The Question That A Lot Of People

My Friend Madea Has "attitude" That Comes With Wisdom. Back In Our Teens And Twenties, We Thought We Knew Everything And Made All Those Foolish Mistakes. Then, When We Got A Little Older, At Thirty, We Started Getting These Flashes Of Light, Revelations Of What A Great And Lucky Thing It Is That We Didn't Get Caught Doing Those Stupid Things Back Then. Around Forty, If We Are Lucky, We Stop Lying To Ourselves. Fifty And Above, We've Run Out Of Patience For Foolishness. Take Me To The Bottom Line.

When Black Women Are Down With You And In Your Corner, You Have An Ally That Will Move Heaven And Earth.

'madea' Is A Southern Term. It's Short For 'mother Dear.' So There Are A Lot Of Madeas Out There.

I Want An Open Dialogue. I Want Husbands And Wives And People In Relationships To Walk Out Of The Theater Thinking, "could This Happen To Me? I Know I'm Being Tempted."

What I've Found About It Is That There Are Some Folks You Can Talk To Until You're Blue In The Face--they're Never Going To Get It And They're Never Going To Change. But Every Once In A While, You'll Run Into Someone Who Is Eager To Listen, Eager To Learn, And Willing To Try New Things. Those Are The People We Need To Reach. We Have A Responsibility As Parents, Older People, Teachers, People In The Neighborhood To Recognize That.