Precious Clarification & an Awesome Check-up!

My friend Catherine reminded me that not everyone loves the movie Precious as much as I did. She reminded me that it has been widely criticized for portraying light-skinned black people in a more favorable way than dark-skinned black people. It has also been criticized for portraying abuse and poverty as stereotypically "black" issues. While I understand the criticism and am glad that my friend brought it up, I stick with my initial review -- the movie is great and should not be missed! The fact that we are thinking about the issues, no matter which side you come down on is a good thing to me. For me, personally, the sex crimes committed in this movie did not speak about "black" issues. I wrote about two specific young girls the movie made me think about, one was a black girl from my sixth grade class, and one was a white girl from rural Georgia. We cannot ignore the fact that the victims of these crimes are most often women. That being said, we cannot ignore the fact that women of color are more likely (black and Latina women are at least twice as likely as white women) to experience poverty, and I believe the movie wanted to show that there are more crimes being committed against women than sex crimes, and that poverty is also a form of abuse. It was difficult for adults to first, understand, and then, to help Precious because of the extreme poverty in which they all lived. While many of the characters who helped Precious along her journey were lighter-skinned black people, Precious is definitely the heroine of her own story. She could not have been the heroine had it not been for those who helped her, and the movie shows the extraordinary power of people to love one another and to love the self. I believe that some people go through their entire lives and have no idea that crimes like these are being committed everyday. I believe there are others who live lives similar to Precious, and never know that life can be different. Both of these scenarios are horribly tragic; if Precious opens the hearts of just one person, then telling you all to see it will be worth it in my opinion. Anyway, I felt that I needed to clarify my review of the movie -- thank you Catherine, for your insight.

On a totally separate note, I went to the endocrinologist today and had my second excellent report! Eating raw continues to pay off! My doctor continues to be baffled by the fact that I have no dairy in my diet and my calcium levels are remaining within normal range -- he says I am peculiar.