"We have this image of the civil rights movement being very spiritual,
very nonviolent,"which bears little resemblance to what actually happened. We tell each other the stories we want to hear." As an example, Tyson cited recent obituaries about civil rights pioneer Rosa Parks that credited her "tired feet" as the reason she refused to give up her seat on the bus to a white man, not that she was a trained civil rights worker who also worked with the NAACP.
"We just want to hear about a tired old lady," Tyson said. "We want the whole thing to be resolved in 22 minutes plus commercials ... a kind of 'just add water' redemption story."(SOURCE)
My critics, and there are many, would like to make this all about some crazy angry Black lady on the internet. If you're not angry too, then you haven't been paying attention. SO I wear the label of "ANGRY BLACK WOMAN" as a badge of honor.
To the extent that the boo birds believe that, great, all the better to have the enemies of Black women underestimate the gathering storm about to be unleashed on them. Not by me, but by every Black woman and the men who love and care about them who are beginning to realize that we aren't so helpless to the whims of the Entertainment Industrial Complex and its stepchildren the Misogyny Industrial Complex and the Hip Hop Industrial Complex. The folks that have commoditiezed the denigration of Black women and sold it to the masses with the subsidies of corporate America.
Will we be able to cut off all of the money? Nope, there will always be people who want to pay for vile disgusting garbage. Look at the porn industry. What we can do is drive it from the mainstream by reminding corporations that Black women are in the majority. We lead the majority of the households in this country and are the gatekeepers of what comes into Black households. If we don't control the pocketbook, chances are we have great influence over those that do and it is time for us to stop being coy about that.
Coy? yes coy. This has been staring us in the face for at least a decade, but nobody wanted to mention it unless it was in the context of a magazine article talking about how horrible it is that Black women outnumber Black men. We have to be the only group of people for whom being in the majority is a bad thing. To hear Essence magazine tell it, due to our majority status, we are all going to die old, childless, alone to be eaten by nine cats.
For whatever reason, our parent's generation stood by while folks got rich while offering Black women and girls up as sacrificial lambs. When challenged on it, they ran for cover behind the First Amendment,"society" and their old whipping boy, "poverty." I suspect that in an effort to maintain "UNITY," our parent's generation decided that chucking Black girls and women over the side of the boat was a noble sacrifice so that urban entrepreneurs could get rich.
What has that sacrifice gotten us? 70% of us are single. A slave child had a greater chance of growing up with a Father than a child born in 2007. HIV AIDS is one of the leading killers of Black women. IF we get cancer, we're more likely to die from it, and the rate of violence against black women is astounding.
It is time to stop playing with these people and start exercising the Power of the Purse.
What do we have to lose? They already are calling us angry-black-man-hating-feminazi-bitches ( at least that is what I get in the inbox) for standing up and asking politely to cease the foolishness.
What do we have to lose? We're being ravaged by HIV-AIDS, Violence, disparate health care, and a propaganda machine that says that we are nothing more than the sum of our parts which can jiggle and shake and rub all over some man.
Today, once again, you got a small glimpse of our power as Black women. Accounting for the fact that offices on the East coast start humming at around 9:00AM, it took 4 hours to stop the foolishness over at XXL.com once advertisers got involved. It took about 8 hours to get the ads off of the website of THAT NETWORK promoting THAT SHOW so we are improving. On yesterday, when we asked politely that they consider not calling the Dunbar Village gang rape victim "some hooker down in Florida." They ignored us. Then all of a sudden a couple of Big Corporations get on the phone to their ad agencies and viola *poof* the post and others promoting such things ads beating Black women are gone too.
People like to say "spiritual" things like "speak truth to power." Well that sounds all well and good, but the TRUTH is that "POWER speaks to POWER". As Black women and the men who love and care for us, begin to exercise their power as consumers to demand that these big corporations stop funding foolishness. In other words... WE DON'T HAVE TO TAKE THIS CRAP.
If a group of greedy executives and street hustlers combined with the apathy of our parent's generation was able to create this mess, a group of determined, ticked off folks can clean it up. Count on the the hateration to begin spewing they'll say things like, "there are more important things to do." or " You can't win, why bother?" or "Y'all trying to keep a brother down." Don't you think Black folks was calling Rosa Parks a trouble maker back in the day. Don't you think folks cast shade on Dr. King? You don't think a bunch of Black folks were sitting at home watching the March on Washington calling the marchers crazy? And just you wait. Let us have a few more sucesses and then you'll hear calls for the "Big U" - "Let's meet." " Let's touch and agree." because lord knows that the world will crumble into tiny pieces if Black people had a public disagreement!
Black Women and Girls Not Newsworthy? Change Their Minds
We don't need middle men or ambulance chasing preachers. We just need to find the money and shut it down. Tired of Television networks acting as if Black women aren't raped, kidnapped and murdered? Fine, pick one and then systematically call each and every advertiser asking them about the editorial decisions of these 24 hour news channels that can't manage to find 2:40 to talk about the fact that the State of Florida has 6 violent gang rapists running around on the loose and the Governor and Mayor don't give a rip. If we can't rely on the good intentions of the editorial decision-makers at these news channels, then correct this lapse with policy. They've decided that Black women and girls aren't newsworthy, see if messing with their paper changes their minds?
We have too much Money to be begging anybody for anything. Ignore us at your own risk. So here is what went down today.
Y'all have a sense of deja vu? Less than 8 hours and the offending article is gone and to my knowledge. New Balance and State Farm have both pulled their ads from XXL.com. We didn't need Rev. Al or Jesse or the
New Balance Statement
"Through a Google Network advertising buy for our NB Zip launch earlierState Farm didn't send an official statements, but I got e-mails from them.
this month, our online banners rotated through the XXL Magazine website as
well as many other sports and entertainment category websites. We
immediately suspended the Google Network buy this morning when we were made
aware of the situation. We take our mission of corporate social
responsibility seriously."
Amy Vreeland
Corporate Communications Manager
[T]hey are working to pull our ads.It isn't our intention to offend with our advertising, so I appreciate your brining this to our attention.DISNEY WEIGHS IN:
Kristin
Thank you for your letter about the ad for "Lincoln Heights" on XXLmag.com.
> We are pulling it from that website.
>
> Sincerely,
>
>
> Annie Fort
> VP, Media Relations
> ABC Family
I can't even find Byron/ Boil's old articles where he did such things as extol the virtues of beating Black women. But the column where XXL.com referred to the Dunbar Village gang rape victim as "some hooker down in Florida" can't be found, but I am sure it is still lurking around there somewhere. Oh yeah, I forgot. We got a screen capture so it is around for future use if that woman wants to sue Harris Publications for libel per se.
Here is the XXL.com columnist's explanation for calling her "some hooker down in Florida."
Bol Says:
August 23rd, 2007 at 1:21 pm
I can’t read any of your posts anymore. Please explain to your readers why you would go out of your way to degrade the two rape victims in Florida? Seriously, why?
Man, if I knew that was all it would take, I would’ve done that shit a long time ago!
And since you asked, the truth of the matter is that I didn’t read up on the rape case. I just saw it mentioned on her site.
Any time I see “gang rape,” my mind immediately goes to “group sex gone awry.” The thing is, I’m pretty sure that usually is the case.
WOW. Just. WOW. Yet, they give this guy a column to spew his hatred. SO the question is this... Are we going to continue to let these fools put burning crosses on our front lawns, or are we going to exercise our POWER to rip it out of the ground and throw it back at them.
Our deepest fear
is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness,
that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous,
talented and fabulous?
Actually who are we not to be?
You are a child of God.
Your playing small doesn't serve the world.
There is nothing enlightened about shrinking
so that other people
won't feel insecure around you.
We are all meant to shine as children do.
We were born to make manifest
the glory of God that is within us.
It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone.
And when we let our own light shine,
we unconsciously give other people
permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear,
our presence automatically liberates others.
- Marianne Williamson
Don't I know it.Stop Funding Foolishness!
