Three young women faced every daughter’s nightmare when their mother passed away from cancer. Before her passing, her children, Makia Underwood, 32, Zakia Clark, 29, and Tasha Clark, 27, began to wear hats and shirts that read “F— Cancer.” The “C” in “F—” is replaced by a breast cancer awareness ribbon. It was their way of addressing a disease that they watched steal their mother from them. “That’s how we feel,” Zakia Clark told Philly.com. “It took our mom away. It’s a demon. It’s the devil. There are no other words you can use to explain how you feel. You want cancer to get cancer and die.”

Their passionate stance against cancer got them in trouble. Zakia and Tasha were kicked out of King of Prussia Mall for wearing their “F— Cancer” hats last Sunday.

Philly.com reports:

The ladies had just sat down when a security guard approached them and, without a greeting, ordered: “‘Take your hats off.” Zakia took hers off, but Tasha, who once worked at the mall, told the guard she wanted to see something in writing. It was almost as if Tasha were channeling their mother’s strong spirit, Zakia said, and it inspired her to put her own hat back on.

“He said, ‘Since you don’t want to take your hat off, you can leave my mall,” Zakia recalled. “He stood there while we ate and threatened to call the cops.” [...] As the group was escorted to the mall office, Makia called and met up with them. Once they got to the office, the women were met by an Upper Merion Township police officer, who had been called to the mall by security guards.

“The officer said, ‘I find it offensive that you even have that hat that says ‘F— CANCER,’ ” Zakia said. “He said, ‘It’s their mall, they want you out, you have to get out.’ The women were escorted out, and two security cars were waiting for them at their car just to make sure they left, Zakia said.”

When news outlets began looking into the incident, a spokesman for the company that owns King of Prussia Mall, Les Morris, called Zakia to apologize.

He told the People Paper: “Certainly this could have been handled in a much more empathic and sensitive manner. We’re very sorry about her loss and wanted to apologize for the way her party was treated.”

He added: “I do think this is an entirely different situation than a 16-year-old kid with a swear word on his T-shirt cruising the mall. We need to be empathic, sympathetic, and listen and make sure that we’re approaching each situation as it comes up.”

Zakia accepted Morris’ apology and in good faith, the daughters changing a planned protest at the mall entrance into an awareness rally about cancer.

What are your thoughts on the incident, Clutchettes?

Source

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A London soldier was brutally killed in the U.K. last night as part of a harrowing terrorist attack. Lee Rigby, the 25 year-old drummer and father of a 2 year-old, was on active duty when he was reportedly attacked by two assailants at the gate of the Royal Artillery Barracks (location shown above).

The men allegedly hit Rigby with a car before beheading him with meat cleavers and machetes in front of a shellshocked crowd of dozens of civilians.

After the beheading, the attackers shouted “Allahu Akbar” and demanded that passerbys take video of them. In front of the camera, one of the men, holding knives and a meat cleaver with hands soaked in blood, defended the attack, saying: “We swear by Almighty Allah we will never stop fighting you. Your people will never be safe. The only reason we have done this is because Muslims are dying by British soldiers every day.”

It took the police around twenty minutes to arrive. During that time, the attackers walked up and down the street with their bloody weapons as passerbys confronted them. When the police arrived, the assailants rushed at them. The two men were shot and later taken to a hospital for their injuries.

The story of a UK mom who bravely went toward the victim is getting international attention. She is shown in pictures calmly addressing the attackers, who both had weapons in hand. She was acknowledged by British Prime Minister David Cameron.

The gruesome murder was documented on Twitter as passerbys posted the attack in detail as it occurred, with followers reacting in shock and outrage.

The post UK Soldier Killed in Horrifying Terrorist Attack appeared first on Clutch Magazine.

A New York City tour company is drawing ire for promising to stop by the Bronx ghetto as part of their excursion. For $45, Real Bronx Tours took tourists from Manhattan past a housing project, a “pickpocket hangout” according to a tour guide and food-pantry lines. The tour participants, who are mainly European, were encouraged to take in the sights of the South Bronx that became known for “drugs, gangs, crime and murders” in the ’70s and ’80s “from a safe distance.”

Bronx President Ruben Diaz Jr. and City Councilwoman Melissa Mark-Viverito were outraged by the tour and sent an open letter to Real Bronx Tours owner, Michael Myers, reflecting their sentiments:

“We strongly urge you to stop profiting off of a tour that misrepresents the Bronx as a haven for poverty and crime, while mocking everything from our landmarks to the less fortunate members of our community who are availing themselves of food assistance programs.”

Following the letter, Real Bronx Tours issued a statement ceasing all tours to the Bronx ghetto. They have sparked a discussion in the community about the negative portrayal of the borough and how to combat it.

Elena Martinez, an anthropologist and Bronx resident, tours the same neighborhood but instead, chooses to focus on the borough’s “incredible, majestic music culture” including theaters and clubs that birthed salsa. She calls The Bronx “the incubator for hip-hop, salsa, jazz, Afro-Cuban music, R&B.”

She along with other residents will meet tomorrow to start “Bronx Rising,” a campaign to reverse the negative image of their borough projected by companies like Real Bronx Tours.

Source

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For me it happened in late 2010. I was a busy grad student working as a waitress and a customer service representative. I was nearing my final semester of grad school and I was over extended with bills, life, my sons and basically everything. I was also in counseling trying to sort things out when out of the blue, one fateful weekend, my car was taken away for not being registered properly and I lost not one, but BOTH of my jobs.

I couldn’t believe it. I scrambled to find a new job and figure out how I would make it to finish up my final internship before graduation. Just 2 weeks into my Counseling internship I was so stressed from taking buses between cities to get to campus and my internship site, not eating and going crazy over my overdue bills that I decided to simply — let go. I withdrew from my final semester at grad school and went home to figure out what to do next.

Why was my life taking such an ugly turn? What could I do to get back on top? How could I work so hard and so long to only to lose it all? My biggest fear of all was becoming a complete failure. I cringed at the thought of becoming homeless, sitting on the curb clutching a beer can and asking for spare change from strangers. Who could recover from that?

I had no clue how to stop that from happening so the thought paralyzed me daily. Since I didn’t know what to do, I did the next logical thing; I did what I loved doing most. I started a blog out of frustration and I decided to share with other women how to overcome life’s inconsistencies. I felt like a complete idiot doing this while I was going through such a rough patch but the focus on this goal soothed my soul as I looked for a job and sought answers for my own life.

Then one day it hit me. If I am truly going to teach how to be an overcomer, I need to learn how to be an overcomer in the most difficult situation. I decided to face my own fear of extreme failure by doing the unthinkable and turning it into a project to inspire women. I called this project The Rebuild Your Life Project.

With trembling fingers I wrote a letter to announce what I planned to do: I will become homeless on purpose to overcome my fear of failure and teach women how to survive losing everything.

After I sent it to my friends and family, I knew I couldn’t back down. I spoke to my sons, who were living with their father while I was in school, and told them about The Rebuild Your Life Project. My sons were shocked but ultimately supportive and so was the rest of my family. Although I had transformed a very real and dire situation into something that would benefit other women IF I survived it, it didn’t ease my fears about HOW I would survive.

As the countdown to the project began I floated through my preparations for letting go. I gave away everything that I owned, everything that meant anything to me as a way of taking control over the situation. Instead of allowing life to happen to me, instead of sitting by powerlessly as my life took a turn for the worst, I took the reigns and faced misfortune head on.

No, I didn’t fight for what was lost, desperately trying to hold on to a life that wasn’t trying to hold on to me. I dared to revamp my dream and take a new and unknown direction armed with nothing but a small bag of items and a digital camera to film it all.

On April 11, 2011, I walked out of my apartment and onto the streets where I lived with homeless people for 4 months, learning about their habits, mentality and survival skills, raising money for a rental assistance grant that I gave away and organizing and executing a job fair for homeless women. As I write this it seems like I was some kind of superwoman but going through that process broke me down and changed the way I view the world and myself.

Today I’m different. I don’t socialize as much. I’m more detached from people and things. I am no longer afraid of loss. I am no longer afraid to start over. I no longer believe in the devastating situations in life being permanent. I know what it’s like to be viewed as less than human because I don’t have a home. I know what it’s like to feel the sting of complete failure.

I also know that no matter what, no one can scare me into believing they hold the key to my future. If I don’t want to be in a situation, I won’t be in it regardless of any threats of loss and doom being thrown my way.

I’m not afraid to fail anymore because I survived it once and I now have the skills to survive it again if it ever happened. Honestly, that type of fearlessness has moved mountains for me. I turned my problem into a project and I navigated my way through it. This is the baseline of every issue I will face from now on. This is the blueprint to understanding myself and realizing my dreams with no fear. No fear.

This post originally appeared on XOJane. Republished with permission. Click here for more Te-Erika Patterson on XOJane!

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A family in Fulton County, Georgia isn’t as fortunate. A two-year-old child, identified as Beau Rutledge, was mauled to death by his family’s pit bull Wednesday afternoon.

Police and animal control authorities told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution Rutledge was in his townhome with his mother when the attack occurred. The dog attacked Rutledge when his mother went to the restroom.

“She advised it happened fast,” Fulton County Detective Melissa Parker said. “It was an obvious death once the mother came out of the restroom.”

One of the neighbors, Joseph Messam, heard the child’s mother screaming.

“The dog killed the baby! The dog killed the baby.’ That’s what I heard her say,” Messam told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

The family owned the dog for eight years and obviously felt safe enough to leave the child in the pit’s presence. Pet safety is imperative when there are children present in the home. It is literally a matter of life-and-death.

The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) offers several general rules for families interested in owning pets, specifically dogs:

• Teach your child to read your pet’s body language and identify signs that your pet wants to be left alone. More information is provided in the ASPCA’s “Reading Canine Body Postures” guidelines.

• Teach your child how to protect himself from an overexcited pet by demonstrating the basics of dog bite prevention, such as rolling into a ball, protecting hands and face and calling for help, rather than running or screaming if he’s chased by a dog.

• Teach your dog to respond to the word “Stop” and encourage your child to practice using that word when appropriate.

• Don’t let your child’s friends bring their pets into your home without adult supervision.

• Teach your child to leave your pet alone when she retreats to a bed or crate that you’ve designated as a pet’s “safe spot.”

Chime in Clutchettes. What other pet safety tips would you offer?

The post Animal House: Pet Safety Tips for Kids appeared first on Clutch Magazine.

10 Reasons We Love Rihanna
It’ not easy being the number-one pop star in the world, but you couldn’t tell it by checking Rihanna’s Instagram photos. All at once, she the independent, bold, brash, vulnerable, saucy businesswoman and megastar that she claims to be…and we’re not mad at her. Unapologetic? Indeed. (Continue Reading @ C+C…)

5 Effortless Tips To Flawless Brows
They say you can get away with murder if your brows are amazing. Not only do your eyebrows control the shape of your face, they also tend to be the first thing people pay attention to when they look at your face. In case you’re wondering, you don’t have the skills of Sam Fine or Damone Roberts to have phenomenal brows. It’s easier than you think. All you need is the right tools and these 5 tips will get you – and your brows where they need to be. (Continue Reading @ C+C…)

For the Love of Braids
One of the ultimate aesthetic expressions for women of African descent has got to be braids. The hair style spans back to ancient Africa, and is so culturally significant that the technique was used to communicate. Various ethnic groups throughout Africa used braids to signify their martial standing, or if they were expecting a child.(Continue Reading @ C+C…)

• Spin Style: 5 Fashionable Female DJs
• 10 Looks To Try This Summer
• Tracy Reese Designs For Anthropologie Again

The post Today @ COCO & CREME – Fashion & Beauty Our Way appeared first on Clutch Magazine.

Wayne Simmonds (File Photo)

From The Grio – By now you’ve heard the comment. A noted PGA Tour veteran made an off-color joke about Tiger Woods, referencing fried chicken. After the incident, and the subsequent backlash, the professional backtracked, said he meant the comments in jest, and claimed there was no racist intent. The golf and national media examined the golfer’s comments and motives, and Woods – almost begrudgingly – accepted the golfer’s apology.

The incident I’m referring to happened in 1997, when Fuzzy Zoeller’s poor attempt at a joke led him to say that Woods would serve fried chicken and collard greens at the annual Masters dinner. Sadly, the description also applies to an incident that happened on Tuesday – more than 16 years after Zoeller’s racist comments – when Sergio Garcia cracked that he would serve Woods fried chicken if he had him over for dinner.

These two racist moments – so far apart in timing yet so similar in meaning and context – showcase just how little progress has been made in changing racist perceptions in sports.

Thursday, George O’Grady seemed to make the Garcia episode worse by claiming that most of the golfer’s friends are “colored athletes in the United States.” The Tour has accepted Garcia’s apology.

Other sports are guilty, too

These stereotypes exist in sports such as hockey. The number of black players competing in the National Hockey League is small, but the number of racist incidents seems to grow each season. Philadelphia Flyers winger Wayne Simmonds is often the victim of the more heinous acts.

In a 2011 preseason game in Ontario, Canada, a fan threw a banana onto the ice as Simmonds was attempting a shot during a shootout. NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman went out of his way to say that the act was done by one individual and was not representative of Ontario or the millions of other hockey fans.

Yet just sixth months later, Washington Capitals winger Joel Ward scored the game-winning goal in the 2012 Stanley Cup first round playoffs against the Boston Bruins. He didn’t get much congratulations for his performance. Instead he was peppered with racial insults and threats by angry Bruins fans on social media.

And while we’ve made such little progress in the States, overseas the racism towards black players is even more horrifying. Simmonds now plays in the Czech Republic, and in his third game with new team Liberac, he was subject to “monkey” chants by the opposing team’s fans.

Hockey is considered tame in comparison to the national racism that goes on in soccer. Garcia’s comments rightfully dominated the American news cycle this week, but an underreported story happened on Monday, where several top Italian teams are being fined for their fans racist chants at black players. When the vice president of the team that a star black player plays for is making public racist comments, I think it’s safe to say that the sport has a racism problem.

(Continue Reading @ The Grio…)

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Ratchet Definition via Tumblr

Trying to explain what “ratchet” means to a group of non-black friends (bi-racial, Indian, and Filipino to be exact) was more difficult than carrying two cups of water through the desert without drinking any. It was like talking to a brick wall. They were convinced that being ratchet is a mix of “charisma, not caring about what people think of you, and having an I don’t give a fu*k attitude,” in their exact words.

Ratchet is such a common word it can be used to describe just about anything:

You have a cart full of groceries, yet you’re in the express 15-item line… #ratchet

You get into an argument with someone at a red light because they didn’t let you over… #ratchet

You’re late to the morning meeting at work and you come in and decide to finish eating your homemade breakfast from a tupperware container… #ratchet

You see ratchet can be just about anything. However the label mainly falls on a black women who are boisterous, obscene, or easily volatile. One quick internet search of the term ratchet will reveal a slew of self-made videos, pictures, and comments about or geared towards mainly black women. The problem is the ever-growing trend of being ratchet is not only acceptable but it’s glamorized. It’s safe to say the term derived from the desensitizing and entertainment programming of girl-fighting, bottle tossing, hair pulling, verbally abusing, and global humiliation that is reality TV. Not everyone thinks or associates all black women with being ratchet…but the reality is globally this is how we are seen through the lens of reality TV and worldwide viral videos.

The term “ratchet” as comical of a word as it is, is so closely associated with black women that it can potentially taint the perspective of a man’s interest in dating a black women and skew her image in society overall. After countless examples of how the term ratchet is a huge detriment to black women, I kindly informed my group of diverse friends that calling me ratchet is the equivalent of calling me “ghetto.”

By the time the conversation ended, we all came to the conclusion that on the surface ratchet is the new word for “ghetto” and beyond the surface ratchet is nothing more than the new public display of people willing to subject themselves to coonery.

The post The Ever Growing Trend of Accepting and Glamorizing Being Ratchet appeared first on Clutch Magazine.

Thanks to the efforts of 18-year NASA veteran Homer Hickam, now an author whose  famous memoir “Rocket Boys,” later adapted into the film “October Sky,”  Kiera Wilmot and her twin sister are now heading to space camp!

From ABCNews:

The explosion struck a chord with 18-year NASA veteran Homer Hickam, a former lead astronaut training manager for Spacelab, and later for the International Space Station.

In the late 1950s, Hickam had a brush with law enforcement for allegedly starting a forest fire. State police came to his high school and led him and his friends away in handcuffs, but his high school physics professor and school principal came to the rescue, clearing him of wrongdoing.

Back then, schools did not have zero tolerance rules. Kids could make their mistakes without the threat of a criminal record, or serving time in jail.

“I couldn’t let this go without doing something,” Hickam said. “I’m not a lawyer, but I could give her something that would encourage her. I’ve worked closely with the U.S. Space Academy, and so I purchased a scholarship for her.”

Learning of her twin sister, Hickam raised enough money so Kiera and Kayla could attend space camp together. Hickam runs several scholarships for kids with potential, and hopes to create an ongoing Space Academy scholarship. The twins will attend in July.

“I’m really excited about going,” Kiera said. “Especially the zero gravity tank, I’ve always wanted to do that.”

“You’re not just sitting in a classroom hearing about it, you’re on the floor, in spacecraft simulators, experiencing zero gravity,” Hickam said. “They run through real space missions, like voyages to the moon or Mars, where they are given problems they must solve.”

The post Cleared of Charges of Setting Off a School Explosion, Florida Honor Student Heads to Space Camp appeared first on Clutch Magazine.