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How is draya michele a basketball wife
Ex-'Basketball Wives' Star Goes Viral After Latest Instagram Stories
Draya Michele, who is best known for her role on the hit Vh2 reality show Basketball Wives, has gone viral. The posts feature her on a beach in a skimpy bikini. Fans are speculating that the model and businesswoman may have had plastic surgery. But, in the past, she has been accused of getting different types of body modifications.
Draya Michele of ‘Basketball Wives’ | Jon Kopaloff/Getty Images
Draya Michele posted new Instagram Stories
As a model and a social media superstar, Draya Michele isn’t afraid to challenge social and fashion norms. In the recent past, the ex-Basketball Wives star has made some bold fashion choices. Recently, she raised eyebrows when she attended a party thrown by the rapper Drake.
HelloBeautiful reports that the Los Angeles-based Mint Swim owner donned a chain-link, “barely there” skirt which left very little to the imagination. And now, she’s raising eyebrows again.
In her Instagram Stories, Draya reports she’s vacationing in the Maldives. She also revealed a series of sexy bikini shots. She had a newer and more zaftig-looking figure. And this has led many fans to speculate that she’d had a Brazilian Butt Lift, colloquially known as a BBL.
RELATED: ‘Basketball Wives’: Evelyn Lozada Announces Departure, Again
Fans think the ex-‘Basketball Wives’ star has had a Brazilian Butt Lift (BBL)
According to the American Board of Cosmetic Surgery, a Brazilian butt lift (BBL) is “a specialized fat transfer procedure that augments the size and shape of the buttocks without implants. Excess fat is removed from the hips, abdomen, lower back, or thighs with liposuction. A portion of this fat is then strategically injected into the buttocks.”
Draya Michele has much bigger buttocks than she’s had in the recent past. So, fans began speculating that she’d received the popular cosmetic procedure. “Draya has the best work in the industry cuz it’s the most natural-looking,” wrote one fan. “I’m not a fan of going under the knife, but I’ve always felt if you were going to do it, Draya’s body is the blueprint,” wrote another fan.
it’s crazy how draya still be the topic of discussions lmao
— Sean Garrette (@seangarrette) February 18, 2022
RELATED: The New ‘Basketball Wives’ Franchise Will Be in This City
But Draya has denied having surgery in the past
Draya Michele hasn’t recently addressed rumors about her plastic surgery or lack thereof. But the ex-Basketball Wives star has previously denied having certain procedures in the past. In a Twitter post she made back in 2019, Draya said she only got a breast augmentation. She even credited her doctor, Dr. Daniel Kim of Beverly Hills, for the procedure.
For the record. I’ve never had lipo suction, s curve, fat transfer, and Brazilian butt lift…. for any confusion out there. There isn’t a doctor out there that can take credit for anything on me except these boobs and that’s dr david Kim BEVERLY HILLS plastic surgery.
— Draya Michele (@drayamichele) November 18, 2019
“For the record. I’ve never had liposuction, s curve, fat transfer, and Brazilian butt lift…for any confusion out there,” she wrote. “There isn’t a doctor out there that can take credit for anything on me except these boobs and that’s Dr. David Kim BEVERLY HILLS plastic surgery.”
As of this writing, Draya Michele hasn’t commented on her new look on any of her social media platforms. But we will keep you posted, however, if she does indeed address the latest rumors.
RELATED: Is NFL Quarterback Tyrod Taylor Dating ‘Basketball Wives’ Star Draya Michele?
Why Former ‘Basketball Wives’ Star, Draya Michele, Regrets Her Time on the Show
Basketball Wiveshas birthed plenty of stars. One of the standouts of the franchise has been Draya Michele, actress, and successful business owner. She appeared on the first four seasons of the spin-off, Basketball Wives LA.
Draya Michele 2019 | Taylor Hill/WireImage
Since her departure from the show, Michele has expanded her family with her NFL star fiance, has turned her swimsuit line into a million-dollar empire, and has been spending time with the Kardashian-Jenners. She recently revealed in an interview why she quit the show and what her major regrets are.
Draya Michele on ‘Basketball Wives LA’
Michele joined the Basketball Wives LA cast in its inaugural season in 2011. She was quickly ostracized for her background as an exotic dancer and fought off rumors of being a neglectful parent. Her co-stars also viewed her as a “groupie” who went after high profile men, including a past relationship with the singer, Chris Brown.
Despite the drama, Michele stood strong. She established her own clothing brand, Fine A$$ Girls,” which she debuted on the show with a line of t-shirts, hats and hoodie sweatshirts. Fans also watched as Michele branched out into hosting and began taking acting classes.
Source: YouTube
Michele proved that the underdog could rise to the occasion. During the season 1 reunion, she spoke out against her castmates who criticized her all season and made her feel ostracized. By the start of season 2 and thereafter, Michele was on her way to the career she dreamed of.
Draya Michele exits ‘Basketball Wives LA’
Michele began appearing in fewer scenes throughout the 2011 season. She filmed separately, focusing on her business endeavors and a budding relationship with NFL star, Orlando Scandrick. The two were filmed in the early stages of their relationship and appeared happy but things took a turn when Michele’s co-stars alleged that her new man was unfaithful.
A daughter of Michele’s castmate alleged that she and Scandrick dated and their relationship overlapped with him and Michele’s. Michele tried her best to avoid the drama and walked away from escalating conversations but the cast continued to try and make their alleged relationship a storyline.
Michele refused to fall into the trap and ceased all filming with castmates. She announced on her Twitter page that she was done with the show for good. “Won’t catch me arguing with the chicks I made semi-famous any longer,’ she said. They gonna have to carry themselves or fight with each other. ”
In fact, Michele did not film the reunion with the rest of her co-stars. Instead, she pre-recorded her reunion interview with executive producer, Shaunie O’Neal, and the interview was inserted throughout the episode.
Why Draya Michele regrets her participation in ‘Basketball Wives LA’
Looking back on her experience, Michele does not have the best memories of her time on the reality show. She says that her four seasons were filled with silly fights and arguments that she now realizes were detrimental to the perception of African-American women on television.
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A post shared by Draya Michele (@drayamichele)
Source: Instagram
Madame Noire reported about an interview with Justin Sylvester’s, Just the Sip, where Michele admits that although she was able to use the platform to start her successful swimsuit line, Mint Swim, she regrets her participation.
“Basketball Wives has this stereotype of these angry Black women and I feel like more than just Black people watch it. People who aren’t familiar with Black culture take that and they think that is what they are. I feel really, really bad that I was a part of that and contributed to that. Black women, we’re queens. We’re so much more than arguing with each other over stupid stuff. I never want people think I’m this aggressive Black woman because I’m not.”
Madame Noire
She said that shows like Basketball Wives created a precedent for the violent reality television spats we’ve grown accustomed to watching and she no longer wanted to feed into that narrative. Luckily for her, she was able to get out early and expand her business.
In the car, our family always felt a whole new level of closeness, and at times after dinner, my brother and I begged my father to just drive around. On summer evenings, the four of us went to the open-air cinema in the southwest to watch the next installment of Planet of the Apes. We parked the Buick at dusk and got ready for the show. Mom brought out fried chicken and potato chips, and Craig and I happily ate in the back seat, making sure to dry our hands with napkins and not use the upholstery for this purpose.
It wasn't until years later that I realized what the car really meant for my dad. As a child, I could only guess what freedom he feels behind the wheel, what pleasure he gets from the sound of the engine and the harmonious rustle of the tires.
He was in his early thirties when the doctor told him that the strange weakness in his leg was only the beginning of a long and painful journey to complete immobility. One day, due to the inexplicable permeability of the neurons in his spinal cord and brain, he will find that he cannot walk at all. I have no exact dates, but it seems that the Buick appeared in my father's life at the same time as multiple sclerosis. The car became a real outlet for him, although he never said so.
My parents didn't fixate on the diagnosis. It will be decades before a simple Google search turns up a dizzying array of charts, statistics, and medical reports, giving and taking away last hope—although I doubt my father would want to see them. He grew up in a religious family, but he never prayed to God for deliverance, nor would he look for alternative therapies, gurus, or "wrong" genes to blame for the disease. Our family has long developed a practice of blocking bad news: we tried to erase it from memory almost at the time of receipt.
No one knew how long the father was in pain before going to the doctor. I think months or years. He didn't like going to the doctors, and he didn't like to complain. Dad was a man who just took everything that happened to him for granted and kept moving forward.
By the day of my musical debut, he had already begun to limp: his left leg could not keep up with his right. All my memories of my father are associated with this or that manifestation of his disability, although none of us were ready to call it that at that time. All I knew was that my dad moved a little slower than all the other dads. Sometimes I saw him stop in front of a flight of stairs, as if contemplating a maneuver. When we went to the store, my father most often stayed on the bench under the pretext that someone needed to look after the bags.
Sitting in the Buick in a beautiful dress and patent leather shoes, with my hair pulled back in ponytails, for the first time in my life, I experienced a sticky feeling of panic. I was terribly afraid to perform, even though I practiced relentlessly under Robbie's supervision. Craig rode beside him, ready to perform his own play, and he didn't care at all. Moreover, he slept with his mouth open in bliss. That's what Craig is all about. All my life I admire his lightness. By that time, he was already playing in the children's basketball league and, apparently, had trained his nerves.
Father always parked as close to his destination as possible so that he didn't have to walk too far on unsteady legs. We quickly found Roosevelt University and entered its huge hall. Every step we took echoed, and I felt like a real baby.
Huge floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the lawns of Grant Park and the white caps of Lake Michigan. The orderly rows of steel gray chairs slowly filled with frightened children and their bored parents. Ahead, on a high stage, stood two children's pianos - I saw them for the first time in my life. Huge wooden covers of tools stuck up like the wings of black birds.
Robbie paced between the chairs in a cornflower blue dress, like the first beauty of the ball, and checked if all her students were there and if they had captured the notes. When it was time to begin, she shushed the hall for silence.
I don't remember who played and in what order that day. I only know that when it was my turn, I got up from my seat, walked with the best gait to the stage, climbed the stairs and took a place at one of the pianos. I was ready. Despite the fact that I considered Robbie rough and inflexible, I could not help but learn from her demands on the quality of performance. I knew the piece so well that I hardly thought about it during rehearsals, just moving my hands.
The problem showed up the second I put my little fingers on the keys. I was sitting at an excellent instrument, the surface of which was carefully cleaned of dust, and the strings were perfectly stretched. Its eighty-eight keys stretched right and left in perfect black-and-white ribbon.
But I'm not used to perfection. My entire playing experience came from Aunt Robbie's music room, with a dirty flower pot and a modest backyard view. The only instrument I have ever known was her more than imperfect piano, with its gaudy row of yellow keys forever mutilated to the first octave. This is exactly what a piano should have looked like to me: just like my neighborhood, my father, and my life.
I sat under the gaze of dozens of people, staring at the keys - they were all perfect copies of each other. I had no idea where to put my hands. Looking up at the audience and hoping no one noticed my panic, I tried to find support in my mother. But instead I noticed how another familiar figure flew up to me from the first row. Robbie.
Our relationship by that time had already gone wrong, but at the moment of my well-deserved punishment, Robbie appeared next to me almost like an angel. Maybe she realized that for the first time in my life I was shocked by social inequality and I needed help. Or maybe she just wanted to hurry me up.
In any case, without uttering a word, my aunt gently put her finger on up to the first octave and, giving a fleeting smile, left, leaving me alone with the piece.
2
I went to Kindergarten at Bryn Mawr Primary School [37] in the fall of 1969 and immediately began to show off my ability to read and my sophomore brother, whom everyone just adored. The school was a four-story brick building with a playground and was only a couple of blocks from our house on Euclid Avenue. You could get there in two minutes on foot or, if you were Craig, in one minute on a run.
I liked it there and quickly made friends who were as in love with the school as I was. We had a good teacher, Mrs. Burroughs, a petite white woman in her fifties, who seemed to me like an ancient old woman. Large windows overlooked the sunny side, the classroom had a collection of baby dolls and a giant cardboard dollhouse against the back wall.
I could read. All the books about Dick and Jane [38] that appeared at home thanks to my mother's library card, I read holes. So when our first task was flashcard reading, I was, of course, delighted. We began to study the words for color: "red", "blue", "green", "black", "orange", "purple", "white". Mrs. Burroughs interviewed us one at a time, holding a stack of large manila cards [39] . Demonstrating one by one, she asked us to read the words printed in black letters.
I watched little boys and girls fight these cards, winning and losing, and dutifully sat down when they began to stutter. It was supposed to be some kind of phonetic game, but like Spelling bee [40] , it quickly turned into a competition. Children who couldn't get past the "red" experienced real humiliation.
Of course, we are talking about a school on the South Side of Chicago in 1969, where no one had yet thought about children's self-esteem and worldview formation. If you had a head start in the form of home education, then at school you were known as "gifted" and "smart", which only strengthened your self-confidence and deepened the gap between you and everyone else. The brightest kids in my class for many years were Teddy, a Korean-American boy, and Kiaka, an African-American girl. I have always strived to be equal to them.
When it was my turn to read the cards, I stood up and effortlessly recognized red, green, and blue. "Purple" took a second, "orange" was also a tough nut to crack. But when B-E-L-S-Y appeared, my throat seemed to go dry. Lips twisted, unable to form a sound, and dozens of words flashed through my brain, but I could not pull out of them anything even remotely reminiscent of “beee-yyyy”. I almost suffocated, and there was a strange lightness in my knees, as if they could come unfastened and fly away. But before that happened, Mrs. Burroughs ordered me to sit down. It was then that the right word finally came to me in all its complete and simple perfection. White. Be-e-ely-s-th. This is the word "white".
That night, lying in bed with stuffed animals to my head, all I thought about was "white." I recited it in my mind in different ways and scolded myself for being stupid. Shame fell on me with all its weight, and it seemed that I would never be able to shake it off myself. My parents didn't care if I read the words on the cards correctly, but I was itching to succeed. Or maybe I just didn't want to be seen as a failure. I thought the teacher had already marked me as one of those who can't read, or worse, doesn't try at all.
I was obsessed with the penny-sized gold stars that Mrs. Burrows gave Teddy and Kiaku that day. This sign of victory and, perhaps, a sign of greatness distinguished them from the general crowd. Only they were able to read all the cards without hesitation.
The next morning in class, I asked for a second chance. When Mrs. Burroughs refused, cheerfully adding that we kindergartners had something better to do today, I demanded. The poor kids had to watch me go head-to-head with the flower cards a second time, much slower now, pausing between words and taking deep breaths to keep my nerves under control. And it worked! With "black", "orange", "magenta" and especially "white". I yelled "white" almost before I saw the letters on the card.
I like to think that Mrs. Burroughs was impressed with a little black girl who had the guts to stand up for herself. Although I don't know if Teddy and Kiaka noticed it or not. I returned home with my head held high and a gold star on my blouse.
At home I lived in a world of high drama and intrigue, putting on a puppet soap opera. I acted out birth and death, enmity and betrayal, hope and hate, and sometimes even sex. Most of the time between school and dinner, I preferred to spend in the common play area of my room with my brother. I scattered Barbies on the floor and created scenarios that seemed more real to me than life itself. Sometimes even “Soldier Joes” got involved.0037 [41] Craig. I kept all the outfits for Barbie in a small vinyl suitcase with flowers. All the Barbies, the toy soldiers, and even the old letter bricks Mom used to teach us the alphabet had personalities and personal lives.
I seldom joined the neighbors' children at play and even less often invited them to my house. Partly because I was very picky and could not stand it when someone touched my dolls. I saw other people's Barbie girls - as if from horror films. Hair cut to the root, faces painted with markers. In addition, at school, I realized that relationships between children can be a complete nightmare. No matter how pastoral scenes you observed on the playgrounds, behind them was always the tyranny of a strict hierarchy: any company was divided into queens, hooligans and admirers. Of course, I’m not from the timid, but at home I don’t need chaos.
Instead, I preferred to breathe life into a small toy universe. If Craig dared to move at least one cube, I raised a fuss, and sometimes I could charge him with a fist on the back. The dolls and blocks needed me, and I obediently gave them one identity crisis after another. Like any normal deity, I believed that personal growth and development is possible only through suffering.
Meanwhile, outside the bedroom window, real life was going on on Euclid Avenue. Mr. Thompson, a tall African American owner of a three-unit building across the street, was loading his big bass guitar into a Cadillac in the afternoon, preparing for a concert at a jazz club. The Mexican Mendozas family, who lives next door, would drive home in a pickup truck with loads of stepladders after a long day of work painting houses. At the fence they were met by the happy barking of dogs.
Our neighborhood belonged to the middle class of all races. We did not choose friends based on skin color, it is more important who is walking and ready to play. Among my friends was Rachel, whose mother is white with a British accent; red curly Susie; and the Mendozas' granddaughter, when she visited them. A team of motley surnames - Cansopant, Abuasef, Robinson - we were too small to notice how quickly the world around us was changing. In the 1950s, 15 years before my parents moved to the south of the city, this area was white at 96%. By the time I'm about to leave him for college in 1981, he'll be 96% black.
Craig and I grew up at the crossroads of different cultures. Jewish families, immigrant families, white and black families lived on our block. Some thrived and some didn't, but they all mowed their lawns, spent time with their family, and wrote checks to Robbie to teach their children to play the piano.
My family rather belonged to the poor part of the neighborhood: we were one of the few who did not own our own housing. The South Shore had not yet completely leaned towards the model that all neighboring areas already lived on - when wealthier people left the city in search of a better life, local businesses went bankrupt and poverty began to rule the ball - but the tilt was already becoming palpable.
The changes were most felt at school. My second grade turned into a mess of out-of-control kids and flying erasers that I couldn't consider normal. It seems to me that the reason for this was the first teacher, who not only did not know how to control us, but also did not like children at all. I don’t know if the school management was interested in her competence. My classmates took full advantage of the situation, and Mrs. Burroughs continued to have the worst opinion of us. In her eyes, we have become a class of "problem children", although she did not even try to accustom us to order. All they did to us was to serve time in a dreary, dimly lit room on the first floor of the school, where every hour was hellishly long. I sat in desperation at my desk on a sickly green chair - sickening green was the official color 19'70s, learning nothing and waiting for lunch time to go home and eat a sandwich and complain.
When I was a child, if something upset me, I poured out my soul to my mother. She calmly listened to all my complaints about the teacher and from time to time inserted something like “oh my god” or “what are you doing?”. My mother did not indulge my temper, but she took all my problems seriously. Someone else could get away with a phrase like "Just do whatever is required of you." But Mom saw the difference between whining and real suffering.
Without a word to me, my mother went to school and began a process of behind-the-scenes lobbying - in the end, I and a couple of other children with good grades were lured out the door, tested and, about a week later, transferred to a gifted third class on the floor above, which was taught by Smiling and smart teacher, who knows her job very well.
It was a small but momentous step forward. Before, I didn't ask myself what happened to the children who were left with a teacher who couldn't teach. Now, as an adult, I know that they understood from an early age what it is - depreciation and indifference. Their anger was called "unmanageable" and theirs was called "problematic" even though they were simply trying to cope with difficult conditions.
At that moment I was glad that I managed to escape. Many years later, I learned that my brother, naturally quiet and ironic, but also a very direct person, once sought out our former teacher and politely hinted that she should leave her post and get a job as a cashier in a pharmacy.
After a while, my mother began to push me to extracurricular activities so that I could follow my brother's example and start talking more with other children. As I said before, Craig had a knack for pretending that difficult things were easy for him. Cheerful, flexible and fast growing, his brother had already become a budding star on the local basketball team, and his father advised him to compete only with the strongest opponents. Soon he would send Craig alone across town to play with the best basketball players in Chicago, but for now, he was only urging him to challenge the main sports authorities in the area.
Craig took the ball and walked with it across the road to Rosenblum Park, past the Swedish walls and my favorite swings, and then disappeared into the thicket on the side where the basketball court was. It seemed to me that there he was swallowed up by a mystical abyss of drunkards, hooligans and crime bosses, but Craig always objected that nothing of the sort happened there.
Basketball opened all the doors to the world for him. He taught his brother how to strike up a conversation with strangers when he wanted to score a place in the game, to imitate the friendly manner of the sharp, slang speech of rivals who were bigger and faster than him. It got rid of stereotypes about the behavior of adolescents and somewhat confirmed my father's credo: most people are not so bad if you treat them well. Even the shady guys who hung around the corner of the liquor store smiled when they saw Craig walking with me, called his name and asked for a high five.
- How do you know them? I asked suspiciously.
- I don't know. They just know me,” he answered with a shrug.
I was ten when I finally started going out: a decision largely dictated by boredom. It was summer in the yard, the school did not work. Craig and I took the bus every day to Lake Michigan to the city's waterfront camp, but we got home by four with a few more hours of the day to fill. The dolls didn't interest me anymore, and it was almost impossible to be at home without air conditioning, so I began to walk with Craig around the area and get to know the guys I hadn't met at school before.
Across the street from our house was a small residential complex called "Euclid Parkway" with fifteen houses built around a common green area. To me, this place seemed like a car-free paradise full of kids playing softball, jumping clocks, or just sitting on the steps.
But before I could get free entry into the parkway circle of girls my age, I had to take a test as Dee Dee, a student at the local Catholic school. Athletic beauty Dee Dee constantly pouted and rolled her eyes. She often sat on the porch of her house next to a more popular girl named Deneen.
Denin was very friendly, but for some reason Dee Dee didn't like me. As soon as I approached the Euclid Parkway, she began to barely audibly release caustic comments about me, as if I were spoiling everyone's mood with my very appearance.
DeeDee's remarks grew louder every day, and my moral strength dried up. I could keep pretending to be the new kid, the bully victim, I could stop going to the Parkway altogether and just go home to my toys, or I could earn Dee Dee's respect. The last item had an option: fight with DeeDee, beat her in a duel of words or any other form of childish diplomacy, or just shut her up.
One day, when Dee Dee said something again, I attacked her, remembering all my father's hand-to-hand combat lessons. We rolled on the ground, shaking our fists and thrashing the air with our feet, and immediately a close circle of children from the Euclid Parkway formed around us, enthusiastically buzzing with bloodlust. I don’t remember who separated us: Deneen, my brother, or maybe one of my parents, but when it was all over, a reverent silence reigned in the Parkway. I was officially accepted into the district's tribe. Dee Dee and I were unharmed, only covered in mud. We weren't meant to be close friends, but at least I earned her respect.
My father's Buick continued to be our safe haven and window to the world. We went out on summer Sunday evenings for no reason - just because we could. Sometimes we stopped in the southern area, which was called "Pillkin Hill", apparently due to the large number of African American doctors among the residents. It was one of the prettiest and most prosperous corners of the Southside, where the driveways were lined with two cars and the sidewalks were fragrant with flowers.
Dad has always been suspicious of the rich. He disliked arrogant people and had mixed feelings about homeowners in general. Once he and his mother wanted to buy a house near Robbie and drove around the area all day with a real estate agent - but in the end they decided to abandon this venture. I was completely in favor of the move. It seemed to me that if my family occupied all two floors of the house, then it would matter. But my father, always cautious and able to bargain, understood the importance of saving for a rainy day. “We don’t want to be mortgage takers,” he said, explaining how some people fall into the credit trap of spending more than they can afford and end up with a nice house but no chance of debt freedom.
Parents always spoke to us as equals. They didn't lecture, but they encouraged them to ask questions, no matter how naive. Mom and Dad never stopped discussing for the sake of decorum or convenience, and Craig and I, who never missed an opportunity to torture our parents about something we didn’t understand, could continue interrogating for hours. We asked, "Why do people need to go to the toilet?" Or: "Why do you need to work?" And so on, question after question.
One of my early Socratic victories grew out of a very selfish question: "Why do we have eggs for breakfast?" Mom started talking about the benefits of protein, which led to the question of why peanut butter doesn't count as protein, and after a while, to a revision of the menu as a whole. For the next nine years, knowing that I deserved it, I made myself a huge fat jam sandwich with peanut butter for breakfast and did not eat a single boiled egg.
As we get older, we talk more about drugs, sex, life choices, race, inequality and politics. My parents did not expect holiness from us. I remember my father saying that sex can and should be enjoyable. They also never sweetened the bitter truth of life. For example, one day Craig got a new bike and rode it to Lake Michigan along Rainbow Beach [42] , where the water splashed. There he was stopped and accused of theft by a policeman who could not even imagine that a young black guy could honestly get a new bike. (Being an African-American himself, the officer eventually got a thrashing from my mother and apologized.) Parents explained to us that this was unfair, but occurs at every turn. The color of our skin made us vulnerable, and we were constantly on our guard.
Dad's habit of taking us to Pilyulkin Hill was, I think, an inspiration and a chance to show us the fruits of higher education. My parents spent most of their lives on a couple of square miles in Chicago, but they were never wrong about Craig and me. They knew we would live differently.
Before marriage, Mom and Dad attended local colleges, but dropped out long before they graduated. Mom studied at the pedagogical school, but then she decided that it would be better to work as a secretary. At some point, my father simply ran out of money for education, and he joined the army. There was no one in his family to persuade him to continue his studies and there was no one to show by example how his life could have turned out after receiving an education. So he spent two years moving between different military bases. If graduating from college and a career as an artist was once my father's dream, then soon the priorities changed, and he began to transfer money for his younger brother's studies at an architectural university.
Now, in his early thirties, the father is fully focused on saving money for his children. We weren't going to buy a house—and we wouldn't be mortgage lenders barely making ends meet. My father was always very practical - due to limited resources and, probably, time. Now, if he was not driving, he moved with the help of a cane. Before I finish elementary school, the cane will turn into a crutch, and shortly after that, into two crutches. Whatever gnawed at my father from the inside, destroying his muscles and nerve cells, for him it was a personal test, which he overcame silently.
Our family loved modest pleasures. When Craig and I got our report cards, my parents would order pizza from the Italian Fiesta, our favorite place. In hot weather, we would buy ice cream—a pint each of chocolate, pecan cream, and dark cherry—and stretch it out over several days. Every year, when it was time for the Air and Water Show [43] , we would grab everything for a picnic and drive along Lake Michigan to the fenced peninsula where my father's water treatment plant was located. It was one of the few days of the year when the families of employees were allowed to enter the gate and sit on the lawn near the lake, from where they had a view of jet fighters diving over the water, unlike any of the penthouses on Lake Shore Drive [44] .
Every July, Dad took a week off from constantly monitoring the water heaters at the station, and seven of us, along with my aunt and a couple of cousins, climbed into our two-door Buick and drove for several hours across the South Shore to a place called White Cloud [45 ] , Michigan, Dukes Happy Holiday Resort. There was a games room, a glass soda machine, and more importantly, a large outdoor pool. We rented a cabin with a kitchenette and spent our days jumping in and out of the water.
My parents had barbecues, smoked cigarettes and played cards with my aunt, but my father often interrupted to join us children in the pool. He was very handsome, my dad. With muscular arms and chest, long neat mustache. During the long summer days he swam and laughed and tossed us into the air, and his weak legs finally ceased to be a hindrance to him.
The degree of decline is quite difficult to measure, especially when you are in the epicenter. Every September, back at Bryn Mawr, Craig and I noticed fewer and fewer white kids on the playground. Some transferred to a nearby Catholic school, but most left the area. At first it seemed that only white families were leaving, but then this changed. Now everyone who had enough money left the area. Most of the moves were sudden and unexplained. We just noticed a big "For Sale" sign on the Yacker family's lawn or a truck in front of Teddy's house one day and guessed what it meant.
Probably the biggest shock for my mother was when her friend Velma Stewart announced that she and her husband had made the first payment for a house in a place called Forest Park [46] . The Stewarts had two children. They, like us, rented part of the house down Euclid Avenue. Mrs. Stewart's strange sense of humor and loud infectious laugh pleased my mother. They often exchanged recipes and went to visit each other, but they did not gossip, like most other mothers. Mrs. Stewart's son, Donnie, was the same age as Craig and was also fond of sports, which immediately brought them together. Her daughter, Pamela, entered adolescence, and she became uninteresting with me (at that time I was crazy about teenagers). I don't remember much about Mr. Stuart; he drove a truck, delivering goods to various grocers in the city. Also, he, his wife, and their children were the fairest-skinned blacks I've ever met.
I have no idea how they could afford a house. Forest Park, as it turned out, was one of the first fully planned housing estates in suburban America - not just a cluster of houses, but a whole village of thirty thousand people, with shops, churches, schools and parks. Founded in 1948, it has become, in many ways, the epitome of suburban life, with its massive housing developments, model yards, and quotas for the number of black families allowed to live on the same block. During the Stewarts' move, quotas were briefly lifted.
The Stewarts invited us to their place on one of my dad's weekends. We were delighted: such an opportunity to lift the veil of mystery of the legendary suburb. The four of us climbed into the Buick and drove down the freeway out of Chicago. About forty minutes later, we marveled at the view of the sterile shopping center, and then found ourselves among the quiet streets and, following the instructions of Mrs. Stewart, began to turn between identical blocks. Forest Park looked like a city in miniature: modest ranch-style houses with light gray tiles, small saplings of bushes and trees.
– And why live in such a wilderness? his father asked, looking over the dashboard.
I agreed that it was stupid. As far as the eye could see, there was not a single giant oak tree to be seen, much less from my bedroom window. Everything in Forest Park was new and uninhabited. No liquor stores with shabby guys at the entrance. No sirens or car horns. No music coming from someone's kitchen - the windows in all the houses are locked.
Craig had the best day ever, mainly because he played ball outdoors with Donnie Stewart and his new suburban friends. My parents chatted with Mr. and Mrs. Stewart, and I followed Pamela, staring at her hair, fair skin, and teenage jewelry. Then we had lunch together.
In the evening we left the Stewarts and walked at sunset to the roadside where my father had parked the car. Craig was running hard, sweating and barely able to stand on his feet. I was also tired and ready to go home. This place made me nervous. I didn't like the suburbs, though I couldn't quite say why.
Barack Obama presented Robert De Niro, Tom Hanks and Bill Gates with Presidential Medals of Freedom (PHOTO)
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11/23/2016 14:11
This is the highest award for outstanding civilians
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Barack Obama presented the Medal of Freedom for the last time as President of the United States. This is the highest state award for civilians, which is awarded to outstanding figures who have contributed to the development of the country and the maintenance of peace throughout the world.
The President attended the ceremony with his wife, Michelle Obama. The couple tenderly held hands - a non-standard approach for those who are at the head of a large country.
This year, 21 people were awarded at the White House, including actors Tom Hanks, Robert De Niro and Robert Redford, singer Dianne Ross, basketball players Michael Jordan and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and other celebrities.
Robert DeNiro
Tom Hanks
Tom Hanks
Diane Ross
Robert Redford
Michael Jordan
TV presenter Ellen DeGeneres, who was supported from behind by her wife Portia De Rossi, could not hold back her tears at the ceremony. The fact is that Barack Obama delivered a touching speech in her honor.
“How much courage it took Ellen to make the loudest public statement almost twenty years ago (then the TV presenter spoke about her unconventional orientation. - Approx. Ed.) Not only for the LGBT community, but for each of us, it is important to know that who -something just as kind, someone we love and who may turn out to be our colleague or neighbor, can change the general mind. We are closer to each other than we thought. People rarely risk their careers, and she did. She placed the hopes of millions on herself. And paid for it, including in Hollywood. We don’t remember this anymore… Today and every day, she inspires us to be better”
Ellen DeGeneres
Ellen DeGeneres and Robert De Niro
Microsoft founder Bill Gates and his wife Melinda Gates received an award for their philanthropic work—their foundation helps people in the US and around the world improve their lives.
“I’m not a fan of going under the knife, but I’ve always felt if you were going to do it, Draya’s body is the blueprint,” wrote another fan. 
for any confusion out there. There isn’t a doctor out there that can take credit for anything on me except these boobs and that’s dr david Kim BEVERLY HILLS plastic surgery.
She appeared on the first four seasons of the spin-off, Basketball Wives LA.
Fans also watched as Michele branched out into hosting and began taking acting classes.
”
On summer evenings, the four of us went to the open-air cinema in the southwest to watch the next installment of Planet of the Apes. We parked the Buick at dusk and got ready for the show. Mom brought out fried chicken and potato chips, and Craig and I happily ate in the back seat, making sure to dry our hands with napkins and not use the upholstery for this purpose. 
The car became a real outlet for him, although he never said so. 
All my memories of my father are associated with this or that manifestation of his disability, although none of us were ready to call it that at that time. All I knew was that my dad moved a little slower than all the other dads. Sometimes I saw him stop in front of a flight of stairs, as if contemplating a maneuver. When we went to the store, my father most often stayed on the bench under the pretext that someone needed to look after the bags. 
I was ready. Despite the fact that I considered Robbie rough and inflexible, I could not help but learn from her demands on the quality of performance. I knew the piece so well that I hardly thought about it during rehearsals, just moving my hands. 
I had no idea where to put my hands. Looking up at the audience and hoping no one noticed my panic, I tried to find support in my mother. But instead I noticed how another familiar figure flew up to me from the first row. Robbie. 
You could get there in two minutes on foot or, if you were Craig, in one minute on a run. 
It was supposed to be some kind of phonetic game, but like Spelling bee [40] , it quickly turned into a competition. Children who couldn't get past the "red" experienced real humiliation. 
I almost suffocated, and there was a strange lightness in my knees, as if they could come unfastened and fly away. But before that happened, Mrs. Burroughs ordered me to sit down. It was then that the right word finally came to me in all its complete and simple perfection. White. Be-e-ely-s-th. This is the word "white". 
Only they were able to read all the cards without hesitation. 
I scattered Barbies on the floor and created scenarios that seemed more real to me than life itself. Sometimes even “Soldier Joes” got involved.0037 [41] Craig. I kept all the outfits for Barbie in a small vinyl suitcase with flowers. All the Barbies, the toy soldiers, and even the old letter bricks Mom used to teach us the alphabet had personalities and personal lives. 
Among my friends was Rachel, whose mother is white with a British accent; red curly Susie; and the Mendozas' granddaughter, when she visited them. A team of motley surnames - Cansopant, Abuasef, Robinson - we were too small to notice how quickly the world around us was changing. In the 1950s, 15 years before my parents moved to the south of the city, this area was white at 96%. By the time I'm about to leave him for college in 1981, he'll be 96% black. 
She calmly listened to all my complaints about the teacher and from time to time inserted something like “oh my god” or “what are you doing?”. My mother did not indulge my temper, but she took all my problems seriously. Someone else could get away with a phrase like "Just do whatever is required of you." But Mom saw the difference between whining and real suffering. 
It seemed to me that there he was swallowed up by a mystical abyss of drunkards, hooligans and crime bosses, but Craig always objected that nothing of the sort happened there. 
Craig and I took the bus every day to Lake Michigan to the city's waterfront camp, but we got home by four with a few more hours of the day to fill. The dolls didn't interest me anymore, and it was almost impossible to be at home without air conditioning, so I began to walk with Craig around the area and get to know the guys I hadn't met at school before. 
As soon as I approached the Euclid Parkway, she began to barely audibly release caustic comments about me, as if I were spoiling everyone's mood with my very appearance. 
I was officially accepted into the district's tribe. Dee Dee and I were unharmed, only covered in mud. We weren't meant to be close friends, but at least I earned her respect. .jpg)
It seemed to me that if my family occupied all two floors of the house, then it would matter. But my father, always cautious and able to bargain, understood the importance of saving for a rainy day. “We don’t want to be mortgage takers,” he said, explaining how some people fall into the credit trap of spending more than they can afford and end up with a nice house but no chance of debt freedom. 
For the next nine years, knowing that I deserved it, I made myself a huge fat jam sandwich with peanut butter for breakfast and did not eat a single boiled egg. 
My parents spent most of their lives on a couple of square miles in Chicago, but they were never wrong about Craig and me. They knew we would live differently. 
We weren't going to buy a house—and we wouldn't be mortgage lenders barely making ends meet. My father was always very practical - due to limited resources and, probably, time. Now, if he was not driving, he moved with the help of a cane. Before I finish elementary school, the cane will turn into a crutch, and shortly after that, into two crutches. Whatever gnawed at my father from the inside, destroying his muscles and nerve cells, for him it was a personal test, which he overcame silently. 
It was one of the few days of the year when the families of employees were allowed to enter the gate and sit on the lawn near the lake, from where they had a view of jet fighters diving over the water, unlike any of the penthouses on Lake Shore Drive [44] . 
During the long summer days he swam and laughed and tossed us into the air, and his weak legs finally ceased to be a hindrance to him. 
Mrs. Stewart's strange sense of humor and loud infectious laugh pleased my mother. They often exchanged recipes and went to visit each other, but they did not gossip, like most other mothers. Mrs. Stewart's son, Donnie, was the same age as Craig and was also fond of sports, which immediately brought them together. Her daughter, Pamela, entered adolescence, and she became uninteresting with me (at that time I was crazy about teenagers). I don't remember much about Mr. Stuart; he drove a truck, delivering goods to various grocers in the city. Also, he, his wife, and their children were the fairest-skinned blacks I've ever met. 
During the Stewarts' move, quotas were briefly lifted. 
No sirens or car horns. No music coming from someone's kitchen - the windows in all the houses are locked. 
This is the highest state award for civilians, which is awarded to outstanding figures who have contributed to the development of the country and the maintenance of peace throughout the world. 
The fact is that Barack Obama delivered a touching speech in her honor. 
