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Three Infuriating Aspects of Piers Morgans’ Second Interview with Robert Zimmerman, Jr.

May 11th, 2013 by eglover →

1. Robert completely disregards the evidence proving that Zimmerman was not the one crying for help.

Piers Morgan aptly broached the subject of two audio experts tapped by The Orlando Sentinel who determined that George Zimmerman was not the person crying for help on the 911 recordings chronicling Trayvon Martin’s final moments. Robert said that because the audio analyses were done outside the justice system, they would not be admitted in court. Robert also said he remains convinced that the voice on the recordings is absolutely his brother. Of course, if the audio analyses had come to a different result, it’s hard to believe that Robert would so easily dismiss their credibility.

2. Robert argues that his brother didn’t call 911 to report a black male; he called 911 saying that there had been break-ins.

During the interview, Robert specified that George hadn’t led his 911 call by describing a black man; George had only identified Trayvon as being black after he was asked by dispatch to describe Trayvon. Robert seemed to think that George’s lack of specificity at the outset of the call exonerates, or should help exonerate, his brother from accusations of racial profiling. The thing is, George was extremely familiar with 911 dispatch protocol; he knew that he would be asked to describe the skin color of the male each and every time he gave the police a ring, and this time was no different. Further, describing Trayvon’s race up front isn’t a prerequisite for racial profiling, but on the other hand, targeting a black child doing absolutely nothing but walking through a neighborhood suffices as a textbook red flag.

3. The questions Piers doesn’t ask.

While it was respectable that Morgan challenged Robert about why George got out of his truck, he didn’t force Robert to address the issue directly. So far on Morgan’s show, Robert has been allowed to avoid admitting wrongdoing on George’s part for getting out of his vehicle, period, despite the urging of the 911 dispatcher. Further, Morgan didn’t address the fact that an ambulance initially called for Zimmerman after the shooting was cancelled, which puts yet another dent in Robert’s argument that George was fighting for his life.

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Why It’s Okay to Accept Zimmerman’s Remorse

May 11th, 2013 by eglover →

After the hearing, Mark O’Mara explained his reasoning behind letting Zimmerman make his apology. O’Mara pointed out that Sybrina Fulton had once said that if she had the opportunity to speak to Zimmerman personally, she would press him on whether he was sorry and if recognized how old Trayvon had been when he killed him. To Zimmerman’s credit, that’s exactly what he addressed in his apology; Zimmerman said in court that he was indeed sorry for the Martin family’s loss, and that he’d overestimated Trayvon’s age the night he shot him.

Inevitably, criticism of the apology as “fake” or “late” will swell among the people watching Zimmmerman’s judicial process unfold. But here’s the thing: we don’t need to discredit his apology in order to be “real” supporters of Trayvon Martin and his family. We can still be just as convinced and convicted in demanding a stern sentence for Zimmerman–and accept that he feels remorseful at the same time. Because even if Zimmerman is sorry for the Martin family’s loss, it doesn’t change that he committed an incredibly heinous crime, for which he deserves to be punished. Straining to make Zimmerman a monster when he shows signs of humanity adds nothing of value to the situation–and besides, don’t we want him to be sorry for what he’s done? Don’t we want him to eventually exhibit grief, regret and horror in the same ways we do? After a long, hard-fought process, Zimmerman is finally within the reach of justice. There’s no longer a need for “assassinating” his character further, as so many conservatives have done to Trayvon.

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DMX’s Breakthrough on ‘Couples Therapy’: One Less Angry Black Reality Star

May 11th, 2013 by eglover →

In fact, all around DMX, the state of black reality television seems to be reaching for lower-than-low standards. NeNe Leakes still dominates The Real Housewives of Atlanta with her loud-mouthed, mean-girl mojo–and the addition of Marlo Hampton to the show only worsened the bratty, bullies-welcomed atmosphere of the series. On Basketball Wives, Evelyn Lozada’s assistant Nia Crooks literally slapped former friend Jennifer Williams across the face for no warranted reason. There are a few examples of reality shows on with more dignified representations of black folks, such as T.I. and Tiny: The Family Hustle, Beverly’s Full House or, to a certain degree, Braxton Family Values, but it seems none are so popular (or as worshiped) as the series which show us at our absolute worst. (Chrissy Lampkin’s popularity only seemed to soar after she punched Kimbella Vanderlee on Love and Hip Hop–to the point of reportedly getting her own spinoff with Jim Jones sometime soon.)

So DMX’s breakdown over his mother issues this week, while good for his personal development, is also a tiny step forward for black reality TV in general this season. DMX desperately needed a 180 after the horrific and selfish rage he spewed at Tashera in the pilot episode. Seeing a new DMX emerge–one who speaks openly about his emotions and strives to connect the dots of his shortcomings–has humanized him to a degree unseen until this point. The series isn’t yet over, but it seems as if the rapper is making bold steps toward being a better husband and a better man. And his evolution goes a long way in a medium that has counted on its black stars doing far, far less.

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Zimmerman’s Been Charged: What If He’s Acquitted?

May 11th, 2013 by eglover →

Throughout the arduous process it’s taken to get to this point, law enforcement officials have urged the public to let the authorities handle the Trayvon Martin case’s investigation and outcome. Of course, a request like this could only go so far, given that law enforcement’s handling of the case in the first place is what’s led to the storm of criticism and resentment that’s come from average citizens. And, to be clear, it is only because of independent media investigations, in tandem with public outcry, that has led to Zimmerman’s formal charge. The people’s part in “true” justice being served cannot be understated.

However, there is something to be said for the Sanford police, the Sanford City Manager, and now Angela Corey asking that the public leave the matter of Zimmerman’s charges to the due process of law. Although it’s clear that the justice system was fundamentally flawed enough to let Zimmerman nearly get away with murder, it’s imperative that no matter the pace and results of Zimmerman’s trial, we leave justice in the hands of the authorities from now on. That doesn’t mean not talking about the case. That doesn’t mean not talking about race. That doesn’t mean not continuing to protest or put pressure on officials to make the right call. It does mean restraining ourselves from violence.

It’s safe to say that things are at a boiling point in Sanford, Florida. Protests have been rampant, which is to be expected, but more disturbingly, a police car nearby Zimmerman’s former home was shot six times recently. The cruiser was empty, but the symbolism was not; violence is a very real possibility in Florida should Zimmerman be acquitted. Three Florida counties have even activated their emergency operation centers in light of the case–the equivalent of their preparation for a hurricane. The L.A. riots of 1992, after the acquittal of the police officers who savagely beat Rodney King, are a testament to exactly why a hurricane-level response is the right event to anticipate should Zimmerman walk free.

Which is why our black leaders–particularly the ones who have been at the forefront of the Trayvon Martin campaigning–should publicly urge the black community to keep cool heads in the wake of an acquittal. Al Sharpton, Don Lemon, and even Trayvon Martin’s parents will have the responsibility of telling the community that more dead bodies–black or otherwise–are unacceptable, and that our rage must be peacefully expressed, however ardently. Otherwise, Trayvon Martin’s death will be not only in vain, but a backwards step regarding racial relations in America.

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‘Woman Thou Art Loosed’ Direct Talks Faith and New Orelans

May 11th, 2013 by eglover →

Neema Barnette spoke with 24Wired.TV about her latest directorial project, Woman Thou Art Loosed: On the 7th Day. The film, about a New Orleans couple whose secrets are revealed after their daughter is abducted, was produced by T.D. Jakes and filmed on location. Barnette shared insights on both her approach to integrating faith into the film and why she thought New Orleans was where the story should take place.
24Wired: How did you go about setting a balance between the film’s message of faith and its bleak atmosphere?

Neema Barnette: That’s an interesting question. Because the initial script, the predator was a pedophile, number one, and he worked in a garage. So when I started reworking the basis, I didn’t want to deal with a pedophile and I came up with the idea of creating a religious character. I did a fair amount of some extensive research on these types of killers and quite a few of them used the Bible and God as a reason for them doing what they’re doing. So we created Remy [the serial killer] in that light…serial killers who quote the bible, who use Bible phrases. Because I thought it would be more interesting to show the bad guy using the same format–God, the Bible–as what Bishop Jakes’s platform is. You know, to show how religion can do so much good for people’s faith and also how people distort it. And one of the things that our character, or our bad guy in On the 7th Day, says [is] people are destroying the world. Polluting the world. Well, people are polluting the world. But you don’t go around killing young kids and sacrificing kids’ lives in order to save the world. That’s how I kind of came about the new way to develop the Remy character because it is a faith-based film, and after talking with Bishop Jakes, and having several discussions with him about what he really wanted to say, what kinds of problems people have who he counseled, I thought that would be a more interesting way to go.

24Wired: Why was New Orleans the best location to tell this story?

Barnette: First of all, New Orleans needed help, and Bishop Jakes was very concerned along with Jeff Clanagan of Codeblack, to find a way to put some money into the pockets of the people struggling there. I thought New Orleans would be a perfect backdrop because of that, and because of the agencies of New Orleans. When I went to visit in April initially, before I began rewrites on the script, I found the city to be a hustle city. It had a shade over it. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but something was amiss there. And when we got there, aside from it being very hot, the atmosphere of New Orleans kind of molded us. I mean, we really improved on the set. We did a lot of changing as we went, according to our locations. We had our plan, we had our format, we had our color charts and our tone charts. My team and I did all the work we possibly could within the small pre-production time. But New Orleans has its own life. And I really wanted to put the film in New Orleans.

I decided to use music–old music, instead of modern gospel music and I was very glad that Bishop Jakes allowed me, and also Jeff Clanagan, allowed me to do that. Because my concept was, okay, On the 7th Day. That was the name of the film. Then I spoke to Bishop Jakes; I said, “I have an idea.” What if I shot every day that this event was happening–what if I shot an organic metaphor of what God created each day, but also organic to our story and organic to New Orleans? And they liked the idea, so that’s what I did, and as I did it, New Orleans kept creeping in, creeping in.

It was a situation where they have very distinct social lines in New Orleans, as they do in many cities, but New Orleans, I found it really really distinct. One of the things I also did was create the poor black woman in the film because I felt like, being poor is a crime in America. If you have kids missing, it’s very unusual for poor women, especially of color, working women, to get any help in local news stations or anything about their children missing. So I created the character of Lynette because I wanted to show that. Because particularly in New Orleans, people have connections, and like Blair [Underwood]‘s character says, when he calls the mayor: “I helped you get elected. So you better help me out.” So he was lucky in that aspect, but there are many husbands and wives all over the country who are poor, whose children have been missing for quite some time, and no one knows about it. And New Orleans is one of those cities.

So it was very important for us to be grounded in New Orleans, in the music, in the visuals. We couldn’t have but so many plots. And there were quite a few, because it’s a thriller as well. So what I decided to do was also shoot metaphors of Katrina, the houses with the X’s on them. Cemeteries. And the still porches of the people who had survived from Katrina. And we put that in the film in the hopes that somehow it would connect with the audience as well.

Woman Thou Art Loosed: On the 7th Day is in theaters now.

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A Black ‘Bachelor’? Probably Not

May 10th, 2013 by eglover →

Sports broadcaster Lamar Hurd, who works out of Portland, Oregon, is now campaigning to be The Bachelor‘s first black lead. The series has been on air a whopping 16 seasons without a single man of color as the titular eligible lead, and it’s a sigh of relief to hear that there’s someone out there bold enough to directly challenge the white norm of the show. But if Lamar Hurd were to win that coveted spot on the series, what consequences would there be?For one thing, the producers behind the series would have to have a sit-down about the racial makeup of the contestants. Having Hurd be a part of the show but keeping the female cast overwhelmingly white would likely be uncomfortable for everyone involved, from Hurd to the contestants to the show’s fans. However, that doesn’t have to mean that the show would suddenly become an all-black Bachelor. It would simply be a prime opportunity to feature women of a broader racial palette. Asian women, Latino women, black women and white women on the show could still keep ABC’s white demographic interested, and perhaps even draw viewers from other racial backgrounds as well.

There is, of course, a risk to be acknowledged that would come with a featuring a black Bachelor–and one that studios often hide behind whenever they don’t want to take racial strides forward: a minority leading man could very well lose ABC viewers. While the idea may sound a bit cynical, it’s within the realm of reason to remember that white people really do like seeing white people on screen, given how often pre-established characters of color are turned white in film, or how much backlash abounds on the web whenever the reverse is done. And if ratings dipped because of a racial experiment on the show, we would be unlikely to see a person of color on the series again anytime soon.

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Ice Cube in ’21 Jump Street’: Does Acknowledging a Stereotype Condone It?

April 01st, 2013 by eglover →

On March 16, 2012, Ice Cube will be seen in the movie adaptation of the 21 Jump Street cop series. And by his own admission, he’ll be playing the stereotypical angry black captain.

Although no one expects Ice Cube to carry the weight of the entire population of black actors on his back, actors Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer weren’t spared the same responsibility for The Help this year. Throughout Oscar season, and still afterward, Spencer and Davis have been heavily criticized for their roles as domestics, and have even been told that they’ve stunted the progress of black actors because of their choice to be in The Help. Meanwhile, Ice Cube has embraced the fact that he is playing the angry black police captain without any visible sense of apology or self-consciousness, and no one has batted an eye.

Of course, a key difference between The Help and 21 Jump Street is that the former is a historically-set drama and the latter movie is an unabashed comedy. But comedies are just as capable of perpetuating negative generalizations about minority groups, and certainly don’t all critically satirize those stereotypes in ways that force audiences to intelligently address their own biases. Some stereotypes are simply “played straight,” hardly provoking audiences to consider the archetype they’re seeing as an ironic or tongue-in-check rendition of a stereotypical figure. That seems to be the case with Ice Cube, who plays Captain Dickson with an abrasiveness that mimics several of his black actor predecessors in cop movies.

Again, the fact that the character happens to be in a comedy doesn’t quite put 21 Jump Street in the clear. The film could have used the comedy medium to establish the grain and provoke the audience to go against it without much effort. Take 1993′s Last Action Hero, which featured Frank McRae as the incessantly angry Lt. Dekker. Dekker spends nearly the entire movie screaming at Arnold Swarzenneger’s Jack Slater cop character; run of the mill, right? Except the premise of the movie is that Dekker and Slater are fictional characters in a film within the film we’re watching–and one colored in absurd hues to mock the ridiculousness of Hollywood film-making. So when Dekker yells, glass cracks. Steam comes out of his ears. He’s screams 90% of his dialogue. Dekker is so cartoonish, so over-the-top, that the message is clear: This guy is a caricature. And the question, too, becomes clear: Why is he a standard part of cop movies?

It’s unfortunate that Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer spent months defending themselves in a movie that drew inspiration from a wealth of historical precedents. Ice Cube, however, can call out the cliche of his character himself, and not a bit of controversy will come his way. His character is not only based on zero historicity relative to anything, but the role was also entirely made up. The black captain in the 21 Jump Street show wasn’t particularly angry, and even if he were, Ice Cube’s character is a wholly new one made exclusively for the film. The makers of 21 Jump Street were obligated to no particular kind of captain, and for no reason, they went for a black and angry one anyway.

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Top 5 Most Ridiculously Embarrassing Moments on Reality TV

December 19th, 2012 by msintern →

By: Chelcee Johns

There are moments on television when you just want to cringe, but can’t help to keep watching. The moments you die laughing, then peek over your shoulder to see if anyone is watching you watching it. Well, we are all guilty of having our own reality TV indulgence. Check out some of the most embarrassing moments we all laughed, cringed and maybe even yelled at the screen. We don’t endorse these moments but we do endorse good entertainment.

(more…)

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Enter Our ‘Sparkle’ DVD Giveaway!

December 04th, 2012 by eglover →

Want to win a free copy of the new Sparkle movie for yourself? Just follow us on Twitter via @24Wired.TV and tweet us with why you want to own it. That’s it. Whether it’s because of you’re a fan of Whitney Houston, you love the original movie, or another reason entirely, let us know why you deserve a copy of Sparkle you’ll be that much closer to receiving it for free. (more…)

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‘Lenox Avenue’ Creator Talks Depicting Multicultural Men Who Actually Want to Marry

December 04th, 2012 by eglover →

Al Thompson, the creator of the new web series Lenox Avenue, discussed his inspiration and aspirations for the show. Thompson, who’s also a lead actor and director for the series, spoke on the importance of a multicultural presence in entertainment, and how he thinks Lenox Avenue harkens back to a heyday of people of color on television. Additionally, Thompson shared what his show has to contribute when it comes to “colorblind content” and seeing more positive representations of men–especially in a multiracial sense–who don’t shy away from commitment and family. (To check out the series yourself, visit LenoxAvenueSeries.com, or find out more about it by tweeting Thompson via @AlThompsonInc on Twitter.) (more…)

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