newwavefeminism:

cindysherman:

They’ve now reached their minimum funding goal and that’s excellent, but I’d like to say that the argument that Hollywood/the powers that be always make against funding the work of ANY marginalized group is that it will only appeal to people of that group and we’ve got to prove that it’s not true. I’m white and I’m definitely pissed at the lack of people of color on television, and I think that this show looks awesome. The creators seem smart and totally invested in their project which is what I look for, not “Oooh! White people! I guess this is for me!”

I definitely hear that argument too. On my campus there is this new Cultural Education Center that wasn’t fully backed by all of the college’s trustees. Main argument “so is it only going to be for people like YOU?” umm 1) if someone feels like they aren’t welcomed in a center that celebrates CULTURE then that’s their own issue. I’m not a science major yet I don’t avoid the science center - but suddenly when culture is involved its a problem? and 2) why does no one understand that in a campus where the culture is homogenous safe spaces are vital. So when non people of color get upset at spaces that don’t seem “meant for them” why can’t they understand that thats how some PoC feel when they’re forced to live and reside in these communities where they’re the outsider?

The same goes for television. You feel excluded when the representations of “america” are really just manifestations of what the “Hollywood powers that be” believe makes up America - not actual experiences. I have one friend who once stated (in regards to TV) Everything all black is for black people, but everything all white is for everybody!

(Source: fumblingtowardshappiness)

newwavefeminism:

strugglingtobeheard:

ashawo-kekele:

help them out. this show is awesome :-)

I haven’t watched out but the reviews are great, so do it if you can!

Wow. They’re just one grand shy of their 30,000 goal - and kickstarter only funds projects if they meet the FULL goal. 

Here is why this project is personally important to me. Its written and directed and stars an “awkward black girl.” Its the first show that, as a woman of color, I actually relate to. IN TWENTY ONE YEARS of my life, this is the first honest and actual representation of my experiences as a woman of color. It doesn’t portray me as a video vixen, an unwed mother, uneducated, lazy, ignorant or anything like  that. Are there women of color who have narratives like that? Sure, and that’s fine. But to take the vast variety of women of color and generalize them to the few tropes that society vilifies the most is what I find wrong with television these days. Thus, I fully support independent done by people of color that shows true representations that fall outside of the box. But not only that, I support independent artists that refuse to let hollywood gatekeeping stand in their way of doing the art that they love and garnering the audience they deserve.

SOOO help keep this show on the youtube airwaves and sustain these fantastic cast!

PLUS! If you pledge 25 bucks you get a wristband, a personal thank you, and a digital download of the ENTIRE season.

(Source: fumblingtowardshappiness)

Economic factors and changes in public policies, not manifestations of “black culture,” explain African Americans’ relatively poorer economic outcomes.

More from the article:

It’s a myth that should be put to rest by the economic experience of the African American community over the past 20 years. Because what Kern and other adherents of the “culture of poverty” thesis can’t explain is why blacks’ economic fortunes advanced so dramatically during the 1990s, retreated again during the Bush years and then were completely devastated in the financial crash of 2008.

In order to buy the cultural story, one would have to believe that African Americans adopted a “culture of success” during the Clinton years, mysteriously abandoned it for a “culture of failure” under Bush and finally settled on a “culture of poverty” shortly after Lehman Brothers crashed.

That’s obviously nonsense. It was exogenous economic factors and changes in public policies, not manifestations of “black culture,” that resulted in those widely varied outcomes.

Interesting article, especially when it goes on to break down the facts behind “The Clinton Boom, the Bush Bust and the Great Black Depression”