IF HE'S A TOKEN AND YA KNOW IT CLAP YOUR HANDS

Before we get to my repost, let me say that protesting OSCARS SO WHITE PART 1 AND PART 2 was a success.

The year 2017 saw a lot of black actors in line for OSCARS, Golden Globes and SAG Awards. So I thought I'd repost something from 2015, when we were in the middle of OSCARS SO WHITE. 

I also thought I'd post a reminder that all of our skinfolk are not our kinfolk. 

I thought I'd remind us that we need to be selective about who we, the black community, supports.  We need to support people who support us back.

But most of all, I thought I'd remind us that protest works sometimes. 
This award season may be a blip on the radar. I don't think so. But I do know that our protest-based progress isn't a blip on the radar.

BAFTA, the british equivalent of the OSCARS, has decided that movies with all white casts ("not diverse") will no longer be eligible for a BAFTA award beginning in 2019.   

May Oscar NOT be far behind. LA LA LAND looking movies should only be given awards at a white equivalent of BET MOVIE AWARDS. All American movie awards for American movies should be given to movies where the cast looks like America.  

Read More: 

http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2016/12/19/the_bafta_awards_will_exclude_films_that_are_not_diverse_starting_in_2019.html

A REPOST FROM 2015

“Like my nephew wanted to grow dreadlocks. I’m like fine, I’ll sit you down and I’ll watch The First 48 with you and everybody you see on that show, that’s doing something wrong, they’re black dudes with dreadlocks,” he said. “So, do you want to be seen as part of the problem or do you want to be an individual?” 

Anthony Mackie

“Let’s just say you have locks and you walking down the street. The police pull you over and say you fit the description of somebody. You start yelling and arguing with the cops. Next thing you know you pressed up against the wall going to jail for something you’re not even involved in just because you look like somebody and you don’t know how to handle yourself,” Mackie said.

Anthony Mackie

http://www.msn.com/en-us/movies/celebrity/anthony-mackie-black-dudes-with-dreadlocks-are-part-of-police-violence-problem-actor-slammed-for-comments/ar-AA8oOKB

Anthony Mackie has risen into my line of sight one too many times with his vacuum cleaner of crumbs approach to black life.

I must admit I have been feeling some kinda way 'bout him for quite some time.



Mackie has even surpassed Kenan Thompson at being totally unaware of his token status. And that's saying something.

Thompson's name isn't that familiar is it? Can't quite place that name without the picture can you? Well before you click here so you can see his actual face, let me tell you the reason he gave for so few black women having been on "Saturday Night Live" [until just a couple of years ago.]

Instead of blaming showrunner Lorne Michaels ... Thompson blames the lack of quality black female comedians. "It's just a tough part of the business," Thompson says. "Like in auditions, they just never find ones that are ready."

http://defamer.gawker.com/kenan-thompson-thinks-black-women-arent-funny-enough-f-1445835115 

If there was ever a person that was just lazily picked for his skin color, just so SNL execs could claim Saturday Night Live wasn't pretty much all white for years between Eddie Murphy and needing a black guy to spoof our current, black president, that person would be Kenan Thompson. He's a sidekick's sidekick in sketches where he's not that black preacher guy.

If there's another less funny black comedian in history, I can't remember him. 

I won't say Anthony Mackie is as bodaciously talentless as Thompson. He's okay. But I will say that Mackie's lack of significance in big movies rivals Keenan's lack of significance on Saturday Night Live. 

Somebody said he was in the Hurt Locker. I wasn't the biggest fan of that movie. But I don't remember him or the movie. Maybe this doesn't count

Somebody said he was in "Million Dollar Baby" I must blinked. I saw that over and over at an airport or something. I don't remember him.

In the Captain America movie, "The Winter Soldier," his total talking time on screen must be less than five minutes.

He must have had a whole 15 five-word sentences to say in the last Avengers movie, too.

He was the main cop in a sci-fi movie that big budget flop(?) a few years ago. And this is the only movie where I don't remember much about the movie itself but do remember him being significant. I didn't think he was the token.

Yet somehow he parted his lips to say this a few years ago,

Actor Anthony Mackie, of The Hurt Locker and Million Dollar Babyfame, says that the lack of exposure for Blacks in Hollywood is a result of Blacks being “lazy” and not telling their own stories.

 Yeah, Spike Lee and John Singleton only make a movie all about black people every once in a while because their lazy, not because they're fighting the white powers that be, the white gatekeepers, with the money and access. Mackie must think we're 31% of the population instead of 13% of the population. 

Mackie said this as if he's a toe away from Denzel Washington territory--and I'm only talking Denzel Washington in the 1980s territory, not Denzel's current territory.

At the time he said blacks' laziness was the reason for the hollywood white out at the Oscars, I did not recognize his name at all. And I'm not actually dogging him for stereotypical roles or token roles. I'm dogging him for his unmitigated arrogance. 

Many black actors, with the possible exception of Denzel Washington, have paid their dues in stereotypical black roles. Queen Latifah, Jada Pinkett, and Regina King and others have "made it" because they acted their asses off in some of those stereotypical roles too.

Paying your dues for many black actors and actresses is playing smart aleck cab drivers, domestics, home girls, home boys, and one dimensional ex-cons who are sent into a scene to grunt some decade-old black slang for one minute or less. I understand that. We all understand that. 

So it truly must be quite something to get past that to say 10 to 20 real lines opposite a white star with a real career. 

But for you to NOT REALIZE that those 20 or so sentences on screen still sort-of have you in token status? That's just sad.

I'm guessing Mackie will be one of those black actors that never shows up for a black produced, black directed, lower budget indie film to help somebody else black make it. And I'm not showing up for him either until I see a change in attitude.
I am not here for the lastest addition to "The New Blacks."

I'm not wishing anything bad on them, not really. I'd just love it if each and every one to disappear into an ordinary, middle class life where I don't ever see them on any screen anywhere again. But I'm not actually wishing anything bad on them. However, I am trying to make sure they don't make any money at all off'a me.

Ya feel me?

More importantly,
I'm trying to figure out a way to make sure
white producers know that the reason they cannot
draw  a multi-colored, multi-ethnic audience
which only decreases the amount of green lining their pockets.

The FAST AND THE FURIOUS franchise made tons of money off C-plus-grade movies because a lot of black and brown folk are just dying to see themselves in big budget films.

Blacks In Hollywood Shut Out Or Missing In Action (from 2015) http://www.pbs.org/wnet/tavissmiley/features/blacks-in-hollywood-shut-out-or-missing-in-action/

Video showing Speaking Role for People Of Color (from 2015 or earliers) http://elitedaily.com/news/world/videos-show-speaking-roles-people-color-videos/1105623/

BlackChickRocked.Blogspot.com