The Root: Why Do BW Still Support Tyrese?

I have a friend who looks similar to Tyrese. He has the same complexion and chiseled features, and a fondness for wearing plaid shirts, which Ty wore in a pivotal scene as Jody in John Singleton's Baby Boy.

Last year, that friend and I were standing backstage at a music festival when a group of "mature" black women approached us to ask my friend for an autograph. He laughed, explained that he was not Tyrese and apologized for the confusion. One woman responded, "We should have known it wasn't him as soon as you were polite. Tyrese is an a--hole."

I wondered, "So why did you want his autograph, then?" But I didn't say that, of course, because who in their younger right mind talks slick to a "mature" black woman?

I've thought about that incident several times, and I can't find a logical reason that audiences continually flock to entertainers -- not just Tyrese -- who are repeatedly rude and disrespectful to them, whether in person or via their public persona. 

Last week Tyrese engaged in another one of his infamous foot-in-mouth rants when asked by AllHipHop.com about his responsibility as an entertainer to inspire fans to live healthier lifestyles. It was an odd question, considering that the singer-actor-best-selling author isn't a weight-loss guru, but Tyrese's hateful response was even stranger (and inarticulate): 

"If you are fat and nasty and you don't like the way you look, do something about it," he said. "It's simple. When you take a shower and you put your fat, nasty body in the shower and by the time you get out, the mirrors are all steamed up, so you don't look at what you did to yourself. That may sound offensive or insensitive, but ultimately, you are big as hell because you have earned that s--t. You worked your ass off to eat everything in sight to get big as hell."

"Fat and nasty"? "Big as hell"? "Did to yourself?" Well, dang. Tell us how you really feel about some of your fans, Ty. It's as if he's never been to one of his own concerts or book signings, where the audience is populated mostly with black women (and their dates), and seen that many of them, including the guys, fall into the fluffy-and-fabulous realm.

Weight, of course, is an issue that many Americans need to address. More than one-third of U.S. adults are obese, and non-Hispanic blacks, Tyrese's core audience, have "the highest age-adjusted rates of obesity" in comparison with other groups, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But Tyrese is part of the problem, not the solution. Shaming fat folks as "nasty" and "big as hell" isn't exactly providing anyone with inspiration -- what the interviewer asked about -- to head to the nearest gym.

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The Root: Celibacy Is Wearing Me Down

"I've been celibate for almost five years. Yeah, I know -- 'Man down! Code 10!' I am trying to wait until I am married to have sex again. Lord knows I am. But it's becoming extremely hard. My male and female friends tell me to just 'get it in,' but I follow a male relationship expert, and he says, 'Wait until marriage.' Is it ever OK for a woman to just 'get it in' with no strings attached and still be considered a lady and not a 'ho'? I don't want a list of men, but this celibacy thing is wearing me down, especially since I haven't had a date since Jesus parted the Red Sea. Sigh." --C.N.

Huh? It's 2013. If you want to "get it in" with no strings attached, then that's your business. You can be called a "ho" whether you've had sex with one person or 100. The label, one largely applied only to women, is just about controlling your sexuality, not a genuine concern for your well-being or soul.

You're wondering what people will say if they find out. I'm wondering why you are telling others about what goes on in your bedroom or who goes in you. It's none of their business.

As for your current celibacy, I don't know whether to congratulate you or console you. It's fine not to have sex, even if it seems as if everybody else is doing it. But your reasons for not engaging concern me. It seems that you're sticking to this choice only because of the rantings of an arbitrary male relationship expert and because you don't want to be judged by society's double standard about women who have sex. Those aren't good reasons to be celibate, especially when it doesn't seem that you want to be.

I'm less concerned about what the relationship expert thinks and more concerned about what you think. Do you think you'll regret it or feel guilty if you have sex? Then don't do it. If you think you'll be just fine, do it. It's your body. You can do what you want or not with it, as long as it isn't harming anyone else.

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Clutch: Have You Ever Been Sexually Harassed?

President Obama’s recent quip about California Attorney General Kamala Harris “best-looking attorney general in the country” and Adria Richards dismissal after tweeting a picture of two men making sexual jokes  has reignited a conversation about sexual harassment.  For clarity, by no means, do I think Harris was sexually harassed by the President’s remark. Technically, they don’t work together, and while I find the remarks inappropriate for a professional setting, I don’t think all the hullabaloo that led to a prompt apology was necessary. As for Richards, I’m on the fence over whether she was wrong to out the guys holding a crass conversation within her earshot.

But since we’re talking about sexual harassment though…

My first understanding of sexual harassment came about long before I entered the workforce. I was 11, when Anita Hill complained that then-Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas asked her “Who has put pubic hair on my Coke?” I didn’t get it. I knew what pubic hair was, but why anyone would ask if another person put it on a soda can was beyond me. Plenty of boys of my school, and grown men, said (and did) inappropriate things to me, and other girls, but wasn’t that just boys being boys, or er, men being men? The idea that a comment about my expanding boobs or backside and all the things they’d like to do with them just seemed, unfortunately, normal. Sexual harassment was for grown folks, I thought.

But then, I grew up.

Eleven years later, I was out of grad school and working my first job at a government agency in New York City. I was 22 and trying to navigate an overwhelming post-graduate life, I had the fortune of sitting at the end of a long hallway where I could see all the comings and goings of the office, and near enough to the copy room that I could hear all sorts of conversations I wasn’t supposed to over the sound of the Xerox. I also had a habit of wearing skirts and sitting sideways at my desk, cluelessly offering anyone coming down the hall a good look if calves and a bit of knee were what they wanted to see. This was pointed out to me by the guy who ran the mail room.

We hadn’t said much more than “good morning” on the day he, about 50 or so, approached my desk to deliver a package and after, leaned in close to tell me, “I like them legs.” I recall being overpowered by the stench of too much cologne, an also that I felt ashamed that he, a man old enough to be my daddy, had taken notice. Instead of being outraged, I felt like I had done something wrong by just sitting the way I always did, by not covering up enough even in knee-length skirts.

So in the dead of September heat, I started wearing thick black tights under my dresses and made a conscious effort not to sit in the way that was most comfortable to me. For awhile, the mailroom man didn’t say much of anything other than “good morning” and “how you doing?” I was creeped out by the way he said that too, but what was I going to do? Go complain to HR that I didn’t like the way he essentially said, “hello?”

A few months later, he dropped off another package. I looked up from my computer to thank him, and he lingered to say, “You know, you got a pretty tongue…” He waited for my reaction, which was taken aback and a puzzled. I didn’t know what to say, so I said nothing. I couldn’t believe he said it.

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The Root: Yes, Black Women Do Get Along (Sheesh!)

On Monday night's episode of The Gossip Game, the Source magazine editor Kim Osorio shared with her husband that she was planning a roundtable with the show's cast to discuss hip-hop. She hoped that, unlike at previous gatherings with all the ladies, everyone would be on her best behavior and ready to play nice. Osorio's husband was immediately skeptical about the plans, insisting that there was no way a group of women could get together without descending into madness.

I've heard comments like the one from Osorio's husband more times than I can count. The idea that women, especially black women, are unable to get along is accepted as fact -- an idea, of course, that's given credence by most reality-TV shows. To let them tell it, women are taking every opportunity to throw another woman a side-eye, and maybe even toss her under the bus, too.

And it's not just guys propagating this myth -- yes, myth. I've heard plenty of women say something like, "I don't really hang out with girls because they're [insert a negative generalization of all women here]."

Every time I hear someone lumping all groups of women into the crazy, catty, petty, shifty or shady category, I think, "Huh? What type of women do you know?"

I won't pretend that I've never seen women exhibit catty behavior, never been on the receiving end of some petty remarks or even that I haven't made some myself. The worst moments stand out and had the possibility of leaving me, and other women, jaded and skeptical about womankind. However, overall, my experiences debunk the so-called rule about women's inability to get along. 

Maybe I've been fortunate, but when I think about my interactions with other women -- yes, even in groups -- my experience has been more positive, more sisterly and supportive, like on Living Single or Girlfriends, than anything showcased weekly on VH1 or talked about by sisterhood's naysayers.

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The Grio: Press: Please Lay Off the 'First Couple'

For several months in 2011, the world of hopeful romantics was tilted on its axis. Rumors swirled and swelled and were splashed across gossip sites and magazines “reporting” the end of Will and Jada Pinkett-Smith’s then-15 year marriage. Pinkett-Smith finally addressed the hearsay head on with French magazine Gala: “Every year, one celebrity couple is under the microscope. This year, unluckily, it’s us!”

Well, it’s a new year, and an unlikely couple has taken The Smith’s unfortunate spot. A pair of gaffes by President Obama and first lady Michelle Obama has drawn new scrutiny upon their 20-year marriage and folks have been steadily weighing in.

The president’s “big” gaffe

During a recent speech at a Democratic National Committee luncheon in California, President Obama gave a “shot out” to California Attorney General Kamala Harris. “She’s brilliant and she’s dedicated, she’s tough,” Obama said. “She also happens to be, by far, the best-looking attorney general … It’s true! C’mon,” he added.

The remark was swiftly derided in many circles. Writing for New York magazine, Jonathan Chait called Obama’s comments “disgraceful.” ”Women have a hard time being judged purely on their merits,” he wrote. “Discussing their appearance in the context of evaluating their job performance makes it worse.”

Yet for others, it was nothing worth noting. At The Washington Post, Jonathan Capehart scoffed at criticism of the president’s remarks, suggesting that detractors “lighten up.”

The president apologized to Harris anyway, the same night.

The first lady calls herself “single,” the press runs with it

However, it was a misstep by the first lady on the same day that turned up the attention on the state of the first marriage. Mrs. Obama described herself as a “busy single mother” during a recent television interview, but quickly corrected her mistake. “You know, when you’ve got the husband who’s president, it can feel a little single — but he’s there,” Obama told a CBS local station. She then described herself as a “busy working mom” instead.

New York’s Daily News referred to these twin slips of tongue as “double trouble for the First Family,” stirring up an air of negative innuendo around the Obama’s relationship. Some commenters on the highly-covered story even wondered how Mrs. Obama felt about his public compliments of another woman — especially in the context of misstating herself as being a “single mom.”

As much as I love to generate a juicy story on an otherwise slow news day, there’s not much to see here, folks. These slip ups don’t reveal anything about the Obama marriage other than that the participants in it, despite their fame, are regular folks who make ill-timed comments and may struggle to find a work-home balance just like the rest of us.

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The Grio: Can Kim K Really Raise A 'Color Blind’ Child?

Another day, another Kim Kardashian story. Sorry. Between her press tour for the recently released Tyler Perry’s Temptation and the ongoing hoopla over her pregnancy, Kim Kardashian is unavoidable these days. So, I’ll cut to the chase: recently, she sat down with BET.com to talk about the new film, and shared her thoughts on raising a bi-racial child.

“I have a lot of friends that are all different nationalities and their children are bi-racial, so they have kind of talked to me a little bit about it and what to expect and what not to expect,” she said. “But I think that the most important thing is, how I would want to raise my children, is to just not see color.”

We are not yet “post racial”

Sigh. This isn’t remotely likely to happen, given that Kanye West is the child’s father. West  is after all, the one who threw down a cut card by announcing on live TV, “George  Bush doesn’t care about black people.” And he can barely make it through a song verse without addressing race. Despite Kardashian’s Utopian vision for their baby, there’s little doubt the child will learn about color at home.  Now will it be the right message, given West’s affinity for dissing black, especially darker-hued women? Who knows?

But back to Kardashian’s kumbaya outlook. I believe she meant well. Unfortunately, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Seeing color isn’t the problem. The various hues of people, and the distinct characteristics and the cultures they hail from, are all worth celebrating and acknowledging. But given the way black cultures and brown girls are marginalized, Baby Girl Kardashian-West will need her hue, her fuzzy hair, her other black features, and her culture celebrated and acknowledged more than most to make up for all the ways she will be singled out, slighted or unfairly mistreated because of the negative assumptions that will be made about her solely because she is black (or bi-racial, if you’re feeling PC today). Sure she’ll be wealthy and carry the fame (infamy?) of her parents’ surnames and global brands, and that will inoculate her from judgment on occasion.

What the future holds for young Kardashian-West

But just like Oprah got locked outside the Hermes store in Paris despite being, you know Oprah ™, young Kardashian-West won’t be able to escape the ramifications of being black and female in a world that’s not always so fond of either and even less fond of both together, no matter how far Mommy wants to bury her head in the sand about it.

It’s no coincidence that we rarely hear an of-color person talk about a colorblind society, or worse post-racial living. It’s because race defines and affects nearly every aspect of our lives, from health to marriage to employment to shopping, to just hailing a cab or just walking down the street. Only those not on the receiving end of racism, and also those gaining from it, have the privilege to ponder whether color is seen or should even be taught.

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