The Skippy Review

Misery Pimpin’: Imbeciles on Parade April 25, 2010

As I threatened/promised, I would write about this foolishness on ABC “News” that pimped the alleged misery of Black women—and the utter and complete wretchedness of EVERY Black person. Bear with me children and be forewarned: there will be copious amounts of profanity. Trust me, once you watch this unalloyed shit, you’ll be cursing too.

Ok, so let’s set it off, shall we?

The stupid program starts as one might expect it to start: a flurry of stupid statistics that don’t really say anything. According to the moderator, 50% of Black women 30 or older haven’t been married and Black women outnumber Black men in college 2 to 1. The moderator then starts with a question so fucking fallacious, so stupid in its formulation, I wondered if she hadn’t had a hit off of Whitney’s pipe: “Who’s to blame?”

Blame? Blame for what? That there are a lot of single Black women out there? Well, hell, by that logic, there ought to be someone to blame for me being a single Black gay man—it must be someone’s fault!

Well, for the non-response, we turn to this schlub named Jimi Izrael. I bet y’all think I made that name up, didn’t you? If I was making up names, he’d have had a cooler name than that. I’d’ve called him Mortimer Beeblebrox or The Sisko or something like that. As it is, he is allegedly the author of a book called “The Denzel Principle.” No, I didn’t look it up on Amazon, because I really don’t care.

Anyway, Izrael says that Black women are looking for a “Denzel”—a guy who doesn’t exist. He says that Black women’s expectations are “too high”—they all apparently want a man who drives a Maybach. Y’all, I just found out what a fucking Maybach was. I thought it was a species of butterfly or something, not a damn uber-expensive car. But let’s get semi-serious. Look at this Izrael guy. Put him next to Denzel Washington—hell, put him next to a broke-ass Denzel Washington before he was DENZEL!!! and 9 out of 10 heterosexual Black women would choose Denzel. The other Black woman would have died laughing at Izrael’s pathetic presentation.

Fig. 1 If I’d known that getting rich and famous would have required so little competence and intelligence, I would never have gone to school

Sherri Shepherd, that paragon of reason, says that she’s not looking for a Denzel…but she is looking for a guy who loves God and his family and can fix a rotisserie and doesn’t mind seeing her in her natural state, cornrows and all.

Fig. 2 If you can fix this, let Sherri Shepherd know. She’s hungry.

Like I said before, I hate these people. I’m three minutes in to this nonsense and I’m wishing I had a drinking habit. There’s no way that watching this could be tolerable in a sober state.

And Hill Harper’s pseudo-intellectual ass jumps in with some old Michael Eric Dysonish “let’s scare everybody” statistic dropping and saying that it’s all about Saving The Black Family. Because no one—NO ONE in Black America is getting married and having families or anything like that.

Steve Harvey then opened his dumb fool mouth: fellas, did you know that taking out cornrows is not in your DNA? He kept using that word, DNA. It doesn’t mean what he thinks it means. Oh, and our first homophobic slur occurs before the ten minute mark of this landmark piece of bullshit: “If you got a man who can cornrow your hair and take it out, that ain’t your man.” Well, what is he, Steve? What, pray tell, is he? Help me understand, thou guru of Black relationships.

Fig. 3 Trust this man. He knows relationships.

But wait, there’s more! Basically, according to Guru Harvey, Black men don’t have their shit together at 30, while Black women are all about having kids and family at 30. So all you Black guys who I know who were married and had your shit together at 30? You don’t exist. You’re unicorns. Or you’re Barack Obama.

Soon enough, this foolishness turned into a Tavis Smiley-ish clapfest. All the panelists started making points to play to the audience, gain “Amens” and have fools laughing at their witty bon mots. In the meantime, it was the Black women saying that Black men aren’t shit, and the Black men saying that Black women are crazy. It was a Tyler Perry movie if it had been made for C-SPAN.

I’d say I’m glad to be gay, but we’ve got our own issues.

Jacque Reid said that there are a lot of good Black men out there—really? Really? Not to let this shitty show tell it. And not to let y’all on this stupid, shitty panel tell it. Oh, and Hill opens his pretty dumb mouth again: “95% of the women are trying to date 5% of the men” and allegedly vice versa. I’d love to see his statistical model here. Did he conduct a longitudinal study, or did he pull this out of his ass?

And why are these fools acting like only Black men cheat? All this show is doing is trotting out every stereotype of Black men and women, reifying them, and then acting like they’ve discussed something “new.”

Did I mention that I hate these people?

They kept using phrases like “our men” and “our women.” They kept reducing Black men and women to binary oppositions. And then they got all hysterical about interracial dating. Newsflash: Sherri gets personally offended when a Black man dates “outside his race.”

Fig. 4 Every time a Black man dates outside his race, God breaks Sherri Shepherd’s rotisserie.

Y’all know what? I’m done. I got to part 7 of this hot mess and after the contrived bullshit “Taco Bell” story, I had to navigate my browser away from this nonsense. I don’t really care how the rest of this clusterfuck ended.

First of all, why are these people participating in the continued pathologizing of Black people? And why are we so damned receptive to this? Could you imagine if this nonsense had been pitched to ABC News by some White folks with the title “Why Can’t Single White Women Find A Man?” They’d be laughed out the office. Furthermore, this particular bit of racial tomfoolery was supposed to be part of a series called “Face Off,” a series where “opposing sides debate hot topics.”So, from the outset, this foolishness is buying into an antagonistic relationship between Black men and women. These idiots played right into and off of supposed antagonisms between Black folks.

In short, this wasn’t about education, or even reasoned debate about relevant issues. It was buffoonery rooted in centuries of racist, sexist bullshit. It was entertainment masquerading as “knowledge.” Tyler Perry would have been proud.

Fig. 5 I’m Tyler Perry and I approve of this bullshit.