Black Love, Black Divorce: Cheaper to Keep Her (or Him)

I just saw an article today on "How to Leave Your Husband". The article focuses on how women can have a financially fit divorce. I find it amazing that we have gotten to the point that these are the kinds of articles that appear on the front pages of major media outlets. This speaks well to the state of love in America.

The article also seems to imply that beyond the 50% of all Americans who end up in divorce, there are many others who would be divorced if only they could find a way to get it done efficiently. Since when did the bliss of love make us so unhappy?

When I wrote Financial Lovemaking 101, one of the objectives I had in this book was to teach couples how to be jointly responsible when it comes to money. The truth of the matter is that being financially smart and responsible also increases your ability to be financially independent. Therefore, one might conclude that if you end up as one of the millions of Americans who chooses divorce, you might be able to erase your mistake without destroying your bank account.

I once counseled a couple that was nearing retirement. The couple had modest resources, but the wife was quite determined. Over a period of 10 years, she worked overtime and saved her butt off to pay off the family's credit card debt. She also looked into retirement plans on her job, putting thousands into a 401k plan to prepare for the family's golden years. Her husband had other plans. Without his wife's knowledge, he maxed out all the credit cards to start a business. He then withdrew all of the family funds from the retirement plan. The business failed, and his wife was in tears. She wanted to leave her husband, but she was financially drained. What's worse is that staying with her spouse would not have made her any more financially secure.

The reality is that money and love are linked in ways that we never envisioned on that first date. A person's beauty, body shape, and quality of sex become secondary to how well they pay the mortgage and put food on the table. Then, when we find that the love is gone and we want to move on, money becomes the barrier between freedom and misery. Planning ahead financially can be the way to plan your escape route, if that is what you choose to do.

The irony of it all, however, is that being financially intelligent and responsible reduces one major source of conflict in your marriage. It also allows you to make a stronger contribution to the overall well-being of your family. Therefore, by being financially intelligent and independent, you are more likely to have a successful marriage. Kind of paradoxical, don't you think?

I don't judge those who get divorced, never get married or are trying to get divorced. I only say that whatever you do, make sure you do it right. Your love depends on it, and so does your LIFE.

Black Love Advice for Black Men: Why Good Brothers Finish Last

Are you a nice guy who has always wondered why the cocky guy -- the one who barely appears interested in the girl -- is usually the one who gets the girl?

Have you suffered from hearing the words, "You're a really nice guy, but I only like you as a friend," from a woman who you would do (or may, in fact, have already done) just about anything and everything for -- only to turn around and watch her date (or even chase) a guy who treats her like she's nothing special? And are you stumped wondering why she would date a guy who treats her like that when she could have you who would treat her like a princess and give her everything she wants? Well, you better brace yourself because I'm going to tell you a couple of secrets that you might not want to hear.

First, "nice" equates with boring and predictable. Look up "nice" in the dictionary and you find: pleasant; agreeable; satisfactory. In other words, average -- not exceptional, not exciting, and not sexy.I'll bet you've never heard a woman say she didn't want to date a guy because he was too confident, too passionate, or too exciting -- have you? But, I'll bet you have heard women say things like, "He's such a nice guy. He's so sweet and he's always there for me, but I only like him as a friend." Or, "He's such a good guy -- kind, thoughtful, generous, honest, loyal -- but there's no chemistry. He just doesn't turn me on." Sadly, I hear it all the time. The fact is, Mr. Nice Guy, you cannot bore a woman into feeling attracted to you or into wanting to date you. And as obvious as that sounds, if you are one of those guys I described that is exactly what you are trying to do. And it won't work.

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Black Men and Marriage: What Black Women need to Know

There was an article written on MSNBC about the 5 traits that men have on their marriage checklist. The article was nice, but wrong! I am not sure what woman wrote the article, but she needs to do her homework.

So, based on my own experience and conversations with my friends, I will give you the list of things that many men think about before choosing marriage. No, it's not scientific, so if that leads you to ignore the advice, then so be it. But as a black man, I can tell you that many black men might agree with some of this:

1) We don't want to get hassled: No, I don't want to be told that I can't watch the football game or that I have to get up on a Saturday morning to go shopping with you at the mall. Yes, I will spend time with you, but I don't want to be harassed when I am trying to seek peace or go play ball with my friends. Let me be and I will be happy to see you rather than irritated.

2) Can you cook? If you can't, then we are both going to starve. So many women have gotten caught up in this feminist mindset that tells them that men should want to cook, clean and change diapers as much as they do. Not in my world. In my world, a woman knows how to be respected, but is still ok with wearing the skirt in the household. She also makes her man want to be with her and want to come home every day. No man wants to marry a woman who wants to be a man.

3) Don't use sex as a weapon. That will make other women start looking really good. Men need sex, really badly. Don't think that because you have a ring on his finger that you control whether or not he gets sex.

4) Take care of your body and try to look good for him. Every man wants a woman who tries to look her best. A lot of men believe that women throw in the towel on sex and looking good after they know that they have him locked down. That's why many men don't get married. Why would you want to be stuck with a woman who let herself go when there are single women who look good out there?

5) Don't take him for granted. Some women have their first child, and then they seem to forget to please their man or give him attention. All their time is spent talking about how the kids need this and the kids need that. The man becomes the stage prop that you're using to play house, as you use him as a provider, order him around and then refuse to have sex with him. That kind of relationship would make me unhappy. No one wants to be in a place where they are not happy.

Take the advice or leave it. All I know is that after seeing many of my friends get financially destroyed after divorce and having their kids taken away, it doesn't whet my appetite to walk into that same line of fire. So, if you want to get a man to take this risk, you better find a good way to make him want to do it. There's a reason that half of marriages end in divorce and half of the successful ones only look good on the outside.

Why Barack Obama Was Wrong to Stereotype Black Fathers

I received a lot of email from both men and women about my comments on Barack Obama's Father's Day speech. I watched the speech, hoping that I could find some way that I was wrong about Barack. Perhaps his speech writers, surely the best in the business, slid in a line or two conditionalizing his statements to remind us that Father's Day is a day to celebrate good fathers, not to spend all our time mulling over the bad ones.

I looked and looked for that one line of salvation and never found it. That makes me sad, since many of the emails I received were from black fathers who came right out of the Bill Cosby book of parenthood (even though Cosby has made some dirty mistakes of his own as a dad). These men, some of whom were conservatives or in the military, did not understand why little time was spent giving them the same respect we give women on Mother's Day. Instead, they were fed the same old stereotypes of black male irresponsibility. These were the same stereotypes that allowed their ex-wives or mothers of their children to feel completely vindicated for any poor treatment bestowed upon them as they worked hard to stay in their childrens' lives. They were the same stereotypes that keep the 50% of divorced white males of America comfortable that their broken homes are not as bad as the broken homes of black men. After all, the presidential candidates conveniently forget to critique White America in the same way they critique the black male. I thought Obama was 50% white? Doesn't that mean that he is as much a part of White America (thus entitled to critique) as he is Black America? Or is he just the Black Candidate?

To spend father's day obsessing over what black fathers are doing wrong is like going to someone's birthday party with a list of all the things you hate about them. Even if I'd been born with a terrible mother, I would not spend Mother's Day saying "Mom, there are far too many days when you are not there for me the way you should be." It would be even worse if I then went on to tell my father that the breakup of our family was all my mother's fault and that he is completely relieved of any guilt whatsoever.

That is what Obama did when he patted black women on the back and essentially said "That's ok. We know how all those black men are treating you. They're just bad and you're good. Let's spend Father's Day talking about you and how disappointed we are in them." He was preaching to the choir, since I am willing to bet that many of the men in that church were loyal and dedicated fathers, either sitting confused that they were being chastised on their special day or nodding their heads in agreement that black men are collectively a pack of screw ups. "Some do the right thing, but doing the wrong thing is the norm". Does anyone wonder how deformed your existence becomes when you consider the most pathetic segment of American society to be people who look like yourself?

This strikes a chord with me because I have seen it up close. I have seen black women who swear up and down that the reason every man they meet doesn't want to be with them implies that there is something wrong with all men. I see black men who refuse to date black women because they feel that black women are all angry, bitter and nasty. In both scenarios, I correct the individual and encourage him/her to look in the mirror. If all of your relationships are falling apart, you are the only variable that is consistently present in every relationship you've ever had. Either you are consistently choosing the wrong person to procreate with, or you are consistently mistreating the right people who come your way. Women who choose good men and treat them well remain happily married. That's just a fundamental fact and I, as a man, know this because I have chosen the wrong woman at times, and there have been times when I've not given a woman the respect she deserved. In either case, I ended up disappointed.

What is true is that both men and women play a role in the survival of our families. When a divorce or breakup occurs, the children are usually given to the woman. Also, most divorces are not always the sole fault of one party or the other. So, if we are going to define the term "deadbeat dads", we cannot generalize that term to include any man who does not live with his kids. Senator Obama DID NOT, to my knowledge, make that distinction.

What is most interesting is Obama's claim that "far too many men are not in the home....they've chosen to be boys instead of men". This implies that if you get a divorce and the kids live with the woman, then you are effectively behaving as a little boy. This further signals that if Michelle Obama were to divorce Barack and keep the kids, he would effectively become a deadbeat. I am sure that Senator Obama, who would likely spend plenty of time with his children and pay plenty of child support, would become agitated to hear someone speaking about him and other black men as a pack of dead beats, especially on Father's Day. Perhaps he could be consoled with the words "No, we weren't talking about you. We just avoided celebrating you on Father's Day because we wanted to place all the blame on the deadbeats, which includes most black men."

That is where black men are coming from. On Mother's Day, I am not going to spend one second talking about how "there are too many bad baby's mamas keep their child's father from seeing his kids", that "angry black women are divorcing their husbands and taking their children and money from them", or that "black women treat men like crap and then get mad when the man leaves the relationship." I would say none of these things, even though I can name several instances in which this has happened. Instead, I am going to spend Mother's Day celebrating the successes of black women and the wonderful impact they've had on me.

As I said before, it takes two to Tango, black men aren't doing the family break up dance by themselves. Also, the dance of child-rearing is not just being done by the black mothers. Black women are certainly the backbone of the community, but black men aren't just freeloading.

Staying In Love

The cost of an unlimited calling plan to stay in touch with the one that you love - $100.

The cost of enjoying a five-course meal with the one that you love - $300.

The cost of this picture and the love expressed in it by our next President Barack Obama and future First Lady Michelle Obama - PRICELESS.

Vera Richardson is the author of “A Case of Racial Discrimination and Retaliation Real or Imagined.”
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbninquiry.asp?ISBN=9780615177014

"We Like Black D***, Just Not Black Men"

Let’s be honest- who wouldn’t want a Morris Chestnut, Will Smith, Denzel Washington, or Taye Diggs type of man?


As black women, we’ve watched our brothers be romantically involved with white women for as long as we’ve been in this country. Just when we thought we were accepting it, Asian and Hispanic women picked up on the trend, and Black men started to choose them first. In a day and age where interracial dating is more or less accepted, we have to redirect our anger.

Now, black women are upset because we’ve taken home the bronze medal in comparison to the other races that seek out Black men. For the most part, young Black men are not choosing their Black women, while everyone else is choosing the brothers.

First, look at the music videos you see on BET, MTV or anything else. No longer are “video girls” really black. Hispanic and mixed women seem to be getting closer and closer to the camera. The Vida Guerra’s of the world have taken the front seat, and more brothers want long REAL hair, fair skin and another language to go along with the urban style.

Some people say Black and Hispanics are one in the same, and although we share the same ancestry, I think to put us in the same boat is to ignore the many differences that the two have, especially historically and politically (for the most part, Hispanics picked Hillary over Barack. Does that say anything significant? I think so.)

Next, let’s look at white women- from whom I got the title of this article. It’s not the preferred conversation to overhear during a study break snack, but that statement is exactly what my girls and I heard one day while sitting in the student center on our college campus.

“ Oh my god, I hooked up with a black guy last night…no, I don’t like black men, but I do like black d***!”

…Was this girl serious?

It just goes to show that the physical attraction is- in some cases- the only reason why these unions happen. Okay brothers, I’ll give you that. Some men enjoy having gorgeous exotic looking women of different backgrounds and ethnicities to trophy around with…but ask yourselves, are your parents going to approve of your relationship?

Maybe so, but what about her parents? Are they really as open-minded as she is? The truth is, not all parents are as accepting and open minded as their children.

Do not misinterpret what I’m saying, I do have a lot of white, Asian and Hispanic female friends who date Black men. They are girls with good heads on their shoulders, who are usually friendly, more reserved, smart and very genuine. They have no problem being my friend, and I have no problem being theirs.

It may just be from what I’ve seen around my campus, but the other-race girls who only go after Black men for their well-endowed features, are the ones who do not take the time to befriend black women.

Those girls stick to their own "kind". They’d rather say the curiosity about the physical pleasure was the reason they did it. Those are the kind of girls I overheard saying the above statement.

Brothers, let’s not take this completely as a compliment. You should be offended by such a blatant proclamation. What does this say about you? ”I don’t like black men” means I don’t like black people, and “I just like black d***” means I don’t see you for who you are.

I’ve dated white men, Hispanic men, and even an Asian once. But ultimately and collectively, they don’t want black women either. Of course there are some exceptions to this, one of my best white male friends only dates black women.

Who you choose to date is completely up to you. This article isn’t about that- it is about the reality of human attraction. It is about why Black women in general are becoming the least desired women of all.

We’re too strong-minded, independent, practical, and unadventurous. We argue too much. We work too much. We’re not as fair skinned or pleasing to look at. We like to dress down more than dress up. We’re not always creative in bed. Our hair doesn’t always blow in the wind, and isn’t always our own. We talk too much. We don’t give oral pleasure (says who?), we don’t want to cook every day (actually I love to cook), and we won’t stay with you after you cheat on us (yea, maybe not).

But if that’s why you’d rather not have us, then by all means, as Tyler Perry would say, have your 20%.

Superhead's Boyfriend Fights Back

Apparently, Karrine "Superhead" Steffans is not going to be allowed to tell just her side of the story. Steffans' boyfriend, Darius McCrary, has filed a restraining order against his woman, stating that she was in fact the one initiating the violence in their relationship.
According to his complaint, Darius said that Steffans "jumped on the trunk of my car and then the roof of my car. She started beating my vehicle and windows."

He also claims that Steffans tried to break the windows of his car with her fists!

Finally, McCrary alleges that Steffans "slapped me so hard that she hit a bystander." McCrary also claims that Steffans is a stalker, and that she damaged several thousand dollars worth of property.

Geto fab ya'll!

Wendy Williams and her Love Challenged Husband

Wendy Williams husband Kevin Hunter was recently accused of trying to have Miss Jones, the rival DJ at Hot 97 killed after she said some nasty words about Wendy Williams. The allegations were made in a federal lawsuit filed by Nicole Spence, Wendy's long-time assistant, who has accused Kevin Hunter of sexual harrassment.

Hunter was recently caught on tape having sex with a woman that is not his wife. This has added fuel to the speculation that some of the rumors about his behavior are true.

Bill Clinton's Alleged Love Child: The British Press is Pushing the issue

The British Press has continued its investigation into Clinton's affair with the black Little Rock prostitute Bobby Ann Williams. London Daily Mail columnist James Dalrymple, wrote on Jan. 14, 1997, that Bobby Ann Williams and her sister Lucille Bolton passed two lie detector tests proclaiming that Clinton is the father of her illegitimate son Danny. Arkansas State Trooper Buddy Young states that in 1983, he drove Clinton and the black women to his mother's home near Hot Springs for a sex orgy. Clinton's mother was conveniently out-of-town. In 1984 Bobby Ann had a baby boy she named Danny. He looks exactly like Clinton. He has refused to take a blood test to confirm or deny the allegation.

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Black Women Deserve to Marry.... BUT

You Better Learn How to Cook!

Black women desire to marry. Black women date frequently to find a husband. So, why are so many beautifully talented and available sisters still single? I took it upon myself to ask that very question while conducting research for my new book, The Ring Formula: How to Marry MR. RIGHT (available everywhere and http://www.drtartt.com/). What I discovered, quite frankly, was not what I expected.

I assumed that many women would list that they were too busy, disconnected from eligible Black bachelors, or the supply of MR. RIGHTS was too low. However, I discovered something that blew my mind but later made a lot of sense: A lot of Black women have never been taught how to court and date men towards marriage. In fact, many laughed when the idea was posed and indicated that they thought it was the man’s sole responsibility to do all the courting. When I posed the following question they changed their mind: “What’s in it for the man to stop dating multiple women Why you and only you.” At that point it became clear that my sisters needed some insight on exactly what makes men contemplate marriage.

In this article, I’ll cover the first point….

# 1- LEARN HOW TO COOK

Cooking to nourish your man is step number one in developing your own Ring Formula towards marriage. Most healthy men have a very positive relationship with their mothers. This relationship was born and cultivated based on mom’s ability to feed, care, and love her son. As a result, sons are fiercely loyal to mom and will do anything she asks for as long as they live. Mom will always hold the position of “first lady” in every man’s heart.

Well, if mom is the first lady then the wife needs to be the “last lady” and follow suit with nourishing her man. For clarity, cooking is not about being your man’s maid or personal cook. It’s about taking the primary roll in nourishing his mind, body, ego and soul better than any other woman can. When you pick out the freshest, plumpest, and all-natural fruits and vegetables and then season, simmer, and stir with your man in mind; you are in rare air! After all, where is a man going to find that type of loving outside of his mom’s or grandmother’s house? Cook with love and your man will begin to compare you to the first lady herself. Once you get mentioned in the company of royalty you are well on your way to marriage.

Try this…Wake up early and prepare your man a healthy power breakfast or dinner before his big meeting. Stroke his ego and let him know that you are his number one cheerleader regardless of outcome. If he gets the promotion, cook a great meal and celebrate. If he fails to get the promotion, cook an even bigger meal and tell him, “You are still my King, everything happens in time.” Trust me ladies, any man who doesn’t appreciate that is a FOOL and not worth your love! The good brothers who desire to settle down, however, will give you high marks and start to pare down their list of female associates. Too much celebrating at this point would be premature because you’ll still need some additional formulas to secure that ring. However, it’s OK for you to peruse your favorite wedding magazine and practice throwing that rice while you’re preparing his next meal.

Tune in next week for Step 2 of The Ring Formula: How to Marry MR. RIGHT…Get the Gorillas Out Of Your Closet (How insecurities make your man insecure about you). Advanced copies of the Ring Formula can be secured at http://www.drtartt.com/.

Dr. Tartt- The Professional Dating DR- http://www.drtartt.com/

Karrine Steffans: Superhead - Is this Black Love or Black Prostitution?

Here is an interview with Karrine "Superhead" Steffans. Karrine has been the subject of controversy lately, after there were reports that her relationship is on the rocks due to physical abuse. She was also featured on the Wendy Williams Experience, with Wendy telling Karrine that she will never be able to find real love because she is known as "Superhead".

Given that Karrine really doesn't do much of anything that millions of other women don't already do, does that make her a dirty woman or a woman who is simply liberated with her sexuality? Perhaps the fact that Karrine, who is known (to be honest) as a "superhoe" respects herself as a great mother, good cook and wonderful lover, perhaps this implies that we are the ones who are rigid and need to rethink our perception of sexuality.

I am not sure how to process all of this, but I can say that given that there are a lot of superheads who let it loose behind closed doors, perhaps we should not just Karrine as harshly as we have in the past. At the very least, even a woman named "Superhead" doesn't deserve to be beaten by her boyfriend.

Here is a video....you be the judge: