blackˈmanˌkīnd |Photography & Art Paintings Exhibit August 5th-23rd, 2009London, England (UK)

Photography by Rasconrad

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View Rasconrad's Album

Hey Bruthaz,

OH DAYUM! DAYUM!! DAYUM!!! I wish I could be out there in London for this exhibit! Anyway, just passing it on to my bloke bruthaz out there!!! LOL! LOL!

ROD (aka BIG ROD)

Four very independent artists in one very
independent space.

Artist Charlie Pi returns to the Crypt at St Pancras Church with twenty five new and intriguing portrayals of the black male.

Based in part on traditional stereotypes of the black male such as : the athlete, the shaman, the exotic and the mystery, these paintings shift and twist the stereotypes to create thought-provoking images around the broader areas of : physicality, spirituality and creativity. Titles such as , ‘Rasta and the Bathroom Elk’, ‘Drop the Pineapple’, ‘The higher he climb’, and ‘Olympic Pluckers’, give some idea of Charlie’s creativity and sense of humour.

After the success of last year’s show Charlie Pi has invited three other fiercely independent artists to join him this August. These artists are not ‘fresh from College’ and like Charlie himself produce their art in and for the real world outside of the gallery system, which makes for an immediate and palpable difference in both approach and product.

Beautiful photographs by Trinidadian Performance Poet, RasConrad, ‘I love photographing aspiring black men. There is a power that exudes from them between the ages of 16-35 that I think is unparalleled. Whether it’s his raw anger, deep frustration, hard musculature or innate beauty, the black man is amazing to capture on film at that age.’

Intricate and obsessive painted construct by Bajan Michael Connell. A builder by day Michael uses all the detritus of his job. From shards of mirror to pipe insulation to create semi-abstract wall constructs where every leaf is cut from wood and painted to create magical illusion. ‘I want to bring colour to the streets of London.’

Terence McDonald Humphrey (Montserrat Man)

Founder of 'Trunkstore' a developing independent arts outpost who's ongoing collaborative work includes the ‘No Go Zones Audio Radio Project’ and the emerging ‘Aquarium Project’ will produce a soundscape for the show.

Oh and just a reminder on the exhibition blackˈmanˌkīnd.
Opening Night is Wed 5th Aug, 2009 at the St. Pancras Church Crypt 6:30pm - 8:30pm

FREE ENTRY FREE ENTRY FREE ENTRY FREE ENTRY FREE ENTRY
Exhibition runs 5th -23rd August 2009 Tues – Sun 12.00 - 18.00

Crypt of St .Pancras Church
Euston Road, London, NW1 2BA
020 7388 1461
Nearest Tube: Euston Station

All artists are available for interview.

For more information go to: preview exhibition

Or call : 0208 691 5592 mobile: 44 7940 259 948

Comprehensive Health Insurance

The White House
Washington

Dear Friend,

As you read this, we are closer than ever to passing comprehensive health insurance reform that benefits American families and small businesses. Despite all the back and forth in the news right now, it is important to understand just how far we've come in this challenging process. That's why I'm holding a press conference tonight (Wednesday, July 22nd, 2009) at 8pm ET, and writing to let everyone know where we are, what's ahead, and why health insurance reform is so important.

Let me be clear: although Congress is still debating parts of the legislation we have achieved critical consensus on several key areas:

If you already have health insurance: reform will provide you with more security and stability. It will limit your own out of pocket costs and prevent your insurance company from dropping your coverage if you get too sick. You'll also have affordable insurance options if you lose or change your job. And it will cover preventive care like check-ups and mammograms that save lives and money.

If you don't have health insurance: you will finally have guaranteed access to quality, affordable health care, and you can choose the plan that best suits your family's needs. And no insurance company will be allowed to deny you coverage because of a pre-existing medical condition.

Now, I realize that the last few miles of any race are the hardest to run, but we can't stop now. There's no dispute about it: we cannot control our long-term fiscal health as a nation without health insurance reform. American families and small businesses understand that the health insurance status quo is taking away those things that they value most about health care. The stability and security that comes with knowing that you can get the treatment you need, when you need it. Without reform, we are consigning our children to a future of skyrocketing premiums and crushing deficits.

We have to seize this opportunity and pass health insurance reform this year. You can help by forwarding this email to your family and friends and letting them know what's at stake in this debate.

Thank you,
Barack Obama

P.S. Tune in to tonight's press conference on health insurance reform at 8pm ET on WhiteHouse.gov. (Wednesday, July 22nd, 2009)

Visit
WhiteHouse.gov

19th Annual SGL Dominican Latino Health Fair Picnic 2009

Bob Law's Seafood Cafe Needs Your Help(BLACK OWNED BUSINESS)

As you know gentrification is sweeping through Black communities rapidly displacing Black cultural traditions, businesses, and institutions. The Wall Street Journal reports that as whites move back into the city "Beloved institutions in traditionally Black communities are losing customers who supported them for decades" The Prospect Heights section of Brooklyn is going through the same process, while long time residents and business owners watch what back in 2004 New York magazine called the Manhattanization of Brooklyn.

In Prospect Heights Bob Law stepped up to make sure that long time residents, most of whom are Black, are organized and included in the decision making that is changing the nature and character of their community.

This effort has angered new residents who felt they had a free hand to do as they please, assuming that whatever they did was in the best interest of all To retaliate against Bob, a whisper campaign has begun to charge Bob with being too Black, and to discourage people from eating at Bob's Seafood Cafe on Vanderbilt Avenue.


To offset this anti-Bob law campaign were asking friends and supporters to make a point to eat at Bob Law's Seafood Cafe. In this political climate your support is of great value, Hope to see you at the Cafe. The National Leadership Alliance and Friends Of Bob Law

P.S. > The address is 637 Vanderbilt Avenue (between Prospect Place and St. Marks Avenue) in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn. Major trains stop in the area.

The Invisibility of The Black Atheist, BUT What About The Black SGL Collective???

The Invisibility of The Black Atheist
http://wordsofwrath.blogspot.com/2008/05/invisibility-of-black-atheist.html

EXCERPT:
It can be argued that in most African American communities it is more acceptable to be a criminal who believes in God and goes to church on Sunday while selling drugs to kids all week than to be an atheist who has a good job, a good education, who contributes to society and supports his family. In these communities you find more tolerance towards gangbangers, drug addicts, and prostitutes, who pray to God for forgiveness than for honest productive citizens who deny the existence of God. This, for me, is one of the most embarrassing elements of Black culture, our zealous embracement of the God of our kidnappers, murderers, slavemasters and oppressors...


Hey Black Family,

Click the link above to continue reading the blog posting, but the first paragraph above is as much context as I wanted to show you in reference to my argument below. Read on...

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Wil,

Thanks for posting the original blog posting my man!

This posting caught my interest because I am a Black male who is an atheist. And this also caught my attention because the original blogger posted it on my birthday last year, which is May 28th, so I had to respond to this. LOL!

But more importantly, what resonated the most with me was the entire first paragraph of his post (above) regarding the Black community's intolerance toward certain things, ideas, actions or particular people in the African Diaspora.

And I wanted to add that a large part of the "African-American community's" (James White's quote) INTOLERANCE is with Black "same gender loving" people ("SGL" for short, and SGL folks are aka Gatekeepers). I've had this conversation with other SGL bruthaz and it's quite frankly a F**KING JOKE how some of us (SGL folk) can be model citizens to our community (but not limited to having a) "good job, a good education, who contributes to society (church is a major area) and supports his family" (for example), but yet all of that good stuff is nullified if certain people within the community are aware that you're same gender loving (homosexual, bisexual & transgendered). Who I'm attracted to, or even sleep with has no bearing outside the boundaries of my personal space and who I interact with; and it doesn't hurt anyone within the sphere of the African Diaspora. So why are some Black folks trippin' over this besides what?... the bible bearing bombardment or their personal insecurities??? I just think some of our priorities are really screwed up and we're not being inclusive of each other which keeps us apart and compartmentalized in many ways.

Historical Case in Point 1: We can go all the way back to the civil rights era of the 60s where Bayard Rustin, arguably the architect of the March on Washington was asked to manifest a strategic plan of prowless, yet he was shut down and given a back seat AFTER the implementation of his ideas because the Black community didn't want to deal with his "homosexuality" getting in the way of the so-called greater good of the civil rights bullet point agenda items.

Historical Case in Point 2: We can go even further back to the Harlem Renaissance era of the 1930s or so, where same gender loving literary artists' Langston Hughes, Wallace Thurman, Zora Neal Hurston and Richard Bruce Nugent (to name a few) caught massive political hell (as well as the blocking of their distribution) for publishing their infused SGL perspectives and ideologies in their Black magazine periodical called FIRE (I have a reprint of one of the original issues and you can obtain one as well at the following link ---> http://firepress.com/fire/fire.html

So, although there's never going to be a general consensus and agreement upon everything the Black community does, this backlash of the same gender loving collective is unwarranted especially since we can be forgiving people for a number of things. I work in and serve the community, and I do so with respect, not to be marginalized with someone else's tolerance or intolerance.

Craigslist Comments: "Wiggers and Niggers" Thread(Hmmm... So Much For a "Post-Racial" America In The Obama Era)

Hey Black Family,

I just got this post from my cousin this evening which was originally posted on Craigslist:

Re: Wiggers and Niggers

I have to agree with you. I never use to have ill feelings for black people but I can't stand them anymore. They think we all owe them something and their rudeness and laziness is appalling. I am so sick and tired of hearing how we need to support their sorry asses. They literally walk into you in a store if YOU do not get out of their way. FUCK that shit anymore !! I stand my ground and knock their fuckn asses over. And then try working with the few of them that do have jobs. They are just plain nasty. They seem to be getting worse and worse everyday. There is no end in sight. We are doomed.


( Sigh ) It's true since Obama won the election, I've noticed the arrogance, and out right rudeness of blacks,even worst then before

Peace, Love and Music.




ROD's Comments:

So... here we go again... First, to say one never had ill feelings toward "Black people" and then say "I can't stand "them" anymore doesn't add up for me. Sounds to me like the feelings were always there and this social episode was just an excuse to overtly come out and say how one really felt all along. And this person's stereotypical bias "the few (Black people) that have jobs" just concretely demonstrates the ignorance going on.

I don't wanna waste time trying to deconstruct some asshole's (yeah, I know, not nice of me) views of Black people, but what I will say is that America continues to gloss over the issue of race and we haven't had a really REAL dialog on the matter. What needs to happen is that all television programming and all television/cable channels all need to be pre-empted for an entire week (yes, a whole week) and during that week a national town hall meeting talking about race and the woundedness (Black and white people and other people beyond) in this country. And I would have Dr. Joy DeGruy as one of the people to head up this national town hall meeting; because trust me, she would really ask questions or propose statements to really get at the heart of the matter for America to heal and grow beyond our current state.

The poster doesn't understand or doesn't want to understand that (new) America was built on violence and racism perpetrated by their people (the genocide of Native Americans massacred in this country is on public record); that that violence and racism is governed by white supremacy and white (male) privilege; the (white) poster doesn't have to worry about getting his or her head beat in or shot to death execution style (Oscar Grant and Gus Rugley and many more lack males) by police officers sworn to protect and serve (if anything to protect and serve white interests as a majority dominance and their property);

Gus Rugley, A Black Male Shot and Executed
by the San Francisco Police on November 9th, 2005

that this country, as diverse as it supposedly is, has not one paper currency or coin with the faces of a Black, Asian/Pacific Islander, Latina/o, Native American, or east Indian person on it; that Black people and white people have fundamental differences in certain approaches or philosophies of values (that clash); by that I mean axiology (I learned that from Dr. DeGruy); that Black people's reactions to things (that the poster may be referring to) are from a woundedness caused by the middle passage to the new world and of slavery from 400+ years ago (post-traumatic slave syndrome). All these things and more contribute to the bullshit we don't wanna talk about and how we react or don't react to one another now in 2009 and beyond! So this is why we continue to walk around in these United States of America separated, smiling (or not smiling) in each other faces, and then folks going online and anonymously spewing and venting all this bullshit instead of having a real conversation about things.

The original poster of the wiggers and niggers thread on Craigslist who said "since Obama won the election, I've noticed the arrogance, and out right rudeness of blacks,even worst then before" might be confusing arrogance with self-esteem or self-worth, or dare I say PRIVILEGE in a country that does its BEST to invalidate the experiences of African people every single day.

And finally, what rational and humane person would say these horrible things about Black people and then end their post with a signature of "Peace, Love and Music."??? I mean, if you're all about peace and love then a more constructive posting without the rhyming words "wiggers and niggers" in the title thread would be in order.

My posting here may not be the most objective, but as an African-American male born and raised in America (New York City), I think I and others Black folks have a right to be angry about a great many things. Not to dismiss some Black folks re-actions, but how in the world could Black people in America not act out in the face of the total disrespect for Black lives on a daily basis??? I mean, what the f**k???

ROD (aka BIG ROD)

The T.O. Show

Terrell Owens' personality has a lot to be desired and not someone I'd ever date, but YO... brutha got BODY! BIG TIME! And dark choco-latte skin to match!

Yo.. I'm just sayin'! LOL!