Al Green: Still In Love

I grew up listening to Al Green. All the time, it seemed. On Saturday mornings his soulful love ballads filled our kitchen and living room. I was about ten when I heard him on the radio, his long shrieky, growling voice singing such hits as Still in Love, Love and Happiness, Let's Stay Together and So Tired of Being Alone. Now the R&B legend is pastoring a church in Memphis while still blending his potent mixture of love songs--this time with more spiritual and heavenly messages.

Brian Nichols: America's New Scapegoat

Last Message

You could see it shaping up fast---faster than the reporters could speak. Black man on the loose. Dangerous and armed. Anti-social. We know the routine. When another black man falls, we are all on trial. This is how I felt when I came home last Friday afternoon and saw the folks on CNN and MSNBC alerting the nation about Brian Nichols and his "murderous" transgressions in an Atlanta courthouse. And for the next 26 hours until they apprehended him, I watched in anger, suspicion, empathy, remorse and fear. I listened to several networks cover the "capture" on Saturday as if slave catchers had cornered an escaped slave. One man when interviewed near the apartment complex where Nichols surrendered, said that he wished that he could have gotten his hands on him. Later in the same Fox News news cast, Geraldo Rivera said, "They got the S.O.B." And then there was the woman, Ashleybrian Smith, who supposedly was chosen by Nichols as the angel that would save him from death. Much of the media coverage of Brian Nichol's story deserves scrutiny.

Now, don't get me wrong. What Nichols is alleged to have done is horrific and, when tried and convicted, he deserves a fitting penalty. I can not move my keyboard to say anything different about the tragedy of these murders. The rampant racism, on the other hand, is enough to drive many of us to question the nation where we live. How far have come?

DIARY OF A MAD BLACK WOMAN

I smiled. I laughed. I even shed a tear or two, as did others in the darkened theater. Not since Soul Food (1997) have I seen a movie portray so many dimensions of the African-American community. We can pull family members together. We are God-loving, forgiving, and guided by faith. We fall in love. Many successful blacks have not left the “hood” as is often believed to be the norm. And we can laugh, dance and can cut the fool too. Somehow Hollywood has portrayed us doing the slapstick, “stepping and fetching it” with a sexualized gun-toting, drug-dealing image attitude thing more than some of the more balanced images in Tyler Perry’s Diary of a Mad Black Woman.
The movie does have its cinematic lapses but, all in all, I left the theater feeling like I’d gained something. The plot is simple---black woman wronged by black man who leaves her penniless and broke. Helen McCarter(played by Kimberly Elise) struggles to recover and through her trauma finds refuge in God and family---guided by a Christian motif of faith and forgiveness. In the end, she also finds a new man, a new love. Between the lines of this often comedic plot, Perry paints a picture of a faith-loving family that forgives a man for his transgressions and saves a wayward ex-wife from crack addiction. There's a strong Christian message, despite the satirical reefer smoking Uncle and gun-carrying Madea's(both played by Tyler Perry) hilarious lines. It is Madea and the mother, played by Cicely Tyson, who carry the movie's redeeming messages. Madea warns her lawyer nephew not to turn his back on his crack addict ex-wife. It is the mother, however, who provides one of the movie's most memorable moments when she admonishes her wounded daughter on how to forgive. First you have to forgive that man for him, she tells her, and then you have to forgive him for yourself. If you don’t learn to forgive, the people who hurt you will always have power over you.
What many whites may not understand is how an entire pop culture has formed around Tyler Perry’s Madera character, fueled by black market videotapes that sell like hotcakes in black communities. At family gatherings someone will pull out a copy of "Madea's Class Reunion", "I Can Do Bad All By Myself” or "Meet the Browns" and the laughter begins. That’s how Tyler Perry became known to most in the black community. Now it is time for the community to pay respect to his talents in the most honorable way. Don’t buy anymore black market tapes. Buy a movie ticket to see Diary of a Mad Black Woman.
The lesson: black folks are drawn to the screen by multidimensional roles in the same way that white moviegoer flock to theaters. It shouldn’t take the 22.7 million dollars that Tyler Perry’s movie grossed in its first weekend to understand this.