The Official "Ask A Brotha" Thread

[E-Man]

A few questions:
1. How do the men here feel about the way that blacks are portrayed in Civil War/historical films? I'm taking a class on cultural memory and a black female student said that she is sick of those kind of movies, as they just show black people getting beaten up and saved in the end by a white person. Now, as a white guy, I would think that these movies would be a good thing, as it reminds an often forgetful public of the horrors of slavery.
2. That student also brought up similar feelings regarding the lack of a slavery memorial in the US. Do you think it is necessary to have such a monument in this country?

1. What bothers some people, myself included, is that the only light Hollywood wants to show black people in history is of broken down victims. It's the ultimate non-threatening role to be a slave because you know they're under someone's power, and they don't have any potential to hurt anyone unless a white hero comes along. The problem isn't that slave movies are made because it's a legitimate part of history that happened, but that's the only kind of movie being made. There's no trying to dig into black history beyond slavery or during Jim Crow years where we're the victims that need white people to save us. Look at Django Unchained. I liked that movie, and the black guy is a hero with great skills. He still needed a white man to get him where he ended up. Django ends up a badass, but without Schultz he's just a slave in chains. Hollywood is fine with things like that, but they'd never tell the story of a black hero who succeeded on their own without white help.

That's why it's "difficult" to make a Black Panther movie, yet they could put Falcon in a sequel when his whole damn wing harness was created by Black Panther. Black Panther is a black man in charge of a rich ass kingdom that doesn't need the help of the outside world, so there's no white hero needed unless it's Cap or Iron Man in a crossover. Falcon on the other hand is Cap's sidekick, gets his powers from a white Nazi, and used to be a pimp when they did that stupid retcon on his history. Of course Hollywood would go with Falcon because he needs Cap.

2. There should definitely be some kind of monument to slavery, but it's not going to do much so I don't really get upset about it. Golgo-13 is correct about slavery building the country. Not only that, but slavery also was one of the worst occurrences in human history. The way people address it now is bothersome because it's always a "get over it" type mentality where it's out of sight and out of mind for people. The same people saying that though just love to talk about the American Revolution and how it was a great moment of freedom.

 

[E-Man]

Oh yeah, I forgot to flip over a table and yell "I'M PISSED!"

*flips over table*

I'M PISSED!

 

[PyroChamber]

Oh yeah, I forgot to flip over a table and yell "I'M PISSED!"

*flips over table*

I'M PISSED!

It's usually better when you flip the table and run.

 

[Hobgoblin]

Someone in the class (I forget if it was the female student or the professor) mentioned that there is a Holocaust museum in DC because Jews are more organized than African Americans. Organization helps to get things done when you speak with one voice. Are African Americans really that disorganized as a group?

I did think it was interesting that my classmate was so adamant about being sick of re-visiting slavery, while I couldnt help remembering a story that my cousin's daughter told over Christmas. When she was a freshman at Columbia, she was walking to class when a young black guy stuck a half eaten Popsicle in her pocket. When she asked him why the hell he did that, he said it was for slavery.

My point is that there does seem to be a lot of disagreement in the black community about remembering slavery.

 

[Mrs. Sawyer]

And by disagreement the actual word is stupidity.

Like I said in my other post, the problem is not sweeping slavery under the rug or not, but the real problem is that slavery gets treated by some African Americans as an afterthought and some people use the term superficially for a sense of self-entitlement. I once seen someone try to use slavery as justfication for why they should get a parking spot for a Shop-Rite. Really?

 

[E-Man]

Someone in the class (I forget if it was the female student or the professor) mentioned that there is a Holocaust museum in DC because Jews are more organized than African Americans. Organization helps to get things done when you speak with one voice. Are African Americans really that disorganized as a group?

I did think it was interesting that my classmate was so adamant about being sick of re-visiting slavery, while I couldnt help remembering a story that my cousin's daughter told over Christmas. When she was a freshman at Columbia, she was walking to class when a young black guy stuck a half eaten Popsicle in her pocket. When she asked him why the hell he did that, he said it was for slavery.

My point is that there does seem to be a lot of disagreement in the black community about remembering slavery.

Sounds like one of those *******s that use slavery and the Civil Rights Movement to use the N word with that stupid double standard of it being "our" word.

 

[Hobgoblin]

Maybe if there was something that represents what African Americans have done for a whole instead of just slavery, that would go over much better than just having a slavery memorial.

That is a more uplifting idea but it also opens the door for other races/groups to ask "If the blacks get a memorial, why dont we?" I have no problem with it, but it could get out of hand.

 

[Holiday]

That is a more uplifting idea but it also opens the door for other races/groups to ask "If the blacks get a memorial, why dont we?" I have no problem with it, but it could get out of hand.

If it's done through private funds, then that problem's taken care of.

 

[chamber-music]

International Brotha's,

What are race relations like in other countries compared to America? I get the impression that they're better, but I want specifics from people who live there.

I never lived in America only visited a few times so I can't really compare what its like living there as opposed to living in the UK.

One of my friends is black and born and raised in nothern Italy.

A few questions:
1. How do the men here feel about the way that blacks are portrayed in Civil War/historical films? I'm taking a class on cultural memory and a black female student said that she is sick of those kind of movies, as they just show black people getting beaten up and saved in the end by a white person. Now, as a white guy, I would think that these movies would be a good thing, as it reminds an often forgetful public of the horrors of slavery.

2. That student also brought up similar feelings regarding the lack of a slavery memorial in the US. Do you think it is necessary to have such a monument in this country?

1. I can't comment on the American Civil War but on movies in general alot of black people feel that most films dealing with black peoples history tends to be driven by a white male protagonist's narrative.

One of the reasons Steve McQueen's Twelve Years A Slave will be intresting is because the movie is based on a memoir of Solomon Northup a black man who was born free in New York state but kidnapped, sold into slavery and kept in bondage for 12 years in Louisiana before the American Civil War. Northup provided details of slave markets in Washington, DC, as well as describing at length cotton cultivation on major plantations in Louisiana.

The movie will be a far more accurate portrayal of slavery and the American slave trade than Django Unchained.


2. I can only talk about the UK

British remembrance

The 2007 bicentenary of the abolition of the slave trade sparked national debate, which is still ongoing, over how best to remember the millions of people displaced by the transatlantic trade. Liverpool opened a new museum dedicated to the history of slavery, London and Bristol were planning public memorials and Lancaster, the fourth largest slave-trading port in Britain, commissioned its own public memorial sculpture from artist Kevin Dalton-Johnson in 2005.

Local initiatives have been more successful. These include Bristol's Pero's Bridge built in 1999 and specially designed to commemorate the life of a local black servant (1753-98); and a dynamic new quayside memorial in Lancaster unveiled in October 2005. Sculpted by Kevin Dalton-Johnson and raised by the Slave Trade Arts Memorial Project (STAMP), this memorial - in the shape of a ship with materials built into it explaining the story of the slave trade - has shown the possibilities of creating memorials without national governmental support.
London

Tucked away near Fenchurch Street station on Fen Court, the City of London Corporation together with Black British Heritage in a project managed by Futurecity, finally erected its first memorial for the victims of the slave trade and in honour of those who abolished it in 2008. A collaboration between the Scottish sculptor Michael Visocchi and the black British poet Lemn Sissay, Gilt of Cain is situated aptly close to the heart of the financial district of the City of London that provided the finance for the British slave trade and to St Mary Woolnoth church where the sermons of reformed slave ship captain John Newton inspired William Wilberforce to take on the cause of abolition. This paradoxical positioning inspires both the sculpture and the poem which is inscribed upon it.

I think many black people in the west epecially those who are descendants feel they aren't taught enough about their history. The fact there are museums for not just black people but everyone is a good thing.

The Liverpool International Slavery Museum is very popular.

 

[Monsieur Xavier]

What do you think about the Django unchained collectible dolls controversy ?

Link to one of the articles http://www.nydailynews.com/entertai...tion-figures-sparks-boycott-article-1.1235938

 

[kane9321]

LOL !!!! Man you guys cover everything on this board. I think it's regional. I'm from Alabama, and most of the brothas who have kids with or are in a long term relationships with white girls there, tend to be the white girls who are overweight. The cute white girls are only interested in pissin off their dads, so they usually engage in undercover sexual activities with the bros. My brother lives in Florida with his girlfriend, who is a plump white chick. I asked him why the black girls he dated had to be super fine, but the white girls bummy, and he said the top-notch white babes only date cats with money. Since living in Atlanta, I've seen more fine black women with nerdy looking white guys than brothers with fine white women. Although, the older white cougars, soccer moms, and milfs here are hot as Hell and love black guys.

when I was visiting my cousin in savannah I saw the same thing
Those soccer moms love the bros

 

[terry78]

Older white women don't give a **** anymore. A white dude can now actually calll you a mother****er and it would be accurate.

 

[Mrs. Sawyer]

I hooked up with an older white woman in Canada (somehwere around her mid 30s). She loved talking about her kids.

 

[Mrs. Sawyer]

LOL !!!! Man you guys cover everything on this board. I think it's regional. I'm from Alabama, and most of the brothas who have kids with or are in a long term relationships with white girls there, tend to be the white girls who are overweight. The cute white girls are only interested in pissin off their dads, so they usually engage in undercover sexual activities with the bros. My brother lives in Florida with his girlfriend, who is a plump white chick. I asked him why the black girls he dated had to be super fine, but the white girls bummy, and he said the top-notch white babes only date cats with money. Since living in Atlanta, I've seen more fine black women with nerdy looking white guys than brothers with fine white women. Although, the older white cougars, soccer moms, and milfs here are hot as Hell and love black guys.

I gotta move to the south.

I think it's also more of an age. A lot of the younger generation tend to be more free with who they date.

 

[PyroChamber]

when I was visiting my cousin in savannah I saw the same thing
Those soccer moms love the bros

So instead of doing it to piss off daddy, they're doing it to piss off their ex-husbands?

 

[Mrs. Sawyer]

Pretty much.

 

[Pink Ranger]

I hooked up with an older white woman in Canada (somehwere around her mid 30s). She loved talking about her kids.

"Uncle" Parker, is that you?

 

[kane9321]

so instead of doing it to piss off daddy, they're doing it to piss off their ex-husbands?

yes

 

[Mrs. Sawyer]

"Uncle" Parker, is that you?

I'm actually your father. Long story. All I have to say is that Maury is B******t.

 

[chamber-music]

In the Caribbean there are older white women who go every year just to hook up with black guys. The guys a pretty much gigolos for sex tourists.

What do you think about the Django unchained collectible dolls controversy ?

Link to one of the articles http://www.nydailynews.com/entertai...tion-figures-sparks-boycott-article-1.1235938

Meh I don't care to be honest. I'm not offended.

 

[Diamondhead]

The DJango unchained movie is a little bit of a hypocricy and I think it should have been true to the scenario that it was intended for
And that is what if a bounty hunter from the old west had a killer dog to help him trace the bad guys that he's after!???
nooooo!
Even better yet...!
What if that bounty hunter bought himself a slave and use him like a dog to go after the bad guy !
it would be pretty humiliating for the white guys to have a slave coming after them and kill them legally
Because when you’re a wanted man dead or alive
You have no right, so it doesn't matter who or what kills you.
C'mon,… as if I never thought about a scenario like that for a comic book !
Beside the original DJango was a ghost searching for revange.

 

[Mrs. Sawyer]

What?

 

[terry78]

Haha.

 

[Kane52630]

Planet earth my ass.

 

[chamber-music]

huh?