Yesterday my friend texted me about what I’m sure he thought was a funny story. But after I reading it and analyzing it, I was just pissed off. I’ll share it and you let me know if you have a similar reaction.

The short version of the story is my friend was hanging out with some Israelites who were teaching out in the street. Just as one of the teachers is reading a passage about female modesty, a woman in thin, elastic stretch pants walks by. According to my friend they were some “look at me” pants and her booty was jiggling inside them. But instead of scurrying by, the woman turns around and starts shouting at the people gathered in front of the teacher.

“I’m hot I can’t be wearing all them layers… I ain’t dressing like no one’s grandmama!”

*Sigh of exasperation of our fellows sistahs in the hood struggle.*

After baby girl caused her scene, the Israelite, who I’m assuming is not black, leans over and says “All THIS is why black men only date white women.”

*Hold up…*

But then it gets worse. A black man who’d witnessed the whole scene and heard what the comment the Israelite made says:

“Who you telling?! I can’t even see myself with a black woman.”

It’s funny that when black men reference black women’s attitudes as reason not to date them, my first gut reaction is to exhibit that same type of attitude they’re describing. I really wanted to just laugh at my friend’s anecdote and keep it moving but the black man’s comment disturbed me just as much as the hood chick popping off in the middle of religious instruction.

I asked my friend what did he say to the man? He said he asked him, “No black woman for you at all?” And the man reiterated his point.

“I can’t even see it.”

I responded: “If he can’t picture it, then what could you have said? Both people in that situation sound ignorant honestly.” (If I had thought about it, I would’ve said all three because the Israelite was just as lost.)

Really though, the whole situation worked my nerves. While I would never be out here trying to convince brothas that don’t want to date black women that we’re not all like that, I’m highly perturbed at the way in which black men are so quick to publicly express their distaste for black women.

Where they do that at?

I mean really, have you ever heard another race of people, besides black folk talk so publicly and so stereotypically against women in their own race?

I don’t understand it. And honestly, it’s quite hurtful. When the world is ready to stereotype us and write us off, you would think black men would be able to see past all that. Of course there are black women out here who fit every stereotype in the book but certainly these black men know at least a handful of black women who aren’t like that.

I was telling my friend that black women would rarely speak about black men in the same negative fashion, in the street like that.  Even though we know there are brothas out here who are living foul, we’re not deriding them in the streets, swearing that we would never date them.

For better or worse, black women have been conditioned to support black men. Now, I don’t mean supporting them through all types of abuse and foolishness. I mean, being the encouragement, whether platonic or otherwise, in a country that consistently tries to hold them down.

I said that; but really, after further reflection, writing for MadameNoire for about three years, has shown me that that’s not exactly true. There have been too many times, where black women have proclaimed, maybe out of bitterness, hurt or frustration, they’re going to “get a white man.” To me, that’s equally infuriating.

What is with black folk dismissing an entire race, our own race, when it comes to the dating pool? It’s ignorant. And more importantly, quite sad that we’re gulping the Kool-Aid “Willie Lynch” has been offering us for centuries.

Source: Shutterstock

In recent years, coverage of sex tourism has increased in the news and in film, exploring how the ability to travel abroad and satisfy your every need through dollar bills is so alluring and how people shed their identities, instantly transitioning into their alter egos once borders and oceans are crossed. The film Paradise: Love and documentary Frustrated: Black American Men in Brazil both explore how white women and black men navigate their international sexcapades. In both films, white women and black men are seen paying for sexual acts. But though both parties are frowned upon for their actions, a clear double standard is presented, which begs the question: Is it more acceptable for a white woman to get her groove back than a black man claiming to find love internationally? And if so, who made those rules?

The “controversial narrative of Paradise: Love, follows the sexual misadventures of Teresa, a 50-year-old white Austrian single mother, who explores Kenya through – and on the bodies of – young African men.” On the flip side, Frustrated: Black American Men in Brazil depicts how “Women [in Brazil] are more caring [of men] and respect them as men,” as one man in the documentary said. “It has nothing to do with how much they make. It has nothing to do with anything else other than just being a man.” It’s quite obvious the characters in Paradise: Love are only engaging with natives to indulge in physical pleasure, whereas the men in Frustrated are intentionally looking for Brazilian women to love them — with fewer expectations of course.

As Dating/Life Coach Demetria Lucas states in The Root:

“Somehowthese guys have convinced themselves that their Americanness, which drips off of any tourist, and the benefit of the exchange rate between the Brazilian real and the American dollar have nothing to do with all the love that a middle-aged man well past his prime can receive from very young and exceptionally attractive Brazilian women.”

American news outlets have made the state of the Black relationship a crisis center. On televisions and across the web you can find Black women and men virtually pointing the finger at one another whenever relationship conversations arise. Although these conversations are played-out like an eight track, one must ask: Why do we continue discussing this topic to avail? The sentiment,“Black women don’t treat us right…so we gotta go to Brazil because they play nicer,” evinces more about black men than anything it could about black women. Brazilian women aren’t the problem or the solution. To many American men, they serve as a band-aid to a deeper ill. And unfortunately that wound continues to be ignored as this cultural relationship war plays out in the media, distracting from the larger issue at hand, as if men from all races in the U.S. don’t go to Brazil or other countries for the pleasurable company of women.

Repetitive articles regarding the state of the white relationship seem to be non-existent; where are the white men checking for their women when they go abroad? Because white privilege does not carry the weight of stereotypes, white women have the freedom to be portrayed as care-free. As they explore foreign lands, their sexual quests are defined as entitled awakenings instead of disrespect to their race. They do not suffer the cultural repercussions Black men face — being responsible for how relationships are portrayed to the greater society or helping progress the Black family unit. And that should be the lesson in this blame game.

Do you think there is a true difference between White women and Black men traveling abroad for sex/love? Should Black men be entitled to the same sexual freedom as White women when it comes to international sexcapades, or are the consequences of Black men’s actions far greater — and for whom?

By j.n. salters

This letter is for my mother. Our mothers. Grandmothers. Aunts. Sisters. And all of the other black women who continue to raise black and brown warriors in this battlefield we call America. Who constantly find ways to make ends meet—in a world that continually fails to acknowledge your worth and beauty—just to keep smiles on our faces. To the only women who can grow roses from concrete. Turn scraps into Thanksgiving feasts. Who continue to love hard and wholeheartedly even when the world attempts to steal your joy. Still you rise.

I just want to say thank you. And that you are appreciated. Loved. Beautiful. Needed. I need you. WE NEED YOU. You deserve so much more than the words on this page. Than your lived realities. Than the media portrayals that negate your wonder. And caricature your splendor. Than the statistics that mock your circumstance. Ignoring your God-like abilities to raise invisible toy soldiers into Gabby Douglases and Quvenzhané Wallises. Turning forgotten flesh into souls on fire.

You deserve to have your faces carved into mountains. Plastered on dollar bills covering the faces of presidents who have stolen from you. Used your image against you. Lied to you. Made your plight invisible. You deserve to have your brown skin on every milk carton and news segment that privilege missing bodies that do not look like yours or your children’s. On the cover of every newspaper that fills its pages with stories of your fabricated inferiority. Leaving your existence in the margins. Near the end. At the back. We are Rosa Parks.

I wish everyone could see you from my eyes. Read the deep history embedded in your rich skin. The pigment of your imagination. The secrets that you hold in the arch of your back. How the sway of your hips creates masterpieces out of thin air. Reclaiming the fetishized movements of Sarah Baartman. How your thick-lipped words echo the endurance of Sojourner Truth. Ida B. Wells. Wilma Rudolph. Harriet Tubman. The everlasting effervescence of your soul that refuses to be broken. The miniature North Stars shining from your crescent-like eyes, leading us lost ones to freedom. Giving us the ability to dodge stray bullets. Dreams deferred. Project hallways turned Middle Passages.

I pray that they will someday see you. In me. In US.

With love,

One of your daughters

Source: Wenn

It looks like everything Sloane Stephens and Serena Williams are BFFs again – or at least they can stop giving each other the stank eye.

According to Sports Illustrated, Stephens, who is a rising star in the tennis world, tweeted out on Tuesday that she and Williams had “straighten[ed] out the controversy” around comments she made in ESPN The Magazine in which she denounced media reports that two had a close friendship. In fact, Stephens said that after pulling an upset over Williams in the quarterfinals of the Australian Open, the two hadn’t spoken and Williams had even stopped following her on Blackberry messenger and on Twitter. From the ESPN article: “She’s not said one word to me, not spoken to me, not said hi, not looked my way, not been in the same room with me since I played her in Australia,” Stephens says emphatically. “And that should tell everyone something, how she went from saying all these nice things about me to unfollowing me on Twitter.”

When asked about the Stephens comments, Williams took a different, more oblivious stance, telling reporters, “I don’t really know. I don’t have many thoughts….I’m a big Sloane Stephens fan and always have been. I’ve always said that I think she can be the best in the world. I’ll always continue to think that and always be rooting for her.”

To be honest with you, outside of hearing about the Williams sisters domination in the sport, I have no interest in tennis. With that said, this sort of situation that transpired between Stephens and Williams is not exclusive to the tennis world. And I don’t want to make this a gender thing but it has been my personal experience that women tend to have these sort of weird beefs, which seem to materialize out of what a person hasn’t said or done. I used to think that it was because women were crazy. But now I think it is a matter of good old fashioned competition.

And I’m not talking about the competition most think of when they think of women. You know, the kind which usually spawns out of mutual interest in the same men or the same outfit; I’m talking about women trying to out-do each other in the workplace; in schools and even in the club.

Like a few weeks ago, I was dancing with a bunch of friends at a club and I must have been really getting my two-step on that night because this young woman came out of nowhere and started dropping it all hot in front of me. At first I thought she was just being a hype white girl, trying to do that whole ‘look-at-me-dance-with-black-people-’ thing that they do. But the expression on her face as she dipped it low – and struggled to bring it back up again – told me that she was really serious. She was subtly trying to challenge me to a dance-off. I turned my back on Ms. Save the Last Dance.

Part of me was flattered as maybe those Zumba classes has given me better hip to foot coordination. And truthfully, there is nothing wrong with competition. It’s good for business, particularly for customers as it helps keep the prices low. And men are regularly praised for their competitive spirits. And in my younger years – and if I really knew how to dance – I would have probably playfully given Ciara’s illegitimate sister a run for her money and likely not sweated the outcome.

But we also have to recognize when our natural competitive spirit is becoming unhealthy. And that’s the other part, which had me annoyed by the situation. Like why did this stranger approach and challenge the only black girls dancing, in a sea of non-black girls dancing? I wasn’t even the best dancer in the place. There were a group of white girls on the other side of the room, getting it in way better than any of us black girls were at the time. So why did she have to try to take my shine from me?

I definitely sense some underlying competitiveness in this Stephens and Williams situation, which might have more to do with off-the court than on. Part of this is fueled by the media’s constant comparison of the two, particularly christening Stephens as the next Williams. I mean, just because they are the only two black high-profiled tennis players outside of Venus (who folks rarely talk about these days) in a sport dominated by non-black women, doesn’t mean they have to be compared to each other. I mean is it inconceivable to compare Stephens to Maria Sharapova or a Victoria Azarenka? Or better yet, let her be great on her own?

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From BlackVoices

Dear Sista Complains A Lot: There is something that I’ve been wanting to say to you and I finally think it’s time. I’m hoping that you can hear me over your constant grumbles of discontent. I’m praying that you can put aside your finger pointing, wailing and yammering for just a few minutes and process what I have to say.

The honest truth is that no matter how much time you spend “venting,” whining or complaining, the only person that can change your situation is you. I’m sorry, but it’s my turn to complain. You need to know that talk without action is just a bunch of noise.

If you are reading this letter and you are not sure if it applies to you, there are a few clear signs that you’re a Constant Complainer: If you call your friends and they don’t answer or call you back. When your sister or best friends constantly says, “Are we back on this subject again?” If your Mama always says, “Baby, just let that go already!” Or, lastly, if your co-workers have stopped inviting you to lunch and wrap things up fast when they see you coming.

I have some suggestions based on what has worked for others in my life and for me.

Go On a Complaint Diet, Girl!
Limit the number of people and number of times that you vent about a situation, I usually stick with 3. But get it out of your system in the first 72 hours so that you have time to move on. If the situation is long term, move immediately to the next step.

Hatch a Plan
Once you have sat and processed the problem. Come up with a reasonable plan of action to get over it and on with it. Sharing your plan with the same folks you regularly vent to is a great way to let them know you are moving forward, and I’m sure their support will follow.

Read More at BlackVoices.com

Source(s): WENN, Shutterstock

It appears that 24-year-old Harlem rapper A$AP Rocky got way more than he bargained for when he decided to offer his two cents on dark-skinned women and their choice of lipstick color. In case you missed it, the outspoken New Yorker expressed during an interview that he didn’t find red lipstick to be attractive and dark-skinned women and that only fair-skinned women could get away with rocking a red lip.

A$AP was blasted by women across the web almost immediately for his ridiculous and unwarranted comment. Even fellow Harlem emcee Azealia Banks went after the rapper, telling him that he needs to just “come out of the closet” already.

Now, almost two months later, Rocky has decided to respond to harsh criticism he’s received as a result of his comments. In an interview with 93.9 WKYS, he said that Black women are super sensitive when you comment on their appearance and dramatically claimed that Black girls seemed like that were ready to “Rick Ross boycott him.”

“Black girls just, ah man, went crazy. They just took it how they took it. This is actually my second time talking about it cause I really don’t really look at it as an issue. If people get upset at that I think it’s petty at the same time. It’s like they d*mn near wanna Rick Ross boycott me right now, over some lipstick controversy. Black girls, you know how sensitive they are, but they our sisters man. It is what is man. I come from a Black home, so I know how sensitive Black women can be. Especially when you talking about they looks or something like that. You can’t say nothing about they glasses, they nails, none of that because then you’re a womanizer or you’re a racist. I don’t know how I’m going to be racist. I have to wake up and look at my black a** in the mirror everyday. It’s like, what are you talking about? But it is what it is, man. I’m proud to be Black.”

Clearly, he still doesn’t get it.

Turn the page to watch A$AP’s interview. 

If you’ve caught only one episode of “The Gossip Game” this season, you’d know that journalists, bloggers, and radio personalities are not above falling victim to the set-up of reality TV. Already we’ve seen the ladies argue, nearly fight, and apparently spit on one another all in the name of getting to the top. After watching things unravel, we had no choice but to ask writer Jas Fly if she thinks the ladies’ behavior contributes to the glass ceiling women experience in the hip-hop industry. Here’s what she had to say.

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From Essence

Amerie’s hit song “1 Thing” never gets old for me. The track applauds the one thing about a potential beau that is driving her crazy – in the right way. So much so, in fact, that it has her “trippin’.” We’ve all been there. Whether it’s the way someone laughs, walks, or speaks that turns us on, there’s always just that one thing about that special person. Unfortunately, sometimes the opposite is true, and there’s just one thing that annoys the hell out of us about the one we’re with, and that’s just no fun.

My sister-friend just started dating a guy six weeks ago that she really likes. He is intelligent, worldly and they have similar interests. He has a great job and is well established in his career. At 35, he is an anomaly. He has never been married and has no kids…

Read more at Essence.com

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From Essence

Yes, you read the title correctly, and I can see your eyebrows raised and neck hairs bristling up.  Don’t hop off the ride just yet. I need you to put on your seat belts and rock with me for a minute. I’m about to take you on a very personal journey that dropped me smack dab in the middle of Broken Hearts, USA.

I’m going to start with an urgent gripe of mine: Every time I turn around, the mating habits of African-American women are being scrutinized. There is always some broken-down bundle of research about how many Black women are single or an article about why we aren’t “suitable for long term relationships.” Gee whiz. I can’t digest any more of this crap. Check, please!

Perhaps what’s most disheartening is the fact that out of all the people who find fault in Black women, it’s brothers that are our toughest critics. They reject us for being too dark, having short hair, being plus size or having a less than bodacious donk (translation: a round posterior anatomy).  Sisters are lampooned for not being submissive enough, soft enough or simply too vocal with our opinions.  And the hits just keep on coming.

Is there any wonder that I say (with tears in my eyes) that “I didn’t give up on Black men, they gave up on me?” I came to this painful realization a few years ago, but it was a long time coming.

I can’t tell you exactly when I started feeling rejected by Black men; it was too many years ago to count.  I have been told that I am “too opinionated”, “too assertive”, “too outspoken” or “too fat” more times than I can care to admit. In my 20s I tried to twist and conform to become less, well, me. But, it was like a lioness trying to become a kitty cat. I finally decided that I simply couldn’t make myself smaller for others to feel bigger – not even for the sake of love.

My plan was to wait patiently for that some awesome Black man to look at me through accepting eyes and embrace me flaws and all. Ultimately, isn’t that what we all really want from love – to feel it unconditionally? Sigh…Dare I say, I’m still waiting.

Read more on Essence.com.

Source: Shutterstock

From YourTango

How often did you hear some variation of this when you were growing up? I heard it all the time. And what I learned to do was to desperately defend and explain in fruitless attempts to get my mom or dad to stop judging me and SEE me. Or I would apologize and become the “good girl,” so they would approve of me.

Of course, defending and explaining didn’t work. But that didn’t stop me from trying because I just didn’t know what else to do — other than completely give myself up, which is what I eventually learned to do.

When I got married, I continued in the same pattern — first trying to explain and defend and then giving myself up. The result was, of course, no better than it was with my parents. Again, I had no idea what else to do.

Of course, defending and explaining didn’t work. But that didn’t stop me from trying because I just didn’t know what else to do — other than completely give myself up, which is what I eventually learned to do.

What Else To Do

It took many years, but I finally accepted that defending and explaining only leads to more and more conflict, since the other person feels controlled and goes into resistance. For a long time I didn’t want to see that defending and explaining were forms of control. After all, I just wanted them to see my point of view. What’s controlling about that? I convinced myself that if only they understood me, then they would change.

Now I know that using defending and explaining as viable forms of control is a complete myth. Not only does it not work to convince anyone to see things my way, but it always exacerbates the conflict.

Read more YourTango.com