(ThyBlackMan.com) A couple of days ago, I made a post on my facebook page about the television show “Scandal.” At that time I admitted that I hadn’t watched any episodes, but I understood the synopsis to be that Kerry Washington’s character is having an affair with the President who is a white man. Since making that post I have watched the complete first season and almost the entire second season, so that I could have a more informed opinion of the show. After viewing some episodes, despite the various other plots and “scandals” that take place, despite the faithful viewers trying to paint it as some love story of two people falling in love under difficult circumstances, my view remained unchanged.
I didn’t see a beautiful love story, instead I saw what has been happening for years; a white man helping himself to a Black Woman. When we were slaves, and our slave masters would come in and try to take us, we would fight, trying to hold on on to our virtue. Now there is no fighting, we willingly open our hearts and legs to those that have a history of oppressing us. We have faithfully become the White Man’s Woman.
Kerry Washington’s character is a mistress, his side chick, his nigger juice. To me this show both blatantly and subconsciously shows a disregard for the Black Family dynamic, but it also instills the ideology that ‘white” is better, specifically a white MAN is better than a Black Man. I wondered why so many Sisters like this show. What makes this show so interesting and appealing to Black Women? What is it about being the other woman, a mistress, a side piece or a whore that makes so many of us rise up in defense of the character that Kerry Washington plays? I know to many she represents our warped definition of a “strong, independent, Black woman.” She has a successful business and appears to be a “boss”.
That is what so many of us strive for….that type of success, but despite that success she still became the side chick. Why is it that so many of us can be successful in our careers and yet we fail in our marriages or relationships? Why can’t we take that same drive and motivation that we put into trying to break through glass ceilings, and move up that corporate ladder into our
marriages? Why can’t we give our husbands the same smile that we use to greet our superiors? Why don’t we lace our tone with sugar, spice and everything nice when we speak to our husbands?
Let me tell you why shows like this are dangerous, especially to the younger Sisters that watch it. We already have a decline of successful Black Marriages in our community. Single Mothers are the head of households in majority of our homes. We have already been fed and digested the propaganda that the Black Man is no good, and we look for white men to “save” us. What shows promote STRONG Black Marriages, with the focus on REAL LOVE, morality, longevity, support, persevering through hard times and raising children together as a family unit? Our young girls are watching these reality and scripted shows as a blueprint on how to get a man. What examples are we providing in our households? This show glamorizes being a side chick. Think about it.
In this show the person that is considered to hold the highest office in the land wants a Black Woman, never mind the fact that he is married, he wants her…and has to have her and is successful in getting her. Are we not tired of seeing ourselves as some White Man’s Fantasy? In one of the episodes Kerry Washington’s character made mention of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemmings in a heated dialog with the man who plays the President. Thomas Jefferson was the president of the united states and fathered several children by Sally Hemmings who was a slave, so to reference the two is a nod to how white men have had access to us for years.
One of the comments on my post was that “Black Men don’t want to see Black Women getting respect”. Respect? Really? How should Black Men see this show? How should Black Men feel when they see one of their beautiful Black Sisters, in love scenes with a white man, and she WILLFULLY takes the role of his mistress? How should Black Men feel when an accomplished successful Black Man(because let this world tell it that type of Black Man is a myth)proposes MARRIAGE to Kerry Washington’s character, meaning that he wanted to make her his wife. He wanted to make an honest woman out of her, but she opted to remain the white man’s whore. With so many Sisters vouching for this show how should a Black Man feel? Should this make him happy?
To see so many women that look like him promote a show where the main character chooses a white man over a black man, which again plants the seed of white is better for you. Isn’t it bad enough that he has endured hundred of years of having his woman taken from him? His family taken from him? And now it might seem impossible to get his woman back because she seems comfortable in the arms of their common enemy.
I was told that I should be happy for Kerry Washington for landing a huge role on a major network, just as I should be for Halle Berry and Diahann Carroll for the barriers they broke. Well let’s see, Halle Berry got an Oscar for having sex with a white man in a VERY carnal manner. In the movie Monster’s Ball, Billy Bob Thorton’s character appeared to be a racist, but after one taste of that sweet nigger juice; suddenly he saw the light. I am supposed to be proud of that? As far as Dianhann Carroll she wanted to play “the first black bitch” on TV and felt that she accomplished that goal with her role on Dynasty. In order for Black Actors and Actresses to be recognized or given roles, many have to compromise themselves. Black Men have to wear dresses, or be gay, and Black Women have to continue to play roles where they are some white man’s desire.
So no, I can not and I will not be proud of any role where the Black Man or Black Woman is portrayed in a negative light. That is inclusive of all the reality shows that have proven to be detrimental to our community. These shows are aired in several countries, is this how we want the Black Woman to be viewed? Either she is uncouth, uneducated, a baby mama, a whore, a mistress, smart mouthed and uncivilized, and that has become the representation of the Black Woman.
When our young girls see shows like this, they begin to think being the side chick is something worthy of striving for. The side chick APPEARS to be the woman that has it easy. Umm no the side chick is the woman that IS EASY. You might get a couple of dollars thrown at you for “hush money” and you might think you are playing him but ultimately you are PLAYING YOURSELF. Who secures a side chick? Who provides for a side chick and by provide I mean of a man’s own free will and desire. If you are sleeping with him on the side and he pays your rent or whatever else…then you have doubled as a side chick AND a prostitute, because now you are exchanging your womb for money.
If something happens to the husband…are you in the will? Are you financially taken care of? Who would even know that you exist? Side chicks are just that….a woman tucked away to the side for his convenience. You are of no importance, you are nothing but a pleasure receptacle..a simple “release” for him. I remember the question being asked…Can you turn a whore into a wife? Well now a days it seems like women think you have to be a WHORE FIRST, in order to be a wife…and even when we are wives….some of us still prefer being a whore. When I made my initial post, I didn’t know how many Black Women actually became defensive over the show, I didn’t know that the whore had so many advocates but I learned that day.
I had a Brother share his experiences of women that he knew that preferred to be whores instead of wives and this is what he shared:
“In recent years I have seen a woman sabotage a potential marriage on the grounds that she concluded that he would leave her as the two previous men would, by sleeping with her Facebook friends, all the while claiming to love the one she betrayed.
Another fearing another rejection after a failed relationship with the father of her two daughters, shuns intimacy with men she admits to seeing a potential future with, yet get drunk numerous times just to sleep with her old, married, white boss on business trips, admitting it is to deal with her pain.
Another was impregnated a second time by the same male that caused her first miscarriage through stress and almost running her car off the road while she sat pregnant behind the wheel of her own car. She also openly admitted to not wanting anything casual with a man she considered a friend because she wouldn’t only want more from him”.
Again what makes us relate to the whore? Have we been so hurt from past relationships that we don’t know how to deal with pain? Do we not want to heal? Black Women are the LEAST group of women to get married, but is marriage what we really want? We seem to be OK with being the jump off, the throw back, the side piece, the baby mama the whatever else, everything except being a WIFE. When did a wife become overrated? When did having a family structure become unpopular? Why are we opting to be whores, instead of having a man that will secure us? Maybe we as Black Women are in last place to get married because we don’t REQUIRE marriage.
Some of us like to think that shows like these are for entertainment purposes only. The media, namely TV and music is the most efficient way to lull a people to sleep, and keep them consciously, socially and morally dead.
Before you consider being a side chick, think about a meal…no matter what the sides are….it is the MAIN COURSE that gets the MOST attention.