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We Have Got To Tell Our Stories

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“Hey Baby Daddy King!” Said Lavelle Junson’s mom as they are escorted before the Zamundan King in Coming 2 America which was released in early March on Prime.  Junson is the bastard son of King Akeem and Mary Junson who finds himself in the land preparing to be an heir to the Zamundan throne. Junson’s mom was played by Leslie Jones who brought her A game to the role.

This comedy is the sequel to Coming to America released in 1988 starring Eddie Murphy and Arsenio Hall.  Not only is it funny, but it reminds me of why I loved the original because they bring back almost everyone they can. In the 1980s this movie was an oasis in a desert of stories with African Americans in them. We celebrated being able to see a cast full of people of color.

This movie sends a wonderful shout out to the 1980s with music from Gladys Knight, En Vogue and Salt N Pepa. It is lighthearted and celebrity filled which will made me laugh.  It is good to laugh with my people because many of our stories aren’t funny.

On the darker more for real side is The United States vs Billie Holiday and Judas and the Black Messiah.

Both movies tell a story we need to hear, but don’t do them if you depressed or sad. The plight of African Americans in the United States has not been an easy joy filled experience, so don’t expect that from either of these movies. You might get angry and cuss at the TV.  (There were moments I was instructing both Fred and Billie to just cuss them folk out, please!) So do what you have to do to deal with your frustration.

In The United States vs Billie Holiday I watched as the FBI doggedly pursued the young singer through her drug addiction. Andra Day, who plays Holiday, has an amazing voice that reminds me so much of Lady Day, that in the beginning I thought she was using original music.  Day’s performance was good, but by the end of the story I just wanted the government to leave Billie alone.  It took me days to get through the entire movie because I kept stopping when I would get too frustrated. I can’t imagine living through it.

I am glad I did finish it, but it is difficult to see story after story of lives ruined by authority figures left to their own devices.  And many of their desires was destroy black lives.

Again in Judas and the Black Messiah, which is the story of how William O’Neal becomes an FBI spy to gather information on Fred Hampton of the Chicago chapter of the Black Panthers. Daniel Kaluuya plays Hampton and LaKeith Stanfield plays O’Neal.

The acting was impeccable, but the nature of the story made me pause it and come back to it after a few days. We have to tell these stories. We have to know our history, or we are doomed to repeat it.

 In all three of these movies’ music is key to creating a mood. There are drumbeats in all of them that I believe connect us.  But sometimes you got to turn it off for your own sanity and find your own rhythm.

My challenge to you is to allow each story to inspire you. Allow each story to leave a piece of itself with you.

Art of the Month

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Yeah, We Know How To Wear It

She refused to be what they demanded she be.  She decided to take some friends with her.

After leading many people to freedom through the underground railroad over 8 years, Araminta Ross, joined the women’s suffrage movement. Later in life she cared for the elderly and evenly established the Harriet Tubman Home for the Aged in 1896 on land near her home.

She would hold a mirror up so they could face their hypocrisy.

Freed by the Emancipation Proclamation, Ida B Wells grew up to become an investigative journalist who brought notice to lynchings, discrimination and sexism in the United States. She also spoke and wrote about them to the point it caused conflict with many of the white suffrage organizers because she called them on their silence to racist behavior. She was associated with the founding of the NAACP and National Association of Colored Women’s Club.

She wanted to capture the history and soul of a people.

The lives of African Americans in the southern part of the United States was documented by Zora Neale Hurston. She lived through the Harlem Renaissance writing novels, short stories, plays and essays.  She interviewed the last known person captured by slavers and brought to the US on a slave ship, Cudjoe Lewis.

They wanted to put their name of her work. She knew better than that.

Fashion houses saw her as a seamstress, but she opened her own shop and created high fashion for the up and coming in Harlem.  Her clients ranged from Nat King Cole’s wife, Eartha Kitt, Mae West, Josephine Baker, and more.  Zelda Wynn Valdes also created one of the first outfits for the Playboy Bunny.

Marcus Garvey taught them to love their hair and features the way God had given them.

Black is Beautiful grew out of a 1950s movement in New York City when men from the AJASS society started holding fashion shows for African American women who wore their hair natural. It promoted beauty to another standard.

Affirmation

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Grace can come at us sideways. When we are least expecting it, it showers us with surprise. In my novel Destiny’s Dilemma, one of the characters is utterly undone, when he receives grace. He is a bigot who finds himself at the mercy of African Americans. He is surprised by the grace they give him.

Many times it is hard for us to accept grace because we feel we have not earned it. Grace is not earned.

Remember when you give it. Grace is not given to those who deserve it.

Art of the Month

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Although history has tried to erase them, these women are written on the souls of black women and we know how to wear them.

She refused to be what they demanded she be.  She decided to take some friends with her.

After leading many people to freedom through the underground railroad over 8 years, Araminta Ross, joined the women’s suffrage movement. Later in life she cared for the elderly and evenly established the Harriet Tubman Home for the Aged in 1896 on land near her home.

She would hold a mirror up so they could face their hypocrisy.

Freed by the Emancipation Proclamation, Ida B Wells grew up to become an investigative journalist who brought notice to lynchings, discrimination and sexism in the United States. She also spoke and wrote about them to the point it caused conflict with many of the white suffrage organizers because she called them on their silence to racist behavior. She was associated with the founding of the NAACP and National Association of Colored Women’s Club.

She wanted to capture the history and soul of a people.

The lives of African Americans in the southern part of the United States was documented by Zora Neale Hurston. She lived through the Harlem Renaissance writing novels, short stories, plays and essays.  She interviewed the last known person captured by slavers and brought to the US on a slave ship, Cudjoe Lewis.

They wanted to put their name of her work. She knew better than that.

Fashion houses saw her as a seamstress, but she opened her own shop and created high fashion for the up and coming in Harlem.  Her clients ranged from Nat King Cole’s wife, Eartha Kitt, Mae West, Josephine Baker, and more.  Zelda Wynn Valdes also created one of the first outfits for the Playboy Bunny.

Marcus Garvey taught them to love their hair and features the way God had given them.

Black is Beautiful grew out of a 1950s movement in New York City when men from the AJASS society started holding fashion shows for African American women who wore their hair natural. It promoted beauty to another standard.

Nope. It Is Not Okay

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I don’t want to live in a society where obnoxious uncaring people rule through greed and self ambition. Yes, it probably sounds like a broken record, but I will keep on saying it. And I am going to live like I believe it, which means calling out bad behavior.

I don’t even know how some of this crap gets financed. I Care A Lot is one of those movies. A greedy uncaring woman cons older people out of their assets by gaining guardianship over them. Other greedy people help her place unsuspecting seniors in nursing homes while she takes and sells their property. In this movie she does it to the wrong person.

The acting was very effective because I hated all of the characters. Only reason I finished it was my other sister said to watch it all the way to the end. I literally wanted all of the people in this movie to die, except the older woman who had been tricked out of her property. I was disappointed. Built to be funny, I seldom see the humor in letting the bad guys win. After four years of Trumpism, I am done with bullies.

As a society, if we do not value what the older people have experienced we are doomed to repeat it.

It is time to stop championing stories that let the bad guys win or make them a hero. Clearly, it is wrong to steal someone else’s property. Times are rough when you have to say simple truths. It is wrong to misrepresent them in court. It is not harmless or cute to claim something is true when it is really false.

We have to stop making the person who mistreats others the apple of our eye. These jokers are not good leaders, and usually leave carnage behind. We can’t wait until it happens to us to be against this. It should start with the movies we watch and support. I Care A Lot lacks any redeeming value. Lets not tell stories where abusers win.

Feel The Beat has some redeeming qualities because the obnoxious lead character in this movie actually has a change of heart. In this film, we watch a selfish mean spirited dancer find herself as she tries to use some children to achieve her goals. Again it is an attempt at humor, but some of it is lost in the meanness.

The trouble is we have been through too much to allow any level of meanness.

The movie is upbeat, with fun children, and lots of dancing. We watch young girls in a small town learn to love to dance. The romantic story is weak, but it is more about dancing than romance.

I didn’t feel like I had wasted hours of my life for watching it.

Art of the Month

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In 2021 the art series with examine moments in African American history in an attempt to UNERASE our past.

Historically the myth teaches us that Africans were brought to the Americas and taught a skill.  It had us believing that the Africans were untrained labor dependent on European knowledge.

According to Toby Green in Fistful of Shells, when Europeans landed on the African continent, they were amazed at the crops the natives produced. The tribes had been trading in the Middle East for centuries. Europeans recognized the skills how well the tribes cultivated the earth around them.

Instead of creating deals to share information and wealth, these sinister Europeans bartered with tribes to steal the individuals who could cultivate fields on foreign soil. They would take these tribal skills and make themselves rich while depriving the people who did the work any of the wealth or benefit from it.

They would transport people from the African coasts to the Americas and grow crops of sugar, rice, and later cotton, peanuts and so much more.