I agree she should be asking for help from others. I think there is more to her backstory than she is telling. Her brother I don’t think was mentioned before and his death is a bit mysterious. I think she is someone who has been let down by others multiple times in life (Bar being a prime example) and she has felt the need to become defensive and hard as a result. She’s strict with Holly, but if you consider how Bar turned out, and possibly her brother and other family or friends we don’t know about…she may have very good reason to fear the consequences of not raising her child perfectly.
She’s also got an ambition to be a nurse…which doesn’t exactly match her attitude, and she has taken on the care of her younger sister even while she it at college, has her own child to care for and her marriage is falling apart. I think underneath the attitude is a very caring woman, but she struggles to show it. Her arguing with people and pushing away potential friends is a self-defiance mechanism, she is hurting from other things such as the situation with Bar and doesn’t know how to cope when someone like Chey doesn’t speak about her in a positive way, she sees it as an outright attack not plain criticism. As she’s also on tv she doesn’t want to be seen as weak and not sticking to her principles so I think that’s why she is so adamant that she won’t back down from an argument. A lot of this may stem from her mother, Tea. If you watch the family reunion episodes where the fights happen…her mother is basically winding her up and egging her on and joining in with the fights (and she’s supposed to be a church pastor!). She has learned somewhere in early life that to survive as a black woman you need to be tough.
She’s also I think makes a fair point in regards to Chey. I think the initial argument was for stupid reasons and not necessary…so Ashley is at fault there. But the ‘making up’ efforts that Chey and Zack have decided to do all on camera all seem contrived and fake, so I think she is correct to shut it down. She’s also right on point with her response that they don’t need to be friends or speak to each other just because they might see each other at a reunion show, they could just politely ignore each other and have peace that way. It’s also a bit of a cheek that Chey wants them to get along when the whole thing started because Chey said they didn’t need to be friends (because they are both black)…which was a fair comment but then why is she later then so keen to make friends? The two of them have such different lives anyway, Ashley has some preconceived ideas from her upbringing about what it means to be a ‘black woman’ and Chey doesn’t conform to that, Chey is from money and hasn’t experienced life in the same way. Chey is also correct in the comment that sparked the initial argument that they don’t need to automatically be friends just because they are both black, Ashley is used to generally only making friends with other black girls with the same ideals as herself, which can be seen from her friendship group. They are never going to understand each other.
In the UK we maybe don’t fully appreciate the racial element of what the issue is between these two, the US still has black and white neighbourhoods, suffers from racial prejudice on a bigger scale than here. From the recent 2 TM series I think that it’s clear that Ashley has experienced it (or at least been on the sidelines of it, or been taught about it) and Chey has not.
Zach goes to prison for a DUI, Cory's "job" is The Challenge on MTV and he acts like he's going off to fight WW3 each time he leaves. Cheyenne does nothing but float about complaining and I guess Cory's wife or girlfriend just looks after babies.
