natural black beauty #2

My favourite pictures from Le Coil. Five of these pictures have already appeared elsewhere on my blogs.

Nina Keita, Ivorian model

India Arie, American singer

Angela Davis, American professor

Jessika M’Bengue, French model

Pharah Y, Swedish clothes designer

Solange, American singer

“Frame” by Dawn Okoro, American artist

Res, an American singer, with Talib Kweli

Valerie June, American singer

Cassandra Wilson, American singer

Tara (model) and Nydia (graduate student) in Crown Heights, Brooklyn

Vintage hairstyles

Naimah, writer from the Lower East Side in New York

Alexandria, make-up artist from Soho, New York

Pictures by Brianna McCarthy, who blogs at Passion Fruit

Photo by Adam Tilman-Young

Photo by Laurent PIRAM

Karine, model from Guadeloupe

Sharri in Soho, New York, who blogs at The Brisk Convergence

See also:

• Le Coil
• natural black beauty #1 – whose pictures come mainly from Gorgeous Black Women
• Angela Davis
• dreadlocks

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Gratuitous Obama Picture #8

I saw this on Jack & Jill Politics. It shows President Obama hugging retiring White House butler James Ramsey on January 25th 2010.

Michelle Obama comments:

Mr. Ramsey side note – he’s worked for the White House for 40 years and was supposed to retire when the Bushes left but wanted to extend working at the White House so that he could serve the Obamas as long as he could. I read last year that several of the scheduled retiring usher staff did the same thing because they’ve been treated so well by the Obamas and really don’t want to retire now….I think stamina may be the only factor for them leaving at this point….I’m sure the pace gets difficult over time. Desiree Rogers said last year in the Washington Post that some older staff had tears in their eyes when she was asking for their input, and they told her that no one ever asked that from them before or asked for their opinion.

See also:

• Gratuitous Obama Picture #1
• Gratuitous Obama Picture #2
• Gratuitous Obama Picture #3
• Gratuitous Obama Picture #4
• Gratuitous Obama Picture #5
• Gratuitous Obama Picture #6
• Gratuitous Obama Picture #7

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Gratuitous Obama picture #7

This picture shows Barack Obama and Valerie Jarrett at Manny’s Coffee House in Chicago in November 2008, a week or so after his victory. Jarrett is one of his most trusted advisers and friends, someone who helped him to get his start in Chicago politics and who always tells it to him straight. Michelle Obama says she is like a  big sister.

I do not know what it is about this picture that gets to me. It has to do with the utter ordinariness of it – ordering lunch. It also has to do with Jarrett somehow. She made me feel like I was in the picture, if that at all makes any kind of sense.

See also:

• Gratuitous Obama Picture #6
• Gratuitous Obama picture #5
• Gratuitous Obama picture #4
• Gratuitous Obama picture #3
  
• Gratuitous Obama picture #2
• Gratuitous Obama picture #1

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Gratuitous Obama picture #6

As busy as the president is he still finds time to take his wife out on a date to be just with her. They went to see the August Wilson play, “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone”. (Lincoln also took his wife to plays, as we know!)

It is also kind of cool to walk out of your house, get on a Marine helicopter and be flown to New York! When he was a boy of ten his mother saw no future for him in Indonesia and had him flown to America. For some reason that just came to my head.

See also:

• The Obamas’ date – the slideshow I took this from at the Times of London
• Gratuitous Obama picture #5
• Gratuitous Obama picture #4
• Gratuitous Obama picture #3 – another date picture. I guess they get to me for some reason.
  
• Gratuitous Obama picture #2
• Gratuitous Obama picture #1
• Barack Obama
• Michelle Obama

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Gratuitous Obama picture #5

Barack Obama on April 7th 2009 greets American troops in Iraq at the end of his overseas trip.

See also:

• Barack Obama arrives in Baghdad for surprise visit to Iraq
• Gratuitous Obama picture #4
• Gratuitous Obama picture #3
• Gratuitous Obama picture #2
• Gratuitous Obama picture #1

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Gratuitous Obama picture #4

Malia Obama takes a picture of her father on the night of the inauguration.

See also:

• Gratuitous Obama picture #1
• Gratuitous Obama picture #2
• Gratuitous Obama picture #3
• Barack Obama
• Malia Obama

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Gratuitous Obama picture #3

I saw this one on the Black Snob. It shows Barack and Michelle Obama leaving Spiaggia Restaurant in Chicago. For some reason it seems like such a cool picture to me. I think it has to do with how he seems so ordinary in this picture – a man taking his wife out – and yet knowing that he will be president.

See also:

• Gratuitous Obama picture #1
• Gratuitous Obama picture #2
• Barack Obama
• Michelle Obama

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Gratuitous Obama picture #2

I saw this at the Black Snob:

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Gratuitous Obama picture

I love this picture. I saw it on Something Within. It shows Barack Obama with his ten-year-old daughter, Malia:

This picture was taken on July 4th 2008, the day Malia turned ten. They are at a Independence Day parade in Butte, Montana.

That book that Malia is reading, by the way, is “Outside Beauty” by Cynthia Kadohata. What Barack Obama is reading (not pictured) is “The Last Campaign: Robert F. Kennedy and 82 Days That Inspired America” by Thurston Clarke (so says MSNBC).

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