In fact, in my mid-20s, I have never been on a date.

I know other women who can say the same. They had a “boyfriend” in high school. Then a college boyfriend or two. Now, they’ve broken up and she’s ready to have some fun. At least, it looks fun in the rom-coms, but I’m sure if me and Mr. Tall Dark and Handsome were sitting across from each other at a candlelit table right now, I’d have no idea what to say!

Every notable relationship I’ve had began as a “situation.” You know how you think you’re friends, and then it just kind of eases over into something more? The texts went from, “What was the homework in chem class?” to “What you got on?” And for some reason … you answered.

Sooner or later everyone starts to ask, “What’s up with you and homeboy?” You say nothing, though you know it was up last night and the night before. And that’s fine until you watch “Think Like A Man,” and wonder why no one has ever embarked on an epic pursuit of your goodies. I want someone to string a million Christmas lights up on a rooftop and cook a gourmet dinner for me!

I can admit, watching those exaggerated depictions of what romance should look like has caused me to view my relationships as inferior. It frustrated me that my boos never planned anything special for me. But then I had to ask myself if that made his feelings for me any less real. And I had to check myself for setting such a low standard in the first place.

Going forward, I plan to not hold my date to an unreasonable expectation. I know I wouldn’t ask anything I would be unwilling to do. Then again, without some sort of dating precedent, how do I really know whats reasonable or not?

Any other Clutchettes out there who have yet to go on a “real” date? What’s your game plan for how to conduct yourself when it does happen?

The post True Life: I Have Never Been on a Date appeared first on Clutch Magazine.

Not too long ago, the 11-year-old was quoting the Emma Stone movie “Easy A” word for word. I’m sure at 11 I would not have even been allowed to see a film about a girl who uses perceived sexuality to define her reputation.

One time this kid got a terrible report card. The next day she went to Toys ‘R’ Us and had a sleepover.

In eighth grade, I couldn’t read Harry Potter books because, as Mom put it, “We’re Christian; we don’t believe in black magic.” But this sixth grader has posters of the boy wizard all over her room, as well as enough “Twilight” paraphernalia to open a store. There are many other examples of lax parenting compared to the stringent guidelines I had to abide by, but there is one ugly constant: My parents are overwhelmingly the most negative people I know.

You see, my parents are experts at pointing out what’s wrong with a situation. Praise is much harder to receive. When I proudly brought home a 3.9 grade point average, the response was, “Why’d you get a B in math? You don’t know how to do math? Is there some homework you forgot to turn in?” Meanwhile I’d hear tales of classmates getting money for each grade on a sliding pay scale!

When watching TV, out to dinner, or on a run to Target, the critiques have no end. The post-church debriefing session is especially painful. They don’t reflect on the message on the way home. Oh no. They talk about how Sister So-and-So can’t get any fatter, or the waxy wig on Sister Whoever’s head.

In my sister, I see a younger version of myself: a loner, withdrawn, and constantly conflicted about my body image. I have no idea how to shield her from it. When I went to college she was 4. When I returned home after working as a reporter in another state, she was a preteen. I’m not home enough to counteract the upbringing she’s receiving — one from which I’m still recovering.

I know how much I internalized it when my dad nicknamed me “Pork Chop” as a kid because he thought I was fat. I hated trying on clothes during shopping trips because every outfit was met with the same comments: “That’s too short. That’s too tight.” I remember going through my boy band phase. With grave concern, my mother (who does the talking for everyone) said, “Your father and I are worried that you don’t like black men. Why do you find your own people so unattractive?” Trust me, at 12, I had no idea my love for the Backstreet Boys was a reflection of self-hate.

If I’m present when my mother says something negative to my sister, I try to speak up. “Ma, don’t talk like that around her!” is as far as I can go, or I get a speech about how we should be glad she’s not like her abusive father. It’s clear she doesn’t realize her words can be just as powerful as his fists, and the sting lasts much longer. Sometimes I’ll go to my sister’s room and try to console her. “Don’t pay any attention when they say stuff like that,” I’ll say. “They just talk without thinking sometimes.” But how much good does that do when the next day there’ll be another comment about how she doesn’t think or a barrage of insults regarding the food on her plate?

Wednesday my sister had an awards ceremony at school that my parents didn’t attend. “You didn’t do anything special, so you won’t be getting anything today,” she said they told her. I was infuriated. Surely their lack of attendance was bad enough; did they really have to send her to school with a knock on her confidence?

Shows like “That’s so Raven,” “The Proud Family,” and “True Jackson, VP” that starred black characters are no longer on Disney Channel and Nickelodeon. Katniss Everdeen is white and so is the new, kick-ass Snow White. Even if those closest to her beat her down, I can’t think of many external images my sister can seek to affirm her smarts, beauty, and worth. I can only do it in small doses.

When I think about it, she doesn’t have it so easy after all. And because I don’t want to overstep my boundaries as a daughter, I sometimes feel helpless trying to protect her. There’s only so much I can say to my mother, and at 50 years old, she likely doesn’t think she’s doing anything wrong. Have you ever tried to correct a child in front of her parent? Even when the kid is wrong, Mom takes up for her child and cusses you out. To critique a mother’s parenting would surely unleash greater wrath.

So what would you do? How would you address a parent – your parent – about raising his or her child?

The post Hang in There Little Sister appeared first on Clutch Magazine.

Rumors abound that the firings are intended to make the show more positive. However, Reed was legally bound from even mentioning her child’s father, Orlando Magic star Dwight Howard. Because of feuds with many of the other women on the show, Reed was seen in fewer scenes during season four, as well.

According to TMZ, producers shared that Nichols was too boring and Williams was a liability after she filed a lawsuit against Nia Crooks for slapping her.

In an interview with The Insider on June 11, show creator/executive producer Shaunie O’Neal acknowledged there would always be drama on the show, but said some women more than others realized it was out of control and were taking responsibility.

She also said, without hesitation, that there were three castmembers from Basketball Wives Miami she wanted to be let go.

“Immediately. No questions asked. Not anything personal, just not where I’m trying to go. Not on the same page. … If I would like this franchise to keep going, yeah, three would have to go,” O’Neal said.

There is no word yet as to who will replace the three former castmembers.

The post Shaunie Lays Down the Law, Kicks Three Castmates off ‘Basketball Wives’ appeared first on Clutch Magazine.

If I leave the office on my lunch break, I’m apt to see all kinds of people roaming the streets. It’s the middle of the day, why aren’t you at work? I wonder.

I even know of girls who spend a good portion of the day smoking weed, party at night, treat their kids like they’re a nuisance, and use their government assistance to buy weave. Yes, weave.

Because most people with jobs are outraged by the idea that we could be actually giving our hard-earned money to some shiftless, ambition-lacking adults, many states are tightening down and implementing stricter welfare policies.

“It’s widely known here and all over the country that they’ll take the food-stamp card and buy good groceries with it, and then swap them for illegal drugs,” said Kentucky state Rep. Lonnie Napier, who has submitted a proposal to allow case workers to require drug testing when they suspect illegal drug abuse.

But are stringent requirements an attempt to curb abuse and balance state budgets, or are they an assault on people who are already so humbled that they must rely upon public assistance?

In Michigan, for example, the Senate passed a bill to impose a lifetime four-year limit on welfare benefits. This would cause almost 13,000 families to lose payments averaging $515 a month.

And in Florida, Gov. Rick Scott has made drug testing a part of the welfare application process. The applicant must pay for the test and will only get their money back if they are approved for benefits.

It is “unfair for Florida taxpayers to subsidize drug addiction,” Scott said in early July when he signed the legislation.

Giving a mother of two who cannot find a job or afford childcare just $185 a month – the maximum in Tennessee, for example – makes a dismal difference. Must we attack her dignity as well?

Democratic Rep. Corrine Brown from Florida says no:

“Indeed, investigating people when there is probable cause to suspect they are abusing drugs is one thing. But these tests amount to strip searching our state’s most vulnerable residents merely because they rely on the government for financial support during these difficult economic times,” she said.

To be accurate, welfare rolls were actually their highest in 1995, with 14 million people receiving assistance before President Bill Clinton approved strict welfare reform. As much as we’d hold up the welfare queen as an example of everything that’s wrong with the system, understand that only 4 million people were on welfare in 2010, and while 39 percent of them were black, whites accounted for 38 percent.

So how did low-income black people come to be the face of public mooching?

“The backlash began with the increase in the rolls during the 1960s. Public impatience with welfare fed nicely into a new framing of racial politics. Attacks on welfare were a perfect way to appeal to racial stereotypes. A disproportionate number of the new recipients were black. Why? Because a disproportionate number of the poor were black and beyond that, a disproportionate number of those kept off welfare when it was effectively discretionary were also black. The myth of the lazy and shiftless person, who preferred to live on welfare rather than get a job was a singularly useful political device,” said Peter B. Edelman, Faculty Director of the Center on Poverty, Inequality, and Public Policy at Georgetown University.

Whether the stereotypical “welfare queen” is alive and well or not, she is not alone. One in seven of ALL Americans lives at or below the federal poverty line. The number of poor people in large metro areas grew by 5.5 million from 1999 to 2009, and more than two-thirds of that growth occurred in suburbs.  The recession has been an equalizer, putting people who have been cyclically dependent upon aid in the same boat as those who worked their entire lives and found themselves the victim of mass layoffs. The national attempt to whittle away public assistance will further cripple both groups.

But, it may surprise you to find that people of color seem to support these new measures. A poll conducted by BlackPlanet/NewsOne shows that 77 percent of African Americans believe that drug screening should be required for those applying for welfare benefits.

They reasoned that if employers can drug test you for a job, the government should be able to do so for public assistance programs.

While I don’t advocate giving a lifetime handout to someone who wouldn’t work if Bill Gates drove by and personally extended an offer, I look at how precarious my own job situation is in this fickle economy. I consider that my father’s health is shaky and my parents have a 10-year-old child to take care of. If they both were to be laid off from their government jobs, I would hope that same system they contributed to would be available if they were in need.

And really, how do term limits or drug testing solve the core problem: 14.1 million Americans are currently unemployed. Are politicians taking into account that when these hundreds of thousands of people are kicked off welfare because they’ve overstayed their welcome, there will still be no jobs out there to make them self-sufficient?

The post The Assault on Welfare appeared first on Clutch Magazine.

It happened when I was 16-years-old, somewhere around my junior year of high school. I’d just gotten off work in a city far from the comforts of my own neighborhood and was waiting for my supervisor to lock up. Suddenly, a group of white boys whizzed by on bikes and started yelling that word …”nigger.” I looked around. Yes, they were talking to me. It was over as quickly as it happened. As I stared in the direction of the ignorant tribe, zooming high off the fumes of their crime, I searched my mind for a response. First came shock, followed by humiliation. Even a little sadness. I rode home in silence.

Our generation has taken for granted that we are only a few decades removed from a time when the “n” word was tantamount to a death threat. As my friend said when that word was hurled at her during her senior trip, “My reaction was shock and then repulsion and disgust. It was 2005!” We just never thought that someone would be calling us niggers. That still happens? As my friend and I discovered that we aren’t the only folks we know to have experience such an indignity, the answer is obviously yes.

So as antiquated as it seems, is this a word we still have to prepare our children to hear? Much like little black boys are told to cooperate and not make any sudden moves when pulled over by police, will you have to practice your child’s response to this ugly term?  Perhaps it depends on if it’s still being passed down as a hate slur on the other side of the tracks.

“The first time I was called the “n” word was in Pre-K by a girl named Leslie,” said my friend Mandy. “She said to me, ‘My skin is light, your skin is dark and that makes you a nigger.’ ”

The NAACP’s ceremonious burial of the word in 2007 was cute. But even our so-called “thought leaders” have disagreed with this act. As black America seems to have only two modern philosophers, Dr. Cornel West and Michael Eric Dyson, in a C-Span panel the latter defended what he calls his “promiscuous” use of the word by reasoning that nigger applies to any group of people who have been oppressed by the majority, and particularly by American capitalism.

“We got to understand nigga is a global phenomenon … I understand that as a nigga in America, there are niggas throughout the world … Can we connect through our core niggerdom to understand the vicious ways in which we have been subverted?” Dyson said.

Indeed, the word is used so colloquially that some of us celebrate it as an example of the resilience black people have and our ability to turn a negative into a positive. Just as women have turned the word “bitch” into a term of endearment – and men have even managed to make calling a woman “a bad bitch” the highest form of praise – we’ve mutated the word nigger into an acceptable form, nigga – because dropping the “er” simultaneously erases its past intent, right?

I, too, found Chris Rock’s sketch hilarious when he said he loved black people but hated niggas. I would not deny guilt for acting as though the n word doesn’t apply to me, but to my “cousins” that barbecue on the front lawn, wear do-rags to WalMart and buy rims with their tax refunds.

In a more serious interview  on the Bravo show Inside the Actors Studio, Rock reasoned that black people’s taking ownership of the n word was “the same philosophy as soul food. They gave us the scraps and we made it into cuisine. And we took this word and we made it into poetry.”

He acknowledged that “nigger is the nitroglycerine of words, and in the wrong hands it can hurt,” but went on to say that if given to the right scientist – a rank of comedians that includes Dave Chapelle and Richard Pryor – the word takes the same artistic value it did in a Mark Twain novel.

However in January, a version of the classic Mark Twain novel Huckleberry Finn was published that replaced the word nigger with slave.

Auburn University English professor Alan Gribben proposed the idea to publisher NewSouth Books because in his words, “even at the level of college and graduate school, students are capable of resenting textual encounters with this racial appellative.”

Though reading the word in print (219 times!) did sting when I was forced to read this novel in high school, removing it from a novel written in 1885 robs the reader of the context that the term was part of everyday vernacular in that time. Even though Finn was friends with a black man, as a child he heard the word used so much he thought it was the correct way to refer to black people. But given the way it is integrated in our lives now, the next generation may not see this as abnormal. Have things really come full circle?

As another friend put it:

“The first time I was called the “n” word was probably by one of my “n” words. ‘My nigga’ had long become a term of endearment before all of us were born. So will anyone ever remember the first time someone called them a nigga? Will they remember their nigga calling them a nigga? Nope.”

This friend has a spot-on sense of satire, but I recall the paralytic effect the word had when it was hurled at me on the street nearly 10 years ago with absolute clarity. Chances are I will never forget how it felt when it transcended the inside of a funny joke in a movie to become an ugly descriptor by complete strangers.

 Have you ever been called a “nigger”? If so, did it change your feelings about “nigga”? Can we really separate the two? Speak! 

The post My First Time appeared first on Clutch Magazine.

“The University of Rochester said Monday it has received a $5 million gift to support its new undergraduate business major. The gift was given by Barry Florescue, an alumnus and member of UR’s board of trustees.”

This, people, is what keeps schools alive.

I was horrified to hear of recent budget cuts at my alma mater, which left some staff members unemployed and some degree programs nonexistent. “We have to do something!” we outraged alums all cried. Yeah, we have to Save Our Selves.

In an article for the Diverse Issues in Higher Education blog, University of Pennsylvania professor Dr. Marybeth Gasman wrote that alumni of black schools tend to band together when there’s a crisis, which is insufficient. We may think the annual hikes in tuition cover the gaps, but it’s consistent giving that sustains a university.

Of the nation’s 103 black colleges, only three have endowments in the top 300: Howard University, Spelman College and Hampton University. Low endowments mean fewer dollars available for operating costs and institutional financial aid, states the website Inside Higher Ed. It’s also noteworthy because most students who attend HBCUs receive some type of endowment-supported scholarship.

HBCU endowments are low for a variety of reasons. For one, even when size is taken into account, historically white institutions have received significantly more money from corporate sponsors. Also, it’s just a fact that historically, African-Americans have had less access to wealth. Today, the national unemployment rate is about 9 percent. For blacks, that figure is more than 16 percent!

Although institutional and systemic racism do factor into funding differences, this is still a situation we have the power to fix. The first part is getting a job (or creating a job) that will generate $5-mil in disposable income (haha) …

Seriously, we may not all be able to write fat checks like Mr. Florescue, but giving just $25 a year after you graduate will surely add up over your lifetime. Predominantly white institutions have alumni giving rates that range between 20 to 60 percent, while Black college alumni giving rates typically fall below 10 percent, according to a 2006 report in The National Journal for Publishing and Mentoring Doctoral Research. Considering that people like Oprah, Spike Lee, Camille Cosby, Taraji P. Henson, and the founders of Rainforest Films all went to black schools, I would have hoped the gap were smaller. And that’s not to discount Tom Joyner’s annual Family Reunion event and Fantastic Voyage cruise that have raised millions for black schools.

However, a handful of affluent standouts can’t be asked to carry the weight alone.  Although not many people have “extra money” to give away, HBCU alumni are among the most outspoken and passionate when it comes to reppin’ their schools. Planning that annual trip to homecoming or the Greek picnic is not enough. To truly show how much you love your university, do something to ensure it will remain standing.

The post S.O.S: Save Our Schools! appeared first on Clutch Magazine.

A year later, try B-R-O-K-E.

Every time another friend posts a Facebook status about her upcoming trip to Puerto Rico, or how she’ll be on Miami Beach in T minus zero, I wish I would have stuck with that damn business administration major. What the hell kinda job offers unlimited vacation time to new employees – and how do I apply?

Just in time for graduation season, The Daily Beast compiled one of those photo galleries with a tweet-ready headline you can’t ignore, “20 Most Useless Degrees.” I figured it’d be a quick read, something to breeze through, chuckle at and forget. But I never made it past the first click: #1 was Journalism.

It would have been easier to digest if it hadn’t confirmed what I already suspected. From a median starting salary of $35,800 to a mid-career figure of just $66,600, it looked like I’d be starring in my own reality show, “Hardworkin’ Welfare Wives,” for the rest of my career.

My law school and pharmacy friends had $20/hour internships and the promise of jobs that would start in the six-figure range. Instead, I “followed my dreams” on a masochistic journey to save the world with the noble journalistic truth. When ever-important early education majors also make the list of lowest-paying degrees, the “I do it for the love” philosophy seems less and less logical.

A recent study by Georgetown found that people with a college degree earn 84 percent more over a lifetime than those with only a high school diploma. The other half of that, though, was that what you major in is more important. But as I see another “Just touched down in LA!” tweet, I’m thinking I might have made the wrong choice.

The post True Life: “ I Have a Useless Degree” appeared first on Clutch Magazine.

It spawned derivatives like “Flavor of Love,” and “I Love New York,” both on Vh1. We tend to be all up in arms over how these shows make black women (and other attention whores) look like gold-diggers so thirsty they’ll fight to drink from the same cup as a D-list, irrelevant celebrity. Let’s be honest: “The Bachelor” is the same thing, a bunch of white girls who don’t really have good jobs trying their hardest to be chosen by a man who, by virtue of network-TV given fame and fabulous dates paid for by sponsors, will turn their whole lives around. This they know for sure after like 6 weeks, and no one calls them groupies in the process.

However, now I suppose we should thank Vh1 for giving people of color a vehicle to compete for “love.” Because according to Mike Fleiss, creator of “The Bachelor” franchise, it won’t happen on his show.

Entertainment Weekly’s Inside TV blog interviewed Mike Fleiss, creator of “The Bachelor,” and asked point blank, “Will we ever see a bachelor or a bachelorette who is not white?”

Fleiss answered:

“I think Ashley (the new Bachelorette) is 1/16th Cherokee Indian, but I cannot confirm. But that is my suspicion! We really tried, but sometimes we feel guilty of tokenism. Oh, we have to wedge African-American chicks in there! We always want to cast for ethnic diversity, it’s just that for whatever reason, they don’t come forward. I wish they would.”

There you have it, these are the kinds of people calling the shots in Hollywood, folk who think it’s cool to make a lily-white show and “wedge” some color in as an after thought.

Are we to believe that in the 15 seasons the show has been on the air Mike pored over thousands of headshots and went, “Man I can’t believe there aren’t any ‘African-American chicks’ in the entire country who want to be on my very popular television show!” Sounds like he’s really broken up about it, huh?

What do you think?

Interested in contributing to Clutch? Email your best ideas and/or blog posts to editors@clutchmagonline.com and we just might feature them on our daily blog!

The post The Bachelor: Will We Ever See a Bachelor or a Bachelorette Who is Not White? appeared first on Clutch Magazine.