Fourth Thursday

I digress.

(I must forewarn you, this post may be dripping with sarcasm.)

Yesterday was our wonderful Black love and relationship panel discussion, featuring some pretty fine individuals from the Berkeley area and a recently graduated student. There was a good turn out, and why not? People always have an opinion when it comes to black love.

We've had these discussions before. What does a black relationship look like? Why can't black men and women get along? What ever happened to courting? Why would you let a good one go? Why don't our shit stink and yours smell SO bad? yadayadayadaya

So, as I began to space out from a discussion focusing on marriage (which is something I'm just not interested in at the present moment) I started thinking back to our last gender discussion. We're in a camp, two sides facing each other, eyes narrow, like a showdown. It's early in the year but bad feelings from years past have fluttered into this room. There's three moderators...but in this case, we'll call them referees...or the UN Peacekeepers. Yea, it's about to be a war.

The discussion begins with frustrations: "Why don't you like us?" "Why don't you respect us?" "Where are the good one's at?" "Why do you run to other schools?"

It turned into confessionals: "I've been hurt by..." "I don't believe in you all because..."

And a statement was thrown out that still rings into my ears today:

"Maybe you men should look inside yourselves and ask...'Am I Worthy?' of being with a black woman at Washington Universty?"

So, I sat on that. Contemplated. "looked inside myself."

*sigh*

This statement implies two things:

1) That the men at WashU don't know their worth

2) That the women at WashU not only know their worth, but are allowed to use their (probably flawed) concept of self-worth as a projection of eligibility to the WashU men

And what is this "worth?" Is it some mythical-metaphysical bullshit measurement of qualities and thought processes that can be made tangible? Is it some nice post-depressed-ice-cream-eating-binge phrase used in closed door conversations to make the dumped not seem so defeated? Is it something any of us ACTUALLY ever think of outside of our attempts to degrade people we're supposed to be uplifting while synonymously calling it "honesty?" How is someone to know that their worthy? How do I know if I'm not overqualified to be with you? What separates me from you? How do you know that you're not over assessing your worth? How do you know that you're not downplaying someone else's worth?

How do we know that the entire statement wasn't just to make oneself look better while simultaneously making every guy in that room look worse.

Under the right amount of pressure, carbon can take the form of Diamond or Graphite. How many lumps of Graphite have you helped create?

A lot of people have been hurt by a minority. That's legit...but it's a minority. A small part. And the good majority have to pay for them. We are made to feel worthless because you've been hurt. We are forced to make other's feel worthless to gain our worth back. And the cycle continues. The chicken and the egg, really.

I'm tired of paying for my brother's crimes. Yes, a few dudes at this university have messed up, have played women, have hurt them...but why should I have to continually pay for them? If this concept of worth holds any water, then I'm worth more than that. The VAST majority of the men are worth more than that. I know it's easier to let such a small part define the whole, but maybe it's time to grow up a little bit, stop elevating yourselves at our expense and make an effort to grow with us, not apart from us.

And if you want to stand by this divisive and foolish notion of "worthy," then examine your own self worth. See how many people you've hurt. See how many times you've done the same things that we're accused of. See if you're really as close to being a diamond as you claim to be.