welcome to our world with black enterprise. this week i sit down to discuss the latest projects on the stage. plus we're exploring love in the black community. and finally, we profile one paralympic skier with one inspiring outlook on life. that's what's going on in "our world" starting now.

taking a break from the big screen, she returns to the stage. we sat down to discuss her new play, movie roles and blacks in hollywood. thanks for spending some time with us today. >> it's my pleasure. >> so tell me about this new play you are doing. >> it is called "by the way meet vera stark." it is a new play by a pulitzer prize winner last year for "ruined." african-american playwright who's just so brilliant and when i read the script i was just blown away by this writer's imagination. and basically, it follows a 1930s actress who basically makes a career off of playing

maids. and i just want everyone to see it, because it follows her whole career. she becomes a big star and it's just so much fun. >> you've been in tv, you've done hollywood stuff. >> yeah. >> what's the big difference for you? >> oh, gosh. you know, i love it all. really, it's all about the character and the story that i'm telling and i just love -- i feel like i'm a story teller around i love to tell stories. so the great thing about doing stage is that it's different every night. you get to live the journey of the character from beginning to end every night. you have the audience, every audience is different so you're getting a different kind of vibe with every show. with film and tv, you have to kind of wait until it's completely finished, then you may see it six months to a year later. you're like, oh, wow, you're kind of outside of the process once you shoot the film.

also with a film, you could do the last day of the character first, or the first day in the middle of the journey. it's nice to be able to live out the journey of the character every day. >> one of the things you talked about was this engagement with the audience. >> yes. >> it seems to me that one of the things you've done throughout your play days is bring the audience to the theater. >> that's hopefully the goal. you know, it's -- unfortunately, there aren't a lot of african-american stories being told on broadway today. so it's such a delight for me to be able to telling a story about people in this world. you know? that's what i want to do, i want to reflect what is real life and real life is all different colors and all different experiences. so it's really nice to have people come and say, you know, this is the first play i've ever seen and thank you so much. that really is delightful to me.

>> why aren't the people who make plays or produce plays, why aren't they making more stuff for us if we come -- >> i know! i don't know. you got to talk to them. i know that they are -- last year they did "fences," and i know that sam jackson is doing a play coming up. i did "cat on a hot tin roof" in london. let's just look at it. hopefully it's getting better. i'm just going to say that. let's put it out there, it's getting better. we're going to see more stories for people of color, whether that's on tv, film, broadway. >> tell me what it's like to be a high ly worth actress. what's your experience been like? >> it is, it is harder to be a black actor and to be a black actress because there aren't as many roles out there for us and there's so much talent among us. but i feel like i've been really, really lucky or blessed, whatever you want to call it.

i feel like i've gotten to play some really amazing roles and look forward to, you know, doing it for a long time to come. >> one of the things i've always appreciated about you is that every role that you do is different, it's not like a type cast sort of role, they all have dignity, interesting, creative. >> i want to play some characters without dignity, too. >> do you? >> yeah! why not? >> what kind of stuff. >> you know, i don't know if you saw "the family that prays," one of the reasons why i was drawn to her is because she wasn't -- she was kind of a little morally corrupt and i think that that's part of the fun of being an actor is that you get to kind of do all those kinds of roles and so i look forward to playing, you know, i'll play some characters without some dignity. >> do you reject a lot of stuff, too? >> oh, absolutely. a lot of it is not so much about character but about writing or script. good writing and good script and good stories are kind of few and

far between in this business. i mean i think you can see from what's being made and what's being put out there -- >> yeah, for sure. >> so for me, i just -- my criteria really is, does this move me? i can tell right away when i read a scriptfy want to be a part of it. so i'm choosey in -- because of that, because i want to be a part of projects that i would want to go see. >> you had a sort of different pathway than some people pemp one tells a story about being in a coffee shop and just getting discovered or something like that. but you were trained. >> yes. >> how important was that for what you did? >> you know, my dad and my mom are both from the industry. my mother went to juilliard and she was one of the original companies on broadway and my dad is a director and a producer and i knew how hard pursuing this profession was.

i knew firsthand seeing it from my parents. and so i knew that i wanted to just have as much behind me before i stepped out into the business and i thought that going to school and really learning about acting, really getting some experience under my belt was going to help. and the business really doesn't care about whether you're trained or not. but for me, knowing that i have that technique and that i can -- if there's a role, i know that i have -- i've played so many different kinds of roles on stage and in film that i know i can approach it. i know that i have a way of approaching it. >> it is important. some people would assume because your parents are in the business you just had some golden pare chewe chute and just landed in the business. >> no, i definitely have been working, doing my work. no. my father has never given me a job, contrary to what a lot of people say. no. we haven't worked together yet. hopefully we will. >> up next -- love is in the

air. it's an on-the-record discussion. >> i think it's outrageous. i have to say this. every time we talk about black love it is from a point of crisis. it's dead, it's been buried, it's in a wake, is in an obita obitua obituary. things to keep in mind.

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[ominous music playing] girl whispering: there's a monster in my bathtub. [whispering] there's one on the couch. boy whispering: there's a monster on my bed. announcer: keep innocent things from triggering an asthma attack. please make the monsters go away. announcer: learn how to stop their asthma attacks at noattacks.org. welcome back to "our world with black enterprise." with the u.s. divorce rate over 50%, more people are questioning

if real love still exists. here to help us discuss this, knee scott young, executive producer of vh1's "love and hip-hop." jimmy briggs, co-founder and director of the "man up" campaign and an international radio host and journalist. this is such an interesting topic. black love. does it even exist. >> i'd like to think so. >> i think it's outrageous! i have to just say this. every time we talk about black love it is from a point of crisis. it's died. it's been dead. it's buried. in a wake. in an obituary. i'm like have you met the president of the united states of america and his wife, michelle obama? clearly black love doesn't just exist, it thrives and moves, it evolves. >> we are we getting divorced all of the time? >> let me just be clear. it is not just black folk. divorce rate across america is one thing. when you don't separate and think about the totals and sums of the black community there is always this picture of doom and gloom and that inaccuracy feeds

that crisis notion. love is dead. >> divorce rates are high. people are writing books about it. is black love alive? >> i think it is alive but they used to say a sniffle in the large community in the black community. i think the divorce rate, it is a national trend across all groups. but in the black community i see this as a crisis because we're seeing less and less models for positive relationship, long-term relationships or marriage in our community. >> are those the same thing, positive relationships and marriage? >> i think i agree in the fact there aren't many images to look at and to follow. you're right, the obamas certainly are one now. i think our only other example were the cosbys. other than that, there weren't that many in between. so when you look at young folks today -- we certainly know that in their own lingo, in their

music, you don't really hear stories of love. you hear lots of talk about sex and about hooking up and hitting that, but there isn't real talk about relationship and everything that comes with that. >> what is real love? you're an expert. that's why you're here! >> i think that's part of the challenge, is that marriage has been defined as the only way and form in which love, healthy love, happens and the essence of marriage equals the death of love. especially when it comes to black communities. and because it is defined in those terms, then it's always going to be a crisis. actually black people have always formed families in order to get through their difficult times that are about supporting one another, they're about community. we create community every part of where we go. what i argue it is the same as a women's rights movement, civil

rights movement, we need an emotional rights movement. what i mean by that is that emotionality is a priority, that it is important for us to learn about the construct of a healthy emotional self, in the same way that you give priority to your education and your job. you would never expect to move in the world without doing some work and yet when it comes to love and the family and relationships, our argument is always, well you just take me as i am, just take me as i am, no work, as broken down as i may be and that is the most that you're going to get. and that's celebrated in pop culture, reality tv, again and again. the brokenness is also celebrated and the craziney nei celebrated. >> you produce a show that offers a different representation of black love and black relationships. right? >> well, you know, it was important for me in doing this show to show there are so many different sides to these relationships, think especially as it relates to the relationships in the entertainment community. people know what they read in

the tabloids and it is really just the sensational headlines and you don't really stop to think about the fact that these are people that behind their closed doors go through the same thing that we go through, suffer the same insecurities, have to go through the same process of working on their relationships. so it was an opportunity to show that these guys who you see on the stage doing all of these different -- they go home to real women who make demands on their time, who make demands on them in terms of the relationship and they have to work at it like every other man. >>. work is the key thing here, that behind the scenes people are working at love and they're working at relationships. but somehow that's not cool. why is it so difficult for it to be cool or accepted for men to work at relationships, to work at love, to work at romance? >> for men especially men of color, we tend to run away or be wary of those discussions. those discussions are expressing our emotions, our sensitivity, what hurts us, the changes we

have to make inside. >> why is that? >> i think it goes to -- i think it is a mix of race, gender and class issues. i think society has told us and we have adopted this viewpoint that if we go to that place in ourselves, we talk about our hurts, our wounds, our weaknesses and what we have to change, we're told we're soft, we're weak, we're not a man, we're less than a man, we're not holding it down, we're not being strong. even -- we need to go to those places to heal ourselves but we don't. we fall into these traps that are both destructive to us and our relationships and the people around us. >> seems like all of you are speaking to this notion of healing and sort of crafting these spaces where we can heal and grow and really become better partners for somebody else. final thought -- where do those spaces emerge? >> for me it begins with acceptance. acceptance and confidence in both yourself an your partner. i think only then can you both

come to a place where you can work on each other, work on yourself, work on your relationship. >> i think with the spaces are created where we make them. i think it has to be a holistic response. we also talk in schools, talk in churches, we talk amongst our friends at the barber shop. wherever we are, where we have comfort, that's where we talk about issues such as love. >> i think when we are willing to create space where we can talk about those uncomfortable difficult truths, that's how we know we're moving forward. i know through the event that i do, that's what that's about, that we want safe space to talk about the emotional things that are hard and that hurt but help us grow and move us forward. we want them, we hunger for them, we come when they're created so we can have more of them and move forward and be winners in love. >> win the at love is a major priority for our community. mona, jimmy, thanks for being here. if you'd like us to cover a topic, e-mail us.

you can make it right. you can have the strength and the courage to come back and make choices and do the work to make your life better.

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welcome back. she's the first african-american to win ski racing medals in the paralympics. called one of the most inspiring women in america, bonnie st. john is our "slice of life." ♪ >> i grew up in san diego, california, which is unusual for an african-american with one leg, with no snow, to end up becoming a ski racer. >> reporter: voted one of the most inspirational women in america, 46-year-old bonnie st. john was born with a birth defect that stunted growth in one of her legs and at 5 years old doctors told her she had to amputa amputate. a high school friend introduced her to skiing. >> it's interesting, she's white, i'm black and she didn't see differences. she reached out and said, hey, let's go skiing together.

so it's amazing how somebody can change your life. i started skiing and found out there were a lot of amputees who skied and raced, and i thought this is my chance to really find out what i was made of. and see if i could make the u.s. team. and so i really went for it. >> reporter: did she ever. bonnie made the paralympic team in 1984. >> i guess where i could see the finish line, i think i've made it, i'm going to win. boom, that's when i fell on this bad spot on the ice. i was so disappointed. was number one in the world and all of a sudden i'm sitting in the snow. >> reporter: she got back up, finishing the run and walking away with two bronze medals and a silver. she became the second-fastest skier on the world -- on one leg. >> i realized the woman who won first place she had also fallen and gotten up, and that's when i realize she didn't beat me by skiing faster, she beat me by getting up faster.

so people fall down, winners get up. sometimes the gold medal winner is just person who gets up the fastest. >> reporter: bonnie hasn't missed a beat since. she went on to graduate from harvard and oxford university, she signed on at ibm, then did a stint on the white house economic council during the clinton administration. but losing her leg hasn't been bonnie's only challenge. there was a tragic childhood experience that she tried to forget. >> actually, i was sexually abused from the age of 2 to the age of 7 by my stepfather in my own home, and it was very difficult to deal with emotionally. that's probably one of the hardest things i ever had to deal with. i just blocked out the memories for years. >> reporter: this single mom's life experiences have inspired several of her books, including how strong women pray. >> i want to share a story with you about one of the hardest things i ever did. you can see i've done a lot of

har things. >> reporter: bonnie travels the world as a motivational speaker and makes a special effort to inspire kids like these from reach prep, a program that identifies and grooms black and latino scholars. >> bonnie st. john i believe represents for us determination, a woman who has obviously overcome enormous odds to be where she is, to accomplish what she has, and so we like to have people like bonnie come and just kind of validate these students, but also show them what commitment long-term will help them accomplish. >> what are some of the things you want to do when you grow up? >> i want to be a food critic, a chef and a restaurant owner. >> she really taught me like that you shouldn't have to care what other people think but and like you shouldn't have to try and be normal, just be yourself. >> there's a lot of tough things in life. some of them are visible, like my leg. some of them are invisible like the abuse that i went through. but my life is proof that no matter what happens to you, you can make it right. you can have the strength and

the courage to come back and make choices and do the work to make your life better. and we'll be right back. thi.

know the name of your medicine, how much you should take and when, and how it can affect the other medicines you're taking, including your birth control. ask your doctor to explain any side effects like headache, upset stomach, weight gain, or dizziness. work with your doctor, nurse or pharmacist

to make a plan to use your medicines safely. for more information on diabetes medicines go to f-d-a dot gov slash womens diabetes. [coo coo] [coo] [coo] be free. nice, dad. ["nice, dad" echoing]

charles! nice, dad. announcer: you don't have to be perfect to be a perfect parent. there are thousands of siblings in foster care who will take you just as you are. that wraps it up for us here at "our world." visit us at our website,