Malik Yoba Isn’t Too Pleased with Empire After Getting Dropped
All is not well in the life of actor Malik Yoba. After getting the opportunity of a lifetime to appear on what might be the hottest show release in the last decade, Yoba has been given the axe. Malik was fired suddenly and surprisingly by Fox executives. According to Yoba, Daniels called and told him what happened, and claimed that the Fox executives (who shall of course remain nameless) decided that someone needed to die in the season finale.
As you may notice in the video (below), Yoba isn’t happy about being dropped from the show. In fact, he appears to be downright bitter about it.
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But TMZ is also giving reports of an “insider” who tells them that Yoba’s firing may be of his own doing. So, as much as Yoba spends time reciting the good work he’s doing for the world, it appears that he may have problems that run far deeper than simply losing his job. You can read more about that here.
The show Empire has been a rousing success for Fox, the network run by Rupert Murdoch, which is also the home of conservative news. Bill O’Reilly, one of the hosts on Fox News, once said that he wanted to hold a “lynching party” on Michelle Obama. This complicated past for Fox is one that leads some to have reservations about supporting any shows that make the network even richer than it is right now.
In the video below, Dr Boyce Watkins debates CNN’s Don Lemon about the show, and whether or not African Americans should applaud images that perpetuate the stereotype of black men being violent thugs. According to Watkins, “Whenever an all-white jury sends an innocent black man to prison, it’s usually because the prosecutors have painted him to be a thug. George Zimmerman was acquitted because the jury was convinced that he was violent. Most of these images of black men being violent and thuggish come from media.”
So, what do you think? Is Empire just harmless fun or do the images of black men as thugs and black women as nasty and violent play themselves out in shows like these? Let us know your opinion.