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Ellen Shope-Whitley By Rayna Reid Rayford ·Updated April 24, 2024
How did a former hip-hop journalist without a bachelor’s degree land one of the most exclusive positions working for America’s first Black president?
The post Deesha Dyer Shares Journey From Community College To Coveted Career At The White House In New Book appeared first on Essence.
Ellen Shope-Whitley By Rayna Reid Rayford ·Updated April 24, 2024
How did a former hip-hop journalist without a bachelor’s degree land one of the most exclusive positions working for America’s first Black president?
The post Deesha Dyer Shares Journey From Community College To Coveted Career At The White House In New Book appeared first on Essence.
With so many X-Men characters from the Fox film franchise returning in Deadpool & Wolverine, can we expect to see Famke Janssen’s Jean Grey among them? Janssen previously stated she would not be back for the forthcoming film, but now she’s singing a more uncertain tune. Here’s what she had to say when speaking to the folks at Comic Book about a potential comeback as the host of the Phoenix Force in Deadpool & Wolverine:
I don’t know. I doubt it, but you never know. I mean, I didn’t expect to come back after dying as Jean Grey. I came back as the Phoenix [in 2006’s X-Men: The Last Stand], and I came back in flashback scenes in The Wolverine, and then in Days of Future Past.
It’s now been a decade since the actress portrayed Jean in Days of Future Past, which came out in 2014. Her role was recast with Sophie Turner for the pair of X-Men prequel films, X-Men: Apocalypse and Dark Phoenix. Nevertheless, fans have wanted to see the original Jean return ever since the altered timeline undid her death at the end of X-Men: The Last Stand. Why bring her and other dead X-Men back if not to use them in something down the line?
So far, the non-Hugh Jackman actors confirmed as coming back for Deadpool & Wolverine are all relatively minor players. We’re talking characters like Deathstrike, Pyro, Sabretooth, and Toad. But what about the main X-Men cast themselves? Patrick Stewart keeps hinting there’s more Professor Charles Xavier in his future. James Marsden has made similar hints about returning as Cyclops. Last year, Halle Berry showed off a photograph of herself in Storm’s signature white hairdo. If all of them return, then we imagine Jean Grey is coming back to the fold as well. We’re crossing our fingers for this Phoenix to rise from the ashes.
The post Could X-MEN’s Famke Janssen Return as Jean Grey in DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE? appeared first on Nerdist.
Content warning: gun violence.
When Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse came out last year, one of the concepts that it “introduced” was this idea of canon events (introduced insofar as codifying as a narrative storytelling mechanisms within the universe, not so much the concept of a canon event itself). The death of a loved one. The death of a cop figure. Certain fights with certain villains. Universal constants. Things that even across reality were steadfast and true.
And it got me thinking about my canon events. The incidents that shaped me as a person, that ingrained so deep into my being that they became a touchpoint for every action, whether consciously or unconsciously. And specifically, it brought up a particular incident, back in the late 2000’s (by which I mean 2007ish).
It was relayed to me that the boyfriend of my friend thought I was “the type of kid who’d shoot up a school.” This person had never met me before. This person who I would never meet in any capacity. And yet this person somehow managed to lodge a sentence that has been stuck in the back of my skull cap for several years to come.
You know the stereotypes I’m sure. The quiet, unassuming kid. Kept to himself. We talked about it in media all the time back then. It’s Pearl Jam’s Jeremy, a blending of a suicide and school shooting. It’s Warren from Empire Records in the final act. It’s Jimmy in one of the heavier episodes of Static Shock. It’s Jonathan in Buffy the Vampire Slayer in Earshot.
It was a time where we lived in the shadow of Columbine and Virginia Tech. Or rather the immediate shadow of Columbine and Virginia Tech. Twenty-five years later, we are still living in the shadow of Columbine. Fourteen years, still haunted by Virginia Tech. And those are just the two that happened to happen in April and the two that got me thinking about that single sentence fragment.
“The type of kid who’d shoot up a school.”
And somehow, the worst part of all of this is not the fact that it was said to me, but that it was said so casually and also by more than one person throughout the years.
I am in fact an introvert. I get overwhelmed by crowds of people, and I know that I am not inclined to violence, but not everyone knows me and nor do I expect everyone to know me, but that assumption is a wild one. The image painted, a terrifying one.
Hearing this dark future projection changed something in me. It did not break me, it steeled me in a way. I fashioned a resolve, a determination. I’m going to be undeniably better than the shadowy outline you see of me. I’m going to rise above this nonsense accusation. I’m going to be a better person out of sheer spite that someone would ever say that to me.
Now the public image of a shooter has certainly changed over the years. The conversation has become intertwined with talks of mental health. And I remember that shift well. I remember going to a 3AM showing of The Dark Knight Rises, getting home at 6AM, and then waking up a couple hours later to see that there was a shooting in a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado. Claims of being “The Joker.”
In 1988, Alan Moore penned The Killing Joke, one of the most iconic Batman stories for better or for worse, that detailed the sequences of events that broke the man who became the Joker. It was just one bad day. And maybe that is true in the world of comic books, where everything is in a heightened state of everything, where your name has an undue influence on whether you end up a villain or a hero.
But it’s just never one bad day. I can’t believe that a person can break that easily. Although, I can believe that the actions taken on a day can have a ripple effect. I can believe the actions have consequences that are permanent and heartbreaking. And I choose to believe that we can still choose to be better even when faced with horrors, both internal and external.
The mass shooting is both a trope and a dark reality we still reckon with. It’s the school shooting in the season 1 finale of The OA. It’s every cop and other type procedural as a kid or adult rages against a system, or a group, or an individual. It’s incels and MRAs and anti-establishment types.
It’s the news headlines. It’s the perpetrated violence of bullying. It’s the misconception that all of this could be mitigated with one good person at the right place at the right time with the right tool (in some cases, a gun. In some cases, proper deescalation training). It’s the sadness of knowing someone thinks you could be something awful. It’s the grit of trying to prove them wrong even though they never met you…and probably never will.
I have a bookmark buried somewhere with a quote from Edith Wharton: “There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.” And most days, I chose to be a beacon, a lighthouse, a stalwart source of maybe a foolish ideology that ‘it didn’t have to be like this.’ But there are also days where I choose conflagration, a cacophony of “how dare you place me anywhere in the vicinity of those people” and “what possessed you to say such a terrible thing to a person.”
When people think of that “that type of person” it has changed in some ways and in some ways it hasn’t at all. I can’t speak to the conditions of what it takes to break bad. I can only say that back in the late 2000s, someone said something so cruel and so callous that I haven’t forgotten and have made it a point to be a better person to spite them, specifically.
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The post It’s Never Just One Bad Day appeared first on Black Nerd Problems.
Lama Rod Owens, a 44-year-old Black Buddhist educated at the Harvard School of Divinity, blends teachings from Buddhism and Judeo-Christian religions to nurture what he terms “New Saints” among his students. Raised in the Black Baptist and Methodist traditions, Owens departed due to unwelcoming attitudes toward gender and sexuality, seeking personal religious autonomy and a more inclusive spiritual path.
As the Associated Press reports, Owens credits much of his spirituality to his mother, Rev. Wendy Owens, whose path as a United Methodist minister inspired his spiritual journey. “Like a lot of Black women, she embodied wisdom and resiliency and vision.” Owens told the outlet, “She taught me how to work. And she taught me how to change because I saw her changing,” he shared.
After graduating from Berry College, a non-denominational Christian school, Owens redoubled his commitment to service, which he told the AP was his new religion. Owens trained as an advocate for sexual assault survivors and also volunteered for projects focusing on HIV/AIDS education, homelessness, teenage pregnancy, and substance abuse. “Even though I wasn’t doing this theology anymore, what I was definitely doing was following the path of Jesus: feeding people, sheltering people,” Owens told the AP.
Shortly after graduating from Berry College, Owens joined Haley House, located in Boston, where he would meet people from all walks of faith: Christianity, Buddhism, Wicca, Islam, and even Monasticism. He credits a friend who gave him a copy of “Cave in the Snow,” written by Vicki McKenzie, which tells the story of Tibetan Buddhist nun Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo’s search for enlightenment that set Owens on his spiritual path.
— Lama Rod Owens (@LamaRod1) February 17, 2024
“When I started exploring Buddhism, I never thought, ’Oh, Black people don’t do this, or maybe this is in conflict with my Christian upbringing,’” Owens said. “What I thought was: ’Here’s something that can help me to suffer less… I was only interested in how to reduce harm against myself and others.”
His exposure to various religions only deepened at Harvard Divinity School, where Owens met a member of the Satanist faith. According to La Carmina, the author of the “Little Book of Satanism,” despite the moniker, most Satanists are non-theists.
“There are many different kinds of Satanists, but most don’t actually believe in Satan and don’t worship him as either a god or as a force of evil. For the most part, Satanists are non-theists and view Satanism as a personal liberation from traditional theistic beliefs.” La Carmina told Columbia Magazine. “We value nonconformity and revolt against the ideas of superstition and arbitrary authority. Modern Satanists are nonviolent and interested in the pursuit of reason, justice, and truth.”
Owens has gone from “breaking up with God” in college to reconciling with God and refining his image of God, as he told the AP, “God isn’t some old man sitting on a throne in the clouds, who’s, like, very temperamental. God is space and emptiness and energy. God is always this experience, inviting us back through our most divine, sacred souls. God is love.”
Owens continues to find inspiration from figures as varied as James Baldwin, Harriet Tubman, Alvin Ailey, Andre Leon Talley, Toni Morrison, Tony Kushner, and Beyoncé. This wide-ranging group of influences motivates him to continue to be fluid, as he told the AP, “I want people to feel the same way when they experience something that I talk about or write about.”
Owens added, “That’s part of the work of the artist — to help us to feel and to not be afraid to feel. To help us dream differently, inspire us and shake us out of our rigidity to get more fluid.”
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