Ms Jones sure is needlessly combative, >.< From the very first reply “Thank you for the elaborate email”, I think she was already being snooty for no reason; I think the word ‘elaborate’ was used in a negative sense here, a normal person would say “thanks for the kind email” or “nice email” or smthg like that…And the subsequent emails are worse, of cos.
A bit OT, but it reminded me of the lady in this Judge Judy case–who was actually quite physically nice-looking IMO. But if that’s her attitude in front of a judge and an audience of millions…
—Ms. Alana, lady J4G commenter/reader, “The Inability To Seek Consent”
Look here Miss Thang, hate to salt your game
but yous a money hungry woman and you need to change.
In tha locker room all the homies do is laugh.
High five’s cuz anotha nigga played your ass.
It was said you were sleeezy,even easy
sleepin around for what you need
See it’s your thang and you can shake it how you wanna.
Give it up free or make your money on the corner.
But don’t be bad and play the game, get mad and change.
Then you wonda why these muthafuckas call you names.
Still lookin’ for a way out and that’s OK
I can see you wanna stray there’s a way out.
Keep your mind on your money, enroll in school.
And as the years pass by you can show them fools.
But you ain’t tryin’ to hear me cuz your stuck,
you’re headin’ for the bathroom ’bout to get tossed up.
Still lookin’ for a rich man you dug a ditch,
got your legs up tryin’ to get rich.
I love you like a sista but you need to switch,
and that’s why they called U bitch, I betcha.
—Tupac Shakur, “Wonda Why They Call U …”*
I was hoping that someone among our esteemed readers here at J4G would pick up on what I “sensed” and “saw” in the previous email exchange, and once again I wasn’t disappointed. The above lead-off quotation is by one Ms. Alana, a relative newcomer to J4G. She got wind of our merry band via my series of email conversations with noted relationship and dating coach Mr. Evan Marc Katz, as she’s been reading his blog for sometime now and decided to come on over to see what the hubbub was all about. As you might imagine given those facts, Ms. Alana is hardly a “Stepford Wife” stan for the manosphere, a “Yes” woman who merely approvingly consigns whatever we say here. Indeed, a careful reading of her comments in quite a number of discussions here shows her to be very much of an independent mind.
Additionally, Ms. Alana is not Black, nor is she an American; she happens to be of Asian background and hails from one of the “Asian Tiger” countries. Yet despite this, the reputation of American Black women is so widespread that people from the far-flung corners of the Earth can spot their ‘tude many time zones away.
I post this because it is vitally, hugely important in the ongoing “conversation” pertaining to “street harassment” and attendant issues relating to sexual politics in our time. The argument, as proffered by Feminista Jones and Co., is that (Black) women are constantly besieged by (Black) men who not only don’t “come correct” (read: make a “respectful” approach) but also “can’t take no for an answer.” This line of argument is presented a priori; it is stated as if it were empirical fact.
Jones and her ilk present the issue as if they were just walking along, minding their own business, when suddenly out comes a “brotha ne’er do well” who accosts them in the most crude manner and then refuses to depart when told to step off. Yet, by her own words, Jones tells a different story—and thus raises lots of questions about the “truth” of “street harassment.”
Jones’s argument, as laid out in my previous post, is that my email exchange with her is indicative not just of “street harassment” but also of all forms of “harassment,” including “online harassment” and “workplace harassment” that (Black) women like her must endure—despite the fact that if anyone in terms of gender experiences “online harassment,” it’s MEN (as we have noted, documented, and observed right here in this very forum, thank you very much); and that, if the famed Anita Hill/Clarence Thomas US Senate Confirmation Hearings more than two decades ago are anything to go by, the “evidence” that supposedly makes the “case” for (Black) women being put upon left and right by “brothas who can’t take ‘no’ for an answer”TM is shaky at best. A closer examination of the assertions that sista social justice warriors (SJWs) like Jones proffer, however, raises a whole other set of very interesting questions that belie any claims toward “sistas being ever the victim”TM—indeed, more often than not, as Dr. Edward Rhymes recently noted and documented, sistas themselves are very much active participants in the BSery they supposedly decry.
Which brings us to our second quotation above.
Tupac: Relevant Now More Than Ever
The second quotation is the first verse of Tupac Shakur’s song “Wonda Why They Call U … ,” a verified hip-hop classic taken from his double album All Eyez on Me. The song, which details Tupac’s “beef” with civil rights/Black feminist icon C. Delores Tucker, makes clear his position that neither he nor “all” rappers declare “all” women to be “bitches and ho’s” but rather certain types of women who rightly deserve the labels based on their actions. Since Feminista Jones fancies herself something of an “expert” on hip-hop history, particularly as it pertains to sexual politics in Black America, I think my citation of Tupac’s classic song is particularly apt in the light of Jones’s “elaborate” remarks to yours truly.
As Ms. Alana has noted above from afar, Jones’s reply to my respectful(!) “approach” really says it all as to how and why (Black) women like her are often met with profanity-laced “hollabacks” from brothas out on the block in Black America—because they often respond in the same snooty tenor and tone that Ms. Alana picked up on above, and streetwise brothas often pick up on that. Indeed, it is the escalation on the part of many of these sistas that forms the basis of the supposed “harassment” to begin with—note Lindsey’s Cards Against Harassment jihad: she openly confronts (Black) men and then has the gall to be “offended” when they rightly fire back with a few barbs of their own. While Lindsey can be forgiven a bit, due to her SWPLness (Stuff White People Like-ness), sistas like Jones ought to know better. Ahhh, but here we arrive at another truism in Black American life: that of the unspoken rule that holds that Black women in aggregate somehow have a “right” to act a fool and that Black men in particular are just supposed to take it. The YouTube video Ms. Alana includes in her remarks is yet another(!) case in point—the manner and bearing of the sista in the video is not at all unusual or unique in Black American life—and even their more “toned down” manifestations, á la Jones’s faux “respectful declines,” is the proof.
Hip-hop has long had a cottage industry of self-styled Black feminist “critics” and “experts” who decry the supposed wanton “misogyny” of rappers like Tupac while never, ever, questioning how or why said rappers say what they say about some Black women in the first place(!); they never ask whether what they’re saying about them is true or accurate; they never ask if it is deserved or warranted. Black feminists like Jones proffer an incredibly simplistic and sophomoric view of things here, where “all” Black women are queens and all Black men/rappers are somehow reprobate knuckledraggers. Tupac, in his song “Wonda Why They Call U … ,” says something else.
Some (Black) Women Get Off On Nuking Guys—Yes, It’s True
In his excellent post “The Masked Man,” Rom Wills discusses how it is not at all uncommon, in Black America at least, to find truly sadistic Black women who get off on “nuking” Black men:
Here’s a reality that women need to grasp. Truth be told women tend to get mad when this reality is pointed out to them. Many don’t want to hear it. Too bad. Women need to get their heads out of the sand because what I’m about to share is a very real dynamic. Many women will reject a man for many reasons. Admittedly some reasons are very good but many are frivolous. The rejection itself might not be that bad. It’s part of life. I personally say that a man can learn a lot from a rejection. Rejection helps a man to grow. The problem though is that many women can’t just graciously reject a man in way that leaves his self-esteem intact. Many women will reject a man in a mean-spirited way. Many women will purposely try to hurt a man’s feelings. For what? All he did was find them attractive and work up the courage to approach them. A woman doesn’t have to want a particular man but don’t make him feel bad that he isn’t tall with a six-pack and pretty eyes. Yet many women have no problem rejecting a man harshly. Too bad many women don’t understand a simple universal principle: What goes around comes around.The idea that women are somehow “socialized” to be “polite” to men despite their not digging them, and that nuclear rejections and the like are rare and the result of men not being able to take “no” for answer, is FALSE. Not only can women do it early and often, but society at large condones, encourages, and endorses such jerkified behavior under the rubric that said men somehow “deserved it.” This perpetuates the idea that (Black) woman = good, (Black) man = Bad; and hip-hop has addressed this in dramatic fashion, per songs like the one this post is examining. Rappers—Black men who are drawn from Black America’s most marginalized sections—are lifting their voices and being heard, presenting another side to the blue pill narrative that so many of us have been indoctrinated with along sexual politics lines. YES, there are some (Black) women out there who are like that …
… and it is not only right, but also just, for a brotha to call them on it.
The Importance of Being Earnest—And Calling the Miss Thangs on Their Crap
Hence how and why Jones really has a problem with me: because I called her on her bunk. To be sure, I didn’t use the crude language of the brotha on the block—that’s not my style—but I used other methods with which to highlight her stuff, hold it up, and put it on blast for literally all the world to see—as Ms. Alana, literally a world away, can attest to. A vital component of what has become known as Game is the talent/skill of being able to suss out these “tells” on the part of some (Black) women and then be able to let them know that you know that they know what the deal is.
While we’re on the topic, let’s put another pretty blue pill lie to bed. The notion that if a guy only acts/approaches “respectfully” that it will somehow open the floodgates is also a LIE. Guys make “respectful” approaches all the time, and more than we’re willing to admit, they are met with utterly demeaning and dehumanizing and sometimes just downright mean-spirited “nuking” reactions on the part of SOME (Black) women. When you hear about these (Black) women bemoaning “street harassment” in the Cathedral media, what you’re really hearing is them being an A-1 jerk of the first order and a brotha calling them on it, however inelegant it may be. They would be right to do so—for no one should have to accept demeaning treatment in the name of it being part of life. That so many sistas think it is wholly right to routinely diss Black men, no matter how they “step,” is really indicative of the extent to which the social rot has set into Black America itself in our time—and yes, hip-hop has been singular among American men in responding to this asshat behavior and addressing the attendant sexual politics issues it raises.
Some (Black) women in our time are under the illusion that they are exempt from the observance of norms of civility, which, when coupled with the notion that some (Black) women in our time are actively encouraged to diss Black men in general, and working-class ones in particular, really accounts for what we’re seeing when we’re being “asked” to consider the crocodile-tears-laden “pleas” of the sista SJW crowd: they’re crying foul because they ran across a brotha who decided that he wasn’t gonna take their asshattery lying down and decided to call them out on it—and guess what?
It. Works.
Because if it didn’t, we wouldn’t be having this conversation right now, would we?
Therefore, I hereby recommend to all men reading this—Black or otherwise—to be sure to call out a (Black) woman who is acting like a meanie. Let her know that you know that she knows that she’s outta pocket—and do it in a way that really drives the point home before you eject.
Like Feminista Jones aptly demonstrates, they will be beside themselves with being caught cold-busted on their stuff.
Booyah.
Now adjourn your arses …
The Obsidian
* Tupac made it clear in many interviews that not all women are bitches, and this is the song in which he identifies the women who are. Notable, Faith Evans sings the chorus on this song: she is the widow of the late Biggie Smalls. Tupac wrote this song in response to the allegations of C. Delores Tucker, an African-American politician and civil rights activist best known for her participation in the civil rights movement and her stance against gangsta rap music. Read more in the lyrics’ annotations.
Author’s Note: The above article originally appeared at JustFourGuys on October 6, 2014.
About Mumia Ali
Mumia Ali, aka "Obsidian" is a Men's Issues blogger from Philadelphia who focuses on Sexual Politics, Class, and Race, from the male perspective. He is a cofounder of the Men's Issues blog collective known as Just Four Guys, and is Editor of Urban American Affairs for A Voice for Men.
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