Charles Easley

Panelist for "The Color of Media"

For the second year the Charlotte Black Film Festival (CBFF) will screen three days of independent films that express the African American experience. It all happens during the Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association (CIAA) basketball tournament.

Q City Metro’s own weekly columnist Professor Locs, aka Charles Easley will serve on a panel  for the Charlotte Black Film Festival with other distinguished guest on the subject of The Color of Media.  The panel discussion will be held March 1st this Thursday at the Mint Museum UPTOWN from 10:00am – 12:00pm.  The Color of Media panel will discuss how African-Americans are portrayed on TV and in Films. 

Professor Locs: Black History Month

This is the latest in the Professor Locs "On the Yard" series.  Professor Locs tries to process the sometimes myopic vision of how multiple cultures can be celebrated.   I am still searching for a character with actual locks...lol.  Enjoy! 

Trayvon Martin: A Culture of Apathy

Al Sharpton and others are already preparing to protest and start a national campaign to highlight the tragic death of Trayvon Martin, the 17-year-old Florida teen who was shot by an overzealous neighborhood watch leader. Unlike in so many other cases, this young man was not engaged in nefarious activity but was simply walking home from a neighborhood store, which makes his death all the more senseless.

Still, I can’t help but wonder: Why do some youth in our community die in total obscurity while others are given a national spotlight?

Mine may be a minority opinion, but I would like to see us as a community become as engaged and outraged when any of our youth are taken too soon, regardless of the killer’s ethnicity.

Thanks to an epidemic of violence, we have become desensitized to killing. And this sense of apathy becomes more distinct as it relates to marginalized communities and the disposability of their citizens.

We have seen our share of teen casualties right here in Charlotte. And just recently, according to the Chicago Tribune, the Windy City saw a rash of shootings that left at least 10 people dead, including a 6-year-old girl. We are not hearing as much about those because some folks involved have been linked to gang activity – again, they were disposable.

I guess this is hitting close to home for me because I have three young nephews, and although they are reasonably well adjusted, I fear for their well-being. I do not want them to suffer the same fate as Trayvon Martin. The cultural dirty secret that we do not like to discuss, of course, is that they are more likely to be harmed by someone from their own culture.

I mentor many youth, especially young black men, and I am increasingly disturbed by the pervasive street mentality that I see. How can you say that you want to be educated, learned and evolved when you continue to adhere to the same street ideology?

I see how angry and disillusioned these young men are and how quickly they are willing to take it out on one another without understanding that there is a system in place that is waiting to absorb them into its institutionalized mechanical clutches.

It is like watching an episode on the Discovery Channel, where two hyenas attack one another while absolutely oblivious to the more prominent threat of a huge culture of lions surrounding them and awaiting to consume them both.

Chris Rock once said during one of his comedy routines that, when he went out at night, he was not fearful of “the man” but was more concerned of other black folks. He used the n-word, but I am trying to be more academic…smile.

Again, I am not trying to diminish the tragedy of young Martin’s death, but can we expect to hold mainstream society accountable to a standard of our cultural worth when we cannot consistently honor our own lives and relevance?

How can I talk about the state of your kitchen when I have dirty dishes stacked in my sink?

Maybe an appropriate litmus test of our evolutionary status as a society and community should be that we passionately organize, rally and protest when any child is lost, regardless of race, class, gender or socio-economic background.

The Color of Dating

So I was recently having a conversation with one of my close girl friends, Alease, about relationships. I have so much love and respect for this sister because she is her own woman and lives life on her own terms. Since I have known her, she has sometimes come under scrutiny for dating interracially.

I personally dated multiple cultures back in the day when I took my work as a community liaison very seriously (this is code for man whore….lol). I always related interracial dating to my fixation with a brand new box of crayons: Since I had a choice of 24 colors, why draw with only the green?

We are about to experience CIAA weekend, so this might give some a fleeting sense of hope in the dating pool. This is only temporary, people. You can enjoy the feast, but be prepared for the famine that takes place during drought season…lol.

There are so many African American women that I have known in my family, and also as friends, who, for whatever reason, are not open to dating outside their race. African American men strangely do not seem to have similar issues. It also seems that this reluctance is generational. I see many of my students who comfortably date across the racial divide with little regard to what people may think.

The last time I went home, I noticed that most of my young cousins are dating outside their race. Our family album is starting to look like an old-school United Colors of Benetton Ad.

If this is a trend that continues in our society, then why are some folks, especially African American women, so resistant to the concept?

When I was younger and traveled to Europe, my good friend, Marla, shared this metaphor: She said that for the first time I would understand what it was like to be white, blond and good looking. Marla is a dark-skinned, beautiful, curvy sister who has not always gotten the attention she deserved. Her travels to Europe changed her perspective. She found a bounty of men from many cultures waiting to compete for her attention.

And just as Marla predicted, I found in my travels an authentic appreciation for your cultural uniqueness. Imagine walking into a mainstream club in UPTOWN and having a majority of the patrons genuinely wanting to get to know you, and not in this weird, fetish “let’s sneak out the back before my friends see me” way. It was this experience that led me to understand that our narrow, Western concept of beauty has skewed our own perception of our own cultural beauty, worth and relevance.

I wonder if more black women were able to see themselves though this global lens if they would be more receptive to the attention that awaits them from so many other suitors?

I have queried many African American women in this ongoing discussion and have heard their worries. So I offer Professor Locs’ Top Five concerns that black women have about interracial dating:

5. How would he treat my children? (If your kids are good, no problem. If they are bad, like any other man, he will act as if he likes them to win you over but mentally he is beating them like piñatas)

4. What if people stare at us? (It is more common than you think. You are dating another race, not a farm animal. If they are staring, it could be his outfit choice.)

3. What if we are not compatible in bed? (Do what always works -- get through the evening, fake like you had a good time and then change your cell number.)

2. Could I take him with me to church? (Gauge his comfort level. You may want to start off with a quiet Methodist service and eventually work him up to an all-out, choir-singing, foot-stomping, shouting and speaking-in-tongues Pastor’s Anniversary Pentecostal Sunday Service.)

1. What if he wants to swim or touch my hair? (This response is universal, regardless of race: Look at him crazy and say, “Hell No.”)

So, enjoy yourselves during CIAA weekend, and color only with the black crayon if you wish, but remember: When the talent pool dries up again, you might want to consider coloring with one of the other 23 colors in your box…smile.

Panelist for "The Color of Media"

For the second year the Charlotte Black Film Festival (CBFF) will screen three days of independent films that express the African American experience. It all happens during the Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association (CIAA) basketball tournament.

Q City Metro’s own weekly columnist Professor Locs, aka Charles Easley will serve on a panel  for the Charlotte Black Film Festival with other distinguished guest on the subject of The Color of Media.  The panel discussion will be held March 1st this Thursday at the Mint Museum UPTOWN from 10:00am – 12:00pm.  The Color of Media panel will discuss how African-Americans are portrayed on TV and in Films.

The Charlotte Black Film Festival was founded by Tommy Nichols president and CEO of Glorified Media, and Dream Media Studios, LLC, an innovative corporate and event video production company.  The mission of the festival is to create economic empowerment for, heighten awareness of, promote the significance and need for African American cinema as an art form, and to be a voice for independent filmmakers of color.

You can visit http://charlotteblackfilmfestival.com/for more information on the films being screened, moderators, panelist, workshops and a complete schedule of events.