While promoting her new film, "The Perfect Holiday", actress Gabrielle Union followed up on the comment she made about black-run blogs in a recent interview with "Vibe" magazine.
It's like if you wrote for a major newspaper or a major magazine. If you can't substantiate your claims, you don't write them. We don't have enough black voices, [and] we certainly don't have enough people in entertainment who are trying to do good things for our community, so anytime you try to attack someone's character, you negate their voice for all the things that they're trying to do.
I come out and speak about African American sexual assault survivors and what we can do to provide support and help to those survivors. I talk about African Americans and breast cancer. But people aren't going to listen to those things if you are spreading lies and rumors, you know what I mean? It kinda negates all the good things that you do. It makes me want to just work harder and do more good, but it's frustrating and it makes a lot of people in my industry say, "Screw it! If I can't even get my own people to listen and not talk ill of me, what hope do I have for mainstream media?"
If you look at what Perez [Hilton] does - and I don't advocate for Perez, you know, he can write hurtful things about a lot of people - but what he does as a man of color, as a Latino, is he never dogs Latinos, ever. He actually breaks artists on his website. They can go from "Who the hell is that?" to Number One on iTunes in a day, just from what he says. So he's trying to uplift his own people. I mean, he dogs everybody else, but as a man of color, I applaud you. I can't dog you for not dogging your own people. He never says anything negative about Latinos, ever, and I just wish that we had more of that kind of "raise up" mentality and pulled each other up instead of dragging each other down. Especially like... If I got arrested, say whatever you want to say. If I had kids and left them in the car while I partied, or I got out of cabs showing all my private parts, you have every right to dog me. If I came out and dogged my own people, kill me in your blogs. But don't make things up! I do enough, and if you really got spies everywhere you'd know what I was doing, you wouldn't have to make things up. And if you don't know your facts, then just don't print them.
On Urban-Hoopla, I try to maintain a positive vibe when reporting on celebrities but this long quote by Gabrielle Union is just one of those things that make me go hmm. Gabrielle has a point about the negativity that some bloggers post up but at the same token Gabrielle places the positive black-run blogs in the same box as the ones she claims doesn't look out for her, isn't she?
Photo: wireimage
[urban-hoopla]
At 11:26 PM, 
At 12:38 PM,
Balance is a key. I think it would actually be refreshing if the ratio wasn't so 80% neg/20% pos.
It gets exhausting to see so much energy go into slandering someone and how silent boards get when the topic is meant to be uplifting/positive/inspiring. It is like no one cares to comment on positivity sometimes. People just grunt after they read about it. Don't even forward it to their Aunt Sue who has nothing better to do than read a positive email every blue moon...SIGH.
At 6:39 AM,
I am finding myself just about in the middle when it comes to the Black Community and how they are not mindful to use proper ettiquette towards others opinions, views and ideas. It just so I was just making a comment about all people who want to say something has that individual right. I also would like to comment that I work with all ages of generations. That's because I love to meet people and ask for personal views, opinions and the real life causes among any culture of their experience. But what I don't undestand and I don't think other care wether I do or I don't. Place the comment for that one, but leave personal opinion to the right person who is affecting you. Many will easily blaim and point fingers. Wrong way to team work. If anyone wants their own community to build, nuture and prosper, everyone must pitch in. Just like all tax payers have to pitch in. And my goodness the attention that some people do to the expose to the entire world. May I not go there, but all I would like to say to the world if your reading this blog, is don't be so serious and emotional. Remember constructive critiism only happends for a reason. Make no mistake. That can become our very first and most valuable lesson. It is normal every body to not be a perfect person, but it is acceptable when others see you as a unique individual that sees things differently. That is normal. Let keep our attacts within gracefully being positive rather than taking the aim for something we feel we haven't solved rather than taking it out on other people, and my God especially our own kind.
At 1:11 PM,
Sometimes it's fun to make a "dig" about a celeb once in awhile. Peeps shouldn't get so overly sensitive. To think every time someone says something about a Black celeb it should be POSITIVE...come on let's be real here. I say, if it's a funny and not meant to destroy them, go for it!