First Lady Has “Girlfriends” Over to See “Colored Girls”
Latinos Say They Have No National Leader
Will Telemundo Be the Spanish-Language Bravo?
N.J. Network Hands Out 45-Day Layoff Notices
When the screening of “For Colored Girls,” those who watched “were just sitting there.”
First Lady Has “Girlfriends” Over to See “Colored Girls”
When the showing of Tyler Perry’s “For Colored Girls” ended Tuesday at the White House, first lady Michelle Obama got up and told the 50 guests she hoped they enjoyed it. But those who had come from around the country to share the experience “were just sitting there. I don’t think they knew how to respond to it,” Shirley Poole, one of those present, told Journal-isms.
It was mostly a crowd of black women, said E. Faye Williams, though there were two or three men and some white women as well. “Most people cried throughout,” said Williams, national chair of the National Congress of Black Women. “For the majority of the film, you could see that the stories would be very painful. It’s meant for black women, and almost all black women could identify with at least one of the women in the picture. . . . The first lady is a black woman. I’m sure she can relate.”
The Perry film, based on Ntozake Shange’s 1975 “choreopoem” “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow Is Enuf,” has been criticized for its portrayals of black men but praised for giving voice to black women’s struggles with emotional obstacles. It is White House policy not to comment on activities in the residence, a spokeswoman said, and thus nothing official was said about the screening. In fact, the word was passed that the showing was for the White House staff.
Poole, exec director of the National Coalition of 100 Black Women, Inc. in New York, said Obama sat in the first row, dressed casually. She told the group she had thought, “What about having the girlfriends over to see it?”
Popcorn and soft drinks were served, just like in the movies outside the bubble.
There was no formal discussion, but had there been, Williams would not have spent much time on the man-bashing charges. “It wasn’t meant for a male,” she said of the movie. “If I were a man, I would not enjoy seeing the negative characters, but the truth is they exist.” More important, “The movie played a part in helping black women understand the part we play in allowing these things to happen to us.” Poole might have said she experienced the stage version differently from the movie. “I felt more empowered when I left the play,” she said.
If attendees discussed the movie among themselves only casually, they did at least network and exchange business cards. Apart from Williams and Poole, some of those cards belonged to Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America; Bishop Barbara L. King, founder/minister of the Hillside Chapel and Truth Center, Inc., in Atlanta; Blanche Williams, “a national broadcast journalist, acclaimed author, dynamic speaker and change agent,” and Neil Irvin executive director of Men Can Stop Rape.
Neither President Obama nor his senior female aide, Valerie Jarrett, was present for the screening, but the presidential daughters, Sasha and Malia, could be seen taking their dog Bo for a walk.
Latinos Say They Have No National Leader
“By their own reckoning, Latinos living in the United States do not have a national leader. When asked in an open-ended question to name the person they consider ‘the most important Latino leader in the country today,’ nearly two-thirds (64%) of Hispanic respondents said they did not know. An additional 10% said ‘no one,’ ” Paul Taylor and Mark Hugo Lopez reported Monday for the Pew Hispanic Center.
“These findings emerge from the 2010 National Survey of Latinos, a bilingual national survey of 1,375 Hispanic adults conducted prior to this month’s mid-term elections by the Pew Hispanic Center, a project of the Pew Research Center.
“The most frequently named individual was Sonia Sotomayor, appointed last year to the U.S. Supreme Court. Some 7% of respondents said she is the most important Latino leader in the country. U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) of Chicago is next at 5%. Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa draws 3%, and Jorge Ramos, an anchor on Noticiero Univision, the national evening news program on the Spanish-language television network Univision, drew 2%.
“No one else was named by more than 1% of respondents in the 2010 National Survey of Latinos conducted August 17 through September 19, 2010, by landline and cellular telephone. The margin of error for the full sample is plus or minus 3.3 percentage points at the 95% confidence level.”
- NBC News: Michelle Obama makes Vogue’s top 10 best dressed
- Alex Weprin, TV Newswer: Barbara Walters to Interview President Obama, First Lady for Primetime Thanksgiving Special
Will Telemundo Be the Spanish-Language Bravo?
“NBC Universal’s Spanish-language television network Telemundo is about to get a jolt as Lauren Zalaznick — the company’s high priestess of marketing who has demonstrated a knack for turning tawdry reality shows into high culture — will be tapped to take over the network,” Meg James reported Tuesday for the Los Angeles Times. “Zalaznick currently shepherds Bravo — home to such splashy shows as ‘Top Chef,’ ‘The Millionaire Matchmaker’ and ‘The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills’ — as well as the younger-skewing Oxygen channel and website iVillage.
“Zalaznick’s official title is President of NBC Universal Women & Lifestyle Entertainment Networks, which includes Bravo and Oxygen as well as NBC’s Green is Universal initiative.
“Miami-based Telemundo has long presented enormous challenges and opportunities for NBC Universal, particularly as the U.S. Latino population grows. Telemundo has been the No. 2 Spanish-language network behind Univision Communications for nearly two decades. Recently, Telemundo has been looking over its shoulder as it faces a challenge in the ratings by Univision’s secondary network, TeleFutura. Burke’s plan could be to recast Telemundo as the Bravo of Spanish-language television.”
N.J. Network Hands Out 45-Day Layoff Notices
“Employees at New Jersey Network received 45-day layoff notices Tuesday as the public television and radio network prepares to move off the government payroll,” the Associated Press reported.
Whether the station moves off the air on Jan. 1, when it stops receiving state funding and the layoffs take effect, remains to be seen.
“The notices went out to 130 employees; 17 additional employees who are paid through a private foundation are also expected to receive layoff notices, said Janice Selinger, the acting executive director of NJN public television.
“If the governor’s office and Legislature don’t act before Jan. 1, the station would go dark. However, both branches have ‘expressed the sentiment that they want us to thrive and continue,’ Selinger said, adding that the station just started a new series and continues to fundraise, although that has become more difficult, she said.
“Gov. Chris Christie’s budget this year eliminated state funding for the station after Dec. 31, forcing NJN to convert from a government entity to a private, nonprofit broadcast outlet.”
Short Takes
- The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, jewel in the New York Public Library system, announced that Khalil Gibran Muhammad, a scholar in African-American history who is an assistant professor at Indiana University, will succeed Howard Dodson as the next director, Joel Dreyfuss reported Wednesday for theRoot.com. He is the great-grandson of Elijah Muhammad, founder of the Nation of Islam and son of Ozier Muhammad, a Pulitzer Prize winner in photography who works at the New York Times.
- President Obama “just has a different belief system than most Americans,” Fox News chairman Roger Ailes told Howard Kurtz of the Daily Beast.
- “Federal District Judge Marsha Pechman in Seattle ruled in favor of reporter Carolyn Nielsen after she was subpoenaed for the third time in September for her notes and her personal correspondence with Thaddeus Jimenez, who was wrongly imprisoned in Chicago for murder in 1994 and exonerated last year,” Daniel Skallman reported Wednesday for the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.
- Elizabeth Aguilera, a former board member of the
National Association of Hispanic Journalists, has been hired as a staff writer at the San Diego Union-Tribune. “She just finished a Specialized Journalism fellowship at the University of Southern California. Prior to that, Elizabeth was a reporter at The Denver Post,” NAHJ reported on Monday.
- “A few months ago, I picked up a copy of The Clarion-Ledger’s VIP Jackson magazine and flipped through. I was shocked at how few black VIP Jacksonians I saw in the stories, party pics and advertising,” Donna Ladd wrote Wednesday in the Jackson (Miss.) Free Press. “since the Gannett Corp. bought The Clarion-Ledger — historically, one of the nation’s most racist newspapers — it has bragged about its diversity. Its top editor, Ronnie Agnew is black and is the national diversity chair for the American Society of Newspaper Editors — a similar position to what I held until recently for the nation’s alternative newspapers
- Native Sun News weekly newspaper, which already serves all of the major communities and reservations in Western South Dakota, has made arrangements with the Dakota News Group to distribute the paper in Central and Eastern South Dakota, the Native Sun News announced on Wednesday. “Distribution will also extend to the Omaha and Winnebago Nations in Nebraska, to Omaha and to the Meskwaki Nation in Iowa.
- “The OC Weekly’s Gustavo Arellano went verbally toe to toe last night in Denver with immigration critic and former Colorado congressman Tom Tancredo,” Kevin Roderick reported Wednesday for LAObserved. “The OC Weekly streamed the event and gathered comments. On Twitter, some Arellano partisans were left underwhelmed.”
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