Charlamagne tha God fat shamed Reesa Teesa, and it’s not OK

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“I’mma be honest with you, man,” he said. “I hear a lot of big back behavior. Does she have a big back?”

“She do,” Jess Hilarious replied. “She do give Sheila that was driving up the mountain.” 

“OK. OK. Sheila was beautiful though,” Charlamagne said.

I want to pause here to point out how he was very careful not to diss Jill Scott, who played Sheila in the Tyler Perry franchise “Why Did I Get Married?” even though he’s dissing other women who look like her, and that’s telling.

He went on to say, “In a situation like this, some of you big backs … y’all gotta stop being so thirsty for a man. There’s a man out there for you, OK? This woman believed all of this because she wanted to believe all of this. Big-back belief isn’t like everybody else’s belief. She said it herself, ‘he said everything I wanted to hear.’

“She wanted to believe whatever was coming out of his mouth,” he continued, “because she wanted a man so bad.”

Continuing to make it about her size and not the fact that the man she was involved with was allegedly a liar and scammer, he then asked his co-hosts, “How big is she?”

As Jess begins to try to explain how big she is, Envy interjects that her size doesn’t matter, but Charlamagne insists that it does. 

“It does because this is big back behavior. They be thirsty for men,” he asserts. 

Charlamagne tha God fat shamed Reesa Teesa, and it’s not OK

Black women can’t save you, Jonathan Majors

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Someone on Jonathan Majors’ team doesn’t like him very much. 

That’s the only explanation I can come up with for why they have repeatedly allowed him to make himself look guilty and look like a fool for the last nine-and-a-half months as he has been arrested, charged, tried and convicted of assaulting his former girlfriend, Grace Jabbari. 

I don’t think we have ever witnessed a “grand opening; grand closing” moment happen as swiftly as it did for Majors when news of his arrest for the incident hit the news in March of last year. He went from being the timeline’s most wanted to the timeline’s most hated so quickly, I’m sure even his head spun. 

Black women can’t save you, Jonathan Majors

Black women across social media are tired of Tyler Perry’s relationship ‘advice’

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It was this next part that essentially set the internet on fire.

“So, if you can find love, if that man works — you know — at whatever job and is a good man and is good to you and honors the house and honors his wife and does what he can because his gift may not be your gift,” Perry said. 

“That is OK,” he continued. “That’s not somebody who’s beneath you; that’s somebody who came to love you at your worth, right? And as long as he’s secure in himself to know that ‘Yep, she makes most of the money; all I can pay is the light bill,’ as long as she’s comfortable enough to say, ‘I’m going to cover the mortgage and all of the other stuff; you handle the light bill, baby. You can take me to dinner every now and then,’ that is fine.”

Black women across social media are tired of Tyler Perry’s relationship ‘advice’

Shoplifting is not a capital offense, but Ta’Kiya Young died for it

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A police officer who had only been in her presence for 12 seconds shot and killed her. 

He didn’t know her name. He didn’t know she was pregnant and due to have a baby girl in two months. He didn’t know she had previously been accused of petty crimes. He didn’t even know if she had actually stolen any liquor. 

In the moment he pulled his gun on Ta’Kiya Young while yelling for her to get out of her car, all he knew was she had been accused of stealing from a grocery store, and he decided that was enough to warrant aggressively pulling a gun on her and threatening her life — a life he eventually took. 

Shoplifting is not a capital offense, but Ta’Kiya Young died for it

Black women have been holding it down for America at the U.S. Open, but when has America held them down?

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Before Gauff, the last three American U.S. Open champions were Black women — Venus Williams, Serena Williams and Sloane Stephens. And now, add Coco Gauff to that list.

It’s worth noting that the Williams sisters have multiple wins between them in that 20-year span.

People keep mistakenly bringing up Naomi Osaka in this discussion, and I’d like to note that while we also celebrate her Black Girl Magic as well, Naomi plays for Japan when she competes, not the United States, and in this discussion, we are referencing U.S. winners.

Black women have been holding it down for America at the U.S. Open, but when has America held them down?

Stop trying to whitesplain Black women’s experience in America

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In other words, white people love to come around and whitesplain the Black experience to Black people even though they have never been Black a day in their lives, and judging from the way their fragility and thin skin erupt into irrational outbursts on the internet, I’m going to guess they have neither the mental nor the intestinal fortitude to survive even one day in a Black experience. 

White people don’t understand the inanity of having your tone policed when you are speaking up for yourselves in a situation when the power dynamic of race comes into play. They don’t understand that in situations like what Coco went through, you have to adapt to the sensitivities of the white person you are addressing even as they are trampling over yours with no regard. They can’t imagine a world where everything you do is viewed through the lens of you being Black and how that lens is clouded with the smudges of implicit bias, systemic racism and white privilege. 

In fact, it is white privilege that thrusts them into the position of thinking they can speak with authority and tell us how we are misunderstanding something that happened to us and not them. 

Stop trying to whitesplain Black women’s experience in America

Coco Gauff advocated for herself in the workplace, so of course, a white woman cried

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When Gauff drew this to the umpire’s attention, and in a now-viral video, we can see them going back and forth as the umpire tells Gauff that she plays “very quick” while her opponent plays “slow,” and Gauff corrects her and says she plays at a “normal, medium pace.”

Both the crowd observing the match as well as the ESPN commentators agreed with Gauff, and her statements to the umpire were met with loud applause.

As ESPN reports, the crowd began watching the clock and yelling “timer” every time Siegemund was slow to be ready for the next serve, and when she later had her own exchange with the umpire, the crowd booed her.

Coco Gauff advocated for herself in the workplace, so of course, a white woman cried

Keke Palmer and other Black women deserve to express both their sensuality and sexuality unapologetically

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Darius Jackson, a no-name negro with no claim to fame other than the fact that he fathered a beautiful child with Keke Palmer, recently became the main character on Black Twitter after he dared to try and publicly shame Keke for an outfit she wore to the Usher residency in Las Vegas. 

In a video that was widely shared across the internet, the “Confessions” crooner walked up to Keke and serenaded her. They danced closely together as he sang to her. Keke, who shows no signs of having recently had a baby, looked stunning in a dazzling Black see-through number that put her “cheeks” on full display. 

Darius, aka the “breadloser” in Keke’s house, wrapped himself up in a feelings burrito after the video clip of Usher and Keke went viral. In response to a celebrity news social media account posting the video, he wrote through his tears, “It’s the outfit tho…you a mom.”

Keke Palmer and other Black women deserve to express both their sensuality and sexuality unapologetically

Let’s talk about the way Black women are constantly targeted for ‘humbling’

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Before the whining starts, I want to be clear that I realize all women are shamed for the tiniest of things that shouldn’t even matter or be anyone else’s business, but as Black women, we are held under a microscope and have every decision, emotion, hairstyle, financial status, education level, number of previous lovers — you name it, we have had it picked apart and thrown in our faces at any given moment. 

Black women get shamed for everything

Stop giving Chris Brown a platform, Black women!

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Since the 2009 incident in which he assaulted his then-girlfriend Rihanna — an incident to which he pleaded guilty and received a felony conviction — Brown has remained an unapologetic jerk on all fronts. Last month, People magazine published a timeline of all his legal troubles since the 2009 conviction, and the list is long and full of examples of Brown being unable to control his temper and keep his hands to himself. 

The 33-year-old is obviously very troubled and would likely benefit from long-term professional help, but what is not helping is all the people enabling him — most especially Black women. 

Chris Brown is problematic, and it’s time for Black women to stop uplifting him

Happy birthday to Megan Thee Stallion

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Today is Megan Thee Stallion’s 28th birthday.

She should be out celebrating and driving the boat, doing hoodrat shit with her ratchet friends, but instead she has been on a self-imposed hiatus, disappearing from the public eye immediately after Tory Lanez was convicted in December for the July 2020 incident in which he shot her in her feet.

Megan deserves so much better.

For theGrio, I wrote an open letter to her.

I hope wherever she is right now, she is surrounded by love, finding peace, feeling protected, and healing herself mentally and emotionally so she can come back stronger than ever. We miss her.

Read “To Megan Thee Stallion on her 28th birthday

Return of the Mack

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Good morning!

As I have shared in my writing as of late, I have not been in a good place mentally over the last few weeks.

Depression is a monster, and when it takes over, even the smallest of tasks can feel insurmountable. The inability to focus long enough to get anything done is a productivity killer, and for someone like me who works primarily as a freelancer or contract worker, that means it’s an income killer as well.

Continue reading

The treatment of Megan Thee Stallion since the night of her shooting is disgusting

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Megan Thee Stallion has been treated like the villain ever since news broke that she was shot by Canadian rapper Tory Lanez. She has been the victim of targeted harassment, weaponized misinformation and general misogyny and misognynoir.

I discuss this in my latest for theGrio, “Before, during and after the trial of Tory Lanez, Megan Thee Stallion was treated as more of a villain than he was. Let’s talk about it.”

Pete was subjected to a targeted campaign of weaponized misinformation and had her name dragged through the mud day after day. In her testimony during the trial, she tearfully related how this entire situation has impacted her life and made things harder for her, saying at one point, “Because I was shot, I’ve been turned into some kind of villain, and he’s the victim. This has messed up my whole life.

“I wish he would have just shot and killed me (rather than) have to go through this torture,” she said. 

Black women are unprotected, and in the hip-hop community, many will rush to defend a man for his actions before they will protect the woman his abusive actions harm. It’s sickening.

Read the article, and let me know what you think.

Amazon’s ‘A League of Their Own’ Tells Black stories loudly and proudly

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Although the new show is also a fictionalized retelling of the World War II-era All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL), that’s where the similarities to the original ends.

‘A League of Their Own’ is based on the 1992 movie, but has an identity all its own

Why are Black women always expected to be the bigger person?

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Black women are always expected to turn the other cheek when it comes to the people who mistreat them. We are always expected to be the bigger person, to rise above it all and act like we are indifferent to the hateful speech, abusive behavior and gaslighting that goes on in situations like this. 

Black women don’t owe Kevin Samuels anything

For theGrio, I wrote about how Black women are being asked to show grace to Kevin Samuels in light of his death, despite the fact that he had none for Black women when he was living.