You know how much I love an inspiring story about bellas making their way in the world…
Meet Window Snyder, head afrobella in charge of security at Mozilla Firefox. Her Kenyan-born mother, Wayua Muasa, taught her to program the early computer programming language Basic, when she was five years old. When I was five, I was all about Smurfs and Fraggle Rock. Go figure.
I love that Window is doing great work for my internet browser of choice, and knocking down doors within her field. That’s my kinda lady. (Thanks to Nichelle, by way of Talking Stuff for that one!)
Did your high school have a debate team? Mine did not, but I’ve always been fascinated by the art form — it’s a world that I simply don’t understand, where speed speaking and conviction are necessary tools for victory. HBO is screening an incredible array of documentaries every Monday this summer, and last week’s screening, Resolved, gave amazing insight to the stories of two debate teams — Matt and Sam from a rich Texas burb, versus Richard and Louis, two inner-city debaters from Long Beach, California with crazy skills. This documentary made me laugh, cry, and admire the discipline debate requires from its contestants. All of the debaters were great, but Richard and Louis are especially amazing to watch. I sincerely hope they take the opportunities they’ve been given, and go far in life.
I haven’t yet watched this week’s doc, Hard Times at Douglass High: A No Child Left Behind Report Card, which I know will just break my heart. The series continues through August, and I’m already setting my DVR for The Black List, which includes insightful interviews with Toni Morrison, Suzan-Lori Parks, and Thelma Golden, among others.
Even if you don’t have premium cable, you too can get an excellent documentary fix this week when CNN’s Black in America hits the screen. Soledad O’Brien’s six-hour television event promises to examine the issues, successes and struggles of black men, women and families.
I’m definitely looking forward to that. It premieres in a month — Monday July 23rd and Tuesday July 24th at 9pmET/PT.
I find it kind of interesting that there’s this recent uptick in multifaceted documentaries about African American life, and such a dismal lack of diversity on television sitcoms and dramas. Click here to read an interesting piece about the lack of black people on TV for the upcoming schedule of new network programs, and what the NAACP is trying to do about it. I find it extremely disconcerting that Cleveland Brown is being described as “television’s great black hope for the 2008-09 season,” and I agree with Racialicious— my WTF-o-meter went wayyyyy off when I heard that news and saw the photo of the cast. But maybe that’s just because deep down, I’m a South Park fan.
I say, meh. What say you, bellas and fellas?
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