On this week’s episode of WETV’s Braxton Family Valuesthat aired this past Thursday, March 30, Tamar Braxton-Herbert revealed to her sisters that she suffered a miscarriage.
The episode was about the singer’s attempts to have a second child using IVF treatment. [Watch a clip about it here of Tamar discussing the challenges of IVF with her husband Vince Herbert.]
“You know, I didn’t tell nobody because it was very very new. Well, maybe, like, a week before I went to Atlanta, I found out that I was pregnant,” Tamar told her older sister, Toni Braxton, who erupted in excitement over the news. “Congratulations! You’re pregnant!”
But then Tamar added that she “was” expecting a child to Toni’s shock. It’s a heart wrenching moment when she realizes that her sister lost her baby early in the pregnancy.
“I’m sorry, Tay,” Toni replies after realizing that her sister just told her she suffered a miscarriage. You can catch a teaser here:
You can watch the entire episode on WETV if you are on certain cable networks. Find out HERE!
Tonight, we’ve reached a tipping point in America as several Dallas police officers were killed during a rally to protest recent police shootings. Our thoughts and prayers go out to the family and friends of those men and women who put their lives at risk daily to protect and serve.
Here is a rundown of what sparked the rally followed by solidarity messages from celeb women we’ve featured on the blog:
Within 48 hours, two black men in “concealed weapon license to carry” states exercising their rights to have guns in their pockets were nonetheless shot and killed by police officers. Both killings, one execution style and the other in front of a 4-year old child during a routine traffic stop, has sparked outrage.
Alton Sterling was selling CDs outside of a grocery store in a high crime neighborhood and exercising his Second Amendment rights as an American, carried a weapon to protect himself. Someone reported to the police that Sterling had it out waving at people and after scuffle with the officers who arrived at the scene and eventually took Sterling down, another took out his revolver and emptied a couple of rounds into Sterling’s body before falling off the man’s chest and shooting a few more shots. The store owner and another eyewitness filmed the shootings on their smartphones and circulated it on social media. The outrage has been swift.
That same night, another man, Philando Castile, was driving with his girlfriend Diamond Reynolds and her 4-year old daughter in the backseat when he was pulled over for a busted tail light. Diamond turned on her Facebook Live and shared the incident as it happened with her followers on the social media site. The world was witness to the moments immediately after one officer shot him as he reached into his pocket to pull out his driver’s license as asked to do so by the officer, per Reynold’s account. The officer can be overheard on the video saying “ignorance”.
As with other past police killings of unarmed black men and boys, many parents have been shaken by the incident especially parents of young black boys. In social media, many have expressed fear that when their children grow up, they will be seen as menacing threats simply for being in the skin they were born in and could be the next hashtag.
I know personally, I’ve talked to my kids again as my husband and I do periodically throughout their lives to make sure they are aware what they need to do to escape a possible police encounter alive. My father in law is a retired veteran police detective and my husband’s uncle was a police officer. We fear for the lives of blue and believe Blue Lives Matter as well, but at the same time, we are frightened by the pattern of brutality among some officers.
We checked in on several of the celeb moms we’ve profiled on the blog before and noticed that some of them spoke out about the shootings in social media.
Beyonce, Alicia Keys, Kristen Bell, Olivia Wilde, Kelly Clarkson, Kelly Rowland, Tamera Mowry-Housley, Tia Mowry, Jenna Dewan Tatum, Tamar Braxton, Ellen Pompeo, busy Philipps,Eva Marcille, Phaedra Parks, Rasheeda, Yandy Smith,Toni Braxton, FAntasia, Brandy all shared posts and Kim Kardashian West and Vanessa Simmons rt’d others.
Here is a roundup of their shares, excluding Monica Brown’s who posted an excerpt of Reynold’s graphic video:
Today, news accounts of singer/reality TV star Toni Braxton‘s soon-to-be-released memoir “Unbreak My Heart” is creating debate of a quote over whether God was punishing her for a past abortion by giving her youngest son, Diezel autism.
As the New York Daily Newsreports, inside the book, she explains how 10 years ago she got pregnant while taking the intense acne medication Accutane which has the side effect of causing birth defects in children born to women taking the drug. Braxton, who currently stars with her sisters in the WETV show Braxton Family Values, said she aborted the baby but later added she would’ve ended the pregnancy anyway out of convenience. She was dating at the time her then-boyfriend Keri Lewis who she later married and bore two sons for Diezel Ky and Denim Cole.
“I was suddenly faced with a choice I’d never thought I’d have to make,” she wrote. “Amid my major misgivings about abortion, I eventually made the gut-wrenching decision… In my heart, I believed I had taken a life — an action that I thought God might one day punish me for. … My initial rage was quickly followed by another strong emotion: guilt. I knew I’d taken a life… I believed God’s payback was to give my son autism.”
Some are calling her all sorts of names for what appears to be a horrible thing to say for several reasons, among them (for people of Faith) (1) that it infers that God is not forgiving and is a punishing entity; and (2) that a child with autism is a curse to their parents.
With no judgment on Braxton, it is fair to assume that there are people out there who have thought that struggles to conceive a child or other birth related trauma or problems may have been a punishment from a higher being. As Braxton stated, it is an “odd” admission but she was being open and candid about her beliefs and feelings at that time based on the strict Christian upbringing and her personal faith systems, however flawed it may have been or is perceived as being.
She is being lambasted for saying openly in her book something that many women yesterday, today and tomorrow may say or wonder to themselves, perhaps privately. Let’s not kid ourselves.
Second, she did say later on in the interview and book that she eventually got educated about autism and changed her way of thinking.
People evolve in thought and behavior and reading her words out of context without taking into account that they are part of a growth in understanding is unfair to Braxton.
The only other thing that may be a little bit more off-putting is the fact that she appears to be an anti-vaxxer in that she mentions that her son only began to show signs of having autism after getting a vaccination. Meanwhile, there is a deadly form of measles rampant worldwide from anti-vaxxer offsprings going around contaminating the population.
To help more understand, check out Masters in Special Education’s latest infographic that breaks down simply the history of autism from past to today. Pass it along.
