The Root: 10 Things I Wish I Was Told At Graduation

It's commencement season! Over the weekend, President Obama headed to Morehouse College to deliver what turned out to be a controversial address, while first lady Michelle Obama went to Maryland's Bowie State University to deliver a widely lauded speech. Scandal actress Kerry Washington spoke at her alma mater, George Washington University, where she shared anecdotes from her undergrad years and told students, "The adventure ahead of you is the journey to fulfill your own purpose and potential."

Rapper-businessman Shawn "Jay-Z" Carter didn't speak anywhere but made headlines for gifting a Mercedes truck to recent Notre Dame grad Skylar Diggins. The WNBA guard was one of the first signees to Carter's Roc Nation sports agency.

I don't remember what I received as a college graduation gift, from undergrad or grad school. I also don't remember any of the speeches. When I graduated from New York University, Christiane Amanpour, then the chief international correspondent at CNN, gave the commencement speech. I'd just earned a master's in journalism and took this as some sign from on high that I had chosen the right profession, even if I didn't have a job yet, or any real prospects of one.

I sat through both of my graduations scared witless, alternately fearful of tripping in my heels as I walked across the stage to accept my "diploma" (they don't hand them out onstage; they send them in the mail, a fact I only learned the day of my first graduation) and wondering, "What's next?" The vague parts I do remember from the speeches were something about embarking on the best years of my life and all the adventure to come. I pictured a mountain and me standing at the bottom of it. Everyone around me was smiling, smitten and giddy. I fought back tears on both days.

In retrospect, that vision of me standing in the valley and envisioning the big, wide mass in front of me was accurate, but the valley before that mountain was deeper than I imagined. Here are 10 things that I wish someone had told me at graduation that would have made the climb to the top -- which I still haven't reached, over a decade later -- a little easier.

1. You're Not Entitled to Anything
Yes, you just earned a degree (or two or three), but so did a few thousand other people, and on the same day, too. You are special, but not because you're newly degreed. Unless your mom or another relative is a titan of her industry, you will have to hustle and network for a job like everyone else.

2. Get a Job, Any Job
I know you just spent the last however many years earning that degree, and you want to put it to good use. If you land something in your field straight out of school, lucky you. If not, just take a job to earn a check, and get experience and skills that you can put on a résumé to get the job you really want someday (soon.)

3. If You Can, Move Back Home
Independence isn't overrated. There's actually nothing like it. However, if you can a) get a job; b) return to your childhood bedroom and deal with your parents (and their rules) for another 12 to 24 months; and c) save up some money, you will have a better quality of life when you move.

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Ask Demetria: "Should I Only Date Men At My Income Level?"

"Is it wrong to seek out guys who are at my level, career- and salarywise, and have the same goals? I have tried dating guys who weren't, but their insecurities popped up, and it became frustrating telling them that those things don't matter. I'm wondering if I should save myself the hassle!" --Z.C.  

No, it's not wrong to desire a partner whose accomplishments, income and goals are similar to your own (or bigger). Some might even say that on the surface, at least, that's an ideal partnership.

Although women outearn their husbands in almost one-fourth of U.S. households, according to the 2010 American Community Survey, researchers have found that marriage rates decline when a woman seems capable of outearning her husband. In a working paper, "Gender Identity and Relative Income Within Households" (pdf), the same researchers also found that a married woman who earns more than her husband increases the probability of unhappiness in her union and could increase the likelihood of divorce by 50 percent.

Still, I suggest that you be careful not to lump together all guys who are not at "your level" and assume that you'd have no chance at a healthy relationship. There is a type of guy who will make less than you and may be less educated than you, and he will be totally OK with that. He'll be happy to support you and be proud of your accomplishments and may be motivated by your success.

In addition, men who are as professionally accomplished as you are not automatically better and more secure. A guy "at your level" might not have the same insecurities about not measuring up to your successes, but unfortunately, professional success doesn't guarantee that a man won't be insecure. There's also the type of very accomplished guy who may feel threatened by your successes or salary or résumé, even if his are equal or better. He may began to treat you like a competitor, attempt to sabotage your success or begin to downplay your accomplishments.

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The Root: That Time Snoop Ran A Brothel

Nothing should surprise me about rapper Snoop Dogg -- or, er, Snoop Lion, as he recently rebranded himself in what seems to be a midlife crisis. This is a man who launched his career 20 years ago with an album cover for the now-classic Doggystyle that featured an image of a hybrid dog-woman bent over with her head tucked inside a doghouse. His notable antics over the last two decades include appearing at the MTV Video Music Awards in 2003 with two black (and braless) women on leashes; parading around with an alleged former pimp; and producing porn.

Snoop did his damnedest to become the face of postmillennial pimping, a new age Dolomite (the lyrics) meets Goldie (the hair). And until now, I thought his pimp-culture obsession was some shaky delusion of grandeur from a boy without proper black male role models who grew into a man who didn't know any better.

But nawl. Snoop, according to a recent Rolling Stone interview, was a for-real pimp, an occupation he took on after he became a platinum-selling artist. That actually surprises me. "As a kid I dreamed of being a pimp, I dreamed of having cars and clothes and bitches to match," Snoop told Rolling Stone, seemingly without a trace of remorse. "I said, 'F--k it -- I'm finna do it.'"

The rapper described the rolling brothel he operated while on a Playboy tour. "I had a bus follow me with 10 bitches on it. I could fire a bitch, f--k a bitch, get a new ho: It was my program," said Snoop, who has been married since 1997. "City to city, titty to titty."

And apparently this was all for kicks. In the interview, Snoop claims that professional athletes, including members of the Denver Broncos and Nuggets, were regular patrons of his service, but he says that, in atypical pimp fashion, he did not take a cut from the women's profits.

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The Grio: Stop Talking Ish About Charles Ramsey

I don’t think I need to explain to you that Charles Ramsey is “famous.” Earlier this week, he gave a descriptive interview to an ABC affiliate in Cleveland after he assisted a woman who was screaming for help. That woman turned out to be a kidnapping victim Amanda Berry, who almost everyone believed to be dead.

Like Sweet Brown and before her, Antoine Dodson — both household names because of their respective spirited descriptions of tragedies — Ramsey quickly became a viral sensation and like them racked up interviews, for all the wrong reasons.

Ramsey has a receding hairline and either sports a perm or a blow out. He is missing teeth. His one-liners about how he was just chilling like Brotherman from Martin on the “fif” floor while he ate his McDonalds’ and once consumed ribs and listened to salsa music with the kidnapper next door had people in stitches, laughing at him.

His heroic actions as a rescuer (and his poignant observations on race relations) took second place to his “colorfulness.”

Overnight, he went from a dishwasher waiting on his next paycheck to one-on-one interviews with the likes of Anderson Cooper and the hosts of Good Morning America.

And the clock had begun ticking on his 15 minutes of fame.

Because we’ve all seen this happen before, many of us knew what was coming. With all eyes on and so much interest in Ramsey, it was only a matter of time before journalists and gossip outlets started digging into his background. A Facebook friend called it the day Ramsey’s interview broke: “His criminal background hits the Internet in 5, 4, 3, 2…"

Days later, The Smoking Gun revealed Ramsey had been arrested three times for domestic violence against his then-wife and served six months in jail. There’s no way around it. That’s horrible. However, it doesn’t take anything away from Ramsey’s heroic deed.

The purpose of jail is supposed to be equal parts punishment and rehabilitation, and apparently in the ten years since his last arrest, Ramsey’s become a better man. When he heard a woman’s screams coming from his neighbor’s house — something that may have happened in his own residence long ago — he believed there was a woman was being beaten.

He didn’t keep chewing away on his Big Mac without care. He got up, went next door, and broke into his neighbor’s home to rescue the woman inside.

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Ask Demetria: Do Titles 'Really' Matter?

"I read something about a woman who was dating a guy for six months and he didn't introduce her when they ran into people. It got me thinking -- does it matter if your boyfriend introduces you like 'This is Gina' instead of saying, 'This is my girlfriend, Gina'? Does saying 'girlfriend' first mean anything more than just saying the name?" --C.W.

I'll probably tick off a lot of people and upset a lot of "relationships" by saying this, but yes, it means something more. It changes the way you are treated and perceived; a title or lack thereof is one indicator about the seriousness of the relationship.

Over the weekend, I attended a birthday celebration for a friend of my parents. It was a grand event with lots of people they didn't know. We all had the honoree in common, so it made it easy to mingle. Without fail, everyone we met introduced themselves and whoever they were with as, "my wife, Gina," "my husband, Martin" or "my daughter Ashley."

There's a reason for that. Not only does it establish the relationship, but it also gives a cue as to how you should respectfully proceed in engaging each of the parties.

"This is Gina" tells the person that you're being introduced by nothing but your name. Gina could be a co-worker or a random woman he just met, and she could be fair game to approach about a date. It's unclear and can make for awkward situations.

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The Delusional World of Mister Cee

Over the weekend, a popular New York radio DJ Calvin “Mister Cee'” LeBrun was arrested for soliciting a male prostitute in Brooklyn. This is his third arrest for solicitation in three years. He notably made headlines in 2011 when he was arrested for receiving oral sex in his car from a man, then plead guilty.  He plead guilty after his first arrest as well.
 
Early Monday morning the radio veteran sat for an interview with the Hot 97 morning show where he attempted to explain his current arrest and all previous charges. The result was, by most accounts, a disaster.
 
I was up at 7:45 AM for the interview, expecting to hear Mister Cee come "out", a gigantic step for a figure so deeply entrenched in hip hop. I guess, by the time you’re on your third arrest for soliciting male sex workers, you’re kind of out already. But I wanted to hear him say it anyway and I figured he would since he’d decided to go on air for a live interview. Instead, what listeners were treated to were denials, conspiracy theories, half-baked answers and confessions to everything but the obvious truth.
 
Hot 97 Program Director Ebro Darden didn’t waste anytime getting to the heart of the matter. “Are you gay?” Darden asked to kick off the interview. Mister Cee repeatedly denied that he was despite Darden’s attempts to drag him “out” of the closet by urging, “don’t hide because that’s a disservice to our gay and lesbian listeners.”
 
LeBrun explained away his current arrest as “dumb luck”, an unfortunate coincidence which landed him in a part of Brooklyn known for male sex workers. His version of events:  he was approached while in his car by an undercover Latina officer posing as prostitute and she  offered him oral sex. He alleges the media changed the sex of the officer from a “she” to a “he” in reports. He offered no explanation to why the media would do this.
 
To credit, LeBrun did admit to one obvious piece of the equation, namely that he has an addiction to prostitutes (and strippers), a result of his inability to trust women. But for every step forward, there was another back. Of his previous arrests, which he pleaded guilty to, LeBrun proclaimed his innocence, offering equally baffling explanations for those scenarios. The most eyebrow raising was that he pleaded guilty to previous charges to avoid the cost and embarrassment to his family and workplace.
 
Really, sir?
 
Here’s the thing: If LeBrun had remained quiet about this arrest, as he did for previous interviews, I wouldn’t have any expectations that he come (further) out. After I heard of his most recent arrest and before I heard he would do an interview about it, my response to his  predicament was something like (but tweeted less eloquently), “the sex with men isn’t the problem, it’s the sex with prostitutes  and the arrests that are the issue. Perhaps it’s time to find a groupie who will sign a NDA or an escort service for men who like men to keep his business off the blogs.
 
However, when LeBrun decided to sit for an interview the weekend after he faced his third arrest for soliciting a prostitute of the same sex, the only thing anyone wanted to hear is “yes, I am gay.”  You see, no one coincidently gets arrested for soliciting the company of a male sex worker three times. Frankly, even one time—for an allegedly heterosexual man is too many, but maybe there’s some freak coincidence where it can be explained. I’d at least hear out the explanation without rolling my eyes completely. But after the third arrest and two previous guilty pleas on similar charges?  The gig is up.