THE OBENSON REPORT

A new report in The Nation documents what many have claimed for years - for some Black New Orleanians the threat of being killed by White vigilantes in Katrina’s aftermath became a bigger threat than the storm itself.

After the storm, White vigilantes roamed Algiers Point shooting and, according to their own accounts, killing Black men at will – with no threat of a police response. For the last three years, the shootings and the police force’s role in them have been an open secret to many New Orleanians. To date, no one has been charged with a crime and law enforcement officials have refused to investigate.

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Join us in calling on Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, Louisiana’s Attorney General Buddy Caldwell, and the U.S. Department of Justice to conduct a full investigation of these crimes and any police cover-up.

In the two weeks after Hurricane Katrina made landfall, the media created a climate of fear with trumped-up stories of Black lawlessness. Meanwhile, an armed group of White vigilantes took over the Algiers Point neighborhood in New Orleans and mercilessly hunted down Black people.

“It was great!” said one vigilante. “It was like pheasant season in South Dakota. If it moved, you shot it.”

The Nation’s article tells the story of Donnell Herrington, Marcel Alexander, and Chris Collins — a group of friends who were attacked by shotgun-wielding White men as they entered Algiers Point on September 1, 2005. As they tried to escape, Herrington recalls, their attackers shouted, “Get him! Get that nigger!” He managed to get away. Alexander and Collins were told that they would be allowed to live on the condition that they told other Black folks not to come to Algiers Point. Herrington, shot in the neck, barely survived.

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Then there’s the story of White militiamen who tried to drive their Black neighbors from their homes. Reggie Bell, who lived just two blocks down the street from the vigilantes’ ringleader, was told at gunpoint, “We don’t want you around here. You loot, we shoot.” Later, another group of armed White men confronted him at his home, asking, “Whatcha still doing around here? We don’t want you around here. You gotta go.”

These are only a few of the stories of Black folks who were accosted in Algiers Point, and you can read more in The Nation... Journalists have encountered a wall of silence on the part of the authorities. The coroner had to be sued to turn over autopsy records. When he finally complied, the records were incomplete, with files on several suspicious deaths suddenly empty. The New Orleans police and the District Attorney repeatedly refused to talk to journalists about Algiers Point. And according to journalist A.C. Thompson, “the city has in nearly every case refused to investigate or prosecute people for assaults and murders committed in the wake of the storm.”

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Please join us in calling on state and federal officials to investigate these brutal attacks and the conduct of Orleans Parish law enforcement agencies, and please ask your friends and family to do the same.

Will and Jada Pinkett Smith have deep pockets when it comes to charities. Tax returns for their foundation show the couple gave $1.3 million in donations last year to a variety of religious, civic and arts groups, reports Fox411's Roger Friedman.

The columnist wrote Wednesday: Smith’s biggest single contribution was, as usual, Yesha Ministries of Philadelphia. He gave the born-again Christian based organization run by Reverend James Robinson a whopping $250,000. That’s a hefty raise from the $140,000 he gave them the previous year. Another $200,000 went to a Christian ministry outside Los Angeles called Living Waters.

He also gave a combined $122,500 to the Church of Scientology, broken into these donations: $67,500 to the New York Rescue Workers Detoxication Fund, $50,000 to the group’s Celebrity Center in Hollywood and $5,000 to ABLE, another Scientology offshoot. Smith and his wife have also supported a private school called New Village Academy they opened this fall in suburban Los Angeles that uses Scientology learning concepts.

The star of movies like “Hancock,” “I Am Legend,” and the upcoming “Seven Pounds” also donated thousands of dollars to a Los Angeles mosque, other Christian-based schools and churches, and to the Yitzhak Rabin Memorial Center in Israel. And though Smith is not featured in “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” he also sent $25,000 to the Progeria Research Foundation. Progeria is a disease that causes rapid aging.

Touting the continued success of the week-long "roadshow" screenings of Steven Soderbergh's "Che" in New York and Los Angeles, IFC Films has announced return engagements of the two-part roadshow at theaters in both cities, re-opening it next week and continuing the event through early January. The film, which earned more than $100,000 on two screens this week, selling out all of its Los Angeles screenings. It will re-open on December 24th at the IFC Center in New York and on December 26th at the Nuart in Los Angeles, with Soderbergh planning to do Q & A's in conjunction with the roadshow showings. "Che" will then debut theatrically as two separate films on January 9th in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco, and on cable video-on-demand on January 21st. By January 23rd, the film will be on screen in the top 25 markets, according to IFC's Mark Boxer.

I Want A Black Director!

"I don't want to hire nobody just 'cause they're black." Eddie Murphy said that to me. We were discussing the possibility of Paramount Pictures purchasing the rights to my play "Fences." I said I wanted a black director for the film. My response [to his remark] was immediate. "Neither do I," I said.

What Mr. Murphy meant I am not sure. I meant I wanted to hire somebody talented, who understood the play and saw the possibilities of the film, who would approach my work with the same amount of passion and measure of respect with which I approach it, and who shared the cultural responsibilities of the characters.

That was more than three years ago. I have not talked to Mr. Murphy about the subject since. Paramount did purchase rights to make the film in 1987. What I thought of as a straightforward, logical request has been greeted by blank, vacant stares and the pious shaking of heads as if in response to my unfortunate naiveté.

I usually have had to repeat my request, "I want a black director," as though it were a complex statement in a foreign tongue. I have often heard the same response: "We don't want to hire anyone just because they are black." What is being implied is that the only qualification any black has is the color of his skin.

In the film industry, the prevailing attitude is that a black director couldn't do the job, and to insist upon one is to make the film "unmakeable," partly because no one is going to turn a budget of $15 million over to a black director. That this is routinely done for novice white directors is beside the point.

The ideas of ability and qualification are not new to blacks. The skills of black lawyers, doctors, dentists, accountants and mechanics are often greeted with skepticism, even from other blacks. "Man, you sure you know what you doing?"

At the time of my last meeting with Paramount, in January 1990, a well-known, highly respected white director wanted very much to direct the film. I don't know his work, but he is universally praised for sensitive and intelligent direction. I accept that he is a very fine film director. But he is not black. He is not a product of black American culture-a culture that was honed out of the black experience and fired in the kiln of slavery and survival - and he does not share the sensibilities of black Americans.

I have been asked if I am not, by rejecting him on the basis of his race, doing the same thing Paramount is doing by not hiring a black director. That is a fair, if shortsighted, question which deserves a response.

I am not carrying a banner for black directors. I think they should carry their own. I am not trying to get work for black directors. I am trying to get the film of my play made in the best possible way.

As Americans of various races, we share a broad cultural ground, a commonality of society that links its diverse elements into a cohesive whole that can be defined as "American."

We share certain mythologies. A history. We share political and economic systems and a rapidly developing, if suspect, ethos. Within these commonalities are specifics. Specific ideas and attitudes that are not shared on the common cultural ground. These remain the property and possession of the people who develop them, and on that "field of manners and rituals of intercourse" (to use James Baldwin's eloquent phrase) lives are played out.

At the point where they intercept and link to the broad commonality of American culture, they influence how that culture is shared and to what purpose.

White American society is made up of various European ethnic groups which share a common history and sensibility. Black Americans are a racial group which do not share the same sensibilities. The specifics of our cultural history are very much different.

We are an African people who have been here since the early 17th century. We have a different way of responding to the world. We have different ideas about religion, different manners of social intercourse. We have different ideas about style, about language. We have different esthetics.

Someone who does not share the specifics of a culture remains an outsider, no matter how astute a student or how well-meaning their intentions.

I declined a white director not on the basis of race but on the basis of culture. White directors are not qualified for the job. The job requires someone who shares the specifics of the culture of black Americans.

Webster's "Third New International Dictionary" gives the following character definitions listed under black and white.

White: free from blemish, moral stain or impurity: outstandingly righteous; innocent; not marked by malignant influence; notably pleasing or auspicious; fortunate; notably ardent; decent; in a fair upright manner; a sterling man; etc.

Black: outrageously wicked; a villain; dishonorable; expressing or indicating disgrace, discredit or guilt; connected with the devil; expressing menace; sullen; hostile; unqualified; committing a violation of public regulation, illicit, illegal; affected by some undesirable condition; etc.

No wonder I had been greeted with incredulous looks when I suggested a black director for "Fences." I sat in the offices of Paramount suggesting that someone who was affected by an undesirable condition, who was a violator of public regulations, who was sullen, unqualified and marked by a malignant influence, direct the film.

While they were offering a sterling man, who was free from blemish, notably pleasing, fair and upright; decent and outstandingly righteous with a reputation to boot!

Despite such a linguistic environment, the culture of black Americans has emerged and defined itself in strong and effective vehicles that have become the flag-bearers for self-determination and self-identity.

In the face of such, those who are opposed to the ideas of a "foreign" culture permeating the ideal of an American culture founded on the icons of Europe seek to dilute and control it by setting themselves up as the assayers of its value and the custodians of its offspring.

Therein lies the crux of the matter as it relates to Paramount and the film "Fences" - whether we as blacks are going to have control over our own culture and its products.

Some Americans, black and white, do not see any value to black American lives that do not contribute to the leisure or profit of white America. Some Americans, black and white, would deny that a black American culture even exists. Some Americans, black and white, would say that by insisting on a black director for "Fences" I am doing irreparable harm to the efforts of black directors who have spent the last 15 years trying to get Hollywood to ignore the fact that they are black. The origins of such ideas are so very old and shallow that I am amazed to see them so vividly displayed in 1990.

What to do? Let's make a rule. Blacks don't direct Italian films. Italians don't direct Jewish films. Jews don't direct black American films. That might account for about 3 percent of the films that are made in this country. The other 97 percent - the action-adventure, horror, comedy, romance, suspense, western or any combination thereof, that the Hollywood and independent mills grind out - let it be every man for himself.

That's it!

Share your thoughts in the comment section...
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Samuels asks - Why doesn't Hollywood make more African-American love stories?

Smith answers - Hollywood sees green as in dollars, and that's just the bottom line. You have to show them you can make money with your story no matter what color the characters are. Martin Scorsese has proven to Hollywood he can make Italian-American stories that bring in the money, and that's what Hollywood wants to hear. Every time an executive greenlights a film, he's putting his job and his future on the line. I don't think Hollywood is racist, but I do think they work with what they know. And since many of the top studios or people who greenlight features are not familiar with our stories, it's just much easier to go with what they know and not delve into what they don't. I think that's where my responsibility comes in as someone who can make a difference, because I can get my films made and choose the people I want in those films and the stories I want to tell. It really comes down to that. We have to tell our own stories, really.

I'm a black man and I love your site, but I'm really tired of how 80 percent of the time you show a black guy it's of some "fashion don't" freaky guy or some weirdly dressed space pimp. Seriously. When you show a normal, very well dressed black man I'm almost shocked. The way a person edits usually tells you how they see the world. I can't tell you how to see the world, but at least realize that some of us can see that you have some different glasses on when it comes to non-white guys.

I don't agree that 'we' have a problem with "diversity." This isn't about diversity. In each situation, you show something you appreciate. In most cases, you appreciate it because you like it. In this case, you appreciate it for the 'effort' and for the splash it makes on the street/web page. But, as said above, this, if not a "fashion don't" is certainly not a "do." A guy dressed like this is not going to be at your dinner party. If we're talking about "diversity," in my view, it doesn't include simple 'illustrations.' It's as if this fellow is here for comedic effect. Yes, i believe the words written here in response — that people 'appreciate' this man's love of fashion. But, i find it hard to believe that anyone here likes his choices or RESPECTS those choices.

This is like the upper west side folks going to Central Park and pausing for a moment to watch the 'urban' kids dancing for change. Clearly, it's different than the other examples.

Please, Sart - admit it. There's nothing in that image that you would wear. In the other examples, though, you choose people/clothes you actually ADMIRE.

The start of my style education was with those guys in The Time. Just because I never wore a Zoot Suit or Stacy Adams (I did have baggies - ask my sister, she might have pictures) doesn't mean that I wasn't heavily influenced by the concept. Again, and I hate to use the term, but it was a case of abstract inspiration.

These guys were all about style with a capital "S". Style for them was all about getting women, and as a teenage boy in Indianapolis that sounded pretty good to me. As a result, I never thought that fashion wasn't something most straight guys talked about. If I felt totally comfortable talking about clothes with my guy friends it's because it was so normal in the music I was listening to at the time. I'm sure that is a part of why I like Kanye now.

If you are embarrassed by the image I posted today or see no value (aesthetic or educational) then you really need to ask a few questions before you attack. This gentleman is as basic to my personal catalog of style as any old Italian gent that I have ever shot. I hold him no higher or lower on the style scale, he just is what he is and I accept it and delight in it.