ARE MODERN FEMINISTS IN DENIAL ABOUT "WATER SEEKING ITS OWN LEVEL"?

NOTE: This is in response to a TikTok video called, "Until someone can figure out a solution for the problems that come with huge class and/or financial gaps,
I’m not really interested in being lectured to", May 5, 2023. https://www.tiktok.com/@kimberlynfoster/video/7228776444707474734

The idea that the highly educated and accomplished Sista Who Has It All But Has To "Date Down" With A Blue Collar Brother Who Is The Salt Of The Earth(TM) is such a well worn trope that Tyler Perry has made well over a billion dollars from it. And he's not alone: Much of what I've coined "The Black Love Machine" is indeed a multi-billion dollar business that caters largely to the belief that there are so many lovely ladies who have their acts together, and so few brothers who do. Of course, reality says something else; and facts be some stubborn things.

But those facts - like the ones borne out by the Institute for Family Studies(1), the American Enterprise Institute(2) and the wonderful website Moguldom(3), that the most successful of Black men in fact marry Black women at an astonishing rate of eighty-three percent, always seems to elude Modern Black Feminists like our interlocutor today. Nor is she alone - indeed, she is responding in typical clout chasing fashion, after the interview between TheGrio's Eboni K. Williams and Black America's Den Mother Iyanla Vanzant and the infamous "bus driver" question. Vanzant breathed new life into a trope that is easily three decades old, catching Williams like a deer in the headlights, and we're all off to the races.

As a lifelong Blue Collar Brotha myself - a skilled trades one at that - one of the reasons why I helped to create the Black Manosphere in the first place was precisely because of the "othering" experience I and my brothers-in-arms experienced; for all the talk about inclusiveness and diversity, Black women like my interlocutor today have no qualms delving into the very types of classist scapegoating to assuage their butthurt into not attracting a "man on their level". Now, my interlocutor has been on something of a tear in recent weeks, detailing her love life history and whatnot; and while I'd rather not get into the personal, as I've proven thus far, the personal is a big part of what Feminism - White or Black - is at its core. So, I have no choice but to follow suit.

That phrase - "A Man on My Level(TM)" - is yet another of the talking points Modern Black Feminists like my opponent have been shoveling for years; and as she says in the video above, she would date a man who makes less, but he must be college educated. It sounds good to the uninitiated - and to the intellectually dishonest. But for those of us who understand a bit about how the Great American College Game works, we're not impressed.

I say that because, as Charles Murray makes wonderfully clear in his excellent work, "Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010" in the chapter "The College Sorting Machine", there truly ARE levels to this here college thing. Echoing the sentiments of Susan Patton, known as "The Princeton Mom" in her own excellent work, "Marry Smart: Advice for Finding THE ONE", Murray says in black and white what we've all quietly known: That America's most elite colleges and universities are de facto mating grounds - and if you did NOT pair off during your crucial college years - or shortly thereafter - it's because there's something seriously wrong with YOU.

Indeed, and again as a lifelong Blue Collar Brotha, I've always marveled and wondered why lovely ladies like my Modern Black Feminist interlocutor, never had "the conversation" with their college educated counterparts, as to why they never jumped the broom together? Maybe because it's what University of Michigan alum Jewel Woods documented in his 2008 work, "Don't Blame it on Rio: The Real Deal Why Men go to Brazil for Sex" that might explain it; in chapter 12, titled, "Sleep with a Girl from Morris Brown. Date a girl from Clark. Marry a girl from Spelman.". I found that chapter particularly comical, because it only reinforced what I had always known: That water always seeks its own level, and that there is no escaping it.

You see, in the American Collegiate System, there are levels. The Ivy League, is considered to be the apex predators of the college world, and for good reason: This is where the world's movers and shakers hail. Take my interlocutor, for example - you cannot do any Google search on her WITHOUT knowing that she is a graduate of Harvard University. She is rightly leveraging her Ivy League degree and attendant credentials to gain a better footing in the American Social Caste System - and I have no problem in the least with that, one mo' 'gin, as a Blue Collar Brotha. What's the point of going through all the trouble of going to Harvard if can't confer at least some bennies, right?

The problem, at least for me, comes in when ladies like my Little Ms. Modern Black Feminist tries to scapegoat brothers like myself, who have absolutely nothing to do with how and why she simply couldn't attract a brother who is truly on her level. They don't call it the IVY LEAGUE for nothing, after all. If you went to Harvard, as my opponent clearly did, then it should be a slamdunk for you to attract a brother who also went to an Ivy: If not a fellow Harvie, then UPenn, Dartmouth, Columbia, Amherst, Princeton, Yale, you get the idea. That is literally, "mating in your lane", "like attracting like", or to put it the more clinical way, "assortative mating", at work.

And unless you think what I'm saying is a bunch of bunk, consider Barack & Michelle Obama: He went to Columbia, she went to Princeton, and both went to Harvard Law School. There you go.

Want another example? Yesterday I talked about Prof. Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, the Mother of Respectability Politics. Wikipedia tells us that she graduated from the University of Wisconsin, and her hubbie, the late great Hon. A. Leon Higginbotham, born in Trenton, federal judge and on the short list of contenders for the US Supreme Court during the Lyndon B. Johnson era, attended Purdue University. Why is this important? Because Wisconsin and Purdue are in the Big Ten, the country's oldest intercollegiate sports conference, with Purdue and Wisconsin being founding members. Sports is a major social activity of college life, as are fraternities and sororities (EBH is a proud AKA; her late hubbie Judge Leon, a Q-Dog!).

So, it really does make you wonder why lovely ladies like Eboni K. Williams, a graduate of UNC Chapel Hill, or my opponent, Ms. Modern Black Feminist Harvie, seem to have such a troubled time of it on these dating and mating streets - after all, their fellow highly educated and accomplished sistas Michelle Obama and Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham didn't seem to have much trouble attracting brothers who were the Masters of the Universe. Something is amiss here.

And indeed, upon further inspection, it is. For starters, and this is rarely acknowledged among Feminists regardless of color, is that "relationships are reflective" as my good friend Kevin Samuels used to say. Wherever you go, there you are. Perhaps this might explain how and why my interlocutor - a Black woman who can't seem to remind everyone around her enough that she went to Harvard - finally wound up with a brother who's alma mater ranks #260 with an acceptance rate of 79%, per US News & World Report rankings. Compare and contrast that to my opponent's alma mater of Harvard - currently ranked #3 in the nation and a perennial top ten contender, with an acceptance rate of THREE PERCENT. As anyone who has actually been through the college system knows - even if they aren't willing to say so openly - acceptance rates are based on how well you did on the SAT. Which is an unofficial national I.Q. test. My interlocutor is no dummy. But can we say the same for the guy she ultimately attracted? I'm just saying.

Here's where things start to really get dicey, because for women, looks play a huge, even decisive role on the kinds and calibers men they can attract. As much as feminists in general and Modern Black Feminists like my interlocutor may try to deny it, brothers who have made to the pinnacle of academic and career success didn't work that hard for a Plain Jane or a Plump Patty with a heart of gold. Don't hate on Kevin Samuels for that; he was merely only saying out loud what anyone with one good eye could plainly see with these High Value Brothers. They may not have dime pieces on their arm, but they damn sure ain't having Homely Chicks on it, either.

Put that together with mental health issues, like ADHD, Generalized Anxiety Disorders and Bipolar stuff, as well has rating high in Disagreeableness on the Big Five Personality traits, and it becomes clearer why the loudest voices in the room seem to have protracted difficulty in the areas of dating and mating, despite their pedigrees. Feminista Jones (UPenn) tipped the scale at well over 300 pounds before going under the knife and suffered manic-depressive disorder; Brittany Cooper (Howard) sat on the Oprah Winfrey network and blamed her morbid obesity on "Racism, Donald Trump, food deserts and the diets now working for Black women the same!" - I kid you not, Google it for yourself. Now, my interlocutor can't be accused of having a weight problem, but no one's ever going to accuse her of being a beauty queen, and by her own admission she's struggled with mental health issues - could that fact have anything to do with her struggles in dating? Just a thought.

But, you see, it's a lot easier - and feels a lot better - to scapegoat Black men who weren't even on the college campus with you than to take a good, long, hard look at yourself. For all the self-absorbed, self-indulgent navel gazing Modern Black Feminism does, one would think being introspective would be one of their strong suits. Alas, this is not to be the case.

So, yes, in the end, Ms. Modern Black Feminist has finally, at the last, gotten a man "on her level" - a brother no one knows, who went to a school no one knows, that has an acceptance rate of damn near eighty percent. Which meant that pretty much anyone could have gone there.

Take a bow, Ms. Harvard!

My name is Mumia Obsidian Ali, a founding father of the Black Manosphere and one of the four horsemen of the Black Manosphere Conclave, and I approved this message!

ENDNOTES:
1. "Black Men Who’ve Made It in America", Jun 26, 2018 & "Four Facts About the Economic Well-Being of Black Men in America", Jan 21, 2019
2. "BLACK MEN MAKING IT IN AMERICA: The Engines of Economic Success for Black Men in America"
3. "Fact Check: 83 Percent Of Black Men Earning $100K Annual Income Marry Black Women", Jan 27, 2021.