Hmmmmm....Perhaps Clarification is in Order

I was working on an essay regarding the racial naming of Black folk when an old friend caught me on Facebook. She was a bit disappointed with my “Hell to da Naw” posting. Another reader whose opinion I really value made mention of the fact that I painted Black women with a broad brush, and that was unfair.

Now, for the record: I haven’t beaten any female up. I haven’t called any woman out their name (well, I have a friend I refer to as “Butthead”, but that’s mutual.) Please don’t do the “We’ll destroy you a la C. Delores Tucker” thing.

I wrote down some words based on what I saw. I haven’t perfected this word thing, though, so yeah, I admit, perhaps what I meant and what I wrote weren’t quite in sync.

The gist of my essay was this: “Brothas Ain’t S**t” was a cottage industry for a while. There were enough knuckleheads to justify it. True. Pookie. Tyrone. Broke Ass Ray Ray. Their cousins and uncles. What I noticed, though, and I went from a teen to a grown man while this cottage industry was thriving, was that seldom were there real defenses of the men who aren’t those losers. There were some pretty decent guys out there. Be real: enough of ya’ll dated them, married them, they were your dads, your brothers, your nephews. You knew super promiscuous Armaniqua, Airhead Cassandra and ball breaking Patrice existed. You were quick to tell us “I don’t like her…she ain’t good enough for you.”

Now, where was all of this defense and revelation that we existed when certain writers, TV producers and film directors were making gazillions painting everyday guys like somehow, we were all part of the problem? One a them movies damn near coulda funded the launching of a space shuttle, so many tickets were sold.

I understand some folk felt that perhaps I oversimplified the dynamics between Black men and women. Perhaps. I can admit that. I can also admit to pointing out there are two feet that can wear shoes. Let me tell you: those dynamics don't seem oversimplified to the guys on the receiving end. I was one of them. It was funny when the women in your life were willing to look out for you but were unwilling to go against the collective.

I am blessed with a ton of female friends, and they know I love them all, but there’s always this weird silence when I point out the double standards.

So let’s try this again. Bear with me. I am getting older and sometimes humor comes off as just plain meanness. We all got our faults.

Once upon a time, there was a little mean ass fairy named Nippy. Nippy was pretty and could sing her heart out. Nippy was friends with another little fairy, Wobin, and together they enjoyed the fruits of Nippy’s success. One day, Nippy met a real slow bear named Bob. Bob was pretty slow, no, wait…Bob was damn near comatose, and he was so dumb. Nippy and Bob got married. Using the fact that (1) Bob was SLOW and (2) Bob was a bear, and bears were quite unpopular at the time, Nippy was able to hide her mean fairy ways from the rest of the forest. Whenever Nippy would get particularly mean, Bob would go do something, well, Bobbish. After all, he was pretty much his own worst enemy. He wa a walking disaster waiting to happen.

That doesn’t make Nippy an angel. She was still the meanest fairy everyone knew, but she made a bunch of gnomes a lot of clover, and they were willing to let the world think Nippy was a nice fairy, even though she and Bob would beat each other up when he gulped fermented honey and she blew really good pixie dust. Eventually, everyone ganged up on Bob and believed in the gnomes’ magic: Nippy WAS a nice fairy! Why is she losing so much weight? Where is her voice? If she is so smart, why did she marry Bob, of all people? Why a bear at all? She’s such a NICE fairy! That ol’ Bob! Bears really, really suck! All fairies are good, nice fairies, but those bears…even the good ones are kinda bad, and she chose the worst one available…

One day Bob found his own group of gnomes, and they bankrolled him to tell everything he knew about Nippy, AND Robin, and blow the lid on the gnomes’ whole damn con. Bob has an axe to grind. Some of that may be legit. Bear in mind, though, Popeye the sailor would beat Bob in an IQ contest. Bob has never been good with money. He is not the average bear. This is not going to turn out well for Bob, Nippy, nor the dwellers of the forest.

On the edge of the forest sat a handsome yet bigheaded bear that favored cashmere blazers, French cologne and tortoises hell glasses. Truth be told, he favored the darker female folk in the fairy galaxy (although his was kinda yellow), but that’s another story. He sat banging away in his tree on his laptop, musing on things that didn’t seem quite fair. He had his issues, but he wondered why he and his fellow bears all got lumped into the same “bad bear” category, but no one was willing to question whether some fairies were good fairies, like Frankie and Brenda, and some were just mean toads with wings, like Nippy. It seemed to this extraordinarily astute bear that perhaps he should write about it.

Perhaps, however, he should have had some fermented honey himself that night. Had he done that, he would have relaxed, and remembered: by and large, his readers were pretty hip. He was preaching to the choir. The very people who couldn’t discern good fairies from bad were reading other sites and jumping onstage at awards shows, making asses of themselves and besmirching the name of the Chicago forest. Or writing books about bad bears before realizing the bear they married were same bear oriented. Or were bears who got a kick out of destroying their own communities and stepping over good fairies. No, the bespectacled bear reasoned, perhaps everyone didn’t realize how bad a rap bears got ‘cause of dummies like Bob and meanies like Nippy. He should’ve known better. Smart folk don’t generalize. Usually. Ya know what, though? We all know the bad bears are out there. And we all know that even glowing songbird fairies can be rotten to the core. Lastly, we all realize that pretending those people don’t exist just isn’t as smart as plain staying away from them.

He dropped his pen, so went the glory and this is the way I have to end this story…