No question the logistics are harder in Puerto Rico. But the 3.4 million U.S. citizens there have long endured second-class status: no voting members of Congress, no presidential vote, unequal benefits and high poverty. Now, the Trump administration’s failure to help Americans in Puerto Rico with the same urgency it gave those in Texas and Florida furthers a sad suspicion that the disparate treatment has less to do with logistics than language and skin color...”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-sad-suspicion-about-trumps-poor-treatment-of-puerto-rico/2017/09/26/5a54cde4-a2ef-11e7-8cfe-d5b912fabc99_story.html?tid=sm_fb&utm_term=.b9a035d19749
You know what's a trip?
People of color with visibly ethnic faces have to TEACH THEMSELVES how to see their own beauty.
As soon as POC are old enough to see which faces and races are in the movies, TV shows and billboards, they start to question their own beauty and self-confidence.
"Why don't the people on TV look like me?"
"Why do all the bad guys look like me...
feeling rebloggyFROM SLATE
It made landfall on Wednesday, Sept. 20. It destroyed houses, blocked roads, and downed cell towers, making communication to family, friends, and relief workers spotty at best. For days now, residents have also grappled with dwindling supplies of food, water, and gasoline. Everyone on the island is without power as the entire grid was disabled by the storm. Power may not be restored for another six months. Hospitals with functioning generators are filling up.
But President Trump has not issued a statement—or a tweet—since the storm passed, something that did not go unnoticed in a weekend of otherwise bombastic tweets from the president.
The perception of [white run] television news’ indifference to the crisis was also on people’s minds, as debates about the NFL protests and celebrity gossip drowned out the details of Hurricane Maria and its aftermath.
While it is possible for people to focus on two problems at once, the relative silence about the storm led many to conclude that this indifference is perhaps not just a product of Trump but a larger problem with how America has always seen the island [as a colony of brown folks that should be seen, drained of resources, and not heard]
...the glacial pace of Congress’s response is part of an older pattern.
By denying the island statehood, Congress deprives residents of the vote and of certain funds. Puerto Rico’s economic options are further limited by the Jones Act, as the PBS Newshourreported in 2015; the act “requires everybody in Puerto Rico to buy goods from an American-made ship with an American crew.”
In 2016, Congress finally moved to resolve Puerto Rico’s years-old debt crisis
In 2016, Congress finally moved to resolve Puerto Rico’s years-old debt crisis—the island was $73 billion in debt—by passing PROMESA, which ostensibly allows the island to restructure its debt.
But PROMESA is essentially an austerity measure...https://newrepublic.com/minutes/144985/us-government-fails-puerto-rico-again
His little mind is locked on "ungrateful," disobedient, lucky to be here descendants of black slaves that are making millions of dollars per year (for white male team owners too) yet have the audacity to be upset enough about white cops killing black people at will to refuse to stand for the National Anthem.
Trump is worried about black NFL stars disrespecting "our culture" [read: white culture] at a time when he ought to be worrying about our Puerto Rican citizens after that terrifying hurricane they just experienced.
Chucklehead McTwitterwit can't even pronounce books of the bible correctly. He's not a Christian hating people because they are of a different religion.
And I'm not implying he's a bad Christian either. I'm saying he's literally lying about being a Christian. And he probably did so to get the White Evangelical vote (because he didn't know being a white supremacist was enough to get 90% of that group's vote all by itself.)
I actually read an article the other day that said Trump uses racism strategically to do X, Y, and Z.
Nope. That describes Ronald Reagan. He was a white supremacist who used lower-level white supremacy speech to keep the KKK and the like on his side.
"I had conversions with Shonda Rhimes where she has had for a while a sense of how she wanted the story to end," Dungey told reporters Tuesday ahead of ABC's upfront presentation to ad buyers. "She said, 'Look, I really feel like season seven is where I want to wrap up this story, because I always prefer to end a show where you're feeling on top as opposed to letting things fizzle out.'"
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/why-scandal-is-ending-season-7-1004113
I actually read one black male comment on social media that said, "She's treating him like a subordinate!" And Short's charter freaking was a flippin subordinate.
Much like Black Lives Matter, when a black man is present, the black women fade are supposed to fade into the background.
(On a side note: I will never forget how Rekia Boyd's death was practically ignored despite her death coming so close to Trayvon Martin's.)
Likewise, when a black man is heroic in a series? Most of the black male audience and half of the black female audience is wondering why the black male character isn't at the center of the action.
GABRIELLE UNION AND TARAJI P. HENSON BOTH AUDITIONED TO PLAY OLIVIA.
Gabrielle Union (BEING MARY JANE) auditioned for the part, then later said she was glad Kerry Washington and Scandal had found so much success, because it led to more work for black female actresses [and black female directors.]
When asked about her audition for the role of Olivia... Taraji P. Henson (EMPIRE) recalled: "When I went in to read for Shonda Rhimes, in my mind I was like, 'This is Kerry Washington. Why am I even in here?' It was hers. It was her job, and she's great in it."Read More
http://mentalfloss.com/article/79841/13-facts-about-scandal
Less than a week after launching, Rihanna's Fenty Beauty is flying off shelves.
While most of Rihanna's mega-successful makeup line has managed to stay in stock, there's one product in particular that is selling out at lightning speed, according to social media, and that's Rihanna's deep [read: dark skinned] foundation shades.
At the time of writing this, six out of the available 10 deep shades are already sold out on sephora.com, though it looks like restocks are happening pretty regularly. Normally, fans react with disappointment, frustration, or even anger when they can't get their hands on a highly anticipated beauty launch. But with Fenty Beauty, the response to the limited availability of deep [read: dark-skinned] foundation has been markedly different, for a damn good reason."
Exhibit A: FENTY BEAUTY
EXHIBIT A: "Hidden Figures" Ticket Sales
EXHIBIT B: "Girls Trip" Ticket Sales
As the nation reels from a series of high-profile fatal shootings of black men by police officers, many have decried the lack of readily available data on how racial bias factors into American policing. But while it’s true that there is no adequate federal database of fatal police shootings (F.B.I. director James Comey has described the lack of data as “embarrassing and ridiculous”), there exists a wealth of academic research, official and media investigations, and court rulings on the topic of race and law enforcement.
The Hive has collected 18 such findings below. This list is not exhaustive, and does not purport to comment on the work of all police officers. It is, rather, merely a digest of the information available at present. Sometimes, studies and investigations reveal evidence of intentional bias; other studies point to broader societal and institutional factors...
“...evidence of a significant bias in the killing of unarmed black Americans relative to unarmed white Americans, in that the probability of being black, unarmed, and shot by police is about 3.49 times the probability of being white, unarmed, and shot by police on average.”
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/07/data-police-racial-bias
A pair of new reports on the Russia investigation published Monday night suggest that Donald Trump’s former campaign chair, Paul Manafort, is in very serious legal trouble indeed.
First, CNN’s Evan Perez, Shimon Prokupecz, and Pamela Brown report that federal investigators got secret court orders to wiretap Manafort — at first before the 2016 campaign because of an inquiry into his work in Ukraine, and later as part of the investigation into Trump associates’ ties to Russia.
Second, the New York Times’s Sharon LaFraniere, Matt Apuzzo, and Adam Goldman report that this summer, special counsel Robert Mueller’s prosecutors “told Mr. Manafort they planned to indict him.” They also add the detail that when federal agents searched Manafort’s home in July at the behest of Mueller’s team, they picked the lock rather than announcing their presence in advance.
Together, the reports of wiretaps and the threat of indictment make Manafort’s legal woes — which already looked troubling — appear even more serious.
Manafort is under investigative scrutiny both for matters that preceded his involvement in Trump’s campaign — specifically, whether he appropriately disclosed his foreign work and whether he was involved in illegal money laundering or other financial crimes — and for the central question of potential collusion with Russia during the campaign itself.
