Black Lives Matter

Ledbetterman10

tempo_n_groove said:

This has shifted away from BLM but at least we are having a conversation.

I'm going to start a new thread about the flag.  Maybe we can start our own movement?

I don't think we need a flag thread. This flag discussion came about due to the BLM Utah chapter commenting about the flag. Nothing wrong with getting a little off-topic if it stemmed from the topic. 

mcgruff10

I always associated forced/over the top patriotism like “I m proud to be an American” as republican but never as something as simple as flying a us flag.  

tempo_n_groove

Ledbetterman10 said:

tempo_n_groove said:

This has shifted away from BLM but at least we are having a conversation.

I'm going to start a new thread about the flag.  Maybe we can start our own movement?

I don't think we need a flag thread. This flag discussion came about due to the BLM Utah chapter commenting about the flag. Nothing wrong with getting a little off-topic if it stemmed from the topic. 

Sometimes things deserve their own thread though.  

I remember Jello Biafra burning the flag years ago calling it the Yankee Swastika.  He has always been about hitting you w a hammer though.

DK's Stars n Stripes of Corruption is such a great song and gave me a different perspective on people that I didn't realize acted the way they did about the flag...

mace1229

mcgruff10 said:

I always associated forced/over the top patriotism like “I m proud to be an American” as republican but never as something as simple as flying a us flag.  

Maybe flying it in a holiday. But for a very long time, pretty much all my adult life, the houses I see that fly a permanent flag I assume mostly are Republican. There aren’t that many houses that I see do that anymore, probably less than 10%.

mcgruff10

mace1229 said:

mcgruff10 said:

I always associated forced/over the top patriotism like “I m proud to be an American” as republican but never as something as simple as flying a us flag.  

Maybe flying it in a holiday. But for a very long time, pretty much all my adult life, the houses I see that fly a permanent flag I assume mostly are Republican. There aren’t that many houses that I see do that anymore, probably less than 10%.

So you assume that they are Republican, maybe they aren’t.  I mean if they are flying a trump flag then check mate.  We need to take our flag back.  

Halifax2TheMax

Remember the outrage, absolute outrage, among repubs when President Obama didn’t wear a lapel flag pin?

tempo_n_groove

Halifax2TheMax said:

Remember the outrage, absolute outrage, among repubs when President Obama didn’t wear a lapel flag pin?

Yes and the democratic debate where they mostly didn't became a rally cry too.  I remember the next debate the backdrop was full of flags.  They heard the noise.

mcgruff10

Halifax2TheMax said:

Remember the outrage, absolute outrage, among repubs when President Obama didn’t wear a lapel flag pin?

I m conflicted on this but I do understand the outrage. How hard is it to wear a flag pin? Why give people an excuse to be mad at you?

mace1229

mcgruff10 said:

mace1229 said:

mcgruff10 said:

I always associated forced/over the top patriotism like “I m proud to be an American” as republican but never as something as simple as flying a us flag.  

Maybe flying it in a holiday. But for a very long time, pretty much all my adult life, the houses I see that fly a permanent flag I assume mostly are Republican. There aren’t that many houses that I see do that anymore, probably less than 10%.

So you assume that they are Republican, maybe they aren’t.  I mean if they are flying a trump flag then check mate.  We need to take our flag back.  

According to this 80% Republicans flew the flag this 4th compared to 58% Democrats. Not as big of a difference as I would have guessed, but still a big difference. I still would guess those every day fliers I was referring to is a bigger difference. But I haven’t done research, just my impression.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/american-flag-fly-cbs-poll/

Halifax2TheMax

mcgruff10 said:

Halifax2TheMax said:

Remember the outrage, absolute outrage, among repubs when President Obama didn’t wear a lapel flag pin?

I m conflicted on this but I do understand the outrage. How hard is it to wear a fag pin? Why give people an excuse to be mad at you?

Is Obama gay? NTTIAWWT.

So, if POTUS doesn't wear an American flag lapel pin, folks should be outraged? I thought the flag represented, in part, "freedom of expression?"

mcgruff10

Halifax2TheMax said:

mcgruff10 said:

Halifax2TheMax said:

Remember the outrage, absolute outrage, among repubs when President Obama didn’t wear a lapel flag pin?

I m conflicted on this but I do understand the outrage. How hard is it to wear a fag pin? Why give people an excuse to be mad at you?

Is Obama gay? NTTIAWWT.

So, if POTUS doesn't wear an American flag lapel pin, folks should be outraged? I thought the flag represented, in part, "freedom of expression?"

Ha ha. Damn phone. 

I think the pres and vp should wear a Flag pin, but to each their own.  I won’t be offended if someone does or doesn’t wear one. 

tempo_n_groove

Halifax2TheMax said:

mcgruff10 said:

Halifax2TheMax said:

Remember the outrage, absolute outrage, among repubs when President Obama didn’t wear a lapel flag pin?

I m conflicted on this but I do understand the outrage. How hard is it to wear a fag pin? Why give people an excuse to be mad at you?

Is Obama gay? NTTIAWWT.

So, if POTUS doesn't wear an American flag lapel pin, folks should be outraged? I thought the flag represented, in part, "freedom of expression?"

cblock4life

hedonist said:

I grew up with my dad raising our flag every Memorial Day and similar observances. He treated that silly piece of cloth with seriousness, and with respect…and I helped him fold it back up every time, military style. For him, it represented freedom from a country that exterminated — like fucking rodents — much of his family out of hate and division. It represented freedom to come to the US, be welcomed, and at 22, become part of our armed forces literally fighting back against those who stole and destroyed so much and so many.

Am I a Trump supporter for how I feel?  A lesser person in the eyes of some? Generalizations are de rigeur, you know. 

If so, oh well. The older I get, the more I have no problem thinking others can fuck off if they want to jump to conclusions.

What a country. 

I know I said it’s a just a cloth, but I proudly hang my flag from May to September to honor my nephew who served in Afghanistan.  I don’t give a shit what people think either but I’m fairly certain that our two Jeep’s with PJ stickers all over lets them know where we stand.  And you should still celebrate the flag for your father….what you said didn’t make me think at all who you supported because you’ve spoken so lovingly about your father and his service.  If people who don’t know you think otherwise then screw them.  Like I said my response is based on the situation and context.  

josevolution

nicknyr15 said:

Didn’t that girl make jokes about rape and anti Mexican and anti Asian tweets a few years back? I guess she’s all grown up and changed now. 

Well are you the same as you were when you were younger? I know I was a jerk most of my young adulthood..

nicknyr15

josevolution said:

nicknyr15 said:

Didn’t that girl make jokes about rape and anti Mexican and anti Asian tweets a few years back? I guess she’s all grown up and changed now. 

Well are you the same as you were when you were younger? I know I was a jerk most of my young adulthood..

So do we forgive all, or some for past racism? 

josevolution

nicknyr15 said:

josevolution said:

nicknyr15 said:

Didn’t that girl make jokes about rape and anti Mexican and anti Asian tweets a few years back? I guess she’s all grown up and changed now. 

Well are you the same as you were when you were younger? I know I was a jerk most of my young adulthood..

So do we forgive all, or some for past racism? 

I’d only forgive if so called racist showed remorse  and showed improvement behavior..

nicknyr15

josevolution said:

nicknyr15 said:

josevolution said:

nicknyr15 said:

Didn’t that girl make jokes about rape and anti Mexican and anti Asian tweets a few years back? I guess she’s all grown up and changed now. 

Well are you the same as you were when you were younger? I know I was a jerk most of my young adulthood..

So do we forgive all, or some for past racism? 

I’d only forgive if so called racist showed remorse  and showed improvement behavior..

Makes sense. 

cblock4life

https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2021/07/16/richard-sherman-wifes-frightening-911-call-hes-threatening-to-kill-himself/

So if anyone still wonders if all black people worry about police responses the answer is yes, even if you have money. 

mickeyrat

https://apnews.com/article/war-on-drugs-75e61c224de3a394235df80de7d70b70

By AARON MORRISON

Today

Landscaping was hardly his lifelong dream.

As a teenager, Alton Lucas believed basketball or music would pluck him out of North Carolina and take him around the world. In the late 1980s, he was the right-hand man to his musical best friend, Youtha Anthony Fowler, who many hip hop and R&B heads know as DJ Nabs.

But rather than jet-setting with Fowler, Lucas discovered drugs and the drug trade at the height of the so-called war on drugs. Addicted to crack cocaine and involved in trafficking the drug, he faced decades-long imprisonment at a time when the drug abuse and violence plaguing major cities and working class Black communities were not seen as the public health issue that opioids are today.

By chance, Lucas received a rare bit of mercy. He got the kind of help that many Black and Latino Americans struggling through the crack epidemic did not: treatment, early release and what many would consider a fresh start.

“I started the landscaping company, to be honest with you, because nobody would hire me because I have a felony,” said Lucas. His Sunflower Landscaping got a boost in 2019 with the help of Inmates to Entrepreneurs, a national nonprofit assisting people with criminal backgrounds by providing practical entrepreneurship education.

continues.

mickeyrat

  By Kim Bellware

https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2021/07/31/dolly-parton-whitney-houston/

Dolly Parton invested Whitney Houston’s ‘I Will Always Love You’ cover royalties in Black community

By

Kim Bellware

Today at 6:01 p.m. EDT

In a catalogue that runs deep with hits, “I Will Always Love You” stands as one of Dolly Parton’s most successful songwriting credits, a tune that became a global phenomenon when it was covered by Whitney Houston for the 1992 film “The Bodyguard.”

Parton, who is estimated to have earned millions of dollars in royalties for writing the song in 1973, revealed this week how she spent her money from the songwriting credit for Houston, who died in 2012: She invested in a building located in a historically Black Nashville neighborhood.

“I bought my big office complex down in Nashville, and so I thought, ‘Well, this is a wonderful place to be,’ ” Parton said Thursday during a wide-ranging interview on Bravo’s “Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen.”

Cohen had peppered Parton with lighthearted questions about her wig collection — Parton’s estimated inventory is 365 hairpieces — and the secret to her positive outlook on life. When Cohen tossed off a query about what was the best purchase she made using the royalties from the hit song, she spoke of a Nashville neighborhood then called Sevier Park, home to predominantly Black families and businesses.

“It was a whole strip mall, and I thought this is the perfect place for me to be, considering it was Whitney, so I just thought, ‘This is great, I’m just going to be down here with her people, who are my people as well,’ ” Parton said.

She added, “I love the fact that I spent that money on a complex and I think, ‘This is the house that Whitney built.’ ”

Representatives for Parton did not immediately respond to requests for comment Saturday.

Fueling Parton’s investment was the significant payday she earned from the success of Houston’s cover. Parton earned at least $10 million from it in the 1990s, Forbes estimated last year.

The song had already been a hit — albeit a more modest one — when Parton wrote it in 1973 as a B side to the album “Jolene.” Parton’s version was a country music success, reaching No. 1 on Billboard’s country charts twice — the first in 1974 and again in 1982 when she rerecorded a version for the soundtrack to “The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas.”

But it wasn’t until 1992, when Houston recorded her version of the song as the main musical set piece for “The Bodyguard” that the song reached new heights.

Houston’s version became Billboard’s chart-topper for 14 weeks and helped “The Bodyguard” soundtrack win Album of the Year at the 1993 Grammy Awards. The album was the best-selling film soundtrack of all time as of 2019, according to the Hollywood Reporter.

Despite the song’s massive success, it almost wasn’t a part of the film. Kevin Costner, Houston’s co-star and a producer on “The Bodyguard,” wanted to use the ’60s Motown soul hit “What Becomes of the Brokenhearted,” according to a 2017 BuzzFeed News profile of the album on its 25th anniversary. When a cover of the Jimmy Ruffin song ended up on the 1991 soundtrack for “Fried Green Tomatoes,” music supervisor Maureen Crowe instead suggested Linda Ronstadt’s cover of Dolly Parton’s “I Will Always Love You.”

“It had ‘Whitney’ all over it,” music producer David Foster told BuzzFeed.

Parton agreed. The first time she heard Houston’s version of her song, she had to pull over to avoid crashing her car because she was so overwhelmed.

“I was shot so full of adrenaline and energy, I had to pull off, because I was afraid that I would wreck, so I pulled over quick as I could to listen to that whole song,” Parton told Oprah Winfrey in a 2020 interview. “I could not believe how she did that. I mean, how beautiful it was that my little song had turned into that, so that was a major, major thing.”

Parton purchased the 6,317-square-foot Mission-style complex in Nashville in February 1997, according to property records. David Ewing, a longtime Nashville historian, told The Washington Post that Parton’s investment came when many recording artists did not look toward the Sevier Park neighborhood, now known as 12 South, to set up their businesses.

“We’re just hearing now, because of the Black Lives Matter movement, how down for the cause Dolly has always been — even when others in the music industry weren’t,” Ewing said. “Dolly Parton could have built and bought any piece of property in Nashville. But you would have to have gone out of your way to buy in the 12 South neighborhood, because no Realtor would have shown Dolly that lot to buy.”

At the time, the neighborhood was “African American funeral homes, businesses and churches,” Ewing said. Now, 12 South is one of the hottest neighborhoods in Nashville, he said.

“But it really kind of all began to be put on the map when Dolly quietly invested in the area,” Ewing said.

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