Does Pretty Hurt? Event Wrap-Up featuring Michele Williams

Falling Black in Love week at Florida A&M University has been a week of awe-inspiring motivational speakers, hot button issues and a call on our community to address the realities we face everyday through open discussions.

(Read: Full week of events ihearthatgirl.com)

Described by Eric Troy Wright Jr., organizer of this fundraiser and two time graduate of FAMU as,

“A movement committed to paying both respect and homage to the incredible feats, accomplishments, and achievements of the African American community from around the world. In a time when the image of Black men, women, and youth have been both distorted and misrepresented, It is vital that people of color be affirmed in who they are.”
(Help Support the Movement http://www.gofundme.com/78g6b8)

Arian Simone hosted the Does Pretty Hurt event as apart of her FEARLESS Discussions movement featuring an all-star panel of FAMU alumni, make-Up artist Siteria Gregory, former Miss FAMU and beauty consultant Aisha Everett and one former professor, psychology expert, and editor of FEARLESS Jenay Sermon. But what really set off this panel off was the surprise feature guest of the night, who took the place of Tika Sumpter, Ms. Michelle Williams.

    The panel discussion, which included plenty of audience, feed back featured topics like, colorism, cosmetic surgery, size, self-worth, and what we define as beauty. The overall message and name of the discussion coming from the lyrics of Beyonće’s popular song “Pretty Hurts,”

“Pretty hurts, we shine the light on whatever's worst, we try to fix something but you can't fix what you can't see it's the soul that needs the surgery”

(Read 12 opinions on Body Transformation on TypicalVixen.Com)

Students as well as panelist shared their views, and the general consensus became, that we all define our beauty, and what matters most is what your inner beauty reflects.

Araian Simone does a great job of facilitating discussion rather than debate, encouraging diversity and unity and reminding us all that as black men and women we must stand together.

The feature guest 3 time Grammy award winning artist Michelle Williams was surprised that colorism was still an prevalent issue, as young women shared their stories of racial bias on campus from black men, bringing up terms such as #TeamLightSkin vs. #TeamDarkskin to her attention for the first time.

Michelle also chimed in on another hot topic natural hair, which was led by an all-natural panel, speaking about wearing lace fronts during her time on Broadway, which she says the lace wigs were originally made, the importance of proper removal, and how she lost a job opportunity because of her trying out a natural look recalling,

“I came in with my natural hair, my curls were laid and it was really cute, I was really feeling myself, and the guy was like, ‘We were expecting the girl from Destiny’s Child’ and I was just so mad like seriously?”

                                            

(Read: Actress and singer Countess Vaughn reveals how wearing a lace front wig caused her to develop a severe scalp infection)

This also sparked an interesting discussions about the reasons black women perm their hair and how it relates to the love of your African roots. Some calling the natural hair movement a trend, others happy it has become more acceptable, despite criticism of natural styles being considered unprofessional, most recently by the U.S. Army, as demonstrated at the Pretty Hurts photo shoot by Ferissa Connel, who also spoke about her experience during the discussion.

                

“I think it’s sad that I might miss out on certain opportunities because of my hair, we have to stand up for ourselves in order for these new implementations to stop.”

Overall I do believe the mission Arian opened with was obtained stating,

“You will leave this discussion knowing that you were designed on purpose and for a purpose, having a greater appreciation for your unique self and understanding of your self worth, and with more confidence in who you are and how you look right now.”

Arian ended with an inspirational message of how she rose to became a celebrity publicist after at a time when she was broke, homeless, and snuck into the 2004 BET Awards, after losing her job just one month after moving to LA.

 “I learned how to dance in the rain. You never let your situation or circumstances dictate your feelings, even when all this stuff was going on in my life…It doesn’t matter what’s going on, you decide your emotions, and you can choose to be happy everyday.” As she smiles and leaves us with her iconic laugh.

(Read more about Arian Simon, and the FEARLESS Movement at ArianSimone.Com)

instagram.com/Hayrayxxi

Music Review: Dream Come True by D.Webb

Nowadays I have been very disappointed in the music deamed popular by, whoever decides these types of things for my generation. It seems like women get more and more disrespected and unloved, take for example Lil Wayne feat. Chris Brown’s “These Hoes ain’t Loyal” which I have thumbs downed multiple times on Pandora, which has lyrics like,

 “Why give a bitch your heart when she'd rather have a purse” from the formally lyrical Lil Wayne or Chris Brown, who may or may not be in jail right now, honestly I could care less who “raps”,

"Just got rich. Took a broke nigga bitch. I can make a broke bitch rich,but I don't fuck with broke bitches."

How…uplifting.

But alas, an artist who is “plotting for the real wave of soul to pass over”,  The Dreams Come True mixtape by D.Webb was a refreshing reminder that all hip hop music isn’t terrible, though I still prefer my Strawberry Letter 23 radio, I may consider giving a few more new artist a chance.

The introduction is definitely attention grabbing, while I do think that its super poetic which slightly annoys me, It’s better than opening with a scene from a movie or something, well no actually I think I would have liked that better. I think the Intro should have been the outro, and the intro should have been a movie scene, yep.

The beats and vocals are very melodious and easy to relax to in certain songs, especially in the song Far from them, which I really like. The background singing, which says “the day in the life of a fool”, matches the lyrics my favorite one being “talking about cars bring the happy out you niggas.”

My favorite song has to be between Crusin, which is also the name of one of my favorite Smokey Robinson songs, and Simple Things. I feel like Cruisin could be the hit single, because you can listen to it while riding through your city, and it has the easiest lyrics to comprehend without thinking too hard.

Simple Things made me feel some type of way about men and how they think, actually just reaffirmed what I already knew. I like this song because he was being honest about messing up with a girl without being rude or acting like he didn’t care, because men are definitely do an amazing job of that. I feel like if a girl was listening to this it would  make her realize some truths about her boyfriend or whatever,  at least momentarily and that makes me happy.

My favorite lyrics in that song are “Now I can’t trip when you over on to the next walking with another nigga” and “I’m getting mad at you like you shouldn’t be mad at me but I should be mad at myself” as well as “What a shame, can’t change your last name, and all her friend think I’m bitter, I’m just another nigga. Shaking my dang head.

Overall I think this was a very good mix tape, I will defiantly listen to it again, and recommend it to other people. I can tell that time and passion was put into the words, and I appreciate that it doesn’t conform to the normal clichés of popular rap music, without trying to be to artsy like Nas…who annoys me. Lol.

You can listen to the full mix tape here--->http://www.datpiff.com/pop-mixtape-player.php?id=m4a08661&tid=1

Race Relations in America

The relationship between different races is a delicate topic many people have a hard time discussing. But maybe even harder than the discussion, is trying understand the issues of another race from their perspective. It is a proven fact that people identify with and recognize people of their own race more than those of a different race when it comes to political and even day-to-day problems. Some people believe that this is negative and will only hinder growth, but some see no problem at all.

Jane Elliot, offers her self as an anti-racism and diversity trainer, and has brought her workshops to many classrooms and offices around the nation. Her experiments separate groups into categories based on eye color, using the blue eyed and brown eyed to show how racism divides and belittles minorities. Comparable to the popular required reading book The Wave these activities attempt to bring to the forefront some of the realities non-white Americans face in America. Elliot has a serious of workshops, here is a snippet from the one entitled "Angry Eye."

Camille Smith, 19, is an example of someone who once considered themselves color blind. Born in Ontario, Canada and raised in the predominately black city of Detroit, Michigan she says racism didn’t exist because there weren’t many white people around, in fact only one in her entire school Mumford High.

“Now that I moved into the inner city to Florida, the racism is more prominent. Where I came from it was more of a secret or people really did not care, but now I can defiantly tell that some people are prejudice.”

"I believe that Jane Elliot's experiment id a great way to bring to light a lot of problems people aren't even aware of. It's important that we try to enforce not only equality but understanding"

I believe that it is so needed for more people in the minority and the majority to realize that yes, we are all different, and identifying with your culture is something that should be fun and give you pride, not something that makes people any less of a human being because they don’t belong to it.

In America a lot of times we place ourselves on a high pedestal like we have a crown on our head because we speak English. I recently read something in a book called Good Advice from the Good Book that said,

“You shall not wrong or oppress a resident alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt”

If someone were to pick you up and plop you in a foreign country, no one is going to care that you’re an American. You won’t speak their language or know their customs so most likely they’ll just think your weird. 

Now while the cases may vary this is a good way to put yourself in the shoes of someone else and realize that we are all human. So why make it harder on someone just because they have different way then you.