Media Declares That Brown is Beautiful Starting Tomorrow!!!

I have decided to dedicate my life to promoting the beauty in women of color. Shades of brown are so beautiful, so unique and demonstrated in so many parts of the globe. Despite images depicted on television, magazines and billboards; the media would have you believe that beautiful women are not brown. Yet 75% of the women in the world are brown, meaning they have the ability to produce varying degrees of melanin in their skin. That means there are little girls all over the world who do not feel beautiful because they do not see images of women that look like them. How do you make a woman unsuccessful in life? Well the answer to this question is very complex and cannot be answered with quickly, I will tell you that a component of her failure is to make her feel ugly and unwanted, undesirable and unloved. Women, who feel good, look good and command a presence in their environments. This has a direct impact on their socio-economic success (or lack thereof), relational/emotional and psychological successes. When a women feels beautiful she can achieve anything. She will teach her brown daughters they can achieve anything….

During my 35 plus years on this earth, I have discovered that many times people will not understand your point of view until they have walked a mile in your shoes. To demonstrate my certainty on this stand point, I pose a situation to you….What if tomorrow it was decided by the “ powers that be” (television networks, print, internet, commercials, film industry) that only Black/African , Hispanic (including Dominican, Cuban, Central American and South American), Indian (includes India, Sri Lanka, Guinea, Melanasia and surrounding countries), Maori, Aboriginal and Polynesian women were the new standard of beauty. The darker you were, the more beautiful you were perceived instead of the current practice (the lighter shade of brown you are the more beautiful you are).

How would the non-brown women behave? What would they do if suddenly they were thrown to the bottom of the beauty chain? Would they go willingly or would they fight to maintain their status?

Many of you will look at this situation and judge it to be confrontational, please do not. I only ask this question to ask you to think. Think how this situation would apply to your life?

Disclaimer: Opinions expressed on this blogspot are to bring awareness. This question and many others to come are not meant to be racist, they are designed to make you aware of racism and unfair practices and you choose to be part of the problem or the solution.

Work Life Balance What is that?

Work-Life-Balance, what is that?

By: Deirdre Clark

My list of things to do:

Drop my daughter off at school

Pick up my suits from the dry cleaners

Go to the drug store and pick up prescriptions (that keep me from being depressed about working myself into the ground)

Pack my bag (with comfortable clothes)

Check the weather channel to prepare for the temperature change

Drive to the airport

Stand in the security line

Get accosted by a stampede of rude people who have no regard for anyone besides themselves

Fight to get on the plane

Fight to get your luggage in the bins (if you are unlucky and not first class)

Fly to Tampa

Start the deplaning process and pray you don’t get into an argument with a rude passenger who feels they need to get off the plane faster than anyone else

Prepare a report and power point presentation

Call and tuck my daughter in via telephone or webcam

Go to bed (and hope I can sleep to perform my best at my meeting tomorrow)

Wake up and 7 am and get to my meeting by 9 am.

Did I mention this is only Monday…I have 4 more days of work I haven’t begun to tell you about.

That is what my list looks like. Yours may be longer, more in depth, more or less demanding. No matter what the list…we are all required to give more and expect less. Achieving any sort of sustainable work life balance is quite a task. Twenty years ago, there was no mention of work life balance anywhere. That is because everyone had it. The workforce tended to work 37.5 hrs per week, employees didn’t take work home with them and when you were home, that is it you were home. That was time with your family, it was not negotiable. Collectively, as a work force we spend a great deal of time working past our required 40 hrs per week, commuting ridiculous distances, working on weekends, sleeping next to our black berries all the while praying our jobs are not eliminated because someone who does not have a family is willing to work twice is hard, for half the pay. When did having family become a hindrance? Shouldn’t our families be our rewards?

As the technology age expanded so did our obsession with gadgets and the demand for our time. Employer obsession with productivity, metrics and ways they can literally squeeze the second to last breath we have. We have begun a set of systems that we will never be able to reclaim our lives dues to pagers, cell phones, email, Ipods, social networking systems…where does it end? Does anyone wish they could go back to life before all of these trinkets supposedly made our lives easier? I long and dream for the days that my life wouldn’t be so complicated; when I can choose without guilt not to answer my cell phone, request that my friends send me cards in the mail and handwritten letters, actually take time to know my neighbors and spend more time with the people I love. Life is so very short. It is a precious commodity that you cannot buy, sell or steal. Let us start a movement, let us take back our lives and live for ourselves, just a little.

Join me monthly as we assist our readers in achieving work-life-balance for today’s hectic and demanding society. If you keep giving all of what you have away, you will have nothing left for you.