An Urgent Appeal to President Obama

I know the President is setting himself an ambitious agenda following his defeat of Mitt Romney last month, but there is one question that it's in all of our interests that he answer: Does he plan to forget about all of the white men he's slapped over the past four years? Who will look after their welfare (so to speak)? 

Ever since 2008, he's been doing it. I mean for real, just putting guys to shame that were supposed to be real dudes. If our President doesn't watch it, he might have an epidemic of white men who have been publicly pimp-slapped by a black man. I'm not saying that it's wrong to slap a white man in public, but you've got to be careful with the consequences. 

I'm looking for America's Next Top Model

We, as a world community, need to figure out what we're going to do with all of these disgruntled white men. If the 20th century was about solving the Negro question, the 21st will be about solving the Crakasskracker question. Many of these troubled individuals have guns. They are just now realizing that the White Supremacy is not an ideology suited to the present reality. In other words, we don't believe you, you need more people.

That's a heavy blow for a lot of folks. The President could show some leadership on this issue by providing services to a few of the high profile white men he has emasculated in the past. 

Final Five or not, you gotsta chill

John McCain: Remember how Neo had him staggering around stage? McCain was a war hero who sold his medals to the Bush crowd and never got them back. He would have been a more formidable contender if he hadn't placated to the Republican establishment. He knows the toll war can take on a human being. Instead of thinking about the soldiers first, the people he relies on are more interested in war as an economic tool. One could argue that it always is, but McCain bangs the war drums a little too quickly on just about anything these days. He shouldn't have anything to prove, but you get the feeling that he still has never gotten over losing to a Black man. Maybe some kind of 12 step recovery program. Step #1: Forgive yourself. Please. 

I still got my binders

Mitt Romney: He would be a good Willy Lowman if he wasn't so damn rich. The election brought to mind the Jordan Sick game. NeO holding his guts, but bussin threes every time down the court. In the second debate he made Mitt Romney his Byron Russell. Romney got thirsty when the Bhengazi thing came up. He, like Byron Russell, thought to himself "I finally got him!"  
Proceed Governor, NeO said. Drive right, followed by a cross back to the left hand, and finally a nice pull up with perfect form for the game. Next thing you know, the debate moderator had to step in and tell him how bad he got faked. I actually don't think Mitt Romney is going to need all of that help. He has little to know respect for most of the voting population and convinced himself that people on welfare cost him the election. His self-delusion is supported with enough cash that he'll pull through. Maybe just have him try that Cory Booker Welfare Week diet.

It was like right, left, right

Jim DeMint, now known as Ji'Mint: So remember when ole boy was talking about it's going to be NeO's Waterloo? Made me have to look up Waterloo on Wikipedia and everything. Ji'Mint said he was going to break the president. It must have felt so good to stand in front of those cameras and talk all that trash.  Kind of like Joe Wilson standing with a room full of White men calling the Black president a liar.

**Ed. Note: That actually happened. It actually did** 

But now we get word that Ji'Mint is quitting the senate. He's taking a think tank job. Now, he's going to clean up on the financial end, but if you had to choose one person who did not get "broken" in the exchange with NeO, it seems a fair point to say it's probably the dude who still has his job.
 When Ji'Mint comes back around the block and tells everybody about the fight he was bragging he would win, you know people are going to ask how he won with two black eyes.
Maybe we could just arrange for someone to go by the house and check in with him every now and then. I do, however, take it as a good sign he's trying to get a brother to be appointed to his spot. I don't know much about the brother, but I assume they have him on a short leash. That shows Ji'Mint is thinking beyond his whiteness.That's encouraging.

Naw, girl. Don't worry. I got you.

Chris Cristie: I wouldn't call this an emasculation, necessarily. More like CC cut his deal after the storm hit and went with the hug instead of the coming lipbustment the Republican were about to get. Dude is sharp though. He's one of the few people I've seen make John Stewart start grasping at straws. CC just needs to keep getting invited to the house. Keep him on the payroll and everything will be alright.





Donald Trump: There was a point where I actually felt bad for Donald Trump. Not only did the President go all Hot Sauce on him at the White House Correspondents dinner. Obama:

He petty for that, Mr. Trump. Petttty.

“All kidding aside, we all know about your credentials and experience. On Celebrity Apprentice the men’s cooking team did not impress the judges from Omaha steaks, but you recognized that this was a lack of leadership, so you fired Gary Busey. These are the kinds of decisions that would keep me up at night. Well-handled, sir. Well-handled.”

Sitting there fuming, it must have just sounded to Trump like one joke told over and over again: what did the five fingers say to the face?And to top it all off, the next day dude is killing Bin Laden. Talk about dissed and dismissed. In this case I don't think it's going to be so bad. As long as there's a camera around, Mr. Trump is going to be able to blow himself back up. I'm not sure how severe the case is right now, but I would suggest some kind of invasive treatment with Arsenio Hall. Maybe they have to hang out together and do a reality television show. Call it The Big Buck and The Big Bucks.

John Boehner: Leave John John alone. You know he's quick to tears. It's bad enough that Pelosi done smacked up side the head and Barbara Bush went in on him. Now you going to punk him about the fiscal cliff? You know that ain't right. And Maybe just no more jokes about the tan. That's probably not helping.


 In a post pimp slap world, we need to have the resources at our disposal to make sure that these White men aren't left to their own devices. We must bring them back into the fold. For everyone's sake.

The human condition no longer applies to you

It's ironic that Terminator: Salvation, a movie concerned with the destruction of humanity by machines, features a full cast of female characters who are more mechanical than the robots. Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) in T2 had one of the best female action roles ever, but why are all the women in the new movie so pathetic?

First off, you have Star (Jadagrace Park). She's small, fluffy-haired, extremely loyal, soulful-eyed, and has a sixth sense for impending danger. Ms. Park does the best with the role she has, but her character is essentially just a friendly dog.

Rrruff!

Then there's Helena Bonham Carter taking on a minor part as Dr. Serena Kogan, the creator of Skynet. She makes out with a death row inmate to get him to donate his body to science. The worst part about the scene is that she's totally into the kiss, but gets totally "treated" (as the kids say) by a guy with no options. Later, she becomes the face of the malevolent computer program that destroys humanity. This brings up a bigger point: why is it that whenever the computers take over in a movie, they always seem to speak in that ice queen psycho bitch voice?

Dave, I will not be ignored, Dave.

Bryce Dallas Howard as Kate Connor. Not much to say about her because she doesn't say much. All you need to know is that she wears this expression for pretty much the whole movie.

...

What about the feisty Blair Williams (Moon Goodblood)? She has a promising start, as a grizzled veteran pilot who fearlessly dogfights flying killing machines. You think she's going to be holding it down Sarah Connor style, but then she doesn't.

Are you feeling lucky, punk? Oh, wait...

Question: what tenet in screenwriting makes it necessary to add attempted gang rape scenes for females in action movies? I'm not sure, but usually the writer has the decency to let the woman kick the guys asses. Not so in this movie. Her man comes to her rescue, costing Blair almost all of her credibility. She loses the rest of her credibility by trying to "thank" said man by "keeping him warm" one scene later. Yuck.

I'm not sure how this fits into my feminist critique, but I should just say that Common needs to stop acting. Every scene does not call for the "open mic poet" voice and he showed more range when he was poverty pimping those kids in that Lincoln Navigator commercial. What, you don't remember?

Common - Lincoln Promo
Uploaded by corporatetakeover1 - Music videos, artist interviews, concerts and more.

Common is officially not helping our efforts to bring light skinned brothers back. Where's that Keyboard Cat when you need him?

Buy your own damn fries

My uncle recently sent me the Mighty O's autobiography, Dreams From My Father, which I've been meaning to read for a second. I've been a little hesitant because I didn't want to be an even bigger Obama-stan than I already am, but hearing clips from the audio book version has made it official: Obama is gangsta.

"We're not on a plantation, Clint."

Clint Eastwood made two films, Flags of Our Fathers and Letters from Iwa Jima, that you gotsta see if you haven't already. Both concern the lives and stories of soldiers fighting in the battle of Iwa Jima. Letters is an interesting take on the Japanese perspective of the war, while Flags takes on the American side. Both are great movies. Anyway, I didn't really notice it, but neither film features any Black soldiers. Seven hours of film with no Black faces is pretty hard to excuse. It didn't bother me that much while I watching the movies, but I guess I should also admit that I also really like Clint Eastwood, as an actor and director. Even if he's a Republican, you can't fake that kind of cool.


But recently Spike Lee criticized Clint for this omission. If you've seen Do the Right Thing, it was a "Why ain't there no brothers on the wall?" moment. Usually that wouldn't be news because the mainstream media is not really concerned with Spike (especially since he's never been charged with possession of a firearm or non-payment of child support--which runs counter to the standard famous Black male narrative.) But this was different because Clint got mad, like he's want to do, and said that Spike Lee "should shut his face." He explains that he didn't have any Black soldiers because the story was about the picture and there wasn't a Black hand on that flag. He says he was trying to be historically accurate and didn't want to compromise the integrity of the narrative.


Then Spike basically lights into Clint Eastwood's ass. He connects his criticisms of Clint to the larger pattern of Hollywood ignoring the contributions of Black soldiers. (You would think they would want us to see more examples of these contributions so people would be more ready to fight in all these wars, but the image of armed Black men could be unsettling for some). Spike also mentions that Clint's tone is kind of like a slave master and that he should be easy and take a step back.

This story is interesting not only because it's cool to see people fight, but Clint's response (even though it's angry) opens the door to having a real conversation about how Black soldiers have gone unrepresented. In the past twenty years, starting most notably with Denzel Washington, Morgan Freeman, and Andre Braugher's performances in Glory, the situation has gotten better, but there still is a lot of work left to do. It's also kind of cool when respected artists criticize each other's work. It can be messy sometimes, but it's nice to see people trying to hash out exactly what movies are supposed to "do". In some ways, criticism is the sincerest form of flattery.


All that being said, I have to give respect to my man Clint for the way he uses Adam Beach in Flags of Our Fathers. Beach plays a Native American soldier who is uneasy with the government's propagandization/marketing of the Iwo Jima story. For me, his was the best performance in either movie, and Clint doesn't shy away from making a statement about race and history. And although Spike speaks with some authority on the issue of racial representation, he still has some crazy ideas about women and gender that he needs to work on. (Have you seen He Hate Me?)

Hopefully Dirty Harry will consider what Spike is saying and come back with something intelligent to continue the conversation. Or maybe Clint will just go all Callahan on his ass again.