thevisibilityproject-blog

[thevisibilityproject-blog]

BRAIN DUMP: Mindfield.

So I logged off Facebook, right. 

Cause it was just one shit news story after another. 

By shit news story I mean Black person and/or TransPoC attacked, assaulted, or killed; another day, another Sikh or Brown person attacked for being mistaken for Muslim or...just cause hate; the federal government has made locs a legal means of openly discriminating against Black women; you know...basically just every part of my identity under attack. So I'm like..."Cool. You got tonight. I'm good." {hits logout button}

I turn on my latest #SelfCare binge: True Blood. I never used to watch TV and definitely not films until I discovered it's a really great self-care option for me. Disconnecting from one thing and connecting with another. IDK whatever.

Uhm True Blood has some real problematic foolishness weaved throughout so I'm half paying attention and half skipping around to avoid triggering shit.

I hit my inbox. Unfortunately it's not as dry as usual; I'm conversing with 1 domestic Black, 1 international Black, and 1 NBPoC. 

+ The domestic Black + I discuss "calling in Black." The mutual understanding with so few words is great, yet I don't really need to vent anymore right now. + The int'l Black is up past his bedtime. + And the NBPoC is doing their very best to be supportive, a dope friend, and a bomb ally and yet! in this moment...it's not enough. and it can't be. and that's not their fault.

So I start scrolling through other platforms. 

First stop: Instagram. First post: something about the most recent Black folks to become hashtags.

Fuck it. Leave the house for a quick #selfcare activity. I need air.

I get back + eventually open SnapChat. Start going through folks' stories only to run across more posts about the same stuff I'm trying to disconnect from for the night. Of course. They're grieving too.

Well, except my non-Black 'friends' on SM. IDK how they feel--their posts are so....carefree... and filled with glee. {insert my face here} The envy is real.

Now I tell myself that just means I need to be off SM for the night. Fine. True Blood now has my full attention. 

I'm on the season 2 finale. Not 4 minutes after I devote my full attention to True Blood does Tara's BF, Eggs--a Black man, get shot in the head by a white dude who feared for his life/the life of the officer Eggs was thought to be attacking.

“A R E Y O U F U C K I N G K I D D I N G M E R I G H T N O W !“ I say, out loud, to the universe.

But wait! Therrrrre's more.

Mind you, Eggs is under the spell of some magical white lady (it's a vampire show-{rolls eyes}-stay with me) so he's not in his right mind. The kind, benevolent police officer that Eggs is "attacking" while pleading for help from (he's filled with guilt for the horrible violence the lady made him commit against others while under her influence), the sheriff who's been terrorizing the city since the show started is suddenly on the ground below a gargantuan Eggs, shaking, and trembling. {iNTERESTING FUCKING CAMERA ANGLE, BRO!!} {insert my face here}

Still more, son.

Eggs has been this magic yt lady's...lacky the whole time basically and she used him as her "hitman," not only against his will but without his knowledge {i totally didn't have any flashes about The Tuskegee Experiments or Black + Latinx women being sterilized unknowingly. Didn't happen at all guise *shakes head fervently*}. Once he realizes it, he can't deal with the pain and guilt and asks the officer to lock him up for the protection of others and cause he deserves it. {insert my face here}

A few episodes prior to Eggs getting shot in the fucking face, this same lady uses her powers to force him + Tara to beat the shit out of each other, beg for it, and enjoy it. Like... WTF. I don't understand the inclusion of this scene. Not one bit. So...the only Black couple on the show is also the only one engaging in domestic...violence...? (Tara’s moms is/was also a drunk, who we see beating her.) Why, Sway? {insert my face here}

W H A T I S H A P P E N I N G ?

Here's something folks don't realize about all that's happening right now and the current state of affairs for Black people in america -- this shit can be isolating AF. It’s one thing to know about it and even be intimately familiar with the bullshit. It’s another entirely to be inundated with it every single day. And it’s lowkey scary when you feel like you cannot get away from it unless you disconnect completely.

I remember when Kamz' (HS BFF) grandmother passed. I didn't know WTF to do. Shit, I was sad, too. So I went to Kamz house, which was basically my actual house at this point (LOL) and sat there as long as I could and just distracted her and made her laugh. Many of us have similar stories of connecting with each other as a way to disconnect from the constant oppression that is our reality. 

What happens when the only path to your folks' is littered with landmines?

We’re not even going to discuss how this looks if you have anxiety, depression, bi-polar disorder, or shit...any mental health issue. My God.

I feel like I’m standing in the middle of a minefield;  I’m looking at my friends standing in the middle of theirs.

[thevisibilityproject-blog]

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what do you mean finn doesn’t hear this song whenever he sees poe

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Boop! There it is.

Call ‘em ALL out

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Slayrena indeed!

Serena Williams’ interview for the job of Wimbledon Champion [x]

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Exclusive: Marvel’s New Iron Man Is a Black Woman

(source)

Marvel writer Brian Michael Bendis talks the creation of Riri Williams, who will take over for Tony Stark

There’s a new Iron Man. Well, Iron Man for now. She’s still working on the name. The events at the end of the comic book event series Civil War II will result in Tony Stark stepping out of the Iron Man suit and a new character, Riri Williams, taking over, Marvel tells TIME. (Note: Tony’s departure doesn’t mean you know the end to Civil War II yet.)

Riri is a science genius who enrolls in MIT at the age of 15. She comes to the attention of Tony when she builds her own Iron Man suit in her dorm. Creator and Iron Man writer Brian Michael Bendis spoke exclusively to TIME about the creation of Riri Williams with book artist Stefano Caselli and Marvel’s increasingly diverse cast of characters.

TIME: How did you come up with the character of Riri Williams?

Bendis: One of the things that stuck with me when I was working in Chicago a couple of years ago on a TV show that didn’t end up airing was the amount of chaos and violence. And this story of this brilliant, young woman whose life was marred by tragedy that could have easily ended her life—just random street violence—and went off to college was very inspiring to me. I thought that was the most modern version of a superhero or superheroine story I had ever heard. And I sat with it for awhile until I had the right character and the right place.

As we’ve been slowly and hopefully very organically adding all these new characters to the Marvel Universe, it just seemed that sort of violence inspiring a young hero to rise up and act, and using her science acumen, her natural born abilities that are still raw but so ahead of where even Tony Stark was at that age, was very exciting to me.

What have we seen of her so far in the Iron Man comics?

In the latest issue of Iron Man, Tony is in a lab talking to himself, and he’s already aware that there’s some student at M.I.T. that’s reverse-engineered one of his old armors all by herself in her dorm room. He’s aware of her immediately.

What’s been the reception of the character so far (before this announcement)?

Thankfully because of my involvement in the creation of Miles Morales and Jessica Jones and some other characters, it’s getting the benefit of the doubt from even the most surly fans. There are fans who say, “Show us the new stuff,” and then there are fans who say, “Don’t do anything different from when I was a kid.” So when you’re introducing new characters, you’re always going to have people getting paranoid about us ruining their childhood.

I’ve been down this road with Miles Morales, Jessica Jones, Maria Hill. I knew I was in good hands with Mike Deodato and other artists who are helping visualize Riri.

Marvel Comics’ diverse new cast has stirred some controversy among a subset of fans.

Some of the comments online, I don’t think people even realize how racist they sound. I’m not saying if you criticize you’re a racist, but if someone writes, “Why do we need Riri Williams we already have Miles?” that’s a weird thing to say. They’re individuals just like Captain America and Cyclops are individuals. All I can do is state my case for the character, and maybe they’ll realize over time that that’s not the most progressive thinking.

But increasingly we see less and less of that. Once Miles hit, and Kamala Khan hit and female Thor hit—there was a part of an audience crawling through the desert looking for an oasis when it came to representation, and now that it’s here, you’ll go online and be greeted with this wave of love.

I think what’s most important is that the character is created in an organic setting. We never had a meeting saying, “we need to create this character.” It’s inspired by the world around me and not seeing that represented enough in popular culture.

Why did it take so long to turn the Avengers from a team of mostly white dudes into a more diverse array of characters?

Talking to any of the older creators, it’s the thing they said they wish they’d done more of—reflecting the world around them. It just wasn’t where the world was at at that time. Now, when you have a young woman come up to you at a signing and say how happy she is to be represented in his universe, you know you’re moving in the right direction.

I don’t want to spoil anything for fans—

More people are going to be upset that they think they know the ending to Civil War II now than anything we just talked about. But I can tell you just because we’re hearing what we’re saying doesn’t know you mean how Civil War II ends. We’re not telling you the end, at all.

What led Tony Stark to a place where he’s stepping out of the suit?

We’re in the middle of a very big Tony Stark storyline—actually three storylines converging. His best friend died, his company is collapsing and he’s finding out who his biological parents were all at the same time. That’s stressful for a character who is wired the way Tony is wired and has dependency issues the way Tony does.

Tony is also a master at not paying attention to the thing that’s most important and distracting himself with Avengers stuff. How that all shakes out such that Tony is no longer in the armor? You’ll have to wait to find out for the end of Civil War II. But it does create a path or Riri Williams, who Tony will know and will be interacting with very shortly in the comics.

How do they meet?

One of the things Tony does to distract himself from all the things going on in his life is he goes to find this young woman who is flying around the middle of America in an armor that’s not completely made to try to find out what her deal is.

It’s hard to subtly fly around in Iron Man armor.

You imagine that Tony has Iron Man armor on his Google Alerts.

He’s also aware that this young woman is flying by him in terms of how quickly she’s doing it. Her brain is maybe a little better than his. She looks at things from a different perspective that makes the armor unique. He can’t help but go maybe I should buy her out.

(source)

[thevisibilityproject-blog]

@buzzfeedvideo needs to answer for this. we wouldn’t accept it from any other media company.  SIGN THE PETITION TO STOP FUNDING TO STOLEN BUZZFEED VIDEOS

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Black excellence.

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Lisa, Twenty two, Australia. Lifelightandlisa.com

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SHE DID THAT!!

Celisse Henderson - Crazy (2016)

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Great advice, también. You can find nearly all the answers on the internet.

@jessehimself is not here for your hotep shit

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when all your ships are rare pair ships because fandom hates black people

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Representation matters!

This 7-year-old wrote a book to prove black girls can be princesses, too

Todd Taylor’s nickname for his 7-year-old daughter Morgan was “Princess,” but one day she told him he couldn’t call her that anymore.

Morgan told Today that she explained to her father, “I love it when you call me a princess but I know I am not really a real one … Real princesses were vanilla and I can’t really be a princess.”

Almost all of the princesses in movies and books Morgan had seen were white. “I received the biggest wake-up call,” Taylor told Today.

So he and his daughter researched women leaders of color — and found that, actually, there are a lot of stories of black and brown princesses.

Morgan and her dad decided to write a book together, so other kids could learn about inspirational princesses of color.

Their book, Daddy’s Little Princess, is out now, and Morgan and her dad say the response has been overwhelmingly positive.

“Every little girl should believe she’s a princess,” the now 7-year-old said — and now they have a number of real historical examples.

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“The “x” makes Latino, a masculine identifier, gender-neutral. It also moves beyond Latin@ – which has been used in the past to include both masculine and feminine identities – to encompass genders outside of that limiting man-woman binary.

Latinx, pronounced “La-teen-ex,” includes the numerous people of Latin American descent whose gender identities fluctuate along different points of the spectrum, from agender or nonbinary to gender non-conforming, genderqueer and genderfluid.

But don’t take our word for it. Here’s why people who identify as Latinx resonate with the term.”

See the slideshow here

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Samira Wiley and Solange Knowles attend the Milly during Spring 2016 New York Fashion Week at ArtBeam on September 15, 2015 in New York City.

[thevisibilityproject-blog]

“Courtesy of The Hollywood Reporter, here’s one part of its annual Emmy season roundtable chats that we all love so much, released leading up to the September Primetime Emmys this fall.

“Today’s hour-long conversation features the dramatic actresses, including Regina King (’American Crime,��� ‘The Leftovers’), Kerry Washington (’Scandal,’ ‘Confirmation’), Jennifer Lopez (’Shades of Blue’), Kirsten Dunst (’Fargo’), Julianna Margulies (’The Good Wife’),  Sarah Paulson (’American Crime Story: The People v. O.J. Simpson,’ ‘American Horror Story: Hotel’), and Constance Zimmer (’UnREAL’).

“In the ‘raw, uncensored’ conversation, the actresses speak candidly about everything from sexism, nudity, working with directors, acting for film versus TV, aging in Hollywood, the rapidly changing TV landscape and more.”

- Shadow and Act