Tameka speaks out about Usher's "Papers"

Tameka blames y'all for her breakup

Usher's soon-to-be-ex-wife opened up to Upscale Magazine about the role outside forces played in the failure of her marriage to the R&B star:

“...I understand where all the negativity comes from. Unfortunately I think that some black women are – subconsciously – not in love with the image they see in the mirror. Therefore in turn they do not love someone like me. I look too much like them. They would definitely have preferred my husband marry someone more exotic looking. Instead of saying 'wow, she looks like me. She’s living a fairytale' - they criticize...Yes it played a factor. I was not given a fair shot. People passed judgment without getting to know me. How can you get the entire concept of who I am from a blog?"

Her full interview appears in the September/October 2009 issue of the magazine.

Tameka maintains she is innocent

Tameka Foster Raymond took to Global Grind to maintain her innocence against charges she plagiarized last week's article on the plight of dark-skinned Black women in America. I found it interesting she took to Global Grind to blog her defense when the original article was published on Huffingtonpost.com. Huffinton Post has declined to release a statement until further investigation into the charges. My guess is they wouldn't have her back.

I shared my personal story as a dark skinned woman in
America, an experience that parallels millions of other Black women.
Regrettably, this other author has no copyright (or patent) on the Black female
experience. While I’m delighted to discover there is a new book with a similar
theme available I only wish the author would have embraced our commonality as
sisters in this struggle rather than opt for such a defamatory public recourse
via a disreputable gossip writer. Approach is everything. Plagiarism is a
serious implication that I’m extremely disheartened and insulted by. If this
author can produce the same references in her book that I made to Alek Wek, poet
Khalil Gibran, an experience in Brazil, disparaging public comments surrounding
living as a “dark skinned” woman as well as scrutiny regarding her marriage to
an R&B singer then perhaps she should seek legal counsel to handle this
matter with the proper protocol.
Lastly I want to express my sincere
gratitude to Maya Angelou, Toni Morrison, Alex Haley, Susan Taylor, Khalil
Gibran, Langston Hughes, Frederick Douglass and Zora Neale Hurston, just a few
renowned authors who have touched on this similar subject and who I have indeed
read and been inspired by.