Should Successful Black Women Date Bus Driving Black Men?

One of the most diehard "narratives" we Black Americans tell ourselves (despite all manner of evidence to the contrary, I might add) goes a little something like this: "There is a dearth of eligible Black men to go around for professional, accomplished and highly educated Black women". Or words to that effect. For at least the past THREE DECADES, this "narrative" has been on steady repeat in not only what I've jokingly dubbed the "Black Vaginavision Media" (Oprah Winfrey Network, Madame Noire, Essence, the revamped Ebony, the Black Love Machine, etc.), but the White mainstream media and academia as well. It is warm and comforting for many professional and educated Black women - who simply didn't make it a priority to get their "MRS" degree - to be able to scapegoat anything and everything else to keep from facing that reality. Among a great many other things.

Speaking of scapegoating - and more to the point of today's live show - the idea of professional and educated Black women "dating down" to Blue Collar Brothers is such a popular staple of "Black Love Discourse" it has become the stuff of TylerPerrywood movies, scores of Black Love novels, stageplays, articles and blogs, and much more. Blue Collar Brothers, who until very recently didn't have the means to be heard in their own voices (and whom no one cared to ask about, speak to or advocate for), were largely absent in the multi-decades "nonversation".

But that was then, and this is NOW.

As one of the Founding Fathers of the Black Manosphere, I helped to create the space because as a lifelong, blue collar, skilled tradesman brother, I got beyond sick and tired of professional sisters whipping up on and flat out scapegoating blue collar brothers like me, because they either didn't make getting an MRS degree a priority, were never attractive enough (or at all) for the kinds of Masters of the Universe Brothers they were checking for, or had obnoxious personalities that turned the brothers who most can afford to be very finicky OFF. Instead of unpacking how and why they couldn't or wouldn't stay in THEIR lane, they want to dump on brothers like me instead. That is some shameful Sugar Honey Iced Tea.

The recent interview between prominent attorney Eboni K. Williams and longtime Black women's life coach and guru Iyanla Vanzant, featured on The Grio, is a most timely case in point. During their conversation, Ms. Williams goes to that old saw, one mo' gin - that there aren't enough eligible brothers to go around - to which Iyanla responded by asking her as to whether she would date a brother who was a bus driver? Eboni Williams' response has set Black social media on fire: "If he OWNS the bus". Once again, for the gazillion umpteenth time, we have to go there with Black women like Ms. Williams "dating down". But THIS time, we're gonna do it from the other side of the ball - and THIS "Blue HENRY" has some burning questions for the lovely ladies, TODAY on Obsidian Radio!