Comments on: SASSY reviews CNN’s Black in America: Black Men

By: sandrar

sandrar — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 14:49:48 +0000

Hi! I was surfing and found your blog post… nice! I love your blog. Cheers! Sandra. R.

By: Swaine Thompson

Swaine Thompson — Mon, 25 May 2009 22:09:33 +0000

I felt the program was made for white America to metter understand the plight of being Black in America. It would very interesting to show Black vs White in America. I would prefer a 2-hour (week long) mini-series which reflects where the 400 yr racial disparity gap began. Without this contrasting analysis, most people would say, “Well, so what? We knew this already!”

By: Eva C. Haldane » Blog Archive » Missing Men

Eva C. Haldane » Blog Archive » Missing Men — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 15:26:58 +0000

[...] education – If CNN didn’t beat this into the ground, the high school drop out rate for African Americans is now up to 50%. We all know that not [...]

By: The Jose Vilson — Short Notes: La Travesia (The Crossing)

The Jose Vilson — Short Notes: La Travesia (The Crossing) — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 02:10:56 +0000

[...] educate oneself and act like they’re high and mighty, but immediately contradict themselves. Case in point. Also, shout-out to Sassy for linking [...]

By: Mekail

Mekail — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 17:07:49 +0000

(excuse me if I make any spelling errors)..but needless to say i did not enjoy this specail at all…Im a young african american female..(no kids/no aids).. and attending a HBCU and I did not here any reference to my sub-culture at all.. How do you have a show about being “Black in America” and not include anything about historically black colleges…and to be honest none of the 80’s babys were respresented at all aside from the ignorance… what about the black men and black women in college… how do they feel.. yes we all have dealt with adversity and im tired of hearing about the older generation pointing fingers at the younger generation… These teenagers and pregnant women did not raise themselves….and im sorry but Joseph C Phillips reminded me of uncle ruckas from the boondocks…disassociating himself from his African-American heritage as best he can…..

By: Barbara

Barbara — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 18:50:25 +0000

Dina – Again, I do feel you and I do fully agree that there is much work to be done within the black community and that yes WE do need to get up and get to work as a people. I don’t deny that, because as you pointed out, we need to be able to know who the enemy is in order to be able to put up a fight and I think its safe to say that WE are our own enemies.

So, as you and others have pointed out, its time for some solutions and mobilization. Where to start, where to start??

By: Literacy, revisted. | Leading From The Heart

Literacy, revisted. | Leading From The Heart — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 15:51:40 +0000

[...] couple that with my understanding of experience and story – see Who are teachers? and my comment to SASSY reviews CNN’s Black in America: Black Men – I need to respect that there are many ways to do this, to make sense of the world we live in – to [...]

By: Big Sal

Big Sal — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 04:20:43 +0000

This special was straight up boo boo. As a Black man that works in corporate america; I did not view it favorably. As a married man; I did not view it favorably. As a Father & a son… once again, I did not view it favorably. It only scratched the surface of a few issues in the Black community. There was NO depth what so ever in any of it. Tell me something that’s gonna give me some shock value. And if you gonna show one side, show the other side of the coin as well.

CNN spent all this time on the Democratic race with fancy large touch screen computers that could breakdown the ratio of who was voting for who in different counties in different states. If that’s the case they should have drilled down on some of these statistics that they mentioned in this special the same damn way. I’m like Eva.

I HAVEN’T HEARD FROM ANYONE THAT ENJOYED THIS SOFT SHIT!!

By: Eva

Eva — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 01:59:56 +0000

antoinette i can see where you were coming from, but the approach was less than ideal. and the irony of your spelling errors was priceless. at any rate, i went ahead and made a lot of corrections (she was right, it needed a lot of help).

jose thanks for having my back. can’t wait to read what your wrote about the show.

hal – yeah of course the show wasn’t FOR us but i feel like if they want to talk about what it means to “be black” they might as well show the spectrum. we’re not all poor, uneducated and unemployed.

dina – you’re absolutely right, we need to control our destiny. but how do we even begin? i’m starting with brunch and a bunch of like minded black folk. gotta start talking about solutions.

barbara – (hi homie). while we can’t make complete change on our own, but bulk of the work is our responsibility. no?

tracey – welcome! yeah CNN was being crazy ambitious trying to show the story but i appreciate that you realize that in 4 hours you’re not going to get the full story.

leah – good looking out. different people got different things from the show. i know i’m making an assumption here, but i feel like highly educated people were, for the most part, unimpressed with the special. i, personally, haven’t heard from anyone that they enjoyed it.

By: Leah

Leah — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 23:06:21 +0000

Antoinette, how are you going to critique someone on their grammar… and misspell the word “grammatical?”

Anyway, moving on – I was listening to the radio today and the (black) djs loved the CNN special… all three parts. One of the djs was really riled up – said that CNN should show the documentary in the elementary schools, the high schools, the colleges, etc. So I find the whole “do we show/do we not show” debate that’s going on in the comments pretty interesting… if anything, the djs comments gave me pause and made me reflect on why I disliked the program so much… versus why so many people outside of my immediate circle actually enjoyed the program… yeah, still thinking about that.

In any case… what’s the alternative to not showing “Black in America?” Doing our own documentaries? Getting our own degrees in History? Being activists ourselves?