Hey folks, sorry for the delay, but my computer is out of wack and I have only been able to post to the site from work. I hate having to borrow, because most folks start acting brand new when you ask to borrow their stuff, especially black folks, but that’s neither here nor there, so let’s continue with the list:
6. Black men reach into the “trick” bag way too much to get with women.
Now the term “tricking” covers quite a range actions, from spending money on a woman to impress her with financial prowess to doing favors in order to get in good with the woman. Tricking is not exclusively limited to black men, but I want to expose this behavior here so that we put a stop to this in the black male community.
In order to stop this behavior, we must identify the different types and determine the root cause for each specific type. You can hear some of these at www.macklessonsradio.com by the way of Tariq Nasheed, others I have developed myself from experience. Here are the different types of tricking, in order of severity:
The Bragging Trick
The bragging trick is the guy who gets around females and tries to impress them by talking about what type of car he has, his money market accounts, etc. This type of guy will be talking to a female and arbitrarily mention that he has to get his Benz out of the shop or that his 6-bedroom house is getting fumigated. The problem here is that most of the time, the guys that resort to this type of tricking rarely have the proverbial “proof in the pudding”. If the female falls for this guy, she will be very disappointed when he shows up in his Sebring and takes her to the two-bedroom apartment that he is sharing with his mama. Guys that have real tangibles do not lower themselves to bragging about their fortunes, their extreme confidence will shine through and tell a female all she really needs to know about what he has or doesn’t have. That also brings to light another point, there is big difference between extreme confidence and arrogance. Extreme confidence is being comfortable with yourself and content enough to know that you are in demand. Arrogance is all about trying to act out to impress others around you or trying to gain an advantage over someone else based on fake credentials. There is nothing wrong with being extremely confident, many black women (not all, so no nasty repsonses) see extremely confident black guys and assume that they are arrogant because these women are used to men stepping to them from a trick angle. They are not used to having guys expect THEM to bring something to the table first. This is how you want to be brothers, don’t get involved with a female that you have to cater to all the time, if you want her to respect you, you have to demand her to cater to your needs as well.
The Friend aka Favor Trick
This is the type of guy that believes that if he does alot of favors for a woman and become their friend, the woman will give him play based on his “Good Samaritan” act. Sorry guys, helping a woman move furniture, letting her wash her dirty ass drawers at your house, or letting her borrow money to pay her cable bill does not get you anywhere close to the coochie. The thing is that women will take advantage of you and accept your friendship without respecting you, and women really only dig guys whom they respect. These women know that you want to hit it, so she will continue to string you along and accepting your favors without even thinking twice about giving you a chance. Also, some guys accept the role of becoming “honorary women” by becoming a females confidant. These guys think that knowing everything about a female will get them easier access to her heart. As Charlie Murphy so eloquently put it, “Wrong!” Women are attracted to guys that have some type of mystery about them, once you let this woman confide in you and you totally confide in her, you have been transformed from potential boyfriend to homegirl status, congratulations dumbass! The key is to avoid getting too close to women initially, don’t be misleading, but keep yourself random as far as availability early on, you don’t want to come across as being the type of guy who’s only role in life is to pander to this woman. Get a hobby, nigga.
The Flossy Trick
My definition of the flossy trick differs a bit from Nasheed’s definition on his Macklessons radio show. My version of the flossy trick is the guy that will drive by Spelman College in his Cadillac Escalade on 22’s expecting to get props/play from women based on the women being overly impressed. These guys will pay for a stick of gum at Wal-Mart and if a fine woman is around he will pull out all every big bill in his wallet to get to 25 cents. The bad thing about this type of tricking is that it works from time to time, but usually the type of women that gravitate toward these tricks are chickenheads and hoes. If that’s what you strive for, go ahead and do you, but a woman with her stuff together, especially if she has her own money, is not overly impressed by rims, medallions, etc. These women will acknowledge your nice car/crib/abundance of cash, and may even be attracted somewhat to the apparent success that these things represent, but you will not get ass from these top-notch women soley based on flossiness.
Captain Save-A-Hoe
The last trick is the one everybody should know about, Captain Save-A-Hoe. This is the guy that seeks out women with personal problems, kids, etc. and he swoops in to impress her by trying to make her situation better. This guy will wife up a woman with three kids, move her and the rugrats into his home, and pay for diapers, just to have a consistent cut buddy. Unfortuantely fellas, when you go after these flawed women, their negative vibe wil project onto you. That’s almost like picking the retarded kid with the wooden leg as your teammate for a game of pickup basketball, you’re not giving yourself a chance to win from the start. Stop trying to save these women, they are in a crisis for a reason, probably because of their own doing, so there’s no need to get caught up in the tangled web they weave.
In closing, I want the brothers to avoid falling into these trick roles. When you step to a female, step to her with more than your dick out, she will see right through that and take you for all your worth. Step to women with the confidence and the wherewithall to gain her interest in you and not what you can do for her first.
5. Black men do not “prefer” white women over black women.
Let me preface this by saying that there is nothing wrong with dating outside your race if you find someone that you vibe with. As of matter of fact, my most recent ex-girlfriend is bi-racial, her dad being black and mother being caucasian. They seem to love each other alot and that’s cool, so I have no problem there. The thing is, black men prefer women that have a cooperative attitude, don’t play mobile games, and are respectful. Unfortunately, alot of black women display attributes that are the total opposite of those aforementioned characteristics. The black female community has a general lack of respect for the brothers, not to say that some of this attitude is unwarranted with all the deadbeat dads, in-and-out of jail niggas, and fake-ass thugs in the black male community. The bad thing is that the good brothers have to suffer along with the bad because of black females’ poor dating decisions. From personal experience, the black females that I have recently dealt with have all been about game playing and trying to make me prove my worth. Now these women are probably like this because they have made poor dating decisions previously and now are emotionally guarded. Well most brothers don’t have time to sift through bullshit to get to these types of women, so we go and explore other dating choices. It doesn’t matter if the woman is red/yellow/green, as long as she knows how to respect a brother and minimizes the bullshit factor, the black man will roll with her. I hate when black women complain about how when a brother gets him some money, he goes out and gets a white girl, that’s not true. The truth is he probably was trying to deal with the sisters BEFORE he got money and got no play because of the war going on between black men and women (see Antuan’s post), and he decided to get with a woman that was down. The funny thing is, white women are smart and they know about the lack of respect that black women show black men as a whole, so they put themselves in position to take advantage while the black women are slipping. So it’s not about brothers seeking out white women, it’s about sisters stepping their game up, sorry ladies, I know you didn’t want to hear that.
TO BE CONTINUED…
I’m not even going to touch the black men, white women issue because I could be here for days and don’t really have that kind of time right now! Point blank, I feel that some black men can’t handle strong black women. Being strong doesn’t mean that she has to be combative, overly independent, etc… She may just have her stuff together and not need a man for anything other than companionship. There is nothing wrong with that. Personally, I don’t need any man to pay my bills, buy me clothes, etc… All a man can do for me is enhance my life with his personal attributes. Now onto the tricks… I have a myspace page and have stumbled upon a few men’s pages with pictures plastered up of a big house and multiple cars. What exactly is the point of having this information posted up on the internet? What type of women are these men trying to attract? When I see things like this, I don’t even respond to those men because it seems that they have something to prove. If you’re “balling”, then it will show and you don’t have to shout it from the latest www homepage. Why would a man want a woman who is interested in him because of his monetary status? It’s fine to be proud of what you’ve accomplished but everyone doesn’t have to know. Women who are of true character, education, and substinence will not be fazed by your big house and your BMW because she can get that herself. So, what else can you offer?
That’s exactly what I was saying about the trick situation, we need to chop it up about the black man/white woman issue, I wanna hear what you have to say about that. Until next time.
AJ,
I know it was on a previous issue, but I wanted to raise a question when you talked about how Black men don’t like “thick” women. Could we agree that some women have taken the word “thick” and distorted the meaning? I wouldn’t for instance call Serena Williams overweight, because I’m sure she’s in shape. And she’s not what we would call “skinny.”
As for the things mentioned above, I have to agree mostly. However, I would like to see how people respond to the less talked-about issue of how professional Black women tend to date interracially as well, and then see how the brotha respond to it as well. I admit its who they have chosen, but it still kinda nags me a little.
Charles,
I will address your concerns in future post
Tariq Nasheed sux! Stop listening to him Aaron! He doesn’t know what he’s talking about! LOL (but I’m serious) how you like them apples!?! Anyways, to comment on this post, I believe that men and women alike do things to impress the opposite sex b/c it’s in our nature. If you’ve ever watched the animal planet channel, you’ll see the male animals do it too. They fight each other, puff up, show their pretty feather colors, all just to get a mate. As far as humans go, I believe all that “trickin” has to do with wanting attention and feeling important…which goes back to the whole self esteem issue. One thing I’ve learned about “real” people is that they will be there when you have it, and when you don’t…and if men weren’t so driven by their egos…they’d leave all these chickenheads alone! you all want someone to be all up on you, so you’d waste your time with these doofus girls just to make yourselves feel better. Men, get your mind off the coochie and into some substance. There are a lot of good women out there, but ya’ll doofuses don’t want them, you want the “dimes” that look like trophies but can’t do shit else for you….so once you all get your priorities straight, that person will be right there…
Ouch!
It’s very easy to get into a chicken-or-egg argument here. Both sexes do contribute to the whole idea of ego and tricking. Generally, I think that men essentially are pushed into these types of behaviors because just as “good women” apparently get no attention, you can definately say that same applies for the “good men” out there. I think that generally, men start(ed) off nice, but then women eventually turn(ed) them to the Dark Side. Dave Chappelle put it bluntly: “Chivalry is dead..and women killed it.”
I’ve seen countless brothas passed up because they don’t have an expensive car/flaunt jewelry/etc. Looking for substance should apply. Egos are also an important factor here. It’s funny how unreasonable and unrealistic the goals people set for the person they want to find without an inch of compromise–I’m not saying you don’t set the bar high, but if you want someone to meet every point on your “checklist,” you’d better be ready to allow for some changes here and there. Relationships that are based on a you-must-meet-all-my-requirements-or-no-dice are not destined to survive. It may work at the DMV, but not in real life.
Most women I know don’t necessarily expect a man to have a sh*t load of cash, they just want him to have a J-O-B, not be lazy, and be willing to shoulder his half of the relationship financially. Personally, I like a man who is educated, respectful, and ambitious with some sort of passion in his life. I make a reasonably good salary, and any man who is looking to be taken care of by me is a huge turn off. I want an equal, and incidentally I found one. He happens to be white, but that is who approached me. I am neither overweight, ugly, loud, crass nor emasculating, yet have been told that I am “pretty but too dark.” Black men may not necessarily prefer white women, but they certainly seem to prefer women who have light skin. If these color struck brothers can’t get her, he will step over 10 of me to get an Asian, a Hispanic or anyone who is not dark. This seems to be especially true of high-achieving black men who feel they are entitled to more than the run of the mill black woman.