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Two sisters opened a Bed & Breakfast in Detroit

6 mins read
Detroit Siblings

Working with a family member even on small projects can be challenging. But imagine trying to renovate a house, decorate it and open it as a bed and breakfast. That kind of a partnership can’t work if you have sibling rivalry.

Detroit Siblings

Sisters Roderica and Francina James are an example of how two siblings can work together, start their own business and support one another throughout the process. They are the owners of the Cochrane House Luxury Inn in Detroit, a new bed-and-breakfast hotel that opened in May.

Roderica James

These born-and-raised Detroiters aren’t hospitality experts. They don’t have a design background. In fact, they’ve never taken on a project this big before. But their mutual respect, admiration for each other’s strengths and balance of each other’s weaknesses made The Cochrane a possibility and, after six months of guests, a true success.

Francina James

The bed and breakfast has three guest rooms, a homemade cooked breakfast delivered to the room, hand poured house made soap, and specialized Cochrane House candles.

The Cochrane House also has customized packages for private parties and events.The Bed & Breakfast is walking distance from all three major sport arenas and theater district in Detroit.

“We want people to come in and relax, play music, a board game or have a glass or wine. Our whole goal is for our guests to be in an atmosphere where their mind, body, and soul is relaxed.

We want our guests to have the best experience possible. When you walk into the doors you can feel the family atmosphere.” says Founder and Owner of The Cochrane House Roderica James.

Life experience
These sisters have a wide range of experience and skills that they bring to The Cochrane House. Co-Owner Francina James is a graduate of Martin Luther King Jr., senior high school. She graduated from the University of Michigan and has held various position in the educational field. She is also a graduate from Thomas M. Cooley Law School and is currently a licensed attorney.

Roderica started a nail business in high school and continued throughout college. James graduated from Eastern Michigan University and began working in education. She worked at Pepper Elementary School in Oak Park, where she started as a teacher and later on became the Student Intervention Specialist.

At 23, she began working with her mother at EduTech Tutoring Company. Noted as one of the largest tutoring companies in Detroit, she served as executive director. James then expanded the business to Atlanta, Georgia and Jackson, Mississippi where she became Southern Regional Director.

“My sister and I are 13 months apart. We went to the same elementary, middle and high schools. She went to Michigan while I went to Eastern. So we’ve been close our entire lives,” Roderica said. “Of course, we have our disagreements. But because we know each other so well, we know how to listen to each other’s ideas.”

Francina agrees. “Roderica is the whimsical one, the one with the best ideas and entrepreneurial spirit. I’d say I’m the realistic one, the logical one. Whenever she has an idea, I give her suggestions on how to bring it down to Earth a bit so we can get it done.”

A dream fulfilled
Roderica started renovations on The Cochrane House in 2013. The home was erected in 1870 for Dr. John Terry, a Detroit eye doctor who decided to build his home in the Brush Park neighborhood. He lived in this mansion only for one year, before Lyman Cochrane purchased it. In 1871, Lyman Cochrane not only occupied this beautiful home, but also was elected to represent Detroit in the Michigan State Senate.

He served for two years and was later appointed Judge of the Superior Court of Detroit in 1873. He served in that position until February of 1879, the time of his death. He took pride in scholarship and was presumed to have one of the most extensive and valuable private libraries in the city of Detroit.

With family support, persistence and patience, Roderica’s dream has come true. Just on the heels of turning 40, James is proud to have a business in the city where she grew up.

“I feel blessed and honored. My position gives other women an opportunity to see someone at my age dedicated to something for so long finally come to fruition. It’s not easy, but my journey shows other young people, if you stay dedicated and focused, you are able to do it,” says Roderica.

Source: CORP

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Photographer Bruce Talamon captured Black joy in the glory years of Soul and Funk.

17 mins read
bruce talamon

Earth, Wind & Fire founder Maurice White had one name in mind for his memoir photos: Bruce Talamon. The photographer, who has nearly 40 years experience shooting feature film stills, began his career documenting R&B, soul and funk music’s golden age in the 1970s.

bruce talamon
Bruce Talamon

In 1979 and 1980, Talamon traveled with Earth, Wind & Fire, capturing shows, rehearsals and moments in between as the band toured Europe, Japan, South America and Egypt. That’s where Talamon took White’s favorite shot, a black and white photo of the musician walking toward the pyramids of Giza.

Photos by Bruce W. Talamon.

Herb Powell, who was helping to write the memoir, looked through Talamon’s pictures of the famed funk band and asked the question: “What else you got?”

A light bulb went off. Talamon began to reflect on his collection of images — of Teddy Pendergrass, Stevie Wonder, Diana Ross and many, many more — from the era. It was this eureka moment that led Talamon and his agent to pitch art-book publishers in New York. But they all passed.

Eventually, Talamon took matters into his own hands, writing a provocative letter to publisher Benedikt Taschen in 2015.

Photo books have documented jazz, rock ’n’ roll, the Rolling Stones. But there’s never been a photo book on R&B, soul and funk music, Talamon said. “As far as I’m concerned, that’s criminal. That speaks to being marginalized as the music was back then.”

Talamon usually was the only black photographer on the West Coast consistently photographing R&B, soul and funk musicians, he said.

“Generally, white photographers showed up at the white acts — Paul McCartney, Led Zeppelin, the Stones,” he said. “They might do the Jackson 5 and Diana Ross and Marvin Gaye and Smokey [Robinson], but they weren’t going to do Thelma Houston. They weren’t going to do Ashford & Simpson because there was no market for it.”

Diana Ross performing in Los Angeles in 1976. The Supremes would have 12 number-one singles and become the most celebrated vocal groups of all time followed by a wildly successful solo career for Ross. Credit: Bruce Talamon

To Talamon’s surprise, a representative from Taschen wrote back within a day, and weeks later an editor was in his living room poring over more than 5,000 early-career photos.

“Here I was revisiting this stuff some 40 years later, and it jumped out at me — the Parliament-Funkadelic group shot, the stuff with Bill Whitten,” Talamon said, referring to the designer of stage costumes for the Commodores, the Jacksons and others. “One of the things I said to my editor: I definitely did not want this book to be just some black guys screaming into a microphone. I had no interest in that, because this is about so much more.”

Motown company basketball game: Katherine, Janet, Michael and Randy Jackson with Billy Bray, Los Angeles 1974. – Photos by Bruce W. Talamon.

Bruce Talamon

Teddy Pendergrass, 1977. Photos by Bruce W. Talamon.

Marvin Gaye and his brother Frankie eat Thanksgiving Photos by Bruce W. Talamon.

“Bruce W. Talamon. Soul. R&B. Funk. Photographs 1972-1982,” released this fall, features nearly 300 images chronicling the performers and the fans from the era. Talamon’s book highlights not only the icons — including Franklin, Wonder, Summer and the Jackson 5 — but also showcases influential acts that didn’t find the same mainstream success, such as the Stylistics or the Dramatics. Also documented are cultural touchstones such as Don Cornelius’ music and dance TV program “Soul Train.”

A 1978 shot catches Marvin Gaye and his brother eating Thanksgiving leftovers at their mother’s home on South Gramercy Place in L.A. Patti Labelle props up her heels after a long day of interviews and radio-station visits in 1977. Quincy Jonesis at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco working on music arrangements with his then-wife, Peggy Lipton.

Sitting in his South L.A. home, Talamon flipped through the nearly 10-pound tome on his lap and reflected on how those early photos affected his career, which has included work for magazines and for filmmakers like Steven Spielberg.

“So many visual artists don’t get recognized until they’re either dead or in a wheelchair,” he said. “It’s nice to get this recognition.”

Earth, Wind & Fire

Earth, Wind & Fire, 1978 Bruce W. Talamon

“I definitely did not want this book to be just some black guys screaming into a microphone. I had no interest in that, because this is about so much more.”

Bruce Talamon

 

Wattstax, 1972

Isaac Hayes, 1972 Bruce W. Talamon

Born and raised in South L.A, Talamon never planned on becoming a photographer. As a political science major at Whittier College, he aspired to pursue law.

During a semester abroad, Talamon purchased his first camera, a Pentax Spotmatic, for $100 in Berlin. “Then I read the directions and started photographing,” he said. After learning that Miles Davis would be performing at the Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen, Talamon bought cheap seats to see the jazz artist. But he also wanted to take photos.

Camera in hand, Talamon headed toward the front of the stage.

“The usher said, ‘You have to go back to your seat, sir,’ ” Talamon recalled. “And I said … ‘Well, I’m a photojournalist from Jet magazine.’ ” The lie allowed him to snap some of his first music shots.

After graduating college, Talamon moved back to L.A. to pursue photography as a career.

In 1972, Talamon secured a photo pass to Wattstax, a benefit concert at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum held seven years after the Watts Riots. Dubbed “Black Woodstock,” the concert included the Staple Singers, Albert King and the Bar-Kays. Then 23, Talamon captured his first R&B photograph: soul singer-songwriter Isaac Hayes wearing aviators and wrapped in chains that draped from his shoulders to the stage.

The concert is also where Talamon met one of the most influential people in his career, Howard Bingham, Muhammad Ali’s photographer.

Soul newspaper 1972-82

Mel Melcon/ Los Angeles Times

That year Bingham introduced Talamon to Regina Jones, the publisher and co-founder of Soul Newspaper, a publication born out of the Watts Riots and focused on black entertainers. His first cover assignment for Soul was photographing “Me and Mrs. Jones” singer Billy Paul at an obscure nightclub in the Crenshaw district.

“It was packed full of women, from young women in there, old sisters in there, shaking it up to ‘Me and Mrs. Jones,’ ” Talamon recalled. “It was wild up in there. The drinks were flowing.”

After a couple of months freelancing for Soul, Jones sent Talamon on a press junket to Japan and Hong Kong with Motown Records’ premier female singing group, the Supremes.

It was there that he caught the attention of Bob Jones, a prominent black publicist who worked for Motown. Talamon said that for Jones it was important to hire black photographers. And in an era when black music was also a political statement, artists began speaking up too. “They understood the power of their positions,” Talamon said. “Black acts were asking stuff like, ‘Where are the black photographers?’ ”

Motown became his first corporate client and led to more gigs with record companies shooting publicity and editorial photographs.

At Soul, Talamon photographed what he called R&B royalty: Pendergrass, George Clinton and Smokey Robinson. Oftentimes, the newspaper featured artists before they hit the mainstream.

“This woman allowed us to experiment, to have fun,” Talamon said of Jones. “She knew we would come back with something good.”

“He never stopped trying to improve himself,” Jones said. “Bruce was always trying to come up with a better picture, a better lighting, a better staging, better concert shooting. … He was always looking to be better and make the publication better.”

Combing through Talamon’s book was an emotional experience.

“We were all too busy moving so fast with very, very, small staffing to low to no budget,” Jones said. “You’ve got a deadline every two weeks and then on to the next issue. You didn’t get to sit there and look at [the photos].”

And all these years later, she said, the work is proving even more important.

“There’s no other book I’ve ever seen out there … that covers intensely the way he does the black recording artists of the era,” Jones said. “I don’t think there’s anything like it.”

Donna Summer, 1977

Donna Summer photographed for the cover of Soul newspaper by Bruce W. Talamon.

After convincing Jones to invest in strobe lights to improve Soul’s covers, Talamon used the new equipment in sessions with Summer, Bootsy Collins and Chaka Khan and her band Rufus.

He referred to Summer’s shoot as one of the most important in his career.

In 1977, Summer was scheduled for 20 minutes, but when the queen of disco saw the sophistication of the setup by Talamon and his partner Bobby Holland, she stayed for four hours.

Months later, Summer told Ebony magazine that she had worked with Talamon, and the shoot became his first national magazine cover. That year he also shot comedian Richard Pryor for People magazine.

Importance of the Leica

B.B. King, The Roxy, 1978. Shot by Bruce W. Talamon

As a self-taught photographer, Talamon credited those who helped him throughout his career. He learned to light from Holland and Jim Britt, a staff photographer for Motown. He also counts Hollywood portrait photographer Bob Willoughby and rock ’n’roll photographer Jim Marshall among his teachers.

“Bruce put a stop to the going to law school, but Bruce didn’t put a stop to learning,” said Talamon, referring to himself in the third person. “I took the tools that I learned as a political science and sociology major and I applied them to photography.”

One tip he learned from Marshall was to use a Leica in quiet moments. Holding the camera in his hands, Talamon demonstrated the faint click of the shutter.

This was the camera he used to photograph B.B. King waiting backstage at the Roxy in 1978. It was the camera he used in 1984 while covering Jesse Jackson’s historic presidential run for Time magazine. Talamon used the Leica during Jackson’s apology at a New Hampshire synagogue for using a derogatory term to describe Jewish people in an interview.

“I took off all my Nikons, put my black and white in my pocket and walked up to them and said, ‘I need to be there,’ ” Talamon said. “He let me come in.”

Nearly 30 years later, after switching to digital cameras, he brought the Leica to set while working on the 2011 romantic comedy “Larry Crowne” and snapped black and white personal photos for Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts.

Then and now

Bruce Talamon

Mel Melcon/Los Angeles Times

Talamon lamented the tight control that publicists and music labels yield over an artist’s image now. In the 1970s, the photographer was often given unlimited access. “You were creating something, and you were photographing and you were watching,” he said. “You can’t do that in five minutes; you can’t do that in three songs.”

“No publicist is going to use this,” he said, referring to the book’s cover, a blurred shot of Stevie Wonder performing at Inglewood’s Forum in 1980. “This was me having some fun after I’d gotten the shot.”

But all these years later, Talamon also noted the connections between performers of the past and newcomers today. “One of the things I wanted to show was how much these musicians have to give,” Talamon said. “Now that is something that is consistent with today.”

“That’s why I have that picture of Al Green collapsed at the door of his dressing room. … He left it all out on the stage. And that’s what they would do, the Isley Brothers, B.B. King, James Brown — when they said they were the hardest working men in show business, that’s the truth.”

Source: Makea Easter for The LA Times

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Meet the Black Architect who designed Duke University 37 years before he could have attended it

10 mins read
black architect

In 1902, when Julian F. Abele graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a degree in architecture, he was the school’s first-ever black graduate. The debonair Philadelphia-born architect went on to design hundreds of elegant public institutions, Gilded Age mansions, and huge swathes of a prestigious then-whites-only university’s campus.

Yet the fact that an African-American architect worked on so many significant Beaux Arts-inspired buildings along the East Coast was virtually unknown until a political protest at Duke, the very university whose gracious campus he largely designed, was held in 1986.

Abele’s contributions were not exactly hidden—during that era it was not customary to sign one’s own designs— but neither were they publicized. When he died in 1950, after more than four decades as the chief designer at the prolific Philadelphia-based firm of Horace Trumbauer, very few people outside of local architectural circles were familiar with his name or his work.

In 1942, when the long-practicing architect finally gained entry to the American Institute of Architects, the director of Philadelphia’s Museum of Art, a building which Abele helped conceive in a classical Greek style, called him “one of the most sensitive designers anywhere in America.”

black architect
Julian F. Abele.  Courtesy Duke University Archives

The protests at Duke that ended up reviving his reputation had nothing to do with Abele’s undeserved obscurity; they were protests against the racist regime in apartheid South Africa. Duke students were infuriated by the school’s investments in the country, and built shanties in front of the university’s winsome stone chapel, which was modeled after England’s Canterbury Cathedral. One student (perhaps majoring in missing the point) wrote an editorial for the college paper complaining about the shacks, which she said violated “our rights as students to a beautiful campus.”

Unbeknownst to even the university’s administrators, Julian F. Abele’s great-grandniece was a sophomore at the college in Durham, North Carolina. Knowing full well that her relative had designed the institution’s neo-Gothic west campus and unified its Georgian east campus, Susan Cook wrote into the student newspaper contending that Abele would have supported the divestment rally in front of his beautiful chapel.

Her great grand-uncle, who in addition to the chapel designed Duke’s library, football stadium, gym, medical school, religion school, hospital, and faculty houses, “was a victim of apartheid in this country” yet the university itself was an example “of what a black man can create given the opportunity,” she wrote. Cook asserted that Abele had created their splendid campus, but had never set foot on it due to the Jim Crow laws of the segregated South.

The indoor stadium at Duke University.  Courtesy of UPenn


This was the first time that Abele’s role in designing Duke, a whites-only university until 1961, had been acknowledged so publicly. Many school administrators were hearing about him for the very first time. Cook’s claim that Abele had never even seen his masterwork up close was devastating. (Accounts differ, however. In 1989, Abele’s closest friend from UPenn, the Hungarian Jewish architect Louis Magaziner, recalled being told by Abele that a Durham hotel had refused him a room when he was visiting the university. A prominent local businessman also remembered Abele coming to town).

Either way, the fact that by the 1980s most people had never even heard of the history-making architect, who designed an estimated 250 buildings while working at the well-known Trumbauer firm, including Harvard University’s Widener Memorial library and Philadelphia’s Free Library, was even more shocking. Cook’s letter led to something of a reckoning. Today, there’s a portrait of Abele hanging up at Duke, and the university is currently celebrating the 75th anniversary of the basketball arena he designed, the Cameron Indoor Stadium, which opened this week in 1940.

Raised in Philadelphia as the youngest of eight children of an accomplished family, Abele had excelled in school since early childhood, once winning $15 for his mathematical prowess. But Abele’s years at UPenn—first as an undergraduate and then as the school’s first black architecture student—took place in a climate that, while not as restrictive as the Jim Crow South, was still very racist. In addition to segregated seating in theaters and on transport, most campus gathering spots and sports teams were closed to African-Americans, and the dining hall and nearby restaurants refused to serve them.

Photo of UPenn’s Architectural Society (with Abele, center) courtesy of UPenn

 

It was an isolating atmosphere, and friendships could be hard to come by. “You spoke perfect English but no one spoke to you,” wrote a woman of color who graduated from UPenn nearly two decades after Abele did. Yet, during his senior year at the university, Abele was elected president of the school’s Architectural Society, and he also won student awards for his designs for a post office and a botany museum. His professors evidently thought highly of him: five years after Abele graduated, the head of the school’s architecture program tried to lure him away from his firm for a job in California.

Abele’s employer at that time, Horace Trumbauer, refused to let him go. He had become invaluable. Trumbauer had hired Abele in 1906 to be the assistant to the Philadelphia firm’s chief designer, Frank Seeburger. When Seeburger departed in 1909, Abele ascended to his position. The young architect worked well with Trumbauer, who was self-conscious about his own lack of formal education—he learned the craft of architecture through apprenticeships and avid reading—and who built his firm by hiring very competent underlings.

Abele, a serious man who dressed in impeccable suits, spoke French fluently, and reveled in classical music, was exactly the technically gifted architect, proficient in Beaux Arts building styles, that Trumbauer needed for his team. “I, of course, would not want to lose Mr. Abele,” Trumbauer brusquely replied when he was asked, in 1907, to release Abele from his contract. Many accounts describe the firm’s artistic vision as Abele’s, although dealing with clients and bringing in commissions fell to Trumbauer.

Photo of Duke University’s hospital courtesy of UPenn

 

One such client was James Buchanan Duke, the tobacco millionaire who commissioned the Trumbauer firm to design vast residences in New York City and in Somerville, New Jersey for his family (and their 14 servants). The white-marble mansion in Manhattan was modeled on a 17th-century French château, and when it was completed in 1912, the New York Times declared it the “costliest home” on Fifth Avenue. By 1924, the Trumbauer firm was hired to transform and expand an existing college in Durham, North Carolina into a well-endowed university named after its patron.

Abele would spend the next two decades creating a magisterial campus for a university that he was not even allowed to attend. All his creations were done under the name of the firm. “The lines are all Mr. Trumbauer’s,” Abele once said. “But the shadows are all mine.” But after his boss died of cirrhosis in 1938, the talented architect signed his name to one of his own designs for the very first time. It was for Duke’s chapel, the same structure that played a part in reviving his reputation 48 years later.

 

Source: Curbed

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Nashville’s Slim & Husky’s Pizza is Opening Two Atlanta Locations

4 mins read
Pizza

North Nashville’s hip-hop-inspired Slim & Husky’s Pizza Beeria is opening two Atlanta locations in 2019. In addition to 581 Metropolitan Parkway in Adair Park — announced in January — owners Clinton Gray, Derrick Moore, and Emanuel Reed will also open a Slim & Husky’s in the former One Rooster space (née Real Chow Baby) at the corner of Howell Mill Road and 11th Street in Westside. That location should open in late February or early March.

The partners had hoped to open on Metropolitan Parkway this year. The plan was to build several commercial units there, in addition to Slim & Husky’s. However, those plans have been restructured to only include the restaurant. Metropolitan Parkway should open next summer.

“We wanted to open something in Atlanta in early 2019 so, when the Howell Mill space became available in our search, we liked it,” Gray tells Eater Atlanta. “It’s a turnkey project and gives us the opportunity to be in a busy area like Howell Mll, as well as in a more underserved community, like Metropolitan Parkway and Adair Park.”

Demolition has already begun on the Howell Mill outpost. Gray is actively looking for Atlanta artists to produce pieces for the restaurant. The partners see the potential foot traffic from residents of the future mixed-use apartment complexes under construction between 14th and Marietta Streets and from visitors to existing area attractions, like Westside Provisions District and the Northside Tavern, as a big plus.

Pizza

The menu for both Atlanta locations will be the same as their three restaurants in Nashville. Most pizzas are named for songs by various hip-hop and R&B artists — the Rony, Roni, Rone!, for instance, is named for the group Tony! Toni! Toné! and includes three types of pepperoni.

Slim & Husky’s just introduced a new meat lovers pizza to the menu, the Cee No Green. Gray and his partners fed Atlanta’s Goodie Mob and the pizza’s eponym, CeeLo Green — the crooner from the group — before they performed in Nashville last month. Apparently, the members of Goodie Mob and CeeLo loved the pizza.

Gray says Slim & Husky’s ATL vibe will be felt most in the artwork throughout the restaurants and the beers offered from local Atlanta and Georgia breweries. Dine-in and take-out are planned for both locations. A take-out window is being installed at the Metropolitan restaurant, which is staying open later in the evening to better serve students attending Morehouse, Clark-Atlanta University, and Spelman.

And, this won’t be the last Atlanta locations. There are plans to expand Slim & Husky’s to other areas around the city.

“We really feel like Atlanta will be a great city for Slim & Husky’s. Opening here is big for us. I know our friends from Hattie B’s are finding success in Atlanta,” says Gray. “We hope to be the next Nashville restaurant to find success in Atlanta. We’re excited to be in the ATL.”

1016 Howell Mill Road, Atlanta; 581 Metropolitan Parkway SW, Atlanta. slimandhuskys.com

 

Source: Atlanta EATER

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From Beyoncé to Sorry to Bother You: the new age of Afro-surrealism

15 mins read
Afro-surrealism

There he was, dangling into the void. Sinking, arms outstretched, helplessly clawing at the air. Jordan Peele’s satirical horror Get Out introduced us to the “sunken place”, a purgatory where Daniel Kaluuya’s character is trapped by body-snatching white liberals. As otherworldly as the Salvador Dalí-designed dream sequence in Alfred Hitchcock’s Spellbound, it was the scene that planted Afro-surrealism firmly in the mainstream.

It also symbolised the revival of a genre in which strangeness and blacknessnot only co-exist but are impossible to separate. In recent years we’ve had Atlanta, a show its creator Donald Glover proudly called a “black Twin Peaks”, and a host of film-makers including Kahlil Joseph, Arthur Jafa and Jenn Nkiru, who have given a hallucinatory edge to the music of Kendrick Lamar, Flying Lotus, Kamasi Washington and Beyoncé. Joseph’s video to Flying Lotus’s Until the Quiet Comes reimagines Watts in Los Angeles as a phantasmagoric playground where a murdered black man’s body dances, bullet-ridden and bloodied, through the projects. Jafa’s video installation Love Is the Message, the Message Is Death is a collage of images; athletes and artists from LeBron James to Drake are interspersed with footage of police beating black people and civil-rights unrest, while a huge psychedelic sun burns in the background – coming in and out of the mix like a harbinger of impeding doom.

Earlier this year in the United States, writer and director Terence Nance’s sketch show Random Acts of Flyness sent up police violence, white saviour syndrome and everyday racism in a style described by the New York Times as “kaleidoscopic, nearly unclassifiable”. And this week sees the UK release of Boots Riley’s satire Sorry to Bother You, which uses surrealism to comment on race, sexuality and capitalism.

So why is the Afro-surrealist revival happening now? And is escaping into the strange and fantastical simply a natural response to living in a world bound by structural racism?

According to Terri Francis, director of the Black Film Center/Archive at the University of Indiana, it’s no wonder our pop cultural landscape is turning Afro-surreal at a time when society is wrestling with racial violence, bias and inequality. “I think their work is very realistic in representing the absurdity of black life,” says Francis. “[In America] the ideals are there and you’re aware of what should be going on … but that’s not the reality.”

This is far from the first time black artists have turned to the weird and dreamlike to explain and examine their circumstances. “We’ve forgotten the history of surrealism,” says Francis. “Initially, it included African and African-Caribbean artists; André Breton was very close to Aimé Césaire. Their sense of surrealism was not segregated. A lot of that work that we celebrate as being surrealist is drawing its inspiration from African art and African American music.”

Afro-surrealism
Culture for Senegal … Léopold Sédar Senghor. Photograph: Peter Johns for the Guardian

Césaire, a poet from Martinique, was part of the Négritude movement in 1930s France, a collective of African artists from former French colonies who created a new vision of modern Africa from French culture, pan-African thinking and surrealism. Emerging a decade after the Harlem Renaissance, Négritude produced perhaps the most remarkable early Afro-surrealist: Léopold Sédar Senghor, a Senegalese poet and socialist who would become the country’s first president in 1960. He believed art could power his country’s economy in a postcolonial world; at one point his government was pumping 25% of the state’s budget into its ministry of culture.

At the same time, American writer Henry Dumas was producing work that would see him dubbed an “Afro-surreal expressionist” by the US intellectual Amiri Baraka, who first coined the term. Dumas was born in Arkansas in 1934. After a stint in the US air force, he began a writing career that would marry the bizarre with ideas of black identity and power. In short stories, poetry and more experimental projects (Dumas created accompaniments to the work of the Afro-futurist figurehead and jazz musician Sun Ra), Dumas used surrealism to question the social strife of African Americans and the negligent attitude of the white ruling class. “When a Negro boy is shot and killed by policemen who do not check the situation before pulling their guns, the people get angry. It is a simple law of nature,” he wrote in his short story Riot or Revolt. In a tragic, ironic twist, Dumas was shot and killed by a transit cop in a New York City subway station in 1968.

Baraka wrote that Dumas’s work was made up of magical “morality tales” that were “constructed in weirdness”. Some of his work, such as the story of a group of right-on white jazz fans who demand entry to a black jazz club but die because their bodies can’t physically handle the potency of the music, could easily have come from the mind of Riley or Nance today. So is that same frustration with everyday racism the reason a new generation of black film-makers and artists reaching for the surreal again? For Francis, the only way to explain the reality of life for black people in America is through the extraordinary.

Extra real … Tessa Thompson and Lakeith Stanfield in Boots Riley’s Sorry to Bother You Photograph: Annapurna Pictures

“I’ve always thought about Afro-surrealism as something that is not wild and crazy,” she says. “It’s like Random Acts of Flyness or Sorry To Bother You, they’re extra real. They are about moments and what is going on in the now, and it’s that revelation about a once hidden or lesser known reality that makes the work have that impact.”

In Random Acts of Flyness, Nance creates vignettes that examine the absurdity of race relations in America. In one sketch, he hires a white friend who appears to vouch for him whenever he’s stopped by a police officer. Another, White Angel, focuses on a narcissistic director who uses a friend’s adopted Malawian child as a muse for a grotesque white saviour film, playing with ideas of Hollywood’s self-satisfaction, exploitation of black suffering and virtue signalling.

In Atlanta’s second season, the episode Woods sees the rapper Paper Boi flee into a forest after being mugged. There, time and reality shifts as he’s chased by a mystical junkie who taunts him for not making more of his life. Just as David Lynch’s warped vision of smalltown America revealed the darkness that lingered underneath, the Afro-surreal cohort are expressing the sheer bizarreness of having to cope with a racist society.

Ralph Ellison, whose novel Invisible Man – along with Toni Morrison’s Beloved – is arguably the most famous Afro-surrealist work of literature, dug the fantastical foundations for Man Booker prize winner Paul Beatty’s The Sellout and Colston Whitehead’s Pulitzer triumph The Underground Railroad. Ellison told an interviewer he “was just being true to reality”. Today’s artists are sometimes loth to embrace the surrealist tag fully as well. “We certainly don’t approach episodes and say, ‘Hey guys, let’s make sure this script is surreal!’” explains Stefani Robinson, one of the lead writers on Atlanta. “We’re a very specific group of individuals who are probably more drawn to the unusual, the strange, and the otherworldly. It’s just personal taste, not a verbalised mandate.”

Drawn to the unusual … Donald Glover in Atlanta. Photograph: 2018 FX Productions

Similarly, Kevin Jerome Everson – the experimental artist whose films about working-class black life point at what Francis calls “the blues at the core of Afro-surrealism” – is conscious of his work being completely misread by the art world’s predominantly white gatekeepers. He was weary of certain institutions that wanted to screen his film Tonsler Park, which captures life inside a voting station in Charlottesville, Virginia during the 2016 US election. “They wanted to show it during the election and they said it was anti-Trump,” he explains. “It didn’t have anything to do with that.

The white ruling class thinks because there are black people in it, they can only see us as a political entity. You are still in the service society, so you’re still serving them. I’m not down with that.”

Francis believes one of the core tenets of Afro-surrealism is its introspective nature, where metaphors like the sunken place are used to explore painful truths. “The journey of Afro-surrealism is inward,” says Francis. “It’s about imagining how your interior world works and staying in that place to reckon with your everyday.” In that sense you can include the work of Michaela Coel’s Chewing Gum and Issa Rae’s Insecure, which both delve into the rarely explored (in mainstream culture, anyway) interior world of black women.

Everson believes younger artists see the liberating potential of the genre. “I think everyone was used to seeing things as ‘real’ in African American culture,” he says. “Once people looked back at Funkadelic they realised, ‘Oh wow, people used their imagination.’” George Clinton’s group would descend on stage from the P-Funk Mothership, a 1,200-pound aluminum stage prop that fit in with the group’s intergalactic self-mythologising, developed after Clinton and bass player Bootsy Collins claimed to have encountered a UFO. “Black people have always used their imagination,” adds Everson. “And I think the young people freaked out because in popular culture there seemed to be no avenue to use their imagination.”

The Parliament-Funkadelic mothership lands in Los Angeles, 1977. Photograph: Michael Ochs Archives

Now, surrealism is spreading. The New Negress Film Society is a collective of film-makers, including Ja’Tovia Gary, who use dreamlike elements, and which supports black female directors and artists. Young directors from the African diaspora including Adoma Owusu, Cecile Emeke, Chinonye Chukwu and Frances Bodomo (who directed four episodes of Random Acts of Flyness) have all experimented with the surreal in their films. In June, Jenn Nkiru worked on the Afro-surreal video for Beyoncé and Jay-Z’s Apeshit, which cut between images of staid old masters in the Louvre and black America’s biggest power couple. As an art form, Afro-surrealism has taken root.

“Just about any black person is an Afro-surrealist because you have to be able to imagine something more than what is right in front of you,” explains Francis. “You need to have that sixth sense to be able to understand white people and where you’re safe. You also have to imagine another world beyond this one, where you are just a normal person living your life.”

 

Source: Lanre Bakare for The Guardian

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12 African Tailors You Should Know

1 min read
African Tailors

Anyone who has tried to find reliable African tailors knows it can be a struggle. Finding the right tailor is like finding the right barber who wont mess up your hairline or the hairstylist that won’t butcher your edges.

 

Facts….

African tailor

More facts….

Thankfully, our fam at NaijaMadeMe put out a call for Nigerian tailors and folks came through. Here are some of the tailors we came across and a few others we know of personally.

African Tailors

Mangishi Doll

Becca Apparel

SGTC by Détóké

Sika Designs

TYNTY Fashions

Omooba Fashions

TJ Suavè

Claude Lavie Kameni

Chiefo!

TEVRISS

Ugo Monye

 

Kamsi TCharles

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Kendejah is the Bay Area’s First Liberian restaurant

10 mins read
Kendejah

Before you order at Kendejah — before you even ask questions about the dishes on the menu, in fact — Dougie Uso will distribute a laminated card to you and your fellow diners and ask you to read it. “A short history of Liberia & Kendejah,” it is titled: four paragraphs describing how free black Americans emigrated to West Africa starting in 1821 and, in 1847, created a political state.

Kendejah
Photo: Gabrielle Lurie / The Chronicle

After 18 months in business, Uso, a 44-year-old with shoulder-length dreads and the slimmest shadow of West Africa in his speech, has condensed his introduction to Liberian food into a well-rehearsed patter, but it’s a critical one for first-timers to absorb so the dishes they see flipping through the menu make sense.

Owner Dougie Uso (center) chats with a takeout customers at Kendejah, the Bay Area’s only Liberian restaurant in San Leandro, California, on Sunday, Nov. 25, 2018.Photo: Gabrielle Lurie / The Chronicle

Kendejah is a mission-driven business, as the corporate giants like to say. There’s a lot for Uso to fit into his introduction: a slice of history most Americans don’t know, personal pride, a definition of the country’s food, a branding opportunity. The recent MBA grad is growth-minded, too, with a new food truck about to hit the streets. If you can’t make it to downtown San Leandro to take in a little Liberian culture, Kendejah will soon drive to you.

Photo: Gabrielle Lurie / The Chronicle

In 1990, at the age of 15, Uso came to Oakland from Monrovia, Liberia’s capital city, to visit his father, who had already moved to California. He never went back. During his stay, civil war broke out in Liberia — and lasted until he was 30. The conflict ended more than 150 years of relative peace in Liberia, killing as many as 200,000 and eviscerating the country’s finances and educational system.

In the East Bay, where his entire family found refuge, Uso says that he found the dislocation between the two cultures less dramatic than an outsider might expect. Monrovia was so entranced by New York hip-hop in the late 1980s that Uso entered Oakland High School writing his own raps and dancing East Coast moves that hadn’t yet made it to the West Coast. He graduated from high school and UC Berkeley, where he earned his bachelor’s in political science in the 1990s.

After 20 years in the car industry, first as a salesman and then in financing — watch him chat up newcomers, and an ease that comes from years on the sales floor is evident — Uso went back to school for his MBA.

Kendejah
Diane Wade (left) and Jennifer Gibbs dine at Kendejah in San Leandro, the Bay Area’s only Liberian restaurant. Photo: Gabrielle Lurie / The Chronicle

Opening a Liberian restaurant, he says, was one plan of many he nursed during his studies. “I’m a walking idea machine,” he says. But it was the one he pursued first. The mother of his current chef, Miemie Johnson, spotted a vacant storefront in San Leandro’s Pelton Center. It took Uso a year to build a full kitchen and install plumbing and flooring. He hired a Liberian artist to paint portraits of the first eight Liberian presidents on the walls, and mounted a television on the wall that would play West African hip-hop videos.

Kendejah finally opened in March 2017. That first month, Uso says, Liberian immigrants made up 35 percent of his customers. But he knew that wouldn’t last. “Liberians know how to cook their own food,” he said. “You’re not cooking for 100 (out of 100) Liberians. You’re cooking for six Liberians, or on a good day, 10.”

Photo: Gabrielle Lurie / The Chronicle

How should a child of Monrovia and Oakland, fluent in two cultures, teach Californians about Liberian cuisine, especially given how rare West African food is in the Bay Area? How should the food welcome them in and draw them back? What, in short, would Liberian American food look like?

Uso decided to emphasize the familiar, given West Africa’s influence on the cooking of the South and the larger lessons of Liberia’s history — of freedom and self-direction, of men and women who made it out of slavery and founded a country — that Uso wanted Americans to know. “Half of the foods we eat are traditional, as far as the cassava leaf, the palm butter stew, the palaver sauce,” he says. “Then the other half are fusion dishes that most Americans have had, maybe a different variation — for example, collard greens, fried okra, oxtails, eggplant and spinach. We just cook it with a little twist.”

The jollof rice dish, rice cooked with peppers and spices, at Kendejah in San Leandro, the Bay Area’s only Liberian restaurant. Photo: Gabrielle Lurie / The Chronicle

He picked three dishes to build the menu around: braised oxtail, fried red snapper with tomato-pepper gravy, and jollof rice (Uso describes it as a “stir-fried jambalaya”; it’s rice cooked with peppers and spices) with chicken or vegetarian gravy. Then he had the cooks remove the spice — an auntie makes a habanero-and-smoked-herring paste if you want to add it back in — and, in some cases, meat and smoked fish.

It’s fascinating to see Uso’s effort to consciously create a Liberian American cuisine. In the Bay Area, where we make the decision to eat “Vietnamese” for lunch and “German” for dinner, what we so often mean are the totemic foods that these cuisines have been reduced to — tea salad for Burmese cuisine, say, or pupusas for Salvadoran. These dishes have become so familiar to outsiders that every cook and restaurateur has to make their peace with them. You can tell 1,000 tables that meals in Mexico don’t begin with chips and salsa, or you can put a basket of chips on the menu and charge them for their own ignorance.

By taking control of that abstraction process, Uso sees it as a business opportunity. “People say the food business is too hard,” he says. “Yes it is, if you’ve got a Vietnamese restaurant and there are 20 others. You’ve got a one-of-a-kind cuisine (like Liberian), it has to work out if the food is great.”

Dr. Frankie Moore (left) and the Rev. Barbara Galloway-Lee laugh as they dine at at Kendejah in San Leandro, the Bay Area’s only Liberian restaurant. Photo: Gabrielle Lurie / The Chronicle

In a few weeks, the 26-foot food truck he just refitted — complete with fryers, ovens and an external TV screen to play music — will undergo its final health inspections. Uso is looking for a spot in Berkeley to park it and is telling all his customers to follow Kendejah on Instagram. Given his background in finance, he’s done the math, and figures the best way to get his Liberian cuisine out there is to set up a fleet of trucks. Kendejah in Berkeley. Kendejah in San Francisco. Kendejah in San Jose.

He recounts a story he heard from an Ethiopian restaurant owner in the store where he picks up his supplies. “She told me there was a guy who came here 40 years ago, and he was the first guy to open an Ethiopian restaurant. Now every American knows what Ethiopian food tastes like because of that one guy. That’s who I want to be.”

Where and when: 197 Pelton Center Way, San Leandro, 510-756-6049, kendejahrestaurant.com. Open 11:30 a.m.-10:00 p.m. Tuesday-Sunday.

Source : San Francisco Chronicle

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DMV Realtor, Eze Okwodu Wants You To Buy and Sell #TheEzeWay

5 mins read
Eze Okwodu
As important as it is to recognize business owners and entrepreneurs, it is just as important to recognize the professionals and service providers who are excelling in their different fields of practice. Eze Okwodu is one such professional.
Eze is a Realtor at Exit Flagship, serving the Washington D.C. Metro Area. With over fifteen years of experience as a real estate investor, Eze is committed to helping his clients find their dream properties that not only meet their needs but are sound financial investments.

Eze Okwodu (Realtor) Washington D.C.)

Why did you decide to become a realtor?

I decided to become a Realtor because I felt it would give me the opportunity to buy larger buildings at a more affordable rate.

In addition to being a realtor, you are also a real estate investor. How has that helped your career so far?

It has helped in several ways, for one I am already very familiar with the inner workings of the real estate industry. Since I am a landlord I can see things from the perspective of a client who wants to purchase an investment property. I can also understand the struggle that tenants go through trying to save money to make a purchase.

What do you do in your spare time?

In my Spare time, I enjoy reading fiction, hiking, long distance runs. I love trying out different vegan restaurants in the city.

You serve the DMV area. What changes are you noticing that market?

The prices of homes in DC are growing very very fast. My advice is to do everything you can to buy property in DC. Even if it’s a one bedroom shack, it would be wise to buy something based on where the predicted future appreciation of property in the city.

How has the pandemic affected your business?

With the majority of people now confined to their current living spaces and now also having more time to think about their comfort and future, coronavirus has actually increased business for me. I get a lot more inquiries about refinancing and wanting to buy larger homes.

In a way, it makes sense because social distancing has forced people to be more reflective about their home environment and how important it is to live in the best place possible, especially if you have to stay there nonstop for long periods of time, as is the case right now.

What marketing strategies have you implemented recently?

I’ve increased my marketing by 50% and also started working closely with loan officers. I’ve also started using Zoom and other web-conferencing platforms to host financial literacy workshops that have been a real hit in the community.

These workshops give people an opportunity to continue to improve their potential to become new homeowners.

In addition to that, I share images and videos of some of my current property listings on social media platforms and set up one-one-one follow ups for those ready to buy.

You’d be surprised how many people are willing to buy new homes in this environment.

What advice do you have for those interested in becoming a real estate agent?

It’s not as simple as people make it sound. The best advice I can give is to come in ready to work harder than any job you’ve ever had.

Where do you see your practice in the next 5 years?

In 5 years I will own my own real estate brokerage.
Contact info:
EXIT Flagship Realty
1221 Caraway Court, Suite #1040
Upper Marlboro, MD 20774
Cell:  (301) 559 2872

Tony O. Lawson

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62 Black Women Who Are Writing Hits for TV and Hollywood

45 mins read
Black Women writers

For The Hollywood Reporter’s largest shoot ever, members of Black Women Who Brunch, a networking group co-founded by Lena Waithe, gather to discuss how the industry can better understand black women in Hollywood: “We have to be exceptional.”

In 2014, Nkechi Okoro Carroll was an executive story editor on Bones when she met an up-and-coming scribe named Lena Waithe at a WGA Committee of Black Writers event. The two hit it off, so much so that Okoro Carroll got the future Emmy winner — whose major credit at the time was writing for the Nickelodeon series How to Rock — hired as a staff writer on her Fox procedural, making Waithe the second black woman in the room. “Aren’t you worried she’s going to take your job?” a fellow writer on staff asked Okoro Carroll.

“You should be worried she’ll take your job,” retorted Okoro Carroll, now showrunning The CW’s All American. What the duo felt was not competition but kinship: “We often felt like unicorns,” Okoro Carroll says. “When someone asked me to recommend mid-level female writers [of color] for a job, I was appalled to realize I didn’t know many names.”

Together with Erika L. Johnson, then writing for BET’s Being Mary Jane, the women decided to create a network of black female TV writers themselves. Twelve assembled for the March 2014 inaugural meeting of what came to be known as Black Women Who Brunch (BWB); today, the membership nears 80. “This group is the proof” against and antidote to “people saying, ‘We can’t find any black female writers,'” says Johnson, now a co-executive producer on NBC’s upcoming The Village.

BWB holds potlucks at Okoro Carroll’s house every few months (usually about 30 members are available at one time) to toast triumphs and troubleshoot challenges. “It’s not just a community we’re building, but a resource,” says Waithe. “We really are able to recommend eight or nine black women for certain jobs.”

In August, BWB took its first off-site trip — a weekend getaway to Palm Springs. And in November, 62 members gathered for THR‘s biggest photo shoot ever, where they revealed what they wish their colleagues knew about being a black woman in the business.

THE BARRIERS IN THE PIPELINE

Ubah Mohamed, story editor, DC’s Legends of Tomorrow (The CW) It all stems from lack of information and access. As a child, I was fascinated by film and television but never dreamed of becoming a screenwriter. I didn’t know it was a real job. Growing up with immigrant parents in New York City, it was expected that I’d work in medicine or law. Children who lack access can’t imagine thriving in Hollywood because they don’t know those jobs exist, or how to get them.

Morenike Balogun Koch, producer, Jupiter’s Legacy (Netflix) Assistants of color are less likely to be looped in on or recommended for writer’s assistant openings because they are less likely to be asked to lunch or invited to social gatherings by their non-minority peers. You have to do the asking. There’s a weird social isolation going on. You’re just not thought of at times.

Felischa Marye, story editor, 13 Reasons Why (Netflix) People of color, who often don’t have the generational wealth or financial support system to attend film schools or work almost for free for years as an intern or assistant, are at a disadvantage. They are not in the pipeline.

Talicia Raggs, supervising producer, NCIS: New Orleans (CBS) Writer’s assistant is the best-known way to get your foot in the door to becoming a writer, but there’s only one position per show and it’s therefore the hardest to get.

Britt Matt, executive story editor, A.P. Bio (NBC) Before anyone even reads your material, you’re often already placed in a box or categorized based on your race and gender. Some showrunners won’t read you unless they’re looking for a writer that fits your demographic.

Pilar Golden, story editor, God Friended Me (CBS) In most rooms, there is only one of “us,” either male or female. When there is only one slot, you, along with every writer of color at every agency or unsigned, are vying for that.

Chantelle M. Wells, co-producer, Jane the Virgin (The CW) Writers coming out of the diversity programs are hit the hardest because the studio covers their pay for the first 20 weeks. After that, if the show decides to pick up their option for the rest of the season, their pay comes out of the show’s budget, as it does for every writer. Some shows won’t pick up those options and just bring in a new diversity hire they don’t have to pay for, under the guise of giving more people more opportunities. And what they’ve actually done is cut that writer at the knees because the next job they get, they’ll have to repeat staff writer because they’ve only had 20 weeks on a show.

Erica L. Anderson, supervising producer, 911 (Fox) Many women, including myself, have done staff writer multiple times.

Mercedes Valle, staff writer, Elena of Avalor (Disney Junior) I know at least two women of color who were staff writers five times.

Tash Gray, co-producer, Snowfall (FX) A writer on a “black show” who moves to a “non-black show” often has their level questioned, as if their experience is less valuable.

Jewel McPherson, executive story editor, Star (Fox) The numbers attest: Black showrunners represent only 5.1 percent of the pool. Nonblack showrunners, agents and studios enjoy the public praise they get for supporting lower-level diversity programs. However, they fail to promote capable writers of color to upper-level positions.

Thembi L. Banks, executive story editor, untitled Hilde Lysiak series (Apple) Being trusted to run your own show is one of the hardest battles. I see women who’ve worked in the business for over a decade struggle to get that position. I was about to take a pilot out for development and asked for a list of black women showrunners. The list seemed to be almost nonexistent.

Ester Lou Weithers, story editor, Star (Fox) Overqualified co-EPs of color, who should be on showrunner lists that agents send out and networks pull from, simply aren’t given the chance because “they’ve never done it before.”

Maisha Closson, co-EP, Claws (TNT) and How to Get Away With Murder (ABC) Any level is tough because a lot of EPs have the mentality that if they hire one person of color, they’ve hired enough people of color. But you walk into that room and there are five white guys. There’s no cap on them.

***

THE TOKEN IN THE ROOM?

Angela Harvey, supervising producer, Station 19 (ABC) The first season I was in a writers room, I was the only woman and the only POC. I would jokingly preface my pitches with, “Well, speaking for all the female and non-white persons of the world …,” hoping that a spoonful of humor would help the medicine go down. When you’re the only one in the room with a specific understanding of a story, there’s no one to kick ideas around with. It’s just you in the hot seat with 10 pairs of eyes boring into you. In some rooms, folks are genuinely trying to understand. In others — watch out.

Adrienne Carter, supervising producer, Family Reunion (Netflix) When I was writing on the third season of NBC’s Las Vegas, my partner and I were the only people of color. My first day on the job, the showrunner said there were too many characters on the show, and we needed to get rid of one. The consensus was to kill of Marsha Thomason’s character, and the guys got more and more excited as they decided she should die in a fiery explosion. I was horrified and said, “You can’t kill the only black woman on the show.” That had never occurred to them.

Franki Butler, story editor, upcoming Netflix series Having other POC in the room takes the burden of being The Minority Perspective off of my shoulders. I’ve been in rooms with upper-level POC writers, and that was incredibly important. As a staff writer, the one thing you absolutely never want to be is the person who stops the flow of the room, and there’s a fear that saying, “Um, this feels real effing offensive,” can do that. But when there’s someone on a higher level who can back your play, it turns into an actual discussion.

Erika Green Swafford, consulting producer, New Amsterdam (NBC) Sometimes it takes more than a couple of people to redirect the course of a character or a story. You can be dismissed if you are the lone voice. You need backup.

LaTonya Croff, story editor, Raven’s Home (Disney Channel) When there is more than one of anything in the room, it’s easier for a note to break through. Otherwise you have to be that one person passionately fighting and risk being labeled “difficult” or “not a good fit.” And someone labeled “difficult” does not return for season two.

Margaret Rose Lester, staff writer, Manifest (NBC) The pressure to represent the “black” voice can be frustrating and isolating because the idea of blackness people are looking for often aligns with stereotypes. When I can’t fulfill the story to support that stereotype, I feel as though I’ve failed in my contributions to the writing team.

Wendy Calhoun, consulting producer, Station 19 (ABC) I was the only woman in the Justified room during its first two seasons, so you can imagine how refreshing it was when I was pitching story on Nashville, which had a majority female writing staff. It meant I could spend more time pitching nuance and fresh takes, and less time explaining why I’m pitching the idea in the first place. That deep character dive happened in a different way on Empire season one, which was not a gender-balanced room but had more working black writers than I’d seen outside of a WGA event. We dissected black American music, stories and characters from every angle in that room.

Robinson Being the only one makes it difficult to pitch something you know is a killer joke or story that has a ton of specificity and you know your friends and family would die to see, but because you’re the only black person, you have to explain why it’s good or funny. And by the time you have, it’s a dead pitch. Sometimes just having one other black person or person of color helps because if I pitch something specific to black people, there’s someone there for it to land on. And it doesn’t matter that the white people don’t get it. if we’re making prestige cable television or a standout network comedy, you should be dying to include those types of moments that you, as a non-black writer, could never pitch.

Shari B. Ellis, animation production manager, Rainbow Rangers (Nickelodeon) On shows with predominantly black staffs, I’ve spent far less time explaining or second-guessing myself and my value, freeing me to concentrate on serving the needs of the production to the best of my ability.

Abby Ajayi, co-producer, Four Weddings and a Funeral (Hulu) On How to Get Away With Murder, there were seven women in the room and six were women of color. It didn’t fall on one person to be the voice of all women or all black people. Having multiple women from diverse ethnic backgrounds broadened the conversation, which in turn led to richer, deeper characters. It’s also inspiring to see the women higher up the ladder prove that there is a path.

LaToya Morgan, co-executive producer, Into the Badlands (AMC) The times when I was with another black writer were fantastic. The person I worked with was more experienced than I was, so I stepped up my game to match hers. I got the peer-to-peer mentorship that I’d always hoped I’d get from a showrunner but never did.

Nina Gloster, staff writer, Star (Fox) Having an ally in the room creates a much more safe space for creativity.

Matt No one wants to be known as “the race/gender police,” especially in a comedy room. When you have at least one ally (the more the better, for diverse points of view), you get to share that responsibility so you’re not “the one.” You also have someone to vent to, which makes things easier on your therapist.

Calaya Michelle Stallworth, staff writer, Daybreak (Netflix) Our showrunner, Aron Coleite, pulled together a diverse team: Nine people in the office. Seven in the room. Two African-American, two queer, five women (three writers), two Jewish people, three white men, five writers over 40. I was so proud of that each day. We were from all over the country and had diverse life experiences. I got to show up to work as a writer who happens to be black and a woman, and was never put into a position where I had to hold my tongue about minority characters. To add: While I was a staff writer neophyte, I was expected to talk and contribute.

Akilah Green, writer, A Legendary Christmas With John and Chrissy (NBC) What’s at least as important as the number of women and people of color in the room is that the people in charge believe not only in diversity but also in inclusion, in being allies and amplifying underrepresented voices. When you have women and people of color in the room but don’t actually empower them to speak up and don’t listen to them when they do, you end up with Kendall Jenner’s Pepsi commercial.

Shernold Edwards, co-executive producer, Anne With an E (Netflix); consulting producer, The Red Line (CBS) The difference lies with the showrunner. Anne With an E is based on Anne of Green Gables and is set in the 19th century. The first season is beautiful. It’s also very white. That was the first thing creator Moira Walley-Beckett brought up during my meeting. I told her I wasn’t interested in tokenism; turns out she wasn’t, either. I was part of the creation of the first black character ever to appear in the world of Anne, out of a series of 19 or so books. I got to name him and give him my parents’ Trinidadian heritage. He appeared in nine out of 10 episodes and had a thorough arc. So not tokenism — more like a step toward the healing of cultural erasure — because there have been black folks in Canada since about 1751, but it takes a creator who gives a shit enough to look past the source material and put that onscreen.

Black Women writers
Claudia Lucia From left: Black Women Who Brunch co-founders Nkechi Okoro Carroll, Lena Waithe and Erika L. Johnson.

I WISH HOLLYWOOD UNDERSTOOD …

Jenina Kibuka, story editor, P-Valley (Starz) That we aren’t a monolithic group. We’re multidimensional and would like to be treated as such.

Wells That we work twice as hard (getting half as much) in order to defend ourselves against an assumption of mediocrity.

Marye That people assume that you got in through a diversity program, and if you did, it means you’re no good — that you only got your job because you’re black and no one’s hiring straight white males anymore, when statistics continuously contradict that notion.

Croff That most of the time, our road to the table was longer and harder than our counterparts’. So when we make it, know that it was earned. Nothing was given.

Stallworth That for decades black women creatives were told no and pushed aside. Some were forced to take other work, so you have black women screenwriters masquerading as lawyers because no one took them seriously. And now Hollywood is like, “There aren’t any black women who want to write sci-fi or edit films or do sound.”

Lena Waithe, creator/EP, The Chi (Showtime) That being a black woman in the industry is a gift and a curse: a gift because we’re in high demand right now, a curse because we’re also being commodified.

Edwards That this “angry black woman” stereotype really burns my ass. I’m a black woman, but I’m also Canadian. Stereotype that.

Keli Goff, story editor, Black Lightning (The CW) That it can be exhausting knowing that whatever you do, your successes or failures reflect on an entire group of people. I recently received a note: “Not many black women are up for opportunities like this, so it’s important for all of us that you give it your all.”

Kimberly Ann Harrison, co-EP, Star (Fox) That we can write for anyone, not just for black women.

Rasheda S. Crockett, staff writer, Adam Ruins Everything (truTV) That we have to be experts at cultural specifics that pertain to us, while being proficient at cultural specifics that don’t.

Matt How heavy our workload is: In addition to being a good writer, pitching jokes, being good in the room, etc., we also have to deal with speaking up when marginalized people are portrayed in a negative or stereotypical light.

Njeri Brown, co-producer, Dear White People (Netflix) That we’re not some hardened rebel force that can hold the weight of the world on our shoulders because we have a historical legacy of being strong. Sure, I’m a formidable black woman and I know quite a few like me in this business. But we are also soft and vulnerable, and the cost of being strong is sometimes having to take a Klonopin and do some breathing exercises, because we’re human. Just like you.

Marquita J. Robinson, co-producer, GLOW (Netflix) That we have such little room for error. We have to be exceptional. Those writers who always move up despite being “just OK”? None of them are black women. If a white male staff writer is bad, it’ll never keep those in power from hiring another white guy. I’ve heard people say that they “tried” to hire diverse, but the black writer they hired didn’t work out, so they never hired a black person again. Incredible.

THE BENEFITS OF BWB

Rochée Jeffrey, story editor, SMILF (Showtime); executive story editor, Step Up: High Water (YouTube Premium) Lena Waithe helped to put my name in front of Frankie Shaw for the writers room of SMILF season two.

Cynthia Adarkwa, staff writer, In the Vault (Complex Networks) Trying to traverse this unique career can at times be such a shitstorm. With these women, I’m able to air frustrations and talk strategy in a safe and judgment-free zone. I’ve bothered Erika Johnson quite a few times about career moves (sorry girl, but also thank you so much). It’s been priceless and keeps me going on the hardest days.

Kibuka Many of its members were responsible for helping to facilitate much of my incremental progress toward finally becoming a TV staff writer, such as guiding me in my management/agency search, helping with targeted prep for showrunner meetings and, most important, being an empathetic body of solace and strength when navigating the highs and lows of the creative process.

Stacey Evans Morgan, consulting producer, Family Time (Bounce TV) Iron sharpens iron, and when we come together to break bread, it’s comforting to know that there is a fellow sister scribe who has your back. The job information shared is also amazing, as one member may have the inside scoop on a staffing opportunity, and the ability to put in a good word with a showrunner on your behalf.

Resheida Brady, executive story editor, Good Trouble (Freeform) I was a writer’s assistant when I found out I was pregnant. I had my daughter and was unable to continue being an assistant. Three months later, I was unemployed when I was randomly called to interview for a writer’s assistant position at Being Mary Jane season four with [showrunner and BWB member] Erica Shelton Kodish. I got the job and was promoted to staff writer in a month. It turns out Erica had read my pilot and wanted to staff me all along. She had a 9-month-old, while I had a 3-month-old. She not only gave me my big break, but she also taught me a lot about being a working mother. She made sure I pumped on schedule and that I had enough milk stored up before she decided if we would work late. It was my big break as a writer, but an even bigger break working for her — a fellow black working mom.

Erica Shelton Kodish, showrunner, Being Mary Jane (BET), currently under a CBS TV overall development deal The support is paramount. When you’re out in the trenches, it can be very isolating. It’s extremely beneficial to know there is a group who keenly understands what you’re going through, who’s gone through it themselves and has helpful insights on how to navigate the politics.

Amani Walker, creator, Rebel (BET) The women in BWB are absolutely amazing at sharing job opportunities, especially during staffing season. They may have a leg up on a writing opportunity that might not be widely known and graciously share that information with the group.

Golden In our Facebook group, women are consistently uploading information and job opportunities. No lie, we’re each other’s agents.

Weithers Cue DJ Khaled’s “The Keys”! When you walk into that brunch, you are stepping into a wealth of knowledge, experience and encouragement. There are so many unwritten rules in the writers room that you need someone to help you navigate the landmines, especially when you get an offensive note or are the only woman or POC in the room. The same goes on the business side — these women can tell you when your agents are leaving opportunities on the table; it empowers you to know what has been done before and gives you the agency to fight for yourself.

Erika Harrison, producer, How to Get Away With Murder (ABC) I do some of my best writing after a BWB brunch. Creative juices flow like a mug.

Gray I have both comedy and drama credits as a direct result of BWB. When I decided to venture into drama, several women encouraged me, read my drama sample and passed my work on to their showrunners.

Morgan I’ve recommended people for jobs, introduced them to agents and representatives, and emotionally and financially supported their projects. I mentor several writers within the group, and my mentor is also part of the group. I always try to use whatever connections I make to help elevate all of us.

Marye After we went to Palm Springs this summer, a development executive saw our group shot that I posted on social media and reached out to me to find black female creators for new shows.

Black Women writers
Charles Maceo/Courtesy of BWB Black Women Who Brunch at its first off-site event in Palm Springs this August: It was “40 women, three houses, no drama,” says co-founder Johnson.

MICROAGGRESSION HORROR STORIES

Raamla Mohamed, co-executive producer, Little Fires Everywhere (Hulu) On set a PA directed me to background holding. A couple of times I was mistaken as a stand-in for Kerry Washington and also was asked if I was the script supervisor while I was sitting in a chair marked “writer.”

Erika L. Johnson, co-executive producer, The Village (NBC) “I met with a [white male] showrunner and we got along well and riffed off of each other. Toward the end, he looked at me almost in disbelief and said, “You’re really smart.”

Waithe I was in a writers room and Oprah’s Legends Ball had aired on TV. It inspired me and my mother. The next day, these white writers were like, “What the fuck was that?” I wanted to punch them. Just because something wasn’t about you doesn’t mean it’s not relevant.

Angela Nissel, co-EP, The Last O.G. (TBS) When people use their one black friend to explain why your point of view is wrong.

Jalysa Conway, story editor, Grey’s Anatomy (ABC) It’s very annoying when someone from the dominant race believes they know more about the “minority” experience and wants to enlighten the world about our struggles. We need allies, not self-described saviors.

Valle I wear a Stars Wars Rebel Alliance necklace most of the time and I can’t tell you how many guys have asked me if I know what the insignia stands for or where it’s from.

Ali Kinney, story editor, Single Parents (ABC) I’ve heard quite a few Caucasian colleagues say phrases like, “I don’t see color.” But being a person of color is a different experience. To deny that is not realistic and can actually be hurtful.

Carter My white boss, who fancied himself “down,” told me that my experience wasn’t valid because I wasn’t “really black.” As if being black and [Yale] educated cannot exist together.

Harvey Often when I try to add a layer to a story tinged with racism or misogyny, the reaction from the room is reluctance to turn a show into an “issues” show or make things too “political.” The moments I’m pitching are based on real-life experiences that happen to real people, not “very special episodes.”

Lisa Muse Bryant, supervising producer, Black-ish (ABC) Being told I’m too sensitive when I point out classic gags and jokes that are rooted in stereotypes.

Syreeta Singleton, staff writer, Central Park (Apple) Being in comedy rooms, there’s the question of whether or not you are being too sensitive when someone suggests that because you’re a black girl, you must be wearing a weave, or that black people have a harder time swimming than others. Where’s the line between playful teasing, creating a comfortable space, and being racist? All of people’s stereotypes and long-held beliefs — about black women, specifically — seem to rear their ugly heads in the form of “jokes.” I stood up once to get something and another writer suggested I was going to start twerking.

Lorna Clarke Osunsanmi, story editor, All American (The CW) When I have pointed out instances of institutional racism or scenarios where POC have been disproportionately impacted, I am called a racist.

Anonymous Once a showrunner went around the table asking each writer the name of their nanny growing up. I was the only person of color and come from a working-class immigrant family. The intention may not have been to make me the other, but that was the outcome.

Gray On a previous show, I said I’d read that black women are the most educated group in America. My white male counterpart, vigorously questioning this, grabbed his phone to search Google to prove me wrong. When the writers assistant, also a white male, supported my statement, the debate was over. Being female and black, I am constantly questioned or ignored unless I assert myself.

McPherson A person once said they were tired of trying to understand what was taboo to say about people of color. It was too much to keep up with.

Golden I have heard on a number of occasions people getting upset because “their” spot was taken. What a privilege to believe something is automatically yours with no regard for competition.

Kibuka I once had a [non-black] colleague who only used spirited, black vernacular when speaking with me.

Shalisha Francis, supervising producer, Seven Seconds (Netflix) The tendency for some non-POC [people of color] men to be less receptive when a woman disagrees or offers a counterpoint. I thought it would never be acknowledged till Glen Mazzara spoke at a WGA talk about the first time he realized he tensed up more when he received criticism from the women on his staff.

PLEASE STOP …

Banks Hiring women or black people solely because there is a woman or black character on your show. Our perspectives are broad and our narrative scope reaches beyond our gender and race.

Taii K. Austin, producer, House of Lies (Showtime) Requiring black writers also to be performers. I hope Lena Waithe and Issa Rae keep doing it for decades. But some of us want to stay behind the camera.

Nissel Being afraid to talk about race. And please stop calling us “angry” when we’re simply passionate. We’re nerds; we love TV!

JaNeika James, producer, Empire (Fox) Taking “no” for an answer when you can’t find a person of color.

Balogun Koch Telling me to “wait my turn” to develop my own ideas, despite there being interest in doing so, when my white male peers weren’t told that at all. I know. I’ve asked them.

Closson Asking me about Kwanzaa.

Robinson Asking me if I cut my hair. Natural hair shrinks. Write that on your arm and never ask me again.

***

PLEASE START …

Balogun Koch Asking us to lunch or drinks. Executives, showrunners and peers ask other writers. Include us; get to know us.

Wells Asking writers of color for recommendations. I make no secret about BWB and the talented women who populate this group, yet I can think of only one time when I was asked to recommend someone.

Marye Demanding from agents to read people of color specifically. And don’t stop when they send just one or two.

Morgan Asking agencies about new talent. That means not just sending out the usual-suspect seasoned writers with robust résumés.

JaSheika James, producer, Empire (Fox) Looking at how many black women executives networks and studios don’t have, and then hiring them. And if they have one or two … hire more.

Valle Hiring black writers even when there aren’t black characters in the main cast.

Austin Considering our creative range. I’d kill for the opportunity to adapt something like Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s [U.K. comedy] Crashing or to write a super-broad feature for Will Ferrell, but that’s not usually the sort of project a black woman is called in for.

Click the image below to see a larger version.

1 Talicia Raggs (drama – Verve, Sheree Guitar) 2 Zoanne Clack 3 Rochée Jeffrey (UTA, Rain, Frankfurt Kurnit) 4 Erika Green Swafford (drama – WME, Sheree Guitar, Hansen Jacobson) 5Ester Lou Weithers (drama – Paradigm, Circle of Confusion) 6 Erica L. Anderson (drama – Gersh) 7 Maisha Closson (drama – WME, The Cartel) 8 Erika Harrison (drama – UTA) 9 Nina Gloster (drama – CAA, Rain) 10 JaNeika James (drama – ICM, Industry, Hansen Jacobson) 11 Calaya Michelle Stallworth (CAA, Writ Large) 12 Brusta Brown (drama – The Cartel, Ziffren Brittenham) 13 Resheida Brady (drama – CAA, Rain) 14 Franki Butler (drama – Abrams, Echo Lake) 15 Ticona S. Joy (drama – CAA, Good Fear) 16 Pilar Golden (APA, Meridian) 17 Angela Harvey (drama – APA) 18 Chantelle M. Wells (drama – UTA, Industry) 19 Lisa McQuillan (comedy – UTA) 20 Lisa Muse Bryant (comedy, drama – Rothman Brecher, Sheree Guitar, Lichter Grossman) 21 Felischa Marye (comedy, drama – UTA, MetaMorphic) 22 Taii K. Austin (comedy – Hansen Jacobson) 23 Amani Walker 24 Raamla Mohamed (UTA, Ziffren Brittenham) 25 Morenike Balogun Koch (ICM) 26 Akilah Green (comedy – Scenario) 27LaTonya Croff (comedy – Sheree Guitar, Lichter Grossman) 28 LaToya Morgan (drama – CAA, Eclipse Law) 29 Erica Shelton Kodish (drama – CAA, Industry, Hansen Jacobson) 30Wendy Calhoun (drama – UTA, Brillstein) 31 Shernold Edwards (drama – UTA, Del Shaw) 32Shari B. Ellis (comedy, animation – Bohemia Group) 33 Jalysa Conway (drama – Gersh, Underground) 34 Lorna Clarke Osunsanmi (drama – Verve, Niad) 35 Thembi L. Banks (comedy, drama – UTA, Rain) 36 Njeri Brown (WME, Media Talent Group) 37 Rasheda S. Crockett (comedy – WME, Seven Summits) 38 Jewel McPherson (drama – CAA, Rain, Ivie McNeill) 39 JaSheika James (drama – ICM, Industry, Hansen Jacobson) 40 Marquita J. Robinson (comedy – CAA, Del Shaw) 41 Britt Matt (comedy – UTA) 42 Niya Palmer (comedy, drama – Smart) 43 Margaret Rose Lester (drama – UTA, Marathon) 44 Mercedes Valle (animation, dramedy, drama – The Arlook Group) 45 Adrienne Carter (comedy – Gersh) 46Ubah Mohamed (drama – Gersh, Kaplan Perrone) 47 Tash Gray (comedy, drama – Kaplan-Stahler, MetaMorphic, Ziffren Brittenham) 48 Syreeta Singleton (comedy – UTA) 49 Cynthia Adarkwa (drama, dramedy – Brillstein) 50 Angela Nissel (comedy – Kaplan-Stahler) 51 Diarra Kilpatrick 52 Ali Kinney (comedy – CAA, LBI) 53 Shalisha Francis (drama – CAA) 54 Keli Goff (drama – APA, Manage-Ment) 55 Abby Ajayi (drama – Gersh, the U.K.’s 42, Del Shaw) 56Stacey Evans Morgan (comedy – Tash Moseley) 57 Jenina Kibuka (drama – CAA, The Cartel, Ziffren Brittenham) 58 Nkechi Okoro Carroll 59 Erika L. Johnson (drama – Hansen Jacobson) 60 Lena Waithe (WME, The Mission) 61 Kimberly Ann Harrison (drama – WME) 62 Safura Fadavi

 

Source: Hollywood Reporter

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Black Owned Alcohol Brands You Should Know

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In addition to or instead of the usual adult beverage brands that we’re all used to, give these Black owned alcohol brands a try.

 

Black Owned Alcohol Brands

Bomade Vodka

Bomade Vodka - BLACKLANTA

Redd Rose Vodka

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Uncle Nearest Whisky

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Guidance Whisky

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Blackleaf Organic Vodka

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Myles Select Vodka

Black Momma Vodka

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