Know Your Role Revisited

Last week I wrote about how people need to know their roles in life.  How you can’t think you’re entitled to somebody grand when you’re doing nothing grand yourself.  And I focused this on the women.  I stand by what I’ve said.  But thanks to a friend of mine, I’m making sure to put the men on blast too.  Remember the first example from last week?

An unkempt, unshaven, poorly spoken, unemployed man goes out and thinks he deserves the finest chick in the place.

I said that we’d all tell him he’s reaching too high, he needs to know his current spot and step up to meet her halfway, etc.  Then I launched into the woman version of this example.  Let me return to this original one, because it makes me think this might just be an epidemic.

My friend told me that she experienced the same kinds of thirsty guys who aren’t up to snuff that are just like the women I’d mentioned.  She espoused that perhaps this is what happens when people in general leave certain cities and then come back.  I think she’s onto something here, because there are plenty of guys with unimpressive life resumes who think they deserve women who are moving forward and doing things with their lives.  Instead of it being that you can put on a dress and hold a mild conversation, for these guys it’s if you can show a little cash and act like a bigshot, then you’ve done enough.  Or maybe you promote parties and have a website about those parties.  For these grown women who have done some work in this world and are going forward, neither set is appealing.

I used Atlanta as an example before, and it’s only now dawning on me that this kind of problem happens nationwide in many urban locales.  For Atlanta, it’s Black Mecca so the sheer quantity of men and women getting opportunities and seizing them there is greater than other cities.  Many cities would fit the other bill, however – Memphis would be a place where this phenomenon happens.  Up and down the Midwest this has been reported.  Why would this be so prevalent?

Another compounding issue my friend brought up is that because of these thirsty guys, it reinforces the idea that Black men are getting harder to find.  We came up with a concept that the people who come back tend to hang out with the same friends they had before – some of whom did not end up with a better life resume, but are still good friends in their own right.  What happens because of this is some good men and women end up in circles that aren’t necessarily conducive to them finding that equal partner they’re looking for.  I thought about it – the back half of the summer of 2010 was amazing because I kicked it with some cousins who weren’t doing a whole lot other than kick it.  Did I meet a bunch of quality women who are pursuing careers and are about their futures?  Not really, no.  Then again, I wasn’t really looking.  But my friend was “guilty” of the same – when she’s at home, some of her friends have kids or drama and the like and it’s not conducive to running across men who are being productive and moving forward in their lives.

What did we conclude from our conversation?  Obviously, a lot rides on the company you keep, but we both knew that already.  She did want me to show that this isn’t gender-specific, and while I didn’t think it was, I’m happy I got reminded to put the raggedy dudes on blast.  But I sense this is an epidemic.  This is a nationwide problem.  Small timers thinking they’re big time.  Feeling entitled without putting in the required work.  All of these people need to recognize their place at the moment, then ask themselves if they were the person they wanted, would they be with themselves?

Obamamania Revisited

A friend of mine tweeted the other day a few pleas to other African-Americans that it is our duty to back President Obama as he gets publicly defiled towards the end of his first term.  She said that he is our first Black president, so it behooves us to support him.  This was the argument given as to why African-Americans should vote for him back in 2008, and it swayed me a little bit.  Fact is, there had never been a Black candidate that had a legitimate chance and I felt that he deserved the shot to run the country as much as anyone, so why not vote for him?  3 years later, President Obama has had to defend his actions all the time to a vociferous public that nitpicks and searches for issues.  He hasn’t been a perfect President, but by and large he’s tried to do what he said he would and has stuck to his guns on his most important issue – easing the financial burdens for the middle class and below (though the below part is where people like Cornel West have taken issue with his policies).  But the other side of Obamamania, the BLACKLASH, is what I want to talk about today.

My friend (@DpJeter and check out her business @AffairsofIsis – event planning extraordinaire) really struck me with her pleas.  She implored African-Americans to support President Obama because he’s Black, but I would like to think that she backs a lot of his policies and proposals and his presidency in general on top of his Blackness.  The difficulty lies in that when I see a lot of political programming and the talking-heads and pundits, the public vitriol towards President Obama seems unchecked.  One guy called Obama a dick because he had no other word to express himself with.  Even as a proponent of foul language, there’s still a time and a place for everything and he wasn’t trying to establish new norms of language – he was trying to say something rude because he had the space to.  George Bush was about as close to war mongering as we’ve seen in a while, not to mention the multiple wars the United States jumped into aided by inept government oversight on business led to the unfortunate economic meltdown that plagued the country for the back end of the decade.  Amidst all of this, Bush was talked poorly about but the volume seemed quieter compared to now.  For anything potentially positive that President Obama has done, the volume gets raised to a 10 to drown out whatever good works have been done.

A recent example of this – Obama got Osama.  Osama bin Laden has been the face of terrorism in the United States (and in many senses, globally as well) since at least September 11, 2001.  Bush made it a point to send troops to smoke him out of his hole and yet 10 years later, it’s Obama who helped set up the mission and gave the go-ahead to eliminate, I repeat, THE FACE OF TERRORISM IN THE UNITED STATES.  The response?  “I can’t believe we ran up into his house and murked him; we’ll never know what really happened.”  Thank you, Rashard Mendenhall.  “I can’t believe we’re celebrating somebody’s death – that’s terrible.”  “What about gas prices and improving our schools?”  Fox News spelling it “Usama.”  Everybody seemed to try to find a problem with this event when the truth is that this was a momentous event that took a decade to do.  I can’t shake the feeling that if Bush got him in mid 2008, nobody would have been nitpicking or downplaying it – this would have been some “heroic call that President Bush made to end the terrorist threat of Osama bin Laden.”  Instead, Osama’s death is marred with comments about how his body was set out to sea.

This isn’t a new topic – but watching it play out like it has might be why my homegirl was imploring Black people to back Obama.  She was mad at the way even Black people tear down the President.  Listen, if he’s messing up, call him on it.  But it seems like it’s “the thing” for some folks to claim they’re being political by assassinating the President’s character or, in other words, talk shit about him.  You can hear the frustration in his voice when he’s doing the press conferences and he keeps on getting second and third guessed by pundits and outsiders and he has to deal with insinuations that he’s STILL not capable of being the President and he’s getting sick of it.  He should be.  This job has taken years off of his life, no doubt, and he just doesn’t seem to get the public favor that he should.  I’m not saying worship Obama, but respect what he’s accomplished and also the bullshit he’s had to deal with without losing his cool.  I wish he came to the podium and said:

“I’m getting tired, uh, of you motherfuckers second guessing me.  Now goddamnit, I did the shit I said I would and then some, and, uh, all you people can talk about is birth certificates and my wife and uh, I’m not having that shit anymore.”

I completely forgot about the birth certificate business until just now.  Donald Trump, of all people, charged up President Obama on his birth location, because if your name is Barack Hussein Obama then clearly you must not be from the United States.  Or if you’re born in Hawaii, you must not be from the United States.  I once said that even if he produced his birth certificate, somebody could say, “Well, you’re the President – you could have a new one forged,” as they overlook the fact that a requirement for one to be the President is that you’re born in the United States (hence why the former Governator, Ahnold, can’t be the President).  The fact that he’s had to deal with such questions and he’s the President speaks volumes of the respect that the Black President gets.  This country doesn’t normally deal with politics, by and large – why do you think we’re a representative government and not every vote counts?  Now, all of a sudden, everybody is a political analyst and thinks they can do better than Obama because he played up his role as John Q. Public, identifying with the common man and woman.  Just because he played that role as he ran doesn’t mean we can play his role right now.  I got mad and told people to know their role and shut their mouth with regards to their own place in life and knowing their self-worth, and this needs to be remembered for us wannabe political “pundits.”

Pissed Off Pontification – Know Your Role And Shut Your Mouth

Somebody has to say it.  A common rumbling amongst many of the guys I know in the Midwest (and I have a couple of specific cities in mind) have noticed that there are women in their cities with “inflated senses of self.”  What do I mean by this?  Well, everybody appreciates confidence.  But to be confident is to know what you are bringing to the table and knowing that it’s competitive.  The problem lies in that there are some women who think that what they bring to the table is more than what they are bringing.  It’s not even arrogance; I don’t have a word to describe this.  Here’s a scenario that might explain what I mean:

An unkempt, unshaven, poorly spoken, unemployed man goes out and thinks he deserves the finest chick in the place.

We would all tell that man that he’s reaching too high – that he needs to recognize his place in the pantheon at the moment.  It’s not impossible that he could end up with the finest looking woman in the place – but I wouldn’t call it very probable either.  Moreover, if you’re the finest woman in the club and some dusty, stinking guy comes up to you expecting you to fawn over him and his “impressive” resume, you wouldn’t really jump at the chance to talk to him, would you?

Well, that is exactly what happens here.  As one of my boys put it, “4′s think they’re 6′s.  6′s think they’re 8′s.  8′s think they’re 10′s.”  Folks must be blind to some simple things – you are what you are, nothing more and nothing less.  Know your place, not just what you think you are.  It’s about knowing one’s self-worth – if you inflate it, it’s still artificial just like if you don’t think highly enough of yourself.  Certainly, this is a tricky battle (and one that crosses men and women), but I have to say there are some cities where it feels like this is part of the culture – if you can put on a dress and have a half decent conversation you are the shit.  The truth according to me?  There are a lot of people high on their own supply and telling others to do the same, or culturally exposing others to the same behaviors such that this disturbing trend perpetuates without anybody saying anything.  I’m through being quiet on this one.

When I was in Atlanta, this problem didn’t exist.  I surmise it’s because ALL of the women were fine and doing big things, so there’s a lot more competition and as such, you get a better sense of your self-worth relative to the market.  Take a city like my hometown, the sense of competition has dwindled and as a result self-worthiness has gotten inflated.  I’m sick of it.  I’ve seen some of these same women with inflated senses of self get buckwild for literally no reason.  They turn their noses up at solid guys who are doing well for themselves because they think they should get better when they’re not bringing the same level to these guys – every bone in my body wants to yell, “Who the hell do you think you are?  You ain’t Beyonce, you ain’t no celebrity, you’re a regular ol’ bottom bitch who needs to get that through your thick skull.”

Why does this piss me off?  Because if these women would recognize how much (or little, in this case) they bring to the table, they would see how ordinary they are.  And this isn’t an indictment on them; there are many successful, happy, ordinary men and women out here.  They probably know more about their self-worth and how to build it like a credit score and not inflate it like an economy gone awry.  I know this could look all bad and misogynistic and the like, but this is something I’ve noticed.  I could have it wrong, but when I keep hearing this from guys who are doing well for themselves, not dusty, funky no-good guys, I can’t quite shake that this stuff is happening.  Quite frankly, these women should:

(Note Jim Ross saying, “I second that.”)