Nikki Nelson / WENN

Somebody needs to call Iyanla, because the messiness between Dwyane Wade and Siovaughn Funches-Wade that keeps playing out in public needs to get fixed for the sake of their sons. Funches-Wade spoke with the site Jocks and Stiletto Jill about the state of her life now, and she claims that reported monetary settlements never really happened, and that she’s behind on her mortgage and has no car insurance because the money he allegedly owes her hasn’t been given. She also opened up about trying to pursue a law degree and why she says Wade is trying to “control” her. Here are some of the most interesting tidbits from the interview:

Jill: Is there a discrepancy between what you are receiving from Dwyane each month as part of your divorce settlement and what has been reported? There were reports of you receiving $1 million plus $25K a month in spousal support.

SFW: There has been no settlement PERIOD. Not even close to the $25k a month reported either. As a matter of fact, Mr. Wade is frequently late on the items he is supposed to pay for. I’ve recently received a noticed about the mortgage on my Chicago home being behind $75,000 and my car insurance has been canceled.

Jill: Ok, so why aren’t you working?

SFW: I’m currently in law school, the course doesn’t really allow for me to have a full time job.

Jill: Has law school always been a goal or did this come following the issues you’ve had with your lawyers during the case

SFW: It has always been something I wanted to do. I put my life on hold when Mr. Wade’s career took off. I raised our son. Even now Mr. Wade is practicing alienation with our children. He’s trying to prevent me from seeing my son’s on Mother’s Day this weekend. Usually the boys fly to Chicago to spend it with me but this year Mr. Wade wants to change that.

Jill: That’s interesting considering the Heat play the Bulls this weekend in Chicago. Why do you think he wants to alienate your sons from you. What is the all the “animosity” stemming from?

SFW: It’s about control. He wants to control me, that’s what abusers do. And it’s about money. He wants to create the image of a good family guy for his sponsors, he’ll do anything for money.

Jill: Do you think there is a way that you and Dwyane can come together and co-parent without being so reliant on courts and lawyers? If yes, what are those steps in your mind? If he retains custody, would you consider moving back to Miami to be closer to your sons?

SFW: Move to Miami for what? He won’t let me see my sons now so there’s no reason to believe he would if i was in Miami full time. And it’s reached a point now where my oldest son doesn’t want to visit at all. My youngest has been told I don’t want to see them. The other day he got on the phone with me and said he was told that I didn’t want to come see him. I have finals, I’m trying to grow as a person. Mr. Wade is vindictive and he’s trying to turn my sons against me.

I paid out of my own pocket for a mediator to try to resolve the issues. The session was set and Mr. Wade just didn’t show up. No excuse, no call. I’ve made the effort.

According to Jocks and Stiletto Jill, Funches-Wade also stated that Wade has retaliated against her multiple times for doing interviews by dragging her back to court and by trying to file suit to make her go back to work. She’s upset about this because she says that he knows that will impact her ability to finish Law school first. It’s all a shame, but at the same token, this expectation for Dwyane to still pay for everything for her and the way it seems that she’s feeling entitled just sitting back waiting for bills to be paid comes off kind of backwards. But I hope that she can keep the relationship she has with her boys and that Wade isn’t restricting that. But only Siovaughn, Dwyane, and God knows what’s really the truth and what’s really going on with these two…

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Time flies! Before you know it, you’re waiting for retirement and looking forward to bingo night at the church. That’s expected…but not at your age. Your high morals and pristine standards set you apart from the rest. It’s possible that your friends make fun of you and constantly ell you to “lighten up”.

If you fall into these categories, it is absolutely time to let your hair down. Life is too short…live a little (and no you don’t have to do everything listed but by the end, you’ll have gotten the point).

Source: atlantablackstar.com

Relationships are complicated. It’s not easy to maintain individuality while fostering the notion of a team effort. Some people are up to the challenge and work diligently to nurture they’re union, no matter what the circumstances. Others don’t even know where to begin. They live in a world where self sabotage comes natural. If you’re one of those people, you’ve probably engaged in a few of these behaviors. As a result, your relationship has ended or is most definitely on the verge of ending.

If you’d like to keep your union, cease the following…

madamenoire.com

When referring to humans, we usually hear the term “alpha male” when describing a man who is powerful, competitive and is a leader who stands out among all men. But the same term applies to women who possess similar traits – the Alpha Female.

Alpha Females are intelligent, “take charge” women who can be seen as powerful, or aggressive, depending on who you ask. Being an Alpha Female should be looked at as a good thing, but most bold women are sometimes recognized as high-maintenance or even a Itchbay by society’s standards.

So are you an Alpha Female? If so, there may be some pros and cons to possessing strong traits. If you are unsure, read through these characteristics to see if any of them describe you.

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Source: Blackcelebkids.com

Whether you’ve got a lot or a little, the statement we most often use to convey the idea that we’re not hung up on our crown is, “It’s just hair.” Pretty much anyone on the planet can tell you it’s BS. Even when you proclaim that sentiment after cutting it all off, not having hair is usually so much more. Sometimes just a statement of style, in other instances a declaration of your comfort level with yourself and non-conventional beauty aesthetics. But whether you’ve got it or not, it’s more than just hair.

About 37 color changes in, we sort of let Willow Smith and her ever-evolving hairstyles go—mostly because we couldn’t keep up with it. One day there was colored weave, the next it was cut to a low fade, one week later it was pink, then yellow, then green, and so on and so on. Again we heard reactions that it’s “just hair” but there was also a feeling that Willow may have been acting out, her parents had no control over her, and essentially she was too young for all of that. Will and Jada pretty much kept silent about the public’s comments but now that he’s on his media circuit for his upcoming film, he’s finally explained why his 11-year-old has been allowed to change her hair as she has.

“We let Willow cut her hair,” Will told Parade. “When you have a little girl, it’s like how can you teach her that you’re in control of her body? If I teach her that I’m in charge of whether or not she can touch her hair, she’s going to replace me with some other man when she goes out in the world. She can’t cut my hair but that’s her hair. She has got to have command of her body. So when she goes out into the world, she’s going out with a command that it is hers. She is used to making those decisions herself. We try to keep giving them those decisions until they can hold the full weight of their lives.”

Will’s comments made me think about the stories so many women tell about traumatizing experiences having their hair permed as girls. For a lot of the women who have since given up relaxers and gone natural, there seemed to be a sense that they didn’t have control over their hair, let alone their bodies, but more importantly what was attractive. Many have felt that the straightening and the pulling and the tugging and the smoothing were early messages that they can’t dictate their own beauty, what’s beautiful has to be dictated to them.

The aspect of male influence is also an interesting idea. On the one hand it relates to the simple issue of hair. On a macro-level, men’s proclamation of desire for long-haired women gets ingrained in our psyches and it can be tempted to ascribe to that. On a personal level, most women have been informed by a male partner in their lives, just how he likes their hair—don’t cut it, wear it straight, get a weave, I don’t like weave, keep it like you always do. There can be real pleasure to keep a man happy with your hair and it’s a control he really shouldn’t be given. On the other hand, it speaks to our bodies in general. If we let a man dictate our hair choices, what else can he talk us into with our bodies? It seems like a far stretch, but often it isn’t one. I do think there’s a big difference between a father telling his daughter what he won’t allow and a boyfriend or even husband making those demands, but the precedent Will is setting is a good one.

Though I was initially in the camp thinking what the heck is going on with Willow, I think I applaud Will and Jada’s approach to their daughter’s hair as a teachable life lesson. It’s not necessarily that Willow’s hair is too much for her age, it’s a boldness we’re not used to seeing from someone her age. It’s really not much different to the shock there would have been at one point and time if an 11-year-old girl was to walk into her classroom rocking a natural fro amongst a sea of girls with fresh Just For Me relaxers. Most of us had been looking at Willow’s hair as sending the message she can do anything she wants, and in a way it still is, but with a positive connotation. She can be beautiful any way she wants and she can dictate the way her body is seen and used. That’s a lesson that it’s really never too early to learn.

Brande Victorian is a blogger and culture writer in New York City. Follower her on Twitter at @be_vic.

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http://people.zap2it.com

Today, Ms. Janet Jackson turns 46. MJ’s lil sis is the second most famous member of her siblings of the infamous Jackson clan, with good reason. We’ve been rocking her music hard since 1986 when she made her BIG debut with her third studio album Control. In ode to the superstar’s birthday, we have included a listed of our favorite five songs from her. We’re going to disclose right now that we kept it old school with all of her pre-1999 hits.

Control

“When I was 17 I did what people told me, uhh!
Did what my father said, and let my mother mold me
But that was long ago”

Janet was only a teenager when she belted out these bold lyrics. With the release of Control in 1986, people stopped associating Janet as the sweet little Jackson who acted on shows like Different Strokes and Good Times, and started thinking of her as simply Janet, “Ms. Jackson if you’re nasty.”

Every week, there’s a new report on an instance of black people being excluded, overlooked, or discriminated in some shape or form. This week it was Acura and “The Bachelor,” a few weeks ago it was Vanity Fair and Kerry Washington, always its fashion magazines and runways and beauty campaigns. The thought that comes up most consistently after the outrage is why are we looking for white people’s approval, why are we seeking their validation, why don’t we spend time nurturing our own? And while I don’t agree that by pointing out these instances of discrimination we are seeking white people’s approval (I think it’s holding them accountable and demonstrating evidence to the contrary of their melting pot, post-racial society, we love diversity claims), I do think that more time would be better spent not seeking or needing to be a part of what white people have going on—and have obviously shown through their actions they want to keep to themselves. But I’m curious if we really know what that would mean or how to even achieve it.

When I think of a time when black people had their “own” on a large scale in entertainment, I think of the Robert Johnson 1980 BET days, even Don Cornelius’ Soul Train days come to mind. These men had a vision to give black people something they could be proud of on TV and they made it happen. But the reality is Bob Johnson had to get John C. Malone to invest $500,000 in the project to get it off the ground, and once the network became a raving success, it no longer remained a black-owned network because he sold it to Viacom for $3 billion in 2003, and ever since we’ve been left with the version of “black entertainment” we see now. When I thought about the wealthy rappers that were acknowledged by Forbes yesterday, I noticed a common thread. A lot of the men’s wealth came from selling companies and brands they’d built. Jay-Z sold Rocawear, 50 Cent sold his stake in Vitamin Water, and Dr. Dre gave up his majority ownership in Beats Electronics for a hefty price. It’s a common—and smart—business practice, but not one that allows us to have the ultimate say in the decisions that upset us, like who appears in which advertisements and how we’re portrayed on TV. That wealth also doesn’t trickle down into the community because we’re not selling these businesses off to other African Americans, they’re going to large corporations headed by white men mostly who could care less about our representation, and the money remains in the hands of the black 1%.

I even think about Oprah and the enormous opportunity to change the face of black programming if she would even just back a venture financially, aside from putting it on her network, but from what we’ve observed of her career that’s just not her thing. If we look at where the wealth is distributed in black America and the individuals who have the dollars to invest in independent black films or black clothing designers, the interest just isn’t there. That doesn’t make these figures bad people. They’re businessmen. White people aren’t thinking about sharing the wealth when they embark on a new venture, they’re building their individual pockets. It’s just that there’s so many more of them and so few of us, and so when we run out of the few select black people who could open doors to come through, we’re left with relying on white people to at least acknowledge we exist in some way and to represent us fairly in the media. That’s why we get so upset when they fail—often times on purpose—it really is our last resort in a lot of ways.

The idea of not having to look at programs and networks that weren’t created for us to begin with as the only source of quality programming is like the black community’s Nirvana but we don’t own much and when something isn’t yours, you don’t get much say in how it operates. There’s hope on the horizon with Diddy and Magic Johnson’s new cable channels that are in the works, but even those networks will be owned by Comcast. A few years ago, Quincy Jones announced plans to buy back Vibe, the magazine he started, I’m not sure if the web presence of the publication is evidence he kept his word or not. I hope that there are other black business minds out there with altruistic goals of putting black people on the map, and not just self, but I’m not too optimistic. I am completely behind the idea that we need to create our own and nurture it, my question is, how will we ever be able to do that without needing white people’s approval, at least from a financial backing standpoint, if we’re not even holding on to the things we’ve built or paving the way for others?

Brande Victorian is a blogger and culture writer in New York City. Follower her on Twitter at @be_vic.

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By DaMonica Boone

We all have our moments where we find ourselves yelling at the top of our lungs to an adult as if they were our child, or becoming easily angered when something doesn’t go the way we planned. When you find yourself speaking to your friend or significant other in the tone your mother used to speak to you in, you might have to step back into your body and get yourself together. In fact, you might need to sit back and ask yourself if you are a control freak. Here are a few signs that might make you the modern day Cruella de Ville.

1. Planning everyone else’s life
If you find yourself making plans for someone else before he or she has the opportunity to opt out (this could include your partner), you’re probably a big fan of having things go the way you want them too often. For instance, you shouldn’t plan things for your friend or boo before you run it by them first. Now, they’re stuck feeling bad and are forced to attend because you’ve paid for something for the two of you or because they don’t want to hurt your feelings. Or worse, they don’t want to feel your wrath…

2. Monitoring someone’s moves
It’s okay to keep tabs on a friend if, you know, he or she is bad at managing time and you have plans together. If you two have something scheduled that you don’t want to miss, I’m sure they wouldn’t mind if you were on their toes to make sure things go as planned. But if you are monitoring a friend’s actions for the sake of yourself and to have something to tell them they should change, you might be a bit too controlling. You can’t make sure she’s ready by noon just because you want to be at the mall by 1 p.m. Things happen, and people aren’t always going to be ready at the drop of a hat. If you can’t handle a friend being a little late for things, you might want to go alone.

3. Speaking to people in the wrong tone
It’s normal to speak to others like you’re crazy when you’re upset by their actions, though I wouldn’t recommend doing it often… However, there are a few things that are never appropriate to say unless you are saying them to your children. Phrases such as “What did I just say???” and “You’re going to make me hurt you” are words that can get you in trouble if they are said to the wrong person, or any grown person for that matter. Calm down and speak to others like you would like to be spoken to.

4. The need to be in control
Everything can’t always go the way you want it to go, get done when you want it done, or be done how you want it to be done. Being in control is something everyone wants. No one likes the feeling of inferiority or not being in control of their situations. When the slightest thought of someone else being in control makes you feel as if your head is going to explode and you slowly start being overbearing, you might be suffering from not only insecurity issues, but a large dose of control freak syndrome as well.

5. Your behavior affects your relationships
Being in control and always wanting to have things in order is a trait some people you know might respect, while others might loathe it. Your friends and family might love that part of you, but even cows get tired of milk. You’re a control freak when your need to be in control is affecting those around you. If your mother is worried about you, you should be too. If you’re starting to annoy your best friend, maybe you should consider calming down. And if your attitude is affecting your significant other, you should try to be open to giving someone else a chance to be the one behind the wheel if you know what I mean. No one likes a control freak, and you can’t be in control all the time and butt heads with people all the time to have get it. Everyone needs someone else to get them together every now and then.

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Ugh. I’m originally from the suburbs, so when I lived at home, if you heard someone had a mouse or some roaches crawling around their crib, the perception was that your living quarters were less than clean and that you might just be residing in a space that looks like something off of Hoarders. Like I said, I’m from the suburbs–I’m just used to deer, crazy squirrels, murderous raccoons and even slimy possums, so until recently, if you showed me mouse poop on a counter I would have thought it was Oreo cookie crumbs. But I decided to move to the city. Sounded like such a good idea until I saw my first big roach crawling in a Popeye’s bag I left out right after I moved in. It got a whole lot little worse when after cooking chicken in the kitchen a mouse ran from underneath my oven. Like I said, moving in the city seemed like it should have been a good idea…

No, but seriously, even the fanciest places can wind up with mice–there’s just so many people residing close to one another in the city. If you’re like me and aren’t familiar with this hardcore form of pest and rodent (and spent many years getting over a spider fear–now they aren’t ish), then knowing there is a critter or two, or three in the your place is probably freaking you out and making you want to run out of the house. Don’t. As my mom said to me, “Where are you going to go!?” After contacting my landlord and being crafty with some ammonia and a few spare rolled up rugs, I got some help with my situation. I can’t say that I’ll never see a mouse in my crib again, but with all the steel wool and closed up holes around now, it will sure as hell have a hard time coming in.

Even the most independent and assertive woman occasionally wants to play the damsel in distress to a strong man who wants to sweep her off of her feet and save her day.  Nonetheless, there are times when that protection can turn perilous if you’re dating a man who looks at you less as his partner and more as his property.

The following red flags could mean your man is playing a game of puppet master:

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