Cultivating black love, now more than ever, is essential to the survival of our culture. Black love is not limited to relationships but also self love. Once we are able to develop a genuine relationship with self we are then able to have healthy and sustainable relationships that lead to lasting marriages. The norm, today, has become toxic relationships where hurt people are hurting people. Not purposely but because they haven't healed or brought baggage from past relationships into new ones. Outlets such as social media, music, movies and reality tv shows are all highlighting black love in ways that are influential. Reality tv host, radio personality/host and now relationship consultant Thomas "Nephew Tommy" Miles expressed that, growing up, all he saw was love. His parents were married until his father passed away. Watching his father love his mother and navigate through life together over the years influenced him to build that type of love with his own wife. He said that his father taught him that you stay in it forever. His exact words " the book says unto death do you part so that means if you want to leave; you have to lay down!" He expressed to me that he wanted to change the narrative and step in as a big brother in order to help others have successful love.
When the opportunity to host the reality tv show Ready To Love on the OWN network came about four years ago, Tommy actually thought that he was being pranked by producer Will Packer. He shared that they had been conversing for a while about possible opportunities that would allow them to work together but busy schedules and business prolonged them from making things happen. He recalled the day that he received the call and shared that he simply fell to his knees and began to cry because he was just so thankful for the opportunity. We all know that Nephew Tommy is no rookie when it comes to maintaining the attention from an audience because of his raw and uncut personality. His ability to gain respect from those he influences has been seen from his prank calls, comedy shows, television and radio shows, and the big screen. Tommy shared with me that being able to help others break through the raw and uncut truth concerning self and relationships fuels him and allows him to give back. Ready To Love has been rated the number one African American show on Friday nights.
Tommy recently released a new video on Youtube titled " An America Without Black People" peeking over 4k views already. I asked what his thoughts were behind this inspirational piece and instantly his face lit up with a huge smile. He shared with me that he just needed to evoke passion within the community and awareness to the world that you cannot love our culture but not our people. The idea came to him after witnessing, with the rest of the world, the deaths of Rayshard Brooks, Daniel Prude, George Floyd, Breona Taylor and countless others. He said that watching the way African Americans have and still are treated made him think about how things would be if you took away everything we have added to America. His exact words " if you take away everything we've added, all the things they stole from our culture and the influences we've added; there would be no America at all. Tommy shared with me that he has a lot of great things in store for himself and for others. You can catch him in action Friday 2 April 2021 when the new season on Ready To Love airs.
-Cyn The Great