Disney did something that legitimately shocked and surprised me. One of their cartoons actually had the nerve to mention reparations and calling white supremacy by name in an episode! This isn’t any irony or satire. I’m legitimately dumbfounded that the Mickey Mouse corporation would try that for one of their shows. In this case, it’s the new iteration of The Proud Family. I saw the original version of that show when I was a kid, and I had mixed feelings about it. While it was good to show a Black family that’s not from the ghetto, and there were some funny moments, I wasn’t a fan of showing Oscar Proud (the dad) as a buffoon or how his wife Trudy suffered from protagonist-centered morality partially because of her getting away with things men can’t get away with in fiction or real life, but that’s a rant for another day. In the sequel/remake Louder and Prouder, they actually did an episode where Penny and her friends have a moment talking about Juneteenth, systemic racism, slavery, and the other original sins of America. Not surprisingly enough, you have racist idiots in and out of the Disney fanbase outraged. If people had their jimmies rustled by Halle Bailey playing Ariel, then this episode would’ve given people heart attacks. I saw the clip in this news video, and even someone who’s a prominent critic of Disney didn’t see any lies told. If anyone has a problem with what was said, then they’re bigots, and they probably use the word “woke” as a dog whistle.
Don’t get me wrong, having an episode addressing reparations and white supremacy doesn’t mean I’m getting myself a Disney+ account. They have to do a lot more to show me they don’t want to do any anti-Black racist crap, and they still have to answer to different things they’ve done instead of being selective at best. Sure, they’ll own up to the portrayals of the crows in Dumbo, but they haven’t dropped the trademark of THAT Swahili phrase or credited Solomon Linda, for example. I would like to call this moment from The Proud Family a start, but I’m still skeptical about it. With that said, this moment proves me right even more that you have racist imbeciles in the Disney fandom, and they need to be called out.
Also, reparations aren’t a handout. They are a debt owed to the descendants of those who built this country with their unpaid labor. However, if you have no issues with Ukrainians and Afghans getting money but have a problem with the possibility of American descendants of slaves getting cash payments, then you’re a hypocrite.
Tag Archives: White Supremacy
Grand Jury Refuses To Indict Carolyn Bryant
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/emmett-till-carolyn-bryant-donham-grand-jury-declines-to-indict/
I know I usually don’t post links to mainstream news sources, but this was breaking news at the time when I discovered it (okay, besides the Mar-A-Lago raids, but we’re not talking about that). Despite the 1955 warrant, finding Carolyn Bryant’s location in Kentucky, and public knowledge of her lying about Emmett Till, the grand jury in Mississippi WILL NOT INDICT HER!!!
Are you freaking serious?! The sad part is that I really shouldn’t be surprised, but it’s no less infuriating. This lying murder accomplice was found dead to rights snuffing the life of Emmett Till and people won’t do anything to put her behind bars? Wow, America really does protect white supremacist thugs and proves me right even more with how it’s a massive color-coded injustice system in this country. No, prison time is only for elderly Nazi members (they do deserve to be jailed, so don’t misconstrue me) and not for American terrorists like Carolyn Bryant, her late husband, and other associates according to those devils! Of course, it’s sad that most people won’t care because they’re too busy cloistering themselves with reality shows, social media, video games, or whatever crappy celebrity gossip is happening right now. Those people are just shallow. Of course, if you think Carolyn shouldn’t be criminally punished despite the evidence and her own lies, then that’s YOUR problem and not mine. I don’t care that she’s old, has medical conditions, and is a grandma. She is a devil and deserves to face justice after a decades-long delay.
God, this makes my blood boil seeing her getting away with it again! I hope Carolyn sees Emmett Till’s visage giving her a cold stare as she’s screaming while Satan drags her to Hell!
So Carolyn Bryant is Saying That She Told Her Husband Then NOT To Harm or Kill Emmett Till? Chalk That Up to Another Lie!
I did find a slight update to this ongoing story regarding the recovered 1955 warrant for Carolyn Bryant. There was a book that was made public about the Emmett Till situation that was originally going to be archived at the University of North Carolina. Since news spread about the missing warrant, the author decided to make this book public. Carolyn Bryant told her husband Roy not to hurt Emmett Till, but that’s a load of crap. It’s like she had to link up one lie after another to try and keep her story straight which is failing. I suck at lying and even I can tell this is obviously not true or matching the other stories. Demetra Kaye from the African Diaspora News Network gave her 2 cents on the subject while also giving this recent information. I just get angrier every time I hear something new about this massive delay with the warrant and how this is being handled. Don’t get me wrong, I thought it was cool how there was a #PullUpSummer moment by going to addresses where Carolyn lived including a nursing home. Hopefully, she gets found and is forced to answer for the murder and subterfuge she’s responsible for. I don’t care if she is in her 80s or 800 years old. Carolyn needs to face the consequences of the murder of Emmett Till. Pardon the political parody, but LOCK HER UP! Tell me why she doesn’t deserve that phrase shouted at her as she goes to court and eventually the pen. I have no sympathy for vile lifeforms (I will not call her human) when others have been killed or jailed for far less assuming if they did anything horrible at all!
The Carolyn Bryant Warrant Case Pt. II
I found out about this story and I’m going to follow this case to the best of my ability. Big up Lisa Cabrera for making these videos so far let alone with other topics. I’m also surprised that other bloggers have been spreading the original story about the warrant around because this deserves to be widespread. So there are FINALLY people going after Carolyn Bryant who is supposedly in North Carolina and a manuscript has come out about this case. Bryant seems to be changing her story to make herself look more sympathetic which I don’t buy at all especially since Emmett Till died decades ago. Shoot, the recently discovered warrant is older than both my parents for crying out loud! She admitted that she saw the murder of Till the whole time, yet claims to be a victim. No, you’re a perpetrator and this situation could’ve been avoided if you didn’t lie about him sexually harassing or assaulting you! I actually didn’t know that the state of Mississippi was trying to boss around the Till family about how the funeral and casket should be. WOW! Such arrogance! The fact that Bryant got to live her life despite getting away with murder and lies which led to the lynching of a 14-year-old boy! I want to bring up the fact that Bill Ziegler brought up that if he was still alive, he’d be 80 right now. Emmett could’ve been a grandfather living his best life right now, but he obviously couldn’t live long because of this wicked female! Lisa pointed out how the DOJ and various authorities didn’t do anything. The thing is Bryant wasn’t the only woman who got a Black person killed due to a false allegation and I’m sure there are other lethal Karens in her age range who are still alive today.
1955 warrant for Carolyn Bryant (Emmett Till’s killer) found. Where is the outrage?
I know I’m still on hiatus, but this story has me enraged so much that I have to talk about it. I’m sure my audience knows about Emmett Till, right? The Black boy from Chicago who was alleged to have whistled to a white woman in Mississippi and was killed and his death kickstarted the Civil Rights Movement? Afterward, Carolyn Bryant (nee Dunham) ADMITTED SHE WAS LYING and is still alive to this day. Well, guess what? They found a warrant from 1955 for Carolyn’s arrest in a Mississippi court basement. What gross incompetence! They were protecting her this whole time even if some of the people who were alive back then are dead due to their age now. It’s not like she did anything where it could still potentially be of use.
Oh, wait. I’m no legal expert, but I know murder has NO statute of limitations! I’m sorry, but if we can arrest a 101-year-old Nazi this year, then we can surely make Carolyn spend the rest of her life behind bars. What’s your excuse? A Black boy died because of a white supremacist woman’s lie, so she needs to get hard time. I know if a Black person murdered someone back then and was still alive, they’d lock them up no questions asked. Thankfully the case is reopened and the warrant is still valid, but I hope they lock her up. There are people who have been executed for less assuming if they actually committed a crime! If you’re one of those “believe all women” #MeToo feminists who rant about R. Kelly and Bill Cosby, but remain silent for this woman who lied about a child taking sexual advantage of her and was an accomplice to his death, then you’re part of the problem. I understand people have been bombarded with so many stories about mass murders, inflation, the Russia-Ukraine War, and other things, but this story needs more attention even if it’s tough to punish these white supremacist POSs. The fact that Carolyn Bryant is still alive and so many others haven’t lived as long as she did is disgusting.
The Anti-Black Racial Horrors in Buffalo, Abertillery, and Beyond
I know I’m on hiatus, but all of these stories have angered me so much that I just have to talk about them.
I’m sure you all know about that horrific act of racist terrorism in Buffalo, NY. I don’t have to repeat too much, but I didn’t want to see the loss of life or how soft that devil Payton Gendron got so far. Some updates have come up that Gendron was in a groupchat on Discord and other online platforms that detailed his original plan of killing at least THREE DOZEN Black people. That “lone wolf” excuse crumbles after that news came out. All those people should be hit with conspiracy charges! This is just sick with how these white supremacists are coddled in this country. Please check out this video for more information. I’m glad Phil called out how these racist jokes and memes are dangerous. They are preludes to attacks and this goes back to all that propaganda in this country. I wish Gendron gets hard time, federal hate crime charges, and spends his life in jail. Also, there needs to be an Anti-Black hate crime bill. If the AAPI community can get one for suffering for much less, then there is no excuse to have a hate crime bill for the Black community, too!
Of course, white supremacy isn’t just limited to America though. Recently in Wales, an eleven-year-old boy named Raheem Bailey was racially and physically abused in Abertillery. The local school didn’t do anything about the bullying and Bailey was attacked so severely that he suffered many injuries before damaging his finger while trying to escape which was so bad that it had to be amputated. Abertillery Learning Community deleted its Twitter due to the backlash and there have been no punishments for the students or teachers who were watching the situation so far. I’m just beyond sickened. Those who say they won’t care because the boy was Black Welsh and not African-American should be ashamed of themselves. Racism is freaking global! Here’s an article about the situation. I hope Raheem is able to recover and for his assailants to be severely punished! https://www.itv.com/news/wales/2022-05-23/school-trust-closes-after-boy-lost-finger-fleeing-bullies
If you want to support the Bailey family, then donate to their GoFundMe page: https://www.gofundme.com/f/zg99q-sunshine
Moms of Liberty are triggered by CRT and they want to ban MLK from schools? SERIOUSLY?!?
Just when I think some people in America couldn’t get any more idiotic with their bigotry, I stand corrected. So this right-wing group called the Moms of Liberty wants to ban Martin Luther King Jr. from the history books because it allegedly “traumatizes” white children. This is so stupid as well as heinous. These Karens as well as their token Asian and Indian crash test dummies want to stop talking about Civil Rights let alone the other parts of American history that expose how racist America was and still is.
Wow, for a group trying to be about America, they sure are using Nazi tactics of book-burning, don’t you think? People just can’t handle the uncomfortable truths about the rampant racism in this country. The concept of CRT has been such a hot debate over the past year. The arguments against it (the fact it’s a collegiate-level curriculum as opposed to the K-12 levels is irrelevant) boil down to “It makes white people feel bad!”. Stop acting like this country is perfect because it’s not. It’s not going to sow the seeds of racial strife. It tells the hard truths and makes sure that history doesn’t repeat itself in America. Shoot, there were so many atrocities I learned on my own that I DIDN’T learn about in school from kindergarten all the way to my undergraduate years in college. Here are some examples of what I didn’t learn during my time as a student and that’s not even counting the events that happened in other countries:
Black Wall Street
The Devil’s Punchbowl concentration camp in Natchez, MS
East St. Louis race riots
The Convict Lease program
Little Rock race riots
The GI Bill did not give any aid to Black soldiers after WWII unlike their white counterparts
Bacon’s Rebellion
Various acts of colonizers cannibalizing African slaves (check out the book The Delectable Negro for more on that subject)
That’s just the tip of the iceberg and I’m still learning about more of these stories. Even the positive stories involving various inventors could be added to that list. People should learn about these things. If a student has any shred of humanity (I at least have SOME hope in that regard although not a lot), then they will be compelled to make a change and to call out these racists in different fields. These Moms of Liberty are straight-up white supremacists and have no right to ban the books or say how other countries do all these terrible things.
How I Learned to Utterly Despise that Expensive Ripoff, Overrated, and Bigoted Movie Called The Lion King (And the Existence of Kimba the White Lion Isn’t the Only Reason)
[Warning: This post contains a very contrary opinion to most people and will contain controversial content. Read at your own peril]
EDIT (2022): This rant post was written prior to me watching The Lion’s Share which is the documentary involving the Mbube/The Lion Sleeps Tonight plagiarism case, the Petite Noir/Beyonce music video controversy, or finding out about disturbing parts of Matthew Broderick or Rob Lowe’s pasts that they got free passes for. It seems like this rant has been getting a considerable amount of attention for some odd reason over the past few months (I have my theories why though). I wouldn’t be surprised if people are angry at my observations as they defend this work. Anyways, I’m more offended about other aspects of The Lion King than the Kimba controversy like the Hakuna Matata trademark, the depiction of the hyenas, Mufasa’s protagonist-centered morality, and the aforementioned Mbube case for example. If I can go off-tangent for a bit…Ringing Bell is the best-animated movie involving a parent getting murdered by an animal with dark brown fur and a wounded left eye. Just saying.
I’m sure some of you are probably sick of me at this point bashing this Disney movie if you’ve read earlier posts on this blog or saw certain reviews on Iridium Eye. I’m not sorry for what I’m about to say on here. This frustration has been building up for the past couple of weeks and it’s something I need to vent about on this blog of all things regardless if people agree with this post or not.
[sigh] Here we go.
For starters, I didn’t always hate The Lion King. If anything, it used to be one of my favorite Disney movies when I was a kid. This is going to partially give away my age, but I saw that movie during it’s first theatrical run when I was very little. I even saw the stage adaptation in Chicago at the Cadillac Theatre when I was a bit older. One of my favorite soundtracks back then was the “Rhythm of the Pride Lands” which was the companion soundtrack and it was also the first time the song “He Lives In You” was used. Not Lion King II or the Broadway version. I saw the original VHS tape probably a hundred times during my childhood. I used to know the words to most of the songs way back when. However, I stopped paying attention to Disney during my teenage years because I was really into anime. Okay, I still like Japanese animation, but I was nowhere near as much of an otaku as I was when I was in high school.
It was also around this time when I first heard about Kimba the White Lion. I heard that The Lion King ripped it off, but I thought it was shallow with just the main characters. Flash forward to my adult life when I saw a Cracked article involving childhood icons you didn’t know were shameless rip-offs, and the memories came back again. This piqued my interest, did more research and started to rent the DVDs on Netflix after Kimba stopped airing on Hulu (Disney is a partial owner of that site, so I don’t know if it was because of them or not). While it has it’s issues and has aged animation since it was made in the 60s, I enjoyed that anime for it’s usage of subject matter, originality, and seeing obvious facets that Disney stole from it. If you don’t believe me, check out this link. I couldn’t believe the scenes of Caesar (AKA Original Mufasa) consoling Kimba from the beyond in the night sky. I couldn’t believe the scene where the villainess Belladonna tried to kill Kimba by pushing him off a cliff. I couldn’t believe one of the major villains (Claw) just happened to be a scarred lion usurper with a black mane, dark fur, and had hyena henchmen with him. Every character not named Timon and Pumbaa in that movie is a copy of someone from Tezuka’s manga/anime series. Seriously, shame on Disney for stealing from this classic anime and for trying to block the Jungle Emperor Leo ’97 movie from North America. Trust me, you won’t be looking at The Lion King the same way again once you see the obvious similarities. I can’t see how any sane person could watch Kimba and not think that no one from Disney saw this. Why does The Lion King get a free pass in plagiarism when other media like Yuki Yuna is a Hero gets lambasted for having similarities to Madoka? You know if the situation was reversed, then all you Lion King fans would scream bloody murder that your favorite movie got plagiarized by a foreign (majority non-White) country if Kimba came afterwards. It would be amazing if Disney admitting to stealing from Tezuka’s creation, paid royalties to them, or got epic backlash for their thievery, but I know that will never happen because wishes never come true.
This segues into my next point. I wasn’t aware of this as a child, but growing up, I realized how racist the implications were with the hyenas. Have you not listened to how they talk? They straight-up talk in stereotypical African-American Ebonics (Shenzi) and an exaggerated Mexican accent (Banzai). What ticks me off is when Disney fans don’t call their depiction racist or handwave it because you have Black cast members voicing some of the heroic lions namely James Earl Jones playing Mufasa. No, just because you have Black people playing both sides of the good/evil paradigm, it doesn’t make it bigotry-free (this also applies to the remake). It’s the equivalent of a racist claiming they have a Black best friend or family members to prove they aren’t racist. That or saying slave owners can’t be racist because they have Black people around them. Let’s not forget Disney has a history with using animal characters as POC proxies with racist undertones. Look at the crows in Dumbo and the lead one’s name was JIM! You know, like the same laws in America that involved having enforced segregation, lynchings, or it being legal for White people to rape African-Americans? There’s also Siamese cats talking in broken English in Lady and the Tramp, Aristocats, and even an episode of Chip & Dale: Rescue Rangers for crying out loud. You could even throw in Tito from Oliver & Company as a slap against the Latino community. Coincidentally enough, Cheech Marin would voice both Tito and Banzai in his voice acting career. Is this why so many Americans falsely assume that Black people let alone other ethnic groups act like the hyenas all the time? If you think so, then you need your head examined and we should question if you’re a bigot.
Extending onto that point is how the hyenas were treated with the Elephant Graveyard. Besides the name being a blatant carbon copy of the place in Kimba where the animals had to rescue Roger Ranger in one of the later episodes, I found the place to be disturbing, but not for the same reasons as it was portrayed in the movie. As an adult, I had this realization that this punishment against those animals involved isolating the hyenas in a barren wasteland and they’re forced to starve. It hit me when I researched lesser-known aspects of history: Mufasa was committing genocide against them and I was sickened by it. Scar did bad things, but his big brother is not much better if you really think about it; he’s just applauded for his actions. If you think I’m being crazy, then maybe you should read up on the Congolese Genocide under King Leopold II or the Namibian Genocide by Germany’s 2nd Reich. The former had a body count of 10 MILLION Congolese and Leopold never got punished for it. If you take away the hand-chopping, guns, and mass rape, then it would be the same thing. The latter had a concentration camp called Shark Island where the Germans starved out the Herero and Nama tribes and there was a valley of bones left behind. By the way, one of the perpetrators was General Franz Ritter von Epp who would eventually employ Adolf Hitler and Hitler said he was influenced by this general. LET THAT SINK IN! It’s as if the animators were aroused by putting anti-Black racism with that act as they believe melanated people don’t belong in their circle of life. Come on, if those hyenas talked in Yiddish accents instead of stereotypical Black and Latino accents, then the ADL would’ve thrashed Mickey Mouse in a heartbeat and everybody knows this. But because it’s happening to the bad guys and because they talk in a racially-coded way, it’s somehow justified in the animators’ and fans’ eyes. No, that’s protagonist centered morality on Mufasa’s part (saying nothing how that punishment contradicts his circle of life speech), and it’s propaganda in a form of G-rated White Supremacy. In my adulthood, I’ve seriously pondered if White people actually saw me as one of those hyenas in the past before. I’ve been discriminated against, so I wouldn’t put it past them. It’s hard to watch that knowing about the genocides against Black people, the 1994 crime bill which overloaded the prison-industrial complex (while being soft on Caucasian offenders, let’s be honest), Apartheid South Africa, and gentrification to name a few things to punish them. Do you enjoy Black people or any other POC group getting punished or afflicted at all costs and is The Lion King your film of choice of vicariously having that joy in a supposedly “innocent” way? Are you more offended by me pointing out the racist implications of this Disney movie than the millions of dead bodies from those aforementioned genocides let alone other atrocities?
Let’s also talk about the depiction of Africa. There are no humans in it! Was there some extinction of Africans before the beginning of the story? Disney sucks at this fact and Tarzan is another example of this when that continent is shown without Black people. So people who look like me and darker shouldn’t be seen? Is this a wish-fulfillment about depopulating Africa in animated form? Think about it. They wouldn’t try it with Europe or America. Even if they do have furry characters (don’t lie. furries love The Lion King and you all know this. Also, how come that movie doesn’t get called a furry film with all the anthropomorphic stuff in it?), they make them upright, clothed and human-like in attitude like Zootopia or DuckTales for example. Are they insinuating that Africa should just be one giant savanna or natural utopia without the humans who would live in that part of the world? If not, then they’ll show it as one big piece of poverty porn and/or a giant war zone. It’s as if the animals are treated with dignity if something happens to them than the humans who live there. Cecil the lion? I rest my case. Screw stereotypes. Those furries and their sick fantasies can go away. Also, I’m aware of the issues of the original Kimba manga and some of the other iterations which I wasn’t a fan of (that’s an understatement), but at least Tezuka Productions owned up to it and improved with the later iterations. All these Disney fans are hypocrites for turning a blind eye to the depiction of Africa and the hyena characterizations.
Those are some of my main points that have angered me. Disney needs a moral overhaul. Was it enough to steal from a 60s Japanese anime and from millions of Swahili-speaking Africans by trademarking “Hakuna Matata”? I could go on about the plot holes such as the Nala incest theory, how much that movie ripped off Kimba, how heredity monarchy is not always a good thing, how that movie isn’t that deep/meaningful, or how The Lion King or it’s fanbase avoids being called furries when other movies get labeled as such, but I think you get the point. Even I’ve had enough from defenders of this movie franchise and for people trying to shame me for not liking that film, let alone bullying me for my ethnic background or even what media I like. You’re only proving me right that way. It sickens me how there’s that remake coming out (it’s not live-action, people. it’s just realistic looking CGI) and for people making fun of me for not liking it anymore. You all have no right to moralize to me especially with all the things that have happened in American history let alone what happened to the African diaspora. I’m not saying you’re automatically evil if you’re White since that would be very stupid of me to insinuate that of one’s skin color. Spare me from your attempts of putting words in my mouth or for strawmanning my arguments. What I am saying is that you shouldn’t take movies at face value and assume everything is innocent just because it’s family-friendly from a content standpoint. For one, I’ve become offended the more I’ve learned about history, part of my culture, and with storytelling techniques. I’m sick and tired of being a scapegoat because of the color of my skin and my heritage. I would never even imagine doing the things done to my ancestors to anyone regardless of race. Not everyone is going to like what I typed, nor am I begging people to like it.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to listen to real artists from the continent instead of that artificial crap from Hans Zimmer and Elton John.
All images and videos are property of their respective owners and used under US “Fair Use” laws.
The fan art is property of WhiteLionWarrior at DeviantArt.
Kimba is property of Kimba the White Lion and Tezuka Productions.
Simba is property of The Lion King and Disney.
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