole joke, suggests the majority at the Oscars at that time were jubilant Pinkett didn't come or dismissive of the Film Academy's inequality or lack of quality. 
He replied violently to a litigious argument. Later Will Smith replied violently to him after aiding in a mock to his wife with laughter. All Jada Pinkett did was show disapproval to Rock's joke, she never got up and made any physical gesture, which as one woman noted, is against the law. 
My point is the dissonance between Black Women's litigious culture and Black Men's violent culture.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/movies/oscars/chris-rock-had-a-history-of-making-jokes-about-jada-pinkett-smith-before-will-smith-s-oscars-slap/ar-AAVAO6I?ocid=uxbndlbing&msclkid=a6abdb91aef211ecaf4f89bfe0a9dc5c

Question, do Blacks need to care about non Black viewpoints?
When one is litigious, one cares about the nature of the court of law. The court of law is a place of opinion. This is why, law enforcers who commit crimes or illegalities can get leaner sentences from the same judge who placed an uncommon or harsher penalty on a first time offender who is Black. 
One of the big contentious points between the Black genders is the consideration of the non Black. The non violent culture Black women brew demands a respect to the consideration of the non black , a potential enemy or stranger. The violent culture Black men desire, though do not brew as a group <at least functionally>, is by default unconcerned to considerations of the non black, regardless to whether enemy or stranger. 
My point, Black people will be completely free when we don't care about the opinions of the non Black. But, on the road to that freedom , which will occur one day as it existed in the past, Black people must be delicate in how we consider the opinion of our actions in or out of our village.   
https://ibw21.org/commentary/smith-and-rock-sent-a-horrible-message-to-the-world-about-us/?feed_id=319&_unique_id=62422642a9af7&fbclid=IwAR2x-Ia9-OneOAsRJmMwlA6_mgRjkKvlxj0GqrKsLxOm1KkdZyBUcxTw9LY

Spin Bowlers

Snake Blossom
Id- https://www.deviantart.com/hddeviant/art/Snake-Blossom-id-card-911245998

Pose- https://www.deviantart.com/hddeviant/art/Snake-Blossom-three-emoji-911246082

Bowling Move- https://www.deviantart.com/hddeviant/art/Snake-Blossom-bowling-gif-911245738

Branch Popper
Id- https://www.deviantart.com/hddeviant/art/Branch-Popper-id-card-911245502

Pose- https://www.deviantart.com/hddeviant/art/Branch-Popper-three-emoji-911245619

Bowling Move- https://www.deviantart.com/hddeviant/art/Branch-Popper-bowling-gif-911245334

The Slice Twins
Id- https://www.deviantart.com/hddeviant/art/The-Slice-Twins-id-card-911246659

Pose- https://www.deviantart.com/hddeviant/art/The-Slice-Twins-three-emoji-911246710

Bowling Move- https://www.deviantart.com/hddeviant/art/The-Slice-Twins-bowling-gif-911246382

Game
COMING SOON!

Spin Bowlers Folder- see all graphic content
https://www.deviantart.com/hddeviant/gallery/82421031/three-emoji-s-challenge-2022

Cover image
https://www.deviantart.com/hddeviant/art/Spin-Bowlers-cover-image-911245115

Cover Gif
https://www.deviantart.com/hddeviant/art/Spin-Bowlers-gif-911246265

Snake Blossom coloring page
https://www.deviantart.com/hddeviant/art/Snake-Blossom-coloring-page-911245814

Branch Popper coloring page
https://www.deviantart.com/hddeviant/art/Branch-Popper-coloring-page-911245432

The Slive Twins coloring page
https://www.deviantart.com/hddeviant/art/The-Slice-Twins-coloring-page-911246527

Mel Hopkins < https://aalbc.com/tc/profile/18-mel-hopkins/ >  said on the post < https://aalbc.com/tc/topic/8495-what-do-you-want-out-of-life/ >
  Mel Hopkins said:
To know what purpose the human species serves. It appears every other species are caretakers of this planet - and accomplishes their role in the ecosystem. I'd like to know the human's purpose.  

Click and drag to move

MY REPLY

the purpose of the human species in relation to earth is like all other children of earth, to live on earth. 

The great problem with humans is the idea that earth can be killed by humans, it can't. If all the nuclear bombs went off and tons of pollution was made, the earth will not die. Many children of earth will die, but not the earth. The earth, like any lifeform, will heal itself. IT will take the earth a while but it will eventually. 
 

The history of films converted from books , proves everything in the article linked after the following prose is correct  
1. Millions of scripts or books have been created. As the article suggest most people in film production read screenplays/scripts , not books, for potential projects. Sequentially, screenplays are vetted more harshly. But, moreover, most successful movies are based on media to be read<books/short stories/comic books[reading images]> not viewed in motion<screenplays/scripts>. Gone with the wind/arthur conan doyle works/harry potter/hammet's detectives/stephen king works/edgar allen poe works/all religious characters/ the twilight series/the marvel or dc universes/chitty chitty bang bang <I just wanted to type that> / or et cetera dominate the list of most potent finacial films. Most of the financially potent movies come from media that does not have a moving image outside the mind of the reader. 
Yes, Star Wars, John Wick, Seven Samurai or its versions, titanic , or et cetera all prove standalone screenplays can make tons of money. But, overall I think the global film industry shows books are toe to toe with screenplays in profitable films, and thus with the larger perentage of potentials as screenplays, it is an advantage to books in rate. 
But, so many books exists, being the book chosen has its own set of rules that make it more of a challenge to be chosen , even if once chosen you have a better chance of selection.
2. Premise does matter, I said it a trillion times. A film is not as long as a written work. Even a short story at times can be in the mind quite long. SEquentially, while Ulysses, about the domestic life in Dublin, can work as a book, as a film, its premise is a challenge and converting the linguitiscal freedom of book world into film is always a challenge once film became governed with codes. Thus, few adaptions of this historically well regarded book have been made while others were chosen.
I can add Aucassin and Nicolette, of the troubadour era in mediterranean europe. It was transcribed to text as it was originally sung. It moves faster than the average film at times, but the erratic premise of it at times, think a romance between royals turns into something wilder than a screwball comedy while raunchier than hardcore bondage porn then back nto a royal romance, make it very difficult to turn into a film . And make something like Beowulf, an epic poem not as fast or raunchy or romantic but more simple while straightforward chosen over it. Beowulf is one of many "rise and fall of a king" tales. 
3. Book sales don't matter- yes, "the ninth gate" comes from a book called "el club dumas" which is originally in spanish from reverte. Shrek or Pitch perfect were once books. So, a book doesn't need to be a financialy juggernaut or a financial juggernaut in the anglophone book world like Harry potter to be selected for modulation into film. 
4. Characters are critical- when you look at the two film adaptions of the short story, Farewell to the master, you see this point proven well alongside the power of character over special effects. In the first adaption the attache/servant to the master is skeptical to humanity and ends the story, unassured  but with a slight hope. While the master is unknown in its truest power and offers a threat in frightful ignorance to humanity. While in the second adaption, the attache/servant to the master is a common laborer unconcerned to humanity and ends the story a hero who believes in humanity with the smallest of convincing to human merit. While the master performs the most grandiose feats but is thwarted in a way unbefitting the master , unknowingly.  The original short story allowed for the film adaptions to have space to be, but the choice of characterizations is exhibit A. 
5. Author involvement and loyalty to book form- Ende extremely disliked the film adaption of Die unendliche Geschichte <the reason being that book wasn't created as a children's book as the film adaption suggests>. Stepehn King extremely disliked the film adaption of the shining from kubrick <King opposed that Kubrick made the characterizations or settings are other enough to not be considered the same or similar to the book> . And I can see the point from Ende or King. The adults are making the nothing, and the lone child to save all fantasy is being influenced by adults/his father to not believe. The evil , unimaginative evil ,in adults is missing in the film. The fear induced by the grandeur of imagination, ala the details of the ivory tower or the decaying emptiness of the land of the southern oracle's fading voice is absent in the film. The journey of an alcoholic /depressed/not successful author by truly magical or negative forces in this isolated place with a strong wife or gifted child doesn't exist in the film. 
And yet, who can forget the wonder of the dreamlike depictions of the ivory tower or the southern oracle. Yes, it wasn't as frightful. It was depicted more safely , more gentle, as a Grimm fairy tale depicting the older unfiltered christian fables. But children loved it and the former children still do. 
Who can forget the psychological unwrapping of jack nicholson's jack torrance. Who boldly stated he was empowered going into this isolated empty hotel with his squeeky voiced unoffensive tall wife or disquieted introverted child. The fear the audience felt watching ths little family degrade into thier pure selves in a large prison: an angry violent uncaring man, a frightened unfriended woman, a child deep in his own mind, frightened and still frightens viewers.
6. The relationship between producer or author is key-  A bronx tale was started as a one man play, the thespian in it was offered by many producers to turn it into a film. He rejected them cause he wanted to play a specific role in any film adaption. Robet DeNiro accepted his condition and the film became highly successful. The two worked together , with deniro a producer or actor while palminteri was a screenwriter or actor. Both men are italian americans, new yorkers. But DeNiro knew what it took to make a film and that led the project. But he knew to delete what worked from the one man play was dysfunctional and needed palminteri.
In parallel, the movie international velvet. a screenplay sequel to a film, national velvet,  originally based on a one and done book. Was written and directed by one person. But the original author of the book, bagnold, elizabeth taylor who played the lead character, bagnold's daughter who illustrated the original book, the first films: direcotr/producer/screenplay writer were all alive in 1978. The writer + director of international velvet didn't include any of them in the production. My proof is Taylor didn't reprise her role from the original blockbuster film. her third film role and first starring role. 
I end with the relation between producer or prior creators is key. They are not dumb, they may be able to provide insight to the project you may miss. On the other hand, the producer needs to know the now. The fact that international velvet came out during star wars and after american graffiti proves the producer was not in touch with the trends.
7. Socal media in film production- to make greater connections authors can be known online not just intimately in private and that can aid in comprehending their stories plus the audience about their stories. When you look at how disney handled the star wars universe, it is clear, disney never intended the last trilogy to gain new audience members, the last trilogy was meant for the hardcore star wars fans, while the standalone films and streaming shows, like Rogue 1 or the Mandolorian were meant to get new fans and sate the encyclopedic hardcore fans. 

Article
https://www.janefriedman.com/what-kind-of-book-translates-well-to-screen/

My favorite Sidney Poitier films, and soundtracks

Paris Blues

The Long SHips
https://ok.ru/video/724620479028

Buck and the PReacher trailer

Nonqonqo from a warm december

Soundtracks to note
Buck and the Preacher theme, stil the baddest western theme song you ever heard, hands  down

Paris Blues

my after thoughts
May his spirit fly high. An unquestioned legend of cinema. An ambassador to the miscegenist/nonviolent/meritocratist culture that is the symbol of the black elite in the usa for 150 years and counting. .... I will not lie about my feelings/thoughts to his career in majority as a thespian/sex symbol. They are not as positive as many other black people. But, I am a unashamed fan of Paris Blues<the soundtrack of that movie , man underrated classic, duke ellington/louis armstrong/billy strayhorn/aaron bridgers/ and the original book story would had made it even bigger , always feel bad for poitier/carroll/newman/woodward , they had a gem if the money didn't get involved>;the long ships <I love that story>  ; buck and the preacher<that somehow many black people who supposedly love poitier  have never seen >;a warm december <my personal favorite in terms of romance movies from him>... I want to add something I researched recently, I never realized how many films poitier directed, stir crazy was made for 10 million and made 100 million, I argue poitier warranted more films to direct. well enough of my needless banter, i hope poitier died with a smile, i know he had many who loved him.

ART title: Sidney Poitier
Artist: Shaytan666
https://www.deviantart.com/shaytan666/art/Sidney-Poitier-287966796

FROM : MAd SKillz < skillzva on facebook>  

I may get crucified for this but its how I feel.(just jokes) I grew up in a similar situation...no father tho. And I NEVER IN MY LIFE seen a woman with this many morals. EVERRR BRUH. Being that poor and having those kind of morals never made sense to me. Black Jesus brought yall good luck? You made James take him down. James finds 5k? You make him give it back. They wanted yo ass to star in a PAID Vita Brite commercial? You didnt do it cuz it had alcohol in it. James going to the pool hall cuz yall bout to get evicted? You made him put the pool stick back. They pass JJ up to the 12th grade? You made him go back to the 11th. Preacher wanted to take James on the road to do the "Im healed" scam? You made him stay home. The projects were not the villain of this show. FLORIDA WAS. YOU WERE THE BIGGEST HATER ON TELEVISION. check my story for the proof.

MY REPLY

Where do I begin? 
Lets start with his points and he made many. 
I will iterate the points
POINTS
1) he grew up similar to the scenario in good times, and he mentioned no father specificially.
2) he never knew a woman with this many morals
3) being fiscal bottom and having high morals never made sense. 
4) the projects, the white system, wasn't the criminal, Florida, the specific moralled black matriarch was

MY THOUGHTS TO EAH POINT
1)If I ask the average person in the usa today, who are the richest people in the usa as a group, what is their phenotype. They will say, most fiscally rich people are white, a label referring to their average skin tone , which does merge into the mulatto range, ala passing. The next question is, how do they get their money? Most will say the truth, inheritance, their forebears had money and gave it to them. 
Now, if I ask most people, why are black people poor? Most will say, Black people don't know how to play the game. Black people are lazy. Black people need to improve themselves, learn to strive more. Few will say the simple truth, Black people have no one to inherit money from. The next question is why? And this goes to history. 
One of the problems with the black community in media, is that our poverty is rarely comprehended as simple as it needs to be. Two cultural institutions in the usa didn't allow for black inheritance. First was slavery, second was jim crow. Slavery predates the usa, which is another truth I find most in the usa don't seem to comprehend. Slavery is from the european colonial era but it survived in tact , unblemished, after the creation of the articles of confederation or the constitution, thus why most free blacks fought against the usa in its earliest wars. Slavery ended with the thirteeth amendments and the destruction of the southern states, and the desire of the northern states to eliminate the financial competition with a slave based society utilizing industrial tools.  But after a very short respite <solid seven years > called reconstruction commonly, Jim Crow was born from the dead carcass of slavery and continued the goal of denying inheritance to black people. 
That is why the black community in the usa is fiscally poor. Jim crow ended , in my assessment, in the 1980s. So from before the usa was founded till the 1980s, Black people were in majority <yes, exceptions always exist in life but they are not stnadards or pathways or rules> denied inheritance. The projects themselves were never meant for black people. If you know the history of the projects, they were meant for poor working whites to have a place in an urban setting to refind their fiscal bearings, starting in the 1950s. White flight from big cities and continual movement to big cities by non whites made the white city governments change course and offer projects as dens for people not white mostly to congregate in the city. A eternal source of cheap labor and fiscally poor people. Whereas projects in the 1950s had storefronts, the latter ones did away with that and just became housing. 
Did you know that when the vietnam war ended, vietnam had hundreds of thousands of orphans from usa soldiers and vietnamese women living in orphanges? now, why does this matter? 
It connects to slavery/jim crow, and relationships between child bearers. Slavery plus Jim crow denied inheritance for black people. The primary tool was violence. but a secondary tool was separation. To be blunt, during slavery black people were not married in majority. Black women were property of the master. the master, to use crude language, tapped that ass , more than the property of the white man she called her black husband. So since the community of the usa is from the european imperial era, for most of the history of the usa or what preceded it , black children have not had either parent. I am not saying that to reject anyone's emotions, but to bring a historical reality to black people's narrative around child raising which rarely admits reality about our community in the usa. Jim crow is what rebuilt the south and spurred the usa industrial machine. That is another historical fact that goes absent. Jim crow was powered by black men in prison on false charges. These men were given sentences meant to be for life, for the purpose of rebuilding the usa. The 13th amendment says slavery can still exist in prisons so white people in power ushered black people, specifically black men, into prisons. 
I was raised by both my parents who are still together and loving, through many challenges. And my family is upper poor, not the fiscal bottom. 
But, white or black filmmakers push two narratives, for different reasons that are lies. The narratives are: black people's poverty is a modern thing not from a lack of inheritance over centuries, the black family unit has its members to blame for its history of fissure.
Good times, written by whites, uniquely has a loving black father, who died because of Amos disagreement with the studios. But his death fits the truth, the environment for the black community which has been engineered by whites over centuries has successfully hindered black people, is not meant to, has hindered. And, the black people who traveled to the north to escape being burned alive and possibly find work, found fewer fires up north but less fiscal potential. But whether in the south or north the reason is a lack of inheritance, not lazyness or anything else.

2)+3) I must combine. His comments prove how many black people either do not know the history of black people in the usa or have a false interpretation of it.
The Club Women was a group of black christian women who believed that if black people educated themselves and showed utmost manner that will overcome white violence. The sit-ins was based on a similar principle. This was black people saying I will go into a story where a sign outside says for people like me to NOT ENTER. The result is obvious, you enter a place where you are told by its owners for you not to come, you get your ass beat. Hell, most people know about romeo or juliet but what do you think the capulets and the mantagues were like? What is funny about the usa and the sit-ins and the club women is how , in human history it is so common for groups of people to ban others. In northern ireland they have many places where catholics can't go and protestants can't go. 
So, When he says he didn't know any woman with this many morals, I will not deny his statement. But it proves he didn't know enough older black people who could tell him of many who did such things. Remember, non violence isn't merely about the white man not being violent to blacks but it is about blacks not being violent ourselves even when faced with reason to be. 
Most black leaders, including MLK jr, never prescribed to such extreme views of non violence personally. but, the black community in the usa from the time of reconstruction has a long history of it. 
Now is, Florida a caricature? of course she is. BUT, she reflects the truth of the black community from the end of the war between the states to the 1970s. I know that some black people who were land owners told relatives to not fight whites and sent them away. I do not concur to the idea of fighting wars with morals, but that was and is a residual from slavery and jim crow. 
And that comes to his dysfunctional allusion. Black people were not merely poor during slavery or jim crow, we were impotent. Fiscal poverty is one thing, but when one is fiscally poor PLUS under constant assault. It changes ow you view things. Again, I can tell you I know of black people off line who were alive in decades past and admitted that every black women in their town was raped by whites. every black woman. 
When your community is under assault , and under watch for any action that is deemed illegal /criminal/amoral, it can teach you to desire morality not for god but for self. if you can't stop your wife from being raped, your child from being spat at, yourself, from being put in prison, and you don't have arms, you don't have resources, you don't have a community enabled, then following a higher moral code can be deciphered as your only defense. 
Again, Florida is a caricature, but what she represents is truth. Any one's Esther Rolle's character's age knew that the system will destroy any black person it finds doing a simple crime. My great proof of that is the rockefeller laws, initiated in the 1970s. In NYC, white men could sell cocaine in mountainfulls and get lesser to no sentence that black men selling a bag of marijuana. That is why Florida feared crime, feared illegality. IT wasn't cause she feared or opposed money. But what if? What if the white man knew? what if the white man discovered? Just remember, the chicago police department went into fred hamptons house and murdered him, absent any crime. In that kind of environment, you are so keen to risk? 
Some, yes, but Florida is not that big a caricature. She is, but not that big a caricature based on the black community in the usa. 
The problem with black or white filmmakers is black goodness is touted as religious, spiritual, never historical, never based on life.
The goodness isn't about christianity , it is about a fear of the system treating you unfairly, which it will, which it proved over centuries it will do and is still doing. Movies from all sort of directorso or writers make is religious, and that is the flaw. Florida is scared. She has been scared her entire life and will die scared. 
In the great Daughters of the Dust, the gullah live in those spare island lands, surrounded by bayou and absent any infrastructure, but will rather that than live exposed to whites. That is fear. The people of Tracadie in nova scotia, survived cause they lived so far away , in a wilderness, they were free from assault, whether they committed an illegality or not, and that is why Florida feared in her urban project surrounded by whites, in the heart of the white kingdom. 
His point is to invalidate her fears by suggesting her morality is based on morals, but her morals are based on fear. 

4)LAstly, his final thought. The criminal wasn't the white system , it is the black moralled matriarch. 
Of course he is wrong, he admitted he is joking. But, I will defend his hypothesis with a little fortune telling. Slavery plus Jim crow denied black inheritance. But, after jim crow, I will call it the rainbow era, Black people in the usa have acquired and started to inherit fiscal wealth. Florida's fears was suitable in the days where black people were denied by white people the ability to  inherit fiscal wealth. But, when one is wealthy, one must take risks, and though most risks fail in fiscal capitalism , some will succeed. 
The black community isn't potent. My proof is simple. Name me one city with a financial growth in the usa, where over half the cities fiscal quality/industry is owned by blacks? I will help you, you can't find one. So, Black people are not in some place of suitability yet. But, it will happen eventually. That is why whites blockaded black inheritance. when one inherits, money is different. 
Back to movies, hollywood hasn't found a way to approvingly display multiracial wealth. We all know in modernity, black millionaires or billionaires exists in the usa. But, hollywood usually places fiscally wealthy black characters in fiscally white characters roles. The problem storytelling wise is simple. Being rich is being rich but in different communities, the collective path to being rich matters. The black fiscal elite, live as gluttonous as the white, but they have subtle variances and hollywood or independent film, has not found a set of films to visualize that difference. In the show atlanta, the black rich are ugly, but mirrors of white rich and that is not exactly true. As F Scott fitzgerald said, the wicked rich, I concur to that, but they have variances. My proof is fiscally rich white jews in film. in films, fiscally rich white jews are as corrupt as other fiscally rich white people but their is anuance to their design which shows, the other. 
Films have yet , black or white made, to solidify the other aspect to the black fiscal rich which is clear to see, but not such a great selling point

IN CONCLUSION, history is important, but also challenging. The challenge in history is when it forces you to look at scenarios you can't control or undo that are not merely negative, but have a lasting communal impact. The nonviolent community , based in the black church, near 170 years ago, rejected violence, rejected a mass movement away, rejected a foscused movement in the usa. The nonviolent movement had three main strategies. No violence against whites, a focus on individual liberty to black people wherever we live, a responsibility on black individuals or the black community to maintain the nonviolent stance while moving ever upward in the fiscal or governmental halls in the usa. 
Today is the result of that plan in the usa. it didn't fit all black people, it wans't meant to. It had casualty, though all black paths were and will have casualties. But, in the same way, Florida is chided while Mrs. Huxtable is beloved, the modern reality has meant a cultural precipice has been reached that isn't defined by either woman or their larger media spaces. Neither is an enemy, but neither reflect a black community that can finally , in peace, inherit.

Someone ask me: what will the novels of the future be if all the protagonists do everything online? You wouldn‘t have the romcoms with Julia Roberts meeting Hugh Grant in a bookshop…

He originally asked me but i feel the question is good for all to answer

My answer is in sections: epistlary fiction/subordinate characters/the modern readership-viewership-listenership

Epistles are merely letters and online communication, whether people want to admit it or not are letters. Human beings are accustomed to epistlary work. Many segments of the bible are letters. Books of letters , linear or alinear temporally, were a fiscally profitable genre in various times in the white european literary industry<said industry includes the usa or australia>. Historically, precedence exist for financial viability of or customer desire to epistlary fiction.

Modern customers of fiction love the visual,they love visual description, pseudo realism, fantastical visions. At the core of epistle is the letters are not bound to give all details, to explain all events. Writers can choose that path of creation but it isn't mandatory. Sequentially, why many writers use letters as tools for a specific purpose in a non epistlary work. But, if all the protagonists and I add antagonists use letters, then for action , descriptive action, you need subordinate characters. not supporting but subordinate. to be blunt, you need robots, you need characters that can not act alone or are extensions of the protagonists or antagonists but individual enough to have a physical identity one can write about. In parallel, think of a doctor that performs surgery remotely. The doctor actions are in the same way as writing a letter, the machine that translates the doctors motions/words/typing into action on the patient, while it does not act absent impetus from the doctor is had individual elements. its programming/its energy/its maintenance/ its environment all can have a positive or negative influence on itself that can lead to scenarios many will call drama or definitely action. But they are not protagonists or antagonists.

Customers matter, they always have and always will. Art has no bounds. Many people today apply their opinions as rules of art but the truth is, art has no ruleset to it. In parallel, making money with art is where all the judgements have value and where many artists or readers , do not speak enough of their purpose in their judgements. to that end, the modern readership , as the questioner stated individually had problems with epistlary fiction. But the reason is complex.... Most human beings are not online nor do they have money. But to the humans who have money, many are online, many are multilingual. The buyers are used to reading epistlaries every day, tweet streams, facebook streams, instagram comment streams are all epistlaries. not written by a steven king or jk rowling, but a sequence of unknown strangers, but the readers are used to reading epistlaries full of drama.

I conclude with a question, based on what was said, what kind of work epistlary can bridge what the customers do every day, with fictional characters? In the film world you already see movies that use message screens in the films. Like any style, when it doesn't have many financially successful examples, the judgement passion in literary or art circles is silent cause they have nothing to base a judgement on. So, it is an open multilog financially, like writing modern epistles with online messages.

Now, what say you all?

Kinematic self-replication in reconfigurable organisms

Kinematic self-replication in reconfigurable organisms
 View ORCID ProfileSam Kriegman,  View ORCID ProfileDouglas Blackiston,  View ORCID ProfileMichael Levin, and Josh Bongard
aAllen Discovery Center, Tufts University, Medford, MA 02155;
bWyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, Harvard University, Boston, MA 02115;
cDepartment of Computer Science, University of Vermont, Burlington, VT 05405

PNAS December 7, 2021 118 (49) e2112672118; https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2112672118
Edited by Terrence J. Sejnowski, Salk Institute for Biological Studies, La Jolla, CA, and approved October 22, 2021 (received for review July 9, 2021)

Significance
Almost all organisms replicate by growing and then shedding offspring. Some molecules also replicate, but by moving rather than growing: They find and combine building blocks into self-copies. Here we show that clusters of cells, if freed from a developing organism, can similarly find and combine loose cells into clusters that look and move like they do, and that this ability does not have to be specifically evolved or introduced by genetic manipulation. Finally, we show that artificial intelligence can design clusters that replicate better, and perform useful work as they do so. This suggests that future technologies may, with little outside guidance, become more useful as they spread, and that life harbors surprising behaviors just below the surface, waiting to be uncovered.

Abstract
All living systems perpetuate themselves via growth in or on the body, followed by splitting, budding, or birth. We find that synthetic multicellular assemblies can also replicate kinematically by moving and compressing dissociated cells in their environment into functional self-copies. This form of perpetuation, previously unseen in any organism, arises spontaneously over days rather than evolving over millennia. We also show how artificial intelligence methods can design assemblies that postpone loss of replicative ability and perform useful work as a side effect of replication. This suggests other unique and useful phenotypes can be rapidly reached from wild-type organisms without selection or genetic engineering, thereby broadening our understanding of the conditions under which replication arises, phenotypic plasticity, and how useful replicative machines may be realized.

Like the other necessary abilities life must possess to survive, replication has evolved into many diverse forms: fission, budding, fragmentation, spore formation, vegetative propagation, parthenogenesis, sexual reproduction, hermaphroditism, and viral propagation. These diverse processes however share a common property: all involve growth within or on the body of the organism. In contrast, a non–growth-based form of self-replication dominates at the subcellular level: molecular machines assemble material in their external environment into functional self-copies directly, or in concert with other machines. Such kinematic replication has never been observed at higher levels of biological organization, nor was it known whether multicellular systems were even capable of it.

Despite this lack, organisms do possess deep reservoirs of adaptive potential at all levels of organization, allowing for manual or automated interventions that deflect development toward biological forms and functions different from wild type (1), including the growth and maintenance of organs independent of their host organism (2⇓–4), or unlocking regenerative capacity (5⇓–7). Design, if framed as morphological reconfiguration, can reposition biological tissues or redirect self-organizing processes to new stable forms without recourse to genomic editing or transgenes (8). Recent work has shown that individual, genetically unmodified prospective skin (9) and heart muscle (10) cells, when removed from their native embryonic microenvironments and reassembled, can organize into stable forms and behaviors not exhibited by the organism from which the cells were taken, at any point in its natural life cycle. We show here that if cells are similarly liberated, compressed, and placed among more dissociated cells that serve as feedstock, they can exhibit kinematic self-replication, a behavior not only absent from the donating organism but from every other known plant or animal. Furthermore, replication does not evolve in response to selection pressures, but arises spontaneously over 5 d given appropriate initial and environmental conditions.
 

Results
Pluripotent stem cells were collected from the animal pole of Xenopus laevis embryos (SI Appendix, Fig. S1A), raised for 24 h in 14 °C mild saline solution. These excised cells, if left together as an animal cap (11) (SI Appendix, Fig. S1 A and or brought back in contact after dissociation (12) (SI Appendix, Fig. S1 C and D), naturally adhere and differentiate into a spheroid of epidermis covered by ciliated epithelium (13, 14) over 5 d (9) (SI Appendix, section S1 and Fig. 1A). The resulting wild-type reconfigurable organisms move using multiciliated cells present along their surface (which generate flow through the coordinated beating of hair-like projections) and typically follow helical trajectories through an aqueous solution for a period of 10 to 14 d before shedding cells and deteriorating as their maternally provided energy stores are depleted.

Fig. 1.
Spontaneous kinematic self-replication. (A) Stem cells are removed from early-stage frog blastula, dissociated, and placed in a saline solution, where they cohere into spheres containing ∼3,000 cells. The spheres develop cilia on their outer surfaces after 3 d. When the resulting mature swarm is placed amid ∼60,000 dissociated stem cells in a 60-mm-diameter circular dish (B), their collective motion pushes some cells together into piles (C and D), which, if sufficiently large (at least 50 cells), develop into ciliated offspring (E) themselves capable of swimming, and, if provided additional dissociated stem cells (F), build additional offspring. In short, progenitors (p) build offspring (o), which then become progenitors. This process can be disrupted by withholding additional dissociated cells. Under these, the currently best known environmental conditions, the system naturally self-replicates for a maximum of two rounds before halting. The probability of halting (α) or replicating( 1 − α) depends on a temperature range suitable for frog embryos, the concentration of dissociated cells, the number and stochastic behavior of the mature organisms, the viscosity of the solution, the geometry of the dish’s surface, and the possibility of contamination. (Scale bars, 500 μm.)

Previous studies reported spontaneous aggregation of artificial particles by groups of wild-type self-organizing (9) and artificial intelligence (AI)–designed (10) reconfigurable organisms: the particles were gathered and compressed as a side effect of their movement. Here, kinematic self-replication was achieved by replacing the synthetic particles in the arena with dissociated X. laevis stem cells as follows.

When 12 wild-type reconfigurable organisms are placed in a Petri dish amid dissociated stem cells (Fig. 1B), their combined movement reaggregates some of the dissociated cells into piles (Fig. 1 C and D). Piled cells adhere, compact, and over 5 d, develop into more ciliated spheroids (Fig. 1E) also capable of self-propelled movement. These offspring are then separated from their progenitor spheroids and placed in a new Petri dish containing additional dissociated stem cells (Fig. 1F). There, offspring spheroids build further piles, which mature into a new generation of motile spheroids (Movie S1).

In four of five independent trials using densities of 25 to 150 cells/mm2, wild-type reconfigurable organisms kinematically self-replicated only one generation. In the fifth trial, two generations were achieved. Each successive generation, the size and number of offspring decreased until offspring were too small to develop into self-motile organisms, and replication halted.

To determine if offspring were indeed built by the kinematics of progenitor organisms rather than just fluid dynamics and self-assembly, the dissociated stem cells were observed alone without the progenitors. With no progenitor organisms present, no offspring self-assembled at any of the stem cell concentrations tested (SI Appendix, Fig. S2E).

Kinematic Self-Replication.
Given their rapid loss of replicative ability, reconfigurable organisms can be viewed as autonomous but partially functioning machines potentially amenable to improvement. Autonomous machines that replicate kinematically by combining raw materials into independent functional self-copies have long been known to be theoretically possible (15). Since then, kinematic replicators have been of use for reasoning about abiogenesis, but they have also been of engineering interest: If physical replicators could be designed to perform useful work as a side effect of replication, and sufficient building material were discoverable or provided, the replicators would be collectively capable of exponential utility over time, with only a small initial investment in progenitor machine design, manufacture, and deployment. To that end, computational (16⇓–18), mechanical (19), and robotic (20⇓⇓–23) self-replicators have been built, but to date, all are made from artificial materials and are manually designed. Kinematic self-replication may also, in contrast to growth-based biological forms of reproduction, offer many options for automated improvement due to its unique reliance on self-movement. If progenitor machines could be automatically designed, it may become possible to automatically improve machine replication fidelity (24), increase or alter the utility performed as a side effect of replication, allow replication to feed on more atomic materials (25), control replication speed and spread, and extend the number of replication cycles before the system suffers a loss of replicative ability. We introduce an AI method here that can indeed extend replication cycles by designing the shape of the progenitor reconfigurable organisms.

Amplifying Kinematic Self-Replication.
Determining sufficient conditions for self-replication requires substantial effort and resources. Each round of replication takes 1 wk, and regular media changes are required to minimize contamination. Thus, an evolutionary algorithm was developed and combined with a physics simulator to seek conditions likely to yield increased self-replication, measured as the number of rounds of replication achieved before halting, in the simulator. Progenitor shape was chosen as the condition to be varied, as previous work demonstrated that shapes of simulated organisms can be evolved in silico to produce locomotion in cardiac tissue–driven reconfigurable organisms (10), or enhanced synthetic particle aggregation by cilia-driven reconfigurable organisms (9).

Simulations indicated that some body shapes amplified pile size and replication rounds, while others damped or halted self-replication. Some but not all geometries were better than the spheroids. The most performant geometry discovered by the evolutionary algorithm in silico and manufacturable in vivo was a semitorus (Fig. 2A). When 12 semitoroidal progenitor organisms were constructed and placed in an arena filled with densities of 61 to 91 dissociated stem cells/mm2, they exhibited the same enhanced piling behavior in vivo observed in silico (Fig. 2B). The offspring produced by the progenitor spheroids (Fig. 2C) were significantly smaller than those produced by the progenitor semitoroids (Fig. 2D), although both progenitor groups produced spheroid offspring. Controlling for dissociated cell density, the diameter of offspring produced by progenitor spheroids was increased 149% by the progenitor semitoroids (P < 0.05) (Fig. 2E). The replication rounds achieved by progenitor spheroids (mean = 1.2 ± 0.4 SD, max of 2 shown in Fig. 2F) was increased 250% by the progenitor semitoroids (mean = 3 ± 0.8 SD, max of four shown in Fig. 2G) (P < 0.05). The only trial using semitoroids that reproduced less than three rounds was terminated early due to fungal contamination. Across the five trials with wild-type progenitor spheroids and the three trials with AI-designed progenitor semitoroids, the size of the first generation of offspring correlated with the total number of generations achieved (ρ = 0.93; P < 0.001).

Fig. 2.

Amplifying kinematic self-replication. Due to surface tension, reconfigurable organisms naturally develop into ciliated spheroids, but they can be sculpted into nonspheroidal morphologies manually during development to realize more complex body shapes. Progenitor shapes were evolved in silico to maximize the number of self-replication rounds before halting. (A) Shapes often converge to an asymmetrical semitoroid (C-shape; pink) with a single narrow mouth in which dissociated cells (green) can be captured, transported, and aggregated. This evolved shape was fabricated and released in vivo (B), recapitulating the behavior observed in silico (A). Offspring built by wild-type spheroids (C) were smaller than those built by the semitoroids (D), regardless of the size and aspect ratios of the spheroids, and across different concentrations of dissociated cells (E). The maximum of two rounds of self-replication achieved by the spheroids (F) was extended by the semitoroids to a maximum of four rounds (G). (Scale bars, 500 μm.)

Given the observation that larger spheroids yielded more replication rounds, another, simpler route to increasing self-replication seemed possible: increasing the density of dissociated cells. However, Fig. 2E shows that spheroid offspring size does not appreciably increase even when tripling density from 50 to 150 cells/mm2 in the presence of sphere progenitors.

The semitoroidal design was found in silico using an evolutionary algorithm (Fig. 3A). First, 16 progenitor shapes are randomly generated. For each shape, nine simulated organisms with that shape are evaluated within a simulated Petri dish (Fig. 3E). If the swarm creates piles large enough to mature into offspring, the simulated offspring are transferred to a fresh dish (Fig. 3F), and the process continues (Fig. 3G). When self-replication halts, the shape is assigned a performance score computed as the number of filial generations achieved. Higher-performing progenitor shapes are copied, mutated, and replace shapes in the population with poorer performance. Each of the newly created progenitor shapes is expanded into a swarm, simulated, and scored (Fig. 3C). The algorithm terminates after a fixed amount of computational effort has been expended, and the shape that produced the most replication rounds is extracted (Fig. 3D). A total of 49 independent optimization trials were conducted, yielding 49 high-performing progenitor shapes (Fig. 3H) that, in silico, produce larger offspring (P < 0.0001) and more replication rounds (P < 0.0001) than simulated wild-type spheroids (SI Appendix, Fig. S6).

Fig. 3.
Evolving self-replication. (A) An evolutionary algorithm, starting with random swarms, evolves swarms with increasing self-replicative ability. (FG = number of filial generations achieved by a given swarm. The fractional part denotes how close the swarm got to achieving another replication round.) The most successful lineage in this evolutionary trial originated from a spheroid that built piles no larger than 74% of the size threshold required to self-replicate (B). A descendent swarm composed of nine flexible tori (C) contained two members that built one pile large enough to self-replicate (two arrows), which, alone, built piles no larger than 51% of the threshold. A descendent of the toroid swarm, a swarm of semitori (D), contained six members (E) that collectively built three piles large enough to mature into offspring (F). One of those offspring built a pile large enough to mature into a second generation offspring (G). An additional 48 independent evolutionary trials (H) evolved self-replicative swarms with diverse progenitor shapes.

Conditions other than progenitor shape can be optimized to improve self-replication. To that end, the algorithm was modified to evolve terrain shape rather than progenitor shape to amplify self-replication in silico for wild-type spheroid progenitors. Terrain was shaped by the inclusion of reconfigurable walls that, once positioned along the bottom surface of the simulated dish, constrain the stochastic movement of organisms along more predictable trajectories within predefined limits. Starting with randomly generated terrains, the algorithm evolved terrains that, in silico, increased the number of replication rounds achieved by the wild-type spheroid progenitors compared to their performance on a flat surface (P < 0.0001) (SI Appendix, Figs. S7 and S8).

The algorithm not only can amplify kinematic self-replication in a given environment but can also bestow this capability on swarms otherwise incapable of achieving it in adverse environments. In a cluttered environment, the wild-type progenitors cannot move enough to self-replicate. However, the algorithm discovered progenitor shapes with ventral surfaces that elevated the simulated organisms above the clutter while maintaining frontal plane curvatures that facilitated pile making and the achieving of self-replication (SI Appendix, Fig. S9).

In contrast to other known forms of biological reproduction, kinematic self-replication allows for the opportunity to significantly enlarge and miniaturize offspring each generation. This was observed in vivo (Fig. 1C) and in silico (SI Appendix, Fig. S10). This suggests that swarms may be automatically designed in future to produce offspring of diverse size, shape, and useful behaviors beyond simply more self-replication.

Exponential Utility.
von Neumann’s original self-replicating machine (15) was capable in theory of not just building a functional self-copy but also other machines as a side effect of the replicative process. If these tangential machines performed useful work, the entire system was capable of exponential utility. As long as sufficient feedstock was available, only a small expenditure of energy and manufacture was required to build the first replicative machine. To estimate whether the self-replicating reconfigurable organisms introduced here may be capable of exponential utility, we created a computational model using known features of the physical semitoroids to forecast their potential rate of increase in utility. It is assumed that progenitor machines will be placed in semistructured environments, sufficient feedstock will be within reach, and random action of the swarm will be sufficient to result in useful work. Given these requirements, the task of microcircuit assembly was chosen (Fig. 4A). Although current circuit assembly systems are fast, efficient, and reliable, in situ repair or assembly of simple electronics in hostile or remote environments is currently impossible using traditional robots, rendering this a use case worthy of investigation. The simulated environment contains microscale power supplies (26), light emitters (27), and disconnected flexible adhesive wires (28) (SI Appendix, Fig. S11). Random action by swarm members can inadvertently move wires and close a circuit between a power supply and a light emitter (Fig. 4A), considered here as useful work. The environment is also assumed to contain dissociated stem cells, such that offspring organisms may be built in parallel with circuit assembly. If any offspring are built, they are divided into two groups and moved into two new dishes with more electronic components and stem cells (Fig. 4 B and C). If no offspring are built, the process terminates (Fig. 4D). In this model, utility increases quadratically over time (Fig. 4E).

Fig. 4.
Forecasting utility. (A) A swarm of self-replicating semitoroidal organisms (gray) was placed inside a partially completed circuit (black) containing two power sources (red dots), four light emitters (circled X; black when OFF, red when ON), and disconnected flexible adhesive wires (black lines). Dissociated stem cells (not pictured), if pushed into piles, develop into offspring (irregularly shaped gray masses). Dissociated cells are replaced every 3.5 s. After 17.5 s of self-replication and circuit building within a single dish, the progenitors are discarded, and all first through fourth filial generation offspring are divided into two equal-sized groups and placed into two new dishes, each containing a partially completed circuit (B and C). If only one offspring is built, one dish is seeded with it. If no offspring are built, bifurcation halts. This process results in an unbalanced binary tree (D). The red edges denote circuits in which at least one light emitter was switched on by closing a circuit from power source to light emitter (OFF/ON inset). The gray edges denote circuits in which no light emitters were switched on. The number of lights switched on increased quadratically with time (E). This differs from k nonreplicative robots that can switch lights on in k Petri dishes per unit of time, resulting in a line with slope k (e.g., a single robot arm could switch on all four lights in its dish at every unit of time [dotted line in E]). With sufficient time, the self-replicative swarm can achieve higher utility than the nonreplicative swarm for any arbitrarily large value of k.

Superlinear utility here depends on a superlinearly increasing supply of dissociated stem cells. This may be more achievable than mining artificial materials for nonbiological robot replicators given that a single female X. laevis can produce thousands of eggs daily, with each embryo containing ∼3,000 cells for dissociation, and X. laevis itself is capable of reproduction and thereby superlinearly increasing egg production. Reconfigurable organisms are thus constructed from a renewable material source which requires less invasive component sourcing than other existing self-motile biological machines (29, 30). The quadratic increase in utility predicted by the model in Fig. 4 may not be achievable when in situ circuit assembly and repair matures and the model can be tested empirically. But, as long as the components are small enough in weight and size to be moved, an acceptable temperature range is maintained, sufficient components have already been created and deployed and are nontoxic, and self-replication is maintained, the system will produce superlinear increases in utility. This can be contrasted with nonreplicative robot technology for the same task, which would require superlinear investments in robot construction, deployment, and maintenance to realize superlinear utility.
 

Discussion
The ability of genetically unmodified cells to be reconfigured into kinematic self-replicators, a behavior previously unobserved in plants or animals, and the fact that this unique replicative strategy arises spontaneously rather than evolving by specific selection, further exemplifies the developmental plasticity available in biological design (1⇓⇓⇓⇓⇓⇓–8). Although kinematic self-replication has not been observed in extant cellular life forms, it may have been essential in the origin of life. The amyloid world hypothesis (31), for instance, posits that self-assembling peptides were the first molecular entity capable of self-replication, and would thus represent the earliest stage in the evolution of life, predating even the RNA world. Unlike self-replicating RNAs which template themselves during replicative events, amyloid monomers can form seeds which produce a variety of amyloid polymorphs, yielding either larger or smaller “offspring” depending on peptide availability, kinematics, and thermodynamic conditions. This variation is similar to modern-day prions, where self-propagating misfolded proteins are capable of forming aggregates of multiple sizes and polymorphisms (32). Although reconfigurable organisms are not a model for origin of life research, which strives to describe the first information unit capable of self-replication, they may shed light on its necessary and sufficient initial conditions.

Traditional machine self-replication is assumed to require a constructor, a copier, a controller, and a blueprint to describe all three (15). However, there are no clear morphological or genetic components in the organisms described here that map onto these distinct structures. The concept of control in reconfigurable organisms is further muddied by their lack of nervous systems and genetically modified behavior. This suggests that reconfigurable organisms may in future contribute to understanding how self-amplifying processes can emerge spontaneously, in new ways and in new forms, in abiotic, cellular, or biohybrid machines, and how macroevolution may proceed if based on kinematic rather than growth-based replication.

Today, several global challenges are increasing superlinearly in spatial extent (33), intensity (34), and frequency (35), demanding technological solutions with corresponding rates of spread, adaptability, and efficacy. Kinematic self-replication may provide a means to deploy a small amount of biotechnology that rapidly grows in utility, but which is designed to be maximally controllable (36) via AI-designed replicators. Even if the behaviors exhibited by reconfigurable organisms are currently rudimentary, such as those shown in past (10) and this current work, AI design methods have been shown to be capable of exploiting this flexibility to exaggerate these behaviors and, in future, possibly guide them toward more useful forms.

Materials and Methods
Manual Construction of Reconfigurable Organisms.
Wild-type reconfigurable organisms were constructed manually from amphibian X. laevis epidermal progenitor cells using methods described previously (9). Briefly, fertilized Xenopus eggs were cultured for 24 h at 14 °C [Nieuwkoop and Faber stage 10 (37)] in 0.1× Marc’s Modified Rings (MMR), pH 7.8, after which the animal cap of the embryo was removed with surgical forceps (Dumont, 11241-30 #4) and transferred to 1% agarose–coated Petri dish containing 0.75× MMR. Under these conditions, the tissue heals over the course of 1 h and differentiates into a ciliated spheroid capable of locomotion after 4 d of incubation at 14 °C. Water exchanges were done three times weekly, and the organisms were moved to fresh 1% agarose–coated Petri dishes containing 0.75× MMR and 5 ng/µL gentamicin (ThermoFisher Scientific, 15710072) until ready for experimental use.

For nonspheroid designs, morphology was shaped via microcautery and microsurgery (SI Appendix, Fig. S1 E–H). The initial production of these organisms began using the methods described above; however, after 24 h at 14 °C, the spheroids were subjected to 3 h of compression with a force of 2.62 mg/mm2. This compression results in a mild flattening of the developing tissue, producing a disk that is more amenable to shaping because it is less likely to rotate out of plane. Following compression, the organisms were cultured for an additional 24 h at 14 °C, after which final shaping was performed. Shaping was accomplished using a MC-2010 micro cautery instrument with 13-μm wire electrodes (Protech International Inc., MC-2010, 13-Y1 wire tip cautery electrode) in combination with a hand sharpened pair of surgical forceps. Each organism was shaped by first subtracting tissue to make a coarse morphology, then by fine sculpting to remove any cellular debris. After 1 h of healing, the morphology became stable for the remainder of the organism's lifespan. Following shaping, individuals were moved to fresh 1% agarose–coated Petri dishes containing 0.75× MMR and 5 ng/µL gentamicin and cultured until ready for experimental use.

All animal use was approved by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee and Tufts University Department of Laboratory Animal Medicine under protocol No. M2020-35.

Dissociated Stem Cells.
Dissociated cell layers for all self-replication experiments were obtained from the same starting material as the manually constructed reconfigurable organisms: X. laevis embryos 24 h of age (raised 14 °C). Similar to the manual construction of reconfigurable organisms, the animal cap of each embryo was explanted, and the rest of the tissue was discarded. Excised tissue was then moved via transfer pipette to a fresh 1% agarose–coated Petri dish containing a calcium- and magnesium-free dissociation medium (50.3 mM NaCl, 0.7 mM KCl, 9.2 mM Na2HPO4, 0.9 mM KH2PO4, 2.4 mM NaHCO3, 1.0 mM edetic acid, pH 7.3) and allowed to sit for 5 min. The pigmented outer ectoderm layer does not break down in this solution and was gently separated from the underlying stem cells with surgical forceps and discarded. The remaining tissues were agitated with manual flow from a pipetman until fully dissociated.

Material from 30 embryos were combined into a pool of cells (progenitor organisms are made from the same material, taken from a single embryo, and are composed of ∼3,000 cells), which was then collected and transferred to a sterile Eppendorf tube containing 1 mL 0.75× MMR. This solution was further mixed via manual pipetting up and down an additional five times, creating a final stem cell suspension. Using a clean transfer pipette, this solution was moved to a new 1% agarose–coated Petri dish containing 0.75× MMR. The speed and angle of the suspension deposition determined the concentration of the cells in the dish, and this concentration was quantified by imaging five random areas in the arena, then counting and averaging the number of cells per sq. mm. Cells were allowed to settle for 2 min before beginning kinematic self-replication experiments.

Conditions for Kinematic Self-Replication.
All experiments were initiated by distributing a stem cell suspension into a 1% agarose–coated 60- × 15-mm Petri dish filled with 15 mL 0.75× MMR, as described above in the preceding paragraph. Dishes were placed on the stage of a stereo microscope equipped with an eyepiece-mounted camera allowing for still photographs and timelapse imaging across the duration of the experiment. Cell suspensions were allowed to settle for 2 min, after which an image was captured of the center of the arena for cell density quantification. Following the initial setup, 12 adult organisms were placed in the center of the area among the dissociated cells via transfer pipette. All experiments were performed with adult reconfigured organisms aged 5 to 6 d at 14 °C, as this time point was previously found to represent the middle of their lifespan, and provides a standard movement rate (9).

Combinations of progenitors and dissociated stem cells were allowed to interact overnight (20-h total trial length) at 20 °C, and once the progenitors were placed in the arena, the Petri dishes were not moved or manipulated in any way to avoid disturbing the dissociated cell distribution. Imaging lights were also turned off for the duration of each generation of self-replication, as the heat generated by the light source was found to induce mild convection currents in the solution. Following completion of a generation, dishes were immediately imaged under the stereo microscope and then moved to a Nikon SMZ-1500 microscope with substage illumination for offspring size quantification. All aggregated stem cell tissue, now compacted as individual spheroids, were then pipetted to the center of the dish, and offspring size was calculated by measuring the diameter of each spheroid in the dish.

Upon completion of self-replication, adult organisms were returned to their original dishes, and their spheroid offspring were moved to a fresh 1% agarose–coated Petri dish containing 0.75× MMR and 5 ng/µL gentamicin. Each dish is washed as often as necessary to remove any remaining loose stem cells. The offspring were then cultured 14 °C for 5 to 6 d to verify the mobility and viability of the following generation. Where applicable, further rounds of replication proceed exactly as the first: 12 individuals (the largest individuals are chosen in successive generations) are placed among feeder cells, allowed to self-replicate for 20 h, and then offspring are quantified and separated for culture.

Evolving Swarms In Silico.
An evolutionary algorithm (38) was used to evolve simulated swarms with better self-replication, and for exhibiting diverse ways of doing so. Each independent trial starts with its own unique set of 16 initially random, genetically encoded replicator shapes. Each encoding is evaluated by prompting it to generate its shape, that shape is copied eight times, the resulting nine-progenitor swarm is simulated, and the amount (if any) of self-replication is recorded. The process is repeated 15 times with each of the remaining encodings. Each of the 16 encodings is then copied, randomly modified, and the swarm it generates is simulated. A 33rd random encoding is added to the expanded population to inject genetic novelty into the population, and its swarm is also simulated and scored. Encodings are then evaluated in pairs: if one encodes a swarm more self-replicative and evolutionarily younger than that encoded by the other, the latter encoding is deleted. Giving a selective advantage to younger swarms in this way maintains diversity in the population. Pairwise competitions continue until the population is reduced back to 16 encodings. This process of random variation, simulation, and selection is repeated for 48 h of wall-clock time on eight NVIDIA Tesla V100s.

Generating Initial Swarms In Silico.
Each replicator shape was encoded as a generative neural network (39) that places voxels at some positions within an empty volume of fixed size. The largest contiguous collection of voxels output by the network was taken to be the shape of the replicator. Randomly modifying the edges or nodes in the network modifies the shape it generates.

Simulating Replication.
Reconfigurable organisms and dissociated stem cells were simulated as elastic voxels using a version of a voxel-based soft-body simulator (40) modified to run on highly parallelized (GPU-based) computing platforms (SI Appendix, Fig. S5). Interactions between two voxels are modeled as deformations of an Euler–Bernoulli beam (translational and rotational stiffness). Collisions between voxels and the bottom of the Petri dish are resolved by Hookean springs (translational stiffness). The height of the aqueous solution, and the walls of the Petri dish, were modeled as soft boundaries that repel voxels penetrating predefined bounds with an opposite force proportional to the squared penetration (SI Appendix, section S2.1). The aggregate metachronal wave force produced by patches of cilia was modeled as an impulse force against each surface voxel, pointing in any direction in the horizontal (x,y) plane. The vertical (z) moments and forces of a simulated organism’s voxels were locked in plane to better approximate the behavior of the physical organisms which maintained constant dorsoventral orientation. The dissociated stem cells were simulated by adhesive voxel singletons with neutral buoyancy, and were free to be moved and rotated in three-dimensional space. When two adhesive voxels collided with each other, they bonded. Compaction and spherification, observed in vivo, is modeled in simulated piles of stem cells by stochastically detaching voxels around the surface of a pile, applying forces pulling them inward toward the center of the pile. Voxels were simulated with material properties manually tuned to allow for the largest stable time step of numerical integration. All other parameters of the model were estimated from biology according to SI Appendix, Table S1. At the start of each simulation, the simulated dish is seeded with the nine progenitors and 1,262 dissociated stem cells. After 3 s of simulation time, the progenitors and any piles with 108 or fewer voxels are deleted. Any piles with more than 108 voxels (incipient offspring; Fig. 3E) are then given an additional 0.5 s to compact and spherify. Empty space in the dish is then replenished with dissociated stem cells. The offspring are matured by adding random cilia forces on their surface voxels (Fig. 3F), after which they are simulated for another 3 s. This process continues until no piles greater than 108 voxels are achieved (Fig. 3G).

Measuring Self-Replication In Silico.
The self-replicative ability of a swarm was taken to be the following:
f=s/p+g,
where g is the total number of filial generations achieved, s is the size of the largest pile, in voxels, at the end of an evaluation period of 3.5 s (16,366 time steps with step size 2.14 × 10−4 s), and p is the pile size threshold required for a pile to develop into an organism. If s is greater than p, a new filial generation begins; otherwise, the simulation terminates. A conservative threshold of p = 108, two-thirds the size of the simulated wild-type spheroids, was selected such that relatively few randomly generated shapes achieved g > 0 (SI Appendix, section S2.2). Such overly conservative estimates can compensate for inaccuracies in other simulated parameters.

Statistical Hypothesis Testing.
The diameters of the 10 largest physical offspring (generation 1) built by wild-type organisms across five independent trial, and across different cell concentrations (gray points, Fig. 2E) were compared to the diameters of those built by the semitoroidal organisms in three independent trials (pink points, Fig. 2E). The diameters of all offspring were normalized by dividing by the cell concentration at which they were built. Comparing offspring size in this way is a conservative test since the volumetric difference between two spheres is eight times as large as their diametric difference. A Mann–Whitney U test was performed with a sample of eight independent measurements: the average offspring diameter within the eight independent trials (three trials with progenitor semitoroids, five trials with progenitor spheroids). The null hypothesis is that the average size of the semitoroid’s offspring (normalized by cell concentration) was no different from the average size of wild-type spheroids’ offspring (P = 0.037). Controlling for false discovery rate (41), this null hypothesis can be rejected at the 0.05 level of significance (SI Appendix, section S4.1).

Wild-type organisms produced just a single filial generation in four of the five independent trials. The only trial to produce two generations of offspring was the one with the highest cell concentration tested (150 cells/mm2). The first of three independent trials using the semitoroidal organisms resulted in two filial generations at 61 cells/mm2 but was then halted because the organisms all contracted a motility-compromising fungal infection. In the second and third trials using semitoroids, additional precautions were taken to avoid fungal infections. Three successive generations of offspring were produced at 61 cells/mm2; four successive generations of offspring were produced at 91 cells/mm2. A Mann–Whitney U test was performed. The null hypothesis is that the number of generations of self-replication achieved by the semitoroids (2, 3, and 4 g) was no greater than the number of generations produced by the wild-type spheroids (1, 1, 1, 1, and 2 g) (P = 0.019). Controlling for false discovery rate, the null hypothesis is rejected at the 0.05 level of significance (SI Appendix, section S4.2).

A Spearman rank-order correlation coefficient of 0.9322 (P = 0.00074) holds between the number of generations achieved and the aggregate size of the 10 largest first generation offspring.

Forecasting Utility.
Three kinds of microelectronic components that adhere permanently upon collision were added to the simulation: light emitters, batteries, and wire (Fig. 4A). Each component contains vertically stacked and insulated conductors which maintain connectability under translational and rotational movement in plane (SI Appendix, Fig. S11 C–E). As a side effect of movement, reconfigurable organisms will randomly push together microelectronics modules present in the dish (SI Appendix, section S5.1). If a light emitter connects by an unbroken circuit of wire to a battery, the light emitter switches on permanently (as indicated by a red circled X in Fig. 4 and SI Appendix, Fig. S11).

The swarm builds piles, which, if large enough, develop into offspring, and the dissociated cells are replenished every 3.5 s. Piles under the size threshold are removed to make way for fresh dissociated cells. Because we are interested in estimating utility rather than self-replication, progenitors are left in the dish and continue building additional offspring alongside their former offspring for another four, 3.5-s periods. After 17.5 s of simulation time, the number of light emitters connected to a power supply was recorded, the progenitors were removed, and all offspring were extracted. The offspring were then split equally into two new simulated Petri dishes, each with a new partially completed circuit (SI Appendix, section S5.2). Self-replication and circuit building begin afresh in these two dishes, again for 17.5 s. This is the start of a binary simulation tree (Fig. 4D) in which each simulation begets at most two simulation branches, each containing one-half of the produced offspring of their root simulation. If only a single offspring is created by a swarm after 17.5 s, then only one new simulation branch is started. If no offspring were built, then that branch of the binary simulation tree terminates.

After 50 simulation bifurcations, 5,024 light emitters were switched on. Symbolic regression (42) was used to find the degree of a polynomial function that best explains the cumulative number of lights switched on. Regression found that utility increases quadratically with time, as estimates found by symbolic regression all converged toward the quadratic curve derived by ordinary least squares: 2.7x2 − 43x + 182.4, where x is the number of simulation bifurcations (R2 = 0.9988).

Data Availability
Source code is available in the GitHub repository (https://github.com/skriegman/kinematically_replicating_organisms). All other data are included in the manuscript and/or supporting information.

Acknowledgments
We thank the Vermont Advanced Computing Core for providing high-performance computing resources. This research was supported by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) under Cooperative Agreement No. HR0011-180200022, the Allen Discovery Program through The Paul G. Allen Frontiers Group (12171), the Office of the Vice President for Research at the University of Vermont, the Vice Provost for Research at Tufts University, and Dean of the School of Arts and Sciences at Tufts University.

Footnotes
↵1S.K. and D.B. contributed equally to this work.

↵2To whom correspondence may be addressed. Email: josh.bongard@uvm.edu.
Accepted October 8, 2021.
Author contributions: S.K., D.B., and J.B. designed research; S.K. and D.B. performed research; S.K. and D.B. contributed new reagents/analytic tools; S.K., D.B., M.L., and J.B. analyzed data; and S.K., D.B., M.L., and J.B. wrote the paper.

The authors declare no competing interest.

This article is a PNAS Direct Submission.

See online for related content such as Commentaries.

This article contains supporting information online at https://www.pnas.org/lookup/suppl/doi:10.1073/pnas.2112672118/-/DCSupplemental.

Copyright © 2021 the Author(s). Published by PNAS.
This open access article is distributed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License 4.0 (CC BY-NC-ND).

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