"Still Star-Crossed" Deserves Better

Lashana Lynch as Lady Rosaline Capulet

That's right.  I said it.

Shondaland's newest family member raised cynical eyebrows when its premise was first revealed: what the story of Romeo and Juliet...hadn't ended with Romeo and Juliet?

Let me start by saying that I am a big fan of Shakespeare.  I'm the daughter of an English professor, and before I hit my teens, my father presented me with a giant book containing his complete works.  Macbeth was my favorite play to read as a child (I also liked Julius Caesar), but I do recall wondering what happened to the Capulets and Montagues after their kids died.  So I'm not surprised author Melissa Taub decided to put pen to paper and made it happen.

Thus, the problem is not the premise of the show.  The problem is the handling of said premise.

Hey Yo America, How About We #BringBackOURGirls?

Remember back in 2014 when the world was clownin' Nigeria because 300 girls were abducted, and the whole country spent years NOT able to get them back?

Meanwhile, in these disunited states of ours, the number of missing Black girls and women is somewhere to the tune of 64,000...at last count.  We're telling other countries to "bring back our girls", but ain't shit being done for our other girls who were chillin' right here a minute ago.  I mean, America likes to act as though we don't have the problems those other countries have, but we do.  We really do.

Did you even know?

According to the FBI, African American girls under the age of 18 represent 61% of the girls arrested for juvenile prostitution - nationwide. African American girls represent more than 40% of all girls trafficked in the United States, according to data provided by Characteristics of Suspected Human Trafficked Incidents. However, African Americans as a race only represent 14% of the total United States population. These numbers do not represent the many girls arrested for sex trafficking related offenses, which includes the school to prison pipeline (truancy, allegations of disrupting the public schools, fighting and battery, runaways, theft, burglary, and gang related activities). (Source)

It's time to revive the campaign and this time, let's focus on what's going on right here in our own backyard, shall we?

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Black and Missing, But Not Forgotten
Institute of the Black World

Dear Netflix: Please Keep Misty Knight Away From Irish Fist

Simone Missick as Detective Misty Knight

I...I don't really know what else to add.

Like, after 2-3 attempts to make myself watch Irish Fist, all I can say is that I can't stomach the thought of Misty Knight going anywhere near all of that.  And while we're all sick to death of the tired and creepy White Savior/Asian woman trope, I gotta say...Colleen Wing? *fist bumps* Thanks for taking this one for the team,sis.

ETA: So a sista on one of my pages was concerned by this headline, since Danny Rand and Misty Knight are married in the comics. And after all the white-washing and lackluster writing and all-round fuckery sistas experience with mainstream media, her concern was understandable. That being said, keeping Misty miles away from Mr. Irish Fist is a revision I can happily cosign.  Cuz we didn't get Danny Rand this time around.  We got Danny Bland.  And Danny Bland not only fucked up his own show, but just kicked the whole entire Marvel-Netflix alliance in the balls.

So sistas, what we not finna do here is be so thirsty for mainstream representation that we will allow a perfectly fabulous Black female character to be summoned to the rescue.  That is not a compliment.  I can already see it now; Misty Knight is like the Michelle Obama of Marvel, and they will not hesitate to use her to come clean up this mess and salvage what's left of Iron First's viability.  No, ma'am.

When nerds of color everywhere were actively campaigning for an Asian American Iron First (which would've made a lot more sense seeing as we live in the 21st Century and all), the Marvel-Netflix alliance showed their whole ass by casually ignoring us.  They instead proceeded to present us with yet another White Savior flop in a long string of White Savior flops.  And just like with Sleepy Hollow, the one (potential) saving grace of Iron Fist is a Black woman, and we're expected to be grateful and excited that she's slated to be the central love interest on a unanimously panned shit show.  No, ma'am.

This is not November 9th, 2016, and we will not pretend like we didn't try to tell y'all.  Eurocentricism once again created a flop, so the Eurocentrists at Marvel and Netflix need to just take this L.

Black Girls' Night Out: Bonnie Bennett

And I was just beginning to like these two....

***Some Spoilers***

Okay, so TVD finally ended last night and...I'm not sure what to say here.

On the one hand, after all the death, blood, and overall self-indulgence, it ends on a positive note.  Everyone's storyline is resolved, and some actors returned for the big good-bye.  They even brought back Kai only to trap him in a new prison world from which there's (supposedly) no escape.

On the other hand...the writers killed Enzo, which served absolutely no purpose other than to break even my heart, and then they had the gall to make the Bennett witches save Mystic Falls...again.

I mean, they trotted out all the fallen witches from that bloodline, all the way back to Ayana herself, to help Bonnie save Mystic Falls...again.  After which we're shown Bonnie embracing life and heading out to see the world, starting with Africa (and no, they didn't bother to list which country).

Caroline is seen creating a school for superhuman kids and it's subtly implied that that's a whole other story.  But now that Kat Graham's got her freedom papers, she's not coming back to this hot mess of a 'verse where only the White girls were worthy of long, passionate relationships which lasted more than one season, and where the only Black girl (and her relatives) were routinely summoned like servants to clean someone else's mess.  Even death didn't release Bennetts from servitude!

After years of petitions, articles, and rants from fans, TVD's Powers That Be have listened to no one, learned nothing, and earned a final verdict of Absolutely Fucking Failed from me.  But then again...we kinda saw that one coming.

That being said, seeing all those Bennett witches together in one scene displaying some next-level Black Girl Magic makes me insist that we need a spin-off (and reboot) which squarely focuses on them, and this time is run by a Black woman and a team of (mostly) Black female writers.

I even recommend they call it "Benedictus"; it's the origin of the Bennett name.

Black Girls' Night Out: Taria & Garona (#Warcraft)

Critics did not like Warcraft (2016).

I mean, they were all able to admit the action and the CGI were great, but the story was lacking.  I don't know about y'all, but I wasn't expecting Shakespeare here.  It's World of Warcraft, for pygmy's sake.  Don't get me wrong; if someone decided to adapt Planescape: Torment into a movie and THIS was the best they could do, I'd be singing a completely different tune.

But back to the film at hand.  I finally caved and rented it and I must say...I am intrigued.  I want more.  But to be clear, there is one reason and one reason only why I'm #TeamWarcraft and rooting for a sequel: the casting.

Now, we've all noticed that with these big budget fantasy epics, people of color are often cast as servants, slaves, or scenery.  That's not the case here.  Yes, we have our requisite White dude heroes, but they're pretty easy to ignore when you have a Black queen (Taria) portrayed by Ruth Negga and Garona, the orcish warrior princess (at least in my book), portrayed by our own dear Paula Patton, who also happens to be the hero's love interest.

Black Girls' Night Out: Raquel (#Crazyhead)

So I finally finished watching Crazyhead on Netflix and I'll admit...I'm a fan.  Crazyhead has shades of Buffy the Vampire Slayer as well as echoes of '80s horror, not to mention that signature modern British style of humor, so there's definitely a lot to work with here.

***Spoilers Ahead***

What They Did Right

Casting British-Nigerian actress Susan Wokoma as Raquel earns Crazyhead very, very high marks from me.  She's dark-skinned with proud West African features, curly-haired, awkward as hell, she's not a size 2, and in the Crazyhead universe, she's the Chosen One.  So if we end up having to choose between Wokoma as Cynthia on Chewing Gum (where I absolutely adore her) or Raquel on Crazyhead...I vote for Raquel.  Since both shows stay within the 6-8 episode range per season, hopefully, she can continue doing both.

New Page, New Rules (Updated)

So our page is back (https://blackjunction.com/theblackgirlsclub), but you may have noticed some changes.

For one, we're no longer on Facebook.  After finally getting everything up and running, we got unpublished again.

See, the near the demise of the first page, you may have noticed a lot of commentary from people who weren't Black women.  There were a lot of people upset about our pro-LGBTQ an pro-interracial posts, as well our lack of dambs for White tears.  Suffice to say, some folks weren't too happy with us.

And he wasn't the only one.

We still have our Twitter handle, however, the tweets are now set to private.

Let's be clear: we created this club to talk to Black women.  It's centered on Black women.  Our name is self-explanatory.  We didn't set up to get shut down/reported every time someone's upset that we asserted our sexuality, our beauty, our love and self-worth, while racist, misogynist, and anti-LGBTQ pages have free reign to be "dangerous" and "abusive."

Our goal is to become completely independent of Facebook someday, as it obviously doesn't have the best interests of women and POC at heart.