Truth is, people are making less money.

The post Fewest Americans Ever Say They’re Part Of The Middle Class appeared first on MadameNoire.

President Obama's view of himself is much different from the way others see him.

The post New Poll Most Americans Wouldn’t Call Obama A Black Man appeared first on MadameNoire.

Last Friday, March 17 was “Match Day,” the day when medical students learn where they will complete their residencies. While most students were merely hoping to be paired with a good program in a decent location, Nancy Abu-Bonsrah was making history.

It has been 30 years since the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine’s neurosurgical department started accepting residents. And in that time, Nancy is the first Black woman to be accepted into the program.

The program, ranked second in the country, accepts just two-five residents each year. Not only did Abu-bonsrah secure one of those spots, so did her husband Kwabena Yamoah.

Abu-bonsrah, who also attended Johns Hopkins medial school, was born and raised in Ghana until she was 15-years-old. She has lived in the United States for the past 11 years and is already thinking about how she will put her education and expertise to work.

“I am very much interested in providing medical care in underserved settings, specifically surgical care,” Abu-Bonsrah said in a statement. “I hope to be able to go back to Ghana over the course of my career to help in building sustainable surgical infrastructure.”

Abu-bonsrah said, “”I want to be remembered for serving my community, whether it is through providing quality surgical care or helping mentor the next generation of surgeons. Unique thing: Everything is special about the match. It will be a dream come true,” she said.

The post Nancy Abu-Bonsrah Becomes First Black Woman To Join Johns Hopkins’ Neurosurgical Residency appeared first on MadameNoire.

You won’t be here forever

There are successful people who are happy

Would you trade your loved ones for anything?

This industry won’t be around forever

If you lose your health, then it’s all for nothing

Personal bonds are hard to repair

Why did you get into this in the first place?

Tomorrow is not guaranteed

Relaxing helps you work better

You won’t notice money after a certain point

You can’t work forever

Inspiration comes when you least expect it

You impress the wrong people

Some things can’t wait

Are you being grateful?

The post Things To Think About When Your Work-Life Balance Is Out Of Wack appeared first on MadameNoire.

Sink. victim 4 #artofjamarlogan #getout

A post shared by jamar logan (@artofjamarlogan) on Mar 20, 2017 at 2:04am PDT

Steve Harvey has made a name for himself by using his mouth. He’s a talker. Whether he’s telling jokes, starring in a sitcom, offering relationship advice or hosting a game show, Steve Harvey is collecting these checks because of he’s a good talker. But as of late, Harvey’s mouth has been the very thing that’s gotten him into trouble. First it it was the appearance of said mouth, standing next to Donald Trump before he was sworn in as the President of the United States.

Then it was the mouth that got him in trouble when he used it to make jokes against Asian men. 

And then again, most recently when he stepped forward to advise Snoop Dogg and everyone else to respect the office of the Presidency. 

“the problem with this is that there’s is an office in this country called the ‘president’, and you have to respect the office. You really do. Whether you want to or not. You have to respect the office. They got laws… I would hate for anything to come down.”

That last one got him a “sunken place” illustration, you see above.
Harvey isn’t exactly known for speaking with tact or being incredibly sensitive, particularly when he offers advice.

Then today, I found a video of him offering some advice to a woman in his talk show studio audience.

For those who can’t listen to the video right here’s the transcript.

Woman: My husband and I, we’ve been married for over 20 years. There’s no doubt he’s in love with me. The problem is every time I get home from work, he’s overly affectionate. He wants to kiss me, hug me, he sits down next to me all the time. I need to calm him down. I don’t want him to stop but I need him to calm down for just 30 minutes. I was hoping you could help him calm down.

Steve: He loves you. Do you know that you have a problem that most women wish they had?

Woman: Just 30 minutes.

Steve: Have you ever asked him before?

Woman: Yes.

Steve: What did he say?

Woman: I don’t know what his problem is.

Steve: He think you fine. That’s the damn problem, he married a woman he’s in love with. he didn’t just start this. That’s how he got you.

Woman: Well can he just calm down a bit?

Steve: I’m not going to help you. No.

Steve to the Husband: Keep doing what you’re doing.

Steve: What you don’t want to mess around and do is have to have him give all that affection to somebody else.

I know that Steve Harvey, at the end of the day, is a comedian. A lot of his advice is rooted in comedy and not any relationship insight or psychological study. So I get that a lot of this is supposed to be tongue and cheek.

Still, can we all agree that this advice completely absolves the man for any type of control over his actions or consideration for his wife’s feelings? The woman didn’t say she didn’t want her husband to touch her for days or even hours on end. She said she needs 30 minutes to decompress. While I certainly don’t believe her husband is being malicious in his affection, he should take seriously her request that he give her a few minutes when she comes home from work. At the end of the day, it’s an issue of consent. Even if someone is your husband, that still doesn’t give him unlimited access to your body. We can’t teach our children about “no-means-no” and encourage them to exercise autonomy over their bodies…until they get married. That’s not how this thing works.

And after this response, I wonder if Steve Harvey really got that.

As you might have imagined from the studio audience’s response, once this clip was posted online, people had a lot to say about this “cold woman.” So much so, that her husband had to write a response in defense of her.

We already know Steve is known for misogynistic, throwback to the 50’s type of advice. And honestly some women have been complaining about this type of advice for years now. But since everything else is going haywire, perhaps now Harvey will be able to see that now is the time to step away, reflect, REBRAND, and come back with something that is more reflective of this time period and our current understanding of not only women but just general human decency.

Veronica Wells is the culture editor at MadameNoire.com. She is also the author of “Bettah Days.” You can follow her on Facebook and Twitter @VDubShrug.

The post Steve Harvey Needs A Time Out appeared first on MadameNoire.

Sheryl Underwood listened to Kim Kardashian retell the story of her robbery in Paris and it reminded her of a time when she was in a similar situation and she thought she was also going to lose her life.

For Underwood, the moment occurred as she was being raped.

Underwood shared the emotional and potentially life-threatening experience on “The Talk.”

“I looked at the footage with Kim and in her retelling the story, she looks traumatized. But for her to go through that process and try to think her way through it, I remember having a ‘this is it‘ moment when I was raped. I just kept thinking, This ain’t it. I am not going to die today. I refuse to die today. It’s not going down like this. So the only thing I thought was: What do I do to survive? What do I do to survive? And I start talking to the guy and I said, ‘Don’t do this this way. Whatever you’re going to do, finish what you’re doing — don’t kill me. And don’t take my ID. They’ll find you.”

Lastly, Sheryl wanted to leave women with a lesson from her story.

“I really want women to understand: Don’t ever let anybody take your power away from you.”

See what she had to say in the video below.

The post Sheryl Recounts Her Rape And Reminds Women Never To Lose Their Power appeared first on MadameNoire.

Your ego will interfere

You have to hide it when you fight

You can’t get your friend’s input

You’re left out of couples outings

You have to be so careful on social media

You’ll have to go on fake dates

 You’ll lead your fake dates on

He has to go on fake dates

These fake dates spur fights

You never know when you can text

This causes text fights

You need to clean your apartment thoroughly

If people try to set you up…

There’s never a good time to come clean

You argue about when to come clean

The post What It’s Really Like Keeping A Relationship A Secret appeared first on MadameNoire.

No doubt about it, I will be a mother one day. The thought of raising cute, mini versions of me is exciting. But what’s going to happen if I meet a man who already has kids? We always say that a man should accept the whole package, so I would happily accept the right man who just happens to have children. But if I were his child, would I accept me? My parents have been married for 34 years, so I know for a fact that even as an adult I would not be keen on kickin’ it with some lady who thinks she’s going to be my daddy’s new woman. But as blended families become more and more common, I have to prepare myself to possibly be someone’s stepmom one day. And author and relationship expert Debbie Smith knows that blending families is not as easy as Carol Brady made it look.

“Being a mother is probably one of the most difficult jobs a woman can ever have,” Smith said. “Choosing to become a step-mother is beautiful, unselfish, and very scary. Children often expect the worst from their stepmother because, after all, the stereotypical stepmother is viewed in a very unfavorable light; even stepmothers in fairytales are evil– just think about poor Cinderella and even Snow White! Unfortunately, in reality there are too many real evil stepmothers and that has given all of us a bad rap; regaining a positive reputation will take a tremendous amount of intentional work.”

Smith has co-authored books with her husband such as The 5-Star Wife and The 5-Star Marriage, sharing intimate details of what it took to make her blended family work. And she provided us with some key points on how stepmoms can step their game up and make the transition smoother for the family.

1. Step Down Your Expectations: Don’t expect the children to fall in love with you immediately. Give the children time to get to know you and build a relationship that works for both parties. Remember that rules and regulations without relationship lead to rebellion.
2. Step Back When it Comes to Discipline: Discipline the children through their father– at least in the beginning. Adults should agree on the discipline but allow the biologic parent to administer the discipline. This protects you as the Stepmother from being seen as the “mean” one.
3. Step Out of Her Shoes: Never force the children to call you “Mom.” This new relationship must grow organically; forcing it will only lead to dysfunction.
4. Step Up the Love: Although you are not there to take their mother’s place, you must see all the children as “your” children; creating a mental separation of “step” children can lead to unintentional physical separation in the treatment of the children.
5. Step Into Love: Be intentional about nurturing the husband-wife relationship. Strengthening your bond as husband and wife will make handling the complexities of a blended family more manageable.
6. Step Towards The Light:  Being a Stepmother will present tremendous challenges. There will be days when you feel like giving up and walking away. It will be during these challenging times that you’ll need to run to your source of strength, hope, and faith. Lean on the Lord– there is nothing too hard for Him!

The post Stepmoms Must Step Back To Make Blended Families Work, Author Debbie Smith Says appeared first on MadameNoire.

Talking more than listening

Talking more than doing

Seeking approval

Feeling entitled

Idolizing the wrong people

Spending money the wrong way

Speaking poorly about people

Taking any relationship seriously before three months

Trying to get turnt up everywhere

Getting cliquey at work

Blaming everyone else for their problems

Obsessing over putting on three pounds

Failing to do research

They don’t exist in the morning

Thinking babies and families are the end

Fixating on what’s fair and isn’t fair

Needing to be right

Rushing their careers

Complaining when a boss is mean

Squandering their reputation

The post Things 20-Somethings Do That Drive 30-Somethings Nuts appeared first on MadameNoire.

In 2016, the National Institute of Retirement Security found that women are 80% more likely than men to be impoverished in retirement. This is coupled with the facts that Black women often head multi-generational households on a single income and are risking financial ruin repaying their children’s student loans.

This tremendous financial distress necessitates that we make changes in how we handle our money. The following 30-day action plan can do just that by helping Black women make weekly and monthly goals that support their financial wellness and overall wellbeing.

Week 1: Get Organized

During the week, you’re not going to focus on paying bills or crunching any numbers. Before you can build a strong financial home, you have to build a strong financial foundation.

Centralize. During this week, you’re going to decide where you’re going to keep all of the bills, financial statements, and other money-related documents that come to you. Something as simple as a shoebox or envelope will suffice (You can always upgrade to a more sophisticated system later on).

Use this week to also create what I call a “Financial Freedom Fund,” which is a mason jar or unused cookie jar to deposit all of your loose change on a daily and weekly basis. Money from this fund can be earmarked for a “pleasure purchase” or to help you tackle a bill.

Schedule. In addition to housing all of your financial documents in one place, you will need to block off at least 30 minutes three days a week to attend to bill paying, reviewing online and offline accounts, and making phone calls related to your financial future. I highly recommend you choose days and locations where there will be little distraction.

Week 2: Run the numbers.

Once you have all of your bills and outstanding debt accounted for, it’s time to actually figure out the specifics of your financial landscape. Here are some of the numbers that you’ll need to run this week.

Net worth: Use this week to calculate your net worth, which is the total value of your assets minus the total costs of your liability.  Ideally, you want to have a positive net worth, but if you’re just out of college or graduate school, burdened with a lot of student debt or have just purchased a home and have little equity, your net worth will be in the red. In these instances, a negative net worth is a temporary situation and created due to asset-appreciating purchases like education and property.

Spending plan: Create a simple spending plan that accurately reflects how much you’re spending on needs and wants in a given month. It should also include how much you save and/or invest on a biweekly or monthly basis.

Retirement income:  Even if you’re at the beginning of your career, you’re eventually going to retire. Typically, you should aim to replace 70% to 90% of your annual pre-retirement income through personal savings and investments and Social Security. For example, a retiree who earns an average of $63,000 per year before retirement should expect to need $44,000 to $57,000 per year in retirement.

Side-hustle income goals: If you have a passion for business or just desire to consistently bring in extra cash every month, then you need to determine how much money you want to earn with an added income stream. For example, if you want to earn an extra $500 a month, you may decide to work five extra hours at work, complete surveys at sites like inspiredopinions.com, host an indoor yard sale, or sell your unwanted textbooks on Amazon.com.

Monthly Bills: Monthly bills reflect the amount of money that’s needed to run your life on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis. Many of us don’t really know how much it costs to live our lives in dollars and cents. Knowing this number will help you create short-term social plans with ease and make smarter career choices.

Outstanding Debt: Sometimes outstanding debt is confused with bills, but there’s a distinction. The former is a function of past expenses and, in theory, does not have to exist once it’s repaid. On the other hand, bills consist of the monthly recurring charges that reflect your fixed and variable expenses. You should have an action plan for both.

Credit Score: Credit worthiness is important when you’re in the market for a home or a car. Even employers are checking credit scores as way to measure responsibility and job readiness.

Having clarity on these magic numbers will make it easier to make financial decisions. With this level of precision and clarity, you’ve created a roadmap for financial wellness and financial peace. It also keeps you from second guessing where your money goes.

Week 3: Create an action plan.

Once you have a clear landscape of what’s going on in your finances, you can plan purposefully.

Pick three. Write down three money goals as it relates to savings, debt elimination, or establishing your first business. Aim for one short-term, mid-term, and long-term goal.

Be SMART.  Make sure your goals are S.M.AR.T. SMART goals are specific, measurable, accurate, realistic, and time-bound. Here’s an example of a SMART debt-elimination goal “ I will eliminate $2,500 in credit card debt in 5 months. I will repay $500 each month. I will find $125 each week.”

This goal is obviously specific, measurable, and time-bound. If you’re able to find this amount of money each week through decreasing your expenditure or increasing your income, then it’s also a realistic goal.

Week 4: Work your plan.  

Plans without work are futile. And honest talk, that’s the only difference between women that achieve financial freedom and don’t: deliberate action.

Create daily deliverables. Once you make the decision to fix your finances, you have to commit to breaking down your three goals into daily deliverables. Daily deliverables are the small tasks that will help you reach your financial goal within your desired timeframe.

For example, if you want to start the home ownership process, three daily deliverables may include:

1. Opening a savings account specifically to house money for this goal;
2. Setting up automated withdrawals of 5% biweekly for your “homeownership fund;”
3. Seeking real estate agents through referrals or online research.

Create accountability. Look for support online in a Facebook group or on Meetup.com. Scour your in-person networks for financial friends. In addition to accelerating your success, having a community of support reduces overwhelm, builds confidence, and helps you set goals in other areas of your life.

As Black women, we need to replace the “underdog” narrative and step into our financial wellness and goodness.  This means that we have to get serious about getting our finances fixed fast in a way that keeps us feeling encouraged and focused.

Kara is the founder of The Frugal Feminista, an award-winning personal finance and personal development site dedicated to helping black women radically transform their relationships with their money and themselves. She hosts Fix Your Finances, Fix Your Life events all over the country and is author of Unmasking the Strong Black Woman and The 5-Day Financial Reset Plan.

The post The Ultimate 30-Day Action Plan To Help Black Women Fix Finances Fast appeared first on MadameNoire.

History has shown that society as a whole does list rape and sexual assault high on the list of our national priorities. Still, it seems like every other week, there’s another story to confirm what we already know.

This week it was the gang rape of a 15-year-old girl in Chicago that was streamed on Facebook Live.

Police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said that the video seemed to show five to six males, some of them who might have also been juveniles, sexually assaulted the young lady.

The video came to the attention of police when the girl’s mother, approached the Chicago Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson as he was leaving district headquarters. The woman told Johnson that her daughter had been missing for 24 hours. She showed Johnson screengrabs from the livestream.

At least 40 people watched the video with not one of them reporting to them to the authorities.

The images disturbed Johnson and he brought the woman inside to file a report.

Since the girl’s mother found Johnson, the two have been reunited and she is being treated in a hospital.

After police contacted Facebook, the video was removed.

According to Guglielmi, some people in the video are identifiable. The girl knew at least ones of her attackers and may have been the acquaintance of another. As of now, no arrests have been made.

Veronica Wells is the culture editor at MadameNoire.com. She is also the author of “Bettah Days.” You can follow her on Facebook and Twitter @VDubShrug.

The post 40 People Watched As A Girl Was Gang Raped On Facebook Live appeared first on MadameNoire.

On the heels of Elle magazine’s deep dive into the disappointing and discriminatory experiences of Black models in the fashion industry, Allure magazine has dedicated their April 2017 cover story to the topic of skin. Not 10 ways to make it brighter, smoother, or more beautiful, as you might expect from the beauty magazine, but how our skin — specifically our skin tone — defines how we are seen by others and how we see ourselves.

Forty-one women of color were asked to tell the story of their lives through their skin. Women like the “Beauty of Diversity” cover models Dilone, Imaan Hammam and Aamito; actresses Zazie Beetz, Meghan Markle, Dasha Polanco, Tessa Thompson, Susan Kelechi Watson, and Samira Wiley; and a host of vloggers, dermatologists, journalists, makeup artists, and more. Here are a few of those stories.

Padma Lakshmi, author, actress, and executive producer, Top Chef

“My skin is a map of my life. Before high school, I lived in a white suburb of Los Angeles where there were so few Indians that they didn’t even know the ‘correct’ slurs. They called me the N-word or ‘Blackie.’ For a long time I hated my skin color. Even in India, there’s a complicated history. My grandmother discouraged us from going in the sun; she didn’t want us to be dark. We were only allowed to play outside after 4:30. There was a cosmetics line called Fair & Lovely — that says it all. [And] when I started to work as a model, people would on occasion say things to me like ‘You’re so pretty for being an Indian.’”

Zazie Beetz, actress, Atlanta and Slice

“My father is German; my mother is African-American. Growing up, I visited my grandparents in Berlin a lot. I would not see any other person of color for three weeks. People would stare. They would say things like ‘Oh, you look like chocolate — I want to eat you up!’ I’ve been to gatherings where people would say, ‘She has so much race in her’ or would use the word ‘n*****’ — or the German term ‘neger.’ And I would be like, Who are you talking to? I feel German, I speak German, [but] I don’t look German. In the United States, if you’re African-American, it can be assumed that your family has been here for generations. In Europe, colonialism is much more alive and it’s assumed you’re from Nigeria or Senegal. I would have these conversations like ‘Where is your mother from?’ ‘Brooklyn.’ ‘No, but where is she from?’ I would respond, ‘We don’t know,’ since we can’t trace our roots beyond North Carolina. Slavery has erased our ability to find our origins. We have been here as long as some of the first immigrants.”

Habiba Nosheen, journalist, The Fifth Estate

“I was born in Pakistan, and when my mother told me we were moving to Canada, I asked her, ‘What do the people there look like?’ And she said, ‘They look like the show you watch, Full House.’ So I assumed that when I would arrive in Canada, I would turn into a white blonde. And I was horrified when I got to the airport and I was still brown. I just couldn’t understand that different colors coexist. I think I’ve come a long way from that nine-year-old girl who wanted to trade in her brown skin for white. I love what my brown skin looks like and what it represents. And there are many times I’m fully unaware of my skin. The perfect example is I’m talking to somebody, and they would look at me and say, ‘So how do they do that in India?’ I say, ‘I’m not sure. I’m from Pakistan. But I can Google it for you and find out.’ That always creates such an awkward moment, but I think awkward moments are not bad; they push us to confront our prejudices. Uncomfortable as it is to hear ‘Oh, you speak English really good for a brown lady,’ it really tells me that people have these ideas but there’s no healthy space to ask these things. We lack basic vocab about understanding our differences. Now I love walking into a room and I don’t look like everyone else. I hope that love for my skin I’ve developed as an adult I can pass on to my kids.”

Lilly Singh, digital creator, Superwoman, and author, How to Be a Bawse: A Guide to Conquering Life (Random House)

“The last time someone made me feel bad about my skin would be every single comment I get about my face makeup not matching my neck. It’s something I get on YouTube. Maybe if more foundation matched my skin tone, haters would slow their roll.”

Aja Naomi King, actress, How to Get Away With Murder

“I was afraid of the darkness of my skin. I believed I had to be celebrated for my intelligence and my sense of humor. Those could be the beautiful things about me since my skin couldn’t. I remember in junior high having a beach day with my family and going to school the next day. Someone in my class exclaimed shock at my appearance. She didn’t know black people could tan. The look on her face stuck with me. For years, I wanted to avoid direct sunlight. The comments you hear as a child stick with you. [I was] afraid of photos in dark rooms because you know no one will be able to see you in the picture and [people] will make fun of you. [I feared] walking into a room that has a black wall and hearing someone remark about how you’ve disappeared. You try to avoid these situations so you’re not in a position to act like you don’t care or [you] make fun of the darkness of your skin before someone else does so that maybe it will sting less. It has been a process of self-love to embrace the beauty of every single drop that makes up the richness that is my beautiful brown skin. If you learn anything in life, learn to love yourself. There is no amount of makeup or skin-care products that will make you love yourself.”

Khoudia Diop, model and diversity and anti-bullying advocate

“My skin is dark and glows. It almost seems blue, and it’s supersoft. I realized my color is beautiful when I got out of my country [Senegal]. I was in Italy on vacation, and I saw my reflection in a mirror. I saw how unique my skin was and why people stop me on the street to ask about it. I started falling in love with it.”

Sasheer Zamata, comedian and Saturday Night Live cast member

“When I was younger, a lot of older black people would tell me, ‘Don’t go outside for too long because you don’t want to get darker.’ When I got older, I realized it was passed down colorism. What the black community has experienced has been absorbed. We kind of police each other. My mom grew up in Arkansas during the civil rights movement. She’s one of seven kids, and she’s one of the darker-skinned kids in her family. She said that her mom would treat the lighter-skinned kids better. My grandma absorbed whatever messages she was getting in the world: ‘If you are light as a paper bag or if you have straighter hair, you will get treated better.’ Thankfully, my mom didn’t pass any of that energy to me. [Being on Saturday Night Live,] I’ve gotten some really nice comments from other black people who say, ‘It’s so nice to see a woman of color who looks like me on TV.’ I am darker than a lot of women who are on TV, and my hair is natural. To a lot of people, it’s important to see me on TV, and I’m so happy to be there and do that.”

Balanda Atis, manager, L’Oréal’s Global Women of Color Lab and U.S. Liquid Face Lab

“Up until several years ago, the primary target for most cosmetics companies was the Caucasian consumer. But the population has changed quite a bit, and businesses have had to come up with shades for people of medium to dark skin. I was given the opportunity to measure skin tones. We noticed that there was an area of violet in darker skin tones that had not been understood in the past. We ended up incorporating ultramarine blue, which takes you deeper but not necessarily blacker. I like to say that there’s a new skin tone born every day.”

DeWanda Wise, actress, Shots Fired and Underground

“Being a chocolate-black girl, there’s always this conversation about what it means to live in a duality. I went to all-white schools. My differences were always really kind of celebrated. I didn’t grow up teased — I was homecoming queen. I didn’t hit the glass ceiling until I was starting to audition. And even then, we all have our privileges — I have a pretty face. I still found myself being in the same conversations as women who look nothing like me. What I find inspiring now is differences are being celebrated. There’s this earnest exploration of what it means to be beautiful. The queen mother of chocolate girls is Viola [Davis]. In Hollywood, everyone has a type. If you’re blonde in your twenties, they expect you to be ditzy. And Viola was like, ‘OK, this is the space that I’m placed in, but it’s my job to subvert your expectations.’ Between her and Kerry [Washington] opening the doors…I wouldn’t be on She’s Gotta Have It now if it weren’t for those women.”

Veronica Webb, model, founder of webbonthefly.com, and first woman of color to have a major cosmetics contract (with Revlon in 1990)

“Every time there’s a big idea or a different idea, there’s going to be controversy; there are going to be detractors. There were people who were offended that a black person would have a Revlon contract. Some of them even went into threats. Then there were other detractors who felt I wasn’t black enough. So too black, not black enough. The point is that the world is also full of smart, kind people, and that’s why things move forward.”

Read more stories here.

The post “My Skin Is Dark And Glows” 41 Women Tell Allure The Story Of Their Lives Through Their Skin Tone appeared first on MadameNoire.