Transcription
What's good, people? Hope everybody's well. Uh, yeah, welcome back to the Onyx Report. Black masculine news for the day. Like, share, subscribe, join, donate, hit the like button, support the show so we can continue to bring you this independent black thought.
First and foremost, before I jump into anything else, shout out to Vernon for the generous donation on Cash App, uh, earlier today. You know, appreciate it. Anybody else wants to do something similar and, uh, get shouted out, please, uh, go ahead. All the donation information is in the description box. Toward the end, much appreciated. Uh, at the very least, if you can't do anything else, hit the, uh, button and, or, or the like button and support the show.
Now, I was thinking about a concept that I had developed a couple years ago that was designed to refute the feminist notion that, uh, women were the only ones that performed any type of emotional labor in relationships. This has become a popular trope that's been, uh, I guess, accepted as a sort of wisdom, a sort of truth that everybody kind of just adheres to. But I took issue with it, and I did a show a few years ago where I broke that down and explained the context for my difference with that. So, the concept I developed is called Men's Relationship Emotional Labor, MREL, and, uh, it's basically what it sounds like. Now, this, this concept applies across race, but it really has to do with the unspoken, unacknowledged, and disregarded labor that men do that is emotional in nature, often in service of women and children, and, uh, for the most part, gets downplayed.
So, before I, uh, recorded the show tonight or this morning, I, uh, was watching something that gave me a clear reminder. Now, this is a classic. Uh, for those of you that remember Harlem Nights, uh, Richard Pryor, you know, Eddie Murphy, the whole crew doing beautiful work. One of my funny, uh, one of my favorite movies from that crew, uh, from Eddie Murphy's camp, so to speak. And there's a scene in it that is an example of emotional labor. I just never thought of it that way. And it's a scene you've all seen before as well. This takes place long after the fight between Eddie Murphy and Della Reese's characters. Check this out.
"Did you apologize to her yet for shooting her in the foot?"
"What?"
"Did you ever apologize to her?"
"Hey, Shake. I thought the whole thing was supposed to be, you know, forgotten about."
"I know she said that, but I think she still was a little hurt."
"She still is. I know she don't show it much, but deep down inside, she's a sweet old woman."
"Benny, why'd you put this orange juice in the refrigerator with just a swallow left in the container?"
"Bear, why'd you leave me the hell alone?"
"That don't make no sense. You should have just finished it. Don't put it back in the refrigerator with just a swallow in the container. I get my mouth all set for some orange juice and it's just a swallow in the container."
"Well, swallow it and shut the [ __ ] up."
"You blind [ __ ]"
"You fat [ __ ]"
"You should go talk to her and tell her you're sorry."
"Fat [ __ ]"
"Yeah, you should. Go ahead."
That is an example of the kind of labor that men have been performing, black men most especially, for years. And it has to do with, uh, kind of being a salve for women's emotions and children, but it goes unregarded. It goes disregarded.
Now, why do I bring that up here? Well, it was brought to my attention recently that, I guess, I guess some, uh, white women were in dialogue about how to track down a major NFL black athlete, and one was giving the other the game. And so I got sent this probably about 10 times today where men asking me to address the issue. And I, I was thinking, you know, aside from, you know, those who are wealthy and well-to-do, black men are known as the most progressive group of men, right? And so it's not just that black men have resources. That is a factor, especially when you're considering that they identified NFL players in this. But it is also to say that black men tend to be the most supportive and will even support feminist notions beyond black women. So, there are a lot of reasons that I think black men are sought after around the world, but, um, in this case, they are clearly also identifying a degree of success.
So, let's go through this a little bit. I found this one on Atlanta Black Star. I've seen it in a couple of different places. It's entitled, "What in the world? White Women Exposed for Allegedly Coaching Each Other on How to Lock Down Black Athletes After Leaked Texts Go Viral." Uh, published May 11th of this year. Uh, "Living a life of luxury is as simple as trapping a top NFL draft pick the moment he steps on campus."
Now, I got to shout out, uh, Dr. Umar, who pointed this out last year, I believe it was, in an onstage interview, and he said something I was a little surprised to hear him say because he's usually, you know, he's tried to avoid criticizing women, particularly black women, in the last number of years. But, uh, he actually made an excellent point about this. And as a college professor, I see this all the time. He talked about how, um, Caucasian women trap up brothers very early. And he didn't even talk about it in a predatory way. He said, you know, the way it happens, they make their investments early. You know, they identify black men that they're interested in who play for the NF, who want to play for the NFL or the NBA, and they're playing college ball. And these guys will come in as freshmen, and I have seen it a hundred times. They will not have a pot to piss in. A lot of them are straight out the hood. They don't have $5 to rub together, at least, you know, prior to some of the college policies that changed in the last few years. They come from families often where there are no college graduates. So, they're not coming from an environment that, you know, where the people in that environment know how to advise them. I'm talking about family, you know, about how to navigate and move on campus, you know, so they're just out there from wherever they're from trying to make it happen. And they will find, and it's not even something they have to be looking for. Often, Caucasian women will find men. And I've seen these women buying them lunch, dinner, driving them around places. Some of these cats don't have cars, so that girl is driving them around, and she's making deep investments early. So, if he does end up being drafted or something of that nature, she's sitting right there, and she has put in several years into that before he gets to that point. And I had to give Umar his props on that when he was right. He was right. He said, "Unfortunately, a lot of the time, black women will show up, you know, at the damn draft just trying to pick, trying to pick up brothers before they get, uh, they make it into the league." But she's competing with someone that made an investment years prior. You know, I've seen them coming in with his, with his favorite coffee from Starbucks, you know, his favorite smoothie, and the burrito that she got from his favorite spot, just the way he likes it, before he's even come out of practice. I've seen these women helping them with homework. Matter of fact, I, I just caught a student two weeks ago. He submitted a paper, but she wrote her name on it and forgot to take it off. That's how deep this [ __ ] goes. So, it's hard to compete with them kinds of investments when you're not willing to operate at the same level, right?
But anyway, it continues. "College-age women are skipping classroom lectures for tips on how to snag prospective football and NBA stars, and they just got exposed." Now, I can say I've seen this happen to black men that are successful in other endeavors, but not with this kind of extreme, um, you know, extreme performance. But anyway, says an online debate surfaced after alleged messages exposed what's being described as a white college student scheme to attract and keep wealthy athletes. Screenshots from an alleged text thread involving a student identified as Halen M, her roommate Lexi, and Lexi's sister quickly went viral after first being shared by The Bisch Gossip. The jaw-dropping messages instantly set the internet on fire. Eagle-eyed viewers started playing detective, questioning whether the screenshots were real, and if some of the responses sounded a little too calculated. But our readers are, are sounding off after reading the messages. Halen's, uh, friend allegedly wanted to lock in a tall chocolate football player just like her sister. Oh, they not playing, boy. All right. "Fulfilling that desire is easy, but you have to play your cards right." And then she broke down the rules. "Rule number one is the foundation to lure an athlete with a pick-me mindset. He's the prize. Remember, he can change your life. You can't change his." They've been weaponizing Kevin Samuels for years now, and nobody wants to acknowledge what he broke down. But he basically gave people the blueprint. He gave women the blueprint. And it's funny to me that women are mad at the women that are operationalizing the blueprint. But let's continue. Uh, social media influencer Britney Rener shared the same message with Jackson State University football players in 2021. Rener was invited by then head coach Deion Sanders to speak to young men about the trap. She told them, "Naturally, if you play a sport, that's an incentive to talk to you. Everybody wants something, even if we have our own thing going on. It's like me being with you is good because you boost my stock, I boost your stock. It's that simple."
One woman online replied, "And when we all, uh, when we tell black men this, you are just a game and a come-up to them. They don't want to hear none of that." Echoing one shared perspective in the comments. Another, another said, "What in the world?" Look, I don't know why black women are acting like this is not some [ __ ] that they do when, when that some of them try to do, you know, I don't know where they get this from. And men are not so naive, or they don't know that this can come from anywhere. An individual may be that naive, but black men as a collective are, are not unaware that exploitation can come from any source. Black men were the first to step away from marriage and start reducing, um, you know, the number of marriages they engaged in, going as far back as the mid-1960s. Black men were the first ones to start pulling back from, uh, from marriage, you know, especially as they saw the writing on the wall with family court, so on and so forth. So, this, this, you know, black men have been cautious for years. This is not new, right?
One woman online replied, "Oh, okay. Okay. So anyway, the shameless tutorial is about securing wealth at all costs, and black women have taken notice." One wrote, "This is not our business. If the men keep falling for it, that's on them. And that's why I never feel bad when things go south for them." That's more like sour grapes. Lexi's big sister also noted, "Dealing with cheating. Don't look for it. If it's just a fling, let it go." She said, "He's the prize. Remember, he can change your life. You can't change his." Right? A phrase echoed once by Simone Biles' husband, NFL star Jonathan Owens. She claims that black athletes' attraction to black women can be overridden by activating that shenanigan in her by picking at her and let him see it. Okay. Yeah. Let me see. This is editorialized, and a good brother of mine actually sent me this this morning. I'm going to see if I can find the non-editorialized version. Um, where there it is. Did, okay, damn it. I think he might have emailed me because I'm not finding it. But I'll have to keep working with this then. She can, uh, all right, let's see. A white female IG threads user was just as outraged by the information. She wrote, "Encouragement to intentionally provoke black women so their reactions can be used to reinforce stereotypes about them. That's racialized manipulation, right?" See some of that there. Let me see. Actually, let's see if Instagram has all of the pieces. No, no, no, no, no. Ah, yes. This is better, right? Because the other one was heavily, uh, editorialized. So, we get the conversation itself starting at the top.
"I want a football player, NFL, preferably a tall chocolate one like you did. I want your life."
"That's easy, but you have to play your cards right. You can't be an emotional little girl."
"Uh oh."
"All right."
"Teach me."
"Number one, he's the prize. Remember, he can change your life. You can't change his."
"Number two, dealing with cheating. Don't look for it. Girls will throw themselves at him, and some will succeed. It's just a fling. Let it go. But don't let him get emotionally attached to one of them. He'll always be attracted to black girls. Activate that shenanigan in her by picking at her and let him see it. He'll ditch her quick. Damn, they got it down to a science. If she's like us, it'll be harder because more than likely she's playing to win him, too. Make him choose."
"Number three, be an asset to him. Fold his clothes. Buy and bring him his food. Do his homework. Complete, integrate, completely integrate yourself in his life to where he can't function without you. See, this is what they're doing. Freshman year, when there's no guarantee he's going to any league, he's straight out of high school. He's talented in one area and needs a lot of work in every other area. It's going to be real hard for men to turn down women, especially if they're pretty and willing to do all of this. But, well, we'll get to the other part of that later."
"All right, so number four, don't embarrass him. Don't cheat. Don't text other men. His cute friends and teammates will try you. Ignore it. Just in case the relationship goes south, another athlete will see you as gold."
"Number five, go completely wild on him in bed. She said, 'Use throat spray. Do any and everything.' She said throat spray. Be, be spontaneous. Make it go down anytime, anywhere. Oh my god."
"Number six, his mom. Lexi, do not tell his mom any personal information, especially negative. She will tell his entire family and he'll blame you. Just smile and wave and be quiet."
"Number seven, always look good and appealing. Hair, face, always has to be done. Push for marriage or at least to have multiple kids, and you got them. In two years on draft day, you'll be, you'll be a millionaire, and all your friends will work hard at school to literally never live the life you live. It's so sweet and rewarding. Like, I'm in Cancun right now. Oh my god. I already read this, but it was still funny as hell. I'm sorry."
So, this is strategized down to a tea. And I'm going to tell you the sad part about this. It's really all predicated on how poorly black men have been treated by women. That's what it's really predicated on. Her whole plan is to actually treat him well. Why? Because he's not used to it. Look, if this was casual, standard treatment for black men, whether they be athletes or not, then everything she's talking about here would just be par for the course. And she said it herself. She said it herself when she was talking about, uh, competing with black women. She said, "If she's like us, it'll be harder because more than likely she's playing to win him, too." In other words, if the black woman in question or acted the way I'm telling you to act, it's going to make it much harder for us to get him. But part of the reason she can is because it's predicated on the notion that most black men have never experienced this type of treatment. On another note, just being respected and treated well and humanely is something many black men, you know, complain about never having experienced.
So, what's jacked up about this is, inasmuch as these women have strategized how to go about it, which is really just competition. By the way, this is, this is how women, you know, roll across the world when it comes to men they value. This is just competition. Because notice she didn't say take him for half his money after a certain number of years of marriage. I'm not saying that she wouldn't do it. I'm saying that can come from any woman from any, you know, coming from any context. But notice she didn't say that. She didn't say lie to him. She didn't say cheat on him. She didn't say, uh, false, you know, you know, false, she didn't bring any false paternity, false accusations of abuse. She didn't bring any of that to the. She said, "Treat him like this. Become indispensable. Make sure he can't live without you." Women have been playing this game for thousands of years. This is not new. But everything she's talking about is only useful because of how these men are already used to being treated. They're not used to being treated well. That's why this works.
You know what? Look, part of the reason she talked about black women is not, you know, solely to be derogatory. Look at what she says at the bottom here. She said, "He'll always be attracted to black girls." Why? Because we're from the same community. Most of the hardcore, uh, red pill passport bros I've, I've ever met, they all started in a from a very similar situation. A few didn't, but most did. And in that situation, is we always gave the right of first refusal to black women. Black women always had black men's eye first. And for many, black women are still how they define beauty. When I talk to these brothers that go find women in other countries, usually they're pulling from aspects of black women here. Whether it's body shape, whether it's lips, whether it's whatever, there's something that they want to retain in relationships. Even though they, they may go overseas, at the end of the day, all I'm saying is that black men, as with any group of men, are going to be first attracted to the women in their own community. The women they see every day, the women that grow up with, the women that come to family events or, you know, social events, the women that can identify with their experiences, who grew up watching the same kind of media, dancing to the same kind of music. It's natural. So, she's absolutely right when she says he'll always be attracted to black girls. But where she plays the Achilles heel of many black women, too many, she says, "Activate that shenanigan in her by picking at her and let him see it." But as she says on the next slide, "If she's like us, it'll be harder." In other words, if she doesn't have a shenanigan to activate, it's going to be much harder, right?
But what I find interesting again is what she didn't say. She didn't say anything about divorce, false paternity, false accusations of abuse, hostility. She didn't say anything about, you know, mistreating him as a standard, as a norm, him as a norm, arguing with him as a norm, or applying unusually high expectations. Because I've seen some of these brothers get with women who still make demands that are unreasonably high, even when they're dating NFL players or soon to be. It's ridiculous. But notice she didn't say any of that. Now, am I saying she won't take him for everything he's got? No. Any woman might do that. I'm just observing what was actually said and separating it from the emotionality that people are bringing to the moment because people want to bring a lot to it. And I understand why because this is a blueprint. But I tell you this, any group of women that are serious about finding any kind of successful husband anywhere in the world, you're going to find that they develop blueprints. It's not a joke. For many women, it, it historically, it's been a matter of survival to become the woman he wants. That has been happening around the world for thousands of years. This is not new. It's just been caught on social media.
But notice she didn't tell her sister how to exploit or manipulate other than to do what women have been doing around the world for thousands of years. Become what he wants. Become indispensable to him. Compete with other women and win. Now, we may not like what's said. You may not like who said it. But any group of women that are serious about getting with men, they do this on one level or another. But the exploitive part that's been added on, I've watched, I've seen that growing up in my own community. I've seen elder women pass it down to their daughters, their granddaughters, and their great-granddaughters. This is how you take half his stuff. See, that's a very different conversation than this is how you marry him. See, I've been, I mean, I remember hearing my grandmother talk like this. When you get a good man, you know, you, you, you, you hold yourself a certain way, you don't disrespect yourself, you carry yourself with class, you always make sure you, you look good, and, and you, you know, you push for marriage or a long relationship. I've been hearing this [ __ ] my whole life. That part of it is normal. It's the additional part that the West has really maxim, you know, mastered, which is how to exploit men, how to take advantage of the laws, especially in your given state, how to take him for everything he can. See, that's a whole different level. And she didn't actually say that here. She didn't say it. And I'm going to say, I'm going to tell you something else she didn't say. Check this out.
"So, all you need, you just look at how it sticks. It sticks to your skin. With this, you don't need a pad. You don't need, um, a shaper. All you need to do is just stick it into your skin. And then, guys, can you see? Can you see what I'm talking about? Let me pull my dress down for you guys to see the difference how amazing this is, guys. Can you see? Can you see? Can you take a, a look? Look at the difference of this hipstick on. So, all you need, you just..."
So, you notice she didn't say that, right? And this, of course, we're using to not only represent the, the hip enhancer or the BBLs or the weaves or any of the other things we could talk about. She didn't say to do any of this either. Notice that. I find that interesting, you know, and there's plenty we could point out that she didn't say. I'm only going to show you two things just because they came to mind and I thought it was an interesting contrast to look at what was said versus what we think was said, and then more importantly, what wasn't said. Right? So, argumentativeness, disrespect, those are things many black men complain about. You notice she didn't say any of that either.
What I've heard black women say my whole life is to keep him grounded. You know, you got to talk to him a certain way. You know, they, there was a kind of sense that this is what he needs to be grounded. You need to, you need to bring him down to earth. You know, another one I used to hear a lot of, and this used to come from older women. I used to hear a lot of them say things like, "Well, you know, um, they, they would try to hook, I remember when they would try to hook me up with somebody, and they'd say things like, you know, 'Yeah, she doesn't, she doesn't take any mess. She doesn't take any shit.'" As if this was a quality that I should look for, right? "She don't take no mess." And they high-five each other and, you know, trying to hook you up with a woman that they think you're going to like because she don't take no mess. Now, it's not because I had mess that I was trying to bring, but I knew all that really translated to from my experience was a lot of argument. Much like the women that were saying it, I'd watched them be argumentative with their own men. "You should get with her. She don't take no mess." None of that is appealing to me.
But this is another one, and this one's a little out of left field, but I found it interesting. This is an interview on U Comic Pierre. Shout out to them. Shout out to the channel, Fair Use. And this is a very quick clip where, um, Pierre is in a conversation with Big Les, and they're talking about going to concerts back in the '90s with Bobby Brown, Heavy D, Keith Sweat, so on and so forth. And it's entitled, "Mothers Would Bring Their Daughters to Get Pregnant." Check it out.
"Oh, now you know, and, and you know how they always saying like [ __ ] and hoes, whoever. I was like, I would never get mad at that because I knew who they were talking about. You probably seen it too. Mothers were bringing their daughters to come meet Keith Sweat or to come meet Heavy D to be the next Mrs. Sweat or whoever and get them pregnant and stuff. And this could be like, say it was 1990, and then I'd see them like three years later. I'm on tour with Heavy in the same city, the same mother and daughter team. Then now they're friends with the Roys and they got a little backstage. Come on now. Bring the truth. Now she's bringing the troop, y'all. I, I remember one time security because, you know how, how you have the stage and you have like a little extra like a five feet and that's for the security, that's for the barriers. Girls like I want to be busy. I want to be the security be like, you sucking the [ __ ] right? I say you suck in the [ __ ] like I don't give a [ __ ]. They take my ass across that the F gate, whatever, take them in the back. I see them go into a room. Cuz I follow some, look down the hallway and [ __ ]. And at the end, the guy went outside, 10 minutes later, she come out with a little had shot, with a head shot, fixing her hair and [ __ ] and went back and clear right back there. I was like, this [ __ ] got, I got to work. I got to talk to these girls. This [ __ ] all I got to say is, you know, come on back there. It was crazy."
"The book that you and I could write. I mean, the people I've seen being put off in the middle of like South Dakota off a tour bus and left it like, come on now. Come on. Left it like a truck stop somewhere in the middle of nowhere, and they don't even go back for the girl. And then you see her like three cities later. She found her way home, found her way back. Like I've seen mother and daughter teams. I've been on the bus. I've seen it all. I'm not naming names. Y'all got to give me to write the book."
All right. So, I just wanted to share that little piece with you. Right. They weren't talking about manipulation on, on that level. So, let's, let's stop acting like white women are only women women manipulating. And there, and I do think there is a degree of manipulation going on in those, uh, texts. But I also think it's merged with a lot of what women always do when they compete for men that they value. And I think for many of us, you know, this notion of being competed for has become so alien to us that we don't know how to interpret any of it. But I've heard this, the same kinds of things from Asian women. And I'm just talking about even not, well, I grew up in the Bay, so I grew up around a lot of them, and I've heard this within their families, within conversations. And I'm telling you, Asian mothers are no joke. They will tear their daughters down in a minute. They'll call them fat. They'll tell them what they need to do to get a man. They will talk, real cutthroat [ __ ] will have your feelings hurt. They will say this to each other with no reservation, no hesitation. I've seen this in other groups. I've seen it online, and I've also seen it, um, you know, in general. I, I've seen it online. I've seen it in person. I've heard, uh, friends that I went to school with talk about how their parents and families talk, talk. And I'm telling you, across race, you will find that when, when it comes to competing for men that they value, it's a cutthroat game. And this is what Kevin tried to tell a lot of people, men and women, because both needed to hear it.
Black women have gotten to a point, I think, where not competing for a man has become their, become an aesthetic unto itself, right? And this is how they talk to each other. "Girl, I, I ain't worried about him. I don't need him." You know, that kind of speech has gotten to such a point where the notion of competing for black men has become a joke. But it ain't necessarily become a joke for other groups of women. And we've seen women across the world get online and tell black men, "Come here." I mean, when I saw Filipinos go to war with black women on YouTube, I fell out of my chair laughing because they were saying, "Why are you mad about it? You told us he wasn't [ __ ]. Why you mad about him coming over here then? We will treat him well." That's a whole different conversation. But again, yeah, we can talk about how it's applied to NFL players and NBA players. We can definitely have that conversation. And again, there is exploitation involved, but there's a certain level, level of it. That's just how women function. Because I've also seen them have these conversations, uh, when it comes to men with a college degree or a six-figure earning blue-collar worker. You know what I mean? If he's doing well, women who want to be with men who are doing better than they are will apply some degree of what you heard strategy. And again, Kevin tried to explain this to black men and black women because black men needed to hear it. I think we've long, many of us have long since forgotten that women will compete for the men they value. But he was also trying to tell black women, look, you're getting played out of position. Now, you can like it or not like it. You can, you can disregard it. You can ignore me if you want to, but at the end of the day, the men you want need to, they have to be competed for. They will give you the right of first refusal, but you still have to make a move. You have to earn their attention. And if you don't want it, you don't have to have it. There are plenty of women around the world that will fight for it.
Now, it was important that Kevin told black men that because we always knew it. We just thought it only applied to millionaires, athletes, and entertainers. When everyday brothers started to find out that women around the world sought them out and would compete for them and treat them well, of course, the only language you would hear about it was that it was just they were just being primed to you be used. That's what this, this article here on Atlanta Black Star did. They took all the text and they added a lot of editorialization, and the main, the number one theme of this article seems to be that, uh, you know, these men are just going to get taken. Well, you know what? Men have been getting taken either way. So, you know, that's just going to be something men have to be, you know, especially, uh, high-level, you know, earners have to be cognizant of, no matter which women they're dealing with. That is a norm. That is a constant that they have to be aware that women are after them. They have to be aware. That's just the bottom line to it. But at the end of the day, these men can actually sit back and expect women to compete. And this is not an abnormal thing. It's not.
You know, I was showing my students a while back, uh, the movie, um, um, goodness, what is it? Uh, damn it. It's right on the tip of my, Rosewood. Rosewood, Ving Rhames, Esther Rolle, you know, a number of black stars in that movie. And as I was showing them the movie, there was a scene that, it wasn't violent. It, it wasn't even connected to none of the violence that would come. It happened early in the movie. And it was, uh, Esther Rolle from Good Times, the mother from Good Times, and she was playing the grandmother, the matriarch of the family. And Ving Rhames comes to town, comes into Rosewood on a horse. He's got a pocket full of money. He's intelligent. He's well-traveled. He's an ex-soldier that's been in war, has fought on other continents, you know, and he comes to buy property. And she takes one look at him, and the first thing she does is try to hook him up with her, I think it was her granddaughter, right? And this was the, this was the era that I, I remember seeing when I was really young. This is what I do remember seeing, and it's one of the things that surprises me about the current moments. I've never seen this many accomplished black men this single. Because back in the day, mothers, grandmothers, aunties would kill not to be with you themselves because they kind of knew they were played out of that position. They were too old, but they would try to hook you up with daughters and, and granddaughters and, you know, nieces. They were not playing. But now I'm seeing brothers with, with college degrees, ex-experience, making good money, unmarried and single, and women acting like they can't be competed for. And the only talk in the black community about these men that find women from other cultures, other communities, even other racial groups is, "Oh, they just want white women." If this is what you believe, you have been missing out because that is not what is going on. Other groups of women are competing for them. And I'll tell you, in a questionable economy where things are difficult, women stop playing games and they start playing hardball. Hardball.
So, the only conversation I really hear of, you know, women having, especially in the black community, is that men do not pursue hard enough. Well, and they use these, you know, kind of back in the day references. Yes, men pursued hard, but a lot of people don't understand it was a two-way street. Men pursued, but women competed for those very same men. And both strategies were in play at the same time. See, women want to frame it like men just pursued and they sat back and just batted men away until they found the millionaire of their choice. [ __ ] That's not how that went. Men did pursue. And this was pre-me by decades. So, you know, men didn't have to worry that they would lose their job and their reputation for, you know, asking a woman they worked with out on a date. It's a very different time, and women want to downplay that. But in as much as men pursued when they knew they didn't have to worry about the reputation being destroyed for doing so, women competed with each other for the men they wanted. And he didn't have to be a millionaire. He could be a plumber. He could be a milkman. He could work at a factory. You know what I mean? He could be, he could work for the railroad. There were all kinds of levels of this where women competed for men that they valued. It's unfortunate now that value means millionaire, but it's part of what's changing the conversation is it doesn't necessarily mean millionaire for millions of women around the world.
In the West, women are finding it difficult because now they have to compete with women who are using old-school tactics. He doesn't have to be a millionaire. He doesn't have to be a runway model. He doesn't have to be a gangster that can beat up anybody that even mildly offends her. Everyday men who are good men are being sought after by women from all over the world. But hey, what do I know? If he isn't good enough for a woman, hey, don't worry about it then. Don't worry about who he gets with. Don't worry about where he goes to find her. Right?
But brothers, let me tell you, don't let these people convince you that women conspiring and strategizing to get you is inherently abusive and manipulative because at the end of the day, again, women do this and have been doing it for thousands of years. It can lead to being exploited and taken for half your [ __ ]. It can lead to you being married for a long time. It can lead to a long-term relationship. It can lead to whatever the hell you want it to lead to, depending on what you want. But this is not a new strategy.
So, love to hear your thoughts. Love to hear what you've heard about this or anything else related to it. And of course, what you've experienced. Holla at y'all later. Peace.