Slandering black women for going to college has to stop
The most cringeworthy moment in Scottie Beam's and Desus Nice's "Bet" podcast was a response to Tyler Perry's "Six Triple Eight" film
Recently, I read a book from a podcaster who I’m a fan of. Released from prison in 2017 and doing all kinds of positive things in the community, including motivational speaking, I was expecting this book to be what he learned over the past eight years. Instead, it was a play-by-play of all his robberies, including snatching the chain of a girl he had a crush on just because she called him “little.” My shoulders slumped, wondering why wasn’t more of what he’s doing now incorporated in the book.
Then, I read another book about a popular actor from a TV series that trended for five straight seasons. It was so huge that viewers were separated into “hives.” From the title, the book was supposed to be about his invisible friend. I thought it was going to be a lighthearted read about his childhood and his imagination. Instead, it was nonstop details about gang life, including a shoot-out in a movie theater.
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For whatever reason, both of these brothas thought violence would be the most interesting tale to tell — even though both are so removed from that life now. And it gives me a headache. I don’t need to read anymore books about black men in jail, selling drugs, on parole, desperately trying to be recruited into a gang or anything else involving cops. To get me to watch or read something like that, it has to have such an amazing cast and tell so much rich historical information that I just cannot imagine missing out (ex. “The Harder They Fall” or “Concrete Cowboy” — and no, I don’t only watch Idris Elba movies).
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I also feel the same way about watching nonstop movies with all-black casts that focus on nightmare co-parenting and nonstop trauma in a household. I don’t need to hear “baby mama” or “baby daddy” in one more film for the rest of my life — unless the writing is so amazing that I can’t look away (ex. Teyana Taylor in “A Thousand and One”).
So you can pretty much guess that I have a love-hate relationship with Tyler Perry movies. When I saw the cast of “The Six Triple Eight” nailing Jennifer Hudson’s Spirit Tunnel, I had no idea that Tyler Perry had any affiliation with the film.
I thought they were amazing and laughed at Kerry Washington always being high energy. Then, I checked out the movie trailer. I still don’t know how I missed wording clear as day saying “Written and Produced by Tyler Perry,” but I did. And while I was away from home for a couple of weeks with family during the holidays, I watched “The Six Triple Eight” — twice. I loved the movie: the cast, the storyline, the history, the behind-the-scenes.
I thought it was such a significant piece of U.S. history, women’s history and especially black women’s history. So when I saw Desus Nice and Scottie Beam talking about the movie in their podcast “Bet,” I was blindsided by the snarky comment about college graduates.
“Shout out to that movie that if you’re dating somebody who has their college in their Twitter bio, you have to take them to go see,” Desus Nice said sarcastically.
I don’t know much about Scottie Beam after she left Hot 97, but for some naive reason, I expected her to push back on his callous comment and defend a movie about black women in history. Instead, she immediately pointed out how she never put the name of a college in her bio and cracked up laughing. I’ve yet to find the humor in that level of condescension — especially coming from a man who has repeatedly reminded any interviewee about how he used to work in a library and be a web programmer.
Then, he doubled down on women representing their college on social media by saying, “OK, you didn’t accomplish anything else?”
Again, this is the same guy who told everybody from radio personality Big Boy to former President Barack H. Obama about his years working as a strip club manager. So he can talk about his prior jobs but a woman who spent thousands of dollars on a degree, (hopefully) got a job and a career out of that degree, could possibly be a member of a Black Greek Organization — a lifetime sisterhood, maybe is in an alumni association to support the school after she leaves and could’ve been so proud of her university that it was even worth standing on the grounds of during a presidential election can’t?
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I’m dumbstruck by the idea of a black man ridiculing women who support black women’s history films — on top of repping their college — all while gushing over how much he loves Pusha T’s last album about selling cocaine. Fun fact: Pusha T is not selling drugs now. So why is reminding people about drug dealing days and crime OK and not a question of, “OK, you didn’t accomplish anything else?” but a film about an all-Black and all-female battalion in World War II gets this petty response?