Wednesday, June 6, 2007

mr. enlightenment

There's this guy... We dated briefly when I was nineteen, but I hadn't moved on from the ex-boyfriend, and things gradually fizzled away... He writes poetry. Years ago, he even wrote a few inspired by yours truly. We got back in touch via Myspace. Anyway, he's still doing the poetry thing and occassionally reads me a few. Whatever. We're cool with each other.

What I HATE about him is how we talks to me like he's bout to school me on some shit.... I tell him about my new research project on Black masculinity in hip-hop music lyrics and he goes off on this tangent like he's educating me (with some bullshit theory, by the way, that the "bitch" and "ho" word have everything to do with the Black man's strength and resiliency). I fell for the bait and ended up arguing with him for an hour about "gold digger-ism" and the real reason why men won't give up "bitch" and "ho" (which, in my opinion, has everything to do with power).

Also maybe because I'm an academic, I have little tolerance for folks making blanket statements without research to back it up. He tried to tell me that "gold digger-ism" is the cause of divorce/the fall of marriage in America. And I simply don't believe that. Nor does research support it. On the real, folks been marrying for status since the beginning of time, so playing devil's advocate, why is this so evil all of a sudden? What is inherently wrong with wanting a man who matches my own work? And why are dudes so damn upset about materialism when they are just as damn materialistic? I mean, women didn't just morph into golddigging bitches overnight in the '90s for no damn reason at all.

He really gets under my skin sometimes. I mean, we're both the same damn age, I got you degree for degree, and you're always trying to school me -- on my turf, on what I study -- without any data to support your off-base conclusions. Get the fuck out of here with that bullshit.

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