piccadilly83

Sorry to post on an old topic. I'm catching up on my lurking. I have no problem believing Bethanny ran out like a raving banshee at Sunny's child. It fits in perfectly with her character of narcissistic victim. I actually like a lot of qualities that Bethanny has. She has an amazing quick wit and sharp tongue when necessary, the problem is she blows up problems to ten times their actual size when they affect her. Just look at the way she was when she was in between homes on her first season back to ROHNY. It was "OMG, I'm homeless and my husband is this horrible cruel person. No one's problem's are bigger than mine. Why oh why do I have to put up with all of this anguish?" Meanwhile she's building an expensive designer apartment in Manhattan and dealing with a divorce from a husband who loves his daughter and wants a part in her life. If she really needed a place to live she had more than enough money to rent a condo in Brooklyn for a year, but that wasn't good enough for Bethanny. Instead she made this huge drama about her living situation and used it as an excuse to act like a total ass to her castmates. Even before that season I could tell Bethanny was a bit of a drama queen when it suited her (lots of people are, it doesn't make her the devil), but just from that season alone it is more than obvious to me that she would go all whoopass crazy on a couple of defenseless kids at the beach if she thought they were inconveniencing her daughter's day. As for the fact that she gave to charity, so what? Good for her I guess, but that doesn't mean she doesn't have her flaws. Do you know how many shady captains of industry in the past have given to charities in order to assuage their guilt or improve their public image? Happens all the time. I don't mind that she made her donations to Puerto Rico public at the time, but from what I hear, it was a big part of her story line and now people are using it as evidence that she's not really that bad which to me just means she played it perfectly. It really doesn't convince me she's some loving Mother Teresa at all other hours of the day.

I didn't like the first episode. Like many of you, I found the child to be annoying, I don't know if it was her acting, or if it was just the script, but I gave the show a chance because of Idris Elba. I'm happy that I did. It really started to pick up for me by the third episode. I enjoyed almost all of the side characters, and I really like Sara. The kid was also way less annoying in the later episodes. I also really like how the show ended it's first season; it showed maturity on the kid's part.

Thank you, BLONDIEC0332. I had to turn off the episode when Meghan started talking over Sunny to defend Joe Biden. First of all, the argument that he shouldn't be judged for something he did in the past by the standards of today doesn't hold any water with me. When was decency ever not the standard? The way Joe Biden treated Anita Hill back in the 90s was wrong and people were saying it back then. Feminist groups and black women clearly saw the inappropriate way he handled Ms. Hill (along with a lot of other senators.) Also, Meghan needs to fucking quit it with this, I was born in the 80s therefore I don't remember this, therefore it's not important bull crap. Guess what, I was born in '83 and I completely remember the confirmation hearing of Clarence Thomas. It was a big deal in my family. If Meghan was supposed to be such a political expert in the womb, why does she have no recollection of these political events from her childhood? Also, even if she were too young to have been present during an important political event, that does not mean it is or was not relevant today. Also, I believe Joy and Ana kind of missed the boat on this one. Biden is not apologizing because he's worried about his image versus Trump. He's worried about his image versus other Democrats. He has to beat them in the primaries first. I don't think any Democrat is really worried about their moral failings versus Trump. Finally I want to reiterate what Sunny said. I'm not interested in hearing Biden apologize about the Anita Hill hearing because I want to rake him over the coals with guilt in perpetuity. I just want to know that he's changed, and how the hell else am I supposed to know it unless he says, "Hey, you know, that thing I did back then, it wasn't so great. I made a mistake."

Are you suggesting that culturally communities in America do not look down on people of color who take advantage of social benefits or that they look down upon them less? If so, I suggest you reexamine the welfare queen trope. The suggestion that poor white people who qualify for social welfare benefits don't take advantage of them due a sort of societal racial bias against their favor is completely out of step with my experience in American politics.

It's not even that. With regards to the Kelly Clarkson thing, Meghan needs to understand that owning a gun and supporting gun control are not mutually exclusive. Kelly didn't need to evolve into someone who doesn't like guns because she now supports gun control legislation. She can possess an entire artillery and still want to make sure that there's stricter legislation to ensure firearms end up in the hands of responsible gun owners. I wish Sunny had been given a chance to further explain what she meant about women's issues. It sounded like she had some good points, but unfortunately they were at odds with what Meghan had to say, so we never actually got to hear Sunny complete her thoughts. As for being against identity politics -- le sigh. In the words of Ta-Naheisi Coates, "all politics is identity politics." I'm also not sure why Meghan made it seem like people mistrusting intelligence agencies was something unique to today. That's always been the case. The only thing with today is that a lot of the mistrust is coming from the allegedly more conservative wing of our country's political spectrum. As for the N-word debate, I agree with everything Joy and Sunny said; and pretty much with what Whoopi said as well.

As far as the Sunny and Bethany thing goes I'm #TeamSunny too. If someone had treated my child the way Bethanny treated Sunny's there's no way I would be giving them credit for making a big show of doing the kind of charity I do behind the scenes all of the time. What Sunny knew that day at the beach is that Bethanny will act like a monster when she thinks no one is around and watching. Trying to intimidate a child because he's making noise on the beach in the middle of the afternoon. Nah, bruh, That's true pettiness. And the minute someone her age came out to confront her on the issue she ran scared like the little wuss she was. Yes, she apologized, but not without plugging more of her product. I think it's a good thing that Bethanny is doing hurricane relief efforts is Puerto Rico. Hopefully it'll bring more attention to the issue and inspire others to make similar contributions. That doesn't mean that if I was in Sunny's position I would feel differently about Bethanny's intentions with her charity. I'm sure it's difficult to credit someone with acting so publicly generous when you've seen them act so wickedly in private.

What I didn't understand is why Meghan so rudely interrupted Joy when Joy began to read the Malcolm Gladwell quote. The whole quote basically said everything that Meghan claimed she wanted to hear, but since it came out of Joy's mouth I guess Meghan dismissed it as an attack from her enemy. My impression of the quote was that Gladwell was saying that the gun violence issue is multilayered and needs to be addressed on many different levels. How is this trying to repeal the 2nd Amendment? How is this not leaving open room for discussing the role of mental illness in school shootings? I really liked what Joy had to say because I thought it was a really appropriate and open-minded view of the issue. Meghan should really talk to a therapist so she could learn to stop being so defensive while at work. Her job is to discuss controversial issues and if she's always rearing for a fight with her coworkers even when one is not trying to be had it'll just wear her out and drive everyone around her crazy. Unless it's written out for her, she doesn't understand a damn thing; then again, she was "a child" when Columbine happened, so how is she expected to know? Also, this is not really an excuse. Meghan was born in October of 1984 according to Wikipedia, which means she would have been in either 8th or 9th grade at the time of Columbine. I am just a year older than her and I was a sophomore at the time of the shooting. It was serious and real and had a very heavy impact on my classmates and myself.

MsPH, thank you for your post. I had to skip the last few pages of this forum because so many people are acting like experts on topic about which they clearly know so little. No slang is not the same thing as AAVE and just because someone isn't speaking a SAE does not mean that they are A) uneducated or B) speaking incorrectly. I just can't put the effort into having these sorts of discussions online anymore. I wish more people would take a good sociolinguistics course in college, but my personal experience tells me even that is sometimes not enough for people to move past their own deeply entrenched biases. C'est la vie. Overall I like all of the guys left, but I fear Dean's family issues are too unresolved for him to be marriage material.

That's the point. Nonstandard doesn't mean incorrect.

(Formatting issue)

I was going to respond to answer your question but I now see some other people beat me to it.

Omg. My dad used to rent this movie all of the time for me when I was like four or five years old. It totally freaked me out and I loved it at the same time. I don't even like horror films, but this movie was so good. I can't believe somebody else remembers this. I had Mombi in my nightmares many a time. Her and the Wheelers. It's been so long since I've seen it, so I don't remember everything, but I do remember the look of it was very stylized to a pre World War II era. Tick Tock, the insane assylum, Dorothy's clothes. I wonder if it would hold up if I saw it again today.

I think the hostility comes from the fact that they feel they're being misrepresented. It doesn't mean they're right of course, but as you say, they could make an effort to learn if they wanted. I also guess part of the problem is you can't teach empathy. It reminds me of that one congressman or senator who was staunchly against gay marriage until he found out his own son was gay. I mean, I'm sure he heard the equal rights arguments for gay marriage all of the time, but he wasn't swayed until it effected someone in his own family.

I actually disagree with this cyberfruit. I know I wasn't thinking "You can't say that because you're white." I was thinking "you can't say that because it's so stupid." Period. Nothing to do with her race. I also don't necessarily think someone is racist when they say they don't see color, but you're right, that oftentimes they are and are just trying to find a way to cover themselves when they say prejudiced things. I know I really appreciated Trevor's approach because, like many of you have stated, it really pulled the mask off of her charade. She kept claiming that kneeling was not an appropriate way to protest, but she could not come up with one real way that someone could show their discontent with system without being considered a troublemaker. Sounds like the people who didn't like black students sitting at segregated lunch counters in North Carolina or those who were upset the blacks were trying to integrate schools. I'm sure she doesn't see any of the parallels between her positions and those because those were deemed to be the work of bad people and she doesn't see herself as a bad person. If she was so interested in making things better in this country I would have thought she would have a real way people can work together to improve the system. Trevor to his credit actually did that when he encouraged people to protest the election of Trump, but discouraged them from causing property damage. I also, perhaps somewhat snarkily, want to say that this is what happens when you have a failed school system. I don't know where Tomi went to school. It's possible she was educated in private schools her whole life, but a lot of the arguments she made were things I've heard from other people, even myself over the years. When she said something like "I as a woman did not have rights until after blacks," I'm left frustrated. Besides the logical error that blacks are a somehow a genderless species where distinctions between male and female do not matter, her info is seriously whack. She's using the idea that the 15th Amendment, which granted black men the right to vote, was actually enforced. I guess she forgot about that little system called Jim Crow put in place shortly after Reconstruction. And yet, I'm not surprised. As a millennial, I know a lot of information about slavery, post slavery, and the conditions of black lives is not really addressed in school. It's how you get high school graduates who still ask, "well, why didn't blacks just revolt if they hated slavery so much," and say "we're in Ohio, there was no slavery here, so there can't be any racism." I wish teachers would take the opportunity in American history classes to teach more than, slavery was bad, Rosa Parks sat on a bus and that was great, and this guy MLK was like a saint. It really warps people's understanding of history when they are taught that those positions are universally supported. MLK was super controversial in his day. He didn't just fight segregation in the South, he also fought for low wage workers in the North, and it wasn't just the big bad boogey man racist who was against him; it was people like your grandfather or uncle who didn't want to see political or social systems disrupted. Anyways, this long spiel is to say there needs to be more dialogue if you will. Thanks goodness for a project like Duvernay's 13th Amendment or Michelle Alexander's The New Jim Crow to bring light to how some of these prejudices are carried forward in today's world.

No, more like Dave was shady the whole fricking episode and none of the employees seemed comfortable telling the truth when he was present. When they were out and alone with Marcus, no one trashed Grace. And the relevance of Grace stealing from previous businesses is just a red herring when Dave himself has cast no aspersions towards Grace on this matter. You don't think he would have dropped that bit of info knowing it would help his case against her being an unfit employee? They were clearly two good friends who arrived at an impasse in their relationship. Why it has to be, Grace is a big fat mistress slut who's lying about their relationship is a mystery to me.