Essence beauty director Corynne Corbett discusses make-up brushes.

Beauty editor Marcia Caster talks with Dermatologist Jeanine B. Downie.

R&B DIVAS EN VOGUE ROCKED THE 2011 KANSAS CITY BLACK EXPO IN STYLE. By Wayne Hodges

KANSAS CITY, Mo. – The 2011 KC Black Expo, which lasted from Sept 16 to Sept. 18 at Bartle Hall, was off the chain. For starters, I really enjoyed hosting the awards show on Friday night. For that, I have to send some love to my boy Jerold ‘Action’ Jackson of Magic 107.3 for selecting me as his replacement. Secondly, I want to thank Hot 103 Jamz for their continued support.

KANSAS CITY’S BEST BUSINESS PEOPLE ARE:

Best Doctor: Dr. Harry Lounce

Best Teacher: Wes Moore of Hickman Mills

Best Beautician: Annette Jones of Zafar

Best Restaurant: Peach Tree

Best Personal Trainer: Monique McDaniels

Best Waitress: Anne Atkins

Best Barber: Joey Cuts

Best Nail Tech: Solara Watkins

Best Choir: Concord Mass Choir

Best Dance Team: Concord Mimes

CONGRATULATIONS!!!

After the awards show, fans were entertained by a phenomenal Greek Step Show sandwiched in between a couple hip hop performances by Fly Guy, Blackberry and a couple others. Must admit, the hip hop acts were sort of a contradiction to the type of audience present.

For instance, Fly Guy, who appeared to be 10 years old, yelled “Whup that trick” on stage. It certainly caught me off guard. But, no harm, no foul. Everybody still had a great time.

On Saturday, R&B divas En Vogue ripped up the stage with a stellar live performance. I was present during their sound check. The talented quartet can still rock the vocals with the best of them. En Vogue can sing. Period. End of story. Rap artist and actor Steve Wash, who played a supportive role in Tyler Perry’s ‘Madea’s Big Happy Family,’ threw down as well.

On Sunday, Karen Clark-Sheard, Dawkins & Dawkins, Myron Butler and Cedric Frost sent us home with a spirit-moving Gospel concert.

With African-American unemployment marinating at 16 percent, the Black Expo serves as a perfect example of what’s necessary to combat joblessness: start your own business.

We can’t sit back and wait for the Obama Administration, greedy businessmen or corrupt politicians to create employment opportunities for us. If companies are intent on not hiring us, take a risk and build new commerce. Speaking of Obama, I’m a big supporter of his presidency. And I’ve donated to his campaign.

That said, I’ve had discussions with a few of his supporters recently who claim yours truly is too critical of Obama when it comes to black joblessness. If you think I’m bad, check out what my colleague Yvette Carnell had to say the other day inside the Atlanta Post.

Look, we can speculate all we want. But, until Congress conducts an employment study on hiring practices, we will never know why so many blacks are out of work.

See, African-American unemployment is similar to a broken auto engine. Seriously, I can’t think of a more perfect analogy. When your car breaks down, it’s absolutely normal to give an opinion on what you believe is wrong. You may think it’s the alternator, the battery or even the transmission.

However, until a mechanic observes your vehicle, discovers the problem, renders an invoice and fixes it, your car will remain out of service, regardless of your opinion. Catch my drift?

The Obama Administration is the mechanic. Given the fact we lack the resources of the aforementioned administration, you and I are only qualified to muster an opinion which, in the grand scheme of things, means diddly squat. Moving on…

In all, the Expo was productive. The event featured over 300 hundred vendors. And thousands were reportedly in attendance during a busy three-day weekend. Cards were exchanged. Relationships were formed. And partnerships could evolve.

Next year, however, we’ll need a host or hostess to direct traffic as many were confused as to where to go for certain events. But, otherwise, everything appeared to turn out well. Already looking forward to 2012.

Wayne Hodges, an MBA from St. Mary University, is the Editor-in-Chief of “Mass Appeal News.” He also serves as a business/political columnist with The Atlanta Post, he’s a Democrat reporter for the Examiner, and he’s a movie critic and journalist with ILoveBlackMovies.com. Wayne welcomes your comments 24/7 at whodges@massappealnews.com

LEILA LOPES OF ANGOLA IS CROWNED THE NEW MISS UNIVERSE. Associated Press

SAO PAULO (AP) — Newly crowned Miss Universe Leila Lopes wants to help her native Angola further escape a history of war and impoverishment and said she plans to focus on combating HIV around the globe. Speaking in a timid voice early Tuesday shortly after taking the crown in South America’s largest city, the 25-year-old Lopes said that “as Miss Angola I’ve already done a lot to help my people.”

“I’ve worked with various social causes. I work with poor kids, I work in the fight against HIV. I work to protect the elderly and I have to do everything that my country needs,” she said. “I think now as Miss Universe I will be able to do much more.”

Responding to questions, Lopes said that she has never had cosmetic surgery of any kind and that her three tips for beauty were to get a lot of sleep, use sunblock even when it’s not sunny and to drink lots of water. She said her smile was her best weapon in the competition. Asked about racism in light of the fact that she’s one of the few blacks ever crowned Miss Universe, Lopes said that “any racist needs to seek help.”

“It’s not normal in the 21st century to think in that way.”

Lopes is Angola’s first winner. She beat out 88 other competitors to win the title during the 60th anniversary of the world’s biggest beauty pageant. She replaces last year’s winner, Ximena Navarrete of Mexico. She deftly handled the interview question that is asked of the remaining top five contestants. She was questioned about what physical trait she would change if she could.

“Thank God I’m very satisfied with the way God created me and I wouldn’t change a thing,” Lopes said. “I consider myself a woman endowed with inner beauty. I have acquired many wonderful principles from my family and I intend to follow these for the rest of my life.” The first runner-up was 23-year-old Olesia Stefanko of Ukraine and the second runner-up was Priscila Machado of Brazil. The third was Miss Philippines and the fourth Miss China.

Contestants spent the past three weeks in Sao Paulo, trying to learn samba dance steps, visiting impoverished children and kicking a football around for cameras as the Miss Universe pageant came to Brazil for the first time. Despite battling against a home-country favorite, Lopes won over the audience, speaking in the shared language of Portuguese. Angola, like Brazil, is a former Portuguese colony.

“She captivated the crowd and we were all behind her,” said Brazilian Natalie Bursztyn, 20, who was in the crowd inside Credicard Hall where the event took place. “It was great that the judges also saw what the fans saw and gave her the crown. Her dress was beautiful and she knew exactly what to say when they asked her the question about her looks.”

Another fan in the audience, Carolina Rocha, said Lopes’ win was “well deserved, we were cheering for her all along.”

“Her smile and her friendliness was what set her apart from the others,” Rocha said. “She also answered her question very well. That likely helped her a lot.”

U.S. broadcast journalist Connie Chung was one of the celebrity judges, and said before the competition that she was taking the contest seriously.

“I know my job and I’ll be tough, but fair,” Chung said. “You have to keep in mind that these women are not objects just to be looked at. They’re to be taken seriously. I want to choose somebody I take seriously and the world takes seriously, too.”

Paula Shugart, president of the Miss Universe organization, was hyped-up for the night. “It’s our 60th anniversary, it’s a very big show,” she said. “We’re anticipating close to a billion viewers from around the world.” Shugart said it was fitting the globe’s biggest beauty pageant be held in Brazil at this time, as the nation prepares to host some major events in the coming years.

“I don’t think there is any doubt in the rest of the world’s mind that Brazil is the place, between hosting the Olympics and hosting the World Cup,” she said. “I love the fact we’re going to kick it off. I always say we’re the ‘World Cup’ of beauty.”

The contestants must never have been married or had children and must be at least 18 years of age and under 27 years of age by Feb. 1 of the competition year.

The pageant, hosted by NBC “Today” anchor Natalie Morales and the Bravo network’s Andy Cohen, was broadcast live on NBC and distributed to about 170 countries. The contest is co-owned by Donald Trump and NBC, and the celebrity judges included Chung and two prominent Brazilians, supermodel Isabeli Fontana and Indy race car driver Helio Castroneves.

Morales, who is half Brazilian, said that “what’s most important is for the women to be beautiful inside and out.”

For Cohen, the task of hosting was an easy one.

“It’s a fun job. All I have to do is stand there, smile and scream the names of countries,” he said.

Sharply dressed women and men jostled for chances to have their photos taken with stars on the red carpet. Some traveled from across the globe to support contestants.

There were no headline-grabbing gaffes going into this year’s competition, as opposed to past years, which have seen controversies of various stripes. The show itself went off without a hitch.

Miss USA Alyssa Campanella, from California, failed to end a long losing spell for the U.S. in the competition. An American has not been named Miss Universe since Brook Lee won the title in 1997.

The pageant started as a local bathing suit revue in Long Beach, California, organized by a swimwear company.

Associated Press writer Tales Azzoni contributed to this report.

VH1′S “BASKETBALL WIVES” SETS POOR EXAMPLE FOR YOUNG PEOPLE. By Dr. Boyce Watkins

NEW YORK – This week, after witnessing a television tragedy called “Basketball Wives LA,” Sherri Shepherd weighed in to tweet about how much she hates the show. Ironically, while Shepherd admits that the show is “disgraceful,” she just keeps on watching.  The first night of this “pristine media extravaganza” featured a nasty, weave-pulling fight between Laura Govan and Malaysia Pargo.

Govan’s claim to fame is being former fiance and four-time baby-mama of NBA star Gilbert Arenas.  In case you aren’t aware, most basketball wives have never actually been married to anyone – sort of like saying you graduated from college when you just took a few classes.

“I got physically ill watching Gloria Govan and Malaysia fighting like animals. Resolution via fighting?” Shepherd tweeted.  She had apparently mistaken Laura for her sister Gloria. “How do Uteach young girl 2 have respect & self-esteem, by showing her thru UR actions that you’ll pop someone in the mouth?” she continued.

Even comedian Ricky Smiley noted that the show doesn’t set a good example in the national conversation on bullying.

“Did yall know that bullying is a serious problem in our schools??? And teens love that show!!,” he said on Twitter. “And you wonder why our young ladies in middle and high school think this is how to resolve issues, yea I made jokes as a comic. But notfunny.”

Smiley makes a very good point.

It’s tough for us to say a damn thing to our kids about bullying, when we are the ones turning our televisions to Vh-1.  Shows like this feed into the human fixation on sex and violence, both of which sell better than almost anything.

We love this show for the same reasons that we all break our necks to see the wreckage from a fatal car crash.  The bloodier the crash, the more we need to see it.  This is why Shepherd, like millions of other Americans, can’t change the channel. But perhaps there is a point when we choose to rise above the poison.  It’s not easy, and life is much simpler when we follow the crowd.

I admitted, when I wrote about why I was ditching Lil Wayne and BET, that I love Lil Wayne’s music. In fact, I don’t hate all of Lil Wayne, just the five-percent of him that talks about murdering women, old ladies, other black men and little babies.

The same can be true of Basketball Wives; its OK to admit that we love the drama.  But we must also consider whether or not shows like this are good for our souls or for the souls of our children.

So, like chain smokers who give up cigarettes to protect their kids from side stream smoke, perhaps black America should consider divorcing the Basketball Wives.

But that’s just my two cents.

Dr. Boyce Watkins is a Finance Professor at Syracuse University and founder of the “Your Black World Coalition.” For more information, questions and/or general inquiries, please visit www.YourBlackWorld.com.

SINGLE LADIES EP. 110 “IS THIS THE END?” – Val is more overwhelmed than ever after she receives two shocking surprises. Just when Keisha thought everything about Malcolm had been revealed, she gets dragged further into his murky past. One heartbreaking chapter of April’s life closes, but another promising one opens. Christina’s brutally honest live journal about Val is discovered… by Val.

Ellisha White and others strut their stuff with Thixotix Modeling Troupe.

‘PSYCHOLOGY TODAY’ APOLOGIZES FOR INSULTING BLACK WOMEN. By Dr. Boyce Watkins

NEW YORK – Well, they’ve finally broken down and done what they needed to do last week.  After tremendous public scrutiny, Psychology Today has issued an apology for the shocking article published on their site which claimed that black women are less attractive than women from other races.

The article, written by Satoshi Kanazawa, an Evolutionary Psychologist with the London School of Economics, drew a firestorm of controversy from people around the world.   I was personally outraged by the article, for it is shocking to me that someone would go out of their way to try and “scientifically” insult an entire race of people.

Kaja Perina, Editor-in-Chief of the Magazine, issued this statement:

“Last week, a blog post about race and appearance by Satoshi Kanazawa was published–and promptly removed–from this site. We deeply apologize for the pain and offense that this post caused. Psychology Today’s mission is to inform the public, not to provide a platform for inflammatory and offensive material. Psychology Today does not tolerate racism or prejudice of any sort. The post was not approved by Psychology Today, but we take full responsibility for its publication on our site. We have taken measures to ensure that such an incident does not occur again. Again, we are deeply sorry for the hurt that this post caused.”

Excuse me for sounding unscholarly when I say this, but I have one question for Kaja Perina, Professor Kanazawa and the rest of the Psychology Today staff:

What in the hell is wrong with you?

I remain flabbergasted that an article of this nature could make it to the pages of a magazine which considers itself a credible source of scientific information.  Who was doing the editing on the website?  If there had been no backlash, would this article have remained online?  Also, why did you remain so stoic when the public made it clear that they were highly-upset with the article?

Were you wondering if Professor Kanazawa could actually prove his claims?

In a separate piece, Dr. Scott Barry Kaufman, a Cognitive Scientist out of New York City, made a seemingly harmless, yet subtly troubling statement about the Professor Kanazawa’s research:

“Kanazawa mentions several times that his data on attractiveness are scored “objectively”… [However] the low convergence of ratings finding suggests that in this very large and representative dataset, beauty is mostly in the eye of the beholder. Because raters differ strongly in terms of how they rate… this source of variation needs to be taken into account when testing for average race differences in ratings of attractiveness. Kanazawa does not indicate that he did so.”

I appreciate Dr. Kaufman supporting the cause of black women and men around the world by seeking flaws in the methodology used by Dr. Kanazawa, but there’s one glaring problem:  The man is dead wrong.  What if Professor Kanazawa were the most thorough, competent researcher on the planet and came to these same conclusions?

Would that mean that black women are less attractive than women of other races?  Absolutely not.

There actually was a time when the best researchers in the world had no problem laying out complex and carefully-considered scientific theories and tests to prove that black people are uglier, dumber and more violent than everyone else.

Millions of black mothers (including my own) are presented with a list of charts and tables from so-called educated people to prove beyond any doubt that their children are inferior to white kids.

Black children across America are being put on unnecessary mind-altering drugs at an early age because some “scientist” concluded that they have a behavioral disorder – never mind the fact that black kids are far more likely to receive this arbitrary diagnosis than white children.

Starting long before the radiation experiments that literally left black people with holes in their heads, people of color have regularly found ourselves disrespected, attacked and perpetually damaged by so-called scholars in academia who are not smart enough to know that there is a thin line between academic elitism and institutionalized racism.

So, here’s the bottom line:  Psychology Today should have apologized sooner.

Black men should have been (and some were) on the front lines defending black women when their beauty was assaulted.  The same way that this professor and magazine claimed that black women are less attractive than women of other races, there are other studies saying that black women are too fat, their lips are too big, and their hair is too nappy.

As a result, it’s hard for me to prepare my daughter and God daughters for a world that decided long ago that black women are not as important as everyone else.  To be quite frank, I’m just sick of it.

Psychology Today, thank you for your apology,  but unfortunately, your apology is not accepted.  You should never have allowed this assault on black women to occur in the first place, for it feeds into a broader effort to fundamentally undermine the value and self-esteem of our mothers, daughters, wives, sisters and grandmothers.

Perhaps when it comes to acknowledging the impact that racism has on our perceptions of other human beings, we might take a second and accept the fact that even analysis that appears to be scientific is impacted by the biases of the researcher.

The beauty of black women is simply not up for debate.

Dr. Boyce Watkins is a Finance Professor at Syracuse University and founder of the “Your Black World Coalition.” For more information, questions and/or general inquiries, please visit www.YourBlackWorld.com.

LOOKING STRAIGHT AHEAD TO SPRING FASHION FOR DIVAS & DUDES. By Stacey Mebane

KANSAS CITY, Mo. – It’s so cold in Kansas City. And I’m so tired of looking at gray and black winter clothes, wool blends and ugh…TWEED! Let’s get a jump start on shopping so we can get ready to look cute for all the upcoming spring and summer events. Fashion evolves at such a fast pace. But, due to the economy, designers didn’t have a huge change for winter. However, the spring lineup looks awesome!

The outfit lineup for the Divas: Wide leg (yes, 1970s is in the house) and the wider the better…Okay, I’m going to use the “B” word…Bell Bottoms! They are so hot for this spring and they are going to fly off of the shelves. So get them early. Pair it with an orange shirt because this is the hot, new color for spring.

The military hardware look is hot…look for straps, brass buttons and harnesses. Any type of military detail will work.

Full skirts are the newest rave and it reminds me of June Cleaver. But, it is so hot when you pair it with the right look for your style. This look is flattering on curvier body types. And, a cute tank top or short sleeve t-shirt with a cute scarf is so divalicious!

Pajamas are no longer for sleepovers…MC Hammer is in the house…I love this look…the parachute/hammer/harem pants were so hot for last spring/fall and it is still the rave. The newest twist is pairing it with a fuller top for the full PJ look. The designers are finally catering to all body types…Hallelujah!

Okay dudes, let’s see what’s hot for spring.

Oooohh….we love short shorts! Is this true? Yes, short shorts are the hottest rave!!! Pair them with a t-shirt and sexy boat shoes. Throw on a blazer or polo shirt when you go on a hot date.

Button down shirts with sleeve tabs, vintage light weight leather jackets, sun aged fabrics and vintage prints are great looks for jeans. Dudes are easy because their basics can transition into multiple looks.

The outfit lineup for the Dudes: Basic jeans, button down shirt with abstract prints and fabrics and a blazer.

The Marine life is the new look…wear your sexy longer swimming trunks with a button down short sleeve military style shirt or a tight t-shirt and you are ready to rock and roll!

Stacey Mebane is the fashion editor of Mass Appeal News. She also serves as the entertainment & gossip columnist. She welcomes your comments 24/7 at smebane@massappealnews.com