I Am So Over It - Reality TV Hoes

Honestly, I've rewritten this first line 6 times.  I tried to think of a nice bloggery/journalistic way to say this: "I am so sick of scandalous hoes being on tv acting like there is nothing wrong with being a mistress."  That is what I really want to say and I couldn't think of a nice way to say it.  (But I did try.)  Now, before you take to the comments button to say that my thoughts are clouded by my own experiences, let me save you the trouble.  Dating/sleeping with/flirting with married men has NEVER been acceptable.  Period.  The troubles I face in my own marriage only reinforce my beliefs in that area.  Are we clear?   Good.

Now, yesterday Rielle Hunter (also known as John Edward's jump off) was on The View.  One of the quotes that have been floating around shows her saying, "I'm not a mistress, I'm a mom."  Umm, wait a second.  You are a mom AND a mistress.  And honestly, I question your ability to be a good mom if you see nothing wrong with being a mistress.  Yep, I said it.  I'll say it again.  I seriously question your ability to be a good mom if you see nothing wrong with being a mistress.  See, there is a difference in admitting that "damn, I got caught up and made a mistake but let me distance myself from this mistake and think about the lessons I am going to teach my child."  If that was her mentality, then she could say "I WAS a mistress, but not anymore.  Now I am a mom."  But for her to say that there is nothing wrong with what she did is crap.  What will RH say to her child if she grows up and "falls" for a married man?  Will she say "don't do that because it is wrong and leads to a world of other issues?"  Or will RH say "Go 'head baby! It's a lucrative business plan?"

Now before the mistresses call up their leader (I am waving - hey, girl!) and decide to protest outside my home, let me state the obvious:  John Edwards was wrong - even more so than RH.  But what hoes/jump offs/mistress/side chicks fail to understand is that there is enough wrongness to share.  The adulturer and the mistress are both WRONG.  There is no way to spin it.  No way to justify it.  It is wrong. 

And just when you thought wrongness couldn't get any worse, there was a preview of a new reality tv show that chronicles the lives of mistresses.  WTF?  Really?  Have we really sunk this low?  Beyond the wrongness of being a mistress, beyond the wretchedness of this type of reality tv, I want to sit them all down with a series of womanists and have them learn their worth.  They are worth so much more than this.  What is really sad is that this women don't seem to know their own value.

I want them to sit down with Tracey Lewis-Giggetts and read her trilogy and learn about generational curses and how to break them.  I want them to read Deals with the Devil and Other Reasons to Riot by Pearl Cleage.  I want them to listen to Jill Scott's Light of the Sun.  Turn up "Womanifesto" and "Hear My Call."  (I promise you that God listens to you as you sing along.)  Dust off that old India Arie CD and get it together.  Turn on Oprah, or read Demetria Lucas.  Honestly, google all of the links and really being to minister to yourself.  I want the women to be better.

As I wrote this blog, I got to the root of why this type of behavior makes me so angry.  Beyond the obvious reasons - I'm am a wife who's marriage has been plagued by infidelity - I am angry because it diminishes us all as a gender.  I know that is a bit "pollyanna" of me.  Their actions put women down.  It reinforces the idea that we are "all" trifling, low-down, lack sisterhood, can't be trusted, are messy.  How many times have you heard a woman say "I don't hang with other women becaause they are trifling?"  And that is sad.  Women should be able to come together for strength, to replenish their spirits, to plan.  Can't we do better?