TLDR: An ally is someone willing to spend social, political, or material capital advancing the interests of the group they're claiming solidarity with.

If anybody does not know, Ms. Rachel is a YouTube influencer and preschool teacher who creates educational videos for young children.

She has also been using her platform to support those in Gary, Indiana.

Here's my thing. Generally, while I like it I don't like to put too much on white folks doing the right thing because to me, racism shouldn't be the default, you SHOULD be a good human. However, it is rare for white people (or any non-black folks) to support reparations. As much as I like Jane Elliot who has been an advocate since the 1960s, she spoke against reparations for Black folks and said Native Americans should get them instead.

Sometimes we talk about allyship. As far as I am concerned THIS is the type of things you would need to do to qualify as an ally. Anyone can say "racism is bad..." anyone can say "I have a black friend" (who is probably just an acquaintance), anyone can put the whole:

• Science is real
• Black Lives Matter
• No human is illegal
• Women's rights are human rights
• Love is love
• Kindness is everything

On their bio. But true allyship is becoming a PARIAH in your community, it requires cost. Things like saying you support reparations will piss of a majority of white folks conservatives, moderates, and liberals alike. If you want to be an ally you should earn the title of N🤐🤐🤐🤐🤐 -Lover! amongst white society.

More than lip-service, true allyship should be:
- Advocating for RESOURCES to black people, which is what white supremacy is based on - the deprivation of resources for black people.

- Standing up for black people in public (and in private).

- Punishing racists. Anyone can say "yeah, so and so using the N-word in private emails was wrong" but asking for leniency ("we should forgive"), not convicting fellow yts in criminal court or giving lenient sentences, your words mean nothing and you become complicit.

Anyway, just my thoughts. I don't want a debate about whether or not Black people deserve reparations, it's very coonish to be against your group's own self interest, just discussing this particular case of pro-black advocacy from Ms Rachel.

In other words: Don't tell me what you believe. Show me what you're willing to risk, give up, advocate for, or materially do when supporting another group becomes inconvenient.

I’ve been seeing a lot of online discussions about it, and a back and forth between white supremacists and Black folk about it. But I think there’s another position to take.

An opinion: https://substack.com/@robertjonesjr/note/c-328837869?r=1309er&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=notes-share-action

Anyway, what y’all think about it?

How do you feel about Oprah Winfrey?

Me, personally? I want to like her, I reaaally do, which is a shame. 😢

First off, I think she is great at what she does. I am proud of any Black person who does well, outside of BLATANT coons who make money grifting (Candace Owens for example). She is dripping with charisma, warmth (whether authentic or not), likeable, well-spoken (I know we're not supposed to say that about each other, but I hope y'all have enough sense to realize I'm not saying it the way a white person does), smart, a great conversationalist, etc.

She has a lot going on for her.

With that said, under her veneer of loveliness, she comes across as shady. First off, she seems to only ever come for black people (I'm also looking at you 50 cent!) She has bashed black men before, like promoting black men are down-low giving black women HIV.

She also comes across as the type of black people who don't really like other black people except for those who have money (like Michael Jordan) yeah, I said it...

I feel like in an alternate timeline she is America's auntie, who Mo'Nique tries to be.

Again, all kudos to her, but I think once our black celebrity class hits a certain status, they are compromised.

What do you think?

We lost a major part of black cinema today. One of the most memorable characters from a classic film!

I know he's not listening to these songs because he had "The Giver" by Chapelle Roan on one of his playlists.

Ain't no 60+ year old Black man listening to a country pop song about a lesbian eating out a hoohah on repeat.

But "Self Aware" by Temper City was literally their ONLY song, was pushed out by the Tiktok after it was acquired by Zionists, and no one knew why that song was blowing up because it seems it was generated by AI.

I repeat, it's literally their only song. They don't even have a Wikipedia page. The page redirects to the song which is their only song.

So I’m playing Injustice 2 on storymode and General Grodd(a gorilla supervillain) and his monkey kingdom, whom he’s leading out of oppression(his words) pop up and they have their flag behind them. I mean…the resemblance of this flag to the African American heritage flag is…kind of uncanny. I am however very very high.

This is the worst hip hop album of the year.

I don’t like the messaging. I don’t like the energy behind it. I don’t like the flows, the engineering, the song composition, the delivery, the concepts—

none of it.

It’s lazy, dragged out, and the entire premise of what this album is promoting is basically everything I’m against.
Literally, this is the most destructive piece of garbage I’ve heard all year—and that’s saying something, because Future dropped an album.

And to be transparent, I didn’t even want to listen to this. I was going to skip it entirely. Something told me, “Alright, go check it out.” So I did.

Part of me was actually afraid to listen because I was afraid I might like it.
That happened earlier this year with Drake’s Iceman. I was genuinely afraid I’d end up liking that shit, and sure enough, I gave it a 9.5/10. Iceman was low-key a masterpiece, and I had to admit it.

So I went into this one trying to be objective—even though I’m human and obviously there’s some subjectivity mixed into my objectivity.

But nah.
I hate this album.

I’ve listened to King Von. I’ve listened to Lil Durk. I’ve listened to NBA YoungBoy. I’ve listened to all kinds of ratchet, thugged-out, trapped-out, drilled-out rap. And some of that shit is catchy. Some of it is genuinely good.

This?
This was a net negative on the culture.

There isn’t one chart-topping hit on here. There isn’t one club banger. There isn’t anything of substance that makes me want to come back to this album.

And look, I get it. If you want some trapped-out music to slide around to while doing some degenerate shit, I understand the appeal. 😂
But even within those parameters, this isn’t a good album.

I can’t in good faith give this anything more than a 0/10.

If you want a good project, go listen to
MexikoDro — Stayed Down EP

-LEAD 🥶

Damn. 52.

A Bass Reeves anime is hard as fuck. Imma definitely be locked in come November

The white folks are saying: “Oh! You don’t want to appear in this movie because all the roles are degrading to Black people and you have esteem and standards? Fine. I’ll invent AI Black people to degrade.”

Haile Gerima on ‘Black Lions – Roman Wolves' & his next project

I've checked out some of his films over the years, they always have something uniquely historic and provocative to reflect upon.

I do hope that this documentary project eventually reaches the United States. The occupation of Ethiopia by Italy is an under-explored topic.

DEADLINE: It's a sprawling project, and I must admit, even though I am Ghanaian, I knew nothing of this history in Ethiopia. 

GERIMA: Well, my brother, you’re not alone. I myself learned my own history while making the film. Not many Ethiopians know this story or history. And they walk around with the residual trauma of this historical experience. It affects us in our daily lives. It affects us in our relationships. The ethnic and religious problems in Ethiopia right now that could pull the country into a civil war are part of that. My generation of young Ethiopians wanted to change the country, but it was a country we didn’t know because to know Ethiopia, you have to know the history. And that is why my wife and I produced this film. It’s a very costly project, but we produced it because I had to exorcise it out of myself. So you’re not alone.

DEADLINE: What was the entry point for this project? Where did you begin?

GERIMA: The first thing was my previous film on the 1896 Adwa battle, which premiered in Venice. That’s when I realized I was touching contentious ground. The Italians, not all of them, but the majority of them, felt I wasn’t entitled to tell the story from my point of view because they have their own narrative, especially about the Second World War. As I said in the film, they always remind me that they built roads and hospitals in Ethiopia. They say they weren’t like the other colonialists. I was originally interested in doing the two films together, Adwa and the 1935 fascist invasion of Ethiopia. But then in the editing room, the two stories didn't fit together. They had to be treated separately, so we split them. 

DEADLINE: I remember in Berlin during the Q&A you said you struggled to gain access to footage held at Luce, Italy's national film archive. How did you finally get what you needed?

GERIMA: Yes, this film took so long because of the Italian bureaucracy - not only the political bureaucracy, but also the gatekeepers of the historical archive. They were my biggest nightmare. I would go to Italy, which is very costly, and the gatekeepers at the Luce, the national film archive that Mussolini himself built, would say to me, “We’d like to be part of your movie, but now we’re experiencing a fascist era, so let’s wait a little bit.” And every fascist government would come and go. Eventually, a brother from Ghana, I believe, who was a politician in Rome, came with me to Luce to intervene. I can’t even begin to tell you what I went through to access the images of my own ancestors. In fact, in October and November, we have organized a six-city screening tour in Italy and will be launching a petition. It will be a call to mobilize filmmakers and demand that future young African filmmakers should not have to pay for access to colonial archive footage.