Ethnic NewsWatch -Dealing with the N-Word : Media Blog 4

THIS IS LIFE: DEALING WITH THE N-WORD
Bob White. Montreal Community Contact. Montreal, Que.: Nov 22, 2007. Vol. 17, Iss. 22; pg. 20, 1 pgs

Abstract (Summary)
Welfare Westley was reading an article in a recent issue of Community CONTACT (October 26, 2007), "The N Word at Vanier College." "I'm sure an**ger like you would understand. These words were told to a student at Vanier College, Christina Mottley. The student was in a state of shock and later when she went home, she cried..."
To tell you the Truth said, "Racism is ingrained in our society. Racism is like the air we breathe; it's all polluted. Racism will always be here; it's built into the capitalistic system that we exist in. So Blacks should not buy into the "system," don't hope, don't cope and never be surprised or get upset when you hear the N word. This is why knowledge is so important, why reading is so important, why a library is so important. Learn the five Ps: Proper preparation prevents poor performance."
Da Genius was telling Da Professor, "The only way racism will change a little, is when solid white people (and there are a lot in Montreal, solid white people who have wealth, pick up the telephone and tell someone, "We don't need those kinds of people" and that's it. You need the white keys along with the black keys, to play good music."

link to the whole article: http://0-proquest.umi.com.maurice.bgsu.edu/pqdweb?index=3&did=1404186991&SrchMode=1&sid=2&Fmt=3&VInst=PROD&VType=PQD&RQT=309&VName=PQD&TS=1203010569&clientId=3340

I chose to do my fourth media blog on this article because it is pretty recent and shows that racism still does exist and alot of what this article is saying is in compliance with alot of what we were discussing in class. Christina Mottley the girl that was called the N-Word let it get to her and she went home and cried instead of taking a stance and laughing at the ignorance of the teacher. I like the fact that the author is saying the Nigger is just a word and we as a people are giving it way to much power.

This article to me brings up alot of thing Johnson spoke about with "What it All Has To Do With Us" And the article on capitalism and the dominance of a matrix. Johnson talked of how the capitalist gave "blacks" the name nigger to degrade them and make them feel lesst than nothing so that they would stay in line and not jeopradize the social order of things.

Janet Jackson Superbowl Controversy Media Blog 3

Super Bowl XXXVIII, which was broadcast live on February 1, 2004 from Houston, Texas on the CBS television network in the United States, was noted for a controversial halftime show in which Janet Jackson's bare breast was exposed by Justin Timberlake in what was referred to as a "wardrobe malfunction".The incident, sometimes referred to by the portmanteau Nipplegate, was widely discussed. It, along with the rest of the halftime show, led to a crackdown and widespread debate on perceived "indecency" in broadcasting, leading to a record $550,000 fine levied by the Federal Communications Commission to CBS, as well as an increase of FCC fines per indecency violation from $27,500 to $325,000. Additionally, the halftime show was seen by some as a sign of decreasing morality in the national culture

Impacts on Jackson and Timberlake
Jackson's career began to decline since the incident. Her first album released since the Super Bowl, Damita Jo, was released in March 2004 to poor critical reception yet high worldwide sales and three Grammy nominations in 2005. However, her following album, 20 Y.O., did not sell as well despite better critical reception overall. Jackson's music videos have since lost considerable airplay on channels such as MTV and its sibling channel, VH1,mainly because those network decided to decrease continuous airing of music videos 24/7 (restricting them to overnight hours, or being put on separate digital networks such as MTV Hits or VH1 Soul), thereby turning around 180 degrees the original reason music videos were created along with their original channels.
Eventually, Jackson appeared on CBS' Late Show with David Letterman on March 29, 2004. In April 2004, Jackson made fun of herself in a Saturday Night Live appearance, first while playing Condoleezza Rice in a skit, nervously answering a question by exposing her right breast, which was pixelated by NBC, then by viewing a mock "home video" from her childhood when her bathing suit top came off in a wading pool. In 2006, during an interview on The Oprah Winfrey Show, Jackson stated that the Super Bowl scandal was an accident.
In the meantime, after the Super Bowl, Justin Timberlake won two Grammy awards in 2004 and put his musical career on hiatus to focus on acting. In 2006, Timberlake released an album, FutureSex/LoveSounds, which peaked at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and spawned several number-one singles. Timberlake also told MTV that he "probably got 10 percent of the blame", later explaining that "America's harsher on women" and "unfairly harsh on ethnic people", referring to the backlash suffered by him and Jackson. In 2008, MTV began rotating Janet Jackson's most recent video "Feedback", while Timberlake starred in a Pepsi-Cola ad airing during Super Bowl XLII.

I chose to do my media blog on this because it created such media attention for both artist but only one got singled out more than the other who happened to be a black female while the other was a young white male. The impact on both artist speaks for itself and shows that even today their are going to be double standards and less punishment from the white male.

This definitely relates to Zinn Ch. 2 "Drawing the Color Line" where he talks about whites getting less of a punishment because they are white and an example of that is when Zinn said 10 slaves escaped and only one was black but he got the worse punishment and had to stay a slave for the rest of his life. We also talked about white privilege and because Justin Timberlake is white and this country is ran mostly by white males he was'nt at all hurt by the incident and instead of his career declining he became even more successful going on to win grammys and selling out tours as well as 7 million records while Janet Jackson can barely sell 500,ooo copies of her new cds and has been ridiculed as if she pulled the cover off her breast herself. Til this day Janet's career has yet to prosper and be where it used to be she is gearing up to release a new album later this month.

Movie: "School Daze" Media Blog 2

School Daze is a 1988 musical-drama film, written and directed by Spike Lee, and starring Laurence Fishburne, Giancarlo Esposito, and Tisha Campbell. Based in part on Spike Lee's experiences at Atlanta's Morehouse College, it is a story about fraternity and sorority members clashing with other students at a historically black college during homecoming weekend. School Daze was the second feature film directed by Spike Lee, and was released on February 12, 1988 by Columbia Pictures.(wikipedia)



Plot Summary (wikipedia)

Vaughn "Dap" Dunlap (Laurence Fishburne) is a politically conscious African American student who leads anti-apartheid demonstrations encouraging students and school administrators to completely divest from South Africa. He also eschews the buffoonery and social climbing of the Greek fraternal system. Dap's craven younger cousin, Half-Pint (Spike Lee), is pledging Gamma Phi Gamma (also known as G-Phi-G or simply G-Phi) fraternity and is willing to endure any humiliation to join the fraternity. While Half-Pint tries unsuccessfully to impress the Gammas with his inept womanizing, Dap engages in philosophical debates with Rachel (Kyme), his girlfriend, as well as other Mission students.
Half-Pint eventually survives the pledge initiation and joins G-Phi. Shortly afterwards, his house president Julian, aka Big Brother Almighty (Giancarlo Esposito), manipulated his girlfriend Jane (Tisha Campbell) to prove her love to him. He brings Jane to Half-Pint (whom he discovered was a virgin during pledge) and tells him, in order to become an official Gamma man, he must lose his virginity by having sex with Jane. After Half-Pint's last test, Julian ruthlessly breaks up with Jane, claiming she loved Gamma Phi Gamma and not him. After Half-Pint brags to Dap about his episode with Jane, Dap loses all respect for him and shoves him away, declaring "You're not my cousin!" The movie ends the following morning, with Dap running through the campus and to the middle of the school courtyard, yelling "Wake up!"
Throughout the film, light-skinned African American women of the Gamma Rays (a women's auxiliary to the Gamma Phi Gamma fraternity) battle it out with their, Afro-headed fellow co-eds. The students at Mission College also battle with the local unemployed and uneducated people living around the campus, who resent the Mission students for taking all of the good jobs.
Musical performances are throughout, including the production "Good or Bad Hair", a fantasy dis-fest between the Wannabes and Jigaboos, and "Be Alone Tonight" performed by Campbell (as Jane Toussaint and her Royal Court) at a talent competition. The go-go anthem "Da Butt" is performed by the group E.U. during the after-party for the Gammites.

I chose to use school daze as one of my media blogs because I think they touched on alot of controversal issues that dealt with racism among blacks and how we see each other based on our appearances and beliefs. Alot of different scenes stood out in this movie but for me it had to be the scene where the Gamma Rays and the Afro centric women did the musical number "Good Hair, Bad Hair" in which both poke fun at eachothers appearances and make claims that on is a "jiggaboo" and the other is a "wannabe" mainly because the wannabes were the blacks that were lightskinned, wore lighter contacts and had the long hair which did boil over with the "jiggaboos" who felt that they were trying to be white and were neglecting their black heritage by not wearing their hair natural.

I think this scene in this movie connects with Johnson's article "Capitalism, Class, and the matrix of domination because in that article Johnson explains how capitalist came up with different ways to seperate whites from the blacks and even from each other so they can continue to gain profit from it. And it also connects with Takaki when he talked about the Giddy Multitude and the ways the slave owners manipulated blacks and turned them against each other by splitting them up into categories like field slaves and house slaves. I think this movie touches on how we as a race are told to look and act to be considered beautiful and to blend it and that racism still exists within our own race.

watch the video of the "Good Hair, Bad Hair" here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtfEmTHeYNw