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Ntfs_encryption
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Ntfs_encryption
Post Number: 2031
Registered: 10-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, March 14, 2007 - 04:04 am: | 
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Stanley Crouch: 'Life Support' lights darkness
By Stanley Crouch -
Published 12:00 am PST Saturday, March 10, 2007
It used to be a cliché among black people that black women always got further than black men. Perhaps that generalization might explain the ongoing denigration and dehumanization that we witness over and over in the loud fount of pimplike opinion we call hip-hop.
But black women are finally getting themselves together and are rebelling against being left holding the bag. Still, perhaps they have not rebelled enough. I say that because black women remain about 20 times more likely to get the AIDS virus than white women and account for nearly 70 percent of new cases.
I was first told these facts on a train coming back from Washington, D.C., by an elderly health care professional, who was black, riled up and thought that it was high time the black community got serious about this problem and stopped either ignoring it or trying to hide it under the bed.
A very good anthology called "Not in My Family: AIDS in the African American Community," edited by Gil L. Robertson 4th, will bring the interested reader up to snuff on the matter. But for those in a rush to get the human feeling that can often come through strongest in cinematic narrative, I would recommend HBO's "Life Support" starring Queen Latifah and premiering tonight at 5:30.
HBO always redeems itself somehow by doing so many high-minded documentaries or powerful dramas that one can feel far less insulted by the ethnic denigration, misogyny and dehumanization that black comedians seem to do better than anyone else and are given perpetual platforms by HBO.
But "Life Support" is not about any of that. As they say in the business, it puts "a human face" on a terrible plague and makes us feel the sort of compassion that underlies all civilized behavior. The characters are neither angels nor devils, bitches nor whores, but they are stubborn, they are difficult, and they can be exasperating. Yet they are never less than human, which is always an accomplishment and a reason for celebration when black women are depicted with full hearts and minds and difficult memories.
Director Nelson George co-wrote the script about a woman who contracted the virus while she was running the streets and living the wild dope life. While she was doing that, her mother had to rear her oldest daughter, who is now about to leave high school and feels as bitter toward her mother as her grandmother does.
Latifah's performance as the woman with HIV is both abrasive and tender, which is matched by Anna Deavere Smith's as her mother. The mutual bitterness they feel toward each other is not only palpable but understandable. One is trying her best to do better, but the other continually pins her to a disrespectful wall of irresponsibility and drug-induced indifference. The frustrated love that puddles in the basement of each woman's personality makes their confrontations even more moving once they are understood.
Wendell Pierce, as always, is wonderful and has great gravity as Latifah's husband, whom she both loves and blames for giving her the virus when he was a dope fiend. Rachel Nicks is startlingly fresh as Latifah's oldest daughter, who is skittish and extremely intelligent, was raised by her grandmother and is afraid to get too close to her mother, who has become an AIDS activist.
In all, the complex psychological states of the characters reflect what a plague can do to a family or a community and what a community can never fail to do, which is face the facts and change whatever behavior made it vulnerable to disease.
Greed, poorly thought-out policies and irresponsible behaviors have done much to hurt and even cripple this country. But it is far from down and out. Gangster rap, pornography, drug abuse, gangbanging and many other things surround us as no more than hideous challenges that we must stand up and meet. "Life Support" is another humble match struck in the darkness.
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Doberman23
Veteran Poster
Username: Doberman23
Post Number: 886
Registered: 01-2006
Rating: 
Votes: 1 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, March 14, 2007 - 09:28 am: |
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ntfs this isn't a knock on you for posting this but this is a rant just on how i see things
i think abm may have said this already, but alot of this talk about aids and hiv can be cut in half if stupid asses would start using condoms. use condoms! i know it doesn't feel as good but hey neither does dieing slowly in pain. use condoms! if it takes you one night to hit it then it's a good chance that it wasn't that persons first time having a one night stand ... use a god damn condom! i have had my fair share of fun, but when i go to get a hiv test, i'm not worried because i use condoms! there was a chick named peaches who was a stripper who got 4 dudes kicked out of the army for infecting them with hiv, 3 of which where married ... they probably passed it to their wives too, but that could have been avoided if they used condoms (or just not cheated on their wives). i know a dude who would bang crackheads raw, 4 years later he's sporting hiv. i hate to sound cold on this ... but i don't care where you're at or from use a damn condom, and quit expecting for people to feel sorry for you when you get caught up because you wanted to go freestyle.
*this does not apply to rape victims or people who where taken advantage of while they where drugged this applies to those who got caught up willingly* |
Jackie
Veteran Poster
Username: Jackie
Post Number: 502
Registered: 04-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, March 14, 2007 - 01:02 pm: |
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Let's not forget about inside the wonderful prison system either ! |
Abm
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Abm
Post Number: 8859
Registered: 04-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, March 14, 2007 - 01:12 pm: |
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Dobes,
*CLAPPING*
Man. I not only used rubbers to fuhk. I used them to get suhked. I was NOT having any exchanges of bodily fluids or unplanned babies with some chick I was not married to.
Hell. If you like eat p*$$y, use some of those dental dams or saram wrap or something.
Stay ALIVE, you crazy mofos! |
Doberman23
Veteran Poster
Username: Doberman23
Post Number: 888
Registered: 01-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, March 14, 2007 - 01:16 pm: |
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jackie the jail thing would go under the * |
Mzuri
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Mzuri
Post Number: 3992
Registered: 01-2006
Rating:
Votes: 1 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, March 14, 2007 - 01:17 pm: |
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How about just keeping your •••• in your pants??? |
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