The Internet was in a tizzy on Tuesday. InTouch reported that our Will and Jada Pinkett Smith were separated. Even though the story has since been reported false, it was still sad to hear.

What was even sadder were people’s reactions to it. I can admit it, even I was a bit choked up when I heard the “news.” They’ve been together for so long. We made them a “power couple.” They seemed like the “perfect” couple. Whatever that is.

Once people heard they separated, many women denounced love. How could it be that these two people, of all people, with their perfect smiles, blockbuster movies, and two children who are already superstars in their own right, break up? They’ve graced 47 covers of Essence (not really) under the coverlines pertaining to love, marriage, and success. This just can’t be. So that means that we, simpletons, in our simple relationships are doomed, right?

In the words of Cliff Huxtable from The Cosby Show pilot, “That is the dumbest thing I ever heard!”

How did we allow someone else’s happiness determine our own? We don’t even know these people, for goodness sake! Is it that easy to give up on love?

I see this day in and day out with women. I’m sorry, I mean black women. We wake every morning and fix our thumbs to type a “Rise & Grind!” tweet or give mini lectures on the importance of “getting our minds right” but when it comes to relationships, we’re pretty much mum.

Well, not exactly. We will talk to anyone who will listen about a love lost or a love gone wrong. If love failed you, what was your part in making it fail? I know you’re not asking Will and Jada for advice. You don’t have any bearing on their relationship, so don’t make their failure yours. Worry about the details of your own relationships.

And if you’re not in a relationship, then I don’t know what to tell you.

Here’s one thing about me is that I’ll never give up on love. I’ve been in love, lost it, cried, got over it, and moved on in life. But you best believe, at 25, I’m not thinking it’s the end of the road. That’s crazy! If you’re unemployed and been without a job for a while, are you just going to stop looking for a job? If you really want one, no. Everything takes commitment and work. Love is no different.

Now, if you were one of the lucky ones to have Will and Jada on the marriage pedastool, ask yourself why you really put them there. Why not have people you know be your relationship role model? If you’re one of those people who are afraid of successful relationships because your parents were unsuccessful, let them be your model of what NOT to do.

Every relationship has its ups and downs. It’s inevitable. Don’t use someone else’s failures as a reason for things in your life that fail. Just learn from the lessons, move on and grow. Put into it what you want to get out of it.  And always love. Always.

Sometimes I really feel they should have never given you n!%*@s Twitter. Every other day, someone is calling a chick a hoe (or for you faux-French, “heaux”) for the dumbest reasons:

– #urahoe if you eat grits

– #urahoe if you take your shoes off at the club

– #urahoe if you have a waterbed

– #urahoe if you still have a signature after your texts

– #urahoe if your dress blows in the wind …

… and the ridiculosity goes on and on and on…

But dudes are perfect, right? I’m not into the whole male bashing thing, but it needs to be pointed out that women aren’t the only ones who have issues on Twitter (or life outside of Twitter’s 140 character limit).

I’ve come across a lot of male insecurity on my timeline in the past few months, and while these men have public profiles, I wouldn’t embarrass them like they’ve embarrassed the women in their lives. No names mentioned to protect the “fowl.”

I present to you the Male Bird.

Urban Dictionary defines a bird as “generally a girl or a young woman who comes across as vain, ditzy, stupid or useless.” So, a male bird is exactly that, but usually taller with facial hair and an inflated sense of self-worth. Let me give you an example.

A few months ago this guy on my timeline was tweeting about how this chick was sooo thirsty for him. She kept texting his phone, and he wouldn’t respond for hours later. She would get upset and text multiple times. He pretty much shitted on her. Took screenshots and everything. Named her “Thirst” as a contact. But the funny thing is that he read all of Thirst’s text messages, yet he had 132 unread messages from everyone else.

Interesting. She’s the thirsty one, yet you’ve checked every single one of her messages and ignored all the others.

Of course there’s an influx of mentions from his other bird friends with the cosign about the unsuspecting girl who simply didn’t like being ignored.

There’s really nothing like an insecure Male Bird. The one who attempts to build themselves up by making others feel bad about themselves but in a public forum. It’s lame. It’s trite. It’s corny.

How do you keep from being a male bird? (Or a bird, period.) Actor Boris Kodjoe tweeted some good points on #How2BaMan that birds of the male persuasion could definitely use.

1. Stop following anyone who is disrespectful on a regular basis. How many ways can you call a girl a hoe or complain about dark-skinned girls or whatever? Follow actual people who actually respond to you, someone who has genuinely funny tweets. I highly doubt that @OfficiallyIce (whoever he is) will actually respond to your mass amount of mentions. He will never tweet or retweet you. He doesn’t like you. Get over it.

2. Read a book. Stop getting your news from mediatakeout.com or Necole Bitchie. It shouldn’t be your only source for what’s going on in the world. Birds love mindless dribble. When you read it gives you more to talk about and it’ll seem like you actually care about wide array of things.

3. “Get a passport and travel.” If you confine yourself to a borough or two (or your hometown) you will never see what the rest of the world has to offer. Traveling will really make you see the world in a different light. You’ll be exposed to different people an culture. Birds don’t know nothing about that. (#How2BaMan)
4. “Have an ambition. You don’t need to be rich but you need to show direction and motivation.” Everybody’s goal is to get money, but how are you going to get it? Only birds say that they grind and hustle but can never tell you how they do. Ambition and drive is sexy, and the results from your determination are even sexier. (#How2BaMan)
5. “Embrace your imperfections.” We know you’re not perfect nor do we want you to be. The more you point out someone else’s imperfections, the more insecure you seem. (#How2BaMan)

Heed this post. If you were offended by this post then, chances are, you’re a male bird and you’ll continue to squawk. And if you’re offended then maybe you should try and incorporate some new things into your life.

Every so often in music there is an artist who speaks to the masses. Sometimes it is profound; oftentimes it is not. Rapper Lil’ B happens to be the latter.

I watched a video of him “performing” on stage with Diddy, and it was one of the worst performances I’ve ever seen. He had no real skill or stage presence. In fact, for a good part of the video you didn’t even realize he was there, thanks to Diddy stealing the spotlight as usual.

If you can, watch the video. (For those who have ears or eyes, this may be a difficult process.)

Lack of skill and inabilities aside, what truly disturbed me were the comments from the video.

– “Thank you Basedgod for saving my life. You can f*** my b**** tonight after I’m done.”

– “Damn, BASEDGOD… You done came up. Now you got Diddy cookin it up and shoutin you out. You made it. Thank you basedgod.”

– “F*** my wife base god!!!”

What? F*** my girl? Basedgod?? What does this even mean?

According to Urban Dictionary, it means “living the way of life swaggin too the fullest, not caring what people say or think,wear, act or do what you want inspired by the BASEDGOD Lil’ B.”

My title “Of Cults and Basedgods” may be extreme, but look at it this way: a cult means devotion to a particular figure or object and a misplaced or excessive admiration for a particular person or thing. This is everything that the “Basedgod” stands for. Granted, the commenters might not have been giving up their girls to Lil’ B (or maybe some were, who knows?), but just the fact they were offering blew my mind. Who thought of this anyway? Is this the norm for the new generation?

I really wish I knew what type of brainwashing methods he uses on his fans because this is ridiculous.

Thoughts?

“B-b-b-bougie!”

This is how one of my coworkers greeted me one day. It wasn’t just meant to describe me; it became my nickname.

Well isn’t that nice?

It was’t the first time anyone ever called me that, and it most certainly wasn’t the last. Since my recent move and new job, I’ve been called bougie more in one month than I have in 10 years. Maybe it’s because I’m from Connecticut, maybe not. But with the way sooo many people have been using the term on me recently, it makes me wonder, what exactly counts as bougie?

So I asked. That’s right I asked.

Coworker D: “You don’t talk like the other girls.”
Me: “What does that mean? How do I speak?”
Coworker D: “You know, not ghetto. You’re nice.”
Me: “So ‘ghetto’ girls according to you aren’t nice?”
Coworker D: “No.”

He didn’t seem like a very credible source, so I moved on to the next.

Coworker C: “Bougie is when you go out with your friends and you know they can’t afford certain things, but you wanna go to the most expensive place and pop bottles knowin’ their asses can’t pay. That’s bougie.”

I guess that crosses me off the list. I’ve never been one to judge someone on their haves or have nots. That’s not my style. I don’t have everything or can afford everything, so why would I judge another person for the ish we both don’t have? It doesn’t make sense to me.

I spoke to more people, and it’s clear that there is no clear definition as to what bougie is.I honestly think people view someone who is bougie as someone who thinks they are better than everyone else or makes more money and flaunts it. No one knows my status. I don’t flash money around, especially because I don’t have it to flash (LOL). And honestly, to me, the people who don’t stunt like they have it all flaunt it WAY more than anyone else.

Am I bougie? Maybe a lil’ bit, but not as much as everyone thinks.

I watched a trailer for an upcoming documentary called Behind Those Books on urban novels. The general consensus was that since most of the plots involved sex, drugs, just general explicit content was not appropriate for young people to read since it glorified the hood.

The directors interviewed authors such as K’wan, Teri Woods, Omar Tyree and Terry McMillan on the issue. Most of the authors (and this is based off of the 13-minute trailer) was that black people want to read things they can relate to and will be interested in, even if the subjects are hypersexualized.

And as long as people are reading, we should be happy, right? It’s not that simple. Check the clip.

I agree reading something in any form is great. We feel like the younger generations are too dependent on electronics, whether it be smartphones, iPods, or video games (hey, we even have e-books), so to see a teenager actually flipping through the pages of a book is wonderful. Despite the recycled plot lines, there’s a LOT of typos in these books. Sometimes the mistakes, if there’s a ton, take away from the actual content of the book and enjoyment. Think about it: if your child is reading a book that is laden with poor grammar and misspellings, how do you think they will perform as a writer in their everyday life? I’ll tell you, they’re going to be the ones we laugh at and go in on Twitter, when they say things like, “flaming young” versus “filet mignon.” *Sigh*

One of the points made by Queen Pen in the trailer was that black people can’t identify with some white books like the Harry Potter series because black people can’t identify with “warlocks.” Umm… am I missing something? Last time I checked, I didn’t see any white warlocks walking down the street. That’s a poor excuse. Lack of imagination is abundant in urban lit. You have the creative control to create anything you want to, yet you choose to do the same thing over and over again. How can you grow as an author?

Most importantly, I don’t think is a problem if someone reads nigglature at all. However, if that’s all you read then there lies the problem. I believe we should all be well-read in order to get a wider scope of life. If you read B More Careful by Shannon Holmes , then you should have read Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurton as well.

Just think, if you read five books that have the same basic plot, what are you getting out of it? Would you even recommend it? “Yea, girl, you should read [insert cliched title here]. It’s just like every other book I ever read. Mmhmm. I’ll let you borrow my copy.” Uhh, I’ll pass. Imagine if you read a play, like Raisin in the Sun, or a nonfiction book, like Immortality of Influence, or even one by a non-Black author such as The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri. There’s a wide variety of stories that someone might not have known about that they may be interested in. They’re great to bring up in conversation.

All I’m saying is try to expand your readings. You just might like it.