The Root: A Life Coach Exposes Her Life to TV Scrutiny (A Long Q&A)

Screen Shot 2014-01-03 at 6.18.53 PMWe’re witnessing the democratization of celebrity. There’s the selfie phenomenon, and those impromptu photo shoots in which everyone seems to take part, even for the most unceremonious occasions. The exploitation of our ordinary lives is faciliated by Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and Facebook. Our lives are everywhere. Everyone is everywhere. Everyone is special, therefore no one is special. The same goes for being famous. In 50 years, some predict everyone will be followed around by cameras.

But until then, we are all guilty of indulging in the lives of those who choose to partake in that phenomenon a bit more directly. Yep, we're talking reality television. As she previously discussed, Demetria L. Lucas, contributing editor at The Root, is one of six professional women who will appear in a Bravo reality show titled Blood, Sweat & Heels. It airs this Sunday, Jan. 5, at 9 p.m. EST.

The premise is fairly clichéd: All six women are hustling, building their respective brands in media, entertainment, fashion, etc., in New York City.

In a candid exchange, Lucas chopped up it with The Root about a bunch of stuff, primarily whether she thought she would be compromising the integrity of her brand by appearing on a reality-TV show. Her engagement came up, too, since her fiance is featured—every now and then—on the show. Lucas prides herself on being a fairly open book, given her work as a life coach and dating expert. Even so, we were curious to know what her impetus was for doing the show, beyond the clichéd "I’m doing this to improve the perception of black women on TV."

 The Root: How does your professional work influence your relationships with your cast members, especially since issues relating to dating and marriage come up fairly often for successful women?

Demetria L. Lucas: For the last decade, dating and relationship talk has consumed my working life. I’m a life coach, have authored a dating advice book, A Belle in Brooklyn: The Go-To Guide for Living Your Best Single Life, with another book, Don’t Waste Your Pretty: The Go-to Guide for Making Smarter Decisions in Life & Love coming in March. I was the relationships editor at Essence magazine for years, and before that an editor of romance novels at Harlequin. But when I’m off the clock, just like attorneys don’t like to give legal advice and CPAs don’t want to talk taxes, I don’t like to coach or advise over brunch or cocktails. When I have to, it’s frustrating.

In my downtime, I’d rather be a friend, not an expert, which means if someone shares their dating woes, I tend to lean back, listen and let them vent. No one wants to hear, “what you should do is ... ” when they didn’t ask. That said, if we’re chatting, and I think something is blatantly wrong or detrimental to a healthy relationship, I can slip into “coach” mode when it’s someone I care about.

TR: A media outlet once dubbed you the "black Carrie Bradshaw," and in Carrie’s case, she went through some pretty tumultuous times with her relationship with Mr. Big, which at times had women question just how much she knew about dating and love. Do you ever fear that you’ll have a disastrous moment in your personal life, akin to Carrie and Mr. Big’s “runaway groom” incident, that might cause your castmates to ridicule you, or question your professional advice?

DLL: Carrie Bradshaw was a convenient shorthand to describe me at the time. I was working as a relationship editor at Essence, penning a blog and book about my dating experiences in my 20s. Oh, and I live in New York.

Disastrous moments are a part of life, and they happen to everyone who lives long enough. I recently celebrated the seventh anniversary of my blog,ABelleinBrooklyn.com, which is a humorous take on all the things that have gone wrong in my personal life, from not setting boundaries, being assaulted by a friend, breakups, etc., and how I learned from those experiences. When something else disastrous happens, I’ll write about that, too, and try to find the bright side. Optimism is my signature trait.

My validity as a life coach and relationships columnist isn’t based on my personal life. I have a resume and a decade of experience to back up my profession. A lawyer who loses a case isn’t suddenly a hack, just like a CPA who misses a number isn’t inept. People, including life coaches, take hits like everyone else.

Oh, and Mr. Big and Carrie never should have been together anyway. The emotionally unavailable thrice-married guy who drags you along for 10 years, marries someone else while you’re “on break,” cheats on his wife with you and makes plans to move across country without telling you only makes a “good” husband in scripted TV and movies. As a huge SATC fan, I always wished Carrie went back to Aidan, or found someone like him. He wasn’t the guy she wanted, but the one she needed.

TR: In the show’s trailer, we see you weigh in on an issue relating to feminism and gender. Were you generally disappointed, or underwhelmed, by the group of ladies whom you were cast alongside, because of their views on these sorts of issues?

DLL: Surprised is a better word. This isn’t the first time I was approached about doing a reality show, only the first time I accepted the offer. What attracted me to the show is that each of the women are leaders—either they are running a business or have a solid business plan in place. So I was shocked to hear women who lead in their professional lives say that they didn’t think that is a woman’s role. "I’m sorry. What?" That conversation still boggles my mind.

To be frank, some of the opinions were startling, but that’s tolerable. The times I woke up wondering, “What have I gotten myself into?!” came from the behavior of some of my castmates, not their perspectives. I wear my thoughts on my face. When you watch, you’ll know every moment I’m referring to now.

 

Read more: here

The Root: Maybe Our Parents Were Wrong About Dating

Screen Shot 2014-01-03 at 4.19.29 PMOver the weekend, the New York Times published “A Reluctant Bride Conquers Her Fears” in its Weddings section. The story focused on a black couple who said “I do” on Dec. 14. It was a celebratory tale with a happy ending, but some women found themselves in tears before they finished.

“I’m crying over this Demetria,” one woman wrote on my Facebook wall after I shared the story on Sunday.

At 39, Rachel Skiffer married Marvin Coote nearly 20 years—and a few breakups—after they met. Surely Coote isn’t perfect—no one is—but the holdup here was on the bride, who owned up to a mistake that many black women can relate to.

Skiffer was “known for her independence.” Her family schooled her to “avoid the attention of boys” and “warned her: career first, family second.” Her mother told her, “[Don’t] marry [your] first boyfriend or rely on a man for anything.”

Sound familiar? It did to another reader, too. She wrote, “Reading this reminded me of everything my mom has told me: ‘Don’t rely on a man’ and my dad telling me to put my career first ... and that advice has held me back with my relationships. I am struggling to break free from it.”

A dutiful daughter, Skiffer listened, too. In college she met Coote, who would become her first boyfriend. They moved in together. During her senior year, he bought her a “promise ring.” And then one day in 1996, she took her mother’s advice and broke up with him.

“Marvin took care of me and I equated that with being vulnerable,” Skiffer told the Times, as if vulnerability were a bad thing and not a necessary component of a healthy relationship.

Over the years, the couple gave the relationship two more tries. On their third attempt, Coote offered to move across the country to be with Skiffer, who was working as a lawyer. She recalled fatherly advice about how moving would disrupt their careers and broke up with him—again.

They didn’t speak for six years.

In the meantime, she set a goal of making partner at her law firm, a blessing and a curse that she equated to “winning a pie-eating contest but the prize was more pie.” By 2011 she had bought a condo, had a flourishing (and lucrative) career and had been a good girl who took her parents’ advice, which, at its core, was, “You don’t need a man.” She was successful, self-sufficient and also unfulfilled.

Read more: here 

Ask Demetria: Why Is There A Double Standard on Cheating?

Screen Shot 2014-01-03 at 4.17.22 PM“It amazes me the double standards of cheating: Friend cheated on wife; both their families more or less were upset but shrugged, expected her to stay/forgive. She then cheated two years later and everyone was screaming he should leave her. Why is a woman cheating more unforgivable?” —F.T.

We live in a patriarchy that's full of double standards that often benefit men, especially when it comes to sex. There’s a “boys will be boys” outlook that stems from the idea that monogamy is just not natural for men. For men, sex is believed to be just pleasure and nothing more.

Of course, women are not believed to have similar sexual desires as men and sex must “mean something.” Thus, women are perceived to be naturally faithful and expected to be faithful. When a woman is not, it is perceived to be a grave betrayal to the relationship.

You know, if a man or woman doesn’t believe in monogamy, I’m totally fine with that. I just encourage them to stay single-single—no relationships and no marriage, unless, of course, they have a spouse who is fine with them having sex with others and they are happy to extend the same “courtesy.” If they’re both on the same page? Good for them. May they get tested with their partners, have safe sex and carry on happily. Singles, of course, can do as they please and should take similar precautions to protect themselves and anyone with whom they have sex.

I do take issue with the couple you’ve described. If the family, who shouldn’t be all up in this marriage anyway, is telling the wife to stay and forgive when her husband cheated and telling the man to go now that she’s returned the “favor,” then these folks weren’t in an open marriage. My grandmother liked to say, “What’s good for the goose

is good for the gander,” which loosely means, what applies to one, should apply to all. There shouldn’t be a different outlook on the consequences of cheating solely based on the sex of the person who’s doing it.

But, unfortunately there is. Last week, a woman wrote into my ask.fm to say that she recently discovered her husband of eight years had fathered a 6-week-old child with his ex-girlfriend. She was, unsurprisingly, devastated to know that her partner had lied to and deceived her for at least the last year of their union. Her inclination was to leave her marriage, which you can guess most people who read her story supported, as that is a huge betrayal.

However, there were naysayers, who didn’t think this heinous scenario was worth “throwing away” her marriage. When I posted about the situation on my Facebookpage, one woman was adamant that she stay with her husband:

“I always thought the women who stayed were strong and powerful and I've always applauded them for not letting some lesser chick tear down their house or take control of their husband. I think I'd feel, she may be his entertainment, but I'm his wife. I clean his dirty underwear until death do us part and no woman is going to make me leave so she can try to fill my shoes. When he comes home, I get his paycheck. No one else gets that privilege … I worked hard to get him where he is, and she isn't getting the fruits of my labor. You're taking care of that kid and you're coming home every night.”

The outlook of holding women to higher standards than men is pervasive and unfortunate. The commenter missed—or was willfully overlooking—the quality of the man she would be keeping. She’s washing the dirty underwear of a man who lies, who has unprotected sex with other women and risks catching a sexually transmitted infection that he could pass on to his wife. Much like the families that you described, her vitriol was only reserved for the woman. She didn’t seem to get that the other woman isn't so much taking a man as he is giving himself to her.

 

Read more: here 

The Root: R. Kelly Fans, Stop Blaming His Victims

Screen Shot 2014-01-03 at 4.12.19 PMI can’t say I’m all that surprised about the backlash against the folks who have been denouncing R. Kelly lately. I called on people who still supported him to rethink that position after the Village Voice interviewed Jim DeRogatis—the journalist who broke the story of R. Kelly’s sexual conduct with underage girls nearly 15 years ago—in a story that has now gone viral. Since then, seemingly every major site that blacks and feminists frequent has run an article calling for readers to stop supporting a “monster” by not purchasing R. Kelly’s latest album, Black Panties. Over at Hello Beautiful, where the site ran a full-on “We Love R. Kelly” piece after hosting a listening session for his latest music, there was backtracking after the Village Voice interview. The writer of the original article, Leigh Davenport, said that she now feels “shocked” and “horrified” by the depth of the allegations against one of her favorite singers. “I was, perhaps willingly, quite ignorant to the details of R. Kelly’s offenses,” she said in a follow-up interview on the Hello Beautiful site.

So many of us are just now putting a clichéd two and two together about exactly what R. Kelly has been accused of by dozens of young women in Chicago. And as many of us rightfully balk at his misdeeds, there are those who acknowledge his alleged actions and still do mental contortions of Cirque du Soleil proportions to avoid holding him accountable for anything.

I’ve read countless commenters who wondered, “Where were these girls’ parents?” as if their parents knew every move they made at 14 and we weren’t all doing our damnedest to elude our own parents. Then there were people—women, even—blaming the victims, who were teenagers, as more or less fast girls who knew exactly

what they were doing when they chose to have sex with a man twice their age in exchange for tennis shoes, Coach bags and promises of a fairy-tale life.

“Question: At 14 years old did you know who and what you were doing with your body ... I did,” one woman wrote on Facebook.

Oh, really? Did you? Never mind. It doesn’t matter. Whether or not a 14-year-old girl fully understands the grown-up ramifications of sex is actually irrelevant. Statutory rape is illegal in most states in America, including Illinois, where the age of consent is 17.

Read more: here

AskFM UPDATE: But Who's the Father?!

life_1999_babys_daddy_part_2A woman wrote in yesterday to say that her husband's ex girlfriend had asked him to be the godfather of her new baby. Hub's Ex has asked him to be God-dad to her 6wk old son. The same Ex that caused problems when he and I got together, the same Ex that I told him to cease communication with. Apparently he has not. I'm so ticked right now. This chick will not go away.

This is a really wild for the night ask. And I'm wondering what man is okay with the mother of his child making her ex the godfather to her kid. Is the ex not with the child's father already? Hmm...
But the bottom line here was why was the ex  so comfortable aking this of her ex who is now married?
My answer:
That's on [your husband]. He's sending her messages that it's ok to stay around. Ask him what it will take for him to leave this woman alone.
And asking him to be the kid's godfather is out of pocket. All it is, is a way to have a tie to him.
Something's up. Who's the father of the kid??

 

UPDATE 2:

My spidey senses were tingling. Something wasn't right at all about this story. Like why would a man even ask his wife to consider this? UNLESS... this was the lesser of some greater evil.

Hmmm...

She wrote back:

Belle, thats the same question I asked. He got upset. Now he wants to paint me the jealous insecure wife. We have an infertility woe we're currently dealing with (endometriosis) which makes my answer[to his ask] not "no", but a strong "HELL NO!!!"

 

She didn't answer the most important question, which was my bad. In a rare instance, I tip-toed around what I really wanted to say. I tried again.

ok, but who did he say is the father of the kid? i just can't see the kid's dad being like "sure, your ex who you can't let go of, can be the godfather."

is this your husband's kid is what I was trying to ask in a roundabout way. that's my bad for not being direct.

you're not jealous or insecure for having a problem with a woman that he won't let go.

 

UPDATE 3:

The wife said she already asked:

No, I got that, and asked him if the child's his. He said it's not. But my gut is telling me to do some digging. The way he stormed out of the house this afternoon seems rather suspect. Also he's not picking up his phone. I'm throwing his ass out tonight!!! This is too much for me.
My response:
if your gut is telling you something is up, something is up.

i know you're angry, but calm down and think things through before you throw him out. this isn't a relationship. it's a marriage.

 

 

UPDATE 4:

Like everyone else, I like being right. But given the nature of what I do, sometimes I like to be wrong. I don't like peeing on people's lives or pouring on their parades. However, if they ask me what I think, I feel obligated to be honest-- and unfortuately, the honest answer and the right answer, aren't always the answers folks want, even when they ask.

The elders told us to be careful what we ask (for), for a reason.

The wife wrote back in this morning. I won't post the full (and long) response right now out of respect. She's not thinking clearly, and honestly the details don't matter:

My marriage was supposed to be my place of solace, not a source of grief. I made sure I was a good wife to him. I cook, I clean, I do every freaky nasty thing in the bedroom that he requested. So why wasn't it enough? I work hard as hell! Yet, I still managed to be a wife to him.

No matter how many hoops I've jumped through, or how many stars I've pulled from the sky, I somehow failed. This bitch has done what I could never do in 8 years: give my Hubs a baby. I can't compete with that.

Damn.

Hit me up. I read all your responses. This isn't an ask.fm solution and it isn't a quick answer: coachedbybelle at gmail dot com

 

R. Kelly's Publicist Must Hate Him. Has to...

Screen Shot 2014-01-03 at 4.14.48 PMSo... I am convinced that R. Kelly's publicist secretly hates him and is masterminding his downfall. First, that completely illogical #askrkelly hashtag last week that basically just gave bored at work people a reason to go-all-the-way in for jokes. And now this radio interview... sorta. Village Voice runs basically a "Death to R. Kelly's Career" story which we all read. And his crazy PR sends him into a radio interview with Big Tigger in Atlanta the SAME DAMN DAY.

But get this: Tig-- who I like-- basically blows what could have been a Wendy-Whitney career-defining interview by lobbing soft ball questions.

Tig calls the VV story "not so complimentary"—really? That's all it was?  Calls the accusations "a period that's behind you" and asks what Kelly thinks of the VV story.

Um. It ain't behind you if the VV is running a story that morning, but...

Anyway, Kellz answers the Q with football metaphors and says, "When you get on top, its very windy."

WTF?

He says "naysayers" and "detractors" or people with something to say can listen to the last song on his album, which is conveniently titled "Shut Up".

Tig is practically a fanboy in the studio. It doesn't go forgotten he dropped a verse on R. Kelly's "Snake" way, way, way back when people still drank Hpnotiq.

Oh, and Kellz makes some jokes about his "tongue being tired" and how much he loves "cookies."

Yuck. 

Some lady calls in to the station and she sounds like she's practically coming on herself to be on the phone with Kellz. She literally starts squaaling like a teenage girl over One Direction. She squealed more for Kellz than she did for winning a $250 gas card.

Oh. Again. There’s another R. Kelly album coming in six months.

Where the **** is Charlamagne or Ebro and Rosenberg or hell, Toure' again, when you need them?  **** bring back Wendy!!!!

 

I'd like the next interview-- since there will be one as his publicist either hates him or is clueless-- to include the following questions:

*Did you have sex with girls who at the time of the sex were not old enough to consent?

*Do you currently have sex with girls who at the time of the sex were not old enough to consent?

*Why do you think dozens of girls have accused you of having sex with them when they were in their early teens?

*What amount of money would you guess you have spent settling lawsuits to the family's of young girls who accused you of statutory rape?

*If an artist was alleged to have done to your daughters what you have been accused of doing by dozens of young black girls, would you encourage women to buy his music?

*Do you still hang out at the Motown McDonald's to meet high school age women?

*Are you dating anyone now? Is she legal?

*How old is the girl who is sitting on your lap on the album cover?

*Do you think it is appropriate to have a woman who looks so young on your album cover given the multiple allegations against you of having sex with underage girls.

*Do you prey on young Black girls?

*When you sing about sex, how old are the women you are singing to?

IJS.

 

Anyway, the complete interview if you're curious:

[video width="560" height="315" id="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-Lcfes7XNI" type="youtube"]

Let Beyonce' Be Drunk, Eat Cake & Live

images-3-1I lack the energy--at the present time-- to do a full "In Defense of Beyonce'" post, though as the writing around this album gets more ridiculous by the day, I'm sure I'll be inspired to string something together out of sheer frustration soon.  In the meantime, I need to say this:

Ya'll do realize that the Ike Turner/ ANNA Mae reference that Jay Z spits on "Drunk in Love" isn't condoning domestic abuse, right?... Um, right?

He's drunk talking ish to his wife who has been talking ish to him:

Hold up, stumble all in the house tryna backup all that mouth/ That you had all in the car, talking ’bout you the baddest bitch thus far/ Talking ’bout you be repping that 3rd, wanna see all that shit I heard

And by the middle of the verse, he too is talking ish about what he's going to do to her sexually, and most important WITH HER CONSENT:

Know I sling Clint Eastwood, hope you can handle this curve.../ Catch a charge I might, beat the box up like Mike/ In ’97 I bite, I’m Ike, Turner, turn up/ Baby no I don’t play, now eat the cake, Anna Mae/ Said, “Eat the cake, Anna Mae!”

 

I mean, she's drunk-giggling in the background as he talks DRUNK ISH on a song called "Drunk in Love" in a video where they are appear to be pissy drunk. And if his wife is fine with him essentially talking about beating the p**** up, then who are we to object here?

Is an Ike Turner allusion the best choice? God, no. But in context, there's nothing to see here, folks. Drunk people saying drunk words to each other— he even says "I'm nice", ie white boy wasted—  right before they "surfboard" doesn't need a dissertation.

 

Also, I know drunk Beyonce is a little jarring for some folks (this means you).

Some gems from a HuffPo piece, "How Did Beyonce' Go From Tina Turner to "Anna Mae?" (Note the corrected title. It was originally "Annie Mae"):

 I must admit that this latest release, "Drunk in Love," is incredibly disturbing.

To go from independent woman -- in control of her destiny, demanding respect and embodying girl power -- to describing herself as a drunk, profane woman willing to let her man kick a misogynistic, abusive verse is so disheartening.

And this:

My God, it's as if she turned back the clock 50 years in one moment.

Really? Beyonce has set all of womankind back now? Because "Cater to You" didn't? But this here does?

And this:

What was she thinking? To go from the uplifting love song, "Love on Top" to this?

"I been drinking... I get so filthy...Eat the cake Anna Mae..."

And finally this:

We are witnessing a sad development in the body of work of this icon. She sold millions as a class act. Why go down this road? Let's hope that at some point the self-respecting, empowered and empowering Beyonce will rise again.

Until then, who will raise a standard for black girls and women to look up to in the entertainment industry. Badly done, Mrs. Carter. Badly done!

 

#Womp.

Look, nothing gets hits like writing anything whatsoever about Beyonce', but some folk are reeeeeeachingin the critiques of this song.

This "sad development" is breaking sales records. And for like the first time ever, I'm actually feeling a Beyonce' album. (Looks out window to spot flying pigs.)

Ya'll gotta let Bey be here. At 32 if she wants to get drunk and then be "filthy" with her husband, that's her adult and wifely right to do and her prerogative to sing about because she's a "Grown Woman."

I wish everyone reading all the same in your relationships and marriages and they will be better for it.

If you've never been silly and inappropriate with your man-- sober or not-- and you two don't have wild stories that you can never share with others, I'm questioning your love.

You don't have to tell me or anyone else about it. But you should be doing it.

 

That is all... for now.

The Root: 6 Things I Care About on 'Beyonce'' More Than Her Feminism

Bey-JayIf you’re reading this, you have an Internet connection. And because you have said connection, then you are undoubtedly aware that Beyoncé Knowles released an album out of nowhere last week on Friday. For the better part of the last 96 hours, the Internet has been going HAM about Beyoncé, the person and super-secret album of the same name.

Leading this discussion has been an intense (and circular) conversation about whether Beyoncé is or is not a feminist and whether bona fide black feminists should support her. This conversation happens every single time Beyoncé drops an album, an empowering (or male-ego-stroking) song or performs at any televised awards show. It’s perhaps more intense this round because Beyoncé featured the TED talk “We Should All Be Feminists” by Nigerian-born author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie on the single “Flawless.”

I remain unclear on why it matters if Beyoncé is a feminist or not. Admittedly, it would be nice to have a new visual of a feminist woman that replaces the inaccurate and widely held stereotype that feminists are unattractive, old, bitter and manless. But otherwise, I don’t get it.

There are at least six more things that I find entirely more interesting about Beyoncé’sBeyoncé. In no particular order they are:

1. The Gamble

Beyoncé the album was exclusively posted on iTunes in the wee hours of Friday morning. With no promotion whatsoever it was a gutsy move, one that has proven to be purely brilliant at three days hindsight. From Friday till close of business Sunday night, Beyoncé sold “an unprecedented 828,773 albums,” according to Billboard, and broke iTunes' first-week sales record in the United States. When speaking highly of Beyoncé, it’s usually her beauty and her work ethic that get the mentions. Add brains to that list.

2. Anna Mae

The first single from Beyoncé, “Drunk in Love,” features a verse by Beyoncé’s husband, Jay Z. He raps, “I'm Ike Turner, turn up/Baby know I don't play/Now eat the cake, Anna Mae.” The allusion to the infamous line spoken by Laurence Fishburne as Ike Turner in What’s Love Got to Do With It? has come under fire, although in context, it’s a reference to Jay Z’s sexual prowess, not condoning domestic violence.

Still, I’m amazed at the number of writers who either missed the reference entirely—Vice writer Kitty Pryde, who live-blogged the album, swore Jay Z said “anime” instead of Anna Mae. In a follow-up apology, she admitted she had never seen the film to know the reference, but at the time of her second writing she knew where the line came from and still called “Anna Mae” Annie Mae. A HuffPo article dressing down Beyoncé for going from “extraordinary to common” on her latest single gets it wrong, too, and the author saw the movie.

3. “Rocket”

For nearly 14 years, D’Angelo’s “How Does It Feel?” has topped my list of favorite sexy-time songs. And now, with the help of Miguel, who penned the lyrics for “Rocket,” Beyoncé has crafted an equally seductive tune that speaks for how the ladies feel. (I’ve had this on repeat for four days.)

Read more: here 

The Root: My Change of Heart with R. Kelly

Screen Shot 2014-01-03 at 4.38.30 PMConsider this a public penance. Last year I wrote a story for Clutch magazine, “No Longer Trapped in the Closet,” boldly defending my decision to still like R. Kelly's music despite the rumors surrounding him about his proclivity for sex with underage girls.

You have to understand, R. Kelly’s first solo album dropped in 1993, when I was 14, and for the next 11 years, he never made a bad album. During the complete span of my coming-of-age years, his music was the (inappropriate) soundtrack to my life. I remember where I was the first time I heard “Bump ’n’ Grind,” and I have fond memories of what happened in my first apartment to the sound of “Feelin’ on Yo Booty.” Most of that was before I grasped how horrifying it was that he married 15-year-old Aaliyah or before I saw the bootleg video of him allegedly urinating on a 14-year-old girl (Kelly was found not guilty of charges related to the video).

I’ve done astounding mental acrobatics over the years to justify being an advocate for the empowerment of women and girls and still enjoying R. Kelly’s music enough that I’ve conned my way into private concerts. And it’s time to stop. As writer The Champ put it over on Very Smart Brothas:

With other artists guilty of criminal behavior, there can be a certain cognitive dissonance that can happen when the art and the unseemly acts by the artist have no connection. R. Kelly’s music doesn’t allow for that … He makes crazy, nasty, deviant sex music because he’s a crazy, nasty sex deviant. These are not two separate parts of him.

I realize that with others who have tried to separate the man from his music, I am a huge part of Kelly’s latest resurgence in pop culture with his latest album, Black Panties, which peddles the freaky, sex-laden music that made him so famous in the first place. Jezebel went so far as to call it “a magnificent ode to p--sy,” if that gives you any indication of how raunchy it is.

With rare exceptions, R. Kelly has spent the last few years staying away from all the things that made him The R. Kelly, a way of deflecting from the mountain of rumors about the young girls with whom he had sexual encounters and the contents of that tape. He was crooning more about love or creating stepper anthems. There was the short-lived experiment with gospel, a retro-’60s moment and that ridiculous “Trapped in the Closet” series that was laughably bad.

But over the years, as time has created a distance—but not yet amnesia—he’s grown more comfortable

Read more: here 

In Other Blame A Black Man News

ku-xlargeShort version:  A woman in St. Louis made headlines after she claimed she was a victim of the "knockout game" an alleged urban trend where Black guys run up on unsuspecting people and try to knock them the "*** out" like "Deebo" in Friday.   Ashley DePew, 23, told police she was picking up a drunk friend from a bar on November 17 when she was punched in the face by three Black men in the crowd. DePew's injury required  required facial reconstructive surgery.

Police investigated the story and discovered it was Pure-D BS. Authorities found that Simms wasn't at the bar and the friend she allgedly was picking up denied seeing her that night. Turns out, she actually sustained her injury from her boyrfirend who beat her Chris Brown style in his car. She made up the "Black men beat me!" story to protect her 25-year-old boyfriend Justin Simms.

Both face misdemeanor charges for making false claims to police. No word whether the boyfriend will be charged with battery.

 

Discuss.

 

The Root: 10 Friends a Black Woman Needs to Get By

10 FriendsSeveral weeks ago a black woman in Louisiana was kidnapped by her boyfriend when she went to pick up their child from day care. The police did a requisite search for her but came up empty. That’s when her family got involved. An uncle and other male relatives tracked the woman down to an abandoned home in the sticks. They heard her cries as they approached the house. And that’s when a cousin sprang into action. Like something out of a Hollywood thriller, he busted down the door to the house. When he saw the boyfriend stabbing his relative, he shot and killed the man.

In the news photos accompanying the story, the woman is shown being cradled in her uncle’s arms as he appears to be loading her into a vehicle. She’s cut up bad, clearly scared but alive, thanks to him and other family members.

I read that story and thought, “Dang, every single woman needs men like this in her life—problem solvers” who get things “handled” like Olivia Pope. That got me to thinking about what other types of people—male and female—a lady needs to get by. This is what I came up with:

 

1. The “Elder” Stateswoman

She’s got seven to 10 years on you, and those few years give her an insight to your life that is priceless. She’s young enough to remember how she was at your age, and old enough to help you sidestep unnecessary drama, especially when it comes to work and men. Whatever advice she gives, 99 percent of it turns out to be right.

2. A Lady Problem Solver*

You have a good reputation and some sense, but every now and again a situation occurs when using them doesn’t solve a problem quickly. You can’t be caught acting a fool, but she doesn’t care and is willing to take the heat. When you’re at a party, if someone’s flirting with your man, she will handle it. When you find out your man is cheating, she’s willing to confront the woman (even though it’s not really the woman’s fault). You got beef, she asks, “Do I need to come up there?” (The correct answer is no.) Whenever there’s drama, she’s got your back.

3. The “All the Way Turned Up” Friend*

She’s not your day-to-day friend because you’re grown folk with a real job—and, let’s face it, too dang old to be in the club every night with her. But when you need to plan your birthday party, your bachelorette party, your get-over-an-ex party, she knows where to go—and she knows the doorman and the manager, wherever that is. She’s never a dull moment on vacation, but you can’t talk about those details—what happened in Vegas (or anywhere else) stays in Vegas.

Read more: here

The Root: Why I Decided to Do A Reality Show

BelleShootMonday morning, entertainment trade magazine the Hollywood Reporter broke the news of an upcoming reality show, Blood, Sweat & Heels, which will debut on Bravo on Jan. 5. Since taping began in the spring, I’d been biting my tongue for months, alternately excited to reveal the news to my readers and, to be honest, afraid of what the reaction would be.

There’s no sense in beating around the clichéd bush: There are a lot of people who don’t think highly of reality TV or reality-TV stars, especially when there are black women involved. The women are all thought to be exploited or selling their souls, either searching for a quick come-up or in a desperate hunt for what Andy Warhol called “15 minutes of fame.”

I’ve been highly critical in my writing of the fighting, the bottle throwing and, in general, the bad behavior by women and men who have been depicted under the guise of entertainment. And yet I signed on to participate in a reality show anyway.

It’s not for the money. The salary for a starting season isn’t a number most would find impressive. And while there’s an opportunity to make some coin, most people don’t, and an uncommon number even lose all that they gain. Earlier this year the Huffington Post looked at the number of women with money problems among the 67 in Bravo’sReal Housewives franchise, and found that a startling 12 had filed for bankruptcy. My lawyer conveniently sent me a link to that story just before I signed my contract for the show. I still signed the contract.

I began blogging in 2006 because I couldn’t find a “character” like me on TV or in media, period. It had been years since Living Single went off the air, and as much as I loved Tracee Ellis Ross in Girlfriends, I needed an East Coast girl to relate to. I was a huge fan of Sex and the City and wondered how, in all of New York City, where people of color outnumber white folks, there wasn’t a black woman or any woman of color on the show. Black shows always got a token white person; why didn’t this white show?

I wanted to see a black woman who treated her city like a social playground, who thrived in her profession or was at least climbing the ladder, who had her relationship ups and downs as I did (and do) but still managed to have fun and remain optimistic. Black women were too often portrayed as tragic, excessively struggling, loving the wrong men hard and getting bitter as a result. That’s a story of black women, but it isn’t the only story, and it wasn’t my story or the story of the women I surrounded myself with. I was complaining that there were no women like me in media, until I stopped whining and started typing.

My blog was published on HoneyMag.com in 2007 and was immediately successful. Apparently, there were a lot of women like me, looking for someone like them. Who knew? The popularity of that blog led me to a position as the relationships editor at Essence magazine in 2007, where I eventually landed my own column about dating and relationships, which earned an award for Best Personal Blog in 2010. Then I earned a book deal based on my blog in 2011.

I’m told that a casting director of Blood, Sweat & Heels found me when she Googled “the Black Carrie Bradshaw,” a phrase that was used to describe me when the Washington Post did a profile about my blog and dating adventures in 2010. The producers originally conceived the show as a black Sex and the City, and I was a fit. When my manager told me about the show, the first thing I said was something like, “I’m not the black version of a white fictional TV character. I’m me. They have to want that.”

 

Read more: here 

Wake Up, Mr. West: Kanye West, 'Clayton Bigsby' & the Confederate Flag

Earlier this week, I was driving home from the gym. I’d conveniently remembered my headphones so as not to die from boredom on the treadmill, but I forgot The Chord, the one that connects my iPhone to my truck’s stereo system.Kanyeconfederate  I was stuck in the end of rush hour traffic and forced to listen to the radio, which I rarely do unless there’s a juicy interview on Power 105. Lucky for me, it was Hot 97’s countdown. Kanye West’s “Bound 2” came on. And I lost it… in a good way.   I gave "Yeezus" a cursory listen when it dropped and decided it wasn’t as good as say, "My Dark Twisted Fantasy”. I thought the same about “Watch the Throne”, which is now one of my favorite albums. I gave that a few more chances—and by chances, I mean listened to it while I drove because that’s when I really determine if I like something.   Back then, I liked Kanye’s persona and wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt. By the time Yeezus dropped, I’d lost some love so I wasn’t as willing to expend the effort.

That’s my bad. Because the album has some bangers that move me the same way “College Dropout” did. “Black Skinhead”, “Blood on the Leaves” (which a lot of people hate for the chosen content over a Nina Simone sample) and “Bound 2” are amazing. Period.

After I turned the sound all the way up in my truck, singing along to the chorus at the top of my lungs, I got home and played it on repeat for 30 minutes. And after that, I wondered if liking Kanye music and loathing the actual man made me a hypocrite. I’d recently written a scathing editorial about what a massive douche West is for equating his woman to First Lady Michelle Obama. And here I was days later feeling his music like my air supply depended on it. Maybe I should give Kanye the person another try? I mean, he made “Jesus Walks”.

But iCan’t with Kanye West, at least the person, anymore. And this comes from a reformed Kanye “Stan.”

His latest stunt with this confederate flag bidness—selling it at his store, putting it on his tour paraphenelia, draping himself in it, wearing it to shop at Barneys as a double whammy— is my breaking point. West thought Spike Lee would be mad at him because he wanted to put on “80 gold chains and go ig’nant?” Hardly. It wasn’t enough for Kanye to be an ass, he had to go and be a [c-bomb] too.

On AMP Radio, West explained away this latest cry for attention artistic expression as:

The Confederate flag represented slavery in a way. That’s my abstract take on what I know about it, right? So I wrote the song, ‘New Slaves.’ So I took the Confederate flag and made it my flag. It’s my flag now. Now what you gonna do?... I just think people look cool in it. They look nice. And it's colorless also. It's super hood and super white boy approved at the same time. That's really what my style has always been.

West’s mom was a professor and his father was a Panther, and yet he is, at times, embarrassingly uneducated about history. The confederate flag has been referred to as "the black people's swastika". It is the symbol of the army that fought to keep American-born Yeezie’s ancestors on cotton and in chains.

Rev. Al Sharpton has said of the Confederate flag:

[It] symbolizes dehumanization, injustice and pain. It is a stark reminder of an era in our history that was defined by the abhorrent practice of slavery. And it is representative of a mentality that looked upon blacks as inferiors who needed to remain in the shackles of subservience.

An Atlantic story about the flag noted it was used during the Civil Rights Movement as a symbol of "Massive Resistance" by the Dixiecrats.

The flag became the standard for those committed to defending classrooms, bus depots, and other public spaces (now battlefields themselves) from black encroachment.

These are the reasons 50,000 people got up in South Carolina to protest the Confederate flag flying over the state house in 2000. And thousands more got up and marched again many times after until it was removed.

And foolish, lost, perpetually crisis-riddled Kanye West wants to re-claim it. He sounds as dumb as people who talk in circles trying to justify the n-word, or rappers who try to explain saying “hos”.* I’d much prefer West and the like just say, ”I like to do hood rat stuff with my friends” and go on about their ignorance than trying to okey-doke thinking people with prison logic.

Because Black people love to compare themselves to Jewish people (see any commentary advocating why there should be more films about slavery/civil rights because of the number of films about the Holocaust), I must point out that you don’t see Jewish folk walking around in swastikas and calling themselves k-bombs for kicks. (Michael Jackson tried to resurrect that word in “They Don’t Care About Us” in 1995 and was quickly shut down— by Jews.) What’s next? “Reclaiming” burning crosses and dressing in bed sheets?

Further, how does this Negro fix his face to go on British radio and complain incessantly about not being accepted into Euro fashion houses when he thinks people rocking the Confederate flag “look cool” and “nice”? I need Kanye to “stop all [this] coon shit/ early morning cartoon shit”. For all his posturing about being a “genius” and on the level of Steve Jobs, Deepak Chopra, Walt Disney, and even Jesus, walking around adorned in a Confederate flag, West looks like “Clayton Bigsby", Dave Chappelle’s legendary Black White Supremacist.

Somebody call Dap Dunlap to come “wake up” Mr. West.

*Vh1 recently re-aired Ludacris’s “Behind the Music”. The way he tried to justify saying “hos” in nearly every song was laughable in its ignorance.

**West kills me not realizing that his lady is largely considered classes by white people 1) because of her beginnings with a sex tape; and 2) because she’s dated so many Black guys, such as West

#WhiteGirlsRock Everyday. Can Black Women Get 2 Hours?! Damn!

blackgirlsrockI cursed on Twitter Sunday night. For regular readers of my blog, these means nothing, except you know how my Daddy feels about that. But I’ve made it a four-year habit of not dropping swear-bombs on social media, at least not without the *** to clean it up and keep it cute.  It takes a lot for me to get unnerved, (and if you read Ask.Fm/abelleinbk, you know that’s true.) But it was post-Black Girls Rock, an annual awards show that built its way from a private event in NYC to being aired on a big fancy stage in NYC. I used to go to it when it was held in a room at Lincoln Center and I sat way in the back in the press section squinting to see because I was too vain to put on my un-fabulous glasses when surrounded by glorious women whose names are boldfaced when they are written about.

When BET picked up the show, I traveled from Brooklyn to the Bronx twice for the taping—and I NEVER go to the Bronx. This year, I struggled through two hours or traffic to get to its new taping location at the NJPAC. I crossed state lines!!!! Because that’s what this show means to me. And it was worth it.

I saw the show live, and still, I tuned in—without a Neilsen box to track my viewing—because it’s a rare occasion that Black girls get celebrated. We get seen often enough, and most often in lights that I don’t always condone, but sometimes find entertaining. Black Girls Rock is a sweet spot where women who look like me, women who I admire, are celebrated and our accomplishments are reveled in. I live for Black Girls Rock.

Mara Brock Akil was rewarded this year and even with a myriad of accomplishments and recognition that follow her name, you could hear in her passionate acceptance speech what an honor it was for her to be there, recognized by her peers and staring out an audience full of women who look like her, a rare occasion.  And so eloquently, as expected, she broke it all the way down why she does what she does, and in essence, what Black Girls Rock is all about:

When there IS an image that resembles us, oftentimes upon closer inspection, it’s not us…Black women, even if nobody else sees you, I SEE YOU…We are worth protecting and we are worth loving. When we dare to walk this world unapologetically…it’s how we put our own pictures up and validate ourselves.

The boldfaced names are who get most of the attention, but I’m there for the moment when it’s the girl who reminds me of me, the one who's just doing what she does because she has to and never thought it would get her far, gets her honor. (Last year, it was my mentee Alize McBeal). This year it was Ameena Matthews, a young sister working to stop violence on the streets of Chicago by sometimes using he body as a human shield, who left me with tears in my eyes.

She has a gold tooth and a wears "a dang scarf", as she called it, and she implied in her speech that girls that look like her weren’t “supposed to be” on stages in front of Queen Latifah and Patti LaBelle, and Tracee Ellis Ross, and oh, a national audience. She spoke way beyond her allotted time and no one cut her off like they tried to with Halle Berry when she won her Oscar, because everyone respected that moment and knew how rare it was for us to have our say, our way.That’s the crux of Black Girls Rock.

I was feeling all happy and re-empowered while I watched the show. And I was feeling myself for being a Black Girl, or er, woman, who rocks. And I was pissed when I saw the hashtag #whitegirlsrock on Twitter as a reaction to Black women celebrating.

I called the hashtag “bullsh**” because that pretty much summed it up well.

 

Black girls don’t get much in media. Here and there, we get a win, maybe a nod that results in a loss, maybe a supporting role as a vehicle to help a white person move their life in a positive direction. Outside of Black magazines, we don’t get too many covers and outside of Black networks, we don’t get too many starring roles. Kerry Washington on “Scandal” is the first Black woman to lead a network show in my lifetime. I’m 34.

And it pissed me off that the one occasion we do get was met with some ass-backward questioning like “Why do Black people need Black stuff?” I wouldn’t have been mad if the hashtag was about Asian or Latino or Indian or any other of color girl who rocked too because those girls get left out too and need their moment to shine. I wouldn’t have begrudged them at all.

But white girls get nearly everything, and the one time they didn’t, the one occasion its not all about them and they get a taste for a couple hours of what Black girls endure everyday, SOME of them couldn’t take the brief introduction into a Black Girls world.

At least one white woman got it. Writing for HuffPo, Olivia Cole broke it down:

What it comes down to is that black girls are missing representations of themselves in positive contexts. When they turn on the TV, they are missing. When they are looking at the cover of magazines like Vogue and Elle, they are missing. When they go to the movie theater, they are missing. For black women's faces to appear in mainstream films, it seems they must be either wearing a maid's apron or chains. So when Black Girls Rock! appears on the scene, ready to uplift and empower the girls who are so tragically neglected in American media, ready to showcase women of color who are smart and fun and beautiful and accomplished and positive, I am so here for it.

She added:

All of the things you take for granted are what you're protecting when you shout down Black Girls Rock: your whiteness, the system that upholds your face as the supreme standard of beauty, your place in the center of a culture that demands people of color remain hidden in the margins, present but only barely and never overshadowing the white hero/heroine. Your discomfort with black girls who rock tells me that you prefer the status quo: you prefer for black faces to remain hidden, you prefer for America's heroes to have white faces, you prefer for black actresses to wear aprons and chains.

This conversation isn't about you, it isn't about us. Why must everything always be about us? It doesn't have to be. And it shouldn't be. From one white person to another... please sit down. Queen Latifah is on and you're blocking the screen.

The Root: There's a Fine Line between 'Cute' and 'Cutting Up'

Screen Shot 2013-11-05 at 9.23.54 AMPerhaps you’re one of the more than 2 million people who have watched the latest viral video of a 4-year-old dancing her heart at a recital. The video was uploaded in June, but it’s only recently become a hit with several news outlets, including the New York Daily News, the Daily Mail and Yahoo covering the story in the last week.  The video features a chorus line of toddlers doing their adorable best as they tap dance to “Broadway Baby” from the musical Follies, but one child, a little black girl, adds some “oomph!” to her routine. The camera zooms in as she enthusiastically ad-libs some extra dance moves, belts out the chorus and seems to encourage another dancer to perk up and be noticed as the audience laughs and cheers at the antics.   News outlets reporting the story have praised the child as “delightful,” “adorable” and “unbearably cute,” and most commenters agreed. “She is the absolute cutest!!” wrote a YouTube commenter. “I watch the video of her tapping [to] ‘Broadway Baby’ when I'm having a bad day. She makes me happy.”

Other commenters (like me) found the kid to be button-cute but were not amused by her spotlight-stealing performance. “While I must admit this was funny to me,” a woman commented on Yahoo, “I would have been ticked off if my kid was up there.”

This isn’t the popular opinion, but I’ll say it anyway: I cringed watching the video as I was procrastinating on Facebook. If I had done this as child, my parents would have frowned at my shenanigans if they were in the audience. My mother might have gone as far as walking onto the stage to give me a “talkin to” in my ear—as she did on more than one occasion when I was too chatty with my friends in the church choir. In the House of Lucas, the best-case off-stage consequence to a performance such as the one shown in the video would have been a speech similar to the one Olivia Pope’s father meted out in the Season 3 Scandal premiere, about how black girls have to be twice as good to get half as far. The worst-case scenario would have been some biblical form of discipline where rods are not spared.

My parents are obviously old-school. And I must be slowly turning into my mother because I didn’t find this dance all that funny. There’s nothing wrong with anyone being energetic or silly or for wanting attention, even adults. But a chorus line is a group activity where the whole point is to move in unison with the group—or as close to unison as possible. It’s not the time for an A Star Is Born moment. I would have been, let’s say, less than pleased, that my kid didn’t follow the instructions. There are times and places to rage against the machine. A dance recital isn’t one of them.

Read more: here

Omarosa Eclipses Bethenny with Shade

imgresI, like a bunch of other people, watched the much-talked about showdown between Omarosa & Bethenny on Wednesday, a TV event in which two women who obviously don’t like each other sat on the same couch, squabbling about how equally unimpressed they are with each other.In so many words, Omarosa told Bethenny that the only reason she’s been so successful—the spin-off, the book deals, the skinny girl vodka brand, and now he talk show— is because she’s white. Paraphrasing a speech that in Black households is as common as Vaseline, Omarosa explained to Bethenny,

It’s different for you and I. I’m an African-American woman and you get to walk around and be mediocre and still get rewarded with things. We have to be exceptional to get anything in this business.

The predominately white audience booed. The Black people, who all watched the segment when it began making the rounds on YouTube, practically high-fived their computer screens, which was about the same reaction they had watching the Season 3 opener of “Scandal” when Papa Pope said almost the exact same thing to Olivia, with the use of the word “mediocre” and all.

 

Omarosa went on to insist she had an “accomplished career.” Bethenny, who was being showed up on her own stage, finally gathered her wits to ask, “What is it?”, which was her one zinger for the segment.

After shading the entire **** out of Bethenny on her show, Omarosa, now a pastor, extended her version of an olive branch, insisting that she and Bethenny had a chance to “turn things around”. Bethenny, predictably shot her down with “ No, we don’t.”

Womp.

In case you’re wondering like I was where all this hostility between the two came from, in 2010, Bethenny appeared on The View. Hostess Sherri Sheppherd compared Bethenny to Omarosa, noting that Bethenny, who was revving up for Bravo’s "Bethenny Getting Married?” was using reality TV to get famous, much like Omarosa.

“She used [reality tv] to be infamous,” Bethenny said of Omarosa, then insisted, she, Bethenny, and View co-host Elisabeth Hasselbeck ("Survivor") were using reality TV to have a “real career”, then implication being that Manigault-Stallworth didn’t have one. (That’s how we got to Omarosa’s jab on Wednesday, “you made cupcakes. I worked in the white house. Get a grip”)

Omarosa got wind of Bethenny’s remarks in the press and predictably, went “Omarosa” on her, tellingPerez Hilton:

Today [Bethenny] tried to act like her show was superior to my new show and her book was superior to my book or her career was superior. I was surprised that she went there with me!! She got her start or The Apprentice just like me. She is on a NBC show just like I was. She is making a living in the world of reality just like me.

She added,

I have never once said a bad word about [Bethenny] or all of the rumors swirling around about [Bethenny’s husband] Jason and his sexuality. Everyone knows he's gay but we never said anything because she was happy. When she got a tummy tuck with her c-section after the baby and pretended that she just lost the baby weight naturally, none of us said anything because she was happy.

Ouch.

I found Wednesday segment mildly amusing in the way that unscripted TV, especially when two vets of the genre square off, tends to be when two people bicker about old beef vigorously enough to convince the audience that the conflict is of any actual importance.

Who was right is as irrelevant as what the argument was actually over. The bottomline is Omarosa’s brand, which she notably had trouble identifying when asked, is “Angry Black Woman” (in case she was wondering), and fulfilling that stereotype— whether valid or not— for mainstream America brings ratings, which is why Omarosa’s had the decade long career that she touted on "Bethenny." That Omarosa was already pissed at Bethenny meant she was bringing additional icing for a cake already slathered in it.

Bethenny is tanking in the ratings, falling fourth behind talk shows with Steve Harvey Wendy Williams and newcomer Queen Latifah (and that’s why Omarosa’s “I want to see you sitting here, doing this show Bethenny, a year from now” stung extra hard.) A Black audience, which Bethenny’s competition brings naturally, would be a nice ratings boost.

Omarosa had the potential to hit two clichéd birds with one stone— and she did. Not never have I watched “Bethenny” and not never have I heard as many people or all colors talking about Bethenny as I have in the last few days.

Mission accomplished and production genius.

In case you missed it:

[video width="500" height="350" id="XkcEZHwE0g8" type="youtube"]

Am I the Only One Tired of All These Slave/Servitude Films?

I orginally submitted an essay about my issue with slave/servitude movies on Sept. 25, weeks before "12 Years As A Slave" had its limited release in theatres and before I had seen the film. servitude  Since then, I have seen it, (and wrote a review for The Root.) In short,  my thoughts on "12 Years As A Slave" after viewing it were:   As good as 12 Years is, it is also the most awful experience I have ever had in a theater. At that same 20-minute mark where I acknowledged I should have waited to see it, I also wanted to walk out. As an unflinching look at the brutality of slavery, 12 Years is hard to take. Others stories of slavery such as Roots, Django Unchained and Amistad allow for moments of light or catharsis throughout or at their conclusion; 12 Years doesn't. It's unrelenting and harrowing, and it beats up the audience as much as it does the characters, then does it again and again before there's time to heal.   Even when Northup is rescued -- no secret, given the film's title -- there's little relief. He's free again, but what about all the others, the millions of enslaved black people, including and especially Patsey, who are left behind? Even though the entire audience is rooting for his escape, it's impossible to cheer when he does.

After the film, I sat in my seat and watched the credits roll along with my friend and the rest of the half-full theater. I wasn't so interested in the names on the screen; rather, I was too shell-shocked to move. Because The Grio waited over a month to pubilsh my essay (below), it does not include mention of "Belle" a new film coming down the pipeline (and also based on a true story) that explores what it's like to be a "tragic mulatto" trope in what seems like the 1800s. Sigh. I'll write a separate piece about that.

I do stand by original sentiments (below) about the recent popularity of slave/servitude films, especially after seeing "12 Years As A Slave."

Anyway, my orginal essay submitted to The Grio: 

I've been greeting the hype around the movie 12 Years a Slave with a lack of appropriate enthusiasm. Given the overwhelmingly rave reviews by critics, the film is supposed to be the best thing that’s happened to film this year, possibly this millennium. It’s a “factual retelling” of the life of Solomon Northup, a free black man who was kidnapped and enslaved, and then published a bestselling 19th century memoir documenting his horrors.

Every fellow writer I know (or have read) that has been to a screening has gushed about how wonderful 12 Years a Slave is. After the film garnered the People’s Choice Award at the Toronto International Film Festival, the popular Vulture blog stated in praise, “Suspend the betting, close the books, and notify the engraver: I’ve just seen what will surely be this year’s Best Picture winner, and it’s 12 Years a Slave.” Other reviews fall into a similar vein.

I saw the trailer in the theater while I was waiting for The Butler to show, and 12 Years a Slave looked riveting. I have since seen the film, and it is all the great things that people say. I’m even a fan of the lead actor Chiwetel Ejiofor.

Still, I greeted the film with the same trepidation I had for The Butler. I left it wondering why so many recent black films are about slaves and servants (or fall into the realm of slapstick comedy, but that’s another essay).

I am not the only one wondering. The Guardian recently published an essay, Why I won’t be watchingThe Butler and 12 Years a Slave. Like me, writer Orville Lloyd Douglas is “exhausted” and “bored” with these types of movies. Douglas wonders,

Can a black film be created about black people not focusing on race? Is race the only central conflict the lives of people of colour?

I don’t know about other black people,” Douglas writes, “but I don’t sit around all day thinking only about the fact I am black. I think about the problems in my life: the struggles, the joys, the happiness, most of which don’t involve the issue of race. As a black person, I can honestly say I am exhausted and bored with these kinds of ‘dramatic race’ films.

That sums up my sentiments. I am proud of my great-great grandfather and all the relatives before him who were born into slavery. I have nothing but respect for the women and men who were leaders in the church on Sunday, and to provide for their families scrubbed white folks’ floors and their silver on Mondays. These men and women have fascinating stories that deserve to be told, and often. But their tales aren’t the only ones worth telling.

Maybe I should just be happy that black actors are working and that a black story, any story, is being told with care. And maybe I’m just too demanding and never satisfied, because I (and Douglas) want more options than watching blacks suffering in servitude with stoic dignity.

If Hollywood insists on giving me slave narratives, can I least get a Nat Turner movie where a black man goes H.A.M. at the injustice of it all? If I must watch servants, can I get more maids, like the character Minnie from The Help, who exact revenge? Must black people always be calm and righteous in the face of social abuses?

Even if I can have that, give me something modern in addition that’s just about black folk living while black. As much as race factors into my life as a black woman, it’s not the only conflict I face in the world. I have modern pleasures and pains — my career, planning a wedding, relationship issues, unresolved family issues, conflicts with friends, traveling with my mother — and I shouldn’t have to pull out my DVDs of ’90s films such as Boomerang, Love jones, and She’s Gotta Have It (or suffer through Tyler Perry’s poorly written films) to get slices of life that I relate to. And I shouldn’t have to resort to watching the stories of people who don’t look like me just to entertained by events that occurred after the turn of the century.

For sure, these films exist on the independent circuit, and I cling to them when I find them. I lovedPariah, Medicine for Melancholy and Mooz-lum. I live in New York  City where these films are widely publicized, and always shown. I take advantage of that.

I look forward to perusing the line-ups of the Urbanworld Film Festival and the American Black Film Festival to see what new African-American films exist. I don’t mind waiting for the festival to hit my city, or even purchasing films to download when they become available. I am happy to support independent films. But I’d also like to do what every white person who goes to the movie on a Friday night does: take for granted the array of options. There’s always a comedy, a drama, a historical picture, an action flick, or a romantic comedy featuring people that look them.

Are the same options for black folk really too much to ask?