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Freshly out of a multi-year conservatorship, suffering in silence, American pop sensation, Britney Spears has taken her voice back and is ready to spill the tea on all things Britney. Shortly after her younger sister, Jamie-Lynn Spears, released her book Things I Should Have Said, Spears is flipping the script by sharing her own story. From Spears’s childhood to her career as a singer and her innermost never-before-told secrets, The Woman in Me details major stepping stones from all aspects of the pop singer’s life. If you haven’t picked up a copy of her newest memoir, get ready for bombshell revelations, jaw-dropping confessions, and an inside look at who the pop star really is.

Who is Britney Spears?

Finally, the entertainment world gets an opportunity to hear Spears’s true story from the singer herself. For years, tabloids, paparazzi, and a controlling conservatorship have painted Spears as being manic and dependent on others. No more tabloids are narrating her story this time because this memoir gives Spears a voice to reveal her side of her highly publicized life, and ultimately reveal her truth. The Woman in Me gives a raw account of the pop star’s life from her childhood to the present day. Like many tell-alls, Spears begins her narrative by describing her childhood and family dynamics. Spears does an excellent job of painting her life as being perfectly imperfect. She recalls being raised by an alcoholic father but not becoming a product of her environment. We can describe Spears as a survivor. She was not influenced by her father’s negativity by adopting his qualities as a child. Instead, Spears took ownership of her life. From the Mickey Mouse Club to Star Search, Spears established a thriving career at a young age. She regularly auditioned for parts to put her name on the map. Ultimately, her burgeoning career allowed her to escape the demons of her past. 

Bombshell Revelations 

Being an international pop sensation, for most of her life Spears has become an easy target for tabloids. Many aspects of the singer’s life have been fictionalized to create gossip and establish attention-grabbing headlines. From how she lost her innocence, to her troubled relationship with her family, there has continuously been a false narrative created by the media that allowed Spears to put on a facade. Through her memoir, Spears finally sets the record straight. She shows the world her vulnerability as she recounts her experience terminating a pregnancy with an A-list celebrity. Unlike other tell-alls, Spears doesn’t shy away from the truth. Spears publicly names people throughout her book instead of referring to her friends, acquaintances, and those she encounters using pseudonyms. A tactic like this shows that the singer is relentless in the pursuit of having her story told. She is fearless. Spears’s memoir becomes highly personal by revealing the names of those who have wronged her and those who have been influential in her life. Detailing moments of truth such as revealing names allows the pop icon to capture the rawness of her story.

Free Britney

After being in a decade-long conservatorship, Spears is finally free. For years, Spears has lived under the control of her family. Her family and superiors directed every major aspect of her life. What she sang, what she wore, and the gigs she accepted were all decisions made for her rather than by her. Her memoir details a pivotal moment in her life known as “the “free Britney” movement; a movement Spears recalls first hearing about during rehab. During this movement, fans expressed concern over how the pop star was being managed by her family and team. This is a very vulnerable time in Spear’s life because she explains going through the heartache of losing everything close to her including her kids. Although she grew up in the public eye, the media prevented Spears from having a voice. Spears’s whole life has been under a microscope that allowed the tabloids to take control. Throughout her life, the media has had an obsession with her sexuality. In her book, Spears explains how she was falsely painted as being innocent and pure while also being labeled as promiscuous after her split from Timberlake. Without being overtly sexual she continued to be objectified. Without the “free Britney” movement, the star may have never found her voice. 

The Woman She Is 

To all the Britney Spears fans who want answers to questions like what happened during the infamous 2007 head-shaving incident, her relationship with Justin Timberlake, and the media’s alleged mistreatment of the star, then this book is for you. Spears does an excellent job removing her facade in The Woman I Am. For once, the world gets to see who Britney is, rather than who we think she is. Through her memoir, readers get to learn about Spears’s life from her perspective rather than the media’s. Readers learn how she responded to highly publicized incidences in her life. This memoir serves as a revelation. It not only tells the story of the woman Spears is but the woman she has now become. Since leaving her conservatorship, Spears has become vocal regarding who the real enemies and allies are in her life. For years, the public perceived Spears’s family as doing what was best for her through a conservatorship. What makes this memoir work is Spears’s ability to detail almost every aspect of her life that contributed to who she is. Spears is an excellent storyteller. She lets readers know exactly how she feels during each major moment of her life. She rejects the false image the media created for her by telling the world who she is.  

The Woman in Me is now available where major books are sold.

In this week’s episode of the Black Girl Nerds podcast, we welcome TV host, weather man and executive producer Al Roker.

Al Roker is a journalist, television personality, and author. He is the current weather anchor on NBC’s Today and occasionally co-hosts 3rd Hour Today. His latest project is the film Gaining Ground: The Fight for Black Land. The documentary explores the complex history of the American Black farmer. As an underrepresented topic that continues to impact Black farmers today, it’s important to showcase the legacy of Black farming in America and the devastating impact of heirs’ property on Black land ownership. It also addresses how landowners are reclaiming their agricultural rights and their paths to generational wealth with the support of other landowners and organizations.

Host: Jamie
Music by: Sammus
Edited by: Jamie Broadnax

Baltimore-bred artist Alvin Pettit won a competition to have his version of a Harriet Tubman statue placed on the northeast apron outside Philadelphia’s City Hall. 

The statue is expected to be finished by 2025, city officials said, according to CBS News. The art project has a budget of $500,000 coming from Philadelphia’s operating budget. The money will cover payment for Pettit, site work and modeling, engineering and materials, and fabrication costs. 

The open call for the contest, announced in August 2022, brought in nearly 3,000 total submissions and came about after a controversy, according to another report by CBS News. 

Black artists and activists protested when the city initially contacted a white sculptor to build the statue without a competition. The white artist, Wesley Wofford, had previously displayed a traveling sculpture of Tubman at Philadelphia’s City Hall in 2017. Textile artist Dee Jones said in a 2022 community meeting that it was “hurtful” that the city had not given other artists the opportunity to have their work considered for the public art project, CBS News reported. 

Wofford dropped out of the running, and Pettit’s nearly 14-foot bronze statue, titled A Higher Power: The Call of a Freedom Fighter, won over four other semifinalists. A small model of the statue appeared at a news conference on Oct. 30, showing Tubman with a rifle on her back, a Confederate flag under her feet, and her hands in prayer, CBS News reported.

Pettit said about the work, “She [Tubman] is shown in majestic prayer. Perhaps she is calling upon her faith or contemplating a battle.” The artist, now based in Jersey City, New Jersey, continued: “This woman was a soldier, a scout, a Union spy, a military strategist, and a war hero. Therefore, I captured a moment in time that shows her as a conqueror.”

Pettit won the competition based on decisions by city officials and Philadelphia’s African American Statue Advisory Committee, which includes some of Tubman’s family members. 

One of the most fun aspects of Loki, that they frankly have not done enough of, is when the writers use time travel aspects to explain away historical mysteries. In season one, we learned Tom Hiddleston’s Loki was actually the infamous D.B. Cooper, who robbed an airplane in the ’70s, popped out with a parachute, and vanished for all time. Now, in the second season’s penultimate episode, “Science/Fiction,” the show solved yet another historical mystery, MCU style. One involving the most infamous (and mythologized) prison in American history—Alcatraz.

At the end of episode four of this season, the Temporal Loom exploded, and we learned the different TVA employees who were in the control room, as well as Sylvie, were sent back to their lives before the TVA took them and wiped their memories. Mobius was a single dad named Don who sold jet skis (of course). O.B. was a scientist and an aspiring sci-fi author. Hunter B-15 was a doctor. Sylvie just went back to work at McDonald’s in 1982. But the most interesting true identity of a TVA employee had to be Casey. Turns out, the mild-mannered “guy at the desk” was once a notorious criminal, Alcatraz escaped convict Frank Morris.

When Loki starts time slipping again, Casey appears in 1962, escaping from Alcatraz. We even see the crude dummies the inmates made to appear as if they were sleeping during bedcheck. It’s something that really happened. Casey even says “If they catch us, they’re going to gut us like a fish!” That was a fun callback to season one, when Loki threatened to do the same to him but he had no idea what a fish even was. As they’re trying to escape, a time-slipping Loki appears on the shores of Alcatraz island in San Francisco. He finds Casey, now called Frank, who doesn’t recognize him, along with two other men getting ready to escape in a makeshift raft.

In reality, the two other men were Clarence and John Anglin. They were portrayed by the episode’s directors, Aaron Moorhead and Justin Benson. The real Frank Morris was a lifelong criminal who spent much of his life in correctional facilities. Authorities arrested Morris for armed robbery, car theft, and finally, the crime that put him in Alcatraz, bank robbery. However, he had a genius I.Q., and was likely the real mastermind behind the whole escape. Being so smart, it’s no wonder the TVA wanted him as an employee.

Later in the episode, Loki appears to Frank Morris on a beach along with the other two escaped convicts, who made it to dry land. In reality, no one really knows what happened to the three men. Official reports suggest they drowned in the waters of San Francisco Bay, or hypothermia got them. But they never discovered any bodies. Over the past 60 years, some anecdotal evidence points to at least one of the men surviving. We have since mythologized the only successful escape from Alcatraz in pop culture. It was even the subject of the 1979 film Escape from Alcatraz with Clint Eastwood playing Frank Morris.

Frank accepts Loki’s offer to help restore the TVA, even though he doesn’t understand what’s going on. Once he realizes that O.B.’s temp pad can take anyone to anywhen, he even asks if it could take him into a bank vault. Even after doing time in the world’s most infamous prison, Frank still can’t get rid of the urge to rob banks. When one of the TemPads vanishes due to reality coming undone everyone thinks Frank stole it. Hey, when you’re famous for robbery, it’s hard to shake that reputation.

While we saw Frank/Casey unravel at the end of the episode, we have a strong feeling it’s not the last we’ve seen of him. If Loki has taught us anything, it’s that there’s always another branched timeline somewhere.

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