Showing posts with label nbc. Show all posts
Showing posts with label nbc. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 02, 2008
Don't miss this CNN Special Report
on tomorrow night at 9pm, CNN will air Eyewitness to Murder: The King Assassination -- the day before the anniversary of the dreaded event. supposedly they've been given access to material that was completely off limits previously, including eyewitnesses, FBI documents, and the killer's room. this should be interesting. how cool that i don't have to turn to (white owned) BET for some kind of acknowledgement, that i can watch a program on a news channel that's fairly mainstream to see my story, my history. my theory is that when it comes time to making programming decisions at these networks, there are more and more black people in the room in positions of authority that can at least pitch an idea or make viable suggestions.
i have to admit: when i heard about this, i rolled my eyes and thought about last year's NBC News special about black women in america and how far off the mark they were. nevertheless, something in me is hopeful that CNN gets this right. trying just isn't enough. not anymore. we don't have that kind of time.
this is the first installment of CNN's Black In America series, so maybe the NBC News special got this ball rolling.
i know there's a documentary about it but here's what i want to see: a comprehensive expose about the chicago raid on the black panther party by the FBI's COINTEL-PRO that left fred hampton dead at the age of 20.
something in me knows that i'll see that movie when i make it.
Thursday, November 29, 2007
where this blackgrrl stands, part two -- "interracial dating" and the cool guy
i decided a long time ago that when it came to dating, i wanted someone that was basically a good guy, and i really didn't care what race he happened to be. finding a smart, decent, cool, God-fearing person would prove to be difficult enough. why cut my chances of meeting that special someone by setting up racial barriers? to my way of thinking, it just didn't make any sense.
i knew very early on in the dating game that just because a guy is an african-american, that didn't mean that he would understand me or "get" where i was coming from or get along with me -- or find me attractive. as a matter of fact, a lot of african-american guys find me patently unattractive because i don't straighten my hair -- believe it or not. (note: i said african-american. not west indian. not african. african-american. but i digress.) it's the wierdest thing, to walk through greenbriar mall in atlanta and watch black folk stop eating to stare at my hair.
here's an interesting sidebar: i don't straighten my hair because it is at its strongest and healthiest and most beautiful when its in its natural state. it's expensive to chemically treat it, too. do the math: if you trot to the beauty parlor every other week or so for a touch up, that money invested wisely long term could probably buy you a house or give you an early retirement situation in no time.
besides -- i don't think i should have to affect a white standard of beauty to be presentable. or pretty. if some african-american man thinks otherwise, that's his problem.
unconsciously, i realized that because i had essentially become the person i wanted to date, that's exactly what i usually attracted: men who wanted a cool girl, irrregardless of race. oh, there was the occasional righteous brother who preferred me with a perm, or who was genuinely disgusted that i'd dated "outside of my race." as far as i was concerned, that made them much easier to sort through. i didn't care how black or white or whatever he was. he's not cool, i'd casually observe. i cannot date him. and i would move on.
case in point?
years ago, some white guy was trying to chat me up at a party somewhere deep in the heart of brooklyn and i wasn't having it. somewhere in the midst of the conversation we were barely having, he told me that he only dated sisters. what baffled me is that he said it in this confidential "just between us" tone. the implication was that i had nothing to worry about because he understood who i was and where i was coming from -- he was familiar with me, with my culture, my people. bad move.
"who are you calling 'sisters,'" i snapped, "black women aren't sisters to you. you have to be a brother to say that." he vehemently disagreed. we were off to the races. i remember watching his face change as he realized how deep he'd stuck his foot in it. that's when i said, why would you only go out with black women, anyway?
to his credit, he tried very hard to explain himself. he went on about how beautiful black women are, how intelligent, how much more interesting they are than white women -- blah, blah, blah. as he went on, what i couldn't stop thinking was, there's some great looking white women out there that really are all that. why is he systematically excluding them? why would someone not date within their own race? it reeked of self-hate but he didn't see it that way. fortunately, i did.
(it's a preference, he said. no it's not, i countered. it's a fetish. amazing, the things people will say to justify themselves.)
my friend happens to be one of the coolest guys i've ever met. i think we're kind of spoiled because we're artists and we don't really live in america. we live and work in new york city -- a place where it's very easy to meet and hang out with people of different races and nationalities and cultures. here, your life can be as segregated or as diverse as you want it to be.
last night, i made my friend watch the online component of nbc's african-american women: where they stand series called love in black and white. he sat there quietly holding my hand, occasionally crinkling his nose in disapproval. when it was over, he said it sounded like the black women in question were dating white guys because black men weren't available. like the white guy was a consolation prize, and if some black guy came along, she would dump him. to his way of thinking, race is not a reason to date anybody.
and that's when the obvious struck me: it's really not about black women dating white men. it's about black women dating the cool guy. why wouldn't anyone say that on this segment? why can't anyone think it? they were so conditioned to think in terms of black and white that they couldn't see it any other way. ridiculous. it's a big world out there, ladies. lots of men, all over the world. the one for you could be anywhere. he could be anyone. a turkish businessman. a polish bar owner. a chinese chef.
it could very well be that the cool guy that God wants for you is probably in Prague right now, having a latte.
i knew very early on in the dating game that just because a guy is an african-american, that didn't mean that he would understand me or "get" where i was coming from or get along with me -- or find me attractive. as a matter of fact, a lot of african-american guys find me patently unattractive because i don't straighten my hair -- believe it or not. (note: i said african-american. not west indian. not african. african-american. but i digress.) it's the wierdest thing, to walk through greenbriar mall in atlanta and watch black folk stop eating to stare at my hair.
here's an interesting sidebar: i don't straighten my hair because it is at its strongest and healthiest and most beautiful when its in its natural state. it's expensive to chemically treat it, too. do the math: if you trot to the beauty parlor every other week or so for a touch up, that money invested wisely long term could probably buy you a house or give you an early retirement situation in no time.
besides -- i don't think i should have to affect a white standard of beauty to be presentable. or pretty. if some african-american man thinks otherwise, that's his problem.
unconsciously, i realized that because i had essentially become the person i wanted to date, that's exactly what i usually attracted: men who wanted a cool girl, irrregardless of race. oh, there was the occasional righteous brother who preferred me with a perm, or who was genuinely disgusted that i'd dated "outside of my race." as far as i was concerned, that made them much easier to sort through. i didn't care how black or white or whatever he was. he's not cool, i'd casually observe. i cannot date him. and i would move on.
case in point?
years ago, some white guy was trying to chat me up at a party somewhere deep in the heart of brooklyn and i wasn't having it. somewhere in the midst of the conversation we were barely having, he told me that he only dated sisters. what baffled me is that he said it in this confidential "just between us" tone. the implication was that i had nothing to worry about because he understood who i was and where i was coming from -- he was familiar with me, with my culture, my people. bad move.
"who are you calling 'sisters,'" i snapped, "black women aren't sisters to you. you have to be a brother to say that." he vehemently disagreed. we were off to the races. i remember watching his face change as he realized how deep he'd stuck his foot in it. that's when i said, why would you only go out with black women, anyway?
to his credit, he tried very hard to explain himself. he went on about how beautiful black women are, how intelligent, how much more interesting they are than white women -- blah, blah, blah. as he went on, what i couldn't stop thinking was, there's some great looking white women out there that really are all that. why is he systematically excluding them? why would someone not date within their own race? it reeked of self-hate but he didn't see it that way. fortunately, i did.
(it's a preference, he said. no it's not, i countered. it's a fetish. amazing, the things people will say to justify themselves.)
my friend happens to be one of the coolest guys i've ever met. i think we're kind of spoiled because we're artists and we don't really live in america. we live and work in new york city -- a place where it's very easy to meet and hang out with people of different races and nationalities and cultures. here, your life can be as segregated or as diverse as you want it to be.
last night, i made my friend watch the online component of nbc's african-american women: where they stand series called love in black and white. he sat there quietly holding my hand, occasionally crinkling his nose in disapproval. when it was over, he said it sounded like the black women in question were dating white guys because black men weren't available. like the white guy was a consolation prize, and if some black guy came along, she would dump him. to his way of thinking, race is not a reason to date anybody.
and that's when the obvious struck me: it's really not about black women dating white men. it's about black women dating the cool guy. why wouldn't anyone say that on this segment? why can't anyone think it? they were so conditioned to think in terms of black and white that they couldn't see it any other way. ridiculous. it's a big world out there, ladies. lots of men, all over the world. the one for you could be anywhere. he could be anyone. a turkish businessman. a polish bar owner. a chinese chef.
it could very well be that the cool guy that God wants for you is probably in Prague right now, having a latte.
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
where this blackgrrl stands, part one
so far, the nbc series african american women: where they stand has been a rousing disappointment. as i glimpse the black blogosphere, i'm thinking what everyone else is saying: why is this the last 2 or 3 minutes of the news? what -- cosby gets an hour on larry king to spew his idiocy about black people and we can't get an uninterrupted hour on dateline? why are they comparing black women to black men? is this about black women or not?
there's so much that they're not addressing, it's almost dizzying. here's my top three:
where's my tv special?
if we're accomplishing so much, why does all of this sound so negative, somehow? isn't it good that we're college graduates, that we're enterprising and self-sufficient and independent? why did the segment end with me feeling profoundly let down by everything they had to say?
get this, loud and clear: there are more women than men in college of every race -- period. why aren't we talking about what's wrong with white men and why there aren't as many of them in college as their female counterparts and what can we do to help them along? why has no one ever thrown that statistic up in the air?
more later.
there's so much that they're not addressing, it's almost dizzying. here's my top three:
- the impact of slavery and how in many ways, we are still living through its aftermath
- the antebellum south, reconstruction and how that decimated us
- the drug explosion of the 60s and 70s, urban blight and ghetto miasma
where's my tv special?
if we're accomplishing so much, why does all of this sound so negative, somehow? isn't it good that we're college graduates, that we're enterprising and self-sufficient and independent? why did the segment end with me feeling profoundly let down by everything they had to say?
get this, loud and clear: there are more women than men in college of every race -- period. why aren't we talking about what's wrong with white men and why there aren't as many of them in college as their female counterparts and what can we do to help them along? why has no one ever thrown that statistic up in the air?
more later.
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
AFRICAN-AMERICAN WOMEN: WHERE THEY STAND
when has a national news program of any merit ever done anything this comprehensive about african-american women in this country? whose idea was this? i don't know about you, but i intend to preorder copies of this series -- or harass someone with tivo to make me a copy -- so this can be dissected and discussed at length amongst all the black folk i know.
my first thought was, they're going to get this all wrong. when it's time to talk about african-american women, they dwell on the poor and underpriveleged who live in some urban ghetto situation, with kids they can't take care of. they talk about the welfare system. the prison system. the system, period. i'm never mentioned -- probably because i don't fit into anyone's ethnic stereotype. i'm a single, never-married, college-educated african-american woman with no children. i'm in excellent physical condition. i see a doctor regularly, i get a mammogram annually. i vote. i pay taxes. i've got my own business, more or less. and i've got good credit. in a minute, i'll flat-out own my own home in new york city -- no easy feat by any far stretch of the imagination.
i'm the typical african-american woman out there, not this claptrap i see everywhere in the media/movies/tv. where's my profile? where's that episode of sex and the city? why don't they do a sit-com about me and my single black college-educated friends who are just like me?
even if they did -- would anyone believe it?
-------------------------------------------------------------
NBC NIGHTLY NEWS WITH BRIAN WILLIAMS SPECIAL FIVE-PART SERIES "AFRICAN-AMERICAN WOMEN: WHERE THEY STAND" TO AIR BEGINNING ON MONDAY, NOVEMBER 26
New York, N.Y. - November 15, 2007 - Throughout the week of November 26, "NBC News With Brian Williams" will take a look at the issues facing African-American women across our nation in a new series "African-American Women: Where They Stand." The series will cover a wide-range of issues from their role in the '08 Presidential race, to the increased health-risks that they need to be concerned about.
Monday's installment will discuss African-American women's progress in the education field. Nearly two-thirds of African-American undergraduates are women. At black colleges, the ratio of women to men is 7 to 1. And that is leading to a disparity in the number of African-American women who go on to own their own businesses. Rehema Ellis will talk to educators, students and businesswomen about why this disparity exists.
Tuesday, Ellis will look at relationships within the African-American female community. Many agree the gender disparity in education and business among African-Americans is having an effect on relationships that African American women have. Some even say the implications could redefine "Black America's family and social structure." In the past fifty years, the percentage of African-American women between 25-54 who have never been married has doubled from 20% to 40%. (Compared to just 16% of white women who have never been married today). Ellis sits down with the members of a Chicagobook club and talk about this difference and how it impacts them.
Dr. Nancy Snyderman will discuss the increases risks for breast cancer for African-American women on Wednesday. Mortality rates for African-American women are higher than any other racial or ethnic group for nearly every major cause of death, including breast cancer. Black women with breast cancer are nearly 30% more likely to die from it than white women. Premenopausal black women are more than twice as likely to get a more aggressive form of the disease. And, not only are African-American women more likely to die from breast cancer, but they're less likely to get life-saving treatments. Dr. Snyderman will profile one of the only oncologists in the world who specializes in the treatment of African-American women with breast cancer.
On Thursday, Ron Allen will take viewers to South Carolina -- the first southern primary state -- and ask the question: Will race trump gender or gender trump race? In South Carolina, black women made up nearly 30 percent of all democratic primary voters in 2004. This year, polls show a significant number are undecided, torn between choosing the first African-American or first female Presidential candidate. Allen talks with the undecided, as well the state directors for the Clinton and Obama campaigns, who happen to be African-American women.
To close the series on Friday, Dr. Snyderman will raise the frightening statistic that African-American women are 85% more likely to get diabetes, a major complication for heart disease. And, like breast cancer, more black women die from heart disease than white women. Dr. Snyderman will profile a leading expert and a unique church-based outreach program in South Carolina that seeks to spread the word about heart disease risks to black women congregants.
Mara Schiavocampo, Digital Correspondent for "Nightly News," will address two hot topics in the African - American community: interracial dating and the impact of hip hop music on black women.
Interracial dating is a growing trend in the African - American community. An Essence.com < http://essence.com/> poll found that 81% of participants approved of black women dating non- black men. According to a U.S. Census Bureau report in 2000, 95,000 black women were married to white men. In 2005, that number increased to 134,000. Schiavocampo will talk to experts about the trend and discuss how this defines the "Black family" of the future.
Schiavocampo will convene a panel of leading black men and women from the hip-hop industry for an engaging discussion on whether hip hop lyrics and videos positively or negatively affect black women. The roundtable also will address how these portrayals are affecting relationships between black women and black men.
Consumers can go online to join the discussion and share their thoughts on message boards. They can also read and respond to blog entries at<http://www.nightly.msnbc.com/ < http://us.f510.mail.yahoo.com/ym/www.nightly.msnbc.com > > .
Alexandra Wallace is the executive producer of "NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams." Bob Epstein is the senior broadcast producer, and Rich Latour is the senior producer for this series
my first thought was, they're going to get this all wrong. when it's time to talk about african-american women, they dwell on the poor and underpriveleged who live in some urban ghetto situation, with kids they can't take care of. they talk about the welfare system. the prison system. the system, period. i'm never mentioned -- probably because i don't fit into anyone's ethnic stereotype. i'm a single, never-married, college-educated african-american woman with no children. i'm in excellent physical condition. i see a doctor regularly, i get a mammogram annually. i vote. i pay taxes. i've got my own business, more or less. and i've got good credit. in a minute, i'll flat-out own my own home in new york city -- no easy feat by any far stretch of the imagination.
i'm the typical african-american woman out there, not this claptrap i see everywhere in the media/movies/tv. where's my profile? where's that episode of sex and the city? why don't they do a sit-com about me and my single black college-educated friends who are just like me?
even if they did -- would anyone believe it?
-------------------------------------------------------------
NBC NIGHTLY NEWS WITH BRIAN WILLIAMS SPECIAL FIVE-PART SERIES "AFRICAN-AMERICAN WOMEN: WHERE THEY STAND" TO AIR BEGINNING ON MONDAY, NOVEMBER 26
New York, N.Y. - November 15, 2007 - Throughout the week of November 26, "NBC News With Brian Williams" will take a look at the issues facing African-American women across our nation in a new series "African-American Women: Where They Stand." The series will cover a wide-range of issues from their role in the '08 Presidential race, to the increased health-risks that they need to be concerned about.
Monday's installment will discuss African-American women's progress in the education field. Nearly two-thirds of African-American undergraduates are women. At black colleges, the ratio of women to men is 7 to 1. And that is leading to a disparity in the number of African-American women who go on to own their own businesses. Rehema Ellis will talk to educators, students and businesswomen about why this disparity exists.
Tuesday, Ellis will look at relationships within the African-American female community. Many agree the gender disparity in education and business among African-Americans is having an effect on relationships that African American women have. Some even say the implications could redefine "Black America's family and social structure." In the past fifty years, the percentage of African-American women between 25-54 who have never been married has doubled from 20% to 40%. (Compared to just 16% of white women who have never been married today). Ellis sits down with the members of a Chicagobook club and talk about this difference and how it impacts them.
Dr. Nancy Snyderman will discuss the increases risks for breast cancer for African-American women on Wednesday. Mortality rates for African-American women are higher than any other racial or ethnic group for nearly every major cause of death, including breast cancer. Black women with breast cancer are nearly 30% more likely to die from it than white women. Premenopausal black women are more than twice as likely to get a more aggressive form of the disease. And, not only are African-American women more likely to die from breast cancer, but they're less likely to get life-saving treatments. Dr. Snyderman will profile one of the only oncologists in the world who specializes in the treatment of African-American women with breast cancer.
On Thursday, Ron Allen will take viewers to South Carolina -- the first southern primary state -- and ask the question: Will race trump gender or gender trump race? In South Carolina, black women made up nearly 30 percent of all democratic primary voters in 2004. This year, polls show a significant number are undecided, torn between choosing the first African-American or first female Presidential candidate. Allen talks with the undecided, as well the state directors for the Clinton and Obama campaigns, who happen to be African-American women.
To close the series on Friday, Dr. Snyderman will raise the frightening statistic that African-American women are 85% more likely to get diabetes, a major complication for heart disease. And, like breast cancer, more black women die from heart disease than white women. Dr. Snyderman will profile a leading expert and a unique church-based outreach program in South Carolina that seeks to spread the word about heart disease risks to black women congregants.
Mara Schiavocampo, Digital Correspondent for "Nightly News," will address two hot topics in the African - American community: interracial dating and the impact of hip hop music on black women.
Interracial dating is a growing trend in the African - American community. An Essence.com < http://essence.com/> poll found that 81% of participants approved of black women dating non- black men. According to a U.S. Census Bureau report in 2000, 95,000 black women were married to white men. In 2005, that number increased to 134,000. Schiavocampo will talk to experts about the trend and discuss how this defines the "Black family" of the future.
Schiavocampo will convene a panel of leading black men and women from the hip-hop industry for an engaging discussion on whether hip hop lyrics and videos positively or negatively affect black women. The roundtable also will address how these portrayals are affecting relationships between black women and black men.
Consumers can go online to join the discussion and share their thoughts on message boards. They can also read and respond to blog entries at<http://www.nightly.msnbc.com/ < http://us.f510.mail.yahoo.com/ym/www.nightly.msnbc.com > > .
Alexandra Wallace is the executive producer of "NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams." Bob Epstein is the senior broadcast producer, and Rich Latour is the senior producer for this series
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