Three Romantically Handsome American Actors

Three Romantically handsome American actors who give me chills not solely because of their good looks but also because of their immense talents are Denzel Washington, George Clooney, and Johnny Depp.

Denzel who is the eldest at 53 is a two time Academy Award winner.

George, who is 46, has received an Oscar once. Johnny (44) has been nomimated three times.

In tonight's 2008 Oscars, both Clooney and Depp are nominees, with Clooney for his role in Michael Clayton and Depp as Sweeney Todd.

Like me Clooney and Depp are southerners. Both were born in Kentucky. Also like me, Depp is of partial Native American ancestry. As for age, I am right in the middle between Clooney and Depp.

I see all three gentlemen as Renaissance men who are different and unique in their own way and with qualities that I admire. Clooney is not only an actor, producer, director, and screenwriter, he is also an activist. Depp has chosen to go his own way not only in the roles he chooses to play, but he has decided to not live the typical lifestyle of existing in vapid Hollywood, but resides in France immensed in old world charm with his lover French actress and singer Vanessa Paradis. Washington is also a director now, and unlike his counterparts he is married and has never been divorced, an extreme rarity in Hollywood. His church going grounds him, for he is a devout Christian. His father, Denzel Washington, Sr. was a Pentecostal minister He was born in New York, but his mother came from Georgia, my state.

Looks are not everything, but if I could pick a man with all the accoutrements that I like, I would pick one of these three. It is not about money for me either. It is about hard work, dedication, charisma, and sophistication, and all three have these qualities.

With the state of the African-American male being so pathetic with high incarceration rates, illiteracy, and irresponsibility, Denzel Washington is a rarity in so many ways just like Barack Obama. My mother has said several times that if I had been able to meet Denzel before he married and we had been attracted to each other, he would have been the perfect man for me.

Shirley Chisholm: The Forgotten Presidential Candidate

We Americans are not very good about recalling events and people from very far in the past. Many young Americans tend to see anything prior to the 1980s as nearly prehistoric, so when the name Shirley Chisholm is mentioned a blank is probably drawn. I remember her well because she was the first serious African American candidate to run for president. This was before Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton who both lacked even the appeal she had over 35 years ago. In 2005 the year when she died the documentary Chisholm 72: Unbought and Unbossed premiered on PBS.

Like Barack Obama, Shirley Chisholm came from an exotic background. Her mother was from Barbados and her father was from Guyana.

Though many Americans may have forgotten her, a little over two years ago one of my Turkish students named Musa proved he had not. A man in his 50s, he told me that he was a great admirer of Shirley Chisholm. I was very moved to hear this.

Ali A. Mazrui: Intellectual and Romantic

I am a great admirer of Dr. Ali A. Mazrui, and have been so since I first became familiar with him when I was a university student in the 1980s. Dr. Mazrui came onto the American scene through the PBS series The Africans: A Triple Heritage produced by the BBC and shown on the Public Broadcasting System here in the states. Alex Haley’s Roots got Americans both black and white thinking about our collective heritage here in the US. Ali A. Mazrui’s The Africans showed the world, especially we Americans who have little or no knowledge of the outside world and who have long held a profound fear of “Darkest Africa” that Africa has many little known and positive aspects. In my encounters with Africans over the years, I have marveled at the differences between their drive and ambition and the often lack of drive and ambition which too many African Americans display, especially in the younger generation whose credo has become “under achievement, mediocrity, indifference, and having a good time.” When I was Peace Corps I met Africans who were pained by what they saw as too many African Americans focusing far too much on racism and not on using the opportunities which at lay at hand in the most prosperous nation in the world. They wished with all their hearts that their countries offered opportunities like America

Getting back to Ali A. Mazrui. He was born in Mombasa, Kenya and is Swahili and Sunni Muslim. Dr. Mazrui received his doctorate from Oxford University. He has taught in Africa, Europe, and the US and is one of the world’s top intellectuals. His series The Africans: A Triple Heritage also has a companion book. Dr. Mazrui is a liberal Muslim who has written a number of books and hundreds of articles about Africa and how capitalism as it is now practiced exploits and cripples Africa. He is a critic of the treatment of the Palestinians by the Israelis and compares what is happening in Israel to the apartheid system which once reigned over black South Africans. Also he is a critic of fundamentalist Islam, but praises aspects of it which is anti-imperialistic. In his opinion, Islamic sharia law is not compatible with a modern democratically structured society. I do not agree with all of Dr. Mazrui’s views, but we do have much common ground which is shared. Here is a very thought provoking article by him written over 10 years ago called Islamic and Western Values.

In recent years Dr. Mazrui has been targeted by a neoconservative student group here in the US and has been labelled as a left wing extremist and an anti-Semite because of some of his comments. Also he has been targeted by the Department of Homeland Security and the US State Department, not for any links to terrorism, but for allegations of corruption.

I think Dr. Mazrui might be the victim of the paranoid and fearful climate that developed after September 11th. The climate has abated to a degree and the intense fear mongering that was driving everything has been toned down especially since so many supporters of President Bush and his star chamber has lost most of its’ public support.

I also have long thought that Ali A. Mazrui looks very much like my late uncle Robert, which everyone called “Rag.”

Dr. Ali A. Mazrui, a world class and classy, exotic intellectual, scholar, an African and a Romantic.

Cutely Romantic: Barack Obama

He may not get the Democratic nomination for president and become the next president because despite all of our greatness and advancement America still has not matured in certain areas, but I have the optimism that if the world stand we might get there. Nevertheless, Barack Obama is the first serious, mainstream, and classy African American candidate we have had in a long, long time. In a post tomorrow I will mention the other long forgotten serious black candidate.

Because presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton is using her husband as her own personal attack dog and the mud is really flying now from the direction of the Clinton camp, Barack Obama has told his African American supporters to not get angry and bitter and view the Clintons as racists because this is politics, not something that should be perceived as personal. I agree with him, because Barack Obama knows our people must stop being stifled and stopped by words or even something as hideous and sick as an empty noose. We must start back progressing the way we did in the days of Dr. King. There can be no retreat for us; we must keep our eyes on the prize.

What Barack Obama is doing is symbolic and will open the doors for more progressive blacks in the future if we hold on. I am very proud of him. He is a symbol of hope at a time which often seems bleak, trivial, hopeless, and unRomantic. The other week a news clip showed him speaking in that deep mellow voice of his, and when someone in the audience fell behind him he forgot about himself and what he was saying, but turned around and asked, “Is everybody OK?” What a sweetie and a Romantic and cute to boot and so is his wife Michelle and his kids.
My mother thinks that Hillary has a secret crush on Barack Obama, and all this picking and mudslinging has a Romantic element. We both think Hillary has never fully forgiven Bill for his Don Juan escapades but ambition makes her hold on to him. Now that Bill is not cute anymore, she really has a crush on Obama. Mom jokes that Hillary says she is only using Bill to get what she wants, and once she gets in the White House, Bill can move to Harlem if he wants. I very seriously doubt that she will get in the White House again. Bill knows this, but is playing the game with her being the devoted husband. Once she is defeated and destroyed by the Republicans, Bill knows she will need him and Chelsea more than ever. He might even have to put Hillary in mental health treatment for awhile, but he cares for her and will always be there for her even though she rides a VERY high horse.

A Romantic Revolutionary

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was born on this date in 1929 in Atlanta, Georgia. Next Monday, on the 21st, will be the official national holiday in celebration of his birthday.

Dr. King was a Romantic revolutionary because his vision to bring about change nonviolently was very unique to history. Few leaders in the history of the world have tried to initiate change without violence, but Dr. King was unique in this aspect. His ideas to elevate the existence of African-Americans and to usher in change was inspired by his admiration of Mahatma Gandhi's nonviolent struggle to free India from British rule and by, of course, the teachings of Jesus Christ.

I was 6 years old when Dr. King was assassinated, and I remember exactly where I was in our house the night we heard the news on the radio. When Dr. King was cut down, he was only 39. Along with playing his jazz albums, my father played over and over Dr. King's I Have A Dream speech when I was a girl. The words of this powerful speech became engrained in my memory. There was a period when I could almost recite the entire speech by heart.

My maternal grandfather's stepfather was related to the King family. When she was a girl my cousin Maxine, the daughter of one of my grandfather's half sisters, was invited and stayed for several weeks with Dr. King's widow Coretta and their children. My first year as an undergraduate, I attended Spelman College in Atlanta, which is the sister college to Morehouse College, which Dr. King attended. At the time, his younger son Dexter was a student at Morehouse, and he would come over to our school to attend classes. I passed him a few times on the sidewalk. As for getting very close to Martin Luther King, Jr. himself, my family and I have visited his grave and The King Center which is in Atlanta.

Dr. King's vision probably looks very naive and unsophisticated to many today who seem to understand only trying to bring about change violently, but I feel that if the human race is to survive, we had better get over our bloodthirsty tendencies and remember and emulate the ways of Dr. King.

A moving tribute to Dr. King can be seen on YouTube here. The song in the video is called Black Butterfly and is sung by Deniece Williams.

Martin Luther King, Jr. understood the price he might have to pay, just the way I believe Benazir Bhutto who was assassinated a few weeks ago understood too.