Join the 'Test 1 Million Campaign'. I know my status - do you?
I participated in this event today, hosted by the Black AIDS Institute in Los Angeles, and The Sentinel Newspaper. Many celebrities, community leaders and others filmed PSA's encouraging everyone to get tested. Know the status of your partner. Talk to your teenagers.
Over one million Americans are infected with HIV.
Black people account for nearly one half of all HIV infections in the US.
One half don't even know they're infected.
AIDS is the 1 killer of black women aged 24-34
If everyone of us knew our status, we would end the AIDS epidemic in our community.
Getting tested for HIV has never been easier. It's free, it's painless, and you get information that may save your life and the life of others.
There are many places around the country today where you can get tested for free.
Reduce stigma as a barrier to prevention and treatment.
Jody Watley in Fashionably Historic Issue of VOGUE Italia
In reaction to the lack of ethnic models on the catwalk, Vogue Italia will feature black models almost exclusively in the July issue. For context, Vogue is often regarded as the most influential fashion magazine in the world.
‘“This idea came about as a reaction to the models of today,” Franca Sozzani, Vogue Italia's editor, was quoted as saying in a phone interview: ‘“I go to a fashion show and every girl is blond and blue-eyed and they all walk the same and look the same...I thought we needed to break away from this type of thing...there are so many beautiful black women not being used.“‘
Sozzani also said that she felt the time was right for an all-black issue now that Barack Obama has become the first black presidential nominee of the United States. The topics in the July issue which comes out next week, will feature a wide range of black women of all ages in the arts and entertainment spheres and will include actors, models and singers such as Naomi Campbell, Tina Turner, Jody Watley and Iman.
Sozzani said that some editors might argue that black faces don't sell at the newsstand.'"But we sell the same amount if we have Naomi Campbell on the cover,”' she said. The lack of ethnic models in magazines and on catwalks has long sparked international criticism.
A lot of children don't get to know their father's. Millions of children grow up in single parent homes, with Moms left to take on dual roles. Whether it is from divorce, poor choices, or simply a plethora of immature men who perhaps also grew up with absentee fathers, and rather than choose to be better and step up to fatherhood - they simply disappeared. There are millions of guys who don't care enough to recognize the impact they can have on their sons and daughters. What kind of guy won't even bother to know his own child? Unfortunately, this scenario is played out everyday. Father's Day can be bittersweet for millions of children and adults.
I was a 'daddy's girl'. My father was the first person I recall to ever 'promote' me.
My father would be going on and on about me to anyone who would listen. He was proclaiming, "My daughter is going to be a star", at a time when I was, at best, a closet performer. A little girl with pressed ponytails and white satin ribbons only seen by her mirror, while accompanied by a hairbrush sashaying around in my Mom's pumps! I suppose he saw something in me, perhaps it was a bit of himself. Our birthdays are a day apart. By the time I was a pre teen, he would get on my last nerve, as most parents do! My father had a good sense of humor, and was a bit of a character. Though, he was a preacher of dynamic and theatrical proportions, as well as a popular gospel DJ, in Chicago and Kansas City, Mo. Despite his success, my father had his disappointments, like we all do. I saw life unravel for him, as did the rest of our family. He was prone to long speeches and one-liners about life. 'Only the strong survive', he'd proclaim out of the blue, and just as quickly leave the room. 'It's not what other's think of you - it's what you think of yourself', was another of his favorites to reiterate. Being that I ended up in the music industry, and seeing the tenacity involved, or just living life - my father left me with a profound inner resilience from the seeds he planted, even when I didn't want to hear it, and though he didn't follow his own advice.
My father passed away suddenly when I was 21, and not a single day goes by when I don't think of him. I hear his laugh in my brother, and see certain mannerisms we all have that are distinctly our father. I wonder is it the universe and my Dad saying, "I'm here through all of you!" His passing, changed my life and how I viewed it. I realized 'Life is short, don't take anything for granted, take care of your mind, body and spirit, live it in the moment, be joyous, work with people who respect you, be in love with what you do, love yourself, touch other's in a positive way, surround yourself with people who really care about you, call your mother, check in with her more often..' - the impact was devastating and powerful for the 21 year old me. Today, I wonder what our conversations would be like. I'd love to be able to call him to talk basketball, politics, life. What would it be like to just hang out, like I do with my Mom. I wish he knew my children - his grandkids, and I wish they were able to know him. There is so much that comes to mind when someone passes away. When I see the commercials for Father's Day gifts and cards I just wish he were here. I don't focus on it too much - like Valentine's Day, when you're single!
The greatest gift I can give to my father is to continue to make him proud of the way I live my life and career. I am resilient, strong and possess a great sense of humor. He'd like that. If you don't have a relationship with your father, just be the best you can be - regardless. If you're a Mom in dual roles - celebrate yourself today too! You deserve it.
I appreciate that I had him in my life, for those brief 49 years he lived on earth. If you have lost a parent you know what I mean.
There is so much great footage, this is just a glimpse into my diverse repertoire!
From the underground grooves, the quiet of my ballads, mixed with classic hits, you get a full range at my concerts. I work with people that I love, and that comes through :) My sense of humor is always there as you can see near the end of this montage.
We are back safe and sound from Japan. The mini tour performed at Biilboard Live venues in Osaka, Tokyo and Fukuoka was one of our best! I pulled out many of my solo songs that I haven't done in ages to the delight of the crowds! Here's the first behind the scenes glimpse...more to come!
I was shopping on Melrose, and met a guy named George Lyter, an aspiring songwriter working in a shoe store. George told me he had some songs he'd love for me to hear. I don't like taking unsolicited music, but he was so sincere and kind - I couldn't resist. Even though I write most of my material, I do try to be open to new people and ideas. I came back for the tape and at first listen fell in love with the songs. The universe had given me music that fit exactly with where I was going with 'Affairs of The Heart! The other writer was Denise Rich - who has an incredible history which I found out about later.
The project was a turning point for my career. Being pregnant and having a marriage unravel was another. Looking back at it now, I'm still proud of my efforts. I have to smile because it so obviously went totally against 'the machine'! I love dance music, but there is something deeper that lies within my ballads. I'm comfortable singing many genres, which has inspired my next full length release, I'll get into that at another time!! In my heart, 'It All Begins With You' will always be a nod to my father , Rev. John Watley Jr. My dad knew I had something special, before I did! He passed away in 1981. I still miss him. It's always hard for me to sing this song - I've added it to my Japanese shows this time and will try to do it justice.
Seeing Arsenio Hall clips, reminds me that he was there when the other late night shows kept their doors closed to so many - and still do. It's a shame really, that a show like his has not existed since they took him off air.
Tidbits: The choir 'Cornerstone Baptist Church - where I used to attend. The women from 'I'm The One You Need' were also in the choir. They worked it out!! The choir director Alonzo is a close family friend. He used to have the best record collection when I was in high school. He'd get the new hot releases the day they came out, and would let me come over to listen on his high quality stereo. Alonzo was another positive person in my life. I have always had a pattern of bringing some of my favorite people into my videos and performances.
The hair - was a nod to Dorothy Dandridge - the suit 'Richard Tyler' custom, and the shoulder pads were out of control!!
Filmed in 1991, I was pregnant and trying to cover new artistic ground with 'Affairs of the Heart' - my third solo CD! This show rocked and was always a showcase for R&B, Hip Hop and other music genres.
Those are a few adjectives that come to mind when I think about Marvin Gaye. In this era, I don’t know any male artist that comes close. Who else ever made the Star Spangled Banner sound soooooooooo good - a sensual feast - while singing about rockets bursting in air?!
I remember living in the Midwest - Kansas City, Missouri to be exact, and attending Southeast Junior High. Seeing Marvin Gaye performing on Soul Train, singing Distant Lover was awe inspiring for this pre teen! I wanted to be there among the dancers, staring adoringly at Marvin with Pat Davis, Fawn and the other popular girls on the show. I’d loved his voice as long as I remember, singing the early Motown hits and classic duets with Tammi Terrell.
When he released ’What’s Going On’ - I didn’t know the full story behind the record. I learned of that later in my life. I was a big fan of liner notes, and read every word over and over. That cover, with the rain falling, patent trench, his gorgeous face displaying an expression which made me think of inner pain - I connected with that. I was transfixed by the cover. Back then, one could stare at the ’album cover’ for ages absorbing every nuance. I was touched by the songs, and could sing them all. I will say, that it was in my adulthood that I really appreciated the true depth and range of his music - beyond the surface or what grabbed me in my adolescence.
To know that Motown didn’t support ’What’s Going On’ still boggles the mind. I have already written in an older blog, that ’What’s Going On’ is one of my favorite albums ever. I’d take it with me if stranded on a desert island! Too deep, too personal, too serious - say what?! I was caught up in sensuality of ’Let’s Get it On’, and ’I Want You’ - before I had even explored that side of life. Marvin made the theme sound beautiful and adult, without being juvenile or trite. There was an air of romance, and it seemed as though those relations of which he sang, were meant to be special and not fleeting. A lot of artists sing about sex - none has ever done it with as much class as Marvin Gaye - in my opinion. I explored his divorce kiss off, ’Here My Dear’, initially too controversial to release - after I went through my own tumultuous proceedings. ’When Did You Stop Loving Me..’ Is That Enough’ - OMG! On my own ’Intimacy’ Marvin was all in me!
It doesn’t matter what his first week sales were or how many records sold. I don’t believe fans were caught up in those stats back then. I can’t tell you what any record sold to this day. What I can tell you is that his music touched me, his bold artistic steps propel me and his music lives with me forever.
Marvin Gaye, there will never be another like you!
Choice Cuts: Precious Love with Tammi Terrell, If This World Were Mine ---Just to Keep You Satisfied, If I Should Die Tonight, I Want You, Inner City Blues, Wholy Holy, Distant Lover - Live!, Trouble Man (don’t sleep on this classic soundtrack).. in fact just about everything is a choice cut from Marvin Gaye!
SOCIAL TRANSFORMATION, REV. WRIGHT AND OBAMA
Current mood: annoyed
Category: News and Politics
I debated whether to do a blog on the Rev Wright issue, and things have subsided a bit. I was so agitated by the very apparent tactic of diverting attention from what’s important. It happens in every election. This is what turns so many off from even participating in the process. We should be focused on who will be able to unite the government so that more positive change and growth can be possible here and with the rest of the world. The economy is tanking, housing is becoming unaffordable for working people, and you read of the deep debt many find themselves in, while wages stay the same - the cost of living goes up. Many homeless people are in fact working people. I saw a special not long ago that dealt with this topic.
Senseless violence is occurring with our youth at high rates in many cities. Chicago, my hometown being one of them being plagued. Where is the money for schools, where are the families, where do kids go from being dreamers to killers? What are we doing about that? Why aren’t we outraged about that? Why aren’t we outraged by the seemingly rampant agenda to keep the youth pumped up on overtly sexual lyrics (front, back, on the floor) while the numbers of STD’s and new cases of HIV rise among our youth. Radio stations use ’focus groups’ to determine what will be ’hot’ and over exposed. Meanwhile, ratings continue to plummet and people are buying music less in the mainstream. Yet, executives are still raking in millions in salary and bonuses!! Who runs the FCC?! Who benefits from prisons being big business? I’m just saying...
Millions are without healthcare, meanwhile corporations are making massive profits and CEO’s are making millions in bonuses. Let’s attack corporate greed - is what I’m thinking! Let’s attack racism (and have intelligent and open minded conversations on it, as Obama encouraged in his profound speech on race and politics). Let’s debate sexism, ageism,and a media that fails to fact check or present the full view on hardly anything in this era. People can post anything on the internet, and it is taken as truth. The LA Times even got caught in the misinformation trap by doing a feature story on the murder Tupac - based on fraudulent documents provided by a known con artist! I don’t want to be redundant on the issue, but it’s extremely frustrating. Watching the BBC, I get to see a bit of the ’world view’.
In their glee over seemingly finding something to ’derail’ the Obama momentum of positive and unifying messages, it failed to be mentioned that Rev. Wright was actually quoting Ambassador Edward Peck, a white man. I suppose it made for a better ’story’. I have listened to those in the congregation who stepped forth to talk about the depth of the sermons of a man over a several decades long career, rather sound bites out of context.
Lost in this controversy was the entire context of the full and complete sermon. America is a wonderful country, but we are also flawed, it is not UN American to point out these flaws - as you would with anyone or thing you truly love.
Rev. Wright ended on the need for social transformation. Indeed.
March 21, 2008 The full story behind Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s 9/11 sermon Posted: 10:09 AM ET
Editor’s note: CNN Contributor Roland Martin has listened to several of the sermons of Rev. Jeremiah Wright from Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago. Portions of the sermons have been excerpted in recent stories.
As this whole sordid episode regarding the sermons of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright has played out over the last week, I wanted to understand what he ACTUALLY said in this speech. I’ve been saying all week on CNN that context is important, and I just wanted to know what the heck is going on.
I have now actually listened to the sermon Rev. Wright gave after September 11 titled, "The Day of Jerusalem’s Fall." It was delivered on Sept. 16, 2001. ALT TEXT
One of the most controversial statements in this sermon was when he mentioned "chickens coming home to roost." He was actually quoting Edward Peck, former U.S. Ambassador to Iraq and deputy director of President Reagan’s terrorism task force, who was speaking on FOX News. That’s what he told the congregation.
He was quoting Peck as saying that America’s foreign policy has put the nation in peril:
"I heard Ambassador Peck on an interview yesterday did anybody else see or hear him? He was on FOX News, this is a white man, and he was upsetting the FOX News commentators to no end, he pointed out, a white man, an ambassador, he pointed out that what Malcolm X said when he was silenced by Elijah Mohammad was in fact true, he said Americas chickens, are coming home to roost."
"We took this country by terror away from the Sioux, the Apache, Arikara, the Comanche, the Arapaho, the Navajo. Terrorism.
"We took Africans away from their country to build our way of ease and kept them enslaved and living in fear. Terrorism.
"We bombed Grenada and killed innocent civilians, babies, non-military personnel.
"We bombed the black civilian community of Panama with stealth bombers and killed unarmed teenage and toddlers, pregnant mothers and hard working fathers.
"We bombed Qaddafi’s home, and killed his child. Blessed are they who bash your children’s head against the rock.
"We bombed Iraq. We killed unarmed civilians trying to make a living. We bombed a plant in Sudan to pay back for the attack on our embassy, killed hundreds of hard working people, mothers and fathers who left home to go that day not knowing that they’d never get back home.
"We bombed Hiroshima. We bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon and we never batted an eye.
"Kids playing in the playground. Mothers picking up children after school. Civilians, not soldiers, people just trying to make it day by day.
"We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans, and now we are indignant because the stuff that we have done overseas is now brought right back into our own front yards. America’s chickens are coming home to roost.
"Violence begets violence. Hatred begets hatred. And terrorism begets terrorism. A white ambassador said that y’all, not a black militant. Not a reverend who preaches about racism. An ambassador whose eyes are wide open and who is trying to get us to wake up and move away from this dangerous precipice upon which we are now poised. The ambassador said the people we have wounded don’t have the military capability we have. But they do have individuals who are willing to die and take thousands with them. And we need to come to grips with that."
He went on to describe seeing the photos of the aftermath of 9/11 because he was in Newark, N.J., when the planes struck. After turning on the TV and seeing the second plane slam into one of the twin towers, he spoke passionately about what if you never got a chance to say hello to your family again.
"What is the state of your family?" he asked.
And then he told his congregation that he loved them and asked the church to tell each other they loved themselves.
His sermon thesis:
1. This is a time for self-examination of ourselves and our families.
2. This is a time for social transformation (then he went on to say they won’t put me on PBS or national cable for what I’m about to say. Talk about prophetic!)
"We have got to change the way we have been doing things as a society," he said.
Wright then said we can’t stop messing over people and thinking they can’t touch us. He said we may need to declare war on racism, injustice, and greed, instead of war on other countries.
"Maybe we need to declare war on AIDS. In five minutes the Congress found $40 billion to rebuild New York and the families that died in sudden death, do you think we can find the money to make medicine available for people who are dying a slow death? Maybe we need to declare war on the nation’s healthcare system that leaves the nation’s poor with no health coverage? Maybe we need to declare war on the mishandled educational system and provide quality education for everybody, every citizen, based on their ability to learn, not their ability to pay. This is a time for social transformation."
3. This is time to tell God thank you for all that he has provided and that he gave him and others another chance to do His will.
By the way, nowhere in this sermon did he said "God damn America." I’m not sure which sermon that came from.
This doesn’t explain anything away, nor does it absolve Wright of using the N-word, but what it does do is add an accurate perspective to this conversation.
The point that I have always made as a journalist is that our job is to seek the truth, and not the partial truth.
I am also listening to the other sermons delivered by Rev. Wright that have been the subject of controversy.
And let me be clear: Where I believe he was wrong and not justified in what he said based upon the facts, I will say so. But where the facts support his argument, that will also be said.
grateful
annoyed