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Meek Mill is nothing more than a rapper who is also a repeat offender, convicted and sentenced to a reasonable period of time in prison for assault during his parole. The people around him are equally poor examples who have an agenda.
Not to start a fight, but are you referencing Ernest Owens? I truely miss his predecessor Josh Middleton I believe his name was? During Ernest's short time at PhillyMag he has posted nothing but racial rants fueled by his prejudice/ bitter outlook on the gay community. Many members of the gay community have reached out to PhillyMag including myself about the issue and we have all been ignored. Since you mentioned him I thought it would be appropriate to share my feelings with you since he is a colleague of yours. Philadelphia has enough problems so it would be nice to have a young gay reporter promoting a positive outlook for all members of the community rather then spread hate and create even more division.
The ICandy nightclub is a perfect example of his obvious bitterness. No matter what that owner does, Ernest wants him forever shunned and hated by the community, rather then learning to embrace, and forgive one another for past mistakes. I have many black friends who have moved on and frequent ICandy, and they are the ones setting the example, yet Ernest is sitting behind his computer blaming everyone and being offended over every little thing that happens in the world. I think its time for PhillyMag to find a replacement. And this is coming from someone in their 20s, not an old timer.
You do not have to respond to this if you do not wish to, but I did want to share that with you.
I'm glad you did. As i tell friends all the time, one of the joys of being well-known in the Gayborhood (which I am) is that I get to go into places and attend events and get an earful about Ernest Owens.
I even had a friend offer me $100 if I punched him in the nose. I declined the offer and explained why, and I also (a) put in a good word for him when he was being considered for the post and (b) continue to defend him and his work even though I don't always agree with everything he writes - and even see the critics' point.
Here's why:
One, he had done no straight news reporting prior to our hiring him. His work in that category has been solid - you can't poke holes in his stories, and while his choice of subject matter often reflects his own concerns, he doesn't slant his stories either.
Two, he has raised issues that IMO needed raising - again. The iCandy "smoking gun" tape in the wake of the dress code flap recalls the environment in 1985, when a coalition of organizations launched a study of discrimination in the admissions policies and treatment of patrons in Philly's gay bars. I was a member of the team that conducted the research, and I wrote the report on the team's behalf. We didn't find any examples of blatant discrimination, but we did find inconsistent practices and policies at some bars that left wiggle room for discrimination to operate. That dress code fell into the same category. I haven't been back to iCandy since the tape surfaced because I sensed Darryl DePiano's apologies were more an attempt to regain lost business than a move towards treating everyone equitably.
Tabu remains my first go-to bar in the Gayborhood because of its "everyone's welcome, no attitude" policy. and I note that its clientele is more diverse than at many local gay bars as a result. Boxers runs a close second, but I also find UBar and Tavern on Camac just fine as well.
I have heard the "why doesn't he report on the good things happening in the community?" complaint from people I know and respect. It's a valid question. I think the answer is connected to his sense of feeling an outsider in a community that doesn't quite accept him as he is.
I know Josh Middleton too, and have since he was a CityPaper ad sales rep trying to persuade me to advertise PGMC concerts in the paper when I was the chorus' vice president for marketing about seven years ago. He's a great guy, and I'm glad he has landed at Time Out Philadelphia. However, his predecessor - Natalie Hope McDonald, the first non-white-male editor of G Philly - also made a point of giving voice to the marginalized within Philly's LGBTQ community. In that sense, Ernest is also working within an established tradition at our LGBTQ channel.
You ignored the contrasting posts about Guy Bluford, who should be (and is imo) a true American hero by anyone's standards, in order to write an "essay" about a foolish rapper.
No, I didn't.
The first sentence of the comment to which you replied - "You're right, they should." - was referencing 2002 Subaru's bringing him up as someone who deserves more attention.
I think at least some of these people might be those that don't have work, and so that is part of the problem unfortunately
sorry I know quite a few lawyers that went and a number of temple university professors along with Dr. J
First let me say I'm getting the story from one the Temple U law professors.
Now my understanding (and no I did not go, I live in Fairmont so heard a lot of the overflow) was the perceived inequality of the sentence. The charge was not assault but some type of disorderly conduct from a fight and for popping wheelies on a dirt bike.
Unfortunately the rearrest violated his parole on previous gun charges.
My questions is always the same. whether Meek mill or OJ. ok you get into trouble, get out of jail or whatever, why is it impossible for you to go home and lead a quiet life???? If I was on probation I wouldn't so much as be late returning a library book.
My questions is always the same. whether Meek mill or OJ. ok you get into trouble, get out of jail or whatever, why is it impossible for you to go home and lead a quiet life???? If I was on probation I wouldn't so much as be late returning a library book.
Because of the people around them that don't have sound judgement or their best interest in mind, poor decision making their entire lives, coddling their entire lives, basically all the flaws that lead to mistakes that are gratified by all this attention we give these people.
Because of the people around them that don't have sound judgement or their best interest in mind, poor decision making their entire lives, coddling their entire lives, basically all the flaws that lead to mistakes that are gratified by all this attention we give these people.
Yup, and now we have clowns in the media trying to make excuses or arguments that what they do is ok. It's a reminder of why teachers get paid so little and these worthless "artists" are millionaires.
I'm glad you did. As i tell friends all the time, one of the joys of being well-known in the Gayborhood (which I am) is that I get to go into places and attend events and get an earful about Ernest Owens.
I even had a friend offer me $100 if I punched him in the nose. I declined the offer and explained why, and I also (a) put in a good word for him when he was being considered for the post and (b) continue to defend him and his work even though I don't always agree with everything he writes - and even see the critics' point.
Here's why:
One, he had done no straight news reporting prior to our hiring him. His work in that category has been solid - you can't poke holes in his stories, and while his choice of subject matter often reflects his own concerns, he doesn't slant his stories either.
Two, he has raised issues that IMO needed raising - again. The iCandy "smoking gun" tape in the wake of the dress code flap recalls the environment in 1985, when a coalition of organizations launched a study of discrimination in the admissions policies and treatment of patrons in Philly's gay bars. I was a member of the team that conducted the research, and I wrote the report on the team's behalf. We didn't find any examples of blatant discrimination, but we did find inconsistent practices and policies at some bars that left wiggle room for discrimination to operate. That dress code fell into the same category. I haven't been back to iCandy since the tape surfaced because I sensed Darryl DePiano's apologies were more an attempt to regain lost business than a move towards treating everyone equitably.
Tabu remains my first go-to bar in the Gayborhood because of its "everyone's welcome, no attitude" policy. and I note that its clientele is more diverse than at many local gay bars as a result. Boxers runs a close second, but I also find UBar and Tavern on Camac just fine as well.
I have heard the "why doesn't he report on the good things happening in the community?" complaint from people I know and respect. It's a valid question. I think the answer is connected to his sense of feeling an outsider in a community that doesn't quite accept him as he is.
I know Josh Middleton too, and have since he was a CityPaper ad sales rep trying to persuade me to advertise PGMC concerts in the paper when I was the chorus' vice president for marketing about seven years ago. He's a great guy, and I'm glad he has landed at Time Out Philadelphia. However, his predecessor - Natalie Hope McDonald, the first non-white-male editor of G Philly - also made a point of giving voice to the marginalized within Philly's LGBTQ community. In that sense, Ernest is also working within an established tradition at our LGBTQ channel.
I am responding to the bolded section. First, his stories are not slanted like you said, but I just looked thru the GPhilly archives and I did not find 1 positive article in his entire tenure with GPhilly. Every article is about ICandy and boycotting ICandy and every business that has a dress code. Or boycotting Philly Pride, or comparing Philly to Charlottesville (totally asinine), or my favorite, him blaming white people for feeling left out in the Philadelphia Millennial scene.
First to again address the ICandy issue, the owner was clearly wrong in the situation, however the extreme measures Ernest takes to get his agenda out puts him on the same level as the owner of ICandy IMO. He supported the protestors who were throwing garbage at patrons who entered and exited ICandy on its anniversary party, and he called black patrons of ICandy traders. Like what kind of example is that to set for the gay community of a large city like Philadelphia?
Next, the dress code issue... there is no proof that the instated dress codes have racial undertones, and I have always been a supporter of dressing appropriately in public (as you know from other threads) so if I see someone getting turned away based on their attire, whether the person is white, black, fat, thin, man, women, etc. I do not take offense to that. Some venues have dress codes, some do not, get over it and stop trying to make an issue out of literally everything. Several clubs and bars in Manhattan have dress codes and there are minimal issues raised (they also ban bachelorette parties, but thats another topic).
And I always wonder why he doesnt post positives about the Philadelphia gay community? The opening of a new lesbian bar, or Bar X on Camac, or the annual drag beauty ball fundraiser, the community (gay and straight) rallying together when Westboro tried to protest the Planned Parenthood on Locust, and there are dozens of other examples. His role should be more of a liason and reporter for the community rather whatever he is now.
My summary: Ernest is in a very powerful position, whether he thinks it or not. He is an important voice in the Philadelphia gay community and frankly he has created a very negative reputation for himself. He is clearly bitter and confused and wants to blame everyone for every issue he has in life INSTEAD OF addressing the issue and working with the community around him to unite and embrace eachother. All he does is spread his negative and bitter agenda. Of course he can report on issues within the community, but when 100% of his pieces are about racism and why white people are bad and why we should boycott everything, it is hard to take him seriously and even consider working with him to focus on how to improve the community. It is also disappointing that he does not respond to the dozens if not hundreds of people who have reached out expressing their concerns, shows a high level of detachment from his work.
the FBI has allegedly opened a probe into Judge Brinkley to determine if she acted “inappropriately” toward Mill in the courtroom. The focus of the probe is reportedly Brinkley’s relationship to Philly music mogul Charlie Mack, who worked with Mill in the past. Since the rapper’s sentencing, his attorney Joseph Tacopina has maintained that Brinkley’s behavior repeatedly crossed the line. According to him, the judge allegedly suggested the rapper leave Roc Nation and sign with Mack, visited Mill at his community service, and asked the rapper to “give her a shoutout” on a hypothetical cover of Boys II Men’s “On Bended Knee.”
I am responding to the bolded section. First, his stories are not slanted like you said, but I just looked thru the GPhilly archives and I did not find 1 positive article in his entire tenure with GPhilly. Every article is about ICandy and boycotting ICandy and every business that has a dress code. Or boycotting Philly Pride, or comparing Philly to Charlottesville (totally asinine), or my favorite, him blaming white people for feeling left out in the Philadelphia Millennial scene.
First to again address the ICandy issue, the owner was clearly wrong in the situation, however the extreme measures Ernest takes to get his agenda out puts him on the same level as the owner of ICandy IMO. He supported the protestors who were throwing garbage at patrons who entered and exited ICandy on its anniversary party, and he called black patrons of ICandy traders. Like what kind of example is that to set for the gay community of a large city like Philadelphia?
Next, the dress code issue... there is no proof that the instated dress codes have racial undertones, and I have always been a supporter of dressing appropriately in public (as you know from other threads) so if I see someone getting turned away based on their attire, whether the person is white, black, fat, thin, man, women, etc. I do not take offense to that. Some venues have dress codes, some do not, get over it and stop trying to make an issue out of literally everything. Several clubs and bars in Manhattan have dress codes and there are minimal issues raised (they also ban bachelorette parties, but thats another topic).
And I always wonder why he doesnt post positives about the Philadelphia gay community? The opening of a new lesbian bar, or Bar X on Camac, or the annual drag beauty ball fundraiser, the community (gay and straight) rallying together when Westboro tried to protest the Planned Parenthood on Locust, and there are dozens of other examples. His role should be more of a liason and reporter for the community rather whatever he is now.
My summary: Ernest is in a very powerful position, whether he thinks it or not. He is an important voice in the Philadelphia gay community and frankly he has created a very negative reputation for himself. He is clearly bitter and confused and wants to blame everyone for every issue he has in life INSTEAD OF addressing the issue and working with the community around him to unite and embrace eachother. All he does is spread his negative and bitter agenda. Of course he can report on issues within the community, but when 100% of his pieces are about racism and why white people are bad and why we should boycott everything, it is hard to take him seriously and even consider working with him to focus on how to improve the community. It is also disappointing that he does not respond to the dozens if not hundreds of people who have reached out expressing their concerns, shows a high level of detachment from his work.
While I cannot offer one ounce of educated response like the above regarding Ernest, I can say that reading his articles gave me this impression despite my lack of knowledge on the situation. And it boils down to the same thing with the Meek Mill case. Agendas are overriding productive, positive change in our communities. You cannot fight every battle, especially when a battle is unwarranted. It reduces the validity of real issues.
We need those in journalism to be more responsible with what they write and we need to start denouncing idiots that support convicted felons for felonious behavior...black or white.
Reading it should give you some idea of why he perceives himself as an outsider. It also clarified my own thinking about my upbringing and background that I think explains why we differ where we do - but also explains why someone like me will cut someone like Ernest some slack where you all wouldn't.
To get into the difference reading this brought to the fore for me, I'll share with you an anecdote from the weeks towards the end of my stint as a security guard at the Hathaway House, the Germantown apartment building where I worked to keep the wolf from the door while searching for something to fill the hole being cut back by Noah Ostroff left in my budget (that something, as it turned out, being what I'm doing now).
One of the tenants I saw fairly regularly was a rather tall, elegant, light-skinned older African-American woman. I learned over the course of my stint there that she was a retired public school teacher, and the weekly newspaper she got delivered there clued me in to her being from Southside Virginia.
One day, a few days before she was set to move back there, she came up to me at the guard desk and said, "You've spent a lot of time around white people, haven't you?"
I responded, "Yes. Why do you ask?"
"Because you move about them with a certain confidence," she replied.
Most African-Americans, whether we desire this or not, grow up - and spend most of their private lives - in a parallel society that most whites simply don't know exists. That parallel society resembles the world of Jim Crow in a way inasmuch as it's almost entirely black. When blacks raised in this society enter the largely white one, even those who move through it without any obvious unease - or even with lots of ease - get reminded that they are somehow interlopers whose right to belong here is subject to interrogation, as Owens' was at Penn.
I grew up living in an all-black environment but going to school in an all-white one starting at age four. My mom was determined for me to get the best education possible, so she had me transferred out of district to an all-white grade school next door to the University of Missouri at Kansas City. (In retrospect, I consider it karmic that the school was named for the founder of The Kansas City Star, William Rockhill Nelson.)
My right to be there was subject to - not so much interrogation as ridicule - early on. I remember a classmate singing a rhyming song to me whose last line included the words "shot a n****r," and I got some similar teasing from some other kids in my class. In third grade, all that changed when a bunch of students from the school I would have attended got bused into Nelson because the school was overcrowded. In one stroke, I went from being Them to being Us by virtue of already being enrolled there. (My performance in class - always got high marks for academics and low ones for self-control - probably didn't hurt either.)
The main point, however, was: I had been swimming in whiteness since a very early age and thus got used to dealing with white people and their hangups during my formative years. That cost me a bit among my fellow black students once I got into Harvard, where some of them perceived me as being too white. (It's a charge I still get now, though more often made humorously by my black friends.)
Something I've come to learn in the years since then is that there are a lot of black folks who trust white people as far as they can throw them. They just won't let the white folks know that. And I suspect it's this constant Othering they experience that contributes to the distrust. I'd shed my Otherness long ago so don't have that problem, but it's not solely one of our own making.
I hope some of this makes sense; I hope to turn my observations into the book everyone tells me I've got inside me. I hope some of this also helps you understand why some blacks insist on throwing race shade in white folks' faces while others do not.
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