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  1. MY THOUGHTS 1:37 why did Zenobia hate it! I want to know the why. Did Zenobia like "the harder they fall" or "concrete cowboy" ? Does Zenobia like any cowboy films in general. 4:01 yes, the cowboys were originally the person near the cow who guides them. 5:06 hmm good point, a less talked about part of black history in the usa, that black people don't tend to talk about alot. I wonder why do you think? 6:15 no, he got in a fight with the whites at the town and was to be executed/imprisoned or he can conscript. He conscripted but tried to leave three times ,, attacked a superior officer and that brought him to cuba in the military. He was a lieutenant. 9:31 I love how you did the voice Nike of the short guy. 9:57 Bless you Nike, futuristic cowboy:) who would Zenobia like to see as the director? the same director? 10:53 this movie plays into the western myth style. ahhh Zenobia hasn't even seen it. 11:48 she wants Posse with an all female cast. Zenobia:) this is meant to be a western myth film. 12:39 Gang of roses is the film with lil kim 13:01 the movie is direct. In defense, Peebles has been in war for a long time. That is the truth. Soldiers don't come back from war, or are on the run, reminiscing , singing songs. yes, Nike. And he always told them to follow him if they want but no questions. He really is a pure man in black. 15:40 education is power is the message and your right Nike, the movie is stating its purpose 16:15 you did see a native american woman hanged. 18:10 Zenobia is funny, she said wakanda , kkk 18:50 I think they were performed well cause they are frustrated, but it is backlogged. It is a tentative. It is a frustrated scene. They love each other, but this is a love that had a beautiful beginning and has been delayed and waylayed for years. 21:22 Zenobia , your review isn't bad. it is honest, but it is about aesthetic. Peebles wanted the man in black to be truly that. Films tend to present the man in black historically as very talkative, very expressive. CLint eastwood in unforgiven is very quiet. eastwood is married to a native american woman and it seems loveless, he leaves her on the land and that is that. 21:46 good point to harlem nights. Posse was a collage film. yes, big daddy kane was a great father time. and like harlem nights they can't come back. 25:34 yeah, classic. for the black dos western genre, you will find it is preceded by Buck and the preacher and then follwoed by harder they fall IN AMENDMENT In John Wick 4 , Keanu Reeves went against an earlier script and cut out all the talking for John Wick's character, same as Jesse Lee in Posse. As a writer who believes in non verbal communication as well as an attentive challenge. I write characters that don't always fit the audiences expectation in how they speak or act non verbally. So Zenobia's point is a good thing to comprehend in the commercial desire of a film or story. As a reviewer said to a stageplay of mine. IF you go against the commonly accepted cues the audience wants, it will hinder/harm/have some negative aspect to the liking of your work. I think she was right and Zenobia proves it. IN AMENDMENT PART 2 a film outlaw posse has been made, i don't think it is a sequel to posse
  2. Most intelligent Black folks already have........... The time has come to stop going in circles and preaching the same common sense to the walking dead. If they didn't have sense enough to "get it" after 60 years or preaching the same things over and over to them, it's time to pack our things and move on.
  3. topics The forty-fourth of the Cento series. A cento is a poem made by an author from the lines of another author's work. The Precipice- stageplay, art, tutorial Center for Black Literature at Medgar Evers college Highlights, day 1 +2 Sign on a signpost dates : happy belated march equinox , happy belated st patrick's IF YOU MADE IT THIS FAR -> Movies that move we reviews: Rustin, American Fiction, Color Purple; If you could have a pet--and you had time to give it all the love and care it needs, had the space, and had the necessary funds--what would your dream pet be? ; Are you a Dune Fan? ; What grammar or punctuation rules do you struggle with? ; Questions of Supermen? ; Thoughts to the New Shadow that never was ; Black Poetry you are feeling now URL https://rmnewsletter.over-blog.com/2023/09/03/24/2024-rmnewsletter.html
  4. Day 2 part 2 Tiya Miles in conversation with Brenda M. Greene < https://aalbc.com/authors/author.php?author_name=Brenda+M.+Greene > Tiya Miles is the author of the book "The Cherokee Rose" about various Black people who find themselves on a reservation with a threat https://aalbc.com/books/home.php?isbn13=9780593596425 https://aalbc.com/books/home.php?isbn13=9781324020875 GQ- Greene Question MA- Miles Answer My thoughts GQ Why inspired plus brief synopsis? MA Family of enslaved black women, a member sewed their story into a sack, based on a real sack. The sack was found by a white woman in nashville in a bin of things for twenty dollars. Signed by middleton. The middleton's are white people from england through barbados, still rich and have a foundation today. The white woman said she was given a vision to give the sack back to the plantation but she could had made more money if it was auctioned. Sack was on in the smithsonian now it is in the middleton foundation. In my own home we have items of bloodline history that is uncommon. I wonder how many similar items have been destroyed or thrown away by black people since the end of the war between the states. GQ What about embroidery? MA It was viewed as a white woman's pastime. A symbol of high femininity by whites, in a phenotypically judged way, not for black women. Miles first saw the sack as an object but progressed two stages to see it as an art. She question the sack is back south. The item that is a symbol of a black bloodline leaving the south, escaping the south is not back in the south, charleston, on a plantation. The black bloodline fled to philadelphia to freedom with the sack originally. The Foundation now has a black middleton side white middleton reunion plus a scholarship for descended of enslaved. Whites deem black women masculinized, as in unnaturally physically strong, ala the black woman , who was a happy enslaved, hitting black men with a broom in birth of a nation. If you recall the scene she is so strong that she can successfully fight against a horde of black men, who never once harm her, fleeing from her broom. In parallel the imagery suggest a continued stupidity or physical weakness, femininized, in the black male populace. The question is what is the true feeling and place of the southern states to DOSers in the black populace in the usae. I know a black man recently suggested the south should be a place of strength, regardless of its past. But I think it is fair to argue the south and the greater usa is a place of historic pain that black DOSers in the black populace in the usa have the right to choose to embrace. GQ Explain the process to write the book? MA The sack was the best or primary source. The book was an unwise undertaking with so few sources. But she got help from an anthropologist. Mark LASTNAME. The Middleton foundation had assessed the material the sack was made of. She looked for a woman named Rose with a girl named Ashley. Rose was a popular name. While, ashley was a name given to white men mostly at that time. She found one ashley had connection to one rose in the region. She can never know what is on the mind of people living today so knowing the mind of people living in the past is farther off. But she used slave narratives to guide to the mindset Ashley or Rose might had. She was very lucky. The whole point of the recording history of enslavement by whites in the usa was to delete links to the past for black people living or in the future. That was the point. That is why I wonder why it is so hard to get black people in the usa or wherever we have been enslaved which is , everywhere on earth in the last three hundred years to keep a better genealogical or bloodline log to themselves. GQ Why are relationships complicated between indigenous people side Blacks MA American slavery. She wants slavery on the land commonly called the usa to be represented for the expansive institution it was and expansive mutating legacy it is. The lands of the usa are not everyone's they are indigenous lands. She focused in the book on south east indigenous nations and the slavery within them. The enslavement of blacks by native americans is complex. For example, a native american named Shoeboots purchased a black woman named Doll. Why is their story important? Cherokee law makers in the 1700s , not wanting to be classed aside blacks by whites, made laws to disassociate black indigenous people wholescale. Shoeboots sisters embraced their nieces plus nephews from Doll but the larger indigenous community did not. She calls these American stories which are part of composite stories. I have said it for a long time. The entire American continent , which includes the USA, is owned by the native american in my eyes. Now, some places like many islands in the caribbean have a completely deleted indigenous populace. But, every country that has an indigenous populace: USA/Canada/Brazil/Mexico/Venezuela/Peru plus most others have a living indigenous populace that in my mind is the proper owner of the countries land. And many Black people have told me offline or online how they oppose this position. But the truth is what they oppose. To accept the indigenous ownership of the land in the American continent is to reject the creation of a majority of the governments in the American continent and by rejecting said governments the logical next step is to ask where do the non indigenous in the american continent belong. And that question's answer ranges from overwhelming in function to terrifying in implementation for a majority of non-indigenous in the american continent. And all the talk about forebears or the laws value in determining the place of their descendants from white europeans, black dosers, willing immigrants legal or illegal are all dead in the water if you accept the truth that indigenous people of the american continent had their continent taken. So any government with indigenous has a majority non indigenous populace that is in modernity a functioning encroacher/pillager/defiler regardless of their mindset, until they leave the american continent and go back to a location of their descendants or themselves. And that migration by the non indigenous, in countries with indigenous people, to wherever they or their forebears came from is what is the most honest or truthful act that can occur in the american continent. And the lie against that act exposes the truth about most in the non indigenous in the american continent. The great Tecumseh asked indigenous people of the south east region to join him and they opposed. Tecumseh later died in the canadian forest fighting the usa. One of the many Indigenous side Black DOSer leaders whose goal was against the white populace in the usa or the british colonies that preceded it and the creation/growth/expansion of the USA, who were supported by the british militarily sometimes. The fact that said Indigenous or Black DOS leaders failed doesn't mean they were wrong or that their struggle should be deemed false. Like the Indigenous populace in the usa, the Black DOser populace once bereft of the leaders who fought against the whites with violence, or the usa at every iteration became populaces enslaved not merely physically but culturally to the usa. It is no accident that the modern indigenous or black dos populace in the usa are in majority USAphiles, Statianphiles, that is a result of the death of a majority of either of their populaces earliest leaders who were adamantly or strongly anti white plus anti usa and the following leadership by the appeasing or non violent, the fearful of whites who sheparded either populace successfully to the their modern forms. GQ Why the modern conflicts of who is black or who is indigenous MA Native peoples in the usa have been stripped completely and have many false clones , false indigenous people of all phenotypes, modernly called identity theft, for centuries. The Shoeboots side Doll's descendants plus others are overly questioned by indigenous with that centuries old legacy. . But many enslaved descendants are treated as a subclass on reservations. A place in the oklahoma territory is named Nigger Hill where many people who are descended from formerly enslaved in the native american nations. The situation reached even a greater negativity at the end of the war between the states. In her view the chrorkee have come the farthest in giving rights to descendants of enslaved. No answer satisfies all or insults none. This is the result again of a negative past with indigenous people or black dos that predates the creation of the usa and is really two unsettled blood feuds against whites. Why shouldn't Indigenous or Black DOS populaces mimic whites in the usa when the leadership of either populace that was truly against whites was long dead? Two populaces led by whitephiles for centuries are not going to arrive today absent a mimicry of white behavior. GQ Talk about Cherokee Rose MA She know someone who searched for indigenous roots and they were wrong in their assumption and felt embarrassed. In the USA, native american descendance is romanticized while Black DOS descendance is barbarized. Yes and both of those views are not universal in creation but from whites where the black dos or indigenous leaders aided or abetted in their own populaces. GQ Talk about Wild Girls? MA She made during the height of Covid. She talks of how Harriet Tubman was continually loaned as an enslaved girl, mercilessly. But Harriet TUbman said later in life, she felt her work in timber prepared her for the work to come. She was the only female. She listened to the men, learned of water flow, what is edible. Tubman learned from being outside and changed the world. Love Harriest Tubman. A legend and I argue absent proof that Tubman wanted black people to go all the way to canada more but Frederick Douglass, one of those USAphile black leaders corralled black people to suffer in the usa even though if all the black people who escaped enslavement in the usa would had gone to nova scotia, history would be very different today in a positive way for black people in nova scotia and i argue throughout north america. USAphile black leaders insistence through centuries that black people suffer whites throughout the usa is the self inflicted wound. ANSWERS FROM AUDIENCE MEMBER QUESTIONS TO TIYA Q - from audience Tiya Answer- her reply My thoughts Q What is difference between history and fiction? TA History means you don't need a plot. Many people in her offline life family, never read any of her books till she made a novel. Fiction has more room to find a way in. Invites people to feel. History makes arguments , doesn't have a built in promise to feel. This leads to two different audiences for fiction or history. Also the various populaces in the usa don't like the questions history poses to self. White people will say my family wanted betterment. But your family killed others, aided or abetted in harming others for that betterment. You forebears are heroes to you, while tyrants to others you don't want to acknowledge. Cause that means the opportunity or advantage you have comes from that tyranny, and the ignorance they presented to the descendants is not the act of a hero but a coward to ashamed to admit what they are or are apart of. Black people will say our people built the usa. But our people hated every second of it, wishing only in their hear to have it deleted. And they were made worse by tricking themselves or their children into buying into a lie of ownership when they knew fully well they never owned the usa or had ownership in it. Indigenous people will say they love america. But your forebears and the forebears of the cousins, the many more cousins who never got to be, were murdered by the usa and its predecessor. To love the usa is to forgive its murder of your own people, which either makes you a coward or a traitor. Immigrants will say, they came freely on their own with no desire to abuse. But only a self centered person will go to a new land absent knowing its true nature and then hide behind their individual greed or needs to warrant the move. You fled from your country instead of having the willingness/strength/daring to make it better for convenience to a land made by white europeans who were and are like yourself , and you call that a dream, while the heritage of the country you came to or the situation of the country you left you can't even acknowledge is a nightmare you aid in growing. Q What about hand craft? TA Experiencing what people make by hand is cherished. She took classes in college for sewing and her family loved the craft she made. In the USA a culture of electronic crafting is growing at such a rate, in the usa non electronic hand craft will have a lessening, not deletion but lessening. Q What steps should be taken to come together? TA John Stewart , the english governor of carolina , pre USA, in his writings admitted you can't allow bindings of indigenous people with black dos. Later in the usa, circa seminole wars, blacks fleeing georgia were strengthening the union of black dos side indigenous so laws were made to put at odds by giving allowances in the white system for one while not the other. Examples exist of indigenous abuses toward blacks but it must be comprehended they are not everywhere throughout the indigenous lands in a comparable way to the abused to blacks throughout white european lands. In her personal experience, indigenous people easily accept those they know who are indigenous while black but the people who are unverifiable becomes frustrating as well as problematic for the same indigenous people. After killing of George Floyd native american solidarity to blacks increased , not at the strength of the seminole movement in florida but stronger than recent past. The problem with labels is their misplacement. When I say indigenous, that is not a phenotypical label. that is about descendency. When I say Black that is a phenotypical label, it is about appearance. Connecting indigenous to white or non indigenous to black is where the errors come in. Q How to galvanize communities, bridge the gap? Her mother applied for a job as a nurse in the choctaw nation, saying she never embraced her indigenous roots. Her mother's experience was horrifying. She cried daily in tears. She herself identifies as black dos wholesale with no desire to claim her indigenous roots. What kind of conversation do we need to start having? TA She admits to things she will not speak publicly that occurred to her in montana.... she thinks sometimes we think their must be an affinity between indigenous side black. When she did research on indigenous people side black dos, she found the most binding heritage between the two people absent any near challenge is enslavement, the institution of slavery in the usa. The optimism of what should be accepted contradicts what happened in the past. But the fleeting stories can be inspiring or models. The best examples of bonding are when both are under the heel. For example when indigenous plus blacks were both enslaved a communion existed but when indigenous enslavement was outlawed or banned the indigenous community in majority fled. When historical winds are negative people choose to flow away from such winds. But she says small communication is the best at the moment. A black lady behind me said they think they are white anyway. And she is correct, but it goes back to Tecumseh. A people whose leaders that love them while hate their enemies when they are murdered and replaced by those that love them while also love the enemy creates a choice of convenience that truthfully while sadfully has led to the growth of whitephile or usaphile quantities in the indigenous or black dos populaces who are empowered by whites or the usa with advantage over the remainder of their populaces. It is not that indigenous or black dos do not have many who want to be white but the why is inevitable with said leadership in an environment controlled by their historic enemy. Yes, for me, the seminole wars, all four phases, is the most positive union between the indigenous side black dos populaces in the usa. No moment has a more positive union between indigenous or black people in north america and what is the situation. Both indigenous plus black dos are technically not in the USA but in spanish florida being given the right by the spanish to defend the lands as the spanish are impotent. Like the english before, or the french in some ways in louisiana, the white european continental powers gave situations that were far more favorable to indigenous or black people but the numbers of white european settlers and later statians was too great and overrun indigenous or black dos efforts through numbers. But how can modern indigenous or black dos populaces in the usa mirror the seminoles, which is a word signifying a collective of peoples, not just one, in spanish florida in opposition to the usa while in the usa? Look at Tecumseh again. At the end, he died in canada but his goal was in the usa or the usa to be. It is hard being anti usa in the usa. and , at least historically though i think modernly, if you are anti white then you are anti usa in the usa. Q Have you felt blocked in creating? TA She hasn't felt block but many scholars came before her. She has heard some scholars be formally discouraged cause the history may lead to a negative light. She idd not go to the Tsalagi and get their blessing for her book. She knew a writer who found intermarriage evidence between black dos side indigenous and Tsalagi told him to take it out and he did. She received negative communication from descendants of enslavers white or indigenous or others for the history she found wasn't what they knew or accepted or wanted as the main publicized or advertised narrative. But in her engagements she has never had people stay the same after discussing. When she started a native american scholar felt her book would destroy the native american populace but years later said she is thankful she wrote the book. Again, people in the usa, all phenotypes[black/white/mulatto/native], all descendencies [indigenous/european/african/asian/suth american/caribbean] have been bred on lies by those in the past in their own homes. Often with lies at the core of their relationship to the usa, or the whites to own it, and to disprove those lies is a bridge many are fearful of. Q How to transform the youth of today TA She feels a gap between herself and some members of her household. Her best guess is to bring younger people in a dual directional project. To learn the language of the youth and speak the communities needs or elders concerns in said language while elders allow young voices to change themselves. She admits, sadfully, she knows things she wish she will see, she will never see in her lifetime, she wish she will. And, governmental policy matter and the things people make matter. The culture matters and move all of these things into the political realm. I think a faster question and answer, plus more interactive will help. The kids are used to more speed, less sitting while more interaction , less absorbing. It isn't that the kids can't sit or absorb but they prefer either of those actions to be accompanied by said other. IN AMENDMENT Great Talk in my view, like the first day. Learned but a lot of truth. And wasn't a bad crowd to be fair.
  5. Before I go into the segment I will speak on Stageplays + screenplays. One of the things I like about stageplays or screenplays is they are made to be performed. Which means what? They are meant to be the basis of a collective art work. A book of fiction is meant to be read but not performed. That simple variance , in my mind, opens up stageplays or screenplays to a different set of allowable judgements. The best example I can think of showing the power of screenplay fluidity is "THe Jungle" from "The Twilight Zone" . In the original short story from Charles Beaumont it is located in Africa and in the future with a technologically advanced manner. The characters are all the same but the visualization is starker. The goal is to show an encroachment by the wealthy white powers onto a Black space, and the price for some agents of that white power. It is that blunt. But when Beaumont wrote the teleplay for the show. He changed alot of aesthetic. But kept the basic idea, still kept the story. But why? A play is a collaborative artwork as is a film and both are open to interpretation. It isn't about rigiidity , it is about interpretation. Another example is Baum, writer of the wizard of Oz, who loved the 1902 stage production, a musical, whose language and tone was far more adult. But I paraphrase him:"as long as people do well by the work he is fine" . In the same way , he would had loved "The Wiz" stageplay in my opinion for its quality while reflecting another community or the earlier Judy garland movie, whose dorothy is significantly older than in the book. Whether the work is turned into something meant to be laughed at with gawdy humour, or reflecting another communities ways, or just some tweaks of the original works , stageplays or screenplays are interpretations and if they achieve their goals then no critique to a standard storytelling is warranted. Immediately below is an excerpt from an article presented ultimately. I will continue my prose after the excerpt THE EXCERPT In 1979, Paramount needed an answer to Star Wars, so it revived Trek in the form of movies. Then T.J. Hooker came along a few years later. What did you get out of the show? It was a terrific show. It had all kinds of drama. I got to direct several of the episodes. And some of my shots are in the opening. I was totally involved, committed to the writing, committed to the directing. You're running all the time. You've got to make decisions and you don't have enough money. You directed a big-budget feature, Star Trek V, in 1989. It was considered a disappointment, but it has its fans today. Were you hoping to expand what a Trek movie could be by filming around the world? I wish that I'd had the backing and the courage to do the things I felt I needed to do. My concept was, "Star Trek goes in search of God," and management said, "Well, who's God? We'll alienate the nonbeliever, so, no, we can't do God." And then somebody said, "What about an alien who thinks they're God?" Then it was a series of my inabilities to deal with the management and the budget. I failed. In my mind, I failed horribly. When I'm asked, "What do you regret the most?," I regret not being equipped emotionally to deal with a large motion picture. So in the absence of my power, the power vacuum filled with people that didn't make the decisions I would've made. You seem to take the blame, but outside observers might say, "Well, the budget wasn't there. You didn't get the backing you needed." But in your mind, it's on you. It is on me. [In the finale,] I wanted granite [rock creatures] to explode out of the mountain. The special effects guy said, "I can build you a suit that's on fire and smoke comes out." I said, "Great, how much will that cost?" They said, "$250,000 a suit." Can you make 10 suits? He said, "Yeah." That's $2.5 million. You've got a $30 million budget. You sure you want to spend [it on that]? Those are the practical decisions. Well, wait a minute, what about one suit? And I'll photograph it everywhere [to look like 10]. (Editor's note: The plan to use one suit famously did not work well onscreen and was ultimately abandoned.) MY CONTINUED PROSE It seems to me, Shatner made two mistakes. When you go from low budget television to large budget film, the financial scale requires greater care. In a low budget television show, your financial scale is predetermined low so you know limits, there is no suggestion of overspending. But when you do a high budget film the allowance for misuse or waste is higher and sequentially ruinous or dangerous to the overall collective experience. I am not sure but shatner alludes to not presenting a screenplay or storyboard list. And while I comprehend film studios love pitching a concept in a sentence. I think an artist is wiser to have a screenplay plus storyboard list in hand , to aid in the pitch when questions may be asked. Leonard Nimoy supposedly had the script for Wrath of Khan before the pitch he made, so there lay the variance. When I look at Star Trek Generations, I can see that being a remake of Star Trek v tweaked to bridge the original series + next generation. The Nexus is what? a science fiction element that is as close to the gateway to heaven as you can get. It literally exist as a natural phenomenon in space, moving about destructive to interface with but if very lucky it can grab you or if unlucky or purposed can spit you out. And the place it goes to is so powerful part of you remains there, ala Guinan's character. This is heaven. Shatner said he wanted the Enterprise to meet god and essentially that concept was tweaked so that two enterprises meet , as close as possible in star trek world, the gateway of heaven. From my little knowledge I imagine the screenplay for Generations was around for a while or at least the writers to it had access to screenplays or other content concerning star trek v, if not the simple pitch itself. But this is why the screenplay/stageplay is such a fluid creature. They are meant to be manipulated for purpose. They are not meant to be treated as rigid works, ala why so many have it wrong when they treat shakespeare's work rigidly. It was meant to be performed, speculated in various ways. I will love a chance to redo The Meteor Man. I think the screenplay isn't bad but can be interpreted in a way various with even the same budget. THE COMPLETE ARTICLE William Shatner on His Biggest ‘Star Trek' Regret – and Why He Cried With Bezos Story by Aaron Couch When writing about a legend who's still working as a nonagenarian, it's almost obligatory to include a line about how they are seemingly busier than ever. William Shatner, 92, may no longer be on set 12 hours a day for the roles that made him the first Comic-Con celebrity (Star Trek), or that transformed him into a late-career regular at the Emmys podium (The Practice, Boston Legal), but it's difficult not to marvel at the pace at which he lives his life. The actor, who looks and speaks much like he did 20 years ago, maintains a healthy travel schedule that includes appearances at a dozen or so fan conventions every year. Always popping up in new projects (he hosted the extraterrestrial base camp-simulating reality contest Stars on Mars that aired on Fox over the summer), in 2021, he became the oldest person to travel to space, pouring that experience into a music-and-poetry performance at Washington D.C's Kennedy Center a few months later with friend and musical collaborator Ben Folds. (That recording, So Fragile, So Blue, will be released as an album April 19). Now, Shatner is the subject of the crowdfunded documentary You Can Call Me Bill (in select theaters March 22, his 93rd birthday), a meditation on his life, career and mortality. The Montreal-born actor began performing at the age of 6 at camp and never stopped, transitioning from Canadian radio dramas to Broadway to 1950s TV Westerns. He's been an omnipresent pop culture fixture since 1966, when he was cast as Captain James T. Kirk in Star Trek under unusual circumstances never seen again in Hollywood. NBC had a pilot that didn't work, but the network wanted to try again with a mostly new cast. Where the original pilot was a somewhat dry affair, Shatner brought much-needed humor to the Enterprise. Though the show was canceled after just three seasons, it earned a cult following in syndication, and Shatner reprised the role for seven feature films. Along the way, he reinvented himself over and over, as a hard-a** cop who didn't understand the value of Miranda rights for five seasons on ABC/CBS' T.J. Hooker, and again as a comedic sendup of himself as the spokesperson for Priceline.com, with ads beaming into homes from 1998 to 2012. His comedic chops led him to the Saturday Night Live stage - 38 years later, people still ask him about a sketch in which he mocked Star Trek fans with the exasperated line "Get a life!" - as well as multiple Emmy wins playing lawyer Denny Crane on David E. Kelley's ABC procedural The Practice and then Boston Legal, which concluded after four years in 2008. And he has penned books, released albums and directed documentaries. During a Zoom conversation in early March, Shatner discussed why Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, his first and only theatrical feature as a director, was the biggest regret of his career; that history-making Star Trek kiss with Nichelle Nichols; and what could lure him back to the captain's chair. Some say acting is a way to find the love they aren't getting elsewhere. Was that true for you? I'm sure it's true. I spent a very lonely life in my younger years. Being able to join a cast and be a part of a group of people, I'm sure that was an element in my starting to be an actor when I was very young. Though you acted throughout childhood, you got a practical degree, a bachelor of commerce, from McGill University in Montreal. Was the plan to use that degree? I've bumbled my way through my life with a growing realization that all the plans you have for your life are dependent on the guy driving a car behind you or in front of you. The accidents that you have no control over, whether they're physical, like falling down a flight of stairs, or emotional, like the person you love the most doesn't love you - and everything in between - you have no control over. So you may think you're like, "I'm going to control. I'm going to choose that motion picture," or go onstage choosing elements of your career, thinking you're making a career move. It has nothing to do with reality at all. But as an actor, you do have some control, right? You understudied for Christopher Plummer on Henry V in 1956, and he once said, "Where I stood up to make a speech, he sat down. He did the opposite of everything I did." I had no rehearsal. I didn't know the people. And it was five days into the opening of the show [when Plummer got sick]. The choreography was one of the other things that I didn't know. I was in a macabre state of mind. So that had nothing to do with "I stood where he sat." [It was, rather], "I've got to move around the stage somewhere. I think I'll sit down here, I'm exhausted!" You worked with director Richard Donner on the classic Twilight Zone episode "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet," which was in fact a nightmare for him, as it was technically complicated and the shooting days were halved. Did you sense the pressure he was under? It's complicated. When you get those science fiction choices: The guy is dressed in a furry little suit and you say, "Well, why isn't the suit aerodynamic? Why is it a suit that'll catch every breeze that blows?" What kind of logic do you use in any science fiction case? When I looked at the acrobat [Nick Cravat, who played a gremlin terrorizing Shatner's character from the wing of a plane], I said to myself, "That isn't something you'd wear on the wing of a 747," but then again, what do you wear on the wing of a 747? So yeah, it was complicated in that way. Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry had strict rules about what was appropriate for his show. Were you privy to what informed that thinking? He was in the military, and he was a policeman. So there was this militaristic vision of "You don't make out with a fellow soldier." There are strict rules and you abide by the rules. Around that, [the writers] had to write the drama. But within that was the discipline of "This is the way a ship works." Well, as Star Trek progressed, that ethos has been forgotten [in more recent shows]. I sometimes laugh and talk about the fact that I think Gene is twirling in his grave. "No, no, you can't make out with the lady soldier!" The writers of Star Trek: The Next Generation butted heads with Gene when he was alive. The fights that went on, to my understanding, were big, because the writers had their difficulties. "We need some more material." "We need to get out of here. It's claustrophobic." When you joke that Gene is twirling in his grave, you mean he wouldn't approve of onscreen romances between crewmates on the later shows? Yes, exactly. I haven't watched the other Star Treks very much, but what I've seen with glimpses of the Next Generation is yes, the difficulty in the beginning, between management, was all about Gene's rules and obeying or not obeying those rules. You and Nichelle Nichols are credited with the first interracial kiss on TV. Is it true that you pushed to make every take real, despite the network asking for faked takes so they would have the option? I do remember saying, "Maybe they'll try and edit it. What can I do to try and discourage the editing of the kiss itself?" I don't remember quite what I did because it's difficult to cut away [from the kiss in an edit]. But yeah, I remember thinking that. After three seasons, NBC cancels Star Trek in 1969, and you find yourself broke, doing summer stock theater on the East Coast. Did you think acting might be over at that point? I'm broke, living in a truck, sleeping in the back and trying to save that money so I could support my three kids and my [ex-]wife, who were living in Beverly Hills. The only thing that ever occurred to me was, "I can always go back to Toronto and make something of a living as an actor there." I never thought, "Oh, I've got to become a salesman." It never occurred to me from the age of 6 to do anything else. Which is weird because [today] I hear it all around me: "God, I can't make a living anymore [as an actor]." And that's true. People with names can't make a living under the circumstances that the business has fallen into. In 1979, Paramount needed an answer to Star Wars, so it revived Trek in the form of movies. Then T.J. Hooker came along a few years later. What did you get out of the show? It was a terrific show. It had all kinds of drama. I got to direct several of the episodes. And some of my shots are in the opening. I was totally involved, committed to the writing, committed to the directing. You're running all the time. You've got to make decisions and you don't have enough money. You directed a big-budget feature, Star Trek V, in 1989. It was considered a disappointment, but it has its fans today. Were you hoping to expand what a Trek movie could be by filming around the world? I wish that I'd had the backing and the courage to do the things I felt I needed to do. My concept was, "Star Trek goes in search of God," and management said, "Well, who's God? We'll alienate the nonbeliever, so, no, we can't do God." And then somebody said, "What about an alien who thinks they're God?" Then it was a series of my inabilities to deal with the management and the budget. I failed. In my mind, I failed horribly. When I'm asked, "What do you regret the most?," I regret not being equipped emotionally to deal with a large motion picture. So in the absence of my power, the power vacuum filled with people that didn't make the decisions I would've made. You seem to take the blame, but outside observers might say, "Well, the budget wasn't there. You didn't get the backing you needed." But in your mind, it's on you. It is on me. [In the finale,] I wanted granite [rock creatures] to explode out of the mountain. The special effects guy said, "I can build you a suit that's on fire and smoke comes out." I said, "Great, how much will that cost?" They said, "$250,000 a suit." Can you make 10 suits? He said, "Yeah." That's $2.5 million. You've got a $30 million budget. You sure you want to spend [it on that]? Those are the practical decisions. Well, wait a minute, what about one suit? And I'll photograph it everywhere [to look like 10]. (Editor's note: The plan to use one suit famously did not work well onscreen and was ultimately abandoned.) Paramount+ is rumored to have tossed around ideas for you to reprise your role, à la Patrick Stewart in Star Trek: Picard. Is that something you would entertain? Leonard [Nimoy] made his own decision on doing a cameo [in J.J. Abrams' 2009 Star Trek]. He's there for a moment, and it's more a stunt that Spock appears in a future. If they wrote something that wasn't a stunt that involved Kirk, who's 50 years older now, and it was something that was genuinely added to the lore of Star Trek, I would definitely consider it. Did hosting SNL feel like a breakthrough, in terms of showing what you could do with comedy? That was a new show then, it was a big sensation, and hosting it was good. They really wrote comedy for me. I played comedy since I was 7. There is a timing. There is a way of characterizing a line. It's a kind of spiritual thing playing comedy, letting the audience know they're open to laugh. After decades in the industry, you achieved your greatest critical success in your 70s playing Denny Crane on Boston Legal. What was the genesis of Denny? David E. Kelly invites me to breakfast. He says, "I've written this character. He's a little bit senile." I said, "Well, I can play that." He'd write, "The character would say his name, Denny Crane, four or five times." How do you act that? What rationale pulls that together? David didn't offer any explanation. I learned somewhere that snakes stick their tongues out. It's assessing what's out there. So I thought that's what the character is doing. Denny Crane is reading what your reaction is to the words "Denny Crane." In 2021, at age 90, you became the oldest person to go to space. Upon landing, you had a tearful exchange with Jeff Bezos. How have you processed that? I was weeping uncontrollably for reasons I didn't know. It was my fear of what's happening to Earth. I could see how small it was. It's a rock with paper-thin air. You've got rock and 2 miles of air, and that's all that we have, and we're f****** it up. And, that dramatically, I saw it in that moment. What are your thoughts on legacy? At Mar-a-Lago, I was asked to help raise funds with the Red Cross. I had to be at Mar-a-Lago Saturday night, and Leonard's funeral was Sunday morning. I couldn't make both. I chose the charity. It just occurred to me: Leonard died. They got a statue up. It's not going to last. Say it lasts 50 years, 100. [Someone will say], "Who is that Leonard Nimoy? Tear the statue down, put somebody else up." But what you can't erase is helping somebody or something. That has its own energy and reverberation. That person got help - and then is able to help somebody else. You've continued an action that has no boundaries. That's what a good deed does This story first appeared in the March 14 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. URL https://www.msn.com/en-us/movies/news/william-shatner-on-his-biggest-star-trek-regret-and-why-he-cried-with-bezos/ar-BB1k6dbN
  6. If you're like me, currently impaired by a short attention span, you want a quick fix - immediate gratification when catching up on the news. If anything is too long and drawn out I, and a lot of other people, are not motivated to read it. We want instant gratification. A headline is not a title. It's a concise summary of what the article is about. Editors often make them clever and provocative to catch the reader's eye. Nowadays I get most of my news from TV. I take it all with a grain of salt. Most people do. I don't know anybody who totally trusts the media anymore except maybe the Yahoos who watch Fox "News". Bottom line, folks eventually end up gravitating toward the outlets that tell them what they want to hear. Things that reinforce the opinionated conspiracy theories that everyone harbors in an ongoing pursuit of the "truth" which is simply a word and, unless it involves math, is more-or-less a concoction of cherry-picked factoids made up of other words that are just words. Yada, yada, yada. I will now step down from my soap box and move on... Good Night. zzzzzz
  7. based on the book by Sue Monk Kidd an alternative review from aalbc https://aalbc.com/reviews/film-reviews.php?id=1739
  8. richardmurray Where in humanity do adults not get into altercations? And where else on the planet do women pull out knives and start attacking strange men when they are in a fight with someone else? And where else on the planet do men who get into fights casually walk over to their jackets to pull out gats? These things are pretty much an uniquely urban American phenomena...lol. But I find it strange for all of this to be happening when you supposedly have: 1. NYPD 2. NYPD Transit Police 3. National Guard 4. Guardian Angels??? ....."protecting" the subways. It makes me question the effectiveness of all 4 organizations or what they're really there for. If I go out in the street with a knife and start waving it wildly yelling babble , even though cameras are everywhere in nyc, and I am not harming anyone. People like pioneer in my local offline populace will say, "that boy crazy , where are the cops" and will call the cops , Absolutely. You know how you can predict that so easily? Because we still live in a pretty civil society and this is what MOST responsible adults would do. Now you can do that down in Haiti right now and NOBODY would call anyone on you....probably because there's nobody to call, lol. You can't even call GHOST BUSTERS down there at this moment...lol. Is THAT what you want for New York? People running around with metal poles and sticks in their hands setting piles of tires and trash on fire and running off grinning, for no reason? the media will say an endangerment to the community. Mayor adams will say, another example of mental health decay. A single black man angry , waving a knife , yelling is the great symbol of crime. ANY angry man with a knife screaming and yelling is enough to alarm and scare the average citizen. You don't know WHAT his mental state is or what he might do WITH that knife. What if he was angry at YOU or staring at your WIFE or KIDS while yelling and babbling with the knife in his hand? We can discuss how the police should respond to it but the police SHOULD be armed and able to quickly take that angry sucka down if they have to. And when i think about it, i remember how a black teenager was killed by law enforcement for doing just that. Two law enforcers , both carrying guns i might add, had no recourse but to shoot a teenage boy with a kitchen knife, said boy was not holding a hostage, wasn't attacking anyone directly, he was in his anger on the street, and yes, someone like pioneer had called the cops to the scene in the first place. Several points.......... 1. Can teenage boys KILL people with knives? 2. What the hell was that teenage boy DOING with the damn knife in the first place? 3. When the police arrived on the scene, did they tell him to drop the knife? 4. If the boy was Black, hasn't he been hearing since the time he was a little child that Black males have been targeted by some racist cops so he should be careful? You must ask all of these questions to figure out how that boy ended up getting shot. In Columbus Ohio several years ago there was a situation where police killed a Black teenage girl/woman who ran out of the house with a knife to attack another one. When they shot her people were jumping up and down over how terrible and unjustified it was and how they could have talked to her. Some people you CAN talk to...other's are moving so quick and so angry you have only time to make a move. That girl/woman ran out of the house to chop the shit out of that other girl she was fighting with. We should interview and ask THAT Black girl she was about to stab, should the police have used deadly force. The police probably saved HER life! If you want a society where the cops don't exist, go down to Haiti and spend a few weeks down there and when you come back let's see if your position is the same....lol. Let's build a society and try to govern it OURSELVES first before nominating ourselves "experts" on law enforcement procedures.
  9. ProfD The generations who received their teachings and messages figured AfroAmericans were better off with integration and civil rights and affirmative action. Well, to be honest brutha I'm having THIRD thoughts about those programs now. I had SECOND thoughts about them years ago when I thought that they were really used to trick Black folks and make our people think they were really being accepted into society. Now, that's not my focus. Perhaps they were, but I look at how many OTHER groups of color have benefited from integration and the Civil Rights movement and Affirmative Action programs and am beginning to wonder if THEY are the problem or some of our people the real problem as to why they haven't benefited much. The fact is SOME of our people...many...actually have benefited from these programs. So I wouldn't reverse them or get rid of them. Integration (so-called) didn't FORCE Black folks to give up their land and businesses. Many of them CHOSE to....and support White businesses. I can't blame integration for that because nobody forced them to shut down their own hotels and grocery stores. White women benefited more from Affirmative Action than our people because they HELPED EACHOTHER when they got into positions from it. Did we do the same? So now I can't even get angry over Affirmative Action because it did what it was supposed to do....did we? Over the several decades, there's been no shortage of brilliant AfroAmericans who have matriculated through institutions of higher learning and they've pursued all types of careers. True. We have a lot of brilliant minds. Many of them are working for White folks because our people don't have enough institutions ourselves to provide them with decent well beneficial employment. IMO, AfroAmericans do not lack intelligence or work ethic. There's no vision plan or design for what we need. Theres no champion or leadership. Some do....some don't. Those are just the facts. Some of our people are just plain stupid...dumb. No way of getting around this. In my opinion, the best strategy is to make a way for them to sustain themselves or sustain them if they are to the point of intellectual disability. But the intelligent of our people MUST take charge of the community. AfroAmericans can cover every position on the team. We just need motivation and incentive. Most smart people tend to ALREADY be motivated and driven based on the needs they see around them. Why does a community with failing schools where the ceiling and walls are crumbling and their is no toilet paper in the stalls need MORE of an incentive to roll up their sleeves and build their own schools and educate their own children? You can't motivate a ZOMBIE. Don't even waste your time. At some point we MUST organize the few among us and move on. I bet we could get a whole bunch of those same lazy people to work on building that hospital or school just by dangling a lucrative hourly rate. You dangle money infront of the WRONG nicca and that hospital you want built will be needed sooner than you think....lol. That's why I keep telling richardmurray that the police are NEEDED in our community. Preferably a Black police force but if Black men don't want to stand up....WHO'S gonna do it???? Somebody has to keep order in the community and atleast PRETEND like they're protecting the children. It's a damn shame White men have to do it so often when we know they aren't sincere about keeping it safe. But to your point about paying them a good wage............ Some....yes. But most of them wouldn't work if you paid them $100 an hour. Put them on the site and some tools in their hand and promise them $100 an hour plus bonuses for completing the project early and...... Come back next week the tools are gone, blood is all over the construction site, and the police has the entire place taped off. We gotta leave dead weight behind bro......
  10. Yes, I've engaged in MANY of them personally. The protocol is simple...... You and I get together and agree that if I do this for you....you'll do this for me. One of us will initiate. Say I do the thing for you. Now you'll either do for me....or you won't. If you fail to do it, I simply won't do business anymore. If you honor your agreement, we'll continue to do business.....lol. It's really not that complicated. As AfroAmericans we collectively in various groups in various locations make deals with other groups in those locations to support eachother and a circumstance by circumstance basis. If they fail to support us....we won't support them, simple as that. No need to sit up cussing and crying and sitting in the corner with your lips poked out mumbling something about why don't nobody want to support you or help you when you need it. If the people you made an agreement with FAIL to honor their end of the bargain....cut them off and move on to the next group. Soon....word will spread....trust me!
  11. Troy of course, evil should be discouraged and when excessive punished. Why would you punish someone who did something they had no choice over? If their actions were "pre determined"...they couldn't help but to follow the script, right? As corporeal beings, bound by the constraints of the passage of time we exist in the world with the known and fixed past, ...for the MOST part, lol. But the soul can and does travel outside of this Realm. We are, necessarily, content with the illusion of free will— otherwise, what meaning with life have? If you didn't have a measure of "free will" you'd be stuck eating the same foods you were fed as a child and couldn't feed yourself. The fact that you started TRYING different foods as you got older is just a minor testimony to your free will. If there are multiple past and multiple futures, as some speculate, one can argue they’re all predetermined as well. Some are....some are not. Even IF these different futures are pre-determined, YOU aren't necessarily destined to experience a specific one. Imagine it's "movie night" and you have 5 different of your favorite movies to choose from. You already know the outcome of each movie because you've watched them all so much....but what you watch THAT NIGHT is you choice. It's not pre-determined. You may decide to watch one particular movie that day and by the time you make it home changed your mind to watch another. Either way...the movies are set but YOU don't necessarily know which one you'll experience. We are also unable to experience different realities within the Multiverse. You do so everytime you dream.
  12. Troy Think that through for second… I have. I suggest you think OUTSIDE of the box and ponder on what I said about multiple Realities. The omniscient being you are referring to can move through time the way you or I walk up and down the street. The concept of the passage of time is nonsensical. Time is just a REFERENCE. It's abstract....used to mark what which is concrete. What is moved through isn't "time" itself, but the different Realities in which the concept of time exists. They could observe something that “happened” 2000 years ago or 2000 years in the “future” it’s all the same. I wouldn't say it's "all the same" but yes, they could move 2000 years back into A past or 2000 years into A future. I bet you have no problem accepting that you can’t change the past, the future is no different. You probably can't change YOUR past, but there are MULTIPLE pasts just like there are MULTIPLE futures. In another "past", Word War 3 has already occurred and this world has experienced nuclear destruction. You still didn't answer my questions about why "evil" should be punished if the deed was already pre-determined to occur; and according to that logic...does "evil" really exist?
  13. Think that through for second… at any rate, what difference does it make? The notion of a choice or free will is an illusion, a function of our being constrained in time. The omniscient being you are referring to can move through time the way you or I walk up and down the street. The concept of the passage of time is nonsensical. They could observe something that “happened” 2000 years ago or 2000 years in the “future” it’s all the same. I bet you have no problem accepting that you can’t change the past, the future is no different.
  14. frankster Well, if your dial is stuck on "Aryans are Black folks from Iran"....I'm not going to try to move it for you, lol. It's HISTORY. Unlike Chemistry or some other Sciences, one of the things about HISTORY is you usually don't know for sure who or what is the ABSOLUTE truth because you weren't around to witness it or verify it, let alone PROVE your argument to others.
  15. Troy When my mother said when she moved into the housing project it was beautiful. There were flowers growing on the lawns, and the whole property was well-maintained back then I believe it was only opened to married people, and someone had to have a job. I believe these rules changed, and as a result, the class of people changed. I heard similar from my older relatives who came up from down South and moved up to Detroit. I didn't hear the part about having to be married, or having to have a job, but they told me single men could get a place in the projects back in the 50s and 60s. At some point, that changed to where only women with children could get a place. They also said that the projects were nice and considered a STEP UP from the rat infested tenements and slums that dominated so much of the city until much of it was torn down. NYCHA also failed to maintain the properties very well. I read recently that the projects were in such a state of this repair that the city could no longer afford to maintain them, and are now looking at options to allow private ownership. That too. What I found interesting when I went to Europe and when I used to go to Canada a lot was that those nations had public housing projects too but unlike in the United States, they MAINTAINED them and kept them repaired and clean for their residents. I went to Europe about 20 years ago. I've heard that today Western Europe has let IT'S public housing collapse too as well as Canada. No doubt the demographic shift from mostly White residents to mostly Black and Arab residents has contributed to them allowing their public housing to deteriorate the same as the U.S. has. They say in Eastern Europe where there is far less immigration from Africa the public housing is still in great shape and well maintained. Another major thing that happened was Section 8. The purpose of Government housing projects was to provide a place for poor people to live because private land owners were charging too much for rent and property. Section 8....where you take government money and put it in the hands of private land owners was the very OPPOSITE of why Public Housing was established in the first place. richardmurray I have no idea who are the decent blacks. Black people who are fair, peaceful, and don't engage in reckless criminal behavior. Black people who respect property, personal space, and other people...with good social manners. Not to say that a decent Black person wouldn't break the law for a GOOD reason, but they generally don't go around being criminals and thugs for the hell of it. .....in other word, the OPPOSITE of niggaz, lol. What is the largest percentage of black people that you think owned land in the south from the end of the war between the states to the 1960s? Not sure, but a pretty large percentage. My family owned a lot of land that they received after the Civil War and most other Black Americans I know have said the same thing so it must have been a pretty good chunk. I'm talking MILLIONS of acres. But a lot of our people sold the land because they didn't want to work it or be farmers. They'd rather move up to bigger cities and go work for other people in jobs they THOUGHT would be easier. I will speak for NYC, the nyc government controlled plus run by whites made sure all the black regions in nycare used for for projects which damage the black populac ein said regions. When the harlem empowerment zone led by bill clinton happened , many black owned businesses in harlem applied, but only one was granted. no black business was given up but per the law you say you respect so much or feel is so badly needed the black busniness were legally pushed out of existence and the black populaces Were there not Black politicians in New York positions to stop or reverse these policies? Did you know the black populace of chicago si deemed 230,000 while the black populace of nyc is two million. that is a significant difference. nyc's black populace could cut away a parallel count from the black populaces of boston/detroit/chicago230,000/atlanta 190,000/new orleans and quite a few other cities and still have half of its size. Yes, pioneer, you talked with your offline peers. Ok, very true, but you plus troy's lives or connections doesn't mean nyc's black populace is too small to include mine. Lol...not sure where you get your numbers from. Detroit has a little over 500,000 Black people living in the city itself and almost that many scattered across the vast metropolitan area. In all, the Detroit area has over 1 million Black people. Chicago itself has a little over 1 million Black people in the city and probably about a million in it's suburbs too...making the Chicago area about 2 million. It may not be as big as New Yorks, but percentage wise it takes up a much bigger chunk since New York has a much larger White and Asian population to offset the Black population.
  16. @Pioneer1 I apologize for being unclear We differ again in that I want all people in the phenotypical race I define as black to be happy. I have no idea who are the decent blacks. What is the largest percentage of black people that you think owned land in the south from the end of the war between the states to the 1960s? I will speak for NYC, the nyc government controlled plus run by whites made sure all the black regions in nycare used for for projects which damage the black populac ein said regions. When the harlem empowerment zone led by bill clinton happened , many black owned businesses in harlem applied, but only one was granted. no black business was given up but per the law you say you respect so much or feel is so badly needed the black busniness were legally pushed out of existence and the black populaces, did what you always suggest and moved on with their our lives legally. You find it odd cause it is not common with your peers but i don't find you odd , not because of I think my scenario majority but because I comprehend the largess of the black populace in nyc. again, the black populace in nyc is large, any single black person side their offline communiques, starting to myself, does not define it. I know their are black people born and raised in nyc who hae lived in a segment of the black populace where the worst fate has occured, this is the truth. But it doesn't mean it is the common or majority in the black populace of nyc, and definitely not indicative of all. Did you know the black populace of chicago si deemed 230,000 while the black populace of nyc is two million. that is a significant difference. nyc's black populace could cut away a parallel count from the black populaces of boston/detroit/chicago230,000/atlanta 190,000/new orleans and quite a few other cities and still have half of its size. Yes, pioneer, you talked with your offline peers. Ok, very true, but you plus troy's lives or connections doesn't mean nyc's black populace is too small to include mine. @ProfD I thought about population sizes. The law enforcement agencies throughout the usa are the real drug pushers in all populaces but definitely the black and i think about a detroit a chicago a new orleans. Their populace is so small, that such an agenda will have a more potent negative influence. I think of new orleans. I have been fortunate to know people from there and they have spoken of deterioration, and that is a nice word. but whn the white government of nw orleans, of . .louisiana makes their plans. Remember they busted a huge ring of black law enforcers in new orleans pushing illegal drugs and my point isn't about the government of new orleans or its parts like the new orleans law enforcement or louisiana but how the black populace of new orleans has a larger percentage of the total population to the city it is based in than most black populaces, its true quanitty is so small that the damage of negative actions from white government historically or modernly saturate a larger portion of the black populace in said city. in parallal, even though nyc's black populace has never been the majority in nyc it is quite large and nyc's various plans against the black populace have never touched the whole black populace. Thank you, your whole comment [ https://aalbc.com/tc/topic/10861-nycs-nypd-cost-the-city-and-state-alot-of-money-but-should-it-be-more/?do=findComment&comment=65944 ] made me see something. I advise all to read the whole comment but I want to focus on one point data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAPABAP///wAAACH5BAEKAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAICRAEAOw== and may i add, less importantly while first, it is a problem in the same way drinking liquor was for whites, that was why prohibition happened. Prohibiton stated in the roaring twneties you know. The same decade which is lauded in media as a high time of money is also the prohibiton era that supposedly is mired under the drunks, which was it? it can't be both. Some whites, like some blacks, look at their own populace and criminalize, cause you see poor, cause you see those on drugs and yes, drinking liquor is a drug act. so... And , it is an interesting comparison that like the white religious segment of the white populace's heavy support of prohibiton the black religious segment of the the black populaces fervent, fanatical support of the war on drugs the war on crime, which is still strong in said segment, neither action is honest to the majority condition of either populace. More importantly while second, the white populace never has a large percent of itself, ala prohibiton, that decries itself a failed populace in modernity for white people who do wrong to whites. In NYC ,in modernity, not 1960s, but, 2000s, the white asian mob, herded and herds its own people into various tenement buildings, like our forebears in the white boats, and caused untold sickness , maybe even death, but the white asian populace has never made a big deal of their underworlds quite negative acts towards its own. Again in modernity, i don't know how many mestizo , latin american, businesses act as drug fronts with multiple daycare centers being publicly uncovered now. Causing the harm or death of mestizo children. But does the mestizos say in spanish the world is falling, do they amrch when a mestizo child is murdered by their own. No, they move cause it isn't the majority situation. Most humans , don't want negativity, but judging your own populace based on extreme minority behavior is dysfunctional but only the black dos populace in the usa today has suc ha strong segment of itself doing this.
  17. Again the period of time I’m talking about is the 70s through the 90s in New York City When my mother said when she moved into the housing project it was beautiful. There were flowers growing on the lawns, and the whole property was well-maintained back then I believe it was only opened to married people, and someone had to have a job. I believe these rules changed, and as a result, the class of people changed. NYCHA also failed to maintain the properties very well. I read recently that the projects were in such a state of this repair that the city could no longer afford to maintain them, and are now looking at options to allow private ownership. many who lived in the projects, believe that this was always a plan to private the apartments kick the poor people out, the gentrifiers would love nothing more than the happen, or to have to build and completely torn down As an adult, I lived in Harlem for 17 years and it was far better than it was when I was a kid, so I’m not talking about Harlem in the after the turn of century. New York City in the late 20th century had more than 2,000 murders a year the city was about to default financially and crime and filth and graffiti was everywhere and all of this was worse in poor communities. By the time I was raising kids in Harlem, the crime rate was down significantly the murder rate was down by a By the time I was raising kids in Harlem, the crime rate was down significantly the murder rate was down by an order of magnitude the subways Were bar cleaner and safer When I was a kid, prostitution and drugs, Rained supreme in Times Square, the movie houses played triple X movies today. It is family friendly more like Disney. look, I don’t doubt that some people lived very well in New York City in the 1970s 80s and 90s but they had to have some serious paper. If you grew up in an impoverished neighborhood During that time, I do find it hard to believe that one would have no complaints unless they’re entirely delusional or in incomplete denial. To answer the main question of the post however, when I was a kid, the police were more harmful than helpful. Indeed, we didn’t even like the police. Giving them more money. Would not have made things better. I don’t think the police need more money. They just need to be better at their jobs. I also wonder how much of the budget for the police department go to paying into their very generous pensions, which allows them to retire in their early 40s.
  18. richardmurray I have always opposed that positon. You want people to be happy, then you have to help them be happy. 1. You've always opposed WHICH position? The position that we should prevent crime from escalating? 2. I want DECENT AfroAmericans to be happy. I don't necessarily want thugs, criminals, and psychopaths to be happy. Part of their happiness involves living in peace and being able to walk the streets safely. Wealth is the key, money is the key. In some cases. In other cases SECURITY is the key to happiness. What good is having a lot of money but you're constantly worried about getting robbed or kidnapped for it? But of course, this goes back to another simple prolbem in the black populace in the usa. All black people know whites run things so black empowerment or improvement will not happen easily and moreover, black people haven't been able to have access to the financial betterment that genocide to natives or enslaving a people who don't look like us brings. We HAVE had access to SOME financial betterment but a lot of poor decision making has taken place over the decades. Like selling a lot of the land we had down South to move to larger cities or move up North. Also giving up much of the businesses that we owned during Segregation. The national urban league suggest 200 years to equity and I think of james baldwin, whenone of his last speeches he said, when will it happen, for my children or their grandchildren. The goal shouldn't be mere "equity" with Whites but generating as much wealth as our potential allows. Which would theoretically mean FAR MORE than Whites or any other group outside of ourselves. We should be trying to generate as much wealth as we can...not simple trying to be "equal" with people who aren't worthy of being equal to. That rate is slow but it makes sense to me as black wealth in the usa has never been through financially opportune scenarios, again, let black people in the usa have access to the financial wealth garnered from slavery + genocide and we will jump up quick. That is how white people did it. They were not working the land or working their own land. White people generated their wealth in a NUMBER of ways...Slavery was just one. well, in my experience the phenotypical association of latinos isn't a simple generaliztion witin the latin american popualce in the usa or outside of it. True. However based on my observations, unlike most of the United States...in New York City most Latinos that I've met and others that I've presumed were Latino were either Black or Mulatto. from my view, you want to discount my real life because my real life is different than yours. I don't want to discount it. However I do QUESTION it and find it someone odd that you were raised in a city where most others that I've talked to have observed and experienced high crime but somehow most of it has escaped YOUR radar and those you grew up around....lol. but you said you wanted 0% so the truth is, you know 0% is unachievable but you want to reach it, Let's be clear.... I said 0% is the only ACCEPTABLE percentage of people who are victims of violent crime for me not to CARE or feel that NYPD should be involved. In other words... If ANYONE is a victim of a violent crime, we should care and get the authorities involved in it's solution and future prevention. Maybe where you live or lived most illegal drug dealers want to hang out with children but not where I live. Where I lived....some of the drug pushers WERE children, lol. And, will i be ok with an illegal drug dealer trying to get a child? no. But if 99% of drug dealers are not trying to get children I can accept it. Again, 100% is impossible. And As the latino illegal drug dealing covers where children recently died in NYC showed, latinos didn't suggest the same as you to their populace when a child was found dead by their drug dealers negligence or uncaring. why? it isn't a common thing. Or perhaps among some Latinos, dead children in drug infested areas are TOO COMMON so they no longer care or see the need for restrictions and laws to combat it. this issue we have gone back and forth with proves media not actions matter. It doesnt matter who commits a crime it matters how media present it. True to a certain extent. So wouldn't that mean WE should be trying to control the media also? The real estate industry burned the bronx to the ground, a public secret all in harlem or the bornx knew, the law enforcement knew, the fire department knew, but the media said it was black people, black people who share your views said the wild criminal blacks, and that is that. Why didn't the BLACK MEDIA oppose that narrative with the truth? but why should most black people be happy in the usa, historically at the least? You may as well ask why should most people PERIOD be happy..lol. Human beings generally find ways to be happy and dance, sing, and have sex regardless as to what they're going through.
  19. I really felt this post. All jokes aside, these experiences and being able to not only survive but come out and thrive is just ONE of the reasons I admire and rocks with you bro. You are living proof that some things....as you suggest in your other thread...may be PRE-DETERMINED and meant to be. BTW...... While both are from down South, my Father decided to come to Detroit while one of his brothers/my uncle decided to move to New York. Even back in the 80s he said the SAME THING about having money in several spots so that you can have SOMETHING to give to the muggers and junkies on the street if they accost you, lol.
  20. ProfD I was referring to throwing the whole weight of the NOI into getting Black folks to stop making negative music and movies. Perhaps they are doing as YOU suggest by trying to clean up and prevent the conditions that INFLUENCE the negative music and movies to begin with. In fact, I remember Minister Farrakhan embracing and supporting rappers. Sure, and so do I....positive ones. Actor Hill Harper went to Harvard Law school with POTUS Obama. It appears that he's following in Obama's political footsteps by adopting a major city to call his own and launch his base from.
  21. Got it. Dr. Wesley Muhammad is one man though. I was referring to throwing the whole weight of the NOI into getting Black folks to stop making negative music and movies. In fact, I remember Minister Farrakhan embracing and supporting rappers. AfroAmericans told C. Delores Tucker to shut up and go sat down somewhere. She was tool of the dominant society. That's the mental health issue I was referring to which certainly needs to be dealt with clinically before it becomes a menace to society. Actor Hill Harper went to Harvard Law school with POTUS Obama.
  22. ProfD It's easy to protest against the promotion of violence and dysfunction in music and movies. I wonder why the Nation of Islam and other Black organizations aren't protesting against it. I showed you the video of Dr.Wesley Muhammad exposing the nefarious plot to negatively influence Black youth through frequency in the music as well as promoting violence and criminality. Our late sister Delores Tucker headed a campaign back in the 90s to check some of these gangster rappers who were promoting violence and criminality in the community, but she didn't get the support or recognition I thought she deserved. The wholistic approach means attacking the system responsible for the conditions. Well, as mentioned earlier....some of the conditions weren't caused by the system. It was caused by a jacked up brain...lol. Some people engage in crime and violence simply because they are twisted and fucked up in head. Even under "good" conditions, they'd still be getting in trouble and ruining the neighborhood...until somebody stops their ass. Mental health is a very real issue in America that isn't being addressed well enough. ....that being said. I'm not going to let somebody come to MY apartment complex or neighborhood and walk around acting a fool and using his mental condition as an excuse. Too bad. Although the system isn't doing what it's supposed to do and take care of those with serious problems, people still have to live and be safe and must defend themselves against the "walking dead". I would not be surprised. I'm sure Detroit is one of those cities that has an enclave of successful Black folks living in the suburbs of it. Not just in the suburbs, but inside the city itself there are several wealthy upper middle class and wealthy Black neighborhoods. Infact, there is a Black actor...Harper Hill....who is running for U.S. senator of Michigan who lives in one of them. I think he's trying to pull and Obama move and is using Michigan as his launching pad like Obama used Illinois.
  23. MY THOUGHTS AND THE ARTICLE

     

    well i read the article, the argument by tyree is dysfunctional, the book was written in 2001, tyree admits the strategem would had been successful in 2010, so... saying it isn't how the industry operates in 2024 is dysfunctional. This is about a moment in the usa, this is not meant to be how the usa was before or after, but this was a real scenario. I wonder why everett had nothing to say. And the argument from some blacks against "urban lit" is no different than italians against italian mob movies . having people look like you represented in a way you don't like doesn't define you, but doesn't make it unreal. Some black people were and are step and fetchit's this doesn't mean I am or any other black person is one of them. Cord Jefferson's question shows he is either ignorant of black history or in denial about black experiences in the usa. For anyone who reads up to this point, let me say something that it seems isn't common knowledge in the usa. Most black people in the usa have always been unhappy or miserable, always. Yes from the colonial times to now a minority in the black populace in the usa has been happy. But, an overwhelming majoirty 95% to 75% of black people in the usa have been terrorized by whites in the usa or by the system of government in the usa designed or ruled by whites. I don't see how anyone black, non black or other can not accept that simple truth. Yes, obama exist, yes, michelle obama exist, yes oprah and the william sisters and lebron james exists. Ok most black people in the usa are miserable, are in pain, are unhappy, have dealt with trauma and they come from a centuries line of black people who felt worse. Said negativities are not the only things we have to offer to culture and have never been the only things. We made negro spirituals that uplift people today before the usa was founded. we made lues music that is utilized in so many asian animated works to characterize strong thoughtful characters. we made jazz that is considered world music and one of the utmost signs of improvisation. Cord Jefferson suggested black people's stories of pain or suffering or anguish or anger are too large in quantity, are too present. what? We made brer rabbit, which was referred to in positive fantasy star trek to save a bunch of defenseless humanoids from corruptions in and out of the fantasy united nations institution called the federation , with earth itself as its usa .saundra and others in the article's great flaw is speaking of the now. They can't get out of the now in assessing the film. Many black people in the usa  like to say , black folk need to forget the past, but does that mean we are to lie about it, or judge all only in the modern? 

     

     

    ARTICLE

    now16.jpg

    Some urban lit authors see fiction in the Oscar-nominated ‘American Fiction’

    BY HILLEL ITALIE

    Updated 10:41 AM EST, March 5, 2024

     

    NEW YORK (AP) — Omar Tyree, author of such urban lit narratives as “Flyy Girl” and “The Last Street Novel,” recently went to see the Oscar-nominated movie “American Fiction.”

    “I loved the emotions of the family,” Tyree said of the comic drama starring best actor nominee Jeffrey Wright as the struggling author-academic Thelonious “Monk” Ellison, Leslie Uggams as his ailing mother and supporting actor nominee Sterling K. Brown as his troubled and unpredictable brother. “I love seeing how Monk tries to bring the family unit together and just seeing Black people trying to work things out.”

    But when asked about the film’s featured storyline — Monk finds unexpected success when he publishes a crude novel under the assumed identity of ex-con Stagg R. Leigh — Tyree laughed and gave a nod to “creative license.”

    “The whole idea that he’s going to sell a lot of books by keeping it raw, in real life it doesn’t work like that,” he said. “That kind of book would have been stronger in the early 2000s.”

     

    “American Fiction,” nominated for a best picture Academy Award and in four other categories, was adapted from Percival Everett’s “Erasure,” a 2001 novel that came out when a genre alternately called “urban lit,” “urban fiction,” “street lit” or “hip-hop fiction” was peaking, especially among young Black readers. Novels like Sister Souljah’s “The Coldest Winter Ever,” Shannon Holmes’ “B-More Careful” and Teri Woods’ “True to the Game” were selling hundreds of thousands of copies while major publishers, who had initially ignored the genre, were offering large advances in search of the next hit.

    The urban lit genre dates back at least to 1967, and the release of the memoir “Pimp,” written by Robert Maupin, who was in jail when he began writing under the name Iceberg Slim and built a large word-of-mouth following. He inspired another street lit pioneer, Donald Goines, author of the Kenyatta urban crime series and other works from the 1970s that influenced such hip-hop stars as Tupac Shakur, who would famously declare, “Machiavelli was my tutor, Donald Goines my father figure.”

    Urban lit is still around, but no new releases approach the heights of 20 years ago. According to Circana, which tracks around 85% of the print retail market, the genre sold around 380,000 copies in 2023, far less than the total sales for “The Coldest Winter Ever.” Many leading urban lit authors these days are either independently published — among them Black Lavish and Mz. Lady P — or released through Kensington Publishing Corp., which still has cut back over the past decade.

    “At one point, the majority of the books on our list that were written by Black authors would have been categorized as urban or street lit,” says Vida Engstrand, Kensington’s director of communications. Because of changes in the “retail landscape and reader interest,” Kensington now offers a much broader selection, with “very few front list titles that fall squarely in the category of urban lit,” she says.

    Everett, an award-winning author whose novels include “The Trees” and the upcoming “James,” was unavailable for comment, his publisher said.

    Monk is inspired to write his pseudonymous book after looking through a bestseller titled “We’s Lives In Da Ghetto” and reading such sentences as “Momma says I be the ’sponsible one and tell me that I gots to hold thing togever while she at work clean dem white people’s house.” After failing to catch on as a literary author, he is offered a six-figure book deal and seven-figure movie deal for his profanely titled novel.

    Stagg R. Leigh is praised by critics and even wins a prestigious literary prize. But few were calling Teri Woods or Shannon Holmes likely Pulitzer winners. The publishing community debated whether urban lit should be condemned for reinforcing stereotypes about Black life — stereotypes parodied by Everett in his novel — or welcomed for its blunt portraits of crime and poverty and for attracting new audiences.

    “I’ve heard a lot of people within the Black community who have that viewpoint, that urban lit doesn’t reflect all of us,” says author Porscha Sterling. “And while it’s important to show the Black community in multiple ways, I do think it’s important to have a well-rounded view that includes everyone.”

    “In my opinion, it was wrong to characterize these books as different from other Black literature,” says Malaika Adero, an author, agent and executive editor for AUWA, a Macmillan imprint led by Questlove. “We’ve had all kinds of classic books that dealt with the underground economy and the ghetto and weren’t classified as hip-hop lit.”

    Monk’s novel has some parallels to a bestseller from the 1990s, Sapphire’s “Push,” an acclaimed and controversial novel about a pregnant teen from Harlem that begins in broken English, but becomes more traditional as the girl learns to read and write. At the time, Sapphire (a pen name for Ramona Lofton) was a little-known poet who received a large advance and attracted the interest of Hollywood. The book became the Oscar-winning movie “Precious.”

    “American Fiction” director Cord Jefferson, nominated for best adapted screenplay, has said that reading “Erasure” reminded him of conversations he had with friends over the years.

    “Why are we always writing about misery and trauma and violence and pain inflicted on Blacks? Why is this what people expect from us? Why is this the only thing we have to offer to culture?” Jefferson often wondered, he told The Associated Press last fall.

    One urban lit author, Saundra, said she found “American Fiction” funny, but “a tad bit overdramatized,” adding she doubted a novel like the one Monk wrote would be so welcomed now. Sterling, whose novels include the series “Gangland” and “Bad Boys Do It Better,” said she identified with Monk’s frustration at not being understood and recognized, but also said the satire in “American Fiction” left her feeling “misunderstood”

    “I don’t know any people who write like that in the urban lit genre,” she said.

    Author K’Wan Foye, known as K’Wan, says he related well to the movie, even if it was “poking fun” at urban lit. He remembers being encouraged 20 years ago to write “something really ghetto,” what became his popular “Hood Rat” series, and showing up for a meeting at St. Martin’s Press wearing a Biggie Smalls-style suit.

    “They thought it was some kind of persona, the way Stagg R. Leigh is in the movie,” K’Wan said. “And I was like, ‘No, this is who I am.’”

    If “Erasure” had been published now, the protagonist would likely have chosen a different kind of book to parody the commercial market, authors and publishers say. Tyree thinks he would have been writing nonfiction, maybe working on a celebrity confessional like Jada Pinkett Smith’s “Worthy.” Shawanda Williams, who oversees the Black Odyssey imprint of Kensington, cites the 2022 bestseller “The Other Black Girl,” the surreal tale of a Black editorial assistant at a publishing house.

    Saundra, whose novels include “Hustler’s Queen” and “It Ain’t About the Revenge,” says the urban lit market has faded enough that she’s trying a different kind of book. In 2025, Kensington will publish “The Treacherous Wife,” which she calls “domestic suspense.”

    “Times are changing,” she says, “and I think readers are looking for suspense, something everyone can relate to.”

     

    URL

    https://apnews.com/article/american-fiction-urban-lit-oscars-9a6d0c044bc2bd94fe7e98217171973b?utm_source=copy&utm_medium=share 

  24. It's easy to protest against the promotion of violence and dysfunction in music and movies. I wonder why the Nation of Islam and other Black organizations aren't protesting against it. The wholistic approach means attacking the system responsible for the conditions. Mental health is a very real issue in America that isn't being addressed well enough. Sure. The criminal justice system strives to protect the citizens from the worst of us. That should not keep us from protecting ourselves too. That means dealing with dysfunctional sh8t before it becomes a problem. Those two areas get mentioned a lot but there are enclaves of successful Black folks in every major city in America. I would not be surprised. I'm sure Detroit is one of those cities that has an enclave of successful Black folks living in the suburbs of it. The reality is that only a handful of Black folks give a sh8t about the system of racism white supremacy and reparations. It makes FBA/ADOS look similar to those Black Hebrew Israelites standing around on corners yelling at, er, preaching to folks as they pass by.
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