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Posts tagged as “Flynn Richardson”

Eleven Years Ago Today: Good Black News Was Founded

Eleven Years Ago Today: Good Black News Was Founded

By goodblacknews on March 18, 2021

GOOD BLACK NEWS proudly celebrates its eleventh anniversary today, March 18, 2021. GBN initially launched in 2010 as a Facebook page (read the story behind GBN’s creation here), and in 2012, we created a dedicated website, goodblacknews.org, which has allowed us to provide archives, search functions and easy access to our most popular social media to you, our readers.

The outpouring of appreciation you’ve shown us over the years via follows, likes, comments, shares, reblogs, DMs and e-mails means the world (even when we are overwhelmed and can’t respond to them all), and inspires GBN to keep working to find ways to expand, improve, and offer more content on the main page as well as on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Tumblr, YouTube, RSS feed, LinkedIn and Flipboard (new)!

In the past year, we were honored to not only have GBN’s 2016 Editorial “What I Said When My White Friend Asked for My Black Opinion on White Privilege” recirculate across the internet, but also to see the May 2020 editorial, A Letter to Friends Who Really Want to End Racism, spark much-needed conversation on both topics.

Additionally, GBN was featured in the April 2020 New York Times article “The News Is Making People Anxious. You’ll Never Believe What They’re Reading Instead.” and the June 2020 Good Housekeeping piece How To Explain White Privilege to Someone Who Doesn’t Think it Exists.

In July 2020 GBN Founder and Editor-in-Chief Lori Lakin Hutcherson was interviewed about Good Black News on Barry Shore’s Joy of Living podcast and in Fall 2020 finally spoke with Jason, the high school friend whose Facebook post lead to “What I Said When My White Friend Asked for My Black Opinion on White Privilege” on the premiere episode of the Three Uncanny Four podcast Do The Work:

In 2020, Lori also started a Q&A column entitled “Dear Lori” where she responds to questions about white privilege and race she’s been asked by readers that she intends to resume shortly, because the questions just don’t stop.

And after years of promising in these anniversary posts, we finally launched the GBN newsletter via email. The intention is for it to be weekly but for myriad reasons, it hasn’t been consistent. In the coming months, we aim to make it so.

GBN is super proud to announce that in Fall 2021 Workman Publishing will be offering our first physical product: a Page-A-Day® Calendar entitled A Year of Good Black News for 2022, chock full of history, trivia and fun Black facts to enjoy every day of the year. We will offer more information on the calendar and its availability in the coming months.

Good Black News remains a labor of love for Founder/Editor-In-Chief Lori Lakin Hutcherson and co-editor Lesa Lakin, and we must gratefully acknowledge 2020’s volunteer contributors: Susan Cartsonis, Julie Adelle Bibb, Beck Carpenter, Hanelle Culpepper Meier, Jessie Davis, Dan Evans, Gina Fattore, Julie Fishman, Michael Giltz, Eric Greene, Thaddeus Grimes-Gruczka, Ashanti Hutcherson, Warren Hutcherson, Fred Johnson, Epiphany Jordan, Brenda Lakin, Joyce Lakin, Ray Lancon, Lois Leveen, John Levinson, Rob Lowry, Catherine Metcalf, Lara Olsen, Flynn Richardson, Maeve Richardson, Rosanna Rossetto and Becky Schonbrun. 

Special thanks to Zyda Culpepper Mellon for allowing GBN to share her powerful video testimony on how white friends and family can be allies, to TedX speaker and contributor Dena Crowder for creating and sharing her Power Shot video series on GBN, to incredible Tech Jedi Samer Shenouda for migrating and revamping the GBN website to make us bigger, stronger, faster, and to Jeff Meier, Teddy Tenenbaum and Marlon West for creating incredible Spotify playlists and posts covering a variety of genres, sub-genres and artists celebrating the musical diaspora, past and present. You are all deeply, greatly appreciated.

Please continue to help us spread GBN by sharing, liking, re-tweeting and commenting, and consider following GBN here on the main page, as well as wherever you are on social media.

Please also consider joining our e-mail list via our “Contact Us” tab. We will only use this list to keep you updated on GBN and send you our e-newsletter. And, of course, you may opt out at any time.

GBN believes in bringing you positive news, reviews and stories of interest about black people all over the world, and greatly value your participation in continuing to build our shared vision.

Thank you again for your support, and we look forward to providing you with more Good Black News in the coming year, and beyond!

Warmly,

The Good Black News Team

REVIEW: Jordan Peele Provokes Thought in His Comedy-Horror Masterpiece “Get Out”

By goodblacknews on April 11, 2017
“Get Out” written and directed by Jordan Peele (photo courtesy Universal)

by Flynn Richardson

Jordan Peele is the quiet superhero I’ve been waiting for. I say quiet because his movie “Get Out” sneaked up on me. Not that there wasn’t noise surrounding this film… there was… everyone was talking about it. It had a perfect positive review score on Rotten Tomatoes until one guy’s negative take ended the streak. What can I say… everyone’s a critic – including me.
To summarize, “Get Out” is about a young, black photographer named Chris who is dating a white girl named Rose, and the duo depart for the weekend to visit Rose’s family (the Armitages) at their sprawling, suburban estate. Chris has initial concerns about the trip because Rose never mentioned to her family that she was dating a black man; however, Rose assures Chris that her family is not racist, and he therefore should not have anything to worry about.
Upon arrival the family seems normal enough; they are progressive, nice, and even border on entertaining. But as the plot furthers and their racism becomes increasingly revealed, the movie transforms from a fish-out-of- water “meet the parents” story into a spine-chilling thriller involving blood, murder, and hypnotic enslavement.
Among the film’s numerous allusions to racism – the policeman’s unwarranted request for Chris’s ID; the family’s employment of only black help; Rose’s brother’s assessment of Chris’s inherent athletic abilities – one quotation that particularly piqued my interest was the ending line of the official trailer: “A Mind is a Terrible Thing to Waste.”
This slogan, coined in 1972 by Arthur Fletcher, head of the United Negro College Fund, was important for two reasons: 1) it was created to promote the funding of scholarships for underprivileged black youth who would otherwise be unable to afford college and 2) it acknowledged that the potential of a mind does not hinge upon the race of its host, and that every mind should thereby be entitled to further cultivation.
What I find most interesting about Peele’s inclusion of this slogan (and its periodic repetition throughout the film and trailer) is that it perfectly echoes the commentary Peele makes about racism through this movie. Minds of black people are literally wasted as they are hypnotically enveloped within “The Sunken Place” – a darkness in which the mind is deprived of control over the body, and this imposed deprivation is largely representative of the systemic racism that plagues our society.
Although the capability of a mind is not dictated by race, the system has nonetheless created the illusion of white superiority by marginalizing black people and casting them into a void of shadows. And, while an occasional glimmer of reality (in this case, provided by the flash from Chris’s camera) may motivate black people to sometimes fight against it, the system ultimately triumphs in restoring its prejudiced order.
Speaking from my perspective – a bi-racial, brown-skinned teenager living in Los Angeles – I have been fortunate enough to not have personally experienced the same degree of marginalization as other members of the black community, or even within my own family. But this movie nonetheless still displays several facets of my experience. I attend a school of predominantly white students, and I can attribute many of my own feelings of being “other” to a feeling of being overshadowed by my white peers. I say many, and not all, because the alternative is a feeling of scrutinization that stems from being the only black kid in the room. Peele illustrates this aspect extremely well through the Armitages’ fixation on Chris. What I think therefore is so special about this film is that it weaves together these (and so many other) different dimensions of discrimination, and pretty much anyone of color can find some identification with Chris’s experience.
For those who still have not seen this movie, the purchase of that ticket would undoubtedly be money well-spent. If thought-provoking and intelligently constructed films intrigue you, watch “Get Out.” If films that tackle racism move you, watch “Get Out.” Even if you are merely into the horror genre, watch “Get Out.” From its amazing acting – Chris (Daniel Kaluyaa), Rose (Allison Williams), the brilliantly hilarious TSA agent Rod (Lil Rel Howery), etc. – to its perfect pacing, “Get Out” merits its commercial and critical success for its unique, alluring, and thoughtful portrayal of the underlying horrors that constitute being black in America.
Note: If my antistrophe in the last paragraph was not enough to persuade you (did I mention I’m a college-bound high school senior? Words like “antistrophe” live in my brain daily, so I can’t pass up a chance to use one in context), hopefully the trailer linked below will be: