Award-winning columnist, writer, speaker and editor
Not too many people spend time worrying about Paris Jackson. After all, she’s young, pretty, has lots of money and time to dabble in an acting career, and develop a presence, as they say, on social media, with every tweet dissected for deeper meaning.
But besides having all the growing pains and insecurities of a 15-year-old, she’s also Michael Jackson’s daughter, which comes with its own set of unique problems. She’s in the headlines this week for what’s being called a cry for help.
CHARLOTTE, N.C. – Museums across the country are collaborating in a program called Blue Star Museums. WCCB Rising’s “Keeping it Positive” contributor Mary Curtis tells us about the project that offers free admission to all active duty military personnel, including active Reserve and National Guard and their families through Labor Day. It covers all military ID holders and up to five family members.
A Cheerios ad featuring an interracial family — a black husband, a white wife and a biracial child — inspired so many racist comments on YouTube, General Mills disabled the comments.
Cheerios stands by its ad, releasing a statement saying, “At Cheerios, we know there are many kinds of families, and we celebrate them all.”
Journalist Mary C. Curtis writes in The Washington Post, “Who would have thought that breakfast cereal would trigger the latest racial battle line?”
Ultimately though, Curtis, who is part of an interracial family herself, does not find the backlash surprising — or take it personally.
“Feelings don’t always follow the law or the reality of the lives people now live,” she writes. “The holdouts have to realize that the numbers are hardly going to start moving in the other direction in our increasingly diverse society.”
It’s all about choice. When artists create, they decide what to present, what to leave out and what to make up. A work of art need not follow any script, except the one in its creator’s head.
But when part of the appeal of that creation is realism, a promise that the fiction accurately depicts what is or what was, the game changes and the artist should be prepared for the criticism that is sure to follow if his or her version of truth seems inaccurate.
