Gordon Parks is perhaps best known for his photo essays in Life and directing Shaft, but Parks, who died in 2006 at the age of 93, was an artist of many passions. In addition to photographs and film, Parks also produced poetry, fiction and music.

Parks began his photography work in the late 30s in Chicago. He ran a portrait business for society women, and his interests blossomed from there. He would later chronicle black poverty on the city's South Side and, after working for the government and as a fashion photographer, he would eventually become a photo journalist for Life. He was the magazine's first black staffer, and would work there for 20 years. The Learning Tree author was also a civil rights activist who composed and choreographed a ballet dedicated to Martin Luther King Jr in the late 80s. [Read more about Parks]

Wherein you, the readers, talk amongst yourselves.

Do African Americans have a special responsibility to help struggling blacks around the diaspora?

It makes sense that African Americans, especially older blacks who lived through segregation and Jim Crow, would have been pessimistic about the chances of seeing a black man elected to our country's highest office. According to a CNN poll released earlier this week 71 percent of blacks believed that they would never see a black president in their lifetime, although 80 percent said that Obama's win was a dream come true.

On the flip side, 59 percent of whites believed they would see a black president in their lifetime, but just 28 percent considered Obama's win to be a dream come true. Well, the McCain voters have to fit in somewhere. Everyone came to a consensus on this: race relations will improve in some way as a result of Barack Obama's presidency. We shall see, won't we?

• 50 Cent? Tyra? Bullet wounds? [Bossip]

• Sarah Palin keeps forgetting the election is over. [HP]

• Lil Wayne joined Kid Rock on stage at the CMT awards. He wasn't allowed to actually say anything. [MTV]

• Congressman William Jefferson, the one whose freezer was mysteriously stuffed with cash, is about to go on trial. [Hill]

Barack Obama's angry white terrorist pal, Bill Ayers, will sit down with Good Morning America tomorrow to give his first televised interview since Obama's victory.

The distinguished professor of education is expected to say exactly what he said last week when the Washington Post interviewed him: that he's made some mistakes and that he really doesn't know Barack Obama at all, just like Obama himself tried to tell all the yapping Republican dunderheads for weeks and weeks.

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Here's something you would never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever see in a John McCain administration. Barack Obama's transition co-chair and friend Valerie Jarrett confirms that plans are underway to create a White House Office of Urban Policy, which will help to coordinate federal efforts to aid large cities (aka "fake America").

"Because he began as a community organizer on the South Side of Chicago, he understands at the local level is really where you can impact change and that local government can play a vital role as we try to jump start our economy," Jarrett said. "So having somebody in the White House, because there are so many different agencies that really can impact urban America and to have one person whose job it is to really pull all of that together, is really a critical position. And there are plenty of terrific candidates for that spot." Now we have another position for Dems to fight over. [WP]

Kanye West was in a sharing mood with People recently, and he spoke about his relationship issues (finding girls in the club ain't easy, y'all) and, in a rare moment, opened up about his mother. Donda West died last year from complications after extensive plastic surgery. Sadly, West blames himself for what happened to her.

"I didn't do any interviews after my mom passed, I wasn't ready to speak about [it]," he said. "Now I'd rather talk it through than commit suicide. I'm super devastated… I feel like I moved to California, then my mom moved to California, and she did stuff she wouldn't have done if we'd stayed in Chicago. If I'd never made it in the music business, it never would've happened."

The rapper also has trouble with his own fame; he admits that its lonely at the top and that he's depressed.

But.

Let's not forget this is Kanye we're talking about. "Don't feel sorry for me," he said. "I just did a shoot for Louis Vuitton."

Some forward-thinking curators at the coming-soon National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, DC, raided items from one of Barack Obama's Virginia field offices for a future exhibit. Using things like election maps, strategy boards, campaign literature and Lazy Boy chairs, the curators will recreate an Obama field office in the new Smithsonian museum, which opens on the National Mall in 2015. "In this very uplifting way, it seemed to be a reflection of the spectrum of people who make up the larger American community," said Jacquelyn Serwer, the museum's chief curator, told the AP. "We want people, whether you're African American or not, to see yourself in the stories we're telling."

As a companion to our monogamy discussion going on over in Threadbare, here's the venerable Luther Vandross's take the subject — in song.

AAAAHHHHHH! Oprah's online store is officially open, y'all! Hurry up and go buy some high-priced items, all with a big O printed/embroidered/engraved on them, before they sell out.

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