Back By Popular Demand

I was crushed when Amy Adams wasn't named Best Actress for her smart, colorful and surefooted portrayal of Sydney Prosser in "American Hustle" during Sunday night's Oscar telecast. But even if the Academy was too short-sighted to recognize the actress's genius, they ought to thank her for bringing sexy back to the red carpet without deploying any of the usual cheap tricks.

It's hard to pinpoint the precise moment when stripper-chic déshabillé sauntered out of the clubs and into broad daylight, but after trying to un-see what my disbelieving eyes had  seen on one too many red carpets, awards shows and even at my local mall for the past several years, I finally reconciled myself to the fact that women had bought into the lie that more is more. That the only thing more beautiful than the female form in it's natural state-- as celebrated by visual artists for millennia-- was the female form as reconfigured by Spanx, Wonder Bras, silicone, breast implants, botox and plastic surgery. And that absent having anything important to say, women could always shake their asses to attract attention and move some merchandise.

And man, has that strategy worked.



After J-Lo backed that thang up on Pitbull at the American Music Awards in 2011, it was only a matter of time before American Idol came a knockin' to recruit her as a judge. Had Anja Rubik not worn a gown which revealed exactly where her hip bone connected to her thigh bone for the Met Gala in 2012, I seriously doubt that I'd remember her name today.



When Miley Cyrus showed the world what she was twerkin' with at the VMA's in 2013, images of a wholesome Hannah Montana promptly tumbled from our collective consciousness and kick started her new career.

And in spite of my being naive enough to think "Et tu, Queen Bee?" after Blue Ivy's mommy left precious little to our imaginations during her big show opener at the Grammy Awards this year, Beyoncé's latest album had just debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart without benefit of a single pre-sale announcement. 

And then came Adams-- bucking the trend and styled to perfection in "American Hustle" by the film's costume designer Michael Wilkinson.

Together, the duo accomplished the seemingly impossible by channeling the '70s in all of its sartorial splendor without making the period dress look as clownish, cheap and over-the-top (bell bottoms, Applejacks and marshmallow platforms anyone?) as those of us who actually lived through the era can attest.

No doubt, getting to work with an actress whose intelligence is her calling card, though not so much that it sublimates her sexuality, was an excellent start for Wilkinson. But his background in theatre, opera and ballet costume design obviously honed his talent for delivering the razzle-dazzle with sophistication and restraint.



Who, after all, but a master craftsman who truly loves and respects women could make plunging necklines, thigh-high slits and sheer fabrics that afford peek-a-boo glimpses of an unadulterated bust line (which, in Adams' case, was more demure than in-your-face) look positively elegant as opposed to trashy? Which is not to say that Wilkinson couldn't go there when necessary. Jennifer Lawrence (who I believe deserved a win in the Best Supporting Actress category, as did Wilkinson for Costume Design) played a character in "American Hustle," for example, whose consistently too-tight & too-shiny wardrobe perfectly mirrored her emotional instability as well as the string of poor choices she'd made in her life.



Ultimately, a very thin line separated Adams' character from Lawrence's, but the distinction was a great lesson in how too much of a good thing is rarely a good idea where timeless style is concerned. And, let's face it, just as sure as we love looking back on pictures screen idols from 50 years ago, so too shall future generations revisit images of pictures today's super novas and either think "Wow!"

...or "What was the hell she thinking?!"

Whether the costumes from "American Hustle" inspired women to reconsider what is required of them to bring drama and sex-appeal to the red carpet, or the timing was sheer coincidence, I was happy to see that the tide had seemingly turned during this year's Oscars. In fact, with one exception, I was not horrified by a single look all night. Actually, make that two now that I remember the woman who I mistook for a man all night until one of the girlfriends I was watching the Academy Awards with did a goggle search to settle the dispute. On second thought, make that three exceptions as I also consider the very pregnant actress whose beaded green gown accented way too much information.

But I digress...

Overall, I was charmed by the return to glamour.



The white coats on gentleman, and ruby red lips on ladies.

 The delicate heels and understated accessories.



The mix of slightly messy chignons, flowing waves and darling pixie cuts.



 The billowing skirts, sweeping scarves and delicate trains.

The disciplined structure, tailoring and draping of rich textiles in jewel tones, miles of tulle and nude dressing.

Gaga looked every inch the lady in a pale lavender/pink strapless column with reflective deco accents-- more like a muse to the French couturier Erté, in fact, than her typically edgy, ironic self.

And even babies on board looked more refined than ever before.

Honorable mentions to silver belles Constance Leto and Mary Kathleen McConaughey who not only threatened to steal the show from their Oscar winning sons (Jared and Matthew), but provided a beautiful contrast to all the nipping & tucking, slicing & dicing, filling & buffing that made some of the more mature screen legends in attendance practically unrecognizable to their lifelong fans. Kudos to both ladies for knowing that too much plastic surgery not only fails to make the patient look younger, but can sometimes accelerate the aging process as it telegraphs ones fear of growing older to even the most untrained eye.

And then there was the undisputed belle of the ball, Lupita Nyong'o wearing a silk gorgette soleil pleated Prada gown in a shade of cerulean blue that the actress said reminded her of "the sky in Nairobi," where she was raised.

Like Adams, Nyong'o is an actress whose brains trump her considerable beauty. Moreover, she always has something meaningful to say-- whether paying tribute to the spirit of Patsy, the character she portrayed in "12 Years a Slave," during an acceptance speech that reduced both fans and colleagues to tears, or confessing how she'd once enjoyed "the seduction of inadequacy" as a young girl to a group of women at a pre-Oscar luncheon.

http://www.upworthy.com/oscar-winner-lupita-nyongos-speech-on-beauty-that-left-an-entire-audience-speechless

 And yet, for all of her considerable gifts, it was apparently Nyong'o's poise and aristocratic bearing that most charmed everyone-- prompting red carpet watchers to describe her first and foremost as princess-like and regal.

It's any one's guess whether the trend started by Adams and upheld so effortlessly by Nyong'o can be sustained. For one thing, they are both exceptional women in an industry that celebrates sameness. And the fickle winds of fashion are constantly shifting. But even if the magic does not last, what a pleasure it has been to be reminded that less is always more. That there is no substitute for natural beauty. And that if you don't have anything worthwhile to contribute, it is far better to be an observer than do whatever it takes to rock the mike.

But now that ladylike dressing is back by popular demand, I think the Academy would do well to encourage a complimentary tradition to keep the comeback alive at The Oscars.



Legend has it that there used to be men who would instinctively rush to the aid of damsels in distress, unasked, to extend a hand if he saw her getting tangled up in the skirts of her ball gown or tottering on too-high heels before disaster struck. I believe they were called gentlemen... or Frenchmen.


But as Jennifer Lawrence taught us at last year's Academy Awards, and again this year as she took a tumble in the car park, such men are apparently in very short supply in Hollywood. So I think the Academy should formalize the position and hire an army of escorts to assist actresses when they are at their most vulnerable: as they alight from limousines, navigate rain-soaked receiving lines for photo-ops and ascend slick staircases to receive their awards? It would be a great look for the modern man, deeply appreciated by women in need and, with any luck, the trend might even catch on far from Tinsel Town... at a mall near you!

Hollywood's Downward Dogma

Like all profound lessons, the first one my yoga teacher Kquvien taught me was simple.  

In an effort to make her students more mindful of how we carried ourselves in and out of the studio, Kquvien demonstrated how posture could inform our mental outlooks for better or worse. Slumped shoulders, concave chests and downcast eyes, she said, would reinforce feeling of depression, defeat and pessimism. Whereas heads held high, raised sternums, shoulders pinned back and gazes trained at eye level or above would bolster feeling of well-being, courage and optimism. 

Six years later, these stark contrasts still serve as all the encouragement I need to turn my thinking around whenever an emotional setback threatens to alter my physicality. In fact, second to my mother’s relentless insistence to “stand up straight” throughout a very awkward adolescence, Kquvien’s insights remain the greatest influence on my posture today. But this heightened awareness has also sensitized me to a disturbing trend in Hollywood that’s been gaining steam and stands an excellent chance of being rewarded at tonight’s Academy Awards ceremony. 

When I chose to see “12 Years a Slave” last year, it was with a great deal of trepidation. After watching films like “The Butler,” “The Help,”, “Precious” and “Monster’s Ball” I’d had enough of the downward dogma that sees to be a prerequisite for telling stories about African American men and women. I’d lost my appetite for seeing a lion of a man like Forrest Whittaker don a pair of white gloves and bow under the unbearable weight of civil injustice. If I never had to witness a goddess like Viola Davis fasten a starched white apron about her trim waist again-- knowing this would be her only defense against the slings and arrows of racial apartheid and profound ignorance-- good riddance. And I most certainly would not mourn the loss were someone to tell me that Mo’Nique’s dramatization of a mommy-gone-mad on steroids was to be my first and last taste of such toxic medicine.

For the record, I respect any artist’s right to tell stories that reveal ugly truths about the human condition. Feature films do not have to be wrapped in rainbows (to borrow Zora Neale Hurston’s exquisite metaphor) to attract my attention and command my respect. But when the characterizations of people who look exactly like me are so far-fetched and extreme that they border on caricature, the filmmaker is guaranteed to lose my trust. Likewise, given the Academy’s apparently insatiable appetite for portrayals of black people who are depraved, depressed, oppressed, suppressed, pathological, pathetic, self-hating and/or self-destructive, the cynic in me now wonders if the shortest route between an actor (of color) and an Oscar might not be to play someone who possesses one or all of the above traits.

To put it very mildly, I was not a fan of “12 Years a Slave.” The film felt more like pornography to me than a work of art. And though the director, Steve McQueen, succeeded in crafting a film that would shock, excite and titillate his audiences, the film neither taught me anything I didn’t already know about the peculiar institution, nor gave me any insights on Solomon Northrup-- a real life character who was free-born in 1808 then kidnapped and sold into slavery when he was 33 years old. To the contrary, under McQueen’s heavy handed direction, slow-motion examination of whippings, torture and degradation and one particularly gruesome sequence in which Solomon literally exorcises his demons upon the person of a female slave named Patsy-- I was left feeling more brutalized than enlightened. Feeling, I imagine, how the jury must have felt by the end of the Rodney King trial over 20 years ago.

Early in the process of that infamous court case, the defense attorneys wisely theorized that the surest way to eliminate any empathy for King’s suffering would be to show the jury the videotape of his savage beating at the hands of the LAPD repeatedly. The gamble worked, because though it seems counter intuitive one of the best ways to desensitize an objective party to the pain and suffering of another human being is to force feed images of the victim being brutalized. At some point, King evidently became more of a receptacle for punishment in the mind's of the jurors than a living, breathing man who deserved service, respect and equal protection under the law. The kind of man, for example, who might remind a juror of a beloved big brother, or favorite uncle or kind-hearted neighbor. The takeaway for me was that to know a man is to know his humanity: and absent the former, the latter is an impossibility.

For all the chest-beating, tears, drama and accolades that Northup’s story has generated, I left “12 Years a Slave” feeling  like I knew everything about the slave and nothing about the man. And in order to love, respect or truly care about anyone, we must know them in all of their dimensions. Thus, it will feel like a very hollow victory to me if McQueen’s picture wins any of the nine Oscars for which it has been nominated because without knowing who Solomon Northrop was how can we expect the story of his life to resonate beyond the pomp of tonight’s broadcast? And if it does not resonate and change minds, then what what was the point?

Ironically, the one film I saw in 2013 that introduced me to a character with whom I had very little familiarity in real life, yet left me with the kind of profound understanding that will inform my thinking about a sub-section of young black men for the rest of my life was completely ignored by the Academy. In fact, if you have not already seen “Fruitvale Station” by first time feature film director Ryan Coogler, I recommend you rent it and watch it in place of the Oscars if you want to have a truly meaningful and lasting experience in front of your TV tonight.

“Fruitvale Station” chronicles the last day in the life of Oscar Grant, a young man who was killed in cold blood by BART officers at San Francisco’s Fruitvale subway station on New Year’s Day in 2009. In his masterpiece of a film, Coogler manages to render Grant with respect, love and attention to the kind of detail needed to bring two-dimensional characters to life. The possibility of falling in love and having our hearts broken is what makes cinema a worthwhile endeavor. And it takes a skilled craftsman to get viewers to willingly walk that razor’s edge between hope and despair without feeling like we’ve been conned, tricked or condescended to when the lights come up at the conclusion of the piece.

As a screenwriter and director, Coogler has already distinguished himself as such a storyteller. The 27-year-old has enough courage and respect for his audience to tell us the whole truth about his protagonist-- without need to manipulate, sugarcoat or obscure the truth. Thus, we get to see Grant as both an unfaithful and loving partner to the mother of his child. We watch him code-switch from happy-go-lucky kid who can chat up a customer in need of a good recipe for fried fish at the high-end foodie emporium from which he was recently fired, to a desperado whose efforts to get his old job back turn menacing. 

Grant served time in prison for dealing drugs, but it was impossible to judge the morality of his decisions once we were left to reconcile the reality of his life (which afforded him as many opportunities as second chances-- which is to say zero) with that of a son, brother and father who wanted to provide for his family in spite of having no access to a legitimate revenue stream.  And in the most touching scene of the film, we watch an utterly dead-eyed Grant respond to the taunts of a fellow inmate in kind one moment, before getting a glimpse of the frightened little boy who only wants a hug from his mother as she retreats from the Visiting Room where he is incarcerated without so much as a backwards glance.

Again, I knew very little about the ins and outs of lives like Oscar Grant’s before seeing “Fruitvale Station,” and am ashamed to admit that I had little to no compassion for how boys and men like him might wind up making bad decisions that can ruin lives and destroy entire communities. In Coogler’s capable hands, however, not only was it unthinkable to judge Grant, but I was hard pressed to rationalize how I might have made different choices in my life had I been born into Grant’s circumstances. In other words, once I got to know him I loved him. And once I loved and knew where he was coming from, how could I not root for him?

Thanks also to Michael B. Jordan’s nuanced, layered and unadorned portrayal of Grant, I immediately recognized his humanity, his swagger, his family and the depth of love that makes young men like him the favorite uncle: the one who is always accused of getting his little nieces and nephews “all riled up before bedtime” owing to the excitement he can generate in their tiny hearts just by being proximate to them. That Jordan is the kind of actor who you can actually see thinking was icing on the cake.

How the Academy might have overlooked a diamond like “Fruitvale Station” while heaping praise on “12 Years a Slave” is a conundrum that has me more excited about the red carpet portion of tonight’s ceremony that the actual awards. But even if my worst fears are realized, I already know that Kquvien’s voice will ring in my ears-- reminding me to keep my head up, shoulders back and gaze high-- all the while praying that Hollywood’s romance with the downward dogma of the African American experience is just a passing fancy whose time has finally come and gone. 

The Butler: Taking a Long View on History

Color me kooky, but when friends told me that I had to see Lee Daniels' The Butler, I took them at their word. 

"It's ah-MAAAAZE-ing!" raved one . "EXCELLENT!!!," exclaimed another. "The best film I've seen on race relations... ever!" promised a third. 

High praise for a director who once cast Halle Berry as Leticia Musgrove in Monster’s Ball: a role Angela Bassett famously turned down saying, “I wasn’t going to be a prostitute on  film... It’s about putting something out there you can be proud of 10 years later.” Granted, Berry subsequently won a Best Actress Oscar for her star turn. But true to Bassett’s conviction, 12 years later I still cringe at the soft core visual of Leticia moaning “I want you to make me feel good. Can you make me feel good?” This, as she stripped for her would-be (if stunned by the out-of-the-blue overture) lover. A man she’d met just hours prior and who, coincidentally, had overseen the execution of Leticia's husband.

Daniels also cast Mo’Nique as Mary in Precious. Her tour de force portrayal of the title character’s mother earned the actress an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. But thanks to the graphic depiction of Mary’s unrelenting emotional and physical abuse of her child-- including dropping a television set down a stairwell, with the intention of having it land on Precious’ head-- I still struggle to draw a distinction between Mary and any number of Loony Tunes cartoon characters with an axe to grind and a weapons cache at their disposal.

Personally, I prefer a  good story that captivates and compels my attention without stooping to sentimentality, melodrama or simplistic black & white depictions of people as all-good or all-evil. By that measure, Beasts of the Southern Wild is my idea of perfection in film making. Scenes like the one where Hushpuppy is placed in a government facility and transformed overnight from a fearless spitfire (who once ran free in nothing more that an undershirt, shorts and rain boots under a cloud of untamed hair), to a dopplegänger of her former self (in a government-issued blue dress; white, patent leather Mary Janes; and hair pressed and combed into submission) leave me breathless not because of what is stated, but for what is implied. In this case: the capture and taming of a once free spirit. The suppression of individuality. The homogenization of Hushpuppy.

Given my preference restrained movie making, it’s anyone’s guess why I might have expected Daniels to deliver something as subtle and nuanced as Beasts of the Southern Wild. Or a film that would be as quiet, understated and dignified as the former White House butler, Eugene Allen, http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2008-11-07/politics/36906532_1_white-house-black-man-history whose real-life story inspired the screenplay for The Butler. 

Perhaps the Downton Abbey-like images I’d seen on movie posters and in film previews bolstered my belief that service would not be confused with servitude in Daniels’ film. That the undertone would be elegant. And that a butler’s work might be elevated to art form through careful storytelling and refined cinematography. Certainly my friends’ endorsements, the abundance of critical praise heaped on The Butler, and the fact that the film reigned as #1 at the box office for three straight weeks (before getting served by Vin Diesel’s Riddick last weekend) helped weaken my defenses. So I threw caution to wind and finally saw the film.

Next time, I won’t be so reckless.

I suppose The Butler has merit as a history lesson, for those too lazy to actually read a book, but its Greatest Hits of Black History compilation approach to screen-writing struck me an inadequate substitute for narrative and character development. Likewise, the butler’s front row seat to every human & civil-rights trail, trouble and tribulation-- from a white plantation owner raping one of his black field workers within earshot of the victim’s husband and child, to Cecil’s son’s pow-wow with Martin Luther King, Jr. moments before King’s assassination-- undermined the gravity of of the events, diluted the intended impact and gave the film a Forrest Gump-esque quality: minus the wink-and-a-nod irony that made the Tom Hanks movie so utterly charming and original.

Casting on The Butler was another problem. The star-studded cameos felt more like a distracting parlor game (Jane Fonda, and Robin Williams, and John Cusak. Oh, my!) than a legitimate means  to animate one dimensional characters. And watching an artist of Forrest Whittaker’s caliber share the screen with supporting actors who could not bear the weight of his genius was a desecration on par with seeing the Hope Diamond in a tin setting. Like seeing a giraffe in a parking lot, I kept wondering “What is that magnificent creature doing in this unexceptional setting?!” Happily, the one deviation from that norm was newcomer David Oyelowo, the young man who played Cecil’s son, Louis, with a deft touch despite the disjointed, clunky script with which he had to work.

In her role as Cecil’s wife, Gloria, Oprah Winfrey proved that the charisma responsible for making her such ratings and marketing juggernaut on the small screen is actually enhanced on the silver screen. But for all the leaning in Winfrey's presence inspired, the rate of  emotional return was not commensurate with time and close-ups devoted to her character. To be fair, there were moments of absolute truth-- none more so than when Gloria slaps Louis across the face for disrespecting his father, then reminding her son that, “Everything you are and everything you have is ‘cause of that butler.” And her cuteness factor was off the charts when she donned a black & white jumpsuit, giant afro and hoop earrings in an homage to 70’s chic. But Gloria’s stuck-on-sourpuss tone struck me as monotonous. And her occasional out-of-left-field mood swings were unfaithful to the character. In one such instance, Gloria tells Louis “...now, get that low-class bitch outta’ my house,” after finding fault with his girlfriend. In another, Gloria tells a heart-broken Cecil (who has just left the newly-widowed Jackie Kennedy bloodied and broken in the White House) that she doesn’t care about a the First Lady’s plight. This, in spite of Gloria’s near obsession with how many pairs of shoes Jackie owned, and her constant badgering of Cecil to shed some light on the contents Jackie’s closet.

The soundtrack, though beautiful, was as discordant as Gloria’s multiple personalities. And while it swelled in all the right places, I was left feeling more manipulated by the score than moved by the material. 

Then again, maybe I'm just out of step with what people really want when they go to the movies.

Daniels' flare for mega-drama has certainly served him (and his leading ladies) well in the past. And I pray that fortune will smile upon his leading man this time around. But whether or not Forrest Whittaker takes home a statuette next March for his pitch-perfect depiction of Cecil Gaines, I'll be thinking about Angela Bassett when the Academy Awards roll around. Considering her personal benchmark for excellence. The wisdom of taking the long view in life. And wondering if anybody will think The Butler is as "ah-MAAAAZE-ing!" in 10 years, as they do today. 

Boys in the Hoodie

In August of 2002, my extended family reunited on the island Jamaica to say good-bye to my uncle, Vincent Lee, a man whose laughter was as prodigious as his appetite for life. Unc died very suddenly: leaving his wife, children, siblings, grandchildren, nieces and nephews without the only patriarch we’d known since my grandfather’s passing  30 years prior. To say that our collective loss felt like an amputation would be an understatement.

Still, the family agreed that it would have been a disservice to remember Unc by dressing in black, beating our chests and howling at the moon, so the tone of our gathering was decidedly "better to have loved and lost...,” if not downright celebratory.

Courtesy Olive Rose Kemble

The other cause for celebration that summer was my cousin Dominic’s imminent departure for boarding school in Pennsylvania. One of the youngest of our tribe, Dominic was born and raised in Kingston, a straight A student and the kind of competitive swimmer who brought as much intensity, focus and determination (to win) to the swimming pool as he did the classroom. That he excelled in both arenas was no accident. In fact, when he was a toddler his mother once told me that her primary goal as a parent was to “make sure that when I unleash my children upon society, I’ll be making a positive contribution, as opposed to burdening the world with a potential  liability.”

With that mission accomplished, Dominic was ready to make a splash in uncharted waters.

Courtesy Matthew R. Wendel Photography 

But not before getting an earful from his elders on the eve of his departure.

“When you get to campus, try an extra-curricular activity that’s out of your comfort zone,” encouraged one cousin. “You never know where or when you might discover a new passion.”

“You’re going into a different culture,” my mother advised. “And though the language is the same, the accents are very different. This may cause you some discomfort at first, but don’t let this inhibit you from engaging with the other students. Observe. Be curious. Ask questions.”

“Education is everything,” said a grand-uncle. “It is the great equalizer. You can play hard, but I want you to work harder because the choices you make today will have an impact on the rest of your life.”

And then a close family friend, Jennifer, offered her insights:

“Dominic,” she began, in the no-nonsense tone that serves her so well as a South Florida prosecutor, “if the police ever stop you on campus, on the street or while driving a car-- always keep both hands in plain sight, maintain your composure, do not raise your voice and do not allow the encounter to escalate. No matter what they say or do, your responses must be ‘Yes, Sir. No, Sir.’”

I can still hear sound effect of a needle scratching across a record every time I recall that moment. Jennifer’s words felt like a slap across the face. My brain scrambled to reboot. I was insulted that the best she could offer the best & brightest of our family was a primer on Police Protocol 101. And I was offended that she’d done so without at least consulting Dominic’s parents first. How dare she. What the hell was she thinking?

I now realize that Jennifer said what she did because she was thinking. Whereas I had visions of unicorns and rainbows dancing in my head: neither of which would have served a muscular, 6’3” 15-year-old boy on the cusp of manhood much good given the whole new world he was about to encounter.

Courtesy Dominic Lee 

As a first generation American who’d grown up in a family of mostly girls, I was completely ignorant of what I now know to be "the talk." As were my cousins, who also grew up in the States. Owing to the homogeneity of Jamaica’s population (where my parents were born and raised), “the talk” was as a foreign concept to their generation as mine, so chances are even my big brother was spared the father-son chat which is practically a rite of passage when African-American boys reach a certain age. The age when they transition from looking cute & cuddly to threatening-- as would Dominic-- to an untrained eye.

I have been thinking about perception, reality and the potentially lethal power of an untrained eye  a lot ever since the shooting death of a boy (who was just two years older than Dominic) became headline news. And while a Florida jury subsequently acquitted Trayvon Martin’s killer, George Zimmerman, of second degree murder charges, the self-appointed (though unskilled and unsanctioned by law enforcement) neighborhood  watchman will never elude the fact that he is now a cautionary tale of how wrong assumptions can break hearts and end lives.

Courtesy People Magazine 

Consider Zimmerman's words the night he called 911 after spotting Martin walking though the gated community-- where Zimmerman lived and Martin was staying with his father’s fiancée.

“Hey we’ve had some break-ins in my neighborhood, and there's a real suspicious guy. ... This guy looks like he's up to no good, or he's on drugs or something. It's raining, and he's just walking around, looking about. ... Now he's coming towards me. He's got his hand in his waistband. ... Something's wrong with him. He's coming to check me out. He's got something in his hands. I don't know what he's doing. ... These assholes, they always get away.”

We now know that Martin had a cell phone in one hand, a bag of snacks in the other and that he did not get away that night. But Zimmerman’s drive-by assessment of the 17-year-old as “a real suspicious guy,” “up to no good” and an “asshole,” his palpable level of frustration as he spoke to the 911 operator and his rush to judgement all struck a chord with people who have been on the receiving end of unwarranted prejudicial treatment in the past.

From the usual subjects...

Courtesy Eunîque Jones Photography 

To those snared in the dragnet cast over one-quarter of the world's population since September 11, 2001...

To those with enough self-awareness to acknowledge having been the beneficiary of white privilege.

Much to the credit of mankind, people around the world were appalled by the unprovoked confrontation that cut one life short and revived dormant discussions on race, racism and the alternate reality black men are forced to navigate on a daily basis. As a show of solidarity with the young victim, supporters from every strata of society contributed to a campaign called “I am Trayvon Martin” by posting pictures of themselves, on-line, wearing a hoodie similar to the one Martin wore the night he was killed. Some of the more high-profile participants included elected officials, sports icons and music moguls. And one of the more arresting images came from Howard University Medical school, where an image of hooded students was juxtaposed another of the same group wearing white doctor’s coats.

For all its good intentions, my feelings about this movement have been mixed from the outset for a variety of reasons. Not because I don’t agree that it is shallow to equate a person’s worth with their dress, but because it would be intellectually dishonest of me to pretend that human beings do not respond to uniforms. Right or wrong: just as the soon-to-be doctors at Howard might expect to be regarded differently when they upgrade from blue scrubs to the coveted laboratory coat upon graduation, so too might a young man wearing a hoodie and sagging pants with a slumped posture want to consider how he might attract extra scrutiny merely because his dress and affect mirror those of a sub-set of young, black men who have been the perpetrators of extremely anti-social behavior. I suppose this is why seeing  a photo-shopped image of Martin Luther King, Jr wearing a hoodie was so jarring to me.

Granted, it is ironic that the visionary who inspired a nation (that seemed incapable of living up to her founding principle that all men are created equal) to judge one another based on the content of a person’s character was also the man who changed minds via the sheer power of imagery. But Dr. King's suit was literally his armor. And his always pristine manner of dressing was one of the mightiest weapons in his arsenal. As was his non-violent composure, even when having to negotiate with state-sanctioned barbarians.

Montgomery Alabama, 1958

But as the alter ego of this particular civil rights icon-in-a-hoodie was stamped onto the consciousness of billions of children around the world, I felt that my generation owed it to them to fill in the back story.

Coretta & MLK, Jr. walk  in the James Meredith March, 1966 

The story of women like Rosa Parks, for example: who was not, by any stretch of the imagination, the first black woman to be mistreated on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama. But she was the first victim of such unimpeachable character that, once arrested, NAACP organizers immediately rallied to her defense after identifying her as the best possible candidate for seeing through the legal battle (to dismantle segregation laws) that would surely ensue. Parks, in the minds of her advocates, would be regarded as a sympathetic victim to blacks and white. And they (her lawyers) were right.

Rosa Parks following her arrest in Montgomery, Alabama, 1956 

Was it fair for a civil right’s organization not to challenge all instances of racial discrimination reported during the Jim Crow era with as much vigor and publicity as that devoted to Mrs. Parks’ case, owing to other victims having had arrest records? Or having being deemed women of ill-repute? Or for having had less than stellar reputations in the community (as has been documented)? Of course it wasn’t. But the NAACP understood that the fight for fairness was anything but fair. And they were trying to change the hearts and minds of the majority of Americans who could not identify with the plight of people they neither knew, nor cared to know.

In exemplars like Parks and King, however, it was impossible to deny their humanity-- thus their insistence upon human and civil rights-- when their values so obviously mirrored those of the larger culture...

Coretta greets MLK, Jr. outside a Montgomery courthouse in 1956 

When they presented themselves in a way that reflected high self-esteem and self-respect...

When their commitments to family values were irrefutable...

Courtesy Flip Schulke Photography

And when their non-violent example to followers proved potent enough to inspire the masses and move mountains.

MLK, Jr. homecoming after receiving the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964

It goes without saying that the hypocrisy of moral giants like King and Parks once having had to prove themselves to a majority population-- that demonstrated neither the social, spiritual nor political will required to make America actually live up to her Constitution-- is not lost on me. When I consider their examples, I realize how lucky I was to have been raised at the tail end of a time when the bar for excellence was set so high. But it also makes wonder about the negative ramifications for boys and girls being raised today, who have yet to become acquainted with the dreams (and dress codes) of their forefathers.

Courtesy Sabrina Fulton 

I still struggle with the two faces of Trayvon that have come to light following his death. I held my breath when the baby-faced portrait was first released to the media-- because given his age at the time of the shooting the picture of him in the maroon tee-shirt was likely not the most current his parents had. Not by several years. And we now know that subsequent images of Martin only undermined any arguments that he might have been a total innocent. (Which, I realize, should have been irrelevant for the purposes of determining Zimmerman's guilt or innocence.) But when I hear pundits and journalists dismissing Trayvon's self-destructive choices-- including truancy, expulsion from school, drug use and alleged theft-- as no big deal, I vehemently disagree.

The only reason black people have come as far as we have in this country, in spite of a systemic, institutionalized efforts to nullify our existence, is because we once took our parents at their word when they told us "You have to be twice as good as your white peers to go half as far." Because children were taught to kept their eyes on the prize with a mono-focus that left no room for bullshitting, ever. Because the public figures who represented us-- from movie stars to men in uniform-- understood that the privilege came with tremendous responsibilities.

Lena Horne with Tuskegee Airmen in 1945

This is not to say that I think Martin should have been the Jackie Robinson of the adolescent set. But there is a shadow side to 21st century living in the African-American community that would make Dr. King weep in his grave. The substitution of gangsterism for masculinity, the misogyny masquerading as musicality in rap, the abdication of responsibility to women and children by the men who once protected us with their lives and the unchecked homophobia in our churches is indefensible and unacceptable.

Such a backdrop could not have boded well for Martin-- who carried the legacy of his race on his young, narrow shoulders when he was, in effect, put on trial in that Sanford, Florida courtroom-- even though he’d done nothing wrong the day he was profiled, targeted and ultimately stalked to his death.

I am astounded that George Zimmerman is a free man today. And terrified by the prospect that someone with so little judgement and such poor conflict-resolution skills has not lost the right to carry a firearm in his home state. And yet the pain he has inflicted upon the black community pales in comparison to the self-inflicted wounds we continue to visit upon ourselves. A house-cleaning is long overdue. And to pretend otherwise not only sabotages our position when supporting truly deserving African-Americans (like the First Family), but offers a woefully inadequate road map for young men and women striving to be the next Barack and Michelle Obama.

My Aunt Rosie and I cannot see eye-to-eye on this point: her position being that how Martin looked and carried himself should not have mattered in a court of law, because it was not he, but Zimmerman who was on trial. And I would never argue with such logic. But if the case was also a de facto battle for public opinion (which it was, in my opinion); it can be argued that some of Martin's choices did not help his case. Including his association with witnesses like Rachel Jeantel: who proved detrimental to the prosecution's attempt to portray Martin as a sympathetic victim thanks to her naked hostility, lack of respect for authority figures, unintelligible responses and a body language that implied she had better things to do with her time than sit around and rehash the tragic, final moments of her friend's life.

At best, Jeantel's inappropriate demeanor made me wonder how many children are ignorant of the fact that we are all judged by the company we keep. At worst, I put myself in the shoes of Sybrina Fulton and Tracey Martin: Trayvon's parents, who epitomized grace under ridiculous pressure, as they sat and watched this young woman speak for their son.

But why should she know better when so many elders are preaching one thing in public, while practicing something else entirely in the privacy of their homes?

I have a hard time reconciling my Aunt Rosie's hyperbole (re: how Martin's missteps should not have been used against him throughout the trial), for example, with the woman who is constantly reminding her grandson, Noah, that she expects him to comport himself like a gentleman at all times. Noah can mimic his GiGi’s lectures, chapter and verse, on the merits of combing his hair, making sure that the waistband of his pants align with that of his anatomy and the importance of having good manners inside and out of his home. He’s even become adept at pointing out those who violate GiGi’s rules when they’re in the park, or at a mall or running errands around town.

And Noah is just eight-years-old.

Courtesy Lori Lwanga

To her credit, Auntie maintains the drumbeat because she knows that little boys who look like Noah are afforded zero margin of error before being dismissed as worthless in this country. She stays on her grandson’s case because unlike George Bush-- who could be elected president in spike of his past as a slacker who abused alcohol for decades, and Mitt Romney-- who came damn close to being president in spite of his well-documented past as a high school bully-- Noah will get no such passes in this lifetime. And this does not even take into account the the double-standards and disrespect Noah may have to endure should he follow in the footsteps of our current President-- whether the questioning of his academic credentials or his US citizenship-- that reflect our country’s schizophrenic attitudes towards black men.

Sure, kids like Noah will always get the message that his personal appearance, words and actions can mean the difference between life and death (even if it kills his GiGi!). But what about the kid who may never benefit from such tried and true wisdom? They are the ones I worry about the most. Especially when I see pictures of celebrities (who have the unique privilege of slipping into and out of a variety of personas, easy peasy) like the one posted below: which always fail to mention the unintended consequences that tend to befall our boys in the hoodie, should they encounter an armed stranger with a grudge... and an untrained eye.

And after the lessons learned when Jennifer schooled me on the real facts of life 11 years ago: I believe the most dangerous thing I could do to any child would be to paint a picture of the world as I wished it to be... as opposed to preparing them to survive in the world as it really is.