For those who missed night two in the NBC series "African American Women: Where They Stand", here is the link:
Black women and breast cancer
To see the full interview of Dr. Funmi Olopade, you can watch it here.
Experts on black women, cancer
The moral of the story is Black women need to look into participating in clinical trials.
If Want to Know Why the Series is Disappointing Blame Mark Whitaker
Somebody find us Mark Whitaker's email. He is responsible for the tragedy that was last night's piece and the gist of this series which is basically "NBC to Black Women: It Sucks to be UUUUU":
Mark Whitaker, senior vice president of NBC News, who happens to be African-American, came up with the idea. He suggested that if we look at the major accomplishments of the nation's 13 million African-Americans in education and in the workplace we would find women leading the way. He then asked us to take a look at what the consequences of that achievement are.SOURCE
Who the heck asks about "CONSEQUENCES" for achievement? So inherently in this man's mind, if Black women are doing well then there must be a down side. Now wonder the series looks the way it does. For real. Get his email! I think we should speak with him about CONSEQUENCES! What ever happened to BENEFITS or PROGRESS? So sisters were doomed going into this series.
Now on to the "controversy". Folks I have been perusing The Daily Nightly, which is the NBC Nightly News blog, and the average posts around there get like 5 or 10 comments. Guess how many comments are on the posts about this series on Black women???
Poor Rahema
Poor Rahema Ellis got so much negative feedback, she put up a post apologizing for her writing.
I have read almost all of the blog entries that we've received. Many of them were complimentary. But some were angry or disappointed in Part One, which I wrote, saying it had not lived up to all of their expectations.Poor thing. I almost felt guilty, but the piece was shallow and regurgitated stats I'd already heard elsewhere while being touted as in depth and what possessed her to refer to the success of Black women in college as an achievement gap? I gave her a pep talk. She seemed beat down.
Response to Night One
So far there are 111 responses to the first night and they weren't all positive. HAHAHA I am being generous and I see some of my readers have been chilling out at the NBC Nightly News Blog. I recognize WAOD rhetoric when I see it. That's great. We're conquering the world.
Response to the Announcement of the Series
Even more folks have chipped in their two cents on the thread announcing the series. About 200 have weighed in so far.
Series Web Page- Web Extras
If you can't get enough from the broadcast, the web site dedicated to the series has a bunch of video content.
For example, this report on Black women leaving the workforce didn't air.
Trading briefcases for diaper bags
For the WAOD guide on how to view this series and some questions you might want to ask, please read "Be Revolutionary not Reactionary" by WAOD Contributor, Professor Tracey.
Read the rest of our posts about this NBC series.
