THANKSGIVING GRACE: After taking in homeless teenager Michael Oher, the Tuohy family rediscovers the importance of sitting at the table together. Photos courtesy of Alcon Entertainment/Warner Bros.
Part drama, part sports flick, part urban exposé, The Blind Side tells the inspiring true story of NFL star Michael Oher and the white family who transformed his life — and had theirs transformed as a result.
The elevation of Black dysfunction and the invisibility of positive Black images are sending destructive messages about the reality of Black life, both to our young people and to those outside the Black community
Like Kool-Aid and hot combs, Ebony and Jet have been fixtures in African American households for decades. As a little girl I dreamed of my mocha almond skin appearing on the cover of Ebony, and I got my weekly fix of black news from Jet. So this week when I received an email that’s been making its rounds through the black community pleading for people to subscribe to both publications, I was surprised by my own apathy. Are Ebony and Jet still worth saving? To be honest, I traded in Ebony for Essence, and Jet for TheRoot.com a long time ago. So as with all moral conundrums, I took to the Internet to see what the bloggers were saying and found that many people share my guilt-ridden lack of enthusiasm about the possible shuttering of these historic publications.
I once asked my homie, spoken word artist James Washington, how it is that a thugged-out brotha like him gets invited to speak at churches all the time and a (relatively speaking) clean-cut brother, like me, can’t even make it past the front door?
“Simple,” he said. “You don’t know how to speak Christianese.”
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If you’ve seen ads for Clint Eastwood’s latest release, Gran Torino, but haven’t seen the film yet, you’re probably under the same impression that I was under. The previews are misleading. What looks like an intense drama about racial conflict is actually so much more … and so much better. Audiences will not be disappointed.
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