Friday Open Thread: Music, Media, Musings

by Latoya Peterson

I think every other Friday I’ll do a random open thread just to see what’s going on with y’all.

Here’s what I am heading into the weekend with:

Music

Something compelled me to listen to the Cruel Intentions Soundtrack while I was at work yesterday. While cubicle-jamming to Skunk Anansie’s “Secretly” I realized I had never bothered to look up any of their other stuff – even though I’ve been rocking this song for the last six years.

I checked out the YouTube video and was in for a shock:

Who is that? Wait, wait, wait! The black girl is singing?

And I spent the rest of the day rocking to Skunk Anansie and the lead singer’s – Skin – solo effort, Fleshwounds. Favorites: “Weak”, “Faithfulness”, “Brazen.”

I’m loving Skin – she’s the kindred spirit of Shirley Manson (of Garbage), who I also adore. So, some posts will probably come about black rock (and yes, I’m going to talk about Me’Shell Ndegeocello) defying boundaries, bias against black lesbians, something. I’ll figure it out a bit later.

Media

I have a whole lot to write this weekend, so I am taking it easy on reading until I get things done, written, and edited. Notable exception: The Esquire cover feature on Barack Obama. They sent a cynic to deconstruct hope. Fascinating stuff. Also saw an extra little goody in Esquire this month, I’ll let that speak for itself.

Musings

I think this has been the week for the most tips ever. Seriously – my inbox is flooded. I promise we will cover the Rachel Ray “Islamic jihad scarf!” thing. And the Tyra “good black men are at the club!” thing. And the Freshjive thing and loads of other stuff. Got to finish my interracial dating piece, edit a few more, get back to someone writing about being gay at Morehouse, talk about MTV, talk about BET, and on and on.’

Dear readers, I am tired. I don’t even have the strength for this Fast Company article but I have to tackle it anyway. Short form: The author goes to Africa, gets a lot of on the ground information, but then paints the story as: “Evil, Unscrupulous Chinese Rape and Pillage Dark and Savage Africa – But Dark and Savage Africa will not allow the good, virtuous World Bank to Help Them.” This post is gonna be a bitch because my problem is not with the information presented – it’s the colonialist mindset that drips off the page, tainting the hell out of everything else. And of course, like I referred to in the Madonna post, no one asks the big questions. For some reason, history begins with a conquering empire and then zips to present day. Bleh. This one might be a multipost.

Opening the floor to you readers – what are you planning on reading/watching/doing this weekend?