A Look at How Black Men and Women Sell Themselves

After reading Jada Pinkett-Smith ‘s thoughts on the war on men through the degradation of women , the creator of Mind of a Mad Black Man shares an interesting collective of similar views about relationships between Black men and Black women. See an excerpt below:

One of my all time favorite one-liners from Jay-Z, is “The power of the P@#*Y… Its why every motherf@#$%r on this Earth dress fly.” He’s right.

I think of how much money I spent on clothes, sneakers, nice cars, all because someone, some commercial, some girl, some dude who was bagging all the ladies, had me thinking that I needed to “brand” myself in order to get girls…

Or maybe had me thinking that is what I needed to find and keep that one woman. It’s right to an extent. You do attract certain women, and some of those women may temporarily get afforded a lifestyle, and whatever comes with it.

And eventually you get older and you now have to struggle between those confusing messages that you’ve been inundated with and the reality that you are unhappy, you don’t like the person you finally settled down with, or your single trying to define what it is that you actually like.

You probably don’t really know, because you’ve been told what to like and how to get it.

It’s the same as hearing a song so much that you are ultimately forced to like it… so you turn to Hot 90-something or KISS 90-whatever.  One day you look up and realize that you don’t like the song, the words are actually offensive, and you’d prefer some Jazz or smooth R&B.

But all of those stations have been shut down and replaced by “product” pushers. You realized that you ended up with a woman who’s nothing more than a liability and a collection of faux things to go with her faux image.

She’s realized that she ended up with an insecure man who was immature and used his perceived power to hide his insecurities.

The result is a man who lacks trust, can’t get a job, has no self worth, no self respect, doesn’t understand the importance of respecting a woman, and has failed to strengthen his intellectual power.

You also have a woman who lacks trust and has low self esteem, because her pride was based on being rewarded by men trying to buy her “product,” not win her love.  Now they are both resentful of each other, and have no idea what a good man or woman looks like, or how to treat them.

The real disappointment is that neither man or woman is learning to recognize or appreciate character.  In a society fueled by conspicuous consumption, our focus is on what we have, what we can get, and what we look like… no one wants to know who we are.

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