WAOD Readers Say I'm WRONG on "Mr Do Right", ESSENCE.com Readers Offer Vindication

I was saddened. Hurt. Crushed. Broken hearted, saddened ( oh I already said that). Well anyway. While most of the world found my analysis of the contestants of this year's ESSENCE magazine "Gurl I Don't Know Why Y'all Are Still Single" competition known as the ESSENCE "DO Right Man" contest, hilarious, some WAOD readers ( MAINLY two male readers) chided me on what I thought was a hysterically funny post. First Al from Bayshore called moi "clueless":

I was preparing to launch into a tirade in which I imply a cluelessness on your part in regards to seriousness men possess when they prepare food, especially for women. Al from Bayshore

Then he besmirched my family honor as a Texan by implying that I could not Bar-B-Q:

Spoken like someone who still has to boil their ribs before they are placed on the grill (hehehehe, you still grill your ribs and chicken). Let me guess, your favorite brand of briquets are Kingsford, right? Al From bay Shore!

Sir I take UMBRAGE at you saying that I boil my ribs!!! Sacrilege! I demand satisfaction and challenge you to a duel for besmirching the family's honor! You don't know nothing bout smoking meat in an old welded oil drum with some pecan tree branches you picked up off the ground. The Devil will need ice skates before someone from Cali will challenge me on Bar-B-Q. Just because I haven't turned my stove on in about three months doesn't mean I don't know how to cook. I just elect not to. Then he implied that we were ignorant and called us heathens:

Memo to the ladies: Stop eating at TGI-Fridays. Have you ever heard the expression soup to nuts? First you have the soup, then the entree, the dessert, and then the nuts. Thats how its usually done(Please don’t ask for the artichoke dip and potato skins). Now I don’t always follow the usual format. I’ll add a salad to precede the soup and, just to be totally decadent, I’ll follow dessert with a rich cheese and a lush dessert wine (and if you ain’t looking, I’ll trick you into “buttering” your bread with mascarpone - that stuff is like crack) . MANY men, like myself, are sommelier “hobbyists” and culinary endeavors are a tai-chi like meditation. When you BUILD a complete meal, you have to do other $#!T like finding an appropriate aperitif, pairing the soup with the entree (if one is needed), pairing the wines, finding a digestif, and then there is creating a cheese plate. Some of you guys are absolute heathens, you’ll frown upon a big tasting Merlot and opt for a white zin to go with the stilton [sigh]. This is both a labor or love and a way of communicating an affection towards women. Don’t belittle it. Al From Bay Shore

OH PLEASE! Faith and CPL can tell you about the two brothers who went to a very nice restaurant at Netroots Nation and debated Piesporter vs WILD TURKEY at the table. Didn't matter if he was eating steak or fish. It was Piesporter because he said that was the only wine he knew. Y'all aren't all sommeliers - And a "sommelier “hobbyists” " is an oxymoron. You are either a professional or... YOU AIN'T. Stick with that $5 box wine from Sam's Club. Then Al offered this humble assessment of his cooking abilities:

The true culinary artisan (like some men that I know) can make tastebuds climax with just chicken, carrots, potatoes, and a five dollar Merlot.

First, I didn't know tastebuds could do that. Second, lay off that boxed wine. If your wine comes in a bag inside a cube, that's not romantic. Not to be outdone, our self-admitted resident defender of all of Blackmanity, clnmike had to put his $0.02 into the mix.

As far as this post, one would get the idea that those who complain about a man cooking for them wouldnt be satisfied with anything he did. Im missing what the big deal is are yall upset that men would have the nerve to cook/treat women to dinner? Upset that cooking dinner is considered romantic as opposed to the the “essential tasks” which sound like a need for a butler and not a romantic relationship? Clnmike

Intentionally missing the point. The point I was trying to make is that the entire exercise of voting for someone because they are doing what they are supposed to be doing anyway is silly and the thought of millions of Black women vying over the same little handful of men is byzantine, archaic, and sexist. not to mention that half the men talking about five and six course meals in that ESSENCE competition couldn't boil a sausage or bake a biscuit under duress. All I did was point out the lack of originality on the part of the person who assembled the list because almost ALL of the men competing answered the question about their "most romantic" moment IDENTICALLY. I merely pointed out that almost EVERY man selected "food" as their most romantic notion. That's ALL! I wasn't saying Black men could not cook. I wasn't saying that a man cooking a meal couldn't be romantic. As someone who hasn't turned on her stove top in about three months,a meal that doesn't come out of a bag, a box, or isn't served on a tray would be nice. All i was asking for is some diversity! Today I was VINDICATED. Vin-di-cated by your sistren over at ESSENCE.com. They have announced the winner of the "Black Men Doing What They Ought to Do In the First Place" Competition. The winner is KURTIS WATKINS. I am vindicated because this man didn't mention anything about DRANKS and VITTLES in his answer about romance, and we will overlook his reference to salmon and wild rice. TECHNICALLY, he says cooking is a "hobby" NOT part of his most "romantic" gesture. To all you sisters who like them young, Kurtis is 28 and lives in Hoboken, New Jersey. He is a gallery owner and fine artist; trained in portraiture, abstraction, illustration and graphic design. According to ESSENCE, Watkins qualifies as a "Do Right Man" because he works with Tied to Greatness, a New Brunswick, New Jersey, mentoring organization that focuses on young males ages 13 through 18. Then the cheeziness begins. On why he LOVES Black women:

“Black women are my complement. My attraction to them is just natural.” ( Not a WORD. NOT. A. WORD. There are about a THOUSAND THINGS WRONG WITH THIS, BUT I WILL IGNORE lest I start World War III up in here)

ROMANTIC MOVE: “Once I was talking to someone long distance but had never met her. One day we had a beautiful conversation, and from that conversation I created an image of her and sent that to her along with a picture of myself. She loved it.” (Notice no mention of DRANKS or VITTLES) MOTTO: “Succeed at all costs.” (He is only 28, when he gets older, he will realize what a really bad motto this is, but that is the benefit of youth. You don't know what you don't know. Success at all costs ain't success.)

So there you have it, this man won by saying that he will paint you a picture. ( Either that or he has his people blowing up the ESSENCE.com website with votes) That's ORIGINAL!

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Someone Else Declares There is a War on Black Women...The "Concubine Conspiracy".. Cancel the Essence Subscription

I know. I know. Imagine my surprise when I saw the title of this article in Black Star News called "The War on Black Women." I called it all the way back in April, but it looks like traditional media is starting to get a clue after say 20 YEARS. It is actually a very good article chronicling some of the foolishness that has happened since Imus. They mention a certain D-list comedian.

Yes, I tend to be melodramatic and engage in occasional hyperbole on this little blog, but when I say that there is a War on Black Women, I mean it. We need to work as hard to introduce that terminology into the lexicon in the way that the "Black man in crisis" or "endangered Black male" have been embedded into the collective consciousness. It isn't that Black men aren't catching hell, but Black women are catching hell too.

In the words of Jill Scott, life has "been hard on [us] too." That's all

When was the last time you heard about the crisis of the young Black female? About the only crisis MSM focuses on related to Black women, at least the ones that get on the front of Newsweek covers and an article in every issue of Essence magazine, is the fact that because we've gone off to college and gotten an education, we're doomed! Yes. Doomed to die old, alone and childless and be eaten alive by our nine cats.

The systematic dehumanization of Black women in popular culture is a WAR and it has CONSEQUENCES. Because we're LESS THAN, when we go missing, nobody cares.. for long. When we're dying in droves from a preventable STD... not newsworthy. When we're claiming the American Dream in large numbers, that's a bad thing because now you gone end up old, childless and alone.

Concubine Conspiracy

"I Be Concubining"

Folks, those are the words of 25 year-old Rickey Lackey expectant father of six before a judge about to sentence him for defrauding a bank.

For reasons passing understanding, he regaled the court with the news that he was about to close a three million dollar deal that would net him $300,000.00 up front. In an apparent bid for leniency, he also informed the court that he had six babies on the way. The judge, doing a double-take, asked him if he was engaged to marry a woman with six kids. His answer, soon to be published in the next edition of Bartlett's Familiar Quotations: "No, I be concubining" (i.e., with numerous women). Wisely, Lackey's lawyer made his client clam up. Incredibly, the judge later said she let the matter drop as not relevant to the proceedings. SOURCE

Now folks, don't think that Rickey here is an aberration, oh no my friends, "I be concubining" has gone mainstream. The Concubine Conspiracy can find no greater friend than Essence Magazine.

Because we're less than, we ought not to be so outrageous as to wait for an offer of marriage before popping out three kids by the same man. Oh no, we ought to rent out our wombs as part of the "concubine conspiracy" (copyright WAOD September 10,2007. Yeah, I'm claiming it!)so that Essence magazine can put us on the cover of an issue called "No Ordinary Love" waxing poetic about why you still with a man that will impregnate you repeatedly, but won't make you his wife. ( Yeah, went. there. again.) While he is running all over the place sowing his wild oats apparently impregnating other women too.

When the "ordinary love" goes *poof* as if the fiction ever existed in the first place, Essence turns around and gives you more free space to advertise the virtues of renting out your womb. As if you are victorious for having to pack up your kids AGAIN and flee your home in a clandestine operation the likes of which the CIA could not pull off with such precision. You get an entire article when y'all part ways for the 1003th time telling us all about yo baby daddy impregnating yet another girl down in Atlanta. Who cares? Really Essence WHO CARES?

Essence if you want to do some real reporting, go out and find some Black men who actually marry the mothers of their children. Put them on the cover. They are out there yet we wouldn't know it from reading your magazine. That's investigative reporting right there! Interview a couple thats been together for more than five years, put them on the cover. Why not? Well because that doesn't fit the script for popular culture dominated by the Hip Hop industrial complex. In the that realm, women aren't just less than, they're the enemy. Despite the fact that they have enough lawyers to draft fifteen thousand prenuptial agreements, De' Ebil Black woman is trying to stick em for their paper.

Since all of these moguls want to be Billionaires... Let me ask you this. How many Non black Billionaires in the world have children, that they claim(yes, I went there Prince Andrew and Stephen Bing!), but don't have a wife? Donald Trump? Nah, he married all of his babies mamas. Bill Gates, Married his Baby Mama. Rupert Murdoch, married. They even marry their mistresses (see Donald Trump and Jack Welch). And please don't talk about Brad Pitt and Angelina. Because I will come back with a laundry list of to combat them. I suspect they are married anyway and when was the last time you saw Brad Pitt up in the club swilling Crystal straight from the bottle, wrapped around another woman while the baby mama is sitting at home nursing twins? Read Bossip's Compendium of "Where is Kim Porter" posts. Oh yes, Essence Magazine. This is "No ordinary love" alright. Foolishness!

Oh and did I mention that when Essence readers got upset with the original "we don't need no stinking marriage" article about Kim Porter and P Diddy Duffy Puffy, the editor in chief had the audacity to get SALTY with Essence readers?

Folks reject the "concubine conspiracy"wherever you see it commodotized, glamorized and promoted. It is just part of the War on Black Women. We ought to start our own magazine as an answer to Essence. We ought to call it "Sense: A Publication for Black Women With Common Sense... Because Lord Knows We Need One."

Consider cancelling the Essence subscription until they bring back Susan Taylor and reinstall the grownups!
Stop funding foolishness!

UPDATE:How on EARTH did I miss Travis Henry, an NFL player with 9 kids in nine different babies mamas. Four different states and this multi-million dollar man is having problems meeting his child support obligations. What's worse than having four babies by five different men ( and naming three after an alcoholic beverage... looking at you Alize' Tang-O-Ray)? Having four babies by one man who didn't take care of the first three. Jesus.... Just. Take. the. Wheel! I am calling foolishness on all involved, the man and the women. Y'all know that if he has any money left by the time he dies, he gone end up stuck lying in his casket in the pool house for a month a la James Brown while all these half-siblings fight over whatever he got left. You know he ain't done yet. He is only 28! Essence, when you gone write a story about this fool? December is open I hear.

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Take Back Our Music Campaign 2007 Hip Hop Songwriting Contest

The Take Back the Music Campaign is Sponsored by Essence has been going strong since 2005. Who says we haven't been screaming about misogyny in music. This campaign is two year old.
According to their site, their goals are to:

• provide a platform for discussion about popular music’s more extreme images of Black women;
• explore the effects of such imagery on our children, especially our girls;
• seek greater balance in how Black women—and Black men—are portrayed in popular music and culture;
• encourage readers to examine their own attitudes on the subject;
• promote artists who deliver positive alternatives so that readers can vote with their dollars;
• give readers a blueprint for how they, too, can get involved in our campaign in whatever ways make sense for them.

When you get a chance, drop by. They even have a songwriting competition.

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