Hell to Da Naw!

Bobby Brown has written a book.

Well, I’m sure there were other folk who wrote it. But the Bobster had a story to tell, and publishers, the honorable, ethical lot they are (remember what Q-Tip said about record company people? Ditto publishers) were only too happy to print what the star of “Being Bobby Brown” had to say.

Funny, while I don’t want to read the book, I’m kind of happy Bobby wrote it.

Let’s be honest: white people in general, and Black women in particular, were willing to believe that poor, pure Whitney fell in with the wrong kind of Black man, and he dragged her down.

I never bought it, though.

I remember Ebony magazine quietly pointing out when it covered their wedding that ol’ Whit was several years Bobby’s senior.

I also remember seeing some interviews with the King of Stage, and, well, how can I put this nicely? He didn’t strike me as the brightest bulb in the box.

Hence my sneaking suspicion that perhaps a ghostwriter may have been involved in this project. Just a thought. I got a feeling ol’ Bob had someone recite his lyrics to him for memorization, back in the day. “Prerogative” is a long one to read. Draw your own conclusions.

I think Bobby was thrown a loop by Whitney.

She’s older, she’s obviously infinitely smarter. She’s way more aggressive.

A quote from Bobby’s book states, “Now, I realize Whitney had a different agenda than I did when we got married... I believe her agenda was to clean up her image…”

You think, Robert?

Here is a girl from the hood. Straight from Joysey, ya’ll. The projects of Newark. Brick City ya’ll! Her professional life is the product of a truly blessed voice and some spin that would make a top envious.

Clive Davis and company sold America on this beautiful songbird, and you know you don’t kill the goose that lays that golden egg.

If Bobby and Whitney are so incompatible, if he was such a bad boy and she was such an angel, how did they wind up together?

Don’t tell me women like bad boys. Bobby is definitely not the sharpest blade, but he’s no DMX. He’s an overgrown kid who was with a boy group, which means he was used to being taken advantage of from way back. His career fell off and he never figured out how to grow up.

Part of my “Hey, I don’t think it was all Bobby” mentality stems from two things.

First, the cable show, “Being Bobby Brown.” I saw a guy who was his wife’s, ah, well; it rhymes with “itch.”

He seemed to be a decent enough dad. Without a doubt, he loved his kids.

He also seemed to be a guy that was stuck. His wife paid the bills, his career was fifteen years in the toilet, and he was aging badly.

Bobbo often appeared quite drunk at times, as well.

Everybody ignored Newport chain smokin’, “Hell to than naw!”in, cussin’, flakin’ out Whitney. Beautiful? Yes. Five words out her mouth, though, and it was obvious Ms. Whitney ain’t exactly Lark Voorhies.

In fact, I wondered how often Whitney punked Bobby in real life, off air. She had it like that.

My 9 year old son probably woulda punked Bobby, too, and he ain’t the punking type.

The second thing that made me reconsider this relationship was the book, “Bad Girl, Good Girl” by Kevin Ammons, who was a Houston bodyguard who worked quite closely with Princess Nippy and her family. Ammons contended years back that Houston was an angry, drugged out nut job that’s truly ghetto attitude was passed down from her father, John, a hustler among hustlers.

According to Ammons, Bobby wasn’t much of a dopehead (that’s like being halfway pregnant). That was Whitney. Bobby, it appeared, was a drunk. That jibes with the episode of “BBB” that shows our hero going to visit one of his kids and popping the top on a Bud at somewhere around 10am. Word of advice, buddy: While it IS America’s beer, it’s probably NOT the breakfast of champions. There’s wheat in it, though.

What’s behind all of this?

I just wanted to say this: the empress wears no clothes.

What I saw happened to Bobby Brown happened to an awful lot of Black men over the last several years.

The public ganged up on them. Why shouldn’t they? For about a decade, Black women had a field day. Everything wrong with society was Black men’s fault, and the women that bore them, had their babies, and looked like them cosigned without discrimination. Black women had a better lobby than the Israelis. You could criticize, shame and damn Black men all you wanted, but if you even questioned what you saw Black women do with your own eyes, the results could be serious. The spin machine painted a picture that every Black woman was a God-fearing, struggling single parent doing the best she could to compete professionally in a world where her own men didn’t want her. They had no choice but to hook up with dopehead losers who beat them and fathered a bunch of kids out of wedlock. If it happened to Whitney Houston, you know it was happening to Shaniqua and Jerron.

White America was more than happy to have a new excuse for, “I’m not racist, but…” If your own women will throw you under the bus, why shouldn’t we? Why shouldn’t we believe them?

I'm not saying forget irresponsible Tyrone and his loser homies Pookie and Man-Man. And don’t forget Broke Ass Ray Ray.

The problem is that everyone conveniently forgot super promiscuous Armaniqua, she of the four babies by five daddies fame. No one wanted to remember Airhead Cassandra, who consistently chose the wrong man based on the wrong things, or ball breaking Patrice, who saw nothing wrong with soaking every guy she could for as much as she could take and still professing it was her right as an independent woman t play the field. Keep it real. Most of us were related to, involved with or friends with these women, but we never saw them on Oprah. We just saw poor Whitney. So talented, so beautiful, and doomed to such a hard life with ol’ whatsisface.

Hmmm…let’s do some math. She made the money. She owned the stuff. She had the career. She has the looks. She had the guts.

If she was there, she wasn’t stuck. It’s because she wanted to be.

Being charitable, not so bright drunken fornicatin’ dopehead losers are pretty easy to control, especially when you’ve made it to the top in a tough as nails business.

Historically, social pendulums swing both ways. I have noticed a quiet trend lately, in family court, in writings, and in public attitude, that the days of “You poor Black woman, how bad you have it!” are coming to an end, and the final result may be socially disastrous.

Although Kevin Ammons’ book was published in 1998, I don’t think it got anywhere near the press Mr. Houston’s, oops, Mr. Brown’s, will.

I also got the feelings a lot of Ammon’s juicer dirt wound up on the editor’s floor. Not so this time around.

You heard it here first: after almost twenty years of watching, listening and laughing while Black women tore Black men apart, mainstream society is pulling a 180, and is going to get their entertainment watching the hunters get hunted.

I don’t think it’s going to be very productive.

We all got some issues. There is dirt under all of our fingernails. Basking in the glow of someone else’s praise while we side with them on their issues with us isn’t productive. We have to find other ways to address the things that keep us from being who we want to be without this Willie Lynch mentality.

Putting ourselves on front street, though, isn’t the way to do it.

Neither is falling for the okeydoke.

There is a saying in the Quran: The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

Let’s remember that this time around. Anyone who sides with you against your own probably doesn’t have your best interests at heart. Best to work out family business within the family, at home.