Here are a few things that had me feeling good this week:
Mercury Retrograde is Finally OVER
I don’t know about you, but I have had a miserable January. Getting into fights with friends, car trouble, making big decisions I wasn’t ready for, failed plans…it hasn’t ended. But finally Mercury is going forward in the zodiac, and finding some chill in our worlds. From January 5th to the 25th, if everything has just been off for you, Mercury may have been the cause. We can now rest easy for the next few months, as April 28th is the start of the next retrograde. In the meantime, here are some tips and tricks to conquer the next retrograde.
Gina Rodriguez’s #MovementMonday
The Jane The Virgin star has taken it upon herself to fill the #OscarsSoWhite discussion with some Latinx narrative. Her new #MovementMonday campaign is addressing her desire to see more representation of Latinx in the media, and she wants to build up all marginalized communities with the project.
Do it! You have that power. You own that right. Do it! Your movement Monday can be for whom you want to champion! https://t.co/vGdEe2mJJU
— Gina Rodriguez (@HereIsGina) January 27, 2016
There is such a huge gap in positive Latinx portrayal in the mainstream that shows like Jane The Virgin are doing their best to improve, and the lack of representation is irritating. I am so here for POC making their own spaces in social media, not just for bringing their own people together, but to make others aware that their voice exists.
Marley Dias is Tired of Your Canon
Thank you for investing in girls. #1000BlackGirlBooks #400moretogo @blackthought @MaxwellDreamer @blackdoctor pic.twitter.com/VTE9WBKgc7
— GrassROOTS (GCF) (@GrassRootsFound) January 25, 2016
I have found a kindred spirit in 11 year-old Marley Dias, who was sick and tired of reading books about “white boys and dogs.” Frustrated over the gross lack of diversity in mainstream literature, Marley came up with the idea of a book drive called #1000BlackGirlBooks. The drive is half way to its goal, donating books with Black girls as central characters to schools in Jamaica. She’s also worked on a project that feeds orphaned children in Ghana and she’s interested in creating her own social network for teen girls. This just makes my heart sing. I am so proud of this young visionary, who saw a real problem in her world and was ready to fix it. Yes sweet girl!
Shits
Sometimes I just can’t even…here’s what made my eyes roll this week
Macklemore.
.@macklemore pic.twitter.com/ZkXiqXpWNM
— shrillmatic (@theshrillest) January 22, 2016
If you listen really closely, you can hear me sighing so hard my lungs collapse. So, you tried it. To be clear, I haven’t actually listened to the song. I’m a hater first and foremost, so I’m just going to naturally assume I won’t like the song and would focus on how little I like the music (girl, have you HEARD Downtown? Spare me). BUT I have read the lyrics. I felt like if I was going to complain, I at least owed him that. And nothing more.
The song is nine minutes (NINE. MINUTES) long and all of it leaves me feeling icky. It was released for free just a month before his new album is set to drop, and it all just gives me an air of convenience. Let me be clear about this: the white privilege he’s earned alone from this song can never be extricated from the message he is trying to deliver. His advantages will continue to earn him more money and attention, even if this one song is free. People are still talking about him, whether the message has been received or not.
The praise behind the whole thing just irks me, because black rappers like Kendrick Lamar and J. Cole have been saying the same things in their music for the past few years, but it takes a white rapper doing the same for people to be interested. I can’t, y’all.
Joseph Fiennes Playing Michael Jackson in a 9/11 Film
I can’t even believe I had to write that title out. Joseph Fiennes (literally, Voldemort’s brother) is set to play the late Michael Jackson as he flees Manhattan in the aftermath of September 11th, 2001. Oh, and Marlon Brando is there, and so is Elizabeth Taylor, and they’re on a road trip. And it might be a comedy. I just…WHY?!
Forget the fact that I can’t even understand why this would be made into a movie, Michael Jackson is being played by a WHITE person. I physically and emotionally do not have the strength within my spirit to understand that. Michael Jackson, despite all of his controversy, was born, lived and died a black man. It does not matter how light his skin was in 2001 (or if you believe it was vitiligo, lupus, or skin bleach that caused it), he was a black person. Fiennes portraying him in this ludicrous movie is appalling. It’s a reaffirmation of the issue of colorism in our society, and how much easier it is to accept Jackson as a white person than a light-skinned black man. And this, on the tails of the #OscarsSoWhite issue, is just insulting. Either cast appropriately or don’t at all. You really mean to tell me there isn’t one black actor with vitiligo, or light skin, trying to be cast in Hollywood? I’ll wait.
