New Ish

A Girl Like Me
This morning, 16 year old filmmaker Kiri Davis appeared on Good Morning America to discuss her documentary "A Girl Like Me." In the film she recreates the doll test used by Thurgood Marshall in presenting his case against segregation in Brown v. Board of Education. The sad truth is that the results today are exactly the same as they were 50 years ago. Young black girls are suffer from a profound self-hate that has survived the civil rights movement and our attempts at integration.

Truth to Power

A new book about Colin Powell is out. It's called "Soldier," written by Karen DeYoung. She exposes the truth about Powell's firing from the Bush Administration (by Andy Card, who gave him two days to tender his resignation). Ms. DeYoung confirms what we already knew, which is that the administration used Powell mercilessly to lend legitimacy to their warmongering, while disregarding his opinions and advice. Again we say "way to go" to Condi, for toughing it out.

Dancing with the Stars' Monique Coleman

Everybody loves a dancing black man. For evidence, see Master P or Jerry Rice or Evander Holyfield...kept on Dancing with the Stars way longer than merited by their dancing. Granted these guys are personable and charming, so they have alot of fans - male and female. Emmitt Smith's success on Dancing with the Stars comes as no surprise. Perhaps the only surprise is that he really can dance.

America's feelings about dancing black women? Certainly more ambiguous. Take for example last week's ouster of Vivica Fox. Sure she sucks - like she has a sucky personality. She's annoying, and her collagen-filled lips could have rescued half the Titanic's passengers. However, she was a better dancer than Willa Ford, who remained, while Vivica got kicked off. This week Monique Coleman put on a show worth of Stacy Keebler comparisons, however, the reaction to her was, well, mild. "You were great." "Fantastic." Meanwhile they blathered on about mediocre Willa Ford's "improvement" ad nauseum. Well dammit, we're chicks, black ones, and we stand behind Monique. We will be her loudest cheerleaders, as she is clearly the best of the female dancers on the show. Sadly, there is not room for two black candidates - the black vote has to go solidly behind one candidate if we are to make it to the finals. Sorry Emmitt, we're repping for the ladies.