From Facebook in response to the above link:

Ukumbwa Sauti M.Ed. at 4:58pm May 7

"OMg!....now that I've read the article I am ABSOLUTELY sure this was most stupid, backwards, inane, idiotic thing for adults to involve themselves in. This is the image of freedom we want to have of ourselves as we put our chicken-engorged heads down to sleep at night?!? Yes, this is USAmerican free-dumb! Was she trying to "feed the masses"? This is ALL kinds of wrong....Folks, let's get a clue...and some social integrity!

What do we say to our children after we come home from a freakin' "protest" at a chicken joint cuz we couldn't get two free pieces of dead poultry muscle?!?!?
Yeah, we're the ones who kill who kill and fight for toys and big-screen TVs at Xmess! There's your bed-time story, little Meghan.

Sleep on that."

See the other hundreds (and growing) of posts on the Book of Face.   Maddening.
(the Oprah photo is from the above NPR URL)

oy....another frustrated response to some frustrating discourse about the even more frustrating idea of DIsney creating an African(-American) princess.....you've got to read it to believe it....just "google" disney black princess and see what shows up....but this entry is (copied in full) from the following page:

http://joannejacobs.com/2009/04/27/second-guessing-disneys-black-princess/

At this moment, the response is up for moderation, so might not even show up if people's sensibilities get a little snipped....too bad.

I was non-plussed by the responses.....please go and see, but don't stay long....


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" No, an inter-racial couple isn't racist, but it is in the tradition of racism that many African people in solitary/tokenized situations are not matched with those of their own heritage.  Breaking up the African family was a program of slavery in this country and it took media form by showing few if any solid African family units.  The Evans family in TV's "Good Times" was one of the few up until later years into the 90's when the largely de-culturized African family showed up.  Point of reference....look up the challenges of Eric Lasalle as Benton in "ER" and his critiques of the writers and producers in putting him in repeated, but troubled relationships with African women, but his only sustainable one was with a European woman (British).

And the voodoo connection does not demonize a character, but the portrayal can demonize voodoo.  Voodoo, or better Vodou/Vodun, is a powerful African spiritual system that is practiced in many forms in many places by many people.  Our USAmerican relationship to voodoo is one of comedy/tragedy, people largely ignorant of what and how it is, so when we hear of it, we assume it must be a negative connection.  Standard christian policies demonize vodou and many other indigenous traditions, spiritual or otherwise.

In addition, the Disney attempts to portray anything but weak, dependent women is almost non-existent.  They are at least a constant disappointment to anyone who cares about education, clarity and cultural justice.  Much of what Disney does is oppressive and shallow, sexist and racist all at once.  I think they are better off leaving African people, Asians, Native Americans, merpeople, women and animals out of their stories altogether.  Let them talk about what they know: narrow-minded, self-absorbed European, middle-aged men whose worldviews are as wide as the princesses' barely-there waistlines and as deep as the one-dimensional characters they are used to creating.

"as long as she's pretty"? "stay cute, make money"?!?  You've got to be kidding!!"

Unluckily....I don't think they were kidding.  

Oy.

oy redux.

I'm sorry, I couldn't look away...there were too many links.....the crap was all too deep...the stench too odiforous....I dare say, go to the site below to read what these people are saying about Tiana, the "Black" princess and Disney....and us/humans/African people.......

http://www.whataboutourdaughters.com/2008/08/first-black-disney-princess-in-theaters-christmas-2009-trailer/

There are alot of responses to this one, including mine...which as of this post is probably being looked over by the moderator....(yikes...I suspect a conspiracy....I click submit and it tells me, "Duplicate comment detected;
it looks as though you've already said that!"  I hope that means it went through....ok, here's what came outa my digital pie-hole....(tell me if you see this post there!)

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"We're kidding, right?  We have to be!  We are STILL WAITING for DISNEY, of all cultural bandits, to throw out on its big-screen toilet seat a culturally sensitive version of a woman?...a princess?...let alone an AFRICAN(-America) princess?  We have every right to watch out for this one.  Disney has done nothing but create models of dependent, weak, sexualized women in their major franchise of so-called princesses (ain't one of 'em got an army and I ain't seen no map of their princessdoms...where are their families? Show me some real female power here....but no....that's not what they do!)

For all of the women clamouring to take their daughters to this movie.....please, please, PLEASE, I implore you.....go first by yourself.  Media images can be powerful.  Listen to the  bell hooks critiques or to Jean Kilbourne or Susan Faludi.  These women are actually thinking and caring about your daughters.  Disney wants YOUR money and your daughters' allegiance to characters that don't represent them, that narrow their definitions as women and create stories of dependency and oppression.  PLEASE check out the documentary, "Mickey Mouse Monopoly" before you watch or buy anything else Disney-fied (Demand it from your local libraries!).  Please, for the sake of their self-esteem.  If any of you are so concerned, but need more information, please look at the above writers/academics.  Also reference, "THe Mouse That Roared" by Giroux.  (Sweet mother, my sentence structure is all discombobulated now!)....(sigh....methinks I'm sweating)....

It truly concerns me that in this day and age, we have knee-jerk reactions to anything promised to be "black" in the public eye.  Neither Obama nor Tiana is gonna save African people from our own task of redefining ourselves (have we learned nothing from Kwanzaa? - or are we waiting for Disney to make a Kwanzaa movie before we think that's ok?!), looking into our past to mine the depth, the wealth of queendoms, kingdoms and chiefdoms, of political and spiritual ascendency, of governance, of communalism beyond "why can't we all just get along", of real technological advancement on every level of being.  Disney knows nothing of all that and I wouldn't trust them with 1% of our history as African people.  We have way too many film and tv producers, far too many writers, far too many teachers and professors, far to many thinkers and doers and lovers of truth and creators and poets to depend on a $ingle-minded, cycloptic megalith like Disney to throw us one more doe-eyed, disempowered princess....whether she be black, Black, Blaque, African, African-American, Afro-American, Negroid, Africoid, Carribean, Nubian, Abyssinian, Ethiopian or whatever they wanna draw us as."
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This is a train-wreck in the making.