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    Hoyo AfrikaAngela Helm
    7/22/17 10:57am

    bell hooks, in a series of videos for the Media Education Foundation, talked about being asked about the OJ trial and whether she, like many at the time, felt that because of his blackness, he was a target (and the implication being that she ought to support him due to sharing “racial traits”). She declined to answer (since people weren’t interested in the nuances at work and that OJ was known for beating his female partners) but said that what is getting lost in the whole matter is that violence against women is a serious and persistent issue that the American legal system refuses to address.

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      MonteRioHoyo Afrika
      7/22/17 11:18am

      It’s amazing how many different societal issues are involved in this one case.

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      Hoyo AfrikaMonteRio
      7/22/17 11:29am

      America, and its issues, are a complex mess. She, bell hooks, does a great job of highlighting these issues. She writes in BLACK LOOKS: race and representation,

      Without implying that black women and men lived in gender utopia, I am suggesting that black sex roles, and particularly the role of men, have been more complex and problematized in black life than is believed. This was especially the case when all black people lived in segregated neighborhoods. Racial integration has had a profound impact on black gender roles. It has helped to promote a climate wherein most black women and men accept sexist notions of gender roles. Unfortunately, many changes have occurred in the way black people think about gender, yet the shift from one standpoint to another has not been fully documented. For example: To what extent did the civil rights movement, with its definition of freedom as having equal opportunity with whites, sanction looking at white gender roles as a norm black people should imitate? Why has there been so little positive interest shown in the alternative lifestyles of black men? In every segregated black community in the United States there are adult black men married, unmarried, gay, straight, living in households where they do not assert patriarchal domination and yet live fulfilled lives, where they are not sitting around worried about castration. Again it must be emphasized that the black men who are most worried about castration and emasculation are those who have completely absorbed white supremacist patriarchal definitions of masculinity.

      bell hooks, BLACK LOOKS: race and representation, pp. 93

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    IniquityDenMotherAngela Helm
    7/22/17 10:29am

    Angela - I don’t know if this is something The Root would cover (Vance is primarily known in DC), but this is so sad. The news broadcasts at NBC-Washington will be so much the lesser for Jim Vance’s passing.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/jim-vance-washingtons-longest-serving-local-news-anchor-is-dead-at-75/2017/07/22/7869297c-6ee4-11e7-b9e2-2056e768a7e5_story.html

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      hocuspocusoctopusIniquityDenMother
      7/22/17 10:46am

      WHAT?!

      NO!

      Nonononono!!!

      Shit!

      I loved guy so much. He was my favorite part of news.

      Okay... I need to go sulk.

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      JustPassingThroughIniquityDenMother
      7/22/17 11:00am

      OMG!!! He just announced he had cancer a few weeks ago!

      OMG! I’ve been watching him on television since I was born, basically. Jim Vance is an institution.

      I can’t believe it. I just can’t.

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