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FILM REVIEW: Black Mother
NNPA NEWSWIRE — The reward for finding the discipline to sit through Allah’s kaleidoscope of HD video, mini DV, 16mm, Hi8 Tape and Super 8 footage are glimpses of Jamaica that convey harsh realism, history, social dynamics, religion, African heritage, prostitution, birth, families, dying and death.
By Dwight Brown NNPA News Wire Film Critic
Think of this non-fiction film as a meditation and it makes perfect sense. Try and squeeze it into a standard documentary frame and it just doesn’t conform.
At the helm is Khalik Allah, whose most commercial endeavor was his work as a cinematographer and second unit director for Beyonce’s famed Lemonade video (2016). His first documentary, Field Niggas (2015), chronicled the lives of folks on 125th Street and Lexington Avenue in Harlem, NY. It was a string of snippets that were more like kinetic photographs. Which makes sense because Allah was a photographer before he turned his lens to motion pictures.
The location for Black Mother is Allah’s ancestral homeland of Jamaica. The format is a string of images and scenes that tourists don’t see on perfectly curated sightseeing trips. The first two parts of this trinary, 77-minute collage require great patience. The focus is on sex workers, their potential johns, street vendors and impoverished people—some with grotesque deformities (a neck cyst the size of a basketball; a bare arm missing a hand; a hole in the middle of a face with the depth of a crater). The visuals are often sobering, if not shocking. Mixed in are clips of nude women, some are pregnant, and other scenes.
The audio track with narration doesn’t always match up with the images on view. If audiences get lost in the deluge of disjointed impressions and sporadic thoughts and lose interest, you can’t blame them. This isn’t linear storytelling, or a traditionally arranged trail of facts. Casual viewers will scratch their heads. Serious ones will stick with it long enough to see the correlation between what’s on screen and the trimesters of a pregnancy.
The reward for finding the discipline to sit through Allah’s kaleidoscope of HD video, mini DV, 16mm, Hi8 Tape and Super 8 footage are glimpses of Jamaica that convey harsh realism, history, social dynamics, religion, African heritage, prostitution, birth, families, dying and death. Landscapes of verdant mountains. Bustling street scenes. The insides of sacred churches during funerals. A man galloping on a horse through a neighborhood. This is Allah’s Jamaica, not the one in the fancy Come to Jamaica commercials. This is his sermon. His camera ministry.
Allah has a perfect eye for composition, color and natural lighting. Many filmmakers are journeymen, able to work their craft. A few are artists, who, if they had a different calling, would be painters, sculptors or poets. This New York-born director fits into the latter category. As the son of a Jamaican mother and Iranian father, he exhibits skills and viewpoints many directors could never fathom. It will be curious to see if he can ever harness his unconventional filmic style and make a cohesive fiction-based feature film, without negating his aesthetics. Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos made a very successful transition from his esoteric art to creating The Favourite. It’s possible.
The last section of the Black Mother segues from the poorest neighborhoods in Jamaica to a middle- and working-class family, the kind of people who are the heart and soul of the island/nation. There is an absolutely beautiful and arty sequence where Allah’s camera captures ocean waves from high above, that ebb and flow with white water caps appearing and disappearing. If the film finds an anchor to its puzzling array it is here.
An older man named William Case is at the end of his life’s journey. He’s obviously a very enlightened and religious man who leaves behind a philosophy that is immensely profound. Case says: “If you live a wretched life, boisterous and sinful, you will die in that state. If you live a righteous life, you’ll die in a peaceful state.” It’s a wisdom that is so right for these times. It’s a warning, too.
A very thoughtful avant-garde filmmaker pulls us into his orbit.
Visit NNPA Newswire Film Critic Dwight Brown at DwightBrownInk.com and BlackPressUSA.com.
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Trump Set to Sign Largest Cut to Medicaid After a Marathon Protest Speech by Leader Jeffries
BLACKPRESSUSA NEWSWIRE — The bill also represents the biggest cut in Medicare in history and is a threat to the health care coverage of over 15 million people. The spending in Trump’s signature legislation also opens the door to a second era of over-incarceration in the U.S.

By Lauren Burke
By a vote of 218 to 214, the GOP-controlled U.S. House passed President Trump’s massive budget and spending bill that will add $3.5 trillion to the national debt, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). The bill also represents the biggest cut in Medicare in history and is a threat to the health care coverage of over 15 million people. The spending in Trump’s signature legislation also opens the door to a second era of over-incarceration in the U.S. With $175 billion allocated in spending for immigration enforcement, the money for more police officers eclipsed the 2026 budget for the U.S. Marines, which is $57 billion. Almost all of the policy focus from the Trump Administration has focused on deporting immigrants of color from Mexico and Haiti.
The vote occurred as members were pressed to complete their work before the arbitrary deadline of the July 4 holiday set by President Trump. It also occurred after Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries took the House floor for over 8 hours in protest. Leader Jeffries broke the record in the U.S. House for the longest floor speech in history on the House floor. The Senate passed the bill days before and was tied at 50-50, with Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski saying that, “my hope is that the House is gonna look at this and recognize that we’re not there yet.” There were no changes made to the Senate bill by the House. A series of overnight phone calls to Republicans voting against, not changes, was what won over enough Republicans to pass the legislation, even though it adds trillions to the debt. The Trump spending bill also cuts money to Pell grants.
“The Big Ugly Bill steals food out of the hands of starving children, steals medicine from the cabinets of cancer patients, and equips ICE with more funding and more weapons of war than the United States Marine Corps. Is there any question of who those agents will be going to war for, or who they will be going to war against? Beyond these sadistic provisions, Republicans just voted nearly unanimously to close urban and rural hospitals, cripple the child tax credit, and to top it all off, add $3.3 trillion to the ticking time bomb that is the federal deficit – all from a party that embarrassingly pretends to stand for fiscal responsibility and lowering costs,” wrote Congressional Black Caucus Chairwoman Yvette Clarke (D-NY) in a statement on July 3.
“The Congressional Budget Office predicts that 17 million people will lose their health insurance, including over 322,000 Virginians. It will make college less affordable. Three million people will lose access to food assistance through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). And up to 16 million students could lose access to free school meals. The Republican bill does all of this to fund tax breaks for millionaires, billionaires, and corporations,” wrote Education and Workforce Committee ranking member Rep. Bobby Scott (D-VA) in a statement. The bill’s passage has prompted Democrats to start thinking about 2026 and the next election cycle. With the margins of victory in the U.S. House and U.S. Senate being so narrow, many are convinced that the balance of power and the question of millions being able to enjoy health care come down to only several thousand votes in congressional elections. But currently, Republicans controlled by the MAGA movement control all three branches of government. That reality was never made more stark and more clear than the last seven days of activity in the U.S. House and U.S. Senate.

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Congressional Black Caucus Challenges Target on Diversity
BLACKPRESSUSA NEWSWIRE — we found that the explanations offered by the leadership of the Target Corporation fell woefully short of what our communities deserve and of the values of inclusion that Target once touted

By Stacy M. Brown
Black Press USA Senior National Correspondent
Target is grappling with worsening financial and reputational fallout as the national selective buying and public education program launched by the Black Press of America and other national and local leaders continues to erode the retailer’s sales and foot traffic. But a recent meeting that the retailer intended to keep quiet between CEO Brian Cornell and members of the Congressional Black Caucus Diversity Task Force was publicly reported after the Black Press discovered the session, and the CBC later put Target on blast.
“The Congressional Black Caucus met with the leadership of the Target Corporation on Capitol Hill to directly address deep concerns about the impact of the company’s unconscionable decision to end a number of its diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts,” CBC Chair Yvette Clarke stated. “Like many of the coalition leaders and partner organizations that have chosen to boycott their stores across the country, we found that the explanations offered by the leadership of the Target Corporation fell woefully short of what our communities deserve and of the values of inclusion that Target once touted,” Congresswoman emphasized. “Black consumers contribute overwhelmingly to our economy and the Target Corporation’s bottom line. Our communities deserve to shop at businesses that publicly share our values without sacrificing our dignity. It is no longer acceptable to deliver promises to our communities in private without also demonstrating those values publicly.”
Lauren Burke, Capitol Hill correspondent for Black Press of America, was present when Target CEO Cornell and a contingent of Target officials arrived at the U.S. Capitol last month. “It’s always helpful to have meetings like this and get some candid feedback and continue to evolve our thinking,” Cornell told Burke as he exited the meeting. And walked down a long hallway in the Cannon House Office Building. “We look forward to follow-up conversations,” he stated. When asked if the issue of the ongoing boycott was discussed, Cornell’s response was, “That was not a big area of focus — we’re focused on running a great business each and every day. Take care of our teams. Take care of the guests who shop with us and do the right things in our communities.”
A national public education campaign on Target, spearheaded by Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis Jr., president and CEO of the National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA), the NNPA’s board of directors, and with other national African American leaders, has combined consumer education efforts with a call for selective buying. The NNPA is a trade association that represents the more than 220 African American-owned newspapers and media companies known as the Black Press of America, the voice of 50 million African Americans across the nation. The coalition has requested that Target restore and expand its stated commitment to do business with local community-owned businesses inclusive of the Black Press of America, and to significantly increase investment in Black-owned businesses and media, Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU, Black-owned Banks, national Black Church denominations, and grassroots and local organizations committed to improving the quality of life of all Americans, and especially those from underserved communities. According to Target’s latest earnings report, net sales for the first quarter of 2025 fell 2.8 percent to $23.85 billion compared to the same period last year. Comparable store sales dropped 3.8 percent, and in-store foot traffic slid 5.7 percent.
Shares of Target have also struggled under the pressure. The company’s stock traded around $103.85 early Wednesday afternoon, down significantly from roughly $145 before the controversy escalated. Analysts note that Target has lost more than $12 billion in market value since the beginning of the year. “We will continue to inform and to mobilize Black consumers in every state in the United States,” Chavis said. “Target today has a profound opportunity to respond with respect and restorative commitment.”
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