Alphas VS Ques
Kappas VS Iotas

CMSD Cheerleading Halftime Performance (Raffles)

Saturday, November 27th, 2010 @ 10am to 8pm
John Hay High School – 2075 Stokes Blvd

That decision spurred their delightful web reality show “Six Is It” – as well as the recent decision for Fatin, a.k.a. Daddy Kindred, to undergo a vasectomy to make sure. The family’s decision is the basis of their second season premiere, “Takin’ One For the Team.”

Fatin talked to BAW about life, marriage and what it was like to undergo a procedure that scares many men.

BlackAmericaWeb.com: After six kids, why didn’t you just keep going? You could have become the black Duggars (the parents of 19, who have their own reality show).

FATIN DANTZLER: Why didn’t we just keep going?  Because it’s difficult to raise six children, and we’d rather be raising these kids instead of continuing to bring babies into the world. It’s hard in terms of scheduling and getting everything done. My twins just went to school today, so now we have five children in school. Although we love it, we don’t want to be continuing to be running behind little children. We want to go into our 40s having children that can be independent instead of running around raising tiny babies. We had to find a birth prevention method that was foolproof.

Aren’t there less drastic methods than a vasectomy that could have worked for you?

Well, obviously not! We have utilized all methods, and those methods just weren’t foolproof. We wanted to go with a method that seemed to be the method that would work the best for us. That responsibility or issue usually falls on women. They get their tubes tied or take these pills, and those things have risks involved. Condoms are not foolproof, and this was a way for us to continue to enjoy each other and have fun together and not have to be so burdened with that concern: ‘Is that period gone come?’ We considered whether or not it was feasible to get her tubes ties or get an IUD.  Aja had been on Depo-Provera before, and it made her hair fall out. I’m the oldest of six, and I never expected to be the father of six.  I talked to some people that had had it, and they assured me it was easy and not quite painless,  but not like the pain of childbirth or your hair falling out or any of the other side effects. So I had to bite the bullet and stand up for my family.

I think there are a lot of married folks out there who’d like to know how you got to have six kids in the first place!

Thankfully, kids always go to sleep, and we have a house big enough where kids can be in other parts of the house. But it is difficult, and that’s why we want to make sure we can get to that private, private time.

A lot of people look to you guys as an example of a happy married life. How important do you believe a sexual relationship is in a marriage?

It is probably in that top three. We have got to be able to be intimate with each other as much as possible. People are always talking about they’re cheating or going through rough periods or ‘My man or my woman isn’t doing it for me.’  You’ve got to enjoy each other. You’ve got to want to be with one another. We’re very into each other, and we want to be together. That part of our relationship never grows stale. If you want to make it work and make it last, everybody knows that that’s an intimate part of their relationship. Sex is healthy, and I think it’s a very instrumental piece. Get somebody that matches your energy sexually. It’s important to be with somebody where y’all are feeling each other as much as possible. It’s obvious that we enjoy it.

So given that, were you afraid that there could be some unwanted complications with a vasectomy?

I was scared to death that that was going be an issue. I was scared that I wasn’t going to get an erection anymore, scared that I wasn’t going to be able to ejaculate. I talked to somebody that I kind of trusted and believed that whatever they were telling me was going to be true. If you want to get it done, you get feedback, you do your research. I Googled it, and in my initial appointment with them, the doctors made it clear to me that that wasn’t an issue. When you see the show, the doctors said that they wouldn’t do it themselves, but I don’t know if that was a joke or not.

What was the recovery like?

The recovery period is a couple of days. It depends on the person. I mean, seven days later, we were back in the saddle, and I couldn’t wait to test this thing out. (Laughs) You do have to follow up and go back because there is still active sperm in the tract that are alive and ready to roll. So you have to wait and get all of that out first.

The surgery is outpatient, and it’s quick. They basically make an incision between the bottom of the penis and bottom of the scrotum. It’s a small incision in your sac area, and you will develop a small bulge where that incision happened, but that will eventually go down.

How are things going for you guys now?

Aja is VERY HAPPY. She’s very happy with the results and the idea of it all, and we’re having a good time.

After undergoing the procedure, is a vasectomy something you would recommend that other men consider?

I think that’s it’s something that should be discussed between you and your mate. I don’t think it should be utilized as a process just to avoid having kids. No one can turn away from the responsibility of having kids if you’re having unprotected sex. I think it’s a great responsibility to take on, and God gives it to us for a reason. If you’ve already thought about it enough, then I think it could be a good decision for you, but if you’re young, and you’re just trying to get your career on or something like that, then in my personal opinion, I would wait. A vasectomy can be reversed. It’s a method that worked for me, and it was the right decision.

—

The second season of Kindred’s “Six Is It” is on now at www.kindredthefamilysoul.com.

By Adam Bryant
The N.Y. Times
(March 26, 2010) Debra L. Lee is the chairwoman and chief executive of the BET Networks. She says that although she is a consensus builder, she has learned over time that as the C.E.O., “it had to be about where I wanted to take this company.”

Q. What were some key leadership lessons for you?

A. One occurred when I was appointed chief operating officer at BET. Before that, I was general counsel, and over time I had taken on more and more business projects.

When I was promoted to the new role it was assumed that I was picked as the successor to Bob Johnson, our founder. It was a good training ground.

But when Bob left and I became C.E.O., I had to learn different skills, and I had to become the leader of the company. I had to decide what my vision was, what I’m passionate about, and how I motivate my executive team to help me carry out my vision and my goals. For me, it was tough for a while to even say “my.”

Q. Why?

A. I’m a consensus builder and I like having my executives on the same page and I like motivating them in that way — let’s talk about it, let’s all agree on it.

But I found very quickly that as C.E.O. I couldn’t do that anymore. I really had to be the individual who took charge and was clear about what my vision was, was clear about what my passions were, so that I could believe in what we were doing. Then I could pass that on to the executives, but still be open to their needs and desires and what they wanted to accomplish. But as the leader of the company, it had to be about where I wanted to take this company, and it took me a few years to get used to that.

Q. Talk more about that transition.

A. Bob Johnson had created a very successful company. So when I took over as C.E.O., I had to say: What do I want my legacy to be? What do I want to accomplish at this company?

The first thing I turned to was original programming. I didn’t feel the company, in its 25-year history, had really created enough original content to give it its own brand identity. We did a lot of music video shows, we bought a lot of syndicated product, but we hadn’t created the hit shows, the water-cooler shows. So, first of all, I wanted to do that because I wanted to make us known for being a great content company, in addition to being a great business.

Then we found ourselves in the eye of the storm after the Don Imus situation. After he said those horrible things about the women’s basketball team at Rutgers, all of a sudden hip-hop became a focal point. If hip-hop artists can say things about women, why can’t Don Imus?

Because we were so music-oriented at the time, BET became part of the focus. We were showing these videos and some of them say things or insinuate negative things about women, and so we were highly criticized. That was the point when I had to say, O.K., what are we really doing here?

For the first time since I had been at BET, we had to sit back and say, who are we, what do we want to be, and what do we want to stand for? What kind of programming do we want to do? What does our audience expect from us, and how do we increase the ratings? How do we kind of garner that passion and bring back our audience?

So we sat back and for a couple of years we really went through a process of asking ourselves what we wanted BET to be, and out of that came what we call our brand. We decided we wanted to inspire our audience, we wanted to elevate them, we wanted to respect them, but we also wanted to entertain them. It’s helped me as the C.E.O. because I’m clear in terms of where we’re going.

Q. How many people were involved in the process of deciding what BET would stand for?

A. It was primarily the senior team, about 12 to 13 people, senior V.P.’s and up. But we also brought in the vice presidents and at particular points we talked to our stakeholders. We had conversations with advertisers, affiliates, people on the Hill, our employees.

Q. Looking back, it sounds like it was a big leap to go from general counsel to C.O.O.

A. As general counsel, you’re taught research, research, find out every case, find out every opinion, think about it. It’s almost like you’re a judge.

So when I went from being general counsel to C.O.O., that’s the way I first approached it. I’d go into senior staff meetings and I’d listen to advertising and sales folks, I’d listen to the programmers, I’d listen to everyone. And then my job was to go away, think about it and make a decision. Well, that doesn’t work. By that time, they’re all going off in five different directions.

I had to learn to make decisions quicker on the spot and follow my gut. You’re not going to have all the information. You’re not going to be able to run the numbers and come up with the perfect answers.

Q. You went from being part of a team of executives to managing that team.

A. Yes, these are your friends, and all of a sudden they’re reporting to you. Early on, I was not decisive enough and I was not clear in my instructions. People saw that as a sign of weakness and an ability to keep doing what they wanted to do — “You didn’t tell me I couldn’t do that; this is the way I’ve always done it.”

So I found over time I had to be more precise and give more directions. It was no longer, “Hey, we’re friends and we’re all in this together.” It’s, “I’m the one making the decisions about your salary and your promotion and your future and whether you’re going to a make it here.” And that’s a much different relationship than when you’re someone’s peer.

There was also an expectation that I didn’t know enough about their departments in order to manage them. They knew I had a learning curve, so they could withhold that information and still be able to do what they wanted to do until I got up to speed and understood where I needed to change things. So there’s a little gamesmanship that went on for a while — “She doesn’t know anything about this.”

Q. So how did you deal with that?

A. I got more and more involved in what they did. That was painful at first for me and for them, and I studied the industry as a whole. I became friendly with other people in the industry, and found out how they did things. I’m on several corporate boards, so that was a great learning experience for me. I think that’s one of the things I enjoy most about being on other boards. You can see how things are done differently, and you can bring management techniques and other kinds of methods to your company.

I didn’t get an M.B.A. I got a master’s in public policy, which taught a little bit of management. But I think it’s more about experience. You have to really see how companies are run.

Theories help, but I think it’s really just seeing it in action — whether it’s your own company or whether it’s observing someone else’s company. It’s kind of an on-the-job learning experience. I don’t think you can get an M.B.A. and then be perfectly positioned to run a company. I think you have to grow up in that company. I think you have to learn all aspects of it.

You have to understand that management is a skill. It took me a while to understand that that’s really what I do from day to day, that management is really my job. You say you’re a C.E.O., but what do you do?

When I was general counsel, I could say I keep the company out of legal trouble. I knew exactly what my job was, but as C.O.O. and C.E.O., you’re really a manager and a leader, and those are things that you have to learn over time. You have to learn how you do it and how it works for you and what kind of people relate well to how you do it.

I talk about this a lot, and I talk to women’s groups about it. I think men and women manage differently, and I think women have to learn to be comfortable that their management style may be different from a man’s, and that’s O.K.

Q. And what is your sense of the difference between how women and men lead?

A. I think women listen more. I think women tend to be more consensus builders and less dictators. I’m generalizing, but I think women are more compassionate about executives and employees and their family circumstances. That can be good sometimes and it can be bad sometimes. You can be too compassionate and lose sight of what you’re trying to accomplish and making sure the folks who work for you are able to deliver. I’m not saying all women are the same and all men are the same. But I think there are some general differences, and we need more women as C.E.O.’s to prove that their way to manage is O.K.

Unfortunately, if one woman is unsuccessful, all of a sudden there’s a feeling that women can’t do this, that women aren’t made to do this. A man could be unsuccessful and the next day someone else hires him and he gets another chance. He keeps failing up. You can go from company to company, and it’s never a testament to the fact that you’re a man. It’s just that it didn’t work out at that company.

So I think we’ve made a lot of progress, but I think there’s a lot more that needs to be made in terms of women as managers and companies accepting them as managers and giving them opportunities.

Q. How do you hire?

A. I like to get to know people as a person when I’m interviewing them. The most important thing for me, in addition to their experience, is just how flexible they seem in their approach to life. That indicates to me whether they’d be willing to take on additional responsibilities, whether they can grow with the company. It’s always been a company where you had to do your basic job, but you also had to be open to doing different kinds of things.

I’m always looking for people who have the ability to grow — overachievers who have always multitasked their whole life, who’ve done more than just go to school, who’ve been active in organizations and been open to new experiences. I also look for people who are compassionate and good people-people.

Q. What other questions do you ask?

A. One would be what do they know about BET and the company and how do they feel about it. The other one is: What do you want to accomplish in your career? I think that tells you about whether folks have thought through the long term or whether they’re just looking for a job.

This year our Boys & Girls Club week will include a blood donation drive with Lifeshare Community Blood Services. Your blood donation to Lifeshare will support the Boys & Girls Clubs of Cleveland and help save 4 lives—connecting together two very important causes! To help us save lives in the community, contact Amanda Apostol at aapostol@clevekids.org or 216-883-2106 ext. 238.

National Boys & Girls Club Week is an opportunity for the community you to see how the Boys & Girls Clubs of Cleveland do their work. It’s also a chance to recruit people to become part of what makes Clubs “The Positive Place For Kids” in our community. Activities will include a daily event at one of our Clubs highlighting our key programming areas including academic success, character and citizenship and healthy lifestyles.

* Sunday, March 21, 7-10pm: Tune in to 107.9 for the Street Soldiers program with Basheer Jones. BGCC members and gang outreach staff will be talking about violence among youth in Cleveland.
* Monday, March 22, 6-9am: Live broadcast and pancake breakfast at the Broadway Club with Basheer Jones & Company (AM1490). BGCC Youth of the Year Finalists will be featured discussion will revolve around Dr. Sander’s proposed transformation plan.
* Tuesday, March 23, 5-7pm: State of Youth Cleveland Teen Town Hall and Youth Summit at BGCC’s Broadway Club. Breakout sessions will include interactive discussions on youth violence, teen pregnancy, relationships with law enforcement, and dealing with issues at home. There will also be opportunities to fill out applications for summer employment. Free dinner will be served for all participants.
* Wednesday, March 24: Game Night at the Clubs
* Thursday, March 25: Movie Night at the Clubs. Movie featured will be “Be The Change” by Basheer Jones. Discussion to follow.
* Friday, March 26, 6-9pm: Slam Poetry open mic night at BGCC’s Broadway Club. The evening’s winner will be featured on 107.9 with Basheer Jones.
* Saturday, March 27, 10:30am-1:30pm: March Madness Basketball Tournament at Broadway Club. Presented by BGCC, Fight Crime-Invest in Children, and MyCOM.

By Krissah Thompson
Washington Post

Bonnie McDaniel refused to let her now 24-year-old daughter watch Black Entertainment Television growing up. She hated the oversexed, booty-shaking music videos. She thought the programming objectified black women. She would bad-mouth the network with her girlfriends.

This week, the author and entrepreneur joined 130 other successful black women — influential in politics, entertainment and nonprofits — at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel to talk about portrayals of black women in the media, the problems facing black girls in urban schools, the state of the black family and other weighty issues.

The sponsor of this gathering of African American alpha women: BET.

“I’ve been invited to many events by BET, but this is the first one I have attended,” McDaniel, who lives in Fairfax, said to the cable network’s chief executive Debra Lee at one of the event’s workshops. “I didn’t like a lot of the messages and images that were coming out. But we have the power to change that.”

Lee listened and nodded.

The two-day summit — a first for BET — was her idea. Lee said it came to her after the BET Awards last year, which included a controversial performance by hip-hop artists Lil Wayne and Drake, who brought underage girls onto the stage to dance while they rapped “I wish I could [expletive] every girl in the world.”

The network has long come under fire for its music videos that critics say perpetuate racial stereotypes of African Americans and demean women. In 2008, a group called “Enough Is Enough” protested outside of Lee’s home for more than five months.

“I just still feel like, as much as we’ve tried, it’s still a heavily male dominated music genre,” Lee said, describing her feeling after the 2009 awards show.

She said her thoughts turned from the show to the scene in Washington, where Lee has mingled with first lady Michelle Obama, presidential senior adviser Valerie Jarrett, domestic policy chief Melody Barnes and other African American women at the center of power. Then, Lee said, she took out her Rolodex of successful black women and phoned Essence’s Beauty and Cover Director Mikki Taylor, political commentator Donna Brazile, journalist and author Gwen Ifill, actresses Tatyana Ali and Tasha Smith, and others.

“We are at the start of a new decade and a new opportunity. Our president and first family are shining examples that anything is possible,” Lee said. “It’s such an exciting time, [and] I said [to myself] how can we get powerful black women together and discuss issues that are important to us?”

The result, “Leading Women Defined,” looks like a historically black sorority meeting on steroids. Women with important jobs in Hollywood, in New York and in the White House led portions of the conversation, including starlet Raven-Symon� and children’s rights advocate Marian Wright Edelman.

The event, which along with panels and luncheon speakers included a mentoring trip to Dunbar High School and a Chrisette Michele concert, was not open to the public but free to the invitees. Lee said she wants it to become an ongoing network of successful black women who come together to create positive change — by “starting a black Emily’s List or adopting a school, whatever we decide.”

She and her team handpicked every participant — and some women, such as McDaniel, were politely critical of the network. Others, including Tricia Rose, a professor at Brown University and author of “The Hip Hop Wars,” have been harshly critical.

The network’s most vociferous detractors, such as lawyer and blogger Gina McCauley, found the entire thing ironic, and called it a PR stunt. “What are they leading? Black girls to a life of objectification?” asked McCauley, who was not at the event.

Lee seemed prepared for the flak.

The network turns 30 this year, and Lee said the women’s conference is part of its ongoing movement into a new phase. Several times, BET staffers referred to the network as “the new BET,” though they made no apologies for its controversial past. A historical video highlighted the now-defunct “Video Soul” and “Teen Summit” programs, but not “BET Uncut,” a raunchier late-night show that drew complaints.

“We’ve been really concerned with trying to show different facets of black life,” Lee said. “I think black women really want to see themselves as professionals, as mothers, as daughters. We want the whole spectrum of our womanhood to be reflected.”

Lee pointed to the launch of its newest channel, Centric, which targets African Americans 25 to 54 years old, and the hiring of filmmaker Loretha Jones (producer of “The Fighting Temptations” and “The Five Heartbeats”) as president of BET’s original programming 18 months ago, along with the creation of a new brand strategy last year based around themes such as family, creativity and social activism. The network has since debuted several programs — including a talk show hosted by comedienne and actress Mo’Nique; “The Family Crews,” about a black nuclear family pursuing their dreams; and “Sunday Best,” a gospel music competition hosted by Kirk Franklin. Popular broadcast journalist Ed Gordon also agreed this week to return to the network, bolstering its tiny news division .

“I love my job, but my job is more difficult in certain ways than I would have imagined,” Jones told the women gathered for the conference. “I have to choose stories and make decisions from a really balanced perspective, because we have so little representations of ourselves. We cannot get away with things that other people can get away with.”

The sessions that engendered some of the most passionate discussions were about representations of black women, who have long grappled with the psychological repercussions of not fitting American mainstream ideals of beauty. It’s an old conversation that feels like it is shifting, some of the women said.

A survey conducted by Essence and Procter & Gamble, which was an event co-sponsor, found that 80 percent of black women respondents were concerned about the way they are portrayed in mainstream media. But more than 90 percent said Obama’s role as first lady would have a positive effect on images of black women.

Jarrett, who stopped by to greet the women and stump for the administration’s health-care plan, said they see the opportunity inside the White House.

She told the story of a letter she received from an 11-year-old black girl who wrote after reading about Jarrett in Essence. “Maybe I can grow up and be like you,” the girl said. Jarrett wrote back and invited her to the White House. “It’s those little gestures that we want to encourage,” Jarrett said, before hurrying back to meet with the president.

But along with the admiration and pretty, glossy magazine covers of the first lady, there have come blogs with demeaning depictions of her, noted Harriette Cole, acting editor-in-chief of Ebony magazine and a panelist. Late last year, an image of the first lady with monkey features appeared at the top of search results when “Michelle Obama” was typed into Google Images.

“People don’t want to believe that the Obamas exist, even though they do,” Cole said. “That means that they don’t want to believe that we exist.”

Rose, the Brown University hip-hop scholar, said she doesn’t sense that the consciousness about the Obamas’ images has translated to critical thinking about wider representations of African Americans. As for BET, she is cautiously optimistic about the changes she’s seen, but noted that Lee offered no blanket promises to ban programming that stereotypes African Americans or demeans women.

“This kind of thing is glacial,” Rose said. “It’s only so quickly that you can make changes and survive. I think there’s still quite a ways to go. If you’re going to show shaking behinds to 12-year-old boys, you’re going to get a pretty good market share, but what is going to interrupt that profit motive? We have to hold [BET] accountable along with all the other networks.”

McDaniel agreed. At the end of the conference, she said she believed Lee does intend to make changes at the network, but just in case she planned to “become an annoyance to her.”

“I’m going to remind her of what she told us.