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http://www.afronerd.com/2021/06/lupin-netflix-returns-va-tech-murder.html

 

Dear (and loyal) Afronerd Radio listeners, we are gathered here today (every Sunday at 6 p.m. eastern) to get through this thing called "The Grindhouse!"   Check out a new episode courtesy of the BTalk 100 platform.  Listen to your favorite AFROnerdists wax prolific about the following issues: the very popular French heist series, Lupin, returns to Netflix this weekend;  yet another tragic murder-death-kill story centered on a promising VA Tech linebacker charged with second-degree murder but the circumstances come with a twist; another Netflix series released this weekend, Trese, places a much-needed spotlight on Filipino culture, mythology, horror, and animation;  

 

Yet again, a time-honored classic song (17 years!) is revisited analyzed under the PC microscope, and deemed improper by today's standards.....Black Twitter puts Destiny Child and their R&B romance standard, "Cater 2 U" on trial for promoting too much (black) female submission to (equally, black) men; famed nerd detective, Velma Dinkley from the Scooby-Doo animated franchise canon gets an Asian race bent makeover and Scooby purists are none too happy; Marvel's Heroes Reborn series continues to (not so vaguely) interpret DC IPs with an interesting take on the Power Princess character, the Wonder Woman analogue; Lastly, if time permits, perhaps Dburt will get a chance to muse about the current state of crypto finance.

Call us LIVE at 508-645-0100. AFTER CLICKING ON THE HIGHLIGHTED LINK, GO DIRECTLY TO AFRONERD RADIO!!! 

Also, Afronerd Radio's podcast format can be heard via BTalk 100 Pandora, Spotify and,  IHeartRadio....more formats to follow!        

https://www.essence.com/love/lauren-and-cameron-book/

Loading the player… By Victoria Uwumarogie ·June 12, 2021June 11, 2021

From the moment people were introduced to Lauren Speed and Cameron Hamilton‘s love story on the dating reality series and Netflix hit Love Is Blind, they were all in. They were one of the few pairs on the show that many genuinely rooted for, and people have continued doing so since the show ended its first season last spring.

Their romance was broadcast right before the pandemic brought life as we know it to a screeching halt. More than a year later, we talked about life after the cameras went away and the newlywed phase ended, and the couple shared that as the world changed, they too had to change and also overcame some stumbling blocks.

“It has definitely been an adjustment,” Lauren tells ESSENCE of love after reality TV. They’ve welcomed a dog, become business partners trying to balance a working relationship with a romantic one and are approaching almost three years of marriage (they were married a year and a half at the time the show debuted).

“Honestly, it’s been amazing. It’s been as close to bliss as bliss can get, but I say that to say that it’s not without struggle,” she says. “We’re still human. All relationships go through ups and downs and trials and tribulations, but we’re continuing to grow.”

They’re also continuing to do have some major experiences as a couple. They’ve written a book called Leap of Faith: Finding Love The Modern Way, coming out on Tuesday, June 15. It’s about how they made the life-changing decision to join Love Is Blind, what it was like getting through filming while falling in love, and how it’s been navigating married life. It’s not all sunshine and rainbows. The couple wasn’t afraid to be honest about the obstacles they faced, similar to what many dealt with in the last year and change. But they also dealt with things that were very unique to their relationship and experiences. The racial reckoning that came after the murder of George Floyd, for instance, forced them to have some very real conversations as an interracial couple.

“We had some difficult times more so for me just processing everything and me being in a state of fighting shutting down, not just to him but to the whole world in general,” she says of trying to heal during a rocky summer 2020. “It was a point, which I talk about in the book, where Cameron and I had a really tough conversation one day. I wouldn’t say I was holding it in just because he was my white husband. I was holding it in because it was something I would usually process by myself anyway. He caught me balled up in the corner one day crying my eyeballs out. That forced us to have a conversation about how I was really feeling about everything.”

“My first thought was what is the best thing for me to do to support my wife? And I think I resolved that first of all it would be to listen to her and what she would want to talk about it or say about it, if she wanted to talk about it,” Cameron says. “To ask what I could do for her personally but also recognizing that like she said, she had to heal from it so she didn’t really have the energy to at times share everything. So I reflected back on what would be best for me to do. In addition to trying to helping her, I felt that trying to be more educated as a white person, having a platform to speak about what’s going on in this country, not just back then in June but what’s been going on and persists, and talking to other white people about what we can possibly do to be allies.”

They also dealt with and still deal with pressure. That has come in the form of fans who idealize their relationship and even each party as examples of the happiness they, themselves can possibly obtain. It can be a lot for the pair. And then there are those who want them to take their relationship to the next level — ASAP.

“People every day pressure us about having a baby. ‘When are we going to have a baby?’ That sort of thing,” he says. “It’s unfortunate because I know other couples are met with that same sort of pressure and there’s couples out there that can’t get pregnant or don’t want to. We’ve talked about wanting to have kids on our own timeline. It can be tough to just reorient the focus back to just us versus what everyone else has to say.”

And then there was the feeling they had to overcome that they were constantly being watched. That came from being followed by cameras for 16-hour days for weeks when they filmed their show.

“I actually dealt with nightmares after we stopped filming,” she says. “I think [it was] the difference between going from everything being so loud with the cameras and the crew and then just kind of shutting all that off and in an instant, waking up the next day and being married and living with my now husband and so many different changes.”

She dreamt she was being recorded, and when she was awake, had “phantom mic syndrome.” That is where she would be mid-conversation and then pat her chest to make sure she didn’t have a mic on recording her. Cameron had subtle paranoia and kept his guard up while filming the show, thinking he would be set up for some drama. Once the show ended, that fed into his feelings of being followed and filmed. It may sound like an odd experience, but that’s because it’s a transition the couple says people don’t think about and that participants don’t discuss when they stop doing reality TV. It’s certainly been a part of their journey and something they wanted to shed light on in their book.

But they say another big purpose in releasing Leap of Faith is to give encouragement to their followers and supporters who’ve asked for advice. Something for those who have seen the couple find love after they trusted in the unorthodox choice to seek it through a social experiment on television. Not being afraid to go the unconventional route or do the daring, whether for love, career and more, is the overall message they want to share and it’s one that has benefited them.

“Love is a journey and so is life. There are so many times where we have moments to take these leaps of faith that can really change the trajectory of our lives,” she says. “This book was really about us sharing the things that we kind of came across on our journey that really helped us.”

Cameron adds, “The goal when we were writing it was in part to tell our story of how we came to be, but we really want to give the reader the sense of how they can take their own leaps of faith in life and how they can have that confidence to trust their own intuition when people are saying ‘This is a crazy idea’ to start your own business or to go on a reality show. Whatever it is.”

Check out our full conversation with Lauren and Cameron above and check out Leap of Faith upon its release on June 15.

TOPICS:  cameron hamilton Lauren and Cameron lauren speed love is blind

The post ‘People Every Day Pressure Us About Having A Baby’: Lauren Speed And Cameron Hamilton On Life Since ‘Love Is Blind’ appeared first on Essence.

http://www.afronerd.com/2021/06/black-music-month-hbcus-increase.html

 

It's like a jungle sometimes, fellow AFROnerdists!  Welcome to the latest edition of Afronerd Radio's The Mid Week in Review cyber-broadcast, airing every Wednesday at 8 p.m. eastern on BTalk 100. The topics du jour this (mid) week are as follows: thoughts about the concept of Black Music Month and how the culture treats and or curates the African American (and diasporic) contributions of music performers-past and present; an offshoot of the BMM discussion, entails a piece from Ultimateclassicrock.com highlighting overlooked songs from the late Minneapolis music icon, Prince music catalog; recent reports are affirming an uptick in enrollment to HBCUs; the scion of the current POTUS (President Joe Biden), Hunter Biden has some "splaining" to do for purportedly using the infamous n-word in recently released texts with his attorney; the highly anticipated Disney+ Loki series was released today and we give you our first impressions of episode one;  rumor has it that actor, Tenoch Huerta has been cast as Namor Mckenzie in the forthcoming Black Panther 2-Wakanda Forever MCU film; Dburt checked out the new Disney+ short, Us Again wishing it was a longer, fully fleshed out film (or series); 

Screenrant.com interviewed filmmaker, Todd Thompson concerning his Woman in Motion: Nichelle Nichols, Star Trek and the Remaking of NASA documentary; 

Zack Snyder hints that he would consider an anime to film translation of Dragon Ball Z, if given the opportunity during an interview with Tyrone Magnus; is the Blue Beetle film now destined for HBO Max?  And is that a good thing? Lastly, thoughts about the new Boom Studios comic series, Basilisk. 

Call us LIVE at 508-645-0100. AFTER CLICKING ON THE HIGHLIGHTED LINK, GO DIRECTLY TO AFRONERD RADIO!!! 

Also, Afronerd Radio's podcast format can be heard via BTalk 100 Pandora, Spotify and,  IHeartRadio....more formats to follow! 

https://blackgirlnerds.com/black-lgbtq-mental-health-matters-a-conversation-with-mental-health-expert-dr-mahogany-hall/

Even as mental health is becoming normalized in Black communities, being Black, LGBTQ+, and seeking mental health support can still be challenging. If you feel like you need help but don’t know where to turn, BGN has your back. We reached out to Dr. Mahogany Hall to provide some mental health tips for any of our Black LGBTQ+ siblings in need of support. Dr. Hall is the owner/founder of Hall Counseling Services LLC, a group practice specializing in treating racial trauma and working with LGBTQ+ communities. Her specialties include helping adolescents, adults, couples with depression, trauma, attachment, sexual orientation/identity, and acculturation. 

Talk to me about some of the biggest challenges that Black LGBTQ+ communities face when seeking therapy.

Many Black people think of LGBTQ+ as just being “homosexuality,” which has always been taboo in the Black community, which is problematic. I’ve also noticed Black men take a little bit longer to warm up and talk about their sexual orientation.

Why is it important for Black LGBTQ+ folks who are seeking therapy to find Black LGBTQ+ therapists?

I am a Black queer woman. My practice specializes in racial trauma in the LGBTQIA community. People come to us because they know that we get it. They know our clinicians are trained in racial trauma and are comfortable working with the LGBTQ+ community. When you go to a therapist who cannot relate to you, it’s almost like speaking a foreign language. The patient has to educate the therapist instead of being taken care of. Your therapist should be culturally competent and allow the general conversation to flow to build trust.

What are three ways that folks can use to find a culturally competent therapist?

First, search for websites with a database of therapists of color, like Therapy for Black Girls.com or thisisdarkbeauty.com and Therapy for Black Men.org. Look for places where you don’t have to do a lot of the hard legwork to find a therapist of color.

Second, once you have a small selection of therapists, take the time to interview them. I always tell people the therapist works for the client, so go in with well-thought-out questions ready and try to figure out if this person is a match for you. It’s like a two-way job interview. If one person isn’t right, it’s okay to look around.

Third, recognize that it can be complicated to find therapists of color in your insurance plan or who are compatible with your budget. It never hurts to engage in certain types of communities through specific mental help groups on Meetup.com. Search out group therapy. You can also ask other people you know if they can recommend someone to you. Be creative and find ways to network. Many of our clients found out about us from word of mouth referrals from other clients.

As Black LGBTQ+ folks are coming forward in Black society as trailblazers, what can they do to protect and care for themselves as they educate their brothers and sisters?

Oh, that’s loaded. First and foremost, always practice self-care: physical activity, yoga, exercise, meditation, mindfulness, or therapy. Whatever that looks like to each individual. One thing that I think people are getting right is learning how to cope with differences of opinion. No human being is always going to be accepted by any one group or population of people. So, make peace with the fact that not everybody will love you, accept you, and welcome you into their home with open arms. It just won’t happen. 

Similarly to people being racist and not liking you because of your skin color, people will dislike you because of your sexual orientation. Like I tell my clients, you have to let other people’s stuff be their stuff and not take on somebody else’s issues. If somebody else hates you or hates someone around you, that negativity is not your story. You don’t have to take on that energy. As long as there’s not a safety issue, stay away from it as much as you can. Learning to cope with people with ignorant opinions is essential self-care.

Surround yourself with people who support you—any type of circle. It can be friends, but more importantly, it should be people who accept you whether they share your story and your sentiments or not. Being around people who just love you unconditionally is essential, and placing yourself in low-stress situations where you don’t have to be educating people is vital. Make a goal of not carrying any guilt or shame for not continually educating people about this population. You’re not responsible for holding the weight of the world on your shoulders.

How does connecting to joy factor into your work?

I love the work that I do. My clients bring me joy. Gratitude also factors in. When my clients focus on gratitude, they find joy in so many challenging situations. For a Black person to gain satisfaction from therapy is like the most beautiful oxymoron because we don’t do therapy. That wasn’t a “Black thing” historically. Shifting that narrative just is a lovely process that brings me a tremendous amount of joy.

Dr. Mahogany Hall is a licensed clinical social worker with a doctorate of social work from the University of Southern California. She received her master’s degree in social work from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and her bachelor’s degrees in psychology and African and African American studies from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Dr. Hall has traveled throughout the United States assisting children and families for Fairfax County government in Northern Virginia. She has also served as a clinician for Fairfax County public schools.

Modalities: cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy (TF-CBT), dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), motivational interviewing (MI) https://hallcounselingservices.com/about/

Follow on IG @themahoganydoctor