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Ancestry.com
apologizes, removes ad depicting
slavery-era romance
At-home DNA testing company Ancestry.com has
removed a controversial ad depicting a
slavery-era love story amid widespread
backlash from critics who accused the
company of peddling a whitewashed,
revisionist history of slavery in the U.S.
The ad, titled “Inseparable,” shows a
white man romantically pursuing a Black
woman in what appears to be the antebellum
South. The “lovers” runs hand-in-hand
through the streets, seemingly trying to go
unnoticed.
“Abigail,” the man says, pulling a ring
from his pocket. “We can escape to the
North. There’s a place we can be together,
across the border.”
He asks her to leave with him before the
screen fades to black.
The 30-second spot, posted to Ancestry’s
YouTube channel on April 2, was subsequently
pulled after receiving a torrent of
criticism on social media, according to
Buzzfeed News, which first reported the
controversy.
The company, which is among the top
at-home DNA testing companies for people
looking to explore their family history, has
since apologized for what many have called a
tone-deaf take on slavery in the U.S.
“Ancestry is committed to telling
important stories from history,” it said in
a statement. “This ad was intended to
represent one of those stories. We very much
appreciate the feedback we’ve received and
apologize for any offense that the ad may
have caused.”
Still, many took issue with the story
Ancestry was attempting to tell and slammed
the company for downplaying the horrors of
slavery. What the company tried to posit as
“romance” was, in reality, the rapes of
enslaved Black women by their slave masters
during that time.
Critics wasted no time taking Ancestry
to task for it all.
“If Ancestry.com don’t get this
Harlequin romance revisionist nonsense out
of here,” one Twitter user wrote.
Author Clint Smith wrote: “nobody: …
ancestry.com : how can we overly romanticize
& create an irresponsible, ahistorical
depiction of the relationship between white
men & black women during the period of
chattel slavery that completely disregards
its power dynamics & the trauma of sexual
exploitation?”
“You are literally romanticizing the
surprise DNA results many black folks will
get due to the rampant sexual assault of
black women during slavery and Jim Crow,”
another opined. “This is so trash.”
One critic commented that what was most
troubling about the commercial is that
“Ancestry (and/or their agency) probably
think this ad is ‘celebrating diversity.’”
“What the hell is this? Bishop
TalbertSwan chimed
in. “Why do white people insist on
romanticizing my Black female ancestors
experiences with white men during slavery?
They were raped, abused, treated like
animals, beaten, and murdered by white men.
Stop with the revisions.”
As of Thursday, Ancestry had pulled the
ad from its YouTube page and said it was in
the process of deleting the spot from
television, too
Date/time: April 30th, 7:00pm to
11:00pm
Venue:
Smart Financial Centre
Address:
1811 Lexington Blvd, Sugar Land, 77002
John
Singleton’s family members confirm
stroke, request privacy
“Boyz N the Hood” director John
Singleton suffered a stroke last
Wednesday and remains hospitalized in
ICU, according to his family. Additional
details, including his condition, were
not immediately available.
In a statement released Saturday,
Singleton’s family announced that the
51-year-old filmmaker was in ICU and
“under great medical care.”
“On Wednesday, April 17th our
beloved son/father, John Singleton,
suffered a stroke while at the
hospital,” the statement reads. “We ask
that privacy be given to him and our
family at this time and appreciate all
of the prayers that have been pouring in
from his fans, friends and colleagues.”
Author Neil deGrasse Tyson and actor
Omar Epps have been among those tweeting
wishes Saturday for a quick recovery.
Singleton became the first black
filmmaker to receive an Oscar nomination
when he was cited for his debut feature,
“Boyz N the Hood,” set in his native Los
Angeles and released in 1991. His other
films include “Poetic Justice,” which
starred Janet Jackson and Tupac Shakur,
and “Rosewood.” Singleton’s recent
projects include the TV series
“Snowfall,” a crime drama set in 1980s
Los Angeles.
Stop wasting your time complaining
“People visit a wise man complaining about the
same problems over and over again. One day, he
decided to tell them a joke and they all roared with
laughter.
After a few minutes, he told them the same joke
and only a few of them smiled.
Then he told the same joke for a third time, but
no one laughed or smiled anymore.
The wise man smiled and said: ‘You can’t laugh
at the same joke over and over. So why are you
always crying about the same problem?'”
The smaller the Club the Bigger the
Party!
Come out relax and enjoy the
sounds of DJ Chatterbox. Click
on picture below to see who's up
in the club.
Soul legend Anita Baker
brings her Farewell Tour to
Smart Financial Centre on
May 10. Baker's
decades-long career has
included four platinum and
two gold albums with
signature R&B hits
including "Caught Up in the
Rapture", "Sweet
Love" and "Giving You the
Best That I Got". Her unique
voice has the sultry vibe of
a jazz singer and has been
the cornerstone of a sound
that has helped to shape R&B
since her solo career began
in the early ‘80s. Although
the Detroit-bred contralto
established a musical style
that has noticeably
influenced an entire
generation of talents, Baker
herself has remained unmoved
by the ebb and flow of
trends in the industry.
In 2018, Baker set out
on a farewell concert series
that has broken box office
records worldwide. With over
50 sold-out concerts plus a
recent Lifetime Achievement
Award honor from BET, this
is truly an evening that you
will not want to miss!
Texas town reflects on
dragging death ahead of
execution
A technology company was
almost ready to bring up to
300 new jobs to Jasper,
Texas, but in the final
stages of recent
negotiations, a potential
deal-breaker emerged: the
community’s history as the
place where three white men
dragged a black man behind a
pickup, killing him.
The 1998 death of James
Byrd Jr. was one of the most
gruesome hate crimes in U.S.
history, and it gave the
company president pause in
the discussions about where
to locate his firm’s newest
facility. Local clergy and
community leaders made their
case that the town of 7,600
people is not defined by a
murder that happened almost
21 years ago.
They were able to
convince the executive “that
we are a lot different than
what the world sees us as,”
said Eddie Hopkins, head of
the Jasper Economic
Development Corporation.
The town’s past will be
revisited this coming week,
when the convicted
ringleader in Byrd’s slaying
is scheduled to be executed.
Local leaders insist Jasper
is a welcoming place that
punished Byrd’s killers and
will never forget what
happened to him. But other
townspeople, as well as
members of Byrd’s family,
believe Jasper has never
fully accepted the crime’s
place in its history. They
say some tensions between
the white and black
communities remain
unresolved.
“I think, quite frankly,
people in Jasper are tired
of talking about it. They
want to forget it,” said
Mylinda Washington, 66, one
of Byrd’s sisters. “It
happened here, and we need
to always have that in front
of us.”
In the early morning
hours of June 7, 1998, three
white men beat Byrd after
offering him a ride. They
then chained the 49-year-old
to the back of a truck and
dragged his body for nearly
3 miles along a secluded
road in the piney woods
outside Jasper. Byrd was
alive for at least two miles
before his body was ripped
to pieces. Prosecutors said
he was targeted because he
was black.
John William King, 44,
an avowed racist who
orchestrated the attack, is
slated to be put to death
Wednesday. He will be the
second man executed in the
case. Lawrence Russell
Brewer was executed in 2011.
The third participant, Shawn
Allen Berry, was sentenced
to life in prison.
Before Byrd’s death, the
community about 140 miles
northeast of Houston, near
the Texas-Louisiana border,
was known more for the
timber industry and for
tourism at nearby Sam
Rayburn Lake.
Back in 1998, the city
was “incredibly progressive”
as it was led by an African
American mayor and had other
African Americans in local
leadership positions, said
Cassy Burleson, a researcher
at Baylor University who has
been studying Jasper since
the dragging.
The current interim
mayor, Gary Gatlin, recalled
how community leaders of all
races came together and
helped the town heal. “It
certainly doesn’t go away,
and we certainly remember
what happened,” Gatlin said.
But racial tension
resurfaced after Jasper’s
first black police chief was
fired in 2012, and two of
the three black city council
members who hired the chief
were ousted in a recall
election. The recall effort
was marred by racial slurs.
City council member
Rashad Lewis, who is black,
was 12 when Byrd was killed.
He said the dragging death
unearthed racial hostility
in his hometown. He
remembers classmates wearing
Confederate belt buckles and
shirts right after Byrd was
killed.
When he moved back to
Jasper several years ago,
Lewis said he ran for office
because of a lack of
minority representation. He
is the only African American
on the five-member council,
which runs a community that
is more than half African
American. About 34 percent
of the African American
population lives below the
poverty line.
Lewis, 33, is now
running against Gatlin,
hoping to become the second
African American mayor in
Jasper history. The election
is May 4.
“As long as we keep a
blindfold to the incident,
we will never be able to
move forward,” he said.
During his mayoral
campaign, Lewis said, he’s
had at least one online
racial slur directed at him.
One of Jasper’s
religious leaders, the Rev.
Ronald Foshage, acknowledges
that there is some prejudice
in the town. But he said
“you are going to find that
anywhere.”
“It’s not the majority
of our people, and it’s not
who we are,” Foshage said.
Lewis said he proposed
an annual day to come
together in honor of Byrd,
but his idea was rejected.
While a park was named for
Byrd and a
bench in his honor was
placed outside the
courthouse where two of
his killers were tried,
nothing in Jasper
memorializes the dragging
death itself.
Gatlin said Jasper has
not minimized Byrd’s death
but “we’ve just tried to
move on.”
In the years since the
dragging, Byrd’s relatives
created the
Byrd Foundation for Racial
Healing . Louvon Byrd
Harris, 61, another of
Byrd’s sisters, said her
family still hopes to build
a multicultural center and
museum in Jasper to promote
diversity and education.
Both sisters, who live
in Houston, said they hope
their brother’s death
continues to spur people to
combat hate, wherever it may
occur.
“Hate has not gone
away,” Washington said.
“Every week in the news,
we’re reminded of that.”