‘Something I Said’ Archives
Something I Said: Mario and Melvin
By DWIGHT HOBBES The original title of Mario Van Peebles’ Baadasssss! (Sony Pictures, 2003) was How To Get The Man’s Foot Outta Your Ass, entirely fitting for the social commentary his father Melvin Van Peebles’ film Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song (Yeah, Inc., 1971) put forth in a time when grassroot black America had grown sick and tired of this country kicking us around to keep us down. Indeed, Baadasssss! is a dramatized, making of historic document, looking at what went into Melvin returning the favor and putting his foot in American cinema’s behind, profoundly challenging its cherished tenet of supremacist propaganda. There is a reason, after all, The Black Panther Party for Self-Defense lauded it, in Huey Newton's words as "the first truly revolutionary…" that, in the opening credits, starred "The Black Community," It became required viewing for Party members. There is the same reason Bill Cosby, who’d narrated CBS’ Black History: Lost, Stolen or Strayed [...]
Society of St. Vincent de Paul Thrift Shop
Something I Said By DWIGHT HOBBES Society of St. Vincent de Paul Thrift Shop is, in very good terms as the euphemistic parlance goes, a beast: the South Minneapolis operation has made it through the corona contagion thus far, the catastrophic 2020 riot and the ongoing economic climate which, stimulus or no stimulus, is in lousy shape. That rioting, supposedly in the name of George Floyd, absolutely devastated the very community it's alleged to have been for the sake of. Overnight - actually the course of a few days - the business outlets along Lake Street that it didn't shut down were flatout destroyed, depriving whole neighborhoods of affordable goods and services in an area where affordable goods and services amount to a godsend. Not to mention store staff glad to have a job with all the contagion-related layoffs and firings suddenly were left wondering how to pay their bills. Fortunately, more than a year later, much, in fact most, of Lake Street's thriving commerce has [...]
Something I Said
By DWIGHT HOBBES This is but one reason I don”™t give a tinker”™s damn who wins what office in Minneapolis next month: if you can name single candidate for mayor, city council or dog catcher who”™s stumping as an agent for change in the prevalence of violence against women, I will eat his or her hat. Yet there isn”™t a single one who wasn”™t born to a woman. Safe Haven Shelter out of Duluth documents that in this so-called progressive state the stats of women being abused in the home is an unmitigated disgrace. Only a few notations made at http://safehavenshelter.org/: domestic violence is the leading cause of injury to women ”“ more than injuries by muggings, stranger rape and car crashes put together; almost a third of homeless Minnesota women were abused; about 76% of women killed by their partners were stalked by their partners before their murder. There”™s more at the website, a lot more ”“ look [...]
