Facebook Watch recently premiered a new series online featuring Jada Pinkett Smith, her mother, Adrienne Banfield-Norris, and her 17-year-old daughter, Willow Smith. “Red Table Talk” is like a 21st-century version of an advice column, except that the advice is more a discussion/pondering of the issues as opposed to offering a fixed solution. With three distinct generations of women talking about a variety of subjects, it has become a “must-watch” on Facebook.
In the premiere episode, Jada sits down and has a candid conversation with Will Smith’s first wife, Sheree Fletcher. It was a timely conversation as they discuss how to raise a child in a comfortable environment when the parents are divorced and remarried. It also talked about the boundaries that the new person needs to take in regard to the relationship that occurred prior to the current spouse becoming involved.
For a lot of women, that is a conversation they must address when their baby’s father takes on a new relationship with another person. Or when they become the new person in a relationship and the man has a prior relationship. No matter the scenario, the new person has boundaries they need to set in terms of prior relationships, especially when it involves children.
This is truly a conversation the black community needs. With a majority of our children being born out of wedlock, it needs to be a constant conversation. Sadly, I’ve been privy to watching the Facebook fights between young girls about how they won’t let their children go off with daddy because of the new woman. Having a child with someone does not give the mother the right to hold the child back from their father. Using the chalice of pain has become far too common. The only one who gets hurt is the child. So it was good to see a conversation about the well-being of the child superceding the pettiness of the adults.
The ladies of “Red Table Talk” have gone on to discuss a variety of subjects that are most interesting. How many of us have fallen out with somebody years back, and can’t even recall the reason? That is what happened between Jada Pinkett Smith and actress Gabrielle Union. So to see two very wealthy women sit down and let bygones be bygones without profanity and discuss the issue, helps invalidate the stereotype of black women perpetuated by programs like The Real Housewives of Atlanta, which seems to say no matter how much money you have in your bank account, ignorance will be at the forefront of behavior.
The online show has been renewed for another 13 episodes. I can’t wait to watch those discussions. I hope you take the opportunity to watch them as well. Then see if their discussion leads to some red-table-talk discussions in your own family.
