deerstalker
https://www.blackenterprise.com/dc-young-fly-discusses-life-lessons-loss-with-tmz-in-nyc/
DC Young Fly was caught by TMZ interviewers in New York City on Wednesday, June 28. He opened up about how he’s been following the death of his partner, Jacky Oh’s, death following a plastic surgery procedure. The comedian advised about loss, plastic surgery, and life lessons.
When the quick interview began, the 31-year-old gave his thoughts on whether or not Jacky Oh’s passing, and the conversations surrounding it, would serve to deter people from getting plastic surgery. He said, “It should if they’re paying attention, you know what I mean. Some people use certain people as lessons, and some people are just going to keep going with their lives.”
“I just want people to take care of yourselves, make sure you make the best decisions for you and your family and always keep God first. Don’t let nobody break your character,” He continued. The father of three kids admitted that he’s been crying often, but it’s to be expected after his loss.
“We are human. We emotional. That’s the point. People want to see me cry. I’m just not going to record myself crying and show you I’m crying. I’d rather show positivity and let people know that God Is the greatest. I want to continue to show that God is keeping me uplifted, and he keeps granting me the strength,” DC explained.
He told TMZ that he got his strength from God, his friends, and his family.
“Being with my brothers, you know, great love and great energy, you know. God is the greatest. He’s granted me the strength to keep going. That’s the message I want to continue to put out there in the world because there’s a lot of stuff out there and they want to desensitize the enemy and what the enemy is doing. Nah, the enemy is still working but God is always greater, you dig.”
DC expressed that much of his focus is on protecting his children. He shared, “I got to take care of my babies, and that’s the key to life. You got to keep going, stay prayed up, and never let the tragedies and stuff that you’re going through bring you down…we’ll get through it.”
DC and Jacky Oh shared three children together: Nova, Nala, and Prince. Jacky Oh died on May 31 in Miami following a “mommy makeover” procedure.
Despite being one of the most powerful X-Men, Storm, the omega-level mutant and the tempestuous Queen of Wakanda, is among the most successful superheroes in comic book history. But she’s more than just a powerful superhero: she’s also a fashion icon among the X-Men, the wielder of Stormcaster, the Goddess of Thunder, and perhaps one of the most emotionally grounded X-Men — unlike a certain pointy-haired someone who falls into fits of unspeakable rage.
Yet, even superheroes fear powerful women, which is why Storm ends up back on Tinder more times than she deserves. The stormy seas of her romantic encounters often mirror her weather-wielding powers, fluctuating between calm, sunny days and cataclysmic weather, with plenty of thunderstorms, hurricanes, and tornadoes in-between. Out of all of Storm’s relationships in the comics, the following ones gave everything but fair weather vibes.
Quicksilver
Quicksilver and Storm have been teammates and one-time members of the Brotherhood ever since they were conceptualized as comic book characters, and their interactions in the main continuity have mostly been platonic. However, in an alternate storyline, the Age of Apocalypse, Quicksilver and Storm had a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it affair, one whose fleeting nature could even give Quicksilver himself a run for his money.
In this continuity, Apocalypse pretty much destroyed the X-Men and took over the world. As a result of the messy world they were plunged into, Quicksilver is a much more somber and grounded version of his more mercurial self, and Storm is a bit more vulnerable due to the massive losses she suffered. Unfortunately, their romance was destined for ruin; while the mutual respect and understanding between both powerhouse mutants grew into something more, the romance could not quite find its footing. In a scenario that Romeo and Juliet could appreciate, the duo did perish in battle together while trying to restore world peace.
Victor Von Doom
Who would’ve thought that Storm and Victor Von Doom, two characters with opposing moral compasses, would find themselves in a romantic…entanglement? Yet, this is exactly what happened in Black Panther Vol. 4 #21-25. Doom, a character well-known for his over-the-top plans for power acquisition, manipulated Storm’s affections as part of his political schemes by presenting himself as an ally to the mutant cause.
Though this drew Storm into Doom’s ambitious plans and manipulations, his plans were eventually revealed. This led to a bitter and heart-breaking conflict, and their romance ended as violently as a cyclone’s destruction leaving a trail of emotional wreckage in its wake.
Dracula
Believe it or not, but the Queen of Wakanda nearly became the Queen of Wallachia when she caught the eye of the king of vampires, Dracula himself. In an attempt to make her his undead bride in Uncanny X-Men #159, Dracula bites Storm, forcing the X-Men to battle the lord of vampires in order to save their friend. In fact, this happened several times until Dracula was vanquished by his archnemesis Lilith, who possessed the body of teenage member Kitty Pryde, aka Shadowcat.
Wolverine
Storm × Wolverine is one of the most shocking romantic pairings ever seen in the X-Men comics. The first hints of their romantic relationship took root in Uncanny X-Men #172-173, and though the romantic undertones spanned several issues, the full extent of their relationship wasn’t explored until Wolverine and the X-Men #24. Even further, their romance wasn’t isolated to several comic book issues either; it was also briefly alluded to in the X-Men movies as well.
Narratively, this happened after T’Challa personally annulled his marriage to Storm, after which Wolverine helped Storm cope with her newly divorced status. This revealed that the two had an on-again/off-again relationship behind the scenes whenever they were both single. However, their relationship ended for good later in the comics, and both Storm and Wolverine decided to remain friends and teammates.
Black Panther
We already covered this relationship in our previous article about Storm’s marriage to T’Challa, but this relationship is perhaps the best-known to comic book connoisseurs. T’Challa and Storm were childhood friends; the two met when Storm saved young T’Challa from kidnappers.
They reunited later as members of different teams, with T’Challa joining the Avengers and Storm joining the X-Men. The two married during the Civil War Cease-Fire Event, with most of the respective superhero community and even some notable villains showing up to help commemorate their nuptials. Unfortunately, following the events of War for Wakanda, the X-Men sided with Namor and the Avengers sided with T’Challa, who blamed his wife for siding with the X-Men. As a result, he annulled their marriage, and the couple divorced.
Honorary Mention: Forge
Forge is probably best known as Storm’s love interest for the better part of the ’80s and ’90 X-Men comics run. He’s a veteran to the X-Men team with a mutant ability to intuitively understand, create, and master complex machinery. Their romance had a really rough start since Forge accidentally hit her with a ray that briefly neutralized her mutant powers, and her wrath was very warranted.
They eventually found love for each other after they were trapped in an alternate dimension for over a year. Upon their return back to Earth-616, Forge proposed to Storm but retracted the offer when she wouldn’t leave the X-Men for him. He moved on and briefly dated Mystique after that, but she only used him to gain access to sensitive information.
Summary
Storm’s love life, in all of its turbulent glory, matches the tempestuous nature of the weather-events she wields. Still, she navigates the storms that are her love life, embodying the grace and strength we came to love in her. So, we can say with a degree of certainty that Ororo Munroe won’t shy away from turning her sails directly into the winds of romantic change and growth. To put it simply, even the most powerful of weather witches need love too.
Temple Folk by Aaliyah Bilal surprised me. I have never seen a book of stories focused on the Nation of Islam, though I’ve encountered discussion of the Nation of Islam in reading other books, particularly in the autobiography and other biographies of Malcolm X.
Temple Folk honors the Black American community within the Nation of Islam in a way that I have never seen reflected before. While this is Bilal’s debut book, this collection of ten short stories demonstrates a deep understanding of the human condition and the inner life of Black folks who have chosen to practice faith as a means of survival.
The book is deeply contextualized within Nation of Islam. Unless you’re familiar with Nation of Islam, you may find yourself confused at points, but it’s no reason to avoid this beautiful prose. As is the case any time you enter into a new cultural environment, you’ll need to do a lot of inferring and will have to accept that you may not grasp the stories’ significance as completely as those who are part of the culture. You may want to do some exploration of the faith’s precepts and history before beginning Aaliyah Bilal’s collection of stories.
Bilal’s stories examine the different ways Nation of Islam has shaped believers and former believers’ lives. She focuses a lot on inconsistency (in some cases hypocrisy) in her characters’ religious beliefs and practices. One thing her characters have in common is a strong ethical sense. These are individuals who take living within a faith and decision-making about right and wrong with deep seriousness.
Temple Folk is informative, challenging, and valuable. Bilal’s book is promising both in terms of her own stance as a writer and in terms of the development of fiction set within a Nation of Islam context. We need more such writing — and also need to see where Bilal will take us as she continues writing.
The stories easily transition from one narrative to another. For me, as a reader, this speaks to how rich the storytelling is in this collection and the common threads that are woven throughout these standalone pieces.
Each and every one of us deals with certain contradictions in our lives, and this collection of stories examines and exposes these contradictions among “Temple” folk. The struggles around faith, sexuality, ethics, and moral relations are features in these ten stories. We get a glimpse into the conspiracies of Elijah Muhammad’s Nation of Islam, although he is never mentioned by name. Some stories end abruptly, and some of the characters are rigid and harsh. Still there is much to like and learn through these stories of regular people trying to navigate through life while remaining faithful to their faith and to their true selves. Sometimes that alignment is not okay.
One standout story for me is “Blue,” which is the first story in the book. It explores the disappointment one contends with when they discover hypocrisies within loved ones. This story begins with an event. It is a special day. The Trailway bus is their transportation. Bilal writes full and wonderful descriptions of people, places, and things. A dark-skinned girl whose mother calls her “a child so black, she blue,” gains a new sense of self in Chicago, where a man addressing a crowd locks eyes with her while praising the virtues of dark-skinned women in the view of the Nation of Islam: “…the real thing…none of the stain of the ol’ master’s blood running in her veins…a taste of chocolate sweetness out of a dream.”
“Woman in Niqab” is another story that explores how we grapple with being disappointed in family members. A daughter’s suspicion of her father’s infidelity prompts her to wear her hair in public. “Candy for Hanif” brought tears to my eyes because it is a story that we don’t often see reflected on the page, particularly in a religious setting where so many families raising individuals with special needs find help and community. Sister Norah cares for her cognitively delayed son after her husband dies. “In that moment,” Bilal writes, “the entire city looked to her like a cage, placing limits on what she could know of the world.”
This story is told with deep compassion, and Bilal manages to show the impact the mosque had on this family unit. “Candy for Hanif” shows how when you take care of others for so long, sometimes you don’t even know how to ask for the help you need.
Books are meant to entertain us, for sure. Yet, they also have the power to educate and enlighten us about things that we may not know much about, or even feel comfortable with. This is one of those books.
I give this book a 5/5-star review. The stories accomplish presenting moral failures with compassion, as well as humor to remind us that while perfection is what many of us strive for, it’s our faults that really make us human.
Temple Folk is available July 4, 2023, on Amazon.