American Blog

Additional posts written by Michael Vass can be found at http://www.vassconsult.com/ , http://www.blackentertainmentblog.com/ , or http://www.mvass.com/ :

Well I suppose I could talk about the continuing legal troubles of Ms. Foxy Brown, or perhaps whether or not the kid on American Idol has talent or just big hair. Then again I could also jump off a bridge. Instead I’ll talk about a couple of other items that caught my interest you might have missed recently.

There were a few sad loses recently in the entertainment community. One of them was the loss of director Mr. Stuart Rosenberg. You may not recall the name, but many will recall his films. These films include the Amityville Horror (the original), Cool Hand Luke (a very good Mr. Paul Newman film with Mr. George Kennedy as well), Brubaker (great Mr. Robert Redford film), and The Pope of Greenwich Village. All of these films are deserving of being seen, well maybe not the Amityville Horror but it’s still watchable. This does not even touch on his numerous television directing credits. It’s always a shame to have such talented people pass.

Not quite as talented, but no less a loss was the popular Mr. Calvert DeForest. The name may not be as familiar as his most famous character, Larry ‘Bud’ Melman. Often seen on the Letterman Show from 1982 to 2002, he was a beloved recurring character. A unique blend of less than handsome looks, meek personality, and huge amounts of warmth his everyman qualities made him a regular staple on Letterman and endeared him to millions of fans. He had many other roles on television and a few movies as well, but it was his Letterman Show character that drew his biggest fame and placed him in events like the Winter Olympics and the anniversary of Woodstock. Talent in entertainment is always a great thing, but genuine warmth and likeability cannot be manufactured. Again it is a sad loss to us all.

In a loss of a different nature there is the fact that Mr. Bernie Mac has announced that he will be ending his 30 year career in entertainment after his film The Whole Truth, Nothing But The Truth, So Help Me Mac. Mr. Mac may be best known for his television show, The Bernie Mac Show and his part in the very successful film The Original Kings Of Comedy. That is just a small part of his 3 decades of entertaining the masses. Besides his roles in each of the Ocean’s Eleven films (the third, Ocean’s Thirteen out this summer), The upcoming Transformers movie, The Charlie’s Angels sequel, What’s the Worst That Could Happen (with Mr. Martin Lawrence), Life (With Mr. Lawrence and Mr. Eddie Murphy), Get on the Bus, and House Party 3 to name a few. This doesn’t even touch upon his numerous television appearances and comedy club performances. His appeal reached all Americans equally.

While I have found his performances to be hit and miss, like Mr. 3000, he is a good entertainer and humorous stand-up comedian. I can understand his desire to regain part of his life lost in 47 week tours and decades in the entertainment industry. I hope that there are still a few choice roles that Mr. Mac may be presented in the future. As a Black American actor and as an entertainer in general I think to lose his talents completely will be a void few will adequately fill.

This is what I think, what do you think?

Mr. Vass is the author of http://www.mvass.com/ and owner of http://www.vassconsult.com/ :

So everyone is scared about losing their homes, or the stock market crashing, because of the sub-prime loans made for years. Since the blip in the Dow in February, and comments by Mr. Alan Greenspan, there has been constant news about the status of these loans that represent more than a million homes in the nation. And there is good reason to worry.

As teaser rates on mortgages are replaced my adjustable rates, many over 3 points higher than the market rate, late and missed payments are growing. Forclosures are growing and banking institutions of all sizes face drops in profit or worse as the year progresses. The ramifications go on and on. Virtually any nightly news will catch you up on all of this. Of course there are a few ‘minor’ things that are being left out.

By minor I mean minority, and when I say left out I mean overlooked. It’s a situation that is a blatant abuse, in my opinion, that is obvious to anyone that can count to 100. Now I’m sure you are wondering what I am talking about. You didn’t hear anything like this on the evening news, or your favorite cable news channel. That’s because the markets hate to mention an abuse that targets the poor, uneducated, and minorities. It’s like investing money for an elderly widow(er), take their money and you will get sued and lose guaranteed.

Specifically I mean that many sub-prime lenders swooped in on African Americans and Hispanics worse than vulture investors. This isn’t an opinion, though it’s not wholesale fact. I’ll explain.

It’s known, though not officially acknowledged, that an African American or Hispanic will virtually always be given a higher mortgage rate than a White person. To quote Mr. Jim Campen of the University of Massachusetts, “Blacks and Latinos have lower incomes and less wealth, less steady employment and lower credit ratings, so a completely neutral and fair credit-rating system would still give a higher percentage of subprime loans to minorities.”

The statement assumes that both groups are being given higher rates currently, and that the system is unfair or hardly neutral, which Mr. Campen does admit. It relies on the statistics of the census rather than individual data. It’s a great excuse to overlook what sub-prime lenders have done. It gives credibility to why a Black American is 3.8 times more likely to have a higher rate than a White, and 3.6 times more likely for Hispanic/Latinos.

That is both ludicrous and insulting. I am not a general statistic. I deserve better than an assumption that I cannot maintain a job, or that I will be paid less than another man, especially when being considered for a piece of the “American dream.” Loan originators are supposed to evaluate the person, based on the factual data before them. Mr. Campen’s statement seems to clearly state that this doesn’t happen, and you might imagine my shock being underwhelming by this.

Continued in part 2..

Full post can be seen at http://www.blackentertainmentblog.com/. Mr. Vass is author of Black Entertainment USA and several other blogs :

I am shocked and amazed. I would even go so far as stupefied. You might wonder why, if not for a friend making me aware of some news I would as well. In this case though I am referring to my reaction to the article found on Yahoo TV, Black leads still absent from network dramas by Nellie Andreeva. It seems that Black Americans are underrepresented in television. With no disrespect to Ms. Andreeva, no kidding.

Finally there is some media coverage on a subject I have directly discussed in no less than 3 posts, the earliest dating back to December 2005. In my post Minorities, Television and 27 percent, I highlight the fact that broadcast television, television commercials and movies ignore the relevance and existance of non-whites. A particularly relevant section from that post goes on to say, “The facts taken in total make a profound statement, that is seen and felt not only in the US but also throughout the world. Broadcasters appear, in my opinion, to state that any non-white is relatively unimportant. That no attempt at providing quality programming targeted to these groups is required or of practical use. Perhaps it could be summarized as ‘the less seen the better’? That offends me.”

Yet I feel that Ms. Andreeva seems to make an excuse for this fact. That it’s ok that no dramatic television program starring an African American, or Latino/Hispanic, or Asian, has ever fared well. Her reasoning is that the majority of viewers are White and thus do not connect to leads unlike them. It feels like Ms. Andreeva is also relegating Black American leads to only roles that are restricted to a type, such military officers because, “Most dramas are in some way relatable to your life, whether it is about families or cops, something you see every day.” [This quote is in the above mentioned article but made by Mr. Tim Brooks.]

I disagree with such a thought excusing the lack of leading African American, Latino/Hispanic, Asian and other minority actors. The reality that television hopes to evade is that better than 1 in 4 Americans is a person of color. Millions of Americans work with, for, and/or under the supervision of people of color every day. People of color have held positions of power and prominence for some time now, and I do not like the implication that those individuals have not, or do not, exist.

I dispute the theme proposed that a White audience cannot accept a lead character that is African American, or a person of color. In my post German police and television programing - 10.05.2006.2, I stated, “Take your choice of programs made by HBO, Showtime, FX, Spike or others. I’m speaking of The Shield, Thief, Blade the series, Eureka, and many others. In each program there is a diversity of race, sexuality and flaws that are just caricatured in broadcast show. There are actually characters that you can identify with as a person of color. And in several of these shows we see leads like Mr. Andre Braugher that show that African Americans, and other minorities, are easily capable of being leads and cores of their respective shows. There is more depth in their performances than the usual limitation to comedy shows and minor secondary characters broadcast television has tried to shove down our collective throats for decades.”

Continued in part 2…

Full posts can be seen at www.vassconsult.com/blogs/vass.html and http://www.mvass.com/ :

Some days it’s hard to be a Republican, even without considering my heritage being Black and Latino/Hispanic. Of course I’m speaking of Ms. Ann Coulter. Her comments and actions are a clear example that like the Democratic Party there are clear divisions between what one member and another believes.

It’s a shame that the fanatical fringe get more coverage than anyone else. I don’t agree with Ms. Coulter about her religious beliefs. I have deep problems when anyone would advocate forced conversion to any religion because they believe it to be the true religion. There is no difference in that last sentence whether it is applied to fanatical Muslims, fanatical Christians or anyone else. That is not a representation of what this nation was built upon, the freedom to pursue religious beliefs without persecution. Those that like to pick and choose their quotes from whichever religious tome need to remember the passages they fail to quote.

Religion, for me, has no place in politics. There are separate in every respect. One is an individual choice, the other is a social responsibility. The responsibility is to do what is best for the city, state or nation regardless of individual beliefs. Those who have forgotten this are the ones that scream at individual actions like the swearing in of Rep. Ellison. Personally I understand that all humans are flawed and have finite knowledge; given that there is not one person that has ever lived on the planet that knows unequivocally what is the true religion. I do believe that there have been many that have understood and acted in the exactly appropriate manner politically for their respective government.

In the same vein the question of sexuality is without place in politics. Whether used as a joke or as an attack it has no relevance in the ability to live up to the social responsibility a government office requires. History is replete with individuals of a huge range of sexuality that many would find curious at the least [at least as they might comment publicly, though in private their response may be different]. The need to use such a matter as an attack implies to me a degree of insecurity and fear from the speaker of such a statement.

To allow such individuals to comment without reproach is to invite persecution and begin on a path that eventually leads to restriction of personal freedoms that is antithetical to the ideal this nation holds dear. I personally see little difference in comments like those made by kenneth eng, Rep. Goode, Ms. Coulter and Sen. Biden. They are all based in fear and ignorance, differing only in the degree of stupidity that the speaker has. This is how I see it.

I was once told that an individual that must resort to hurling epitaphs, slurs, and curses has too little knowledge to use another term. That such an individual is trapped by the smallness of their mind the expression of which is the limited words they have available to convey the thoughts in their minds. Language is the expression of thought vocalized, and the vocabulary used speaks volumes on the mind of the speaker. We see another case of this here.

But being a Republican, or Democrat for that matter, is more than a religious or sexual preference statement. It is wholly separate in fact. For me at least, my desire to see a set of goals that will best improve the nation as a whole has nothing to do with my sexuality or religion. For me at least those 2 items do not affect my decision for whom I vote. But I will be affected by examples of a small mind that seeks to lead the nation, via politicians and policies, in a direction that will not be of greatest benefit.

I’m still a Black Puerto Rican Republican. I’m also a man with a mind, and I’m American. Remember these things for yourself when you listen to those that would wish to guide the direction of the nation.

This is what I think, what do you think?