Sunday, July 31, 2016

Hillary Clinton Shatters Glass Ceiling With Dead Black Bodies

Michelle Obama got plantational during her address to the 2016 Democratic National Convention. She reminded the Philadelphia audience that she wakes “up every morning in a house that was built by slaves." 

And throughout the week, Mistress Hillary R. Clinton showcased enough black help to build a new White House. The Lou Rawls Parade Of Stars got nothing on HRC. Her melanin rich lineup included: Oprah Winfrey, Rev. William Barber, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Congressman John Lewis, former Attorney General Eric Holder, Rev. Jesse Jackson, Lenny Kravitz, Senator Corey Booker, Morgan Freeman, and the Obamas. 

“It’s a hell of a show, “ declared journalist and Pennsylvania inmate Mumia Abu-Jamal, one of the few negroes in the state not on stage at the DNC. “It has writers and directors and stage managers. And it’s a hell of a show. But never forget: It’s just a show.” 

For whose entertainment shall we sing our agony?” 

Ogling grieving black mothers is as synonymous with Americana as shackled black bodies or the Liberty Bell. Whites gazed as enslaved black mothers watched their children auctioned from the womb. White voyeurs devoured images of Mamie Till-Mobley recounting how Mississippi terrorists butchered her son, Emmett. Hollywood reflects this Racist fetish; Viola Davis’ The Help and Halle Berry’s Monster’s Ball deliver Oscar-celebrated renditions of bereaved black motherhood. 

Tell us about your pain. Tell us what we took from you. 

Mrs. Clinton continued this tradition at the DNC, brandishing the black mothers of Sandra Bland, Michael Brown Jr., Jordan Davis, Eric Garner, Dantré Hamilton, Trayvon Martin, and Hadiya Pendleton. Bland’s mother, Geneva Reed-Veal, told the convention: 

"One year ago yesterday, I lived the worst nightmare anyone could imagine. I watched as my daughter, Sandra Bland, was lowered into the ground in a coffin. She was my fourth of five daughters, and she was gone. No, no, not on administrative leave, but on permanent leave from this Earth, found hanging in a jail cell after an unlawful traffic stop and an unlawful arrest.

Christopher “Biggie Smalls” Wallace appraised the value of black life: “You’re nobody ‘til somebody kills you.” The notorious HRC only developed an interest, said the names Sandra Bland and Eric Garner once they were corpses. Well-publicized black deaths provided Clinton a chance to campaign on the caskets of black bodies, plaster their graves with “Ready For Hillary” buttons. 

Clinton insists: I care about the negro. Months before the Philadelphia extravaganza, the former Secretary of State didn’t just break bread with these violated black mothers. Amy Chozik writes that for almost three hours, the presidential hopeful munched “pork chops and gravy, fried okra and rice.” Presumably, Clinton proffered her concealed hot sauce to authenticate her “blackness.” 

This motherhood of black grief became “an unlikely linchpin of Mrs. Clinton’s success.” And with nauseating similarity to Kunta Kinte’s painful rebirth as Toby in Roots, “The Clinton campaign named this sisterhood… ‘Mothers of the Movement.’” A branding calculated to keep black people shackled to the Clinton brand.  

A trail to the White House paved with black tears. 

But as First Lady, Mrs. Clinton championed the White Supremacist ideology that mandates and rationalizes the death of black children like Emmett Till, Trayvon Martin, Jordan Davis, and Tamir Rice. Former Ferguson, Missouri police officer Darren Wilson practically plagiarized Clinton’s 1994 crime bill talking points when he justified killing Brown. Wilson articulated the essence of Clinton’s “super-predator.” He called the unarmed 18-year-old a “demon” and claimed he “felt like a five-year-old holding onto [black] Hulk Hogan.” Clinton’s mid 90’s oratory can be seamlessly incorporated to explain why Michael Brown's black life didn't matter. He and Dorian Johnson, who was with Brown when he was killed, were “not just a gang of kids.” Emmett, Michael and Tamir are probable rapists, strong-arm robbers, (toy) gun-toting black predators. As HRC declared: “We have to bring them to heel.” 

Logically, we don’t call it “murder” or convict indict White killers for putting down black “super-predators.” 

But the repulsive, treacherous irony is that Hillary Rodham Clinton best exemplifies a “super-predator.” Her calculated, shameless exploitation of vulnerable, traumatized black mothers and their deceased children is the epitome and pattern of White parasitic behavior. Clinton gnaws the corpse of Sandra Bland to nourish her reputation as a “White ally,” the “not racist” option to Donald J. Trump. This isn’t pandering to black citizens; it’s a necrophilic scavenger hunt. Clinton’s a grave robber thirsty for black ballots. 

She may be scrambling to add the mothers of Philando Castile and Alton Sterling to her macabre sorority.

This conclusion could be repudiated if Clinton proposed authentic measures to value and protect black life while making history in Philadelphia. She did not. Dr. Cornel West castigated her for “trotting out [black] mothers,” but failing to mumble a syllable about policy changes designed to permanently annihilate Racist police practices. In fact, the remarks of Clinton’s “club of heartbroken mothers” reveal the handiwork of the writers and directors Mumia credited. Geneva Reed-Veal, Lucia McBath, and Sybrina Fulton discussed God, “commonsense gun legislation,” and helping a White Woman get to the White House. No one – including Hillary Clinton – said “Racism,” which is the primary reason these black mothers have a child “on permanent leave from this earth.” 

In Medical Apartheid, Harriet A. Washington details the White tradition of looting black burial sites, trafficking in dead black bodies. She describes how White medical students took commemorative selfies with cadavers that were often black. Washington compares this "important medical rite of passage" to the lynchings of black citizens, which necessitates gruesome portraits of White terrorism and the celebration of black death.

Clinton revised this tradition by mugging for the cameras with the lynching victims' relatives. Then asking for their votes. 

Wednesday, June 15, 2016

Christopher Clark: "Well-Meaning" White Man Rejects Opposition To His "Integrated" Bedroom

Christopher Clark with his black female partner
The Context of White Supremacy welcomed White journalist and writer Christopher Clark live from South Africa to exchange views on Racism. During the exchange he made these critical points:
  1. Clark agreed that there is a System of White Supremacy defined as: a global system of people who classify themselves as White and are dedicated to abusing and/or subjugating everyone in the known universe whom they classify as not White.
  2. Clark concurred that it is logical for non-white people to suspect that any White person - including himself - could be a White Supremacist/Racist.
  3. Clark conceded that the counter-racist thought that supports why any sexual activity between a White person and a non-white person is inherently exploitative and incorrect behavior under the System of White Supremacy is logical.
  4. Clark failed to provide any strategies for Victims of White Supremacy to accurately differentiate between "well-meaning" Whites and Racist Whites.
After the broadcast, Clark submitted this expletive-laced reflection on our discussion. His commentary is unedited.
Hi Gus,
I just re-listened to our talk and the subsequent "commentary", if it can be called that. 
Firstly, I think it's a huge cop out for you to dismiss so much of what I said and in such a callous manner once I was already off air. I would have been more than happy to deal with your snarky comments on air, but I guess that wouldn't have worked so well with your agenda, right? 
Secondly, how dare you speak about my relationship with my partner the way you did both while I was on air and even more so subsequently. Excuse my language, but you know sweet fuck all about her, her background, her family or the details of our relationship. Who the fuck are you to say that we won't stay together, or speculate about why we are not already married, or to assume that that is automatically my decision rather than a mutual one, or her decision for that matter? Who the fuck are you to assume that you can police other people's life or relationship choices, whatever their race? 
Thirdly, I was being completely genuine when I thanked you for the "grilling". I am sincerely interested in understanding more about racism and how to confront it, and I felt I had learnt valuable lessons from you and your callers in this regard, even though I don't agree with everything that was levelled at me. I don't see how seeing this as valuable and giving thanks for that is something that can also be perceived as negative. But then it seems clear now that you are incapable of taking anything from a white person as something that is not completely and inherently negative. Please tell me how the fuck such a one-sided view is productive for anyone, black or white? 
And yes, much of our conversation was uncomfortable for me. Why is that "bad"? I have honestly never had to answer or counter some of the questions or theories you posed, whether from white people or black people, and I certainly wasn't expecting some of them either. But was I dishonest at any stage? Absolutely not. When I was uncertain about something, I said as much. When I hesitated or chuckled, it was because I was feeling nervous or awkward or stunned by the directness of a question and didn't have a definitive answer. I'm also acutely aware of professing certainties about such complex issues that I am still learning about and analyzing on a daily basis. 
Next up, do all white people sit around and conspire about how to "talk to negros" in a manipulative and evasive way? Did I honestly hear you ask that question? Are you fucking serious??? 
Newsflash my man: there are good people trying to "do the right thing" and live their life right across all races, including among whites. There are most definitely non-racist and anti-racist white people, though they are admittedly a minority. There are also prejudiced people across all races, including among blacks. 
I think I know myself pretty well, and I know that I am a good person who tries to treat everyone I encounter with respect, empathy and dignity. I honestly think it's sad that you are obviously so unwilling to see the good in certain types of people or situations. I came onto your show with nothing but good and honest intent, and you refused to see that -- I think you'd already made your mind up before we even started talking. Hence the resounding triumph in your voice whenever you felt I'd lived up to your preconceived ideas. 
And then to even be insulted by you for defending my own mother. . . that was a new level of bullshit for me. Who wouldn't stick up for their own mother if they thought she was being portrayed unfairly (and later greatly misquoted / taken out of context in your "commentary")? It's not because she is "white", it's because she is a good woman who I love and who has done a tremendous amount for me. How the fuck is sticking up for someone like that so hard to understand? And the fact that I am unwilling to disclose the contents of a private email she sent me says nothing apart from the fact that I'm not willing to share everything with someone who I don't know live on air. And with regards to the lack of "addendum" you pointed out on the post about what my Mum said to me, I didn't think it was necessary to what I was trying to get across in that blog post. 
Also, if I were you I'd do some more research on what Bantustans were before you start throwing that word around. Just some friendly advice before you start talking about ignorance :) 
In all honesty, you lost all credibility for me when I listened to your commentary. That was just really shitty talk radio man. 
I'm sure you'll find some way to turn this all around and make it about my inherent racism and white power or policing your blackness, but it's really not about any of that. It's just about you behaving like a presumptuous, judgmental asshole. 
So fuck you, quite frankly.
Cheers, 
Chris

Thursday, June 02, 2016

Whitefolks Watching Roots Like: "Make America Great Again."

I swallowed it whole on Roots. 
Wasn’t it nice? 
Wasn’t it nice? 
Slavery was so cool. 
And all you had to do was wear derbies and vests and train chickens 
And buy your way free if you had a mind to. 
Must be the devil. 
It wasn’t no whitefolks. 
- Amiri Baraka “Dope” 



The Memorial Day debut of the refurbished version of Alex Haley’s Roots didn’t captivate a hundred million viewers like the 1977 rendition. Maybe the audience dwindled because OJ Simpson wasn’t re-cast? Regardless, the updated mini-series entertained millions and enjoyed widespread appreciation for providing a historical context for racial turbulence in the United States in the era of Black Lives Matter. 

The Miami Herald’s Leonard Pitts Jr. and a multitude of others insist that when it comes to slavery and the history of Racism, Whites and blacks alike are often ignorant; we’ve “never been given the tools to face the ugly truths America hides from itself, [have] never been taught how to have the conversation” about the American empire being founded on shackled black bodies. 

That bit of racial rhetoric is oft repeated, always false. 

Whites cannot flunk Racism

Smartphones and Hollywood are making it increasingly impossible for Whites to claim obliviousness about the ceaseless pillaging of black people. Eric Garner (a black male choked to death by New York police in 2014) and Sandra Bland (a black female found hanging dead in a Texas jail under suspicious circumstances in 2015) garnered more television time than many of the 2016 presidential candidates. While the box office and Netflix hemorrhage viewing options of chained, bludgeoned black people. 

Before the Roots reboot and FOX’s Empire there was: The Book Of Negroes (2015), Belle (2013), 12 Years A Slave (2013), DJango Unchained (2012), Case départ (2011), Feasts of All Saints (2001), Sally Hemings: An American Scandal (2000), Beloved (1998), Amistad (1997). 

This is a stingy sample of the plantation genre and excludes oddities like Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (2012), documentaries like Katrina Browne’s insufferable Traces Of The Trade (2008), and exemplary projects like Halle Gerima’s Sankofa (1993). 

Whites haven’t ignored these flicks; they’ve directed, financed and doled out Emmy and Academy Award nominations to a sizable number of these projects. Authentic or dramatized, Whites maintain an insatiable appetite for depictions of black misery. 

Black suffering made America great. Seeing Kunta Kinte lashed, mutilated and broken affirms White Power. White historian Amy Louise Wood authored Lynching And Spectacle: Witnessing Racial Violence in America, 1890-1940, which deconstructs the White thirst to visually consume blacks being castrated and brutalized. Her theory applies to the hundreds – often thousands – of Whites who attended lynchings, the dispersal of photographs and postcards of ceremonial White terrorism, and films like Birth of a Nation – and probably either version of Roots. She writes: 
The rituals, the tortures, and their subsequent representations [impart] powerful messages to whites about their own supposed racial dominance and superiority. These spectacles [produce] and [disseminate] images of white power… white unity and… [serve] to instill and perpetuate a sense of racial supremacy in their white spectators. Lynching thus [succeeds] in enacting and maintaining white domination not only because African Americans [are] its targets but also because white southerners [are] its spectators.
The “re-imaging” of the routine rape of Kizzy - which was an everyday trauma for enslaved black females, males and children -and the YouTube postings of Oscar Grant’s life being snuffed out to christen 2009, are the necessary “terror porn” that solidifies the worthlessness of black life, verifies undisputed White might. Woods corroborates that Whites recognize “the ways in which entertainment [is] bound up with violence, as well as the ways in which violence itself [is] a source of visual amusement.” 

We commit a colossal error thinking White viewers digest Roots or any other portrayal of black agony with guilt for the barbarism their racial ancestors meted out to our black relatives. Watching Kunta lose a foot won’t compel presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders to recalibrate his stance on reparations. LeVar Burton, Anika Noni Rose and Forest Whitaker’s best dramatizations fail to convince Arizona rancher and federal lawbreaker Cliven Bundy to reconsider; the southwest outlaw believes negroes were “better off as slaves, picking cotton.” 

White jurists and former prosecuting attorneys like Staten Island, New York’s Dan Donovan (now a Congressman and a Trump supporter) and Ohio’s Timothy McGinty watched authentic footage of Eric Garner and Tamir Rice being killed and concluded it didn’t even warrant a trial – much less a conviction. A celluloid recounting of antebellum black lives undeserving of White respect does little to alter 21st century dedication to White Supremacy. 

If anything, a growing chorus of Whites openly wishes for a return, a reconstruction of earlier eras of White Supremacy when the only Obamas at the White House were butlers or mammies. White teenyboppers at Grosse Pointe South High School, a Detroit, Michigan suburb, summarized their presidential platform for a potential 2040 campaign: "Bringing back slavery, burning black people with brands and sending them back to Africa." After four decades, Roots returns to the airwaves when presidential front-runner Donald J. Trump’s political rallies have often rhetorically and literally echoed the flagrant White sadism of plantations where black people are mauled with impunity. 

The commercialized rape of black bodies made America great. 

Must we see it again?

Monday, February 15, 2016

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia: Original Racism

The death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has simultaneously recalibrated talking points for the upcoming presidential election and intensified the importance of President Obama’s remaining months in the White House. Scalia reportedly died over the weekend while on a hunting trip in Texas. He occupied the highest bench for three decades since being nominated by President Ronald Reagan and unanimously confirmed in 1986. 

Like Bernie Sanders or Donald Trump, Justice Scalia is a Racist Suspect. 

Before his SCOTUS residency, Scalia commanded the United States Court Of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, where, according to the New York Times, he issued opinions “skeptical of claims of employment discrimination.” In 2013, he helped erode the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which he branded a “perpetuation of racial entitlement.” And during the courts re-reconsideration of Affirmative Action, Scalia echoed predictable “Bell Curve” dogma about the intellectual ineptitude of negroes. The late justice explained that, “Most of the black scientists in this country don't come from schools like the University of Texas. They come from lesser schools.”

Scalia wasn't practicing White Supremacy. He was looking out for our best interest, so that aspiring black scholars don't strain our puny colored brains.    

Dr. Frances Cress Welsing, a third generation physician and author of The Isis Papers, discussed Scalia’s assessment of black aptitude during one of her final lectures before her 2016 death. 

150 years since emancipation, and [Justice Scalia] is justifying why black people should not be admitted to the law school because they don’t have what it takes. Maybe there’s a little nursery school law school that they can attend. That’s kind of more suited to what we’re going to allow them to do anyway.” 

The American Slave Coast, co-authored by Ned and Constance Sublette in 2015, explains how the United States was founded and thrived on a slave system that required the perpetual rape of black people. The organized sexual exploitation of black bodies informs the genesis of the United States Constitution that Scalia was charged with decoding. The Sublettes write: 

The story of the Constitution’s making in 1787 has been told any number of ways, typically suffused with a cue-the-kettledrums aura of religiosity and an assumption of American triumphalism. Constitutional historians have tended to portray their subject as the most important political document in world history, in the greatest nation in history. In extreme cases this has involved elevating the framers to a sort of secular sainthood, as in the post-Reagan years, when a school of constitutional interpretation called 'originalism' emerged in American jurisprudence. Most prominently associated with archconservative Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, originalism is a fundamentalist movement that seeks in effect to construe the Constitution as static and unchanging by mind-reading the intentions of the presumably divinely inspired Framers - a word Scalia writes with a capital F, the way they did it in the eighteenth century. His opinions are shot through with variations on phrases like: 'The Framers recognized …,' 'The Framers contemplated …,' 'The Framers viewed…,' and 'The Framers’ experience …' This is a peculiarly subjective lens through which to view a document created by so many people, at such sharp cross-purposes with each other.

'Aware that the South would not join a Union that prohibited slavery,' writes Scalia’s generally dissenting colleague, Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, who does not capitalize 'framers,' 'the framers in effect postponed the question of slavery’s continued existence by writing into the Constitution a series of compromises.' But if we were to follow the notion of original intent from the point of view of the South Carolina Framers, we would see the Constitution as protecting the right to own and trade [and rape black people.]

Tuesday, January 26, 2016

STAR WARS: The Force Awakens (Through the eyes of a C.O.W.S Listener)


(GUEST POST)

Tonight I took my son to see the new installment in the STAR WARS franchise. We arrived early and got prime seats, center screen near the back of the theater so that we could have a good view of things. I’ll leave out what I see as minutiae in the first 5-7 minutes of the film and focus on the non-white/black male star; John Boyega. In the film he portrays a “Stormtrooper” who is on his first raiding mission to retrieve a map that has in it’s contents, the location of Luke Skywalker (The last good Jedi). Boyega portrays Stormtrooper “FN-2187” who while on this mission, is ordered to kill the remaining villagers by the new “Darth Vader-like” character but can’t find the nerve or lacks the courage to do so in comparison to all the other Stormtrooper who blast away at the poor victims. He is immediately singled out by the “Darth Vader-like” character that feels something via the “FORCE” (weakness, betrayal…it’s not made clear but there’s something amiss) with FN-2187. FN-2187 returns to base and is exhausted, clearly troubled by the mass murder of the villagers he’d witnessed a few moments earlier. He takes off his helmet and is dripping with sweat, breathing heavily alone in a spacecraft when his superior walks in and asks, “Who told you to take your helmet off?” He puts the helmet on and reports as ordered to have his weapon inspected. Fast forward to FN-2187 rescuing a rebel fighter pilot who was kidnapped from the raid because he may know where the map is. FN-2187 clearly wants to leave his “captors” but needs a pilot…. a “SAVIOR” (in my eyes) so he and the pilot commandeer a spacecraft and escape. FN-2187 who has by all indications, been a Stormtrooper since childhood, behaves and acts nothing like a military trained fighter but more like a confused and afraid child, takes orders from the pilot who by his own words, knows nothing about flying the oppositions spacecraft. The pilot asks FN-2187 “What’s your name?” he replies “FN-2187” (Prisoner #, slave name? both are apt in this context), the pilot says “No, what’s your real name?” (I immediately thought about the scene in roots with Levar Burton; Kunta Kinte vs. Toby) – he says, “This is all I’ve ever been called” – The white pilot says, “I’ll call you Finn” (As in FN – Fucking Nigger came to mind for me) Boyega agrees and accepts his new name.

My antennae went up when on the raid, Boyega’s character couldn’t pull the trigger which took me back to the Walking Dead analysis on The C.O.W.S. and how none of the non-white black male characters had the courage under fire, to pull the trigger – even in the face of life threatening danger. This theme is carried out multiple times with Boyega in this movie – even though at times he fights back but never over takes his opponent convincingly. To get back on track; Finn and the white pilot escape after a gunfight and crash on a nearby planet. Finn wakes up in a desert, totally disoriented but sees smoke over a sand dune and runs to it; the spacecraft has crashed and is on fire; the white pilot is no where to be found, only his jacket remains of which Finn takes as his own and uses as cover from the hot sun. He walks and walks until he comes upon a village. He runs there looking for water, but no one will give him any. He sees a large watering hole where a space creature akin to a large rhinoceros is drinking, and falls on his knees to get a drink – the water is clearly not sanitary but he is so thirsty, he drinks anyway (drinking from the same watering hole as an animal.)


The story goes away from Finn and goes to the evil mother ship where they realize “FN-2187” has ESCAPED! And he’s the one who helped the rebel pilot escape as well. They make it clear that FN-2187 has been “programmed” since childhood and never illustrated any signs of psychological issues and was loyal to the “1ST ORDER”. They even had a picture of a young black boy – maybe 5 or 6 on the screen instead of FN-2187’s current picture as a young man. So in effect, Stormtroopers are “slaves” raised from childhood to fight for their oppressor and FN-2187 is a run-away slave (Note that he was asked “who told you to take your helmet off?” by his superior moments earlier…. in my estimation, all Stormtroopers are non-white black males who have been enslaved to work on the plantation). This paints a much clearer picture of his behavior once viewed through the lens of Racism/White Supremacy. His heavy breathing, sweating, anxiety, lack of confidence, lack of self-control – traits that none of the white characters illustrate, but are stereotypically associated with non-white black people – these are all wrapped up in the character portrayed by John Boyega.


After he drinks from the “Doggy Dish”, he sees the female heroine being harassed because she now has in her possession, the little android that is carrying the map. Word has spread around the galaxy that the android has it/and FN-2187 has escaped so everybody is on the case…The VOLTRON EFFECT. Finn attempts to rescue her from her attackers but stops short after he sees her beat up two men handily. The android recognizes the jacket that Finn is wearing because it belonged to his master who happened to be the white pilot who flew Finn off the plantation. The android tells the heroine who chases Finn down…. a Stormtrooper who’s visibly afraid of a skinny white girl…a Stormtrooper…trained since childhood? She “outsmarts” Finn by basically doing a magic trick and appearing out of nowhere and kicks his butt! He once again appears weak and unable to defend himself even from a woman who is much smaller. They begin to run from more attackers…Finn grabs her hand of which she immediately asks, “Why are you touching me?” …. They end up on the Millennium Falcon (Han Solo’s ship), which was stolen and hidden on this desert planet. Once again, Finn is being ordered around in what could be termed a military environment by a civilian (The heroine) who was just earlier picking up scrap metal and selling it at the junkyard so that she could buy food. He is reduced to being her whipping boy for much of this scene as she orders him to shoot at the opposition’s ships on their tail. While she is proving to be adept at flying a spaceship – he is floundering and bumbling trying to shoot the guns. They end up being captured by Han Solo who wants his ship back and once again – Finn is in a subordinate role to the female who saves his butt from monsters and is being painted more and more as the movie goes on as being savvy, intelligent, brave and versed in the engineering of spaceships.


They go to a planet for refuge and are plotting a plan to find Luke Skywalker of which Finn wants no part…he makes clear that “I can’t go back to that place…I can never go back!” Which sounds more like ex-con, prison-speak the more he says it. He walks out on the crew (Han Solo, Chewbacca, the android and the white female) who are all very composed while he is emotional and running away from the fight. (The Walking Dead)


I’m going to stop here because this theme continues throughout the movie all the way up to the point where Finn fights the villain with Luke Skywalker’s light saber and loses. But in turn, the female heroine (who learns she is a Jedi as the movie goes along) picks up the light saber and defeats the evil antagonist and saves herself and Finn. Finn, who was knocked unconscious by the evil one, ends the movie laying on a hospital bed in a coma. In effect he’s dead, having served no real purpose at all.


What looked to be a tender moment in the making with the female heroine kissing Finn’s lips (Cowbell) – ends up with her kissing his FOREHEAD (Like a mother kissing a child) but – he’s totally unaware and unresponsive to this affection. The movie was entertaining and not much different from other STAR WARS films. I was expecting more from the non-white black male’s character simply because of all the hype associated with his performance. His role was reduced to running…. always running and sweating and looking for guidance, never in control. Han Solo asked him what was his job while he was a Stormtrooper he replied, “I was a Janitor!”…. Even in this depiction of the future, we are running away from slavery. Slavery that has us in servile positions as janitors on the mother ship (plantation).