Maybe I hate myself. Maybe I really hate you. Maybe I use my hair to make up for my dress size and my flat feet. Maybe I do want to be white. There. You’ve figured it out. Maybe I’m lazy. Maybe I’m not as enlightened as I should be. Maybe my eloquence is misplaced. Maybe I’m one of those about whom Harriet Tubman spoke—one of those slaves who could have been freed had she known she were a slave.

Maybe you’re right. Maybe you’re not. I haven’t worked out the kinks. And you don’t get to do that for me. But there is nothing more I would love to say to you right now than this: Get out of my hair.

I’m talking to some of you natural-haired wonders. Not all of you. Just the ones who feel the freedom that comes in wearing your hair the exact way it grows out of your head affords you the liberty to shame and cast judgments on me. Me. The weave wearer. The one with the standing relaxer-and-style appointment. The one who owns more wigs than socks. The one who straightens her hair with a flat iron, careful to keep its smoldering clamps from getting too close to my brown skin (which I love, by the way).

Most of you don’t care what I do. There are those who don’t think twice about it. There are those who respect my choice. They used to make the same choice I do. And maybe one day, again, they will. Maybe they have never made the choices I have made. I’m never made to feel lost, less enlightened, less sophisticated, less beautiful, or any less myself. I just am. Weave, wig, relaxer, hot comb, or not.

This is for those who regard me with pity, those who feel a responsibility to help me cross over, as if I endeavored to cross over in the first place. As if there’s some sort of self-love holy land to which the freedom of natural hair is the only ticket. It’s funny how, in said freedom, we resign ourselves to being divisive. How can we embrace shirking traditional standards of beauty, and yet oppress each other with our diagnostic judgments and unsolicited assessments of value and self-worth?

You don’t get to do that.

Now if I ask you how you did it, if I admire it, if I want you to guide me, do it with all the zeal of offering me a new dinner recipe. Do it as if you’re excited because it tastes great, but you couldn’t really care less what I’m eating tonight. Don’t get all enthusiastic about trying to fix me.

You don’t get to do that.

As much as I want to say it’s just hair, it’s not. It’s never been. It’s political around company. We ignore that it’s even more political among ourselves. That you think your hair elevates you says so. That I feel guilty for not partaking in the natural hair revolution says so. Perhaps this revolution all dressed in self-love needs to wear different, more inclusive clothes.

In loving yourself, I just ask that you let me be and love me anyway. So please, stop staring. My eyes are down here.

The post Stop Staring. My Eyes Are Down Here appeared first on Clutch Magazine.

“I met Joan Cusack, who is my favorite favorite. I love her… I was at some industry party, and she says, ‘Are you an actress?’ And I said, ‘Yeah!’ And she says, ‘Oh honey, you should really quit the business, it’s so image-conscious.”

Sidibe, whose turn in 2009’s “Precious” garnered an Academy Award Nomination and who recently started in the Eddie Murphy-helmed “Tower Heist”, said she was sure that Cusack meant well.

Have you ever had someone you respected crush your dreams? How did you handle it?

The post Gabourey Sidibe Told to Quit Show Biz appeared first on Clutch Magazine.

Editor’s note: Whitney Houston had a profound impact on a generation. As we grapple with the loss of yet another legend, we thought it fitting to honor her with a special issue dedicated solely to her impact on our lives.

~

If tomorrow is judgment day

And I’m standing on the front line

And the Lord asks me what I did with my life

I will say I spent it with you. 

- Whitney Houston, “My Love is Your Love”, 1998

I left CNN on while I slept Saturday night, hoping that Anderson Cooper would cut into all the frenzy and say, “There’s been some sort of mistake. Your childhood heroes are not dying and your memories are still intact.”

I cried real tears for Whitney Saturday night — too devastated to whimper, too improper to feign sanctimony on Twitter. Whitney’s death is wrenching, but its shock is familiar. When we lost Michael Jackson, I was no less shaken, no less impolite. I made a round of phone calls last night as I did in 2009, but not to spread the news. Everyone already knew. I wanted to share memories. In mourning the loss of those whose faces were push-pinned to your bedroom wall, whose songs we recorded from the radio onto a cassette tape, we’re somehow mourning the parts of our childhood that have seemed to die with them.

Any given evening in the 1990s, you could find me holding an empty paper towel roll or the handle of a jump rope to my lips, singing a Whitney Houston song. I recall summers in the living room of my then best friend, rolling around on the floor, lip syncing and shaking our hair to “I’m Every Woman” and “Queen of the Night”. Or when my mother would take my sister and me to the video rental section of the Kroger grocery store so she could rent “The Bodyguard”…again. She loved that movie. I just wanted to be Rachel Marron, name in lights, Kevin Costner as a suitor and all.

Whitney released only seven studio albums. I was sure that there had to have been more since her music, that voice, that smile, those eyes permeated just about every moment of our lives. Who didn’t get a diploma (whether it was high school or preschool) with “Greatest Love of All” replacing “Pomp and Circumstance” as a commencement backdrop? I remember my little sister singing, “Learning to love yourself is the greatest love of all” when she was in the first grade, in tandem with a choir of other six-year-olds. That was kind of like when Whitney’s version of “The Star Spangled Banner” was played before every athletic event in middle school. When I first found out that Whitney had married Bobby Brown, I asked my mom if Bobby had to change his name to Bobby Houston. For me, Whitney was that major.

What about when Whitney told us that “everyone falls in love sometimes [and] life never tells us the when or whys” or when “Count on Me” became a sister-girl anthem for the ages? There was something about the fullness of that voice, its peaks, and its sweetness that stirred our souls and empowered us. Whitney’s rousing voice on “All The Man That I Need” leads me to shave a few seconds off that last mile on the treadmill. No other ballad does that.

What’s funny is that the childhood I’m mourning today is one I was reliving at the office a day before Whitney left us. I was playing her catalog, really listening to those lyrics I’d memorized years ago and understanding them like I never had before. Didn’t we almost have it all? The nights we held on till the morning. You know you’ll never love that way again. How about The ride with you was worth the fall, my friend. Or, the best part of that song: Once you know what love is, you never let it end.

For those of us too young to remember Diana Ross in her hey day, Whitney was our Tracy Chambers. Our singer-diva-movie star. We aspired to her brown-skinned glamour with all of its dramatic spotlights and sequins. We adored her round-the-way girl aura, an energy that shone through despite successful efforts to make her palatable to the masses. We knew from the way she sang, the way she jiggled her chin on the slightest hint of vibrato, the way she lifted her arms in distinct divadom that she was one Jersey girl who had made it. And nobody was going to steal her shine.

She was ours. She belonged to every little Black girl who sang into the handle of her jump rope.

Despite her troubles, I never ever thought Whitney’s death would be untimely. Despite her troubles, I never thought that the tragically proverbial rock star ending of “found dead in a hotel room” would be her story.

I know that there has to be a much more cogent piece in me way down in here, but honestly I’m still trying to figure out the whens and whys. I pray that Whitney knew that we loved her and that, as she’s left us, we’re only doing what she told us to do: finding our strength in love. I pray that with all of her anointing, her cultural impact, and with all of her troubles (which, in essence, are no different from any of our own), Whitney had the chance to exhale.

The post Life Never Tells Us the Whens or Whys appeared first on Clutch Magazine.

“To maintain my health, mostly. And I want to look really good. Is that shallow?”

A new city, a new gym, a new trainer. The same conversation and the same little room where I talk about my fitness goals. I’ve been here before.

“I’m glad you acknowledge your health. And a lot of people are here to look good. It’s not shallow. It’s also about how you feel about yourself overall.”

I met with my new trainer last weekend and between polite chatter about his native Australia and its weather, he probed me about what I eat, how I like to move, and what weight loss success I’ve had in the past.

“How many pounds do you want to lose?”

I gave him the number flippantly. Why did I think that this time would be any different? After all, I’ve only been on some semblance of a diet since I was six years old. I can’t remember a time in my life where my weight wasn’t paramount to every other facet of my life, no matter how successful I became, regardless of how smart I was. So this weekend, like many other weekends before, I sat with a trainer in a little room flanked by scales, tape measures, and calipers and while he broke down how long it may take me to get to my target weight, I wondered quietly: Will I ever get this right?

Earlier this month, Oprah Winfrey sat down with New Jersey Governor Chris Christie as part of her “Next Chapter” interview series. The two joked that David Letterman once called Oprah Mrs. Butterworth and that a tryst with Sara Lee and Betty Crocker would make for a Lewinsky-esque political scandal for the man many hoped would run for president. She asked Christie the very same question I asked myself. With all the things seemingly successful people seem to be able to handle well, why is weight the one thing we can’t seem to get together?

Calories in versus calories out. It’s math, not magic. Any overweight person who has accomplished some level of personal and professional success beats himself or herself up about their weight struggles — evidence of one human vice that cannot be hidden, a human vice no different than buying things we can’t afford or looking for love in all the wrong beds. Surely, it’s a lack of discipline, right? I mean, without discipline, how can one expect to rise through political ranks or own an eponymous television network?

Ask a person who’s lost any amount of weight to tell you their “secret” (and I use the term loosely, because there is no secret) and they’ll cite the oft-told lifestyle change. I can attest that there is no quick-fix, no program that has you drinking shakes and eating bowls of cereal that can help you keep the weight off for a lifetime – at least not one that actually works in the real world, with all of its Sunday dinners, office meetings, and late-night cravings for McDonald’s apple pies. The key for me was to keep moving. I once lost fifty pounds by moving consistently. Having struggled with my weight since I was a child, it wasn’t until I lost those fifty pounds that I noticed a difference in the way people looked at me. Their eyes were softer. They were much more attentive during the smallest of talk. It was as if my words carried with them the weight I once carried in my thighs.

Thirteen and falsely assured that the childhood fight had been over, I stopped moving. None of my peers seemed to move as much as I needed to, and since I’d gotten down to their size, I thought I’d finally won. Not only was there less of me, but people saw me. Even then, I was good for the occasional sweatshirt in the summertime. The funny thing about losing weight is that while you’ve lost some dress sizes, your mind doesn’t shed the pounds.

The mental weight never left. I gained the physical weight back.

And so it goes. Periods of movement and not. Moments of feeling seen and moments of feeling ignored. Socializing amid soft eyes and Sunday dinners with judgmental and sad glances at you, then at your plate, then back at you.

Having just relocated to a new city, I’ve landed with the same hope that follows me into every fresh season of my life: Maybe this time, I’ll lose the weight. I’m usually a proponent for loving the skin I’m in for the moment; while it’s okay to work toward wearing less skin, the current moment is the only one I have for sure. But in that trainer’s office, yet again, I realized that through my corporate triumphs, relationship roller coasters, and academic achievements, weight has been the only thing I’ve allowed to defeat me.

Will I ever get this right? If I do, will it still haunt me so much that I’m still wearing sweatshirts in the summertime? And if I don’t, when does the “loving myself anyway” begin?

How do we move past our shortcomings and our vices, try for the best, and love ourselves now?

The post Why Can’t I Get This Right? appeared first on Clutch Magazine.

“Shaking up the family tree with sibling synchronicity…”

Sure, play like you don’t know all the words to the “Sister, Sister” theme song. I’ll even wait while you try to remember the choreography to the remixed version played during their college years.

Whatever your memories of Tia and Tamera Mowry, add this to your good news file: Tia and Tamera’s reality show on the Style Network has been picked up for a second season. TV By the Numbers reports that the docu-series, which highlights Tia’s pregnancy and Tamera’s newlywed life with Fox News Channel correspondent Adam Housley, has boasted record ratings with 17 million unique viewers to date. The show also features their work to maintain thriving professional careers, one launched by their 1990s sitcom smash “Sister, Sister”.

“With a total of 17 millions viewers to date, being positive isn’t so bad after all!” Tamera tweeted.

Tempered with as many tears as it is infectious laughter, “Tia and Tamera” and its success are a continued nod for the wholesome, particularly in a landscape flooded with reality-flavored images of Black women throwing drinks and losing their tempers. Entertaining and endearing, “Tia and Tamera” is a thumbs up to married life, motherhood, and sisterly love. These real-life wives are a positive counter to another show on cable TV’s Monday night line-up.

Season two production is scheduled to begin this year, with season one ending its 8-episode run on Monday, October 3rd.

The post Style Network Greenlights Season Two of “Tia and Tamera” appeared first on Clutch Magazine.

My mom, like the flurry of other parents in the Kempner High School lobby that day, picked me up from school. Then we stopped for ice cream. My youngest sister had turned three the day before and hadn’t had her cake and ice cream yet, so we stopped at the Kroger grocery store for half a gallon of Blue Bell vanilla. I remember that as we were in the car, there was no music on the radio. It was the first time that I’d heard news reports on every FM station, the announcers on Sunny 99.1 offering a static-tinged play-by-play of the day’s events for those who hadn’t yet caught of TV glimpse of the dramatic images. It was nice day, but while were miles away from New York City, I remember the sky was a darker shade of blue. People were moving about, driving around as if they were wading through a thick, invisible sludge of fear and tragedy. When I got home, the tragedy wasn’t as invisible anymore. I remember telling my 12-year-old sister that seeing people run through the streets of Manhattan reminded me of a scene from “Independence Day”. It couldn’t have been real, no person on earth could have ever conceived this level of devastation.
And then I watched a man jump. I watched him flail a white business shirt from one of the North Tower’s top floors as an SOS but then I realized that he may have been using it a white flag of surrender, as if he’d decided that he wasn’t going to fight anymore. That he’d decided that he wasn’t going to die in the fiery furnace that was once his office. That he’d make a parachute of the shirt he ironed that morning as he sipped the coffee his wife brewed. That’d he’d float on. That the final sign of his existence would be a part of an intermittent succession of thuds heard throughout the streets of lower Manhattan.

Edwidge Danticat wrote about seeing a woman sail downward against the backdrop of the tower she worked in. This woman had her purse with her. Maybe she hoped that she would need it on the way down. A woman always takes her purse with her right? Maybe it was the last tinge of possibility because although she jumped, she didn’t really want to die. And maybe, just maybe, she wouldn’t. Maybe today, the laws of velocity wouldn’t apply and maybe she’d land on her feet and walk home. So she grabbed her purse.
That is no way to end your life.

In watching the commemorative coverage of September 11th’s tenth anniversary, I’ve wondered about the stories of those who died that day. Those who would never fulfill their wishes of seeing their loved ones again. I’m haunted by the voicemail messages left by those who had been on a hijacked airplane, by those who had been trapped in an inferno that used to be the company conference room. Messages by those who called their wives to say, “I love you,” to tell their husbands to “Live a good life,” to tell their parents “It doesn’t look good.” I’ve wondered about those who were on the airplanes that crashed into the World Trade Center. Wondered if they could see where they were headed. I wonder what they prayed about. If they prayed at all. I wonder about the clothes they’d packed for their trip. Were they business suits? Floppy hats? I learned that one business man traveling to Los Angeles had been accompanied by his wife and young daughter who would use the trip as a vacation. I wondered about the calendars on the desks of those who worked at the Towers and in the Pentagon. What were they looking forward to? What meeting were they planning to skip? Who was on their callback list? Had they decided where they were going to have lunch that day?

I read a story about a woman who nearly got run over by Gwyneth Paltrow’s car on the street. Paltrow was driving her Mercedes when the other woman, who was jaywalking, nearly was hit by Paltrow’s car. The encounter lasted long enough for the woman to miss her train, the one that would take her to her office in the World Trade Center. She was still in the street when an airplane full of dreams, plans, and unsuspecting humanity struck the first tower. I heard about a woman who was having repairs done in her home early that morning. Because the handyman was late, she was late to work and had made it to the World Trade Center’s lobby just in time for searing smoke and flames to travel down the elevator shafts and scar her for life. For life. She lived to tell her story. For life.

I was fourteen when I learned not to grumble when I’m held up, when there’s a delay. When the waiter’s taking forever to bring the check, when I’m sitting in traffic. Sometimes I think it’s God’s way of keeping me safe or holding me until the right time for a blessing. I was fourteen when I realized that those who died that day had once been fourteen as well and likely never thought that Peter Jennings would narrate their deaths.

It’s just as unfair now as it was ten years ago, maybe a little more so. It’s unfair that those fathers who died in New York, DC, and Pennsylvania never got to meet the children that grew up to look just like them. It’s unfair that there a young woman who has to listen to her mother’s final message just so she won’t ever forget the sound of her voice. It’s also unfair that we’ve somehow been wading through the same sludge of fear and tragedy for ten years. A car can’t backfire in New York City without someone saying “Not again.” We used to be free, but we’re still afraid.

I’m weeping right now for those who didn’t see September 12, 2001. Those who never got to iron another business shirt, for those who never got another chance to grab their purses with the expectation that they’d land on their feet and come home again, only to do it the next day.

The pain is still the same, the perspective is not. The hindsight is exacerbated. It hurts more now than it did then. Ten years later, I’m a grown woman in my own queen-sized bed watching Katie Couric and Matt Lauer cover 9/11 just as it happened that day. I don’t wear overalls anymore, but it’s only now that I’m more acutely aware of the magnitude of this tragedy and how life, with all of its business shirts and vacations and airline tickets and Tuesday mornings meetings, is fleeting.

September 11th is my best friend’s birthday. Just as I did yesterday for my 13-year-old sister, I’m going to call her to say “I love you.”

It’s the least I can do.

The post Birthdays, Business Shirts, and Pocketbooks: 10 Years After 9/11 appeared first on Clutch Magazine.

I was there. You know, for that rumble in the digital jungle. Twitter was live on Tuesday, wasn’t it? Did the earth move for you, too? There was much disbelief that it could actually happen. I imagine that some folks were driven to their knees and stirred to pray. Tweets echoed the sound of trumpets. Surely, the rapture was upon us.

Wait. There was an earthquake in New York and DC? Word? That’s unfortunate. But I was talking about Will and Jada Pinkett Smith’s rumored separation. But an earthquake? That’s crazy too.

When tabloid glossy In Touch Magazine reported that Will and Jada were separating, Twitter went into a frenzy over the story which cited a Smith family “insider” for the scoop (because it’s always a nameless, faceless insider who knows the “truth”). Some considered the source (one writer tweeted “In Touch Weekly, people? Do you trust Scooby Doo for news about Syria, too?”), while others plugged their ears to avoid hearing that the golden couple of Negronia would be stepping down from their pedestals and ending their 13-year marriage, leaving all of us hopeless romantics to wander aimlessly, searching for that relationship to which we could aspire. It seemed that all we had left were Barack and Michelle and Bill with Camille.

I’m a girl who bought a $6.00 Architectural Digest to put on my coffee table just because Will and Jada are on the cover. I totally get it. They’re a beautiful, dynamic couple so I understand the internet rumblings of stunned fans and lookers-on. What got me was the flurry of tweets and Facebook posts that had people throwing up their digital hands having lost all faith in love and romance. While reading the posts, my facial expression could have been rendered the silent equivalent of “Chick, you don’t know they life!”

We’re a culture of celebrity voyeurs and with the onset of the internet and all things mobile, we’ve only become more so. Only last weekend, we were combing the internet to catch a glimpse of Kim Kardashian’s Armenian princess look at her wedding to NBA player Kris Humphries. We love celebrities, we love love, but few things are more blogworthy than celebrities in love. We love to root for Hollywood romances, but we need to root for our damn selves too.

How quickly are we willing to throw in the towel in our relationships? How many times were you ready to bounce the instant you were stuck in a basement, sittin’ on tricycle, dude gettin’ on ya nerves? How many of us were on Twitter mourning the rumored end of a Hollywood marriage, when we should have been in the other room working on our own? Are we learning anything from these famous love stories or are we just staring at the stars as if they live under tempered glass, imagining that if only dude were the king of summer blockbusters, if only honey were the face of Carol’s Daughter, we could get it together?

Will and Jada allegedly break up and we lose all hope for romance in our own lives? No one marriage should have all that power.

Only an earthquake that saw the east coast as its epicenter trumped speculation about the Smith split, and eventually, we learned that the rumors were not true. But I have to ask this: Do we put too much faith in people we don’t know as emblems of love and not enough in ourselves? Especially when we don’t know they life? What are you doing to keep your relationship intact? Even if our love heroes—movies stars or mom and dad—don’t make it, are you rooting for you?

The post No One Marriage Should Have All That Power appeared first on Clutch Magazine.

Back in December, when we thought we were having a kid, I got a little overwhelmed. Now I got overwhelmed when I first got a dog because I knew I was responsible for this living creature. So think how I reacted to the thought of having a child.

I was far more intrigued to hear about the “she” in Perry’s life that completed the “we” in his statements than his revelations about possible fatherhood. And until reading the aforementioned internet headlines, I’d never given much thought to the use of the baby daddy/baby mama terms. However, the headlines’ word choice made me feel some kind of way. Why not say Tyler Perry nearly became a father, instead of the heavily-connotative “baby daddy”?

This moment took me back to a few weeks ago when I mentioned to my girlfriend that I was having dinner with our mutual friend Michael, his ex-girlfriend Sherry, and their daughter, Alexis.

“Wait, so you’re meeting up with him, the baby, and his girlfriend?”

“They’re not dating anymore.”

“Oh, so she’s his baby mama.”

”She’s his daughter’s mother.”

I paused, wondering if I was unnecessarily asserting a passive manifesto that the use of a popular colloquialism needed re-evaluation. Maybe it wasn’t that deep, but I didn’t want to say “Yes.” Sherry isn’t befitting of the prevailing baby mama stereotype: a nagging, obnoxious ex who blows the child support check at Forever 21 before paying for daycare. Michael and Sherry had a relationship. Michael and Sherry had a baby. The relationship didn’t work out, but they are both in Alexis’ life as co-parents. I would hardly call Michael a baby daddy in the stereotypical sense. He is far from being the deadbeat absentee, every bit the proverbial rolling stone. He’s a responsible father who, along with Sherry, provides Alexis with emotional and financial needs while keeping the peace with Sherry for their daughter’s sake.

Baby Daddy, much?

I wondered if Perry–a man who has struggled with the effects of abuse at the hands of his own father—would fulfill the baby daddy stereotype himself. Baby Daddy connotes not only a financial absenteeism, but an emotional one as well. Mind you, telling or not, the Ebony article boasts of Perry’s $350 million net worth. Is it fair to peg him as a “I’ll just send you a check. I’ll love you through my currency alone” kind of dad?

I wonder if we need to reassess our lexicon for parenthood. Is there a space for responsible Black mothers and fathers (married or single) to be respectfully addressed as such? Does marriage define “real” parenthood? Do we lose the mother/father label if there is no ring and no relationship? Or has the baby daddy/baby mama dialect permeated our culture so much that it’s turned the corner from a derogatory dismissal to a term of endearment? What is it that makes me feel some kind of way?

The post Tyler Perry and the Baby Daddy Discord appeared first on Clutch Magazine.

I watched the clock as I watched the show, wondering how they were going to wrap up an entire season in 30, 15, 10, 2 minutes. They didn’t. I was frustrated for a while until I realized that the show is great for a Tuesday night appointment and it’s on the cusp of some great storytelling. It’s just. not. going. there.

Case in point: Despite appearing to have it all, Melanie struggles to find herself. During one scene in the season ender, she and Derwin are sitting in the office of a fertility doctor. She insists that the doctor call her “Dr. Melanie Barnett-Davis” but when he asks her which hospital she works for, she shrinks and says “Melanie is fine.” I always wondered why she never pursued her medical career and why she seems embarrassed by the decision. Why can’t we get the inside story on that scenario? It’s one that easily highlights the varying definitions to be a woman, to be a wife, to be independent, to be secure, and to have it all. Throughout the season, I always felt like Melanie was trying too hard to ingratiate herself with the Sunbeams and prove herself to, well, everybody. I still want to know who she is. Does Melanie really think she’s enough?

I was struck a few episodes back when Jason quit his hotshot TV hosting gig to actually parent 13-year-old Brittney, who blamed her weed-smoking, teenage tantrums on her parents’ divorce. There was an opportunity to demonstrate how a man could stand up for his daughter, even when he’s from a world notorious for groupie love and fame-seeking vamps. How could he juggle this responsibility with ex-wife Kelli who, this season, was seen as nothing more than a short-haired reality-show star whose daughter called her a hypocrite? Kelli is also a woman trying to find herself, seeking a place in the world that is no longer defined by her cheapskate husband.

I was eager to see the end dynamics of Malik and Derwin’s relationship. After Malik’s stint in rehab, he seems to expect Derwin to put his own successful career on the line in the name of friendship. Derwin’s been conflicted by this, but in the season finale, the best he does is ask Melanie to do the dirty work of probing Tasha about whose career Tasha is going to focus on, Derwin’s or her son Malik’s. The scene ends with Melanie firing Tasha as Derwin’s manager and Tasha throwing Twizzlers at Melanie, calling her a “fake ass”. But shhhh…don’t tell Derwin. Melanie hasn’t told him that she actually fired Tasha. Nor has she mentioned anything to him about a mystery abortion that might be causing infertility issues, one that serves as the season’s cliffhanger.

I wonder if the show’s writers feel that they need to skip the pith for the sake of fitting an episode into 30 minutes, but the most successful shows are ones that make us think, make us ask questions, and force as to re-examine our own realities. And while the show does that to a degree (Go on admit it, how many of us know somebody who’s done – or needs to do – a secret paternity test on their child?), it leaves me with many more questions to ask about the story. “The Game” sets itself up to address the real-life dichotomies that exist in marriage, the challenges of maintaining a successful career, and the presets that temper family and friend relationships. But it’s. just. not. going. there.

There’s such potential for a rich, multi-faceted story with dynamic characters. I love the drama and humor but I want to care about the characters too. Drama will get us to the show. Depth will keep us watching. Next season, I hope they take it there.

The post And Sometimes You Get Played: Holding On To ‘The Game’ appeared first on Clutch Magazine.

I asked my high school crush to the prom. I didn’t want to go alone and I was always the kind of girl who went after what she wanted. When I did, I usually won. Why would guys have been any different?

He said yes. We colored coordinated our ensembles. His tie and the pinstripes on his suit matched my dress. He picked me up in his daddy’s shiny Suburban. We went to PF Chang’s and had the beef and broccoli with brown rice. He paid and complimented me on my earrings and my shoes. Then we went to the Westin Hotel to party it up with the senior class.

“I think I’mma hit up some afterparties with my boys. But it was a great night!”

He dropped me off at my girlfriend’s house where I spent the night. She was a junior and didn’t attend the prom. I watched from her second floor bedroom window as he drove away in that big ass Suburban.

Most people get laid on prom night. I got a lesson.

“Well, he never hinted that y’all were ever more than just friends. From now on, you should let him chase you.” I’d heard that all my dating life and once again, my friend was telling me to let him do the work. He never did. I was kind of hoping that prom night would spark an Alicia Keys-style teenage love affair. After all, I had been in high school love with him since we were both freshmen. But all that time, even after he agreed to take me to the prom, I had totally been Biz Markied. Indeed, I was just a friend.

I haven’t talked to him since we graduated from high school. While I’m glad he didn’t try to fulfill an American Pie fantasy and then decide that we were just friends, this scenario made me wonder about grown-up dating dynamics.

For some women whose go-getter attitudes have made them successful in other aspects of their lives, the concept of the chase might be hard one to grapple with. Even if we wish to shirk the patriarchal presets that seem inescapable in the dating world or even if we couch our assertive (or, for some, aggressive) attitudes towards dating as a means to skip the game-playing, maybe the old-school rules do apply if for no other reason than this: The chase eliminates confusion.

I recently met a man at a bar and I thought that we were vibin’ somethin’ serious. He texted me his number and when I told him about my blog, he looked at it on his phone. He said he was impressed. We chatted for about 45 minutes over my lemon drop and his liquor. I thought he’d be a potential suitor.

He never called. Neither did I. I wasn’t looking for another male buddy or business associate and lately, I’ve done as much as get on a man’s radar, appear open and available, then let him come the rest of the way. Had I asked him out for lunch or drinks, I might have wasted a good dress and then wondered, “Okay, so am I in the friend zone? Is he being polite? Is he gonna call? How do I know he likes me?” If a woman knows what she wants, then maybe it is better to know from the jump if a dude is not interested.

“But I shouldn’t have to do all the work.” I’ve heard that from many male friends a time or two. Logically, it’s a fair argument. Guy chases a girl who ‘s playing hard to get and he never really knows if she has romantic feelings for him. “Is she just being polite? Is she using me?” Another old adage applies here: It takes two to tango.

In matters of life and dating, when does the chase give way to the dance?

Discuss.

The post The Art of the Dance appeared first on Clutch Magazine.

Lo and behold, I caught myself watching one of those day-long Bravo marathons during a cold and dreary, stay-in-the-house day. Now the only show that rivals episodes of the “ATL Housewives” for space on my DVR is the entire farewell season (so far) of “Oprah.”

Admittedly, I was totally struck by NeNe, the amazonian spitfire with a round-the-way girl rasp in her voice and punchlines that had me laughing for weeks. My trove of favorite NeNe quips —”You touch me girl, I will wear that wig off you head!” “Is that wig squeezing your brain too tight heifer?!” and “Lindsay Lohan daddy!”—has seen the recent addition of “I would never put kool-aid, candied yams, peppermint candy, or pancake syrup in my va-jay-jay.”

NeNe, more so than the other Black housewives on the show, became a major player in the “representation conversation”—a dialogue that re-ignites when a Black personality, movie, or television show gains mainstream notoriety. NeNe Leakes had, after just one season, emblazoned herself in the canon of popular recent Black media imagery, particularly that of the Black female—a canon which has often relegated the Black woman to one of three categories: the asexual mammy, the hypersexual video vixen, or the neck-twisting, fingersnapping, aggressive sass-box.

Black intellectuals and pundits had a field day, womanists went ape shit, and Anderson Cooper loved it. Black folks engaged in the representation conversation had to determine whether NeNe was a win or a loss for us.

Here we are at season three and we’re seeing a different side of Mrs. Linnethia Leakes. Amid a plethora of hilarious one-liners, audiences are now hearing phrases like, “I just wanna get my happy back.”

Apparently, NeNe has hit a wall in her marriage, and the raising of her oldest son.

I was captivated when, for several minutes in one of this season’s early episodes, NeNe had a tearful heart-to-heart with her 20-year-old son Brice, who had recently been arrested:

When you have a child one day, you will understand the hurt that it is, the pain that it is to watch your child just go the wrong way. This is a struggle for me. I am trying to guide you the best that I can and you are really hurting my feelings because I want the best for you and you are killing me . . . I will not sit by and watch you do stupid things and support you being stupid.

A few episodes later, NeNe hosted castmate Cynthia Bailey and her fiancé, Peter, at her home for dinner. NeNe wanted Brice to meet Peter, an accomplished business owner; and while NeNe may have had good intentions, dinner went awry when the viewers got a firsthand look at the trouble that had been brewing between her and her husband, Gregg. The dinner culminated in NeNe in a Moscato-driven flare up, repeatedly tapping Gregg on the nose with her index finger, saying, “Say it, Gregg. I-am-not-a-good-com-muni-cator.” He looked at her crazy and then pretended to hang himself.

The episode ended with NeNe telling Cynthia, “I am going to divorce Gregg.” At that point, we were only halfway through the season, and viewers (or is it just me?) didn’t know what Gregg had done exactly. Besides his borrowing somewhere between $500 and $10,000 from NeNe’s former BFF, Dwight, NeNe had implied that Gregg had cheated on her. But perhaps the rest of the season will tell. Whatever it was, Gregg sure had NeNe is a tizzy.

Viewers later learned that Gregg had confided to a friend about his frustrations with NeNe, in whom he claimed to have had invested $300,000 so that her entertainment career could take off in Georgia. What Gregg states was a private conversation between friends, was played on laptops and iPads across the blogosphere when his supposed confidant aired Gregg’s venting on an Internet radio show.

NeNe returned home to confront her husband:

I didn’t get with you for money. I got with you because I loved you. Now, I gave you $300,000. Where it’s at? Yes, give me back my vacations. Gimme them back. Give my back the got damn labor pains I had for your ass. Give me the shoes off your feet and the shirt off your back. I bought it . . . I have said a lot of things out of anger. But one thing that I did do was put on a united front, for your ass. And I am pissed off that you put me on the got damn line, not having my back. I have had your back in so many situations, so many. I have stood by you when you have done me wrong as your wife.

Of the few words Gregg said, he acknowledged the “immaculate fibers” keeping her in the marriage. He left the conversation with, “Thank you for your time.” That episode ended with a shot of NeNe stomping upstairs and Gregg trudging downstairs as she yelled, “I know I married a damn monster!”

Amid all of NeNe and Gregg’s marital discord, bloggers question whether NeNe is putting on, and putting her family life on the line for the sake of “reality” television fame and a paycheck from Bravo. As one writer from The Grio notes, “It’s tempting to feel bad for NeNe and family, however consider this — thanks to this major storyline of divorce and drama, NeNe is getting more press than ever. . . . So who’s the fool here? The viewer, for buying into the drama? Or Nene for selling her personal life in hopes of a cash prize? Could it be that she’s a savvy businesswoman stringing viewers along on her contrived ride?”

Whether she is indeed putting on, or is truly on the brink of a crumbling relationship, I’m relieved to see NeNe’s softer side. As strong and quick-witted as she’s been in past seasons, this season she’s on the cusp of a broken marriage and doesn’t want to lose her young Black son to the world. It’s very unfortunate, yes, but this is about as real as I’ve ever seen any “Real” Housewives in three seasons, loosely scripted or not.

Most “representation conversations” deduce that all we really need is balance in our media images. NeNe and her cohorts have their place on the Black image scale—most just want to see more done for the Huxtable-esque side of the spectrum. That argument is fair enough.

But there is something to be said about NeNe’s apparent vulnerability and frustration providing a counter to the Strong Black Woman (SBW) mask in which we’re accustomed to seeing her. I wonder about the balance that her season three saga provides for other strong Black women who aren’t on reality TV shows, but still feel the need to keep it all together, despite the fact that things seem to be falling apart.

Can we “conscious” folk who have representation conversations in classrooms and coffeehouses (but are closeted “ATL Housewives” addicts) give NeNe any credit? Is she shattering a myth about the SBW, or does she continue to perpetuate a sassy stereotype at the expense of her family?

Season three is slated to run through February, so I’m eager to see what’s next in NeNe’s arc and if we can glean anything from her TV story. Is she a win or loss? We’ll just have to watch what happens.

Bam!

The post Redeeming NeNe appeared first on Clutch Magazine.