HenryLouisGates

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.

He Taught Me How

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to walk fight and pray. Oh Happy Day is the song that is in my head because I watched Henry Louis Gates new series on the Black Church. I sang. I clapped. I took notes. For those who love the “black” church, this series is an experience that starts the journey at the beginning.

The Black Church: This Is Our Story, This Is Our Song chronicles the journey of the African American worship and praise service from its African roots and influences to the debilitating burdens slavery laid on it. Gates told the story of how something that should have sent it into extinction only sharpened its point. Captured Africans were only taught the portions of the bible that allowed them to be obedient servants, with laws put in place that forbid them to read and write. Slave owners did not want them to know the stories of Moses and how the children of Israel were freed. It struck down the lie that slavery was a means of introducing Africans to the gospel, showing that Africans were Christians long before Europeans knew who Christ was.

This documentary series celebrates the :black” church by showing the power of the Holy Spirit in an oppressed people surrendered to him. From the little wooden shacks built by freed slaves to the mega churches of the earlier 20th Century, African Americans not only built houses of worship, but they built communities that took care of each other. They built schools and taught one another to read. This project is filled with many images of these worship services that capture some of their best moments.

It took me back to that little girl sitting on the pew of that one room church house. As I watched the interviewees tell their stories of growing up in those simple times, it reminded me of my mother being in the choir. All the ladies had on the same type of dress, made by one woman in the church. They even posed for a photo after church to remember this special occasion. It was the thing that held them all together.

I learned new things about this church, of which I am a member. I never knew that preachers used to make recordings of three minute sermons. A three minute sermon? That is long gone. I am amused to know that we have been buying sermons for a mighty long time. We have been singing and dancing for that long too. It is one of the things I love about my people. There might not be a lot of hope in our current circumstances, but we know where hope is. We know it starts in community.