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Filed under: Music, Television, News, Star Quotes, Entertainment

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Filed under: Celebrity Hairstyles

Anyone who's gone through with the big chop - or any big hair change, for that matter - knows how traumatic it can be. No matter how confident you were in your decision, you lose your hair and start asking yourself:

OhmybabyjesuswhatdidIdo?

Does my head look big?

Do I look like a boy? I look like a boy, don't I?

Why?!?!?!?

The big chop takes some getting used to, especially if you're used to having a lot of hair. So when you feel like wearing a hat semi-permanently or just saying "the hell with it" and getting your hair relaxed, it helps to have something to motivate you. For us, we like having hairspiration. Looking at photos of women rocking their head of curls helps remind us that hair does grow back, no matter how slow the process feels. So check out our gallery of celebrities looking fly with their natural 'dos and remember: you won't always have a TWA (teeny-weeny afro).

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Filed under: Commentary

Siohvaughn "has embarked on an unstoppable and relentless pattern of conduct for over two years to alienate the children from their father, and lacks either the ability or the willingness to facilitate, let alone encourage, a close and continuing relationship between them," said the court's papers.

The problem is, Siohvaughn is far from the only woman to pull the stunt called Parental Alienation. PA is a very common tactic used by women like Siohvaughn who have no problems manipulating, distorting or trying to dissolve a father's bond with his child.

In typical cases of PA, visitation after visitation is denied repeatedly and both parents are consistently in and out of court. In the most extreme cases, one day the father wakes up to learn his child has been relocated to another state or country--without approval or notification. This is a form of kidnapping. But the crime rarely goes punished.

Several years can go by before the child is found and at that point, the child will have grown up not knowing or being able to bond with the father.

For some reason people don't think this hurts men. But no man wants to be separated from his children.

I know this first-hand. For five-and-a-half years, I was separated from my two daughters, then ages five and three. During that time, there were no two hours within a given day when I didn't feel the pangs of loneliness in my heart caused from not being able to take part in my daughters' daily lives. I had anxiety attacks. I cried thinking about how my daughters were doing, how they were growing and what they were experiencing. But more importantly, what I was missing.

From the moment of their birth, my daughters captured a piece of my heart that was quite different from the love I have for my eldest son. I'm not going to say I love the girls more than my boy, but I protect them in a different way.

Ironically a similar bond didn't develop between their mother and I. And because of the tumultuous relationship with the mother of my children prior to her disappearance, I asked for joint custody and received it.

Then the games started: on the days I was scheduled to see my daughters, she wouldn't allow me to; she stopped answering her phone. Then she disappeared with my daughters. For years, I unwillingly played her game of "Where in the world are my kids today" as she moved them out of state, changed numbers and schools without notification and tried to block my every move to see the girls I helped give life to.

Taking her to court didn't stop the crime from being repeated, however. The system provides no penalties, no judgments or liens against mothers who practice severe cases of PA. Ceasing to pay child support, however was the first step to correcting what was wrong. It took two years of not paying child support for her to resurface--albeit to take me to court for not paying child support. I am now seeking full custody of my two girls and saw my girls for the first time several months ago.

How hard is it for a man to establish custody? The bias against the father dates back to the 1800s from what's known as The Tender Years Doctrine, which determines that children under the age of five would be better off under the care of their mother. Even though many states have since moved to the "best interest of the child" as the basis for all decisions, many courts still function under that "tender years" mentality, routinely awarding immediate custody to mothers regardless of any other factors.

That's why Dwayne's ruling was so important to fathers like me. It meant that the court finally recognized a mother's unwillingness to co-parent and actually did something about it. The reasons a man should have custody are the same for a woman. This allows him to make decisions on schools and doctors and grants him access to the child's medical records.

But the most important thing is that joint custody allows a man to play a role he has every right to--and one he wants to embrace.

The love you feel when your children are born is unbelievable. If you're not a parent, then it may be hard to understand that that love is greater than any wife, girlfriend, wife, or even your own parents. Everything becomes about that child... until someone takes him/her away - usually the family court following an angry woman's lead.

Once the wheels of the family court start working against you, it can be debilitating. The forced demand for child support, which is usually treated separately from any custody proceeding, alone can cripple the average man. Each state has its own guidelines for determining the amount of money to be paid in child support, but what is consistent throughout all states is that if you are poor - if you make $30,000 a year or less - child support will render you unable to take care of yourself.

In New York, for instance, child support automatically takes 17% of your gross salary. That's $5100 out of a $30,000 salary, leaving you with less than $25,000 out of which, you are paying tax on $30,000. There are no child credits for non-custodial parents on tax returns, although Obama is talking about changing that.

Now, consider that according to the American Coalition for Fathers and Children, 70 percent of people who are ordered to pay child support earn less than $10,000 per year. In other words, most people that don't pay child support don't pay because they can't afford it; not because they don't want to.

Which brings us to deadbeat dads. The media perpetuates this image of father who makes loads of cash and refuses to pay child support because he hates his ex-wife, doesn't care about his kids, or both; but the reality is, men want to be with their children from day one.

They can take so much money that you can't afford a place to live or to have a car and you certainly can't afford to get married and have another family. It's all very emasculating and for many, once the world of enforced child support comes crashing down due to non-payments, it sends them into a deep depression.

This image is never shown on TV or talked about on the morning radio shows, but these men are listening when all the jokes are made. Sure guys will be loud about the injustices of the court system and how unfair child support can be, but they rarely talk about how hurt they feel inside because they cannot see their child. They never mention how hard it is for them not to be in their children's lives.

The way a parent loves a child is 100 times greater than any other love that exists. Gender has no stronghold on love for a child.

As more and more men pour into family court around the country protecting their rights to parent, maybe this Wade case will effectively start swinging the pendulum the other way.

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A scuffle broke out under the basket late in the second quarter of Miami's 100-77 win over the Boston Celtics on Sunday.

LeBron drove to the basket on a fast break and Celtics forward Jermaine O'Neal delivered a hard foul with a shoulder check.

The two-time MVP chucked the ball at O'Neal as he knocked him out of bounds and both players had to be separated immediately.

Dwyane Wade and Paul Pierce began shoving each other and they also had to be restrained by their teammates.

O'Neal earned a flagrant-1, while James received a technical for throwing the ball at O'Neal. The referees also gave Pierce and Wade technical fouls.

"I thought it was all theatrical, all the crap. I guess that's called toughness these days," Celtics coach Doc Rivers said after the game. "Two guys run into each other, we've got to call a flagrant foul, which I thought was a joke. And I thought the reactions by both were a joke."

See the video at The Huffington Post

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Filed under: Around the Web

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Filed under: Entertainment

One of the more affable bands to land in recent memory is Grouplove. Brought together by a series of events that frankly sounds too weird to be fabricated, the five-piece coalesces in a mix of punchy vocals, tight harmonies, and youthful abandon. They are an "LA band," but their story begins beneath the Brooklyn Bridge. The tale is best told by the band itself. Its members collectively recalled Grouplove's origins via email while on tour:

"Maybe it starts the night [singer] Hannah [Hooper] met [lead singer and guitarist] Christian [Zucconi] at one of his acoustic shows in New York in the summer of 2008. Their connection was instantaneous and they ended up listening to tapes under the Brooklyn Bridge until the wee hours of the morning. Hannah had just been invited to an artist's residency in the small village of Avdou, Crete and was set to leave in a week. She was worried that if she left she would never have contact with Christian again, so she invited him...and he said yes.

They sold everything they had to buy the ticket and sublet their apartments. [Guitarist] Andrew [Wessen]'s brother set up the residency, which brought Andrew out there. They also set up a small music festival in the town, for which a group of musicians were making a pilgrimage to play. [Bassist] Sean [Gadd] had come with a group of musicians from London to play. [Drummer] Ryan [Rabin] was finishing an exchange program in the Czech Republic and Andrew called to invite him to play drums with him at the festival."

Grouplove's sound is undeniably nineties, but standing on the shoulders of giants is not what makes the band great. Yes, Zucconi yowls like a combination of Frank Black and Billy Corgan. And yes, the group's loud-quiet-loud delivery, boy/girl dynamic only fuels comparisons to The Pixies, The Smashing Pumpkins, or a host of other pre-millenium bands. But Grouplove avoids being a nineties re-run, and the band is better for it.

The band employs a straightforward vigor that belies the sort of disaffection that ran through much of early nineties alt-rock. Also, Sean Gadd's bass on songs like "Lovely Cup" is way funkier than almost anything that came out of that scene. Grouplove's effervescence seems to flow from the incredibly close friendship that has formed between its members, though it should be clear by now that this group loves each other.

Read more at The Huffington Post

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Filed under: News, Race and Civil Rights

I mean, she's young and deeply misguided, but how deep can it be?

The article seems to answer my question with a nightmarish scenario of a Mother who admits to bleaching her baby, and then storms out of her dermatologist's office once he advises her not to:

"I know of one woman who started to bleach her baby. She got very annoyed with me when I told her to stop immediately, and she left my office. I often wonder what became of that baby," said Neil Persadsingh."

While attempting to lighten one's color screams of poor self-esteem, the dermatologist's concerns, for example, are more than skin deep. In order to effectively stop melanin (responsible for skin's color) production in one's skin, toxic chemicals, such as hydroquinone and mercury, are often key ingredients.

According to the AP,

"...Hydroquinone, has long been linked to a disfiguring condition called 'ochronosis' that causes a splotchy darkening of the skin. Doctors say abuse of bleaching lotions has also left a web of stretch marks across some Jamaicans' faces."

As for the harmful effects of mercury, which is banned in the European Union and the United States:

"The symptoms of mercury poisoning include emotional disturbances, unsteadiness, inflammation of the mouth and gums, general fatigue, memory loss, forgetfulness and headaches. It may also lead to kidney damage. Excess mercury in the system has been known to cause kidney problems (membranous nephropathy)," according to WhiterSkin.info.

The harmful ingredients of skin lighteners have done little to stop its use. Skin bleaching is also rife throughout Africa, where Jamaicans are said to get their knockoff skin-bleaching products.

According to PubMed, a study in Senegal (woman pictured from Senegal above) revealed that 72.5 percent of women used skin bleaching products, while 77.6 percent of working women also used the products. Similar studies were said to also be conducted in Mali and Togo, and you guessed it, the unfortunate findings were similar.

While the AP's article focuses on the Caribbean island of Jamaica, skin bleaching is a worldwide phenomenon that can be found in practically any place that has been colonized by Europeans.

I'll never forget the experience I had about two years ago, when I worked with an Indian woman. "Shakti," I'll call her, told me about the trouble she was having conceiving. Five long years had passed for her, and she still couldn't have a baby.

So you can imagine my jubilation once Shakti told me she was pregnant.

I mean, her and her husband had exhausted every fertility treatment known to man. To see her glowingly with child really warmed my heart. Unfortunately, this feeling would be fleeting.

Me: "How's your pregancy going? You look beautiful!"

Shakti: "Good. But I've been having these strange dreams."

Me: "What are they about?"

Shakti: "I keep dreaming that I am holding an American baby. How silly of me, though, what with my husband and I being so dark ... that would never happen."

Me: [Perplexed] "What do you mean by an American baby?"

Shakti: "You know, a blond, blue-eyed white baby. Too bad that will never happen -- only in my dreams...."

I was horrified and embarrassed for her and practically pushed her out before my white colleague, who I shared my office with, returned.

Just a few months ago, she was bemoaning her misfortune that God hadn't blessed her with a child. She gets her gift, and all she can do is dream about a white baby?

BlackVoices.com covered the booming Indian skin-bleaching industry about two years ago and even revealed Vaseline's skin-lightening app being marketed in India a few months later.

And of course, America is just as obsessed with all things light and white -- remember the '90s, when light-skinned crooners Al B. Sure and El Debarge were all the rage? But there is more to this problem than confused individuals who weren't told they were pretty enough when they were children:

"If we really want to control the spread of the skin-bleaching virus, we first have to admit that there's an epidemic of color prejudice in our society," said Carolyn Cooper, a professor of literary and cultural studies at the University of the West Indies, writing in the Jamaica Gleaner newspaper."

In other words, whether you are pointing to the age-old caste system in India, which puts the lighter citizens on top, granting them access to the most resources and power, or the 300-plus transatlantic slave trade that systematically made all things white both right and powerful -- effecting the citizens of Africa, the United States, South America and the Caribbean -- much of the world has consistently been force fed the idea that whites are the chosen race who receive the top jobs, biggest homes and most luxurious lifestyles.

And I don't care if you won't admit it now, but most would have given their next five Now-A-Laters to have been in the popular crowd in grade school.

That is why I absolutely love having Michelle Obama as First Lady. As an educated dark-skinned black woman going to schools across the country, in Haiti or in the villages of Ghana, she shows black girls everywhere that they can hold this post too. That they can attend the top universities too. That they are capable and beautiful too.

In spite of what the commercials, videos and movies are saying.

Someone needs to tell all of our children that they are beautiful -- really and truly -- and God took his precious time and rejoiced when He made them.

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Filed under: News, Race and Civil Rights

After July 22, 1862 when then President Abraham Lincoln announced the Emancipation Proclamation and freed blacks in rebel-held resisting territories, black recruitment was sought after and increased. Initially, because of prejudice and fear of uprisings, there was hesitation from both the Union and Confederate armies to use black soldiers in combat, but according to the National Archives, "by the end of the Civil War, roughly 179,000 black men (10% of the Union Army) served as soldiers in the U.S. Army and another 19,000 served in the Navy."

Notable figures like Frederick Douglass encouraged black men, including Douglass's own sons, to enlist under Ulysses S. Grant's command to gain citizenship, and although enlistment began slowly, volunteers from South Carolina, Tennessee and Massachusetts ultimately signed up in great numbers. Lincoln was convinced their presence would intimidate Confederate soldiers and in 1863 wrote, "the bare sight of fifty thousand armed and drilled black soldiers on the banks of the Mississippi would end the rebellion at once." Confederate soldiers were not deterred, of course, but black soldiers did play a significant role in the Union's victory.

After Confederate General Robert E. Lee's surrendered on April 9, 1865, slavery was abolished for nearly 3 million blacks living in the South. Racism still persisted long into the Reconstruction era, but black veterans gained some support and appreciation for their service, as Allen C. Guelzo reported on The Root: "The white officers who commanded black troops often became their advocates in the postwar years, and Union veterans refused to celebrate postwar anniversaries if black veterans were excluded or ex-Confederates planned to display the Confederate flag."

This anniversary marks much more than the Confederate's defeat, it represents the abolition of slavery and the early and active participation of black Americans in the Emancipation. African-Americans can celebrate the legacy of this war knowing that thousands of black soldiers risked their lives in the struggle for their freedom.

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Filed under: Music, News, Celeb Updates, Entertainment

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Filed under: Around the Web

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Filed under: News, Profiles, President Obama

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From The Huffington Post: Barack and Michelle Obama will appear on Oprah Winfrey's show on April 27, it was announced Tuesday.

Obama will be in Chicago for a series of fundraisers and will sit down for a taped interview. The interview will air on May 2, and will presumably be the final interview Oprah has with the pair on her talk show, which is ending on May 25.

Oprah, of course, is a longtime backer of the Obamas, and has interviewed the two numerous times before. Most recently, she interviewed Michelle Obama in January, where the two discussed military families.

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Filed under: Celebrity Style , Photos

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NEW YORK (Grant McCool) - Hedge fund manager Raj Rajaratnam hopes a "Superman" will be able to help him win over the jury at his insider trading trial.

The judge ruled on Tuesday that American social activist and educator Geoffrey Canada, who appeared in the award-winning 2010 documentary film "Waiting for 'Superman'" can attest to Rajaratnam's character.

"I will allow the character witness because the government itself has raised the issue of alleged greed by the defendant," U.S. District Judge Richard Holwell said before the jury came into the courtroom on the second day of the defense's case.

In what federal prosecutors have described as the biggest probe of insider trading at hedge funds, Rajaratnam is charged with conspiracy and securities fraud in a case in which 19 out of 26 defendants have pleaded guilty.

Prosecutors contend Sri Lankan-born Rajaratnam made an illicit $63.8 million. If convicted, the 53-year-old hedge fund manager could be sentenced to up to 20 years in prison.

Read more at The Huffington Post

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