The Lies They Tell on Nightline

By now, many of you have seen the Nightline special on the dangers of being a 30 year old black woman in America who desires to get married.

Let me try to keep this brief, and as rant-free as possible.

That entire 7 minute segment, is BULLSHIT.

I have three issues with it
1) The stats
2) The women
3) Steve Harvey


Let's start with
1)The stats they quote. There's a saying. It goes "there are three types of lies: lies, damn lies, and statistics."

Its never been more useful than in this situation. You'd almost think Nightline, or whoever produced this segment, was trying to instill fear into the black female population.

They did a graphic showing how few eligible black men are out there. It went like this.

Start with 100 Black Men
Eliminate those without a high school diploma - 21
Those without a job - 17
Those in jail - 8

"That leaves only 54% of black men eligible to pop the question"

What about the women in the same situations? Don't we want to compare apples to apples here? Also, they didn't take out the gay men. So their numbers are beyond flawed from JUMP

2) The women

Let me be very clear here. If you are a woman that looks as good as the 4 in this segment, and you can't get a man - its your fault.

YOUR FAULT.

And by fault, I mean "choice". You have made choices that have affected your ability to get or keep the man who would make you a proper husband. Perhaps you have put your career first on the priority list for too long. Perhaps you have dumb rules like "he needs to be 6'5'' like the one participant says.
Perhaps you THINK it makes sense to have a "he needs to make more money than me" requirement, but if you yourself make over $50,000, hell $40,000... that rule shouldn't be on your books.

I don't mean to sound as if there isn't such a thing as bad luck, and "haven't found the one yet". That's real. But there are choices you make to change your luck and things you have to look at internally to assess your true mindset.

At the end of the day, (and I lost my draft of this blog entry so I might have to revisit this later) your mindset determines where you are in life and what you get. These women get plenty of offers from guys wishing to take them out. But what do they do - they give them the bullshit. I'm not judging. I'm just listening to what they said. I can only hope the segment producers edited out all the intelligent, sensible things these ladies had to say because nothing that came through made them appear to have a grasp on what it takes/means to be in a real relationship with a black man. They sound high maintenance. I think one of them seemed like a nice girl.

And there's no "taboo" against dating black women. Where the hell did that come from? Black men LOVE Black women. We really do. We may not want to stick around and deal with your issues or need to dominate, but that's not because you're black, it's because you're a jerk.

Also - move the hell out of Atlanta if its not working out for you. I hear there is a plethora of good black men in Chicago, and I know for a fact the Houston natives would love to buy you everything they possibly can since women there tend to go to the highest bidder. Not a diss... REAL TALK.

Why would you want to live in Atlanta anyway if you want to get married? The "odds" of finding a man who lives in the Black Gay Capital of the world (they wear HEELS in the A. HEELS. I like gay people. They are alllllright with me. Really they are. I'm very disappointed in the black community's anti-gay stances. But heels, dude? Really? There is a line and its called "paint-on jeans with a sheer shirt". Heels are so far past the line you might've forgot there was one. Even Morehouse banned heels. And if Morehouse bans something, you know its out of control. If you're a full-blown cross dresser, or even doing it for one night - OK get your outfit tight. But if you walk around with heels on like they are acceptable footwear just on the regular to go to work? That's just too much. Do they even MAKE men's heels? Come on son.)... where there is also a very HIGH ratio of Women to Men to start with who ISN'T enjoying his "success" with the ladies are not good.

But even still... My homegirls in Atlanta have boyfriends. So I ask again - what's wrong with YOU? Its your mindset. Get it together...Reggie Bush ain't walking through that door and if he does, he ain't checking for you. Yeah you cute and have your money right, but like I said in that entry yesterday - we really don't give a fuck about all that. Find out what men want, and see if you have the tools to deliver. Stop making it about what you want and what people can do for you. Have you even CONSIDERED what it takes to be someone's woman and be GOOD at it? (that's a whooooooole 'nother blog in itself. I need blood pressure medication before I can write it - or maybe I just won't).


3) Steve Harvey

Steve Friggin Harvey... This dude has made a lot of money exploiting the fears of black women with so-so-advice.
I thought his book was a decent read when I skimmed through it the first time. He had a lot of true stuff in there. But remember what I wrote about Honesty yesterday in another entry? Honesty isn't honest unless its REAL. And Steve Harvey's advice is not REAL.

He proposes a 90-day waiting period before giving any new dude the draws. That SOUNDS like a good idea, especially if you don't have any waiting period at all. But if you really want to get married, you might really need to make a guy show you who he is (and vice versa) before you start doing things like getting attached through sex.

Can you really get to know a man in 90 days? 90 days ago was Halloween. Did you meet anyone at a Halloween party? Do you KNOW this ninja like that? NOPE.
You may be getting to know him, but you really, honestly, don't know shit about him. He could be married, have kids, live in another city... all sorts of stuff you don't find out when the "representatives" are talking to each other. Even if you've spent every single one of those 90 days together, you don't KNOW him. You know you like him. But you don't know him and he damn sure doesn't know you well enough to know if you're a woman he'd be willing to commit to. Sooooooo 90 days ain't enough.

Not if you want to be taken seriously at least.

Let's go to the advice he gave on the show. I'll skip his Captain-ass line about how old men didn't train new men to be men. *Spit*

This dude told these women...


Hold on I need to compose myself for this..


This clown told these women the answer to their problem is the DATE OLDER MEN.

If you're 34, an "older" man technically isn't 35 he's 40. So... let's look at that.

You mean to tell me that the best candidate for her to get at is the never-married guy who's 40?

The one who's been GETTING IT IN NONSTOP FOR 20 YEARS STRAIGHT and just recently decided he even wants kids.

Great advice. Send her to Guantanamo why don't you. At least there, she'll get food and water.

That's HORRIBLE advice. Absolutely horrible. I can't even express it in words. I'll be 30 really really soon. My salaries have gone up pretty decently since I finished college and got my MBA in 04. I have no real reason to not expect more increase, and I could also start my own thing and make REAL cash. By the time I get to be 40, I should be Balling Out of Control in ways unimaginable to me at the age of 18.

And that's what the "older" man represents. He doesn't represent "maturity". Unless you consider maturity to be some formula where after a man has been with a certain number of women, he plateaus and wants to settle down (as if that were OK). It doesn't work that way. Men come to the realization that they want a family at different ages. I have friends who got married out of high school and are still together. I have friends who got married "in love" freshman year of college and broke up, friends who got married right after college and are still together and some aren't, etc. The "ready for a family" thing isn't a product of age. I know dudes who wanted to be a dad at 17!!!

So what benefit does a man who's 40 provide over one who is 35? Life experience? More time to get bitter over whack women? It just doesn't work like that.
Even the really really really focused man who wanted to be into his career real hard - if The One showed up, he'd take a week off to get married and go right back to his office after the ceremony. That's how it works. What a dumb piece of advice.

And I'm not hating on older dude. I remember being 20 and wondering what the fuck these girls my age were doing with that 30 year old loser who can't get women his own age. That's a weeeeee bit different though. 20 year old males are boys. Nothing more. There are a couple mature 20 year olds, just not a lot. Plus, the 30 year old dude has money. Like real salary cash. Do you know what kind of shit I would've got away with if I had my Houston/DC salary and lived in Tallahassee? Yeah... It would've been bad. Almost like if I had moved to Atlanta... Hmmm....