Last month, Lil Wayne told GQ that he wanted to be a better father than his own. Well, this weekend served as a little bit of proof about how serious he is about his commitment to his children. This weekend the rapper escorted, Reginae, his oldest child with ex wife Toya, into her Cinderella-themed birthday party.

You check out some pretty cute pictures of the evening over at TheYBF.com.

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From the time I was a year old Cinderella was my favorite Disney princess. This was the Golden Books story version, not the movie.  The way my parents relayed the story, Cinderella and the Prince danced “round and around and around.” For some reason, as a baby, I liked that image.

Then as I got older and started watching the movie I identified with the fact that she was able to escape a very bad situation and live happily ever after.  I wasn’t living in a bad situation but the story was universal. Cinderella made it out and I could respect that.  As a kid that’s all I took from the story.

It wasn’t until I got older, like during my preteen days, that I started to realize my girl Cinderella and all of her Disney princess friends weren’t sending the most realistic messages about life and love. I started to notice that for many of the princesses their entire existence centered around being beautiful and getting a man. That’s what they sang about, dreamed about and in some of their cases, struggled to obtain. You can see what I’m talking about in this illustration below:

Now, there’s nothing wrong with wanting to be beautiful, finding a man and living happily ever after. As little girls we all wanted to be considered beautiful and live in some fantasy land with our latest elementary school crush. The problem comes in when you focus every fiber of your being on snagging the man. Becoming so consumed with him that  you forget to nurture your passions and talents. The above illustration represents some gross exaggerations. I sincerely doubt little girls were cognizant of these messages. (With the exception of Ariel from “The Little Mermaid,” even as a child I recognized the fact that baby girl had to give up everything to get the man). But that’s not the point. As little girls it takes time for us to understand the concept of self fulfillment, balancing a relationship and achieving your own goals. That doesn’t come until much later.

But that doesn’t mean it’s not a concept Disney couldn’t utilize in their lucrative movie-making empire to promote. Thankfully, somewhere along the line somebody at Disney realized this.

You want to know how I know? Two words.

Princess Tiana.

Now “The Princess and the Frog” wasn’t perfect but aside from the fact that she was a black woman, Princess Tiana was different from any of the other Disney princesses. Tiana had a dream, an empowering one at that. While she was gifted with the pretty domestic ability of being a good cook, Tiana wanted to own a restaurant. And while the other princesses were working toward getting the man, Tiana was working to get her restaurant. And I mean working hard. I’m not embarrassed to say that I was invested in her character. Watching her work tirelessly only to save a few pennies at the end of the day had me exhausted.

But at the conclusion of the movie what I dug about Tiana’s character was the fact that she brought something to the table. In fact, she had more on the ball than the Prince she would eventually marry. So much so that she taught him a thing or two about work ethic and drive. And he taught her something about taking time to enjoy life. Reciprocal relationships. Now that’s a story I can relate to.

And while little ones might not experience the movie on that level, please believe they notice how hard Princess Tiana worked for her dream and how her work eventually paid off. That’s a lesson little girls need to learn and I’m happy they received that lesson from Disney’s first black princess.

Getting your dream and the man. That’s the perfect definition of “Happily Ever After.”

As children the first love messages we receive outside of the home often come from movies. For many of us those happened to be Disney movies. As children, with little experience, we couldn’t help but think that stories we saw through the eyes of our favorite 2-D characters represented universal truths when it came to love.

But a writer over at Your Tango.com argues that the “happily ever after” endings we clung to as children have tainted our relationships as adults.

Read the story over at Your Tango and see if you agree.

by China N. Okasi

There are three branches of government. You learn them in grade school: executive, legislative and judicial.

What you don’t learn is that when one of those branches gets occupied by a black president, the other two branches rip him to shreds like he’s Cinderella.

Think about it: Obama is pretty (or, in this case, handsome), came from meager circumstances, and suddenly catapulted into his (fore)father’s favor. Like Cinderella, his image is golden – or at least, it had to have been, since few other black men could have survived the mudslinging of American presidential elections. Obama is Cinderella-special, and he happened upon America like a fairy tale.

Since then, his two sisters (let’s call them Legislative & Judicial) haven’t been able to get over it.

Quiet as it’s kept, they’re livid with Obama.

As part of their revenge tactics, they ensure he’s overworked. If he accomplishes anything good, they push the goal post just a little bit further.

Every action he takes is a problem for his sister, “Legislative.” He tries to pass health care with her, for example, and she responds: “No, Cinderella, no!” (Of course, as the story goes, he manages to pass health care anyway).

But, it doesn’t stop there. When it comes to the other branch of the American family, the Judicial branch, Obama never seems good enough. When he appoints the first Latina to the Supreme Court, you would think it would be a celebration for Judicial, but instead Obama is reprimanded: “No Sotomayors, no!” When he courageously appoints another woman, Elena Kagan, everyone screams: “She’s too liberal! She’s not liberal enough! No Kagans, no!”

“Do more, Obama. Work harder, Obama. Even when it’s out of your hands, Obama, sweat blood, Obama!” the sisters scream.

Everyone in the House wants Obama alone to clean up every mess–and do it in record time. Clean up Wall Street, they tell him! Stop the BP oil leak! Repair the health system! Fix the auto industry! Afghanistan is a mess! Show more emotion! And, while you’re at it, show the nutty salesperson who keeps knocking at the door your birth certificate.

You think I’m making this story up, don’t you? Well, if you don’t agree with my account that Obama is Cinderella, then at least agree that the “first black” anything or anyone naturally has a much harder time than the usual picks of the lot.

Black models have to work harder for bookings, black entertainers have to work harder for castings, black academics have to work harder for tenure, and so on and so on. It’s simple mathematics. When you’re seen as rare or unfamiliar, you have to work insensibly hard for others to understand you and your glory.

It’s an unfair and ridiculous human phenomenon, but even Chris Rock experiences it every day. In a 2008 performance, Rock recounted: “[My only three black neighbors are] Mary J. Blige, one of the greatest singers of all time, Denzel Washington, one of the greatest actors of all time, and Jay-Z, one of the greatest rappers of all time.” My white neighbor? “A dentist. And he isn’t like the greatest dentist in history either. I had to host the Oscars to get that house in my neighborhood — a black dentist in my neighborhood would have to invent teeth.”

Same thing with Cinderella. She had to work above and beyond her ugly little sisters and find a way to marry the head of the land, in order to have a happy ending. Same thing with Obama. He had to one up Cinderella and become the head of the land. Good luck, Mr. Executive. I, for one, wish you well.

Pretty Obama. Ugly politics.

The End.

There are three branches of government. You learn them in grade school: executive, legislative and judicial.

What you don’t learn is that when one of those branches gets occupied by a black president, the other two branches rip him to shreds like he’s Cinderella.

Read the rest of this entry »