Black Salvage

Thick, optimistic, intelligent, gregarious, giving, opinionated, fashionable, graceful, chocolate, sassy, intuitive, outspoken, determined, charismatic, sassy, and well proportioned; just a few adjectives that describe the woman of my dreams. As a child-I imagined Claire Huxtable- the mother from the 1980's sitcom The Cosby Show, as my ideal woman; I grew older and realized that Claire was nothing but a facade; a phony; a fictitious t.v. character created by middle, aged white men. After 12 years of of arduous searching, my real life version of Claire Huxtable finally arrived, and trust me, t.v. producers could never create a creature so divine-Her name is Michelle Obama-Unfortunately, a gentleman by the name of Barack snatched her before I could make my move. Since I cant have baby girl exclusively, I took it upon myself to write a tribute article on this mahogany goddess, hoping one day she will read it, leave team Obama, and hop on team Wallace. Mrs Obama has the intellect to c...

I am proud to present to Black Salvage readers our first guest feature. I would like to introduce to you L. A. Grant, our first regular contributor. Grant hails from Prince George's County, Maryland and is a graduate of Northwestern High School in 2000. He is a Philosophy Major and has studied at both Mississippi State University and Tallahassee Community College. With a new year comes new music. One of the most anticipated albums being released this year is Nas’ “Nigger” album- yes, that’s exactly what its called. There has been a lot of criticism of the title by black activists and organizations such as the NAACP, citing that it is going against what they are trying to accomplish. The NAACP not too long ago had a funeral service for the “N”-word in hopes of burying it forever from use in the vocabulary of today’s society. I am reminded of a phrase that is used in the Marine Corps when I hear things like this, “Good initiative, bad judgment”. We, as a people, can try to control...

So, you may or may not have heard all the ruckus over Golf Channel anchorwoman Kelly Tilghman's comments during the Mercedes-Benz Championship earlier this month. Tilghman and co-anchor Nick Faldo were discussing younger challengers to Tiger Woods when she claimed jokingly that they should "lynch him in a back alley". Tilghman was suspended for two weeks for her comment and as you can imagine, the accusations of racism followed soon after. Tilghman did apologize: "On Friday during our golf broadcast, Nick Faldo and I were discussing Tiger's dominance in the golf world and I used some poorly chosen words. I have known Tiger for 12 years and I have apologized directly to him. I also apologize to our viewers who may have been offended by my comments." Personally, when I first heard this story I didn't really care. Honestly, there are more important things on my mind like Darfur, primaries, and the stories of missing minorities who have been neglected by ...

December 7, 2006, Public Housing officials decided to demolish 4500 government subsidized homes in New Orleans 9th ward district. The 9th ward, New Orleans most poverty stricken area, received a large amount of flooding and damage from Hurricane Katrina. The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) believes that Katrina left the low income areas in a "deplorable" state- and there is a lack of available money for repair. Replacing low income for mixed income homes is what HUD and private investors have been planning for over a year. Unfortunately, these new mixed income neighborhoods will leave a large number of New Orleans citizens ( at least 2000) demoralized and homeless. The 9th ward residents did not take HUD's decision lying down. The residents managed to garner support from lawyers, politicians, and civil rights activists. In their efforts to secure a place to live, they demanded that if authorities insisted on spending millions of dollars to demolish thei...

I'm pretty sure we've all seen our share of both dirty and clean comics. The question I would like to raise is, are dirty comics really as bad as people make them out to be? After all, we laugh at them- does that make us equally guilty? I personally don't understand why people complain about dirty humor. I honestly don't care whether a comedian is clean or not, so long as his material is interesting and funny. Even further, there are a variety of outlets out there anyway for different types of comedy. I don't understand why people complain when they have a choice- no one is forcing you to watch ComicView over Bill Bellamy's Who's Got Jokes, the latter of which I find severely lacking in the 'funny' department, if it matters. Some of us write off dirty comedians as wrong or perverse without hearing their acts, something that I really find disappointing and downright annoying. When we wake up everyday and step outside our homes, we step into a wo...

The Nigga Movie. I openly express my condolences to all who have had to watch one. Every so often, I like to take a less formal approach, usually due to the topic. This is one of those occassions, friends. If anything, I hope you at least get a laugh out of this one. . . For some time now, I've noticed a good number of people, white and black, have been grouping all "African-American" movies together in one single category. I personally take offense to this. I personally believe that just as we have our action genre and our romance genre in cinema, we too have a "black movie" genre and a "nigga movie" genre. I'm sorry but I take offense to the thought that a Denzel Washington film and one by, say. . . Mo'Nique, could be placed in the same grouping. If I may discern the chacteristics of these two types of movies. . . Characteristics of a "Black Movie" Anyone can sit down and enjoy it, regardless of race; it's a film that either ha...

I was perusing the Washington Post one Tuesday afternoon-I came upon an article entitled "Best Kept Secret For HIV Free Africa". The article discusses how U.S funding for birth control has been decreased in Africa, and how antiretrovial drugs are the main treatment and initiative for HIV infected Africa. The article continues to emphasize that science and research proves that birth control is more effective, but unfortunately, the U.S Government has decided that antiretrovial drugs will continue to be the focal point in the struggle to help developing nations in Africa. For those who dont know, Antiretrovial drugs are medications for the treatment of HIV. I would like to emphasize the word treatment. Antiretrovial drugs help to slow the HIV virus from entering different cells in the human body. Basically, the person continues to have the virus, it just takes the virus longer to spread through the body. Some may consider it to prolongate sickness and death-But that is just o...