Archive: February, 2013
Stop the presses! Now, finally, we know why the first lady got bangs last month. Michelle Obama who turned 49 in January was having a midlife crisis.
Obama was asked about her much-commented upon new hair style during an interview with talk-show host Rachael Ray that airs Wednesday. The first lady jokingly responded, "This is my midlife crisis."
The Associated Press reports that she added that she changed her hair because she couldn't get a new sports car (why not?) and wouldn't be allowed to bungee jump.
Jenice Armstrong, Daily News Columnist
Someone needs to school Lil Wayne.
You don’t make rap songs using the late Emmett Till’s name in a sexual reference. Emmett was just a 14-year-old black boy when he was fatally brutalized after whistling at a white woman while visiting relatives in Mississippi in 1955. Outrage over his killing and how his murderers were allowed to go free helped galvanize the Civil Rights Movement.
I guess Lil Wayne thought he was being clever when he worked Emmett’s name into his new song “Karate Chop.” But the way he did it was so vile that I'm not going to print it. I know he's an entertainer and performers like to push the boundaries. But what happened to Emmett came to symbolize what was wrong with the Jim Crow south. To trivialize that in such a crude way is offensive. I'm glad the Rev. Jesse Jackson has stepped in as if to say hold up young son. The Associated Press is reporting that Emmett’s remaining family objected and that Jackson reached out to Wayne’s management, The Blueprint Group. Epic Records has apologized.
Yes, that’s Nicholas “Sixx” King, a black man, dressed in a KKK costume. You may have seen him around town before. Maybe even Thursday on the Drudge Report. A 2010 Daily News Sexy Single, he's infamous for photo bombing the 2003 Grammy Awards.
A self-styled relationship expert, he has written a relationship book that he published himself and also blogged a bit on the topic for Essence magazine.
His latest project is a documentary about gun violence called “Mothers of No Tomorrow.”
Jenice Armstrong, Daily News Columnist
Isn’t it ironic that the late Sen. Strom Thurmond’s biracial daughter died during Black History Month? This was the daughter he never publicly acknowledged who he had with his family’s black maid when he was 22 and she just 16. The word for that is statutory rape, but I digress.
Thurmond was a hard-core segregationist, once declaring, “I wanna tell you, ladies and gentlemen, that there's not enough troops in the army to force the Southern people to break down segregation and admit the nigra race into our theaters, into our swimming pools, into our homes, and into our churches.”
For some bizarre reason, his daughter Essie Mae Washington-Williams, who grew up in Coatesville, Pa., kept his secret for years. She later explained herself saying, she did so because, "He trusted me, and I respected him." Although he never publicly acknowledged her, he paid her way through college and helped out with his grandchildren's education. "He never called my mother by her name. He didn't verbally acknowledge that I was his child," Washington-Williams wrote in her autobiography, "Dear Senator: A Memoir by the Daughter of Strom Thurmond."
Jenice Armstrong, Daily News Columnist
First Lady Michelle Obama is back in the news again. This time around, people aren’t obsessing over her new bangs, though. They’re talking about an Alabama coach who was suspended after making disparaging remarks about her backside. Yeah, you read it right.
During a classroom discussion on Jan. 27, Lauderdale County High School head football coach Bob Grisham was heard referring to the first lady as “fat butt Michelle Obama.” Grisham, who was taped by a student in the class, also said, ““Look at her. She looks like she weighs 185 or 190. She’s overweight.” The subject reportedly came up when discussing the first lady’s controversial efforts to provide school children with lower-calorie lunches. Grisham, who also put down homosexuals calling them “queers,” has been suspended for 10 days. He said he misspoke. Personally, I think he should be fired. Coaches are role models. Surrogate dads for many kids growing up in fatherless homes. I shudder to think of his influence on his young athletes. Instead of bringing up the subject of a first lady's backside to his students, he should be showing them how to be gentlemen. But instead, he made a crack in the classroom about the president's wife's behind.
It’s strange when you stop and think about how the first lady’s body gets critiqued as if she’s a Sports Illustrated swimsuit model. In a Washington Post article published Feb. 4, a reporter points out that talk show host Rush Limbaugh has referred to the first lady as Michelle “Fat Butt” Obama. Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner, the Wisconsin Republican, also commented on her “large posterior,” before later claiming he misspoke. I’ve even seen where people refer to her as Moochelle, another putdown targeted at her weight, which makes me just shake my head in amazement. Women everywhere flock to gyms to get arms like the first lady and are trying to emulate her modern, fit silhouette, yet this is the kind of disparaging way that she gets picked apart. She's not the first lady it has happened, too, nor is she the last. But that doesn't make it any less disgusting.
Jenice Armstrong, Daily News Columnist
I’m no hater, but I raised my eyebrows a few times during Beyonce’s pyrotechnic-infused Super Bowl performance.
Here's the thing: Queen Bey was beyond phenomenal Sunday night. After all the tongue wagging over her lip synching at President Obama’s inauguration, she needed to bring her A game and boy did she. She killed it, as the saying goes. Even if her skimpy bodysuit outfit was a tad on the dominatrix side, Beyonce looked gorgeous with her flowing, blonde mane blowing out behind her as she stomped around the stage. Her confidence is inspiring. I love the fact that she’s not rail thin and still manages to be as Jay Z raps, “the hottest chick in the game.“ Seeing Destiny’s Child pop up to join her onstage only added to the thrill. I spent much of the halftime show bouncing around and yelling at the TV screen.
Girlfriend turned it out in the dance department, but there were moments when she was gyrating like a stripper who needed money to pay her back rent. You never see Tina Turner laid out across a dirty floor like that. Diana Ross either.
Jenice Armstrong, Daily News Columnist
Today, I heard from the National Constitution Center that former vice president Al Gore couldn’t accommodate the Daily News’ interview request because of his busy schedule.
Really, Al?
Might it also be because Gore, who’s due in Philly Monday for a book event, has been taking too much heat over his sale of Current TV to Al-Jazeera? After all, Gore, who has written three books on the topic, is Mr. Climate Change. And Al-Jazeera is owned by the oil-rich government of Qatar. No wonder some are looking sideways at the $500 million deal which profitted the former presidential candidate an estimated $100 million.
Read more from Jenice Armstrong at Earth to Philly, the Daily News blog on anything and everything "Green."
Reach Jenice at armstrj@phillynews.com.
