#BLM - From Pandemic to #BLM Protests - Diversity has a lot to say - Thank you Ashley - another of my heroes
The 2020 Story - everyone has one - this is Diversity's.
From their first performance to explode onto the stage to this one, Diversity has always been true to themselves, to the cause of the civil rights movement and to the cause of black lives matter.
In this, one of my favourite art forms, storytelling extraordinaire dance troupe showcase the legacy of systemic racism. Their dancing comes to explosive life right in your living room, moving you, me and nearly everyone.
I can't breathe, literally after this spellbinding rendition. Fanon's beliefs and mission are delivered in this 4 minute unforgettable routine. Mesmerising spoken word alongside imagery and creative dance routines depicts the #BLM movement and its message. Will. I. Am features doing what he does best, sings, as Diversity do what they do best – dance, inspire and story tell. Obvious innovative and loving energy is created on stage against a soundtrack of roaring lions, gun shots, police sirens, bomb explosions normally only found in the darkest abyss. Honesty evokes tears as black people's hell are exposed. The imagery gathers pace and shows Diversity's love of storytelling, taking us on a journey of love before heading towards a sea of forgiveness to offer hope to the next generation.
Just magical - nothing was amiss and for me it was a perfect rendition of the story of 2020.
'We preferred the world we found compared to the one life we left behind. Sometimes you have to get sick before you start to feel better.'
Sometimes things just get worse, before they get better.
Jersualem - South African Style
Missing Notting Hill This Year? Fill Your Boots!
What Happens To A Dream Deferred?- Langston Hughes
What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
Like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore--
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?
Gina Yashere shares her manifestation of MLKJ’s theory in 1963
Gravely Disappointed With The White Moderate - Advocating Order Over Justice
Why I No Longer Talk
Hoodwinked and Bamboozled by Miles Chambers, Bristol's Poet Laureate
Miles Chambers, mayor Marvin Rees' personal, Bristol City Bard
For every letter, every comment offering positive affirmation regarding Marvin’s response to #BLM protests in Bristol he must breathe them in deeply and use them to help soften the blow of the racist punches which will rain down on him and his brothers and sisters- cos they’re coming for you Marvin, they’re coming for us to prove their shadows and shame are worth protecting.
A Video Of Johnniqua Charles Being Detained Went Viral. She Wants Cops To Learn From It.
“You about to lose your job” has turned into a protest anthem, a “song of summer” and, according to Charles, a lesson in knowing your rights — and loosening up.
Johnniqua Charles is, by her own admission, not super Instagram- or Twitter-savvy. So when a video of her being detained on Feb. 5 by security guard Julius Locklear outside Diamonds Gentlemen’s Club in Dillon, South Carolina, for trying to reenter to retrieve her purse went viral, she didn’t ― and still hasn’t ― exactly wrapped her head around it.
If you haven’t seen the “Lose Yo Job” video yet, apologies in advance for getting Charles’ words, now remixed into earworms by DJs all over the internet, stuck in your head for the foreseeable future:
“At first I brushed it off, I didn’t want to pay attention to it because I thought my family would be embarrassed by it,” Charles told HuffPost on the phone last week. Charles, who made a point of saying has always been in touch with her family, not just since the video came out, said it was her sister Andrea who had a better understanding of its impact.
“She knew this was my moment,” Charles said. “She didn’t want other people besides me benefiting off of the video.”
In the original clip, Charles questions why the officer is detaining her (“for nothing,” according to the lyrics, but, more specifically, for attempting to reenter the club after being asked to leave twice, according to Locklear’s interview with BuzzFeed). It’s been dubbed a protest anthem and it’s catchy as all hell, but for Charles, it offers another, deeper message.
“Know your rights,” she said. “Understand your rights. Don’t take the route I took every time, but I knew my rights. In that moment I was pissed but I just wanted him to understand that he really couldn’t detain me. And also, everyone should just loosen up a bit more. Do a little dance. Everything doesn’t have to be so serious.”
Charles stresses that she has no ill will toward Locklear, and in fact praised him for his handling of the situation.
“Even though he detained me for nothing, he’s an example of how you handle a situation like that,” she said. “He is an example to cops who have been in the game for years. I wasn’t being out of control, but I was agitating him and he wasn’t even agitated. With another cop it probably would have been a situation where it would have been fatal, something like that. Other cops can really learn from him.”
Charles says she has been blown away by seeing signs with her likeness and hearing her words chanted at protests, and is clear on what she, like so many others, want for the future. “Justice and equality,” she said. “In order to make the world a better place there must be justice, especially when the evidence is seen by the entire world.”
Charles, who struggles with addiction, told HuffPost the video went viral at the right time ― not only for her personally but for the world.
“In the midst of protests over police brutality, with an election coming up when Trump is getting ready to lose his job, it happened in the right moment,” she said. “And it’s been a breakthrough for me in my addiction, no one understands how much this is changing my life in a lot of ways, emotionally and mentally. Knowing I can take care of my son ― I have before ― but I haven’t always been the mother I can be, and now I can be.”
GoFundMe fundraisers and other efforts have been made to assist Charles and her family, and Charles marveled at the fact that now if her son wants something (right now he wants a trampoline), she is able to buy it for him. But she said more than that, she is most impacted by the very personal reactions she continues to hear.
“When people write me and say I changed their day or made the world smile ― I’m not too fond of the fame part ― but people saying I changed their day warms my heart,” she said.
And those whose days have been made by the video are wide-reaching, including singer Fantasia, who holds a special place in Charles’ family.
“We’ve been listening to her and following her story for a long time because my mom is a Fantasia fanatic,” Charles said. “She does these segments and at the end she was dancing and singing to my song. That was big.”
Lose Yo Job Original Rhapsody
This video went viral and set Johnniqua Charles on a different journey where her journey takes her to and where she wants the journey to take her I hope are the same.
The Brighter Side of the Consequences of Johnniqua Charles's Viral Encounter
'You About to Lose Yo Job' creator- how viral video has changed her life
June 16, 2020, 10:24 PM BST
By Gwen Aviles and Sarah Kaufman
A number of anthems from well-known artists have emerged as nationwide protests against police brutality continue, but perhaps one of the most influential is from a woman most people hadn't heard of before this month.
Johnniqua Charles, 27, said she tried to reenter a strip club in Dillon, South Carolina, in February after she realized she had left her purse inside, but was detained by Julius Locklear, a security guard for the
club.
"I think that maybe he thought I was trying to get back inside the club to party a bit more but that simply wasn’t the case," Charles told NBC News. "We started getting into a verbal altercation because he wouldn’t let me get my purse," she said, noting that she then made a vulgar comment to the guard. "He thought I was testing his manhood, and that’s when the handcuffs were thrown on me and that’s how you got the song."
The song Charles is referring to is called "Lose Yo Job," which has become a catchy and popular track after a video of her singing it while detained in handcuffs gained traction on social media around June 3. In the video, Charles asks Locklear, "Why are you detaining me?" then raps, "You about to lose your job" while dancing.
Since the clip surfaced on social media, it has inspired several remixes, memes and dance videos. Among the most popular remixes is one from DJ Suede and DJ iMarkkeyz, the artist responsible for the "Coronavirus Remix," a chart-topping song inspired by a Cardi B video.
"Lose Yo Job" has also become a protest chant.
"It feels so overwhelming to me. It’s just heartwarming to know that my song is being used for something so powerful," Charles said. "It’s just amazing to me. Very humbling."
Charles believes the video resonated with so many people in part because they were inspired by "somebody standing up" amid "the protests and all this police brutality and all these police abusing their authority."
"I feel like they need to go through some kind of psychological training before being put in positions to be police officers," Charles said. "And not just anybody should be able to be a police officer."
Yet she notes that she doesn't have "any ill will" towards Locklear and suggested he "could be "an example for other police officers."
"I’m still here. I didn’t get shot or nothing or tased," Charles said. "He could be a perfect example of how you handle a situation like that. Of course I was upset with him in the moment, but he did handle that part rather nicely."
After the initial clip went viral, Charles' sister, Andrea, created an Instagram account for her and is helping her trademark "You About to Lose Your Job." The video, Charles said, is not only "helping the world," but has been the "breakthrough" she needed. Charles, who has a 3-year-old son, said that she was struggling with homelessness and addiction before the video went viral, and that she is planning to use the money people have donated to her via GoFundMe to rent an apartment and start her own business.
Charles isn't ruling out the possibility of creating more music in the future, either.
"I don’t wanna sit down and write something because that song is the way it is because I was just fooling around," Charles said. "If I’m in the kitchen or something and I just get in the moment and something pops up, the world will know."