Posts Tagged ‘Boyce Watkins’

The Mo’Kelly Report is a syndicated politics and entertainment journal. Visit http://mrmokelly.com for the latest from Mr. Mo’Kelly. Tune into The Mo’Kelly Show Saturdays from 6-8pm PDT on KFI AM640 and XM 166 Saturdays and Sundays from 8pm-9pm PST. Contact Mo’Kelly at mrmokelly@gmail.com.

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We all remember the original purported “outrage” of Star Jones regarding the controversial behavior and imagery on VH-1′s

Dr. Boyce Watkins

Basketball Wives program(s).  We all remember her vowing to put a stop to it, tweeting up a storm.

Remember #EnoughIsEnough?

Since then Star hasn’t uttered a peep on the issue, including ignoring all interview requests from Yours Truly.  To that end, Dr. Watkins takes Jones to task publicly for seemingly changing course on the issue.

Interesting…

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From NewsOne.com

Star Jones is interesting.  She’s smart, crafty and typically quite classy.  But I admittedly cocked my head to the side like Scooby-Doo when I read that Jones said that she never intended to boycott the show “Basketball Wives.”  Speaking to another woman that I appreciate dearly, Wendy Williams, Star said, “I was never encouraging anybody to boycott somebody’s job. That’s not what I’m about.”

Star Jones

Star’s words are a far cry from her previous tweets on the matter, where she took a far more militant point of view:

“It may be ‘comfortable’ to be quiet when women of color slap the crap out of each other & run across tables barefoot, but #ENOUGHisENOUGH,” she tweeted. “About to put together a group of sisters to finally ‘tell the truth’ about the image of women of color in the media.”

“And the thought that the woman from #BBW who was smacked doesn’t have the RIGHT to file assault charges is LUDICROUS,” she said. “You NEVER give up your right not to have your ‘person’ intentionally assaulted unless you are participating in an agreed physical activity.  I’m asking all my high profile, platform having conscientious sisters who STAND FOR SOMETHING to just say #ENOUGHisENOUGH & call folk out! Be mad. But think about what I said. WE ARE BETTER than that. You’re either part of the problem or part of the solution.

Perhaps the Star Jones from last month should be introduced to the Star Jones from this month, because they appear to be different people.

Full story HERE.

The Mo’Kelly Report is a syndicated politics and entertainment journal. Visit http://mrmokelly.com for the latest from Mr. Mo’Kelly. Tune into The Mo’Kelly Show Saturdays from 6-8pm PDT on KFI AM640 and Sirius XM 166 Saturdays and Sundays from 8-9pm PDT. Contact Mo’Kelly at mrmokelly@gmail.com.

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…and the plot thickens.

Dr. Boyce Watkins

Mo’Kelly is just going to stay in his foxhole and let the bullets fly overhead.

Syracuse professor Dr. Boyce Watkins takes issue with the “personal” nature of Joyner’s blog assailing Smiley and West.

Maybe…maybe not.

There is a lot of subtext to Joyner’s original text.  It is LOADED.  Nevertheless, here are Watkins’ thoughts…

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My mouth hit the floor this week as Joyner (aka “The Fly Jock”), the man whose work ethic I respect like no other, somehow had the audacity (in a recent article) to compare Tavis Smiley and Cornel West to Mark Halperin, the MSNBC commentator who referred to President Barack Obama as a d*ck on national television.   You no longer need to speculate as to whether or not Tom has a personal issue with Tavis Smiley, the cat fighting is now out of the bag.

While there is certainly room for Tom to disagree with Tavis and Cornel’s critiques of President Obama (it’s ok to criticize the criticizer), Tom’s comparison of Cornel and Tavis with Halperin is entirely off-base.  Smiley and West have never, at any point, used such distasteful language and the kind of one-syllable thinking that Halperin used during his insult of President Obama.  In fact, even Smiley’s critiques have grown more diplomatic and thoughtful through time, and I still look forward to any of the president’s senior advisors taking the time to explain why Smiley and West are wrong (note: when people can’t debate the facts, they avoid the issues and simply try to discredit you).

But it is Tom Joyner himself who has joined Halperin in the ideological basement by making comments that would be better suited for a high school locker room:

“I said I’d wait until something pissed me off so bad that I would have the words harsh enough to express what I was really feeling about him and his side piece – I mean side kick – Cornel West,” said Joyner.

Now, I don’t know what hood you’re from, but in my city, referring to a man’s friend as his “side piece” is usually a reference to his sexuality. Whether Tom is trying to imply that the relationship between West and Smiley is more than meets the eye, I have no idea.  But this kind of remark has no place in print during such a critical point in the history of black American political discourse.

FULL STORY HERE.

The Mo’Kelly Report is an entertainment journal with a political slant; published at The Huffington Post and EURWEB.com. For the most recent posts of Mr. Mo’Kelly, visit http://mrmokelly.com.  Mr. Mo’Kelly can be reached at mrmokelly@gmail.com.

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I applaud the piece and am sorrowful at the number of “us” who subsequently attacked the writer and cling to the self-hatred of hip-hop.  If we clung to education as tightly as we did the ignorance of hip hop the world would be a far different place for African-Americans.

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BET, the media company that targets Black consumers, but is ultimately controlled by a predominantly white organization called Viacom, is not exactly on the same page when it comes to their assessment of Lil Wayne or any other artist (i.e. R. Kelly) who can be directly linked to the holocaust occurring within Black America today. Given that models of profit maximization rarely call for any assessment of the negative externalities that result from unethical corporate behavior, the executive committee for the BET Awards made the interesting decision to give the greatest number of award nominations to Lil Wayne, the man who said that he would (among other things) love to turn a woman out, murder her and send her dead body back to her boyfriend. Oh yea, he also said that he would kill little babies, have sex with every girl in the world, carry a gun on his hip and “leave a ni**a’s brains on the street.”

It might be almost feasible to overlook the “kill little babies comment” were it not for the innocent three-year old boy who was shot in the head by a 21-year old Black male in my hometown just a couple of weeks ago – these atrocities are all too common in quite a few neighborhoods across America. Also, the music might be considered simple entertainment were it not for the fact that millions of Black youth who had their history stolen during slavery actually look to Hip-Hop music to tell them how to dress, talk, think, act and live. There is no high school speaker more popular than a Hip-Hop star.

Full story HERE.

The Mo’Kelly Report is an entertainment journal with a political slant; published at The Huffington Post and EURWEB.com. For the most recent posts of Mr. Mo’Kelly, visit http://mrmokelly.com.  Mr. Mo’Kelly can be reached at mrmokelly@gmail.com.

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twitter – @mrmokelly