#gracec

[anabelledm]

Feliz cumpleaños para mi querida sobrina #GraceC. Gracias mi Dios por permitirme un año más de vida, sabiduría y bendiciones, que la pase súper bien mi Graceeeeeeee 🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎂🎂🎂🎂 https://www.instagram.com/p/Cf6JZRAOfYTiMsYNoLJ-UF0yUOb7ZTjhIMjXlc0/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[vacationsbylarry]

True friendship. #gracec #squad #friends (at Grace College OCC)

[mcanyu]

I like the way this page uses color intensity, panel size, image sharpness, and perspective to convey Laura’s feeling of euphoria at Amaterasu’s concert. The first panel shows her in the crowd, standing between two other concert attendees who are both drunk/losing consciousness. The next two panels show Amaterasu in a faded light, giving her an ethereal, dreamlike quality... how Laura sees her in a trance. The sudden sharpness and closeness of the next panel, showing Laura’s eyes, gives the moment a distinct intensity and focus. It is the climax of the page, so to speak, “a moment of hubris,” after which Laura fades into unconsciousness and wakes up in quite another world. The bottom row of panels, meanwhile, grow progressively smaller, lighter, and blurry, mimicking Laura’s own vision as she passes out. 

[mcanyu]

Marvel vs DC: Who Will Ruin Superhero Movies?

http://www.comicvine.com/forums/gen-discussion-1/marvel-vs-dc-who-will-ruin-superhero-movies-1654294/

This is a video of two comics “fanboys” discussing the reasons for their ambivalence about the recent proliferation of superhero movies, from a concern that there are too many of them to dissatisfaction with the casting. 

Evidence of several of the “things to know” about the comics industry and comics culture from the Derek Kompare reading show up in the video, including the diversity of comics fandom, the alienation of comics creators from adaptations of their work, and comics aren’t necessarily meant for other media forms.

[mcanyu]

Forcing Black Men Out of Society

From The New York Times Editorial Board

An analysis in The Times — “1.5 Million Missing Black Men” — showed that more than one in every six black men in the 24-to-54 age group has disappeared from civic life, mainly because they died young or are locked away in prison. This means that there are only 83 black men living outside of jail for every 100 black women — in striking contrast to the white population, where men and women are about equal in numbers.

This astounding shortfall in black men translates into lower marriage rates, more out-of-wedlock births, a greater risk of poverty for families and, by extension, less stable communities. The missing men should be a source of concern to political leaders and policy makers everywhere.

While the 1.5 million number is startling, it actually understates the severity of the crisis that has befallen African-American men since the collapse of the manufacturing and industrial centers, which was quickly followed by the “war on drugs” and mass imprisonment, which drove up the national prison population more than sevenfold beginning in the 1970s.

In addition to the “missing,” millions more are shut out of society, or are functionally missing, because of the shrinking labor market for low-skilled workers, racial discrimination or sanctions that prevent millions who have criminal convictions from getting all kinds of jobs. At the same time, the surge in imprisonment has further stigmatized blackness itself, so that black men and boys who have never been near a jail now have to fight the presumption of criminality in many aspects of day-to-day life — in encounters with police, in schools, on the streets and on the job.

The data on missing African-American men is not particularly new. Every census for the last 50 years has shown the phenomenon.

In earlier decades, premature death played a larger role than it does today. But since the 1980s, the rising number of black men who were spared premature death was more than offset by the growing number shipped off to prison, many for nonviolent drug offenses. The path to that catastrophe was paved by what the sociologist William Julius Wilson described as “the disappearance of work,” which devastated formerly coherent neighborhoods.

As deindustrialization got underway, earnings declined, neighborhoods grew poorer and businesses moved to the suburbs, beyond the reach of inner city residents. As Mr. Wilson wrote in his 1996 book, “When Work Disappears,” for the first time in the 20th century, most adults in many poor inner-city neighborhoods were not working.

Joblessness became the norm, creating a “nonworking class,” that lived in segregated areas where most residents could not find jobs or had given up looking. In Chicago, where, Mr. Wilson carried out his research, employers wrote off the poor by not advertising in places where they could see the ads. The situation was so grave in 1996 that he recommended the resurrection of a Works Progress Administration-like strategy, under which the government would provide public employment to every American over 18 who wanted it.

The stigmatization of blackness presents an enormous obstacle, even to small boys. Last year, for example, the Department of Education reported that black children were far more likely to be suspended from school — even from preschool — than white children. Federal cases also show higher rates of public school suspensions for minority students than for white students for identical behavior, suggesting that racial discrimination against black males starts very early in life.

The sociologist Devah Pager, a Harvard professor who has meticulously researched the effect of race on hiring policies, has also shown that stereotypes have a powerful effect on job possibilities. In one widely cited study, she sent carefully selected test applicants with equivalent résumés to apply for low-level jobs with hundreds of employers. Ms. Pager found that criminal convictions for black men seeking employment were virtually impossible to overcome in many contexts, partly because convictions reinforced powerful, longstanding stereotypes.

The stigma of a criminal record was less damaging for white testers. In fact, those who said that they were just out of prison were as likely to be called back for a second interview as black men who had no criminal history at all. “Being black in America today is just about the same as having a felony conviction in terms of one’s chances of finding a job,” she wrote in her book, “Marked: Race, Crime and Finding Work in an Era of Mass Incarceration.”

In recent months, the many grievous cases of unarmed black men and boys who were shot dead by the police — now routinely captured on video — show how the presumption of criminality, poverty and social isolation threatens lives every day in all corners of this country.

[mcanyu]

This quick clip from 30 Rock precipitates what will later become a bigger issue in season 1, that being the inability of characters “Toofer” (According to Jack, his nickname is "Toofer" because "with him you get a two-for- one; he's a black guy and a Harvard guy”) and Tracy Jordan to get along. Both characters are black, but Toofer’s apparent abandonment of what Tracy believes to be an integral part of what it is to be black (using certain slang terms, dressing in certain ways, etc.) causes Tracy to resent Toofer’s differentiation. 

30 Rock, though it is first and foremost a satirical TV comedy, occasionally hits upon points of contention around the processes of racial formation in the U.S.  (Of which this scene and the larger narrative from which it comes may serve as an example.) 

[mcanyu]

Sarah Jessica Parker Will Return to HBO in ‘Divorce’

Sarah Jessica Parker Will Return to HBO in ‘Divorce’ By GILBERT CRUZ  APRIL 17, 2015 10:48 AM April 17, 2015 10:48 am 2 

Sarah Jessica Parker is coming home to the cable network that helped make her one of TV’s biggest stars. She will star in another HBO series set in New York, more than a decade after the series finale of “Sex and the City,” it was reported Thursday.

The show, “Divorce,” will tell the tale of just that — a long and drawn-out divorce. Thomas Haden Church will co-star as Ms. Parker’s on-screen husband, and Molly Shannon and Talia Balsam will play two of her friends. The series will be filmed this year; no premiere date has been set.

- Via NYTimes.com

Last week in class when we discussed feminism and television, Sex and the City came up as a show that presented consumerism as a valid/satisfying form of power for women. Sarah Jessica Parker is now going to star in an HBO show called ‘Divorce,’ and though she will be playing a different character, it might be interesting to compare this new character with Carrie Bradshaw. How will SJP’s new female protagonist role play out? From where will she (or will she not) draw strength?