My condom bowl — a pink glass dish that evokes a lady lounging in a bathtub — was a birthday gift. It wasn’t intended to be used as a condom dish, but when I told the gift giver what I had in mind for it she was delighted, “I saw it and thought, ‘Jolie has to have this,’ but that’s even better than I imagined!”
One Tyler Perry show is ending, one is just beginning and another is returning.
OWN announced this week that If Loving You Is Wrong will end following the fifth season, which premieres on March 10 at 10 p.m. The show chronicled the lives of neighborhood friends and enemies. In the promos to the final season, OWN promises the show will reveal “some long-awaited answers to viewers’ burning questions” and will include “life-changing catastrophes that will leave the town reeling and changed forever.”
After the show ends, The Haves and the Have Nots will be Perry’s only remaining series on OWN, according to Deadline.
READ MORE: What the response to Gayle King’s Lisa Leslie interview reveals about “dragging culture”
“We are grateful to Tyler Perry and the talented cast and crew for giving us five incredibly entertaining seasons,” OWN president Tina Perry said to Deadline. “We can’t wait for fans to see the jaw-dropping storylines that are going to unfold this season. It delivers all the juicy drama like only Tyler Perry can.”
As If Loving You Is Wrong ends, a new Tyler Perry show is in the works called Tyler Perry’s Assisted Living. The new comedy series stars David Mann, Tamela Mann, J. Anthony Brown, Na’im Lynn, Courtney Nichole, Tayler Buck and Alex Henderson.
READ MORE: Janelle Monáe stars in new NYT Oscars ad for “1619 Project”
In addition, Perry’s House of Payne revival series is coming back to OWN, with original cast members returning, including LaVan Davis, Cassi Davis Patton, Lance Gross, Demetria McKinney, China Anne McClain, Larramie “Doc” Shaw, Keshia Knight Pulliam, and Allen Payne. Both shows are currently in production and set to premiere this summer on BET, Deadline reports.
The revival of House of Payne is being called the seventh season of the original series that ran from 2006 to 2012 on TBS. The series will pick up five years later, and focus on the life challenges of retired fire chief Curtis Payne (LaVan Davis), his wife Ella (Cassi Davis Patton) and their family.
The post OWN announces three big changes for Tyler Perry shows this upcoming season appeared first on TheGrio.
It was hard enough to be a black in America at the height of the civil rights movement. To also be a gay at the time only furthered that hardship. Civil Rights leader Bayard Rustin was unfortunately a victim of laws put in place to punish those in the LGBTQ community. While much delayed, he has finally received some…
Featuring a broad cross-section of women who have distinguished themselves across a rich variety of careers, our Portraits of Power series is a celebration of the 50th Anniversary of Black Enterprise, and of black women. It’s a place for today’s businesswomen to share their own favorite images and their own stories, in their own words. First up: political powerhouse Valerie Jarrett.
Valerie Jarrett
Author, Finding My Voice
Nickname Lally
My first job was as an associate at a Chicago law firm.
My big break came when I found the courage to abandon my 10-year plan and swerve toward my passion for public service.
I’ve had to work hardest at staying focused on being a positive force for good.
I never imagined I would work for an African American president in the White House.
I wish I’d learned sooner to trust the quiet voice inside of me.
The risk I regret not taking is abandoning the “perfect plan” sooner.
If I could design my fantasy self-care day, it would be spent at a luxurious spa exercising, having a massage from head to toe, a manicure and pedicure, topped off with a lovely glass of champagne.
The horrendous toxic nature of too much of our discourse keeps me up at night.
When I’m struggling, I say to myself that my ancestors overcame far greater challenges than I could possibly face. Be resilient and there will be better days ahead.
I am unapologetically a proud black woman.
Portraits of Power is a yearlong series of candid insights from exceptional women leaders. It is brought to you by ADP.
Thomas LeBlanc, president of George Washington University, is apologizing for using an insensitive racial analogy when he tried to explain the school’s right to free thought.
READ MORE: Disney+ puts disclaimer on racially insensitive movies, but Whoopi Goldberg says we should see them
When LeBlanc was approached by a freshman student on a sidewalk and asked whether the university would divest its holdings in fossil fuel companies. He gave a very articulate breakdown of what the school is doing to pull from their 3% Carbon investments and went on to explain the difference between buying individual stocks and buying funds. Their investment is connected to the funds that the school as purchased. In this teachable moment, the student seemed to be enlightened, empowered with new information about the process and a feeling that her query was answered.
Her follow-up question was about the funding to the university’s Regulatory Studies Center and if most students agreed would that impact the schools closing of the academic space. In this case, the administrator’s reply was less prepared, organized and even jarring.
After posing different examples of how the school is an environment of free thought— even thoughts that are not popularly shared— the student asked, “But what is the majority of the students don’t agree.”
He responded, “Doesn’t matter. What if the majority of students agreed to shoot all Black people here? Do I say ‘ah, well, the majority voted?'” He continued, “In this country we have rights. One of them is free speech and academic freedom.”
It was unbeknownst to him captured on video.
Overheard outside the Smith Center:LeBlanc comparing students wanting fossil fuel divestment to students wanting to “shoot all black people on campus” on the first day of Black history month (4:43)LeBlanc acknowledging the Regulatory Studies Center is an anti-regulation institution backed by fossil fuel interests despite their claim to be an “objective” and “unbiased” group. (3:04)LeBlanc saying climate change denial is a legitimate academic position and that he would welcome professors at GW who hold that view (3:12).LeBlanc acknowledging 3% of the endowment is invested in the fossil fuel industry, which is almost 60 million dollars. (00:25)
Posted by Archer Gallivan on Saturday, February 1, 2020
Wait… what?
LeBlanc issued a statement apologizing for his comment.
“I attempted to emphasize a point and used an insensitive example that I realize could be hurtful to members of our community,” LeBlanc said in the statement. “The point I was making — that majority rule should never suppress the human rights of others— was obscured by the example I used. I regret my choice of words and any harm I unintentionally inflicted on a community I value greatly.”
The Regulatory Studies Center has been at the center of controversy after Public Citizen, a nonprofit consumer advocacy group, said the center receives funding from billionaire Charles Koch and pushes for government deregulation.
Immediately, some took offense to LeBlanc’s comment.
“The analogy was an extremely poor choice of words, given how it exists against the background of real violence against black and brown people in the country,” Quentin McHoes, vice president of GW’s NAACP chapter, told The Washington Post. McHoes said he met with LeBlanc and the president “continued to express remorse for it.”
McHoes said he is hoping to use the incident as a way to work closer with administrators. He said the NAACP chapter would be putting together a list of priorities and collaborating on them with LeBlanc.
“We gain more by working with him as a partner toward these goals than by rallying students for protests and displays of great aggression or frustration with the university that might lead to more tension,” McHoes told the newspaper.
However, student Joe Markus said the issue is “deep-seated.”
“The fish smells from the head,” Markus told The Post. “If the university president is using language like he is using in this video then, clearly, the problem of racial sensitivity and racism on this campus is clearly something that is deep-seated and requires serious self-reflection from the decision-makers of this university.”
The post George Washington University president apologizes for racially insensitive comment appeared first on TheGrio.
