Maria Halle Berry was born on August 14th, 1966 in Cleveland, Ohio and her name was legally changed to Halle Berry at age five. Her white mother Judith Ann was a psychiatric nurse, and her father Jerome Jesse Berry was an African-american attendant working at the same hospital.
Halle's parents divorced when she was four years old, and from that point on, she and her sister Heidi were raised by their mother. Halle recounted the tumultuous years of her parent's marriage in the press, saying she continually witnessed her father being abusive to her mother. Also, Halle was quoted as saying in published reports that she'd been estranged from her father since her parents divorced. “I haven't heard from him,” Halle was quoted as saying, “...maybe he's not alive.”
In high school Halle was a cheerleader, honor student, editor of her school newspaper and prom queen. While studying in Cayahoga Community College, she entered several beauty contests. She had previously won the 'Miss Teen' beauty pageant in 1985 and she'd also won the 'Miss Ohio' pageant in 1986. She was also the first Black woman to enter the 'Miss World' beauty pageant in 1986 (maybe this matters to someone, so I thought I'd include this tid-bit of info.), and there she came in sixth place.
Halle went to New York to pursue an acting career in 1989 and quickly ran out of money after she arrived. Behind this, she briefly slept in a homeless shelter. During this time, she did land a role in the short-lived TV series 'Living Dolls' which was shot in NYC. During the taping of Living Dolls, Halle lapsed into a coma and was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. After she recovered, she continued working on the TV series before she moved to Los Angeles where she went on to have a recurring role in the television series, 'Knots Landing'.
Now, we all know how the rest of Halle's story goes in terms of her film career...her movie debut was in Spike Lee's 'Jungle Fever' in 1991, after that she was in the movie 'Strictly business'; she went on to play roles in other flicks like 'Catwoman', 'Swordfish', 'Monster's Ball', etc. But what I want to talk about here is Halle's relationship fiascoes.
Now recently, it was reported that Halle and Oliver Martinez had filed for a divorce. As a result, their lawyers are now hashing out how their assets will be divided. Mind you, this is Halle's third failed marriage and she has two kids by different fathers. With that said, here's two things I'm speculating about Halle's marriage to Oliver...
One: Being that Oliver Martinez is a fair-skinned latino, Halle probably thought their marriage had a better chance of going the distance than her marriages to Dave Justice and Eric Benet. She probably also thought this about her relationship with her 'rainbeau' Gabriel Aubry.
Two: Halle probably did everything she could to make her marriage to Oliver work, and she probably put everything she had into finalizing some kind of wedding plans between her and Gabriel.
Now, with that being said, I'm sure Halle did everything she could to save every one of her relationships hoping they'd result in life-long marriages. That is, she did everything except the one thing that would have truly saved them. And that certain thing is resolving the childhood traumas that are wrecking, and will continue to ruin her relationships with men.
And I'd also like to note two other points about Halle and her relationships...those being: one, even though I'm a Black Nationalist who prefers to see Black women with Black men, I really do feel more empathy than glee behind Halle's marriage troubles. And two, this type of thing doesn't just happen to Black female celebrities, just ask the singer Seal, he'll tell you all about the lowly nature of white women.
But in regards to Halle's marriage misadventures, I think she feels/felt that her beauty (at least by european standards) and celebrity, would shield her from these types of relationship problems. But no one can avoid the all important question that I keep bringing up on this Blog in reference to relationships, and that question is: Do you know who you're attracting and who you're attracted to?
I hope at some point Halle understands that all the childhood traumas she suffered are directly rooted to her marriage problems. Cause until Halle does the subconscious work to heal and resolve what she saw her mother go through, and the absence of her father, she'll never be in the stable relationship or marriage she's so desperately seeking.
And I hope Halle also understands the legacy of bad relationships that resulted in her father and mother divorcing. I'm willing to bet money that Halle's father and mother came from unstable and abusive households, so there's no way they could have created a stable one for her.
And the bottom line to all these relationship mishaps is this universal rule: if you come from an unstable and abusive household, you're gonna' attract and be attracted to people from unstable and abusive households.
AND THAT'S EVERYBODY! REGARDLESS OF GENDER OR ETHNICITY!
And even if Halle seeks out some form of traditional therapy, she's more than likely not gonna' have this problem resolved; because therapists rarely do any work at subconscious levels and they're usually more interested in putting people on prescription drugs than anything else.
But regardless of the method, I hope Halle is soon able to reconcile and recognize what's going on in her subconscious mind, so she can indeed find Mr. right one day and live happily ever after.
Later...
MontUHURU Mimia
First off, this was a really good article to read and gain insight from. With that being said, here's my take...
ReplyDeleteIt is really fascinating how we as black folk tend to overlook and almost downplay the significance of just how impactful our upbringing is to who we are as individuals. The black community has slipped into a very superficial state over the past few decades where only our outward perception matters in relation to how we are viewed by others. Only what we are able to attain (I.e. fame, notoriety, money) validates who we are as people. All the while suffering in silence from both mild and in some cases extreme forms of PTSD suffered from the very upbringings we fail to deal with at a subconscious level, as you mention.
Halle Berry is a prime example of this.
She has all the aforementioned things one could want in fame, beauty, and notoriety yet marriage after marriage continues to fail for her. And yet even with all of the obvious red flags and clear cut character defects she has because of the childhood trauma she suffered, the majority of black men (at least amongst my homeboys) will fervently come to her defense because clearly something is SOLELY wrong with the all of the men in her life. I mean, we are talking about THE Halle Berry here?!
Shaking my head....
It truly is sad because the reality is that one in her position could help legions of black women if only she realized that the work for true happiness, both in her marriages and with herself, starts and ends with her. When someone in her position can just be honest with herself, then I do believe that could generate a new dialogue concerning diagnosing and healing from childhood trauma amongst black folk. Especially amongst some black women who seek their validation in the mirage of who she is. This is a real dialogue concerning the actress that would cause black women to look beneath the surface rather than being swept up by mainstream media's agenda whose only concerned with what she's wearing to the Oscars.
Just saying....
Mike C.
'MIke'...
DeleteVery well put.
Now, here's the REAL question Halle, and our Diaspora have to ask ourselves pertaining to our upbringing, and/or how white fascists have conditioned us to hate ourselves more than any other kind of person on the planet, because we have the most genetic power to breed them out of existence:
Are we truly invested in being self-aware enough to see our problems, and who created them, so we can solve them?
First off, we've gotta' make a commitment to take a painfully objective look at ourselves, in regards to how white fascists put us through an intensive conditioning process over the course of decades, that turned us into self-hating men and women.
And the overwhelming majority of Black people...and people period, just aren't ready to do that.
It's easier to put a Band-Aid on the white fascist conditioning we've gotten to hate ourselves, than doing the emotional surgery necessary to cure the ailment.
Also, beyond Halle's marriage fiascoes, does the Black Diaspora really want to understand that we're not born hating ourselves and each other? Or are we more comfortable being mired in our self-hatred.
This is the $64,000 question our people need to answer.
And we need to answer that question before it's too late to change this situation.
Thanks for commenting, and if you don't have your own Blog already, you should.