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https://blackgirlnerds.com/playing-big-mo-an-exploration-of-community-care-andrene-ward-hammond-from-showtimes-your-honor/

Written By: Jeanine T. Abraham

BGN got comfy on Zoom and had a deep conversation with native New Yorker, Andrene Ward-Hammond (Big Mo) from Showtime’s hit limited legal series, Your Honor. 

You’ve got over 77 credits. You’ve worked on everything from The Vampire Diaries to Queen Sugar. (I’m not even mentioning films.) What about working consistently on TV gives you the most joy?

Being able to pay my bills. [Laughs.] It lifts the weight. Also, there’s so much joy in being able to do this thing that I did not think could sustain me. I love acting so much that I just want to work. 

I’ve gotten sick a couple of times. About 14 years ago, I had a tumor and it almost took me. I was working a 9-to-5 without health insurance. The doctors wouldn’t work on me because my tumor wasn’t at the point where it could kill me. “Just give it a couple of months,” they said. It was at that point that I was like, You know what? I could do this 9-to-5 day job and still not have the joy that I want, or I could do what I wanna do and just throw caution to the wind. I could die tomorrow, doctors are telling me they can’t help me without insurance…so what is all of this for? 

I quit my job with nothing else to fall back on and started teaching kids improv and acting with my business partner. It was just like, “Yeah, let’s just try it. What’s the worst that could happen?” And now, here I am doing the job I love. More than anything, I’m grateful.

I’m glad you’re here. I’m glad you’ve got the good SAG/AFTRA insurance, and I’m glad you didn’t give up. Because the world needs your talent.

Thank you. Me, too.

It’s difficult to book work when experiencing that state of dire need. How much did your community factor into your success?

You have to have people behind you to support you. I had some family that didn’t support me. They didn’t even believe I could start my own business. They were like, “Oh, well you have a kid, maybe the best course of action is…” But, I’ve always had at least one friend who was like, “No. We are going to get it done. Tell me what you need.” When I was doing the work, it’s funny how other people found and supported me. If you want support, you have to do the work. Do the work, and people will find you and support you in the process. Those times when I felt I couldn’t do it anymore, there was at least one person saying, “Uh uh. You came this far. Pick it up. You can do it. Get it done.”

Let’s talk about Big Mo. I gotta admit, I wasn’t happy around another TV show with Black drug dealers, but how you brought Big Mo to life drew me in. What was your process in finding this rich and unexpected character?

When playing a character, you can never go into judgment. Specifically for Mo, I want her to be understood. She’s like one of many women in communities that are avid protectors of the entire community. That characteristic lives in me. You’re not going to just come up to my people and say anything and think that I’m not gonna say anything back. That’s who Big Mo is. Sometimes it feels unfortunate that she’s packaged in this “drug dealer” kind of setting, but think about access to resources and the type of community you’re in. We’re talking about people who are working minimum wage jobs, and even if you have only one child, the idea that you don’t have enough to feed your kids. Big Mo is that figure in the community who you can go to when anything happens. Big Mo is watching, she’s always there, and she sees you. She saw something in Eugene [Benjamin Flores Jr.] that she knew that he needed, and she was there for him. You probably don’t like how she set it up for him, but she’s there, she sees her community, and she’s gonna fight like hell for it. And her stillness is everything. 

I absolutely love the choice of stillness to amplify Big Mo’s power.

Yes. The idea of how we are stereotyped as Black women being loud, very boisterous out of pocket. This is not what you’re gonna get from Big Mo. That’s what I love about her. We don’t often get heard in our stillness. It kinda reminds me of Madam Vice President, you know with, “I’m speaking…I’m speaking.” Right? I don’t have to raise my voice for you to hear me.

The toothpick, I love it. Was that your actor’s choice or was that written in the script?

The toothpick was in the script, but what I was to do with it was my choice. It’s perfect for Big Mo. It’s so disrespectful as a person to come in there with a toothpick in your mouth. Your mom would have knocked that thing out of your mouth. I mean, unless you’re the man of the family.

What are your thoughts on how Big Mo deals with the patriarchy of this system while owning her power among men?

We don’t give enough credit to women and how much we have to carry. Big Mo is the power within her community, and she resides right there among the big boys. Jimmy [Michael Stuhlbarg] thought he could do whatever he wanted because Big Mo is a woman, and for him to just go in there and get checked, I love every bit of it.

So often in scripts, the craft of being Black is often missed. What in Big Mo reflects the cratiness necessary for her to thrive in this world?

Black people have to play chess when it comes to existing in this society because of the expectations of who we are. Big Mo plays the long game. She uses strategy. She’s brilliant.

Did you love shooting in NOLA?

Yes. I’ve shot several projects there and it’s fantastic. The food of course, and they take care of you. For communities of color down there to be so financially deprived, they protect you. That’s what I love about New Orleans. I was just held in this nurturing community.

How is Your Honor relevant in our current moment of social justice?

There are a lot of Black and Brown babies going into jail because of lack of finances, and there aren’t enough folks around to advocate for them. The show is triggering because it’s reality. This isn’t fixed overnight. We see the injustice in real time.

What is your life’s philosophy as an artist?

I think we are all artists. Find your gifts and explore them, share and enjoy them. These small components make us better people, in a better world.

Lose yourself in the world of New Orleans and don’t miss Andrene Ward-Hammond’s outstanding work as Big Mo in Showtime’s limited legal series Your Honor developed by Peter Moffatt starring Bryan Cranston. Sundays at 10:00pm EST.

https://blackgirlnerds.com/gg-townson-as-cheryl-salt-james-laila-odom-as-sandra-pepa-denton-in-the-lifetime-salt-n-pepa-movie/

Salt-N-Pepa details the journey of Queensborough Community College students Cheryl “Salt” James and Sandra “Pepa” Denton as they enter the world of rap and hip hop, after recording a song for their friend Hurby Azor. Salt-N-Pepa made a huge impact as one of the first all-female rap groups, changing the look of hip hop and being unafraid to talk about sex and share their thoughts on men.

The movie follows the group as they become the first female rap act to go platinum and experience ground-breaking success with multiple awards, including a Grammy award –  paving the way for all female rappers to follow. The film will feature performances of Salt-N-Pepa’s greatest hits, including: “Let’s Talk About Sex”, “What a Man”, “Shoop” and “Push It”.

Salt-N-Pepa will premiere Saturday, January 23, 2021 at 8 PM EST/7 PM CST on Lifetime.

https://nerdist.com/article/microsoft-chatbot-dead-people-black-mirror-ai/

Microsoft, the $1.7 trillion megacorporation behind the Zune and Bing, has filed a patent for a chatbot that can mimic a “specific person.” The patent says the chatbot would have its personality sculpted in part from “social data,” and would, in some instances, work in tandem with a 3D model of its real-life counterpart—whether that counterpart be alive, or dead.

The Independent reported on Microsoft’s new patent, which outlines a “conversational” chatbot that legitimately sounds like something out of Black Mirror. Specifically, the episode “Be Right Back,” in which a boyfriend comes back to “life” as a robot. (It features Domhnall Gleeson, and you should watch it if you haven’t!)

Netflix

Microsoft notes the chatbot would develop its target personality in several ways. The social data, consisting of social media posts, texts, voice messages, etc., would, in effect, be used to train the chatbot’s neural networks; this would enable it to speak like a specific individual. The bot would also have a “personality theme,” proportionately weighted by the social data.

As The Independent points out, the patent specifically states “The…person [who the chat bot represents] may correspond to a past or present entity (or a version thereof), such as a friend, a relative, an acquaintance, a celebrity, a fictional character, a historical figure, a random entity etc.” Which undoubtedly hints at the ability to revive someone from the afterlife. And maybe even change them so you like them more?

“The specific person may also correspond to oneself (e.g., the user creating/training the chat bot),” the patent also notes. Another implicative statement that makes it sound like you could store your own personality with one of these chatbots, allowing you to stick around after death.

Unfortunately, it’s hard to say Microsoft has had a stellar record with cutting-edge AI. Most notably, the company struggled with its experimental Twitter chatbot, Tay. Soon after Tay appeared on the social media platform, she devolved into making racist remarks. (Thanks to users figuring out a way to hack her with certain behaviors.) On top of that, the company also earned backlash when one of its AIs confused two mixed-race musicians.

Regardless of Microsoft’s previous endeavors, or whether or not it pursues this patent, it seems inevitable that reviving dead people as chatbots—or full-blown robots—is going to become a thing. To prepare, we should all watch more Black Mirror. And maybe save any controversial thoughts we have on the series somewhere very private.

The post Microsoft Patents Chatbot Capable of Simulating Dead People appeared first on Nerdist.

https://www.themarysue.com/biden-disbands-trumps-racist-1776-commission/

Since his swearing in yesterday, President Joe Biden has hit the ground running in an effort to undo the damage wreaked by the previous administration. He signed a slew of executive orders to roll back Trump’s cruelest executive actions, including rescinding the Muslim ban, canceling the Keystone XL pipeline, and rejoining WHO and the Paris Climate Accords.

Biden also canceled one of Trump’s most sinister and racist schemes: the 1776 commission. Designed as a response to the New York Times’ Pulitzer-winning series “1619 Project,” which seeks to reframe the history of America around the date the first slave ships arrived in the country, the 1776 commission sought to ignore and belittle the horrific consequences of slavery and racism in America.

Pres Trump claims the 1619 project distorts and “rewrites” American history. He says the project wrongly says America was founded on “oppression not freedom.”

Fact: At America’s founding, kidnapped enslaved black people were exploited. The consequences of slavery continue today.

— Yamiche Alcindor (@Yamiche) September 17, 2020

Trump described the commission as something that would “restore patriotic education to our schools” via a “pro-America curriculum,” which is essentially white supremacist propaganda. The 1776 report whitewashes American history, which is already rife with whitewashing and the white male perspective. According to Trump, teaching kids critical race theory is tantamount to “child abuse.”

Civil War historian David Blight called the report, “an insult to the whole enterprise of education. Education is supposed to help young people learn to think critically … That report is a piece of right-wing propaganda.”

Trump’s 1776 Commission says historians pointing out the paradox of a nation founded on the idea of freedom denying freedom to Black people “has done enormous damage” to “our civic unity and social fabric.” pic.twitter.com/TQkMkNtBTt

— Eli Stokols (@EliStokols) January 18, 2021

The 1776 commission is horrific, dangerous, and disgusting. There is no other way to describe it. So it’s a relief to see the Biden administration withdrawing the report and suspending the website, with officials saying the commission “sought to erase America’s history of racial injustice.”

It stayed up for about as long as it took to write it. https://t.co/v7O3xCinnA

— Ida Bae Wells (@nhannahjones) January 20, 2021

The order is part of a broad executive order on advancing racial equity. The order reads, “Our country faces converging economic, health, and climate crises that have exposed and exacerbated inequities, while a historic movement for justice has highlighted the unbearable human costs of systemic racism. Our Nation deserves an ambitious whole-of-government equity agenda that matches the scale of the opportunities and challenges that we face.”

The order also commands all federal agencies “to undertake a baseline review of the state of equity within their agency and deliver an action plan within 200 days to address unequal barriers to opportunity in agency policies and programs,” which stands in marked opposition to Trump’s previous order to cancel racial sensitivity and bias training in the federal government.

Many were relieved by the swift action taken, and by Biden’s direct denunciation of white supremacy in his inaugural speech. But of course, this doesn’t mean the end of the right wing’s attempts to indoctrinate our children and push their revisionist fantasy of American history. There is still so much work to be done, but this is a great place to start.

(via AP News, featured image: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

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The post Biden Immediately Disbands Trump’s Racist 1776 Commission first appeared on The Mary Sue.