rihanna's response: too little, too late?

so rihanna is finally breaking her silence about the abuse she experienced with ex-boyfriend chris brown. i'm gonna give my opinion in two perspectives:

from a public relations perspective:

i think that rihanna's PR team knows exactly what they are doing in terms of letting her finally tell her side of the story to 20/20, performing at the AMA in a few weeks, and other things - all the while with the release of a brand new album which has already leaked to several outlets. by her telling her story, of course she is overshadowing/competing with chris as he promotes his album and continues to try to clear his name, but it's sign that they are both moving on with their careers. in addition to her interview, i'm sure that rihanna's PR people are encouraging her to become an advocate for domestic abuse and as you see in the clip up there, she tries to spit one or two statistics. i must say, while her answers aren't rehearsed, her public speaking could use a little work. being that i'm a fly twenty-something, i understood all that she was saying in the interview, but others may not *i'm just saying*

from a personal perspective:

i respect the fact that she is finally stepping up and telling her side of the story, but i feel that it could have come a lot earlier. and as i stated before, her PR clique is damn good at what they do because she's getting even more press that is going to help her album rise to number one on the charts. now, she's been in the media hardcore for the past eight months, but for her to decide to talk NOW that her album is coming out in a few weeks, i think that is a little skeptical - but that's exactly how the business works. we have seen this situation time and time again with britney, whitney, and many other celebrities and as we know, any press is good press. i do agree with her on the fact that with the picture being leaked to the media, a lot of her privacy was taken away. but what i do respect her for saying is that she knew that it was a dumb mistake for her to crawl back to chris weeks after the incident had occured. as a woman, for her to blatantly make that statement and take full responsibility for her actions is commendable. domestic violence is something that can happen to anyone, and i wish that more women across this country and the world would stand up for it and talk about it.

i'm interested to see the rest of the interview and i will be tuned in tomorrow night, 10/9c on ABC *shameless plug for 20/20, huh?* ;-)

peace&love,

-*csc.

Light Skinned v. Dark Skinned - when will this feud end??

I know it's been a minute since ya girl has blogged, but I've been waiting for the perfect topic to talk about. Since taking this Ethnic Identities sociology class this summer, I've learned a lot about race and the way that blacks have been and still are viewed by whites and other races across the world. But what baffles me THEE most is when our people as an entity beef against one another about the shades of our skin color.

First and foremost, if you identify as "black" or "African-American" in these United States, understand that each and EVERY one of us is beautiful in our own way - no matter if you are as light as a brown paper bag or as dark as a black summer's night *word to Maxwell*. I think we as a people tend to forget that back in the days of slavery, it was the white slave owners who made our beautiful shades a big deal, and started the whole epidemic of the "house" and "field" n*gga. (I despise using the N-word, but I'm using it strictly for explanation purposes). The lighter your skin was, the more you were preferred by the white slave owners because you LOOKED like them. That whole idea of assimilating to their way of life and thinking retarded us as a people, and is further preventing us from breaking this vicious cycle of racism that we clearly still deal with today.


I can honestly say that I LOVE each and every shade of black and brown that I have come in contact with in my life time. I think that Black people are the most beautiful group of people on this planet, partly because of the unique and special shades of color that we come in.
I came across a trailer for a documentary titled "Light Skin v. Dark Skin" and it just made me mad. The fact that light skinned sistas think they have superiority over their darker skinned sistas is just absurd to me. For lighter skinned brothas to think that they get more p*ssy than their darker skinned brothas just because of their skin color is just shocking to me, but I know that sadly, it is the truth. The media-driven world that we live in today, one that is full of labels and division, is innately pushing us away from each other when we all should be coming together and gaining momentum as a people. Now, granted, we have made many strides as a people, but we still have a wayyyys to go *as this film clip will show*. I just want to know when will all of this madness over skin color will end? Our society is so damn shallow, it's sickening. "Oh, that b*tch just mad because I'm prettier than her and my hair is REAL" or "Man, eff that dark ass n*gga - he just mad cuz he black as night!" These are just a few of the ignorant things that I've heard over the years amongst my peers. It's time that we talk about this issue and realize that NONE of us have superiority over one another.

I would really appreciate your thoughts on this matter.





-*csc.