The problem is, I fell in love with a married man. I would never have believed that in a million years I would ever do such a crazy thing. It is so unreal to me. I’m a strong, intelligent, educated, independent woman with morals and values. I have it all together. I should have known better, but I somehow let it happen.

The funny thing is, not even two years earlier I had ridiculed and condemned my friend Camille for doing the exact same thing. Our friend Krystal had invited us over for one of her regular Friday night girls’ dinner- sleepovers. These socials often take place at her house, and she invites the clique (herself, Camille, Utopia, and me) to get together and kick it.

We are all best friends. What we have in common, what binds us together, is that we are all college- educated, successful career women who grew up in the hood. None of us lives there now, but our families, friends, and our men are responsible for our regular visits back to our roots.

Unlike many of the friends we all grew up with, we managed not to succumb to the street life. Nevertheless, we had refused to date any man other than a Black man. We’re all attracted to guys who are in the game.

A lot of our female counterparts who went to college assimilated, but we never switched up. We are down- to-earth Black women. We kept our shit real. We had dated thugs before, during, and even after college.

In college, we experimented with dating educated Black men, but we discovered there is nothing better than dating a brother who has a rough edge about him—some thug in him. That kind of man is always going to be more exciting than those tight-assed, briefcase-packing, proper-speaking brothers. Our thoughts on them are the same as our thoughts on O.J.: White women can have ‘em. No harm done.

The ghetto females, a.k.a. “ hoochies,” from the block resented us. They said we thought we were better than they are. Wrong. They simply didn’t like the attention that we received from the brothers on the block, or how the brothers got at us with a different sort of pick-up line: “Hey, College Girl, I want me a college girl, let me take you to dinner, College Girl.” The hoochies didn’t like that the brothers would take them to McDonalds, Popeye’s, Del Taco, or some soul food or Mexican restaurant in the hood, while we were taken to exclusive restaurants on Sunset Boulevard, in Beverly Hills, Malibu, Pacific Palisades, or somewhere in the San Fernando Valley. The hoochies were also jealous of the way the brothers distinguished us from them, referring to us as “the Hollywood Crew.” After I got my hair cut they said that I looked like Halle Berry; Utopia, Nia Long; Camille, Vanessa Bell Calloway; and Krystal, Star Jones.

The hoochies didn’t have anything on us. They could be divided into two classes, so to speak. First there were the hoochies, and then there were the “Ghetto Fabulous...”