Powerful Quote
Tag: #LinkYourLife
Writing 101: Assignment #20: Final: The Wrap-Up
Primarily, I want to thank all of the bloggers who have been supportive of this blog throughout the duration of this course. Those who are regular PBS supporters and all of the wonderful new blogging buddies I have made. I do not have much for you this morning. Briefly, the prompts exposed me to some very creative ways to develop content. The method I enjoyed most was the story in a single picture exercise. I’m a visual learner, meaning I need to see it to understand it. That said my “Aha” moment if you will was discovering that I can develop a story just by looking at a single photo. This is definitely something I will be incorporating more into this blog and into my writing in general. Overall, the best thing about this course was the social interaction. I have gotten to know so many bloggers and have discovered so many blogs! In these four weeks I have followed quite a lot of you and I look forward to being enlightened by what you have to offer.
Below is a list of this week’s assignments. Usually I do this on Sunday but since today is the final wrap-up I will list them here. Also note that I have also created a page for my Writing 101 Assignments so that you can always go back and review them and so that new visitors can find them.
Assignment #16: Mine Your Own Material
Assignment #17: To Map a Purpose
Assignment #18: I SPEAK
Assignment #19: Round-Up
Assignment #20: Wrap Up
Movie Night Friday – Hancock (Fallen Angels and Nephillim)
Welcome back to another segment of Movie Night Friday, where I present some of my favorite movies and why I love them, now coming to you every other week.
Today, I would like to discuss the movie Hancock. There are actually a number of Will Smith movies that have profound symbolism but I will start with this one.
Hancock is a movie about a Superhero named Hancock (Will Smith) who everyone hates because of his lack of self-control. Though he is helping the city of Los Angeles, he is also destroying it, leaving damage everywhere that he goes. Hancock’s problem is not how people feel about him, Hancock’s problem is that he doesn’t care, or at least he acts like it. After saving the life of a PR executive (Jason Bateman) and meeting the man’s beautiful wife (Charlize Theron), he realizes that he may have a sensitive side after all. It is then up to the executive to train him to embrace his sensibilities and use his Super Hero status in a way that is helpful, and not harmful, to mankind.
Now that we got that out the way, let’s look at some key points here because the movie is funny but it reveals so much more. I try not to get so caught up in watching movies and TV shows exclusively for its entertainment factor because there is so many lies told through television (tell a lie through a vision) but there is also a lot of truth in these movies as well, especially by way of comedy. You see we must stop letting people define the way that we think. Stop calling everything a conspiracy just because your pastor or your society says its not truth.
One of the obvious things is that Hancock is a Super Hero. In today’s society, we have come to accept them as normal human beings with supernatural abilities. In one scene, Charlize’s character states something interesting:
“Superheroes, Gods, Angels.. different cultures call us by different names.”
There’s some truth to this. The Superhero movies have a duality to them.
#1: Fallen Angels
The first side to them is that they are the story of The Gods or Fallen Angels.
- When movies have plots where the Superhero’s intermingle with humans and have children, known as Demi-Gods, it is a movie / TV show telling you the story of the Nephillim or Giants. Nephillim means from heaven to earth they came, to signify the Giants origins as they are the children of the Gods. While many deem the Nephillim to be Fallen Angels, this is not so. The Nephillim are not the Fallen Angels. The Nephillim are the offspring of the Fallen Angels by way of angelic and human relations. You saw this in Hancock being that Hancock is a God (or Fallen Angel).
One of the first scenes in the movie shows a young lady and her friends checking out Hancock as he is getting drunk at a bar. The woman follows him home and joins him in his trailer. The young lady is excited to lay with him because she knows that he is a Super Hero. This is not far-fetched. Women have been known to flock to the bed of the Gods. The bible tells us:
Gen 6:1 And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them,
Gen 6:2 That the sons of Yah saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose.
Gen 6:4 There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of Yah came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.
- The Sons of the Most High are the angels
- The Daughters of Men are the human women
- They Took Them Wives -The Gods or Fallen Angels married the Human women (Wedding ceremonies today are mimicked from the ceremonies of the Gods marriage to human women)
- Went in Unto Them – Had Sex with Them
- And Produced Children – Gave birth to Giants
Hancock takes place in the city of Los Angeles. (The Angels)
The Giants were a combination of flesh and spirit: Spirit from their fathers the Gods and flesh from the human women they took as Gods. There is evidence of Giants in the history of man.
“There were Giants in the earth in those days…”
“There were Giants in the earth in those days…”
“There were Giants in the earth in those days…”
“There were Giants in the earth in those days..and also after that.”
“There were Giants in the earth in those days..and also after that.”
Let’s move on.
This is only one aspect of the Superhero movies. The next side may be considered controversial but it is what it is.
#2: His-Story
Another aspect is that of the African American. A lot of these Super Hero movies are incorporating pieces of his story. They are embedding messages that indicate that we are a people of power. If you think this is a stretch, let’s just let the movies speak for themselves. Let us take a look at some things in Heroes Reborn that are worth noting. Heroes Reborn is an excellent TV show picking up from its 2006 original Heroes.
The show is about humans with powers and there are quite a few African American themes. The Evo’s as they are called (Evolved Humans) are being persecuted and have to flee for safety. They are hunted down by dogs and other forms of torture. The most striking resemblance to our history however is the Underground Railroad. Not only is this system being used as a place of escape and safety for the Evo’s, but they are fleeing North to Canada. And the woman who is shown being led to the Underground Railroad in the Season Premier just happens to be a black woman and her black son. If you are not familiar with how The Underground Railroad was used or that blacks fled slavery north to Canada, I highly recommend you Google it and catch up to 2015. Or is this just a coincidence?
In the first X-Man, the woman who turns blue is ashamed of her color and the way that she looks. The saying she adopts is “Mutant and Proud”. But I suppose I’m stretching again huh? And that just happens to be strikingly familiar to “I’m Black and I’m Proud”.
There aren’t many black faces, but many of these shows are the stories of black people. That’s just the truth.
Anywho, that’s it for this weeks segment of Movie Night Friday.
Hancock is a funny movie, an educational one too. Check it out.
Movie Trailer:
Movie Night Friday – The Great Debaters
Welcome back to another segment of Movie Night Friday on The PBS Blog, where I list some of my favorite movies and why I love them.
This week, I’d like to discuss The Great Debaters.
I love this movie and I can give extensive reasons why but if I am honest, the real reason is poetry. I like The Great Debaters movie because their debates sound like spoken word poetry. Even before I knew Melvin Tolson was a poet, I found the language, even basic dialogue, so very poetic and the debates as Open Mic Nights.
Aside from this, there was also the concept of race in America and parenthood. Yes, parenthood. James Farmer Sr. was so engulfed in his work that he did not often give much attention to his son. For example, James Jr. was letting his father know, subtly, that he liked Samantha Booke, another fellow debater and classmate. He mentioned her as one of the alternatives among the group and, recognizing this, his father reminded him that “you must not take your eyes off the ball son.” While this was all good (as I loved the “we do what we have to do in order to do what we want to do” line) Farmer Sr. didn’t realize at that moment the opportunity to speak with his son about girls. It was this knowledge that upset his mom who didn’t say anything but whose anger could be seen in her sudden fast pace in peeling the potatoes. She recognized her husband’s failure to take this opportunity to have an intimate conversation with his son. This is the kind of writing that I love; the kind that could reveal an emotion or a feeling even without it being verbalized.
The Great Debaters is a movie based on real events about the poet and professor Melvin B. Tolson (Denzel Washington) who teaches at the predominately black Wiley College in Marshall Texas, in 1935. Tolson starts a debate team and as the tryouts begin and end, Tolson picks four students, three of which become the central focus of the movie. As the students prepare to challenge various schools, we see also how they deal with the challenges that face them in the Jim Crow south.
While at first Tolson butts head with the influential father (Forest Whitaker) of one of his best debaters, eventually Tolson is able to form a team of strong-minded, intelligent young students, and they become the first black debate team to challenge Harvard’s prestigious debate champions.
“Who’s the judge?”
“The judge is God.”
“Why is he God?”
“Because he decides who wins or loses, not my opponent.”
One of my favorite lines is this one. While I believe in calling the father by his name, Yah, I understand what this scene means and I like it because it’s strengthening even for those of us who are watching the movie. No matter who you think you are against, the judge is always Yah, not your opponent. In the end, we will be asked about our own sins and not the sins of others.
Tolson’s political views, add more to the story. He is a man who sneaks out at night to a country barn wearing overalls and works boots. And as rumors of radical communism sparks, it causes him to lose one of his students. Tolson is not to be undone, however, and keeps his politics out of the classroom. While the movie highlights his knowledge of poetry as he teaches English, it does not mention that he is a leading poet. Tolson in fact, published long poems in such magazines as the Atlantic Monthly and in 1947 was named poet laureate of Liberia.
History
As stated, this movie is based on the real-life events of the student debate team of Wiley College. Under the leadership of Tolson, Wiley College’s debate team became legendary. It won almost every debate among historically-black colleges and became the first to debate a white college when it took on and defeated Oklahoma City College in 1932. The team’s crowning achievement, however, came in 1935 when it defeated that year’s national champions, the University of Southern California. And naturally, after the movie was made in 2007, Wiley College rose to popularity again with increased enrollment and the re-establishing of its debate team.
My Favorite Line:
“I am here to help you to find, take back, and keep your righteous mind because obviously you have lost it.”
Trailer:
Funny Movie Mistakes:
It was hard to find any real mistakes in this movie. Most people say it is the Willie Lynch Speech, that there was no such letter and Tolson’s reciting of this piece of History is flawed. However, I do not believe that. I believe The Willie Lynch Letter did exist because I don’t believe in coincidences. Everything written in that letter to other slave owners on how to control their slaves can be seen in the behavior of many in the black community today. From the separation of the races by color (pitch the dark skin slave against the light skin slave), to the Making of a Slave and the Breaking process of the Black woman.
What’s your favorite movie? Why do you love it?”
Insomnia

Caught a glimpse of your shadow last night
would have missed that much had not the wind whistled
like it does when it wants the curtains to dance.
And she so coy,
the way she looks over her shoulders
when nobody’s watching
giggling fabric
She so cool
love the effortless sway from moonlight to windowsill
It was this lovemaking of the wind and my curtains
that alerted me to your footsteps
and though short-lived, I can still smell the essence
that is your backbone
a taste of perfection after a clean death
…but you didn’t kiss my grave rejuvenation last night.
I waited for you
like a desperate lover on the edge of embrace
hoping for your calm to hold back my storms
for your peace to let down the curtains of drooping eyelids
but dear sleep,
I was your fool last night.
Let’s Make Music
I wanna make music
tonight
I wanna sing
for you
Don’t ask me to metaphor into bunny rabbits
cause I ain’t up here to do tricks for you
I am up here to sing
for you
I am here
to make music
to make
melody
you ask me
why I don’t show my face
why my performance can’t be seen by yo physical eyes
but this here aint no show
I got no tricks of the trade to show you
these words aint cropped to fit your opinion
they aint photo shopped to enhance your feelings
but I know how visual you people are
how you wonder about signs and wonders
so you wonder
why I won’t baptize my poetry
behind the lens of your cameras
have I fallen from the horse of couplets and closed forms?
maybe
I’ve just C-sectioned my Spoken Word to reveal my insides
besides
I’ve got to have some kind of gut
to stand up here and strip for you
just let me be real for you
let me calm you
let these words heal you
and let’s make music
a cleft
a time signature
a note
a rest
a song
a stepping stone
to play just the right scripture
to guide us back to the music sheet
just let me stand here
let me be here
and
just let me sing
for you

















