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Friday's Show, Nov 12th

Friday's show starts with Towanda on the phone with Andre. They are talking about Sommer and then T asks Andre what is the most racist statement you can make? And he immediately replied, “I have black friends.” She says, “that’s right.”
Sommer in confessional saying she doesn’t understand why T is so mad, she doesn’t know what she said to tick her off.
Iyanla calls Towanda and tells her that her assignment for the day is to hide something from Josie today and then to see how she reacts. So Towanda hides Josie’s wallet and then the car keys. Josie is supposed to meet Rhonda at a café. Josie is looking for her wallet and Kim and T are helping. She gets frustrated but she doesn’t blow. Kim says that she will just give her some money so she won’t be late and then they will look for it when she gets back. So Josie goes out to the van and sees that the keys are not in it and heads back to the house. T walks down the hallway and tells her that she found her wallet for her and then Josie is saying that the keys are gone. So they start looking for them. Josie doesn’t blow but the girl has a potty mouth. Turns out the house has a brand new van and Josie is the first to drive it. T “finds” the keys and Josie leaves. Josie is at the café waiting for Rhonda and Rhonda calls and says that she is running late. Josie turns around and there is a tow truck getting ready to drive away with the van. Josie begs him not to take the van and she is crying and of course he backs down. She cried and cussed but didn’t blow. Rhonda calls and says she can’t make it and will see her later. Josie says she better cause she has stuff to tell her. Then the guy in the chicken suit shows up and he starts bugging Josie and he has a basket with eggs in and he “accidently” dumps these raw eggs at Josie’s feet. Then as she is getting in the van, he comes around and gives her a hug. She is laughing and as she drives off she is yelling in the van, “I can’t believe this day, it is like everyone is out to get me” But she never blew a gasket. When she gets home, Rhonda meets with her and tells her that it was all a set up. Josie laughs and Rhonda says that she wants to consciously think about how she chooses to react to situations and to know that how she reacts does affect Chloe. So later that day she went to a parent support group meeting. She goes to the group and they ask her how does Chloe push her buttons and she says that sometimes when she wants Chloe to go to bed and she won’t that she gets really upset and yells. The other parents there give her supporting feedback and Josie says that she got a lot out of it.
Group meeting- Rhonda asks Sommer how her date went and Sommer said it went very well and she had a good time. Rhonda says she can’t wait to hear how much fun the hg’s had picking her date. They are all sitting there so somber. Kim starts and says she liked Howard but that he was 39 and thought that might be too old so she went with Chris. Josie says that she liked Howard because even though he was older he was much more sensitive and that he looked a lot like Marcus. Towanda says that she liked Chris and Howard both too. Rhonda says, “than how did you decide Chris in the end if you liked them both?” (oh boy, here we go!) And they say that Jennifer told them that she had a conversation with Sommer and that she would want to go out with Chris and not Howard. Rhonda turns to Jennifer and Jennifer tells Sommer, “you take it from here because I do not want to be in the middle of this.” Sommer starts to talk and Towanda jumps in and says, “It was because Howard was black.” Sommer in voice over saying, “I’m really thinking that I didn’t do anything more than state a preference and I am not understanding why anybody is upset with me over that.” Sommer says in group that she was just saying that if she gets a choice that she would prefer to go out with a white man since that is probably who she would be dating in the future.” Rhonda asked Towanda how that made her feel. T responded, “pi$$ed off. Because if she felt that way, why didn’t she think it was okay to share that with everyone instead of making it into a secret. And that made it seem racial to me which is prejudice.” Sommer said that she didn’t say it as a secret, but just stating a preference.” T tells her that she could have taken 30 seconds and come to her and told her, but she didn’t. It may not have been a big deal to you but it is to me. You have stated that you think black men are possessive and have greasy hair.” Sommer says that she is surprised that she stated that out loud but it is true. She doesn’t like the feel of back men’s hair. But she still thinks this is just a preference and not being prejudiced.” Towanda says that there is a difference between being racist and prejudiced. Prejudice is being judgemental and T says that she was surprised that Sommer would judge someone like that when she knows what it is like to be judged from being fat. Sommer responds that she understands and that she realizes that she has been judgemental in the past and she was working on that. Rhonda asks Sommer if she heard what T was saying when she compared the two. And Sommer says yes and T says then why not come to the source of it, me in the house? Sommer is crying and she tells T that when she arrived at the house T had told her that she just says things and they come out of her mouth with out thinking and that is why she specifically did not go to T because she knew that it would come out wrong and she has already been through that with T. She is shaking her head yes at her. Sommer in confessional saying that she is realizing that she has these issues that she didn’t even know she had. Rhonda tells the women that they have brought up hard issues into the open and talked about them and that is the first step in healing and she is proud of them. She then tells T that she doesn’t want her to feel all the burden of the race issue. T in confessional saying that she has dealt with racism and prejudice every day of her life. Later in the show T explains to Kim the Dim that racism is feeling that your race is superior to all other races. Prejudice is judging someone by the color of their skin. She feels that Sommer is prejudiced. Kim says that she hopes T will help Sommer with this and T shakes her head yes.
Speaking of being judgemental, Cassie the new house mate arrives and the first words out of Kim’s mouth in confession cam are, “She has big hair and she just looks kind of country and I can tell she has had a hard life.” (I’m sorry but that was way judgemental and RUDE! Of course my first impression of her was she has that tiny voice like Jennifer’s and now there will be two of them talking like little girls. But I thought it in a nice way! Really! Ha ha) Cassie’s story is a sad one ladies. Lets go to the plasma screen. The first picture is of the house she grew up in. She was adopted by her aunt and uncle when she was 3 yrs old and it was an alcoholic household and all that goes with it. The they show a door and it was to a small apartment off the house and it was here that a family member tried to rape her when she was 15. But she got away. She said she could no longer handle being around people so she quit going to school and she would go to that apartment and just sit in the corner for 8 hours. Then when the incompletes started coming in she just quit school at 16. She started drinking at the age of 14. It was so bad that she would have to drink some vanilla extract or mouthwash just so she would be able to make it to the liquor store. Rhonda asks her what her final straw was and she said she went to buy a bottle of wine and she saw a lady she had met in AA so she hid til she left. When she got home she saw the womans face in the bottom of that bottle with every drank she took and could hear her telling her that she had to stop drinking. She hasn’t drank since. Then we see a picture of a leaf and it represents how a leaf dries up and just crumbles and that is how she felt when she gave her son up for adoption 18 years ago. When she found out she was pregnant she had already broken up with the father, so she saw an ad in the paper for a couple looking to adopt and they flew her to Oregon and she lived with them for the last two months of her pregnancy and the father signed off on his rights. Rhonda asked her why she decided on adoption and she said she knew she had no way of supporting this child and she didn’t want him to be brought up like she was. Then we see Josie in confession cam saying she has no empathy for Cassie, cause she is living it everyday and she is making the best of it. (okay this is a sensitive topic to me. Once again we have the judging and yet they crucify Sommer, but Kim and Josie just keep on riding their high horses. At least Sommer wants to learn from it and become a better person. I applaud Cassie in having the sense to do this. She was an alcoholic and she said that only reason she didn’t drink at the end of her pregnancy was because she was living with the adoptive parents. Adoption is NOT a crime Josie and just because you chose to keep your child does not make you a better person, you made a different choice. Because there are a lot of us out here that are still not so sure you are going to do all that great of a job with Chloe. But we are trying to keep an open mind and hope that you will. Okay I am done, thank you for listening to my rant.) A week after her son was born she left. She came back when he was 3 yrs. old to see him and they had never told him that he was adopted. So Cassie decided she would wait until he was 18 to talk to him. He is now 18. She wrote a letter for his adoptive parents to give him before she approaches him.
Iyanla and Rhonda are fascinated with the fact that Cassie’s goals are tied to each of the other house mates goals. Then we see her self portrait. There is a butterfly that is being pushed down and she thinks it represents her self worth and responsibility. So Cassie’s goals are to get her GED and reconnect with her son. I think if I did the math right she is 41.

Sommer, Jennifer, Kim and Towanda are playing cards. T and Jen don’t look happy at all. In voice over Sommer says that she is still surprised that her choices have caused such a problem and that she still doesn’t understand it, but she knows that with T it is big and she really doesn’t want to lose that friendship that they have worked so hard to forge.

Cassie meets with Rhonda and they put together her steps, they are-define expectations, pursue GED, claim self worth and honor love for son. They are leaving the 5th one open.
Rhonda says in confession cam that she thinks Cassie wants to earn her son’s love by being a person she is proud to be and then he can be proud of her.

Sommer and Towanda are sitting on the foyer steps talking. Sommer is telling T that she just didn’t get it, but she is trying to now and that the one thing she feels bad about is the hair statement. T tells her that that is okay because that is a preference. T says that she doesn’t like dreadlocks on men, but her sister Traci does. That is her preference. T tells her that she is known for holding grudges and that isn’t happening and for her, that is big. T tells Sommer that she appreciates the honesty and that helps. Sommer says in confession cam that the day has been one big epiphany for her and she looks forward to working on being so judgemental. (It looks like this is turning into a good thing for the two of them and there will be a lot of growth for both of them because of this. I applaud both Sommer and Towanda for their honesty and the willingness to talk and work it through. I was so glad to see a happy end to this.)
We see Cassie unpacking and in confession cam she says it has been quite and a day and she knows that when she wakes up tomorrow she is one step closer to meeting her son. Then we see Cassie kneeling at her bed praying before going to sleep.

Preview-
Turns out the ambulance comes for Chloe. Josie is running through the house with Chloe saying “listen to her, she can’t breathe.” We see Josie sitting in the ambulance with Chloe. And yet Chloe looks her ever unfazed self. We see Cassie crying and it was hard to understand her. Towanda appears to still be upset about the whole racism/prejudice subject, so the LC”s all show up to intervene. It appears Jennifer goes up to the BOR and she is crying and Iyanla is in her face saying “What do you want Jennifer, come on tell me, what do you want!”