The Great Black Female Nerd Fallacy of Men: No One Owes Anyone Their Fantasy

Onyx Contributor:  H.T. (@517NightHawk), Podcast:  Lansing Anti-Hero

As I wrote before, black male nerds have a weird and disturbing sense of entitlement with women.  And I still stand by that.  However, to keep things fair, I have to bring up the other side of the coin:  black female nerds and their dating habits.  Let me start by saying that I in no way have a problem with black women dating outside their race.  The problem resides more in the inherent double standard that lies in it all.

First thing people need to understand about black nerdom in terms of media:  black nerdom is a very matriarchal community.  Hell, I’d say that the biggest voice in independent black nerd media is a very accomplished black woman.  In terms of how this relates to black men, a lot of big name black male figures more or less echo their opinions, but there’s always the borderline hotep outliers who etch by with serving the annoying regressive lot in black nerd culture.  In terms of representation of black men and women in the media we consume, to be honest, black men haven’t really gone down.  Period.  I’d bet you anything a majority of the people supporting the current run of Captain America are black women.  As for black women in comics and the like, gains are being made but there’s still the complaint that they haven’t done enough to promote black female heroes, which there is truth to.

That all being said, I’d be remiss if I ignored the fact that when the issue of representation, or more accurately the lack of WOC or the huge amount of just non-straight white male heroes, things get…interesting.  Part of the reason a lot of black nerd figures have me blocked on Twitter is because I’ve pointed out the hypocrisy in the demand that some heroes need to be racebent to fight back against the rampant amount of white cisgendered heroes (I know).  I go into it all here.

Now, it terms of how this ties to the discourse between black nerd men & women, this is a good place to start.  While black nerd men worship at the feet of white and non-black women because they feel as though they’re owed women’s affections for the bare minimum, black nerd women have bought into the narrative that because they don’t fit into the typical trappings of blackness, they’re outcasts and must seek attention from those who can relate.  People will say, “But don’t black male nerds go through the same thing?” not exactly.  See, in the last few years, black men on the whole kinda came to a silent conclusion that certain levels of nerd shit is just a common part of cultural shorthand.  Dragonball Z, Naruto, Pokemon, video games, hell even Star Wars made it in.

But as it goes for black nerd WOMEN, such women are typically written off as huge Oreos who are out of touch with black culture and that it’s not the best look for black women to engage in such things that lie wholly outside of black culture.  Again, let me remind you that black culture has more than accepted black MEN who engage in the same things.  So this is how we reach the point at which there is a bit of friction between black men and women.  Obviously, this extends to dating.  So really I’M at least not shocked, let alone bothered, by black nerd women who fall in love with non-black men.

The PROBLEM isn’t that they decided to date non-black men, although to be fair the black nerd men calling them bed wenches while they themselves are lusting over non-black women doesn’t help.  The PROBLEM is that things went from “Black men don’t love me the way I want to be loved” to “Black men aren’t living up to my particular standards, so they’re all trash.”  Seriously, on one hand, I can see the argument for why black women date non black men.  But we’re no longer at that stage.  Again, in all our wokeness, the standard for black men to not wind up othered as “ashy” or “hotep” or “cooning” has gotten to a very unattractive level.  As Gil said in a less subtle way, it really does feel like the demand to strip black men of our “male privilege” to the point that our viewpoint are seen as problematic just on the grounds that our masculinity and heterosexuality gives us privilege over people who aren’t those things.  Hell, we’re called transphobic for not being attracted to transwomen.  And this seems to be a narrative that seems to only be pushed on black men.  What worse is that people have given black men who just comply with it props even when they seemingly just say “fuck my dignity and self respect”.

Seriously, guys like THIS are seen as the good ones.  Meanwhile, were being expected to be like this but we have to watch y’all thirst over every Asian actor that tickles your fancy.  Just looking at them, I’m left wondering if the love for Asian men stems from the idea that Asian men aren’t as masculine as black men, or that a lot of these women have some sort of grievance with masculine black men because they don’t just roll over and see themselves as awful on the grounds that other guys are shitty people.  Yes, masculine men stand up for women, but we will also defend our name and honor when anyone tries to lump us in with ACTUALLY shitty men.  Yes, we say “Not All Men” because we don’t want to be held responsible for other men’s bullshit anymore than you want men to hold you responsible for other women’s’ bullshit.  You know, like how Psychopaths tend to do.  

The problem black nerds like-minded to myself is that it seems like the lust for non-black men stems from the fact that you automatically have an advantage on them in that at any point you can drop the “you’re offending me culturally” card and keep them in line, along with the fact that black men are still seen as self-hating for even THINKING a girl that fails the paper bag test is pretty.  Someone will point out that black men who tend to get with white women use it to troll black women, but why argue with those fools?  Why give them fuel?  At that point you really do find yourself in the same department as the nerds who complain about black women who date thugs.  Really, take their complaints and replace “thugs” with “Becky’s” or some other pejorative, and they sound the same.

My point is this:  I’m all for black women finding love.  But let’s not sit here and pretend that the standards that black men and black women have for each other are a bit obtuse.  Just like every black woman isn’t going to be some thick light skinned woman with tattoos, black men aren’t going to be whatever your fantasy for a man is all the time.  This need to turn men into these almost neutered men who are supposed to worship the ground black women walk on while never looking at a non-black woman (and likely not getting love from the women they’re supposed to bow down to) is bound to be met with resistance and can ONLY attract men who deep down you just aren’t attracted to on account of the fact that MOST (Read:  not all) women want a guy who just rolls the fuck over.

But of course, even as I write this, I can already hear the millennial naiveté of believing that less masculine men means less toxic.  And I put it to anyone to come back to this article in 5-10 years and tell me I was not wrong when I say that a great deal of these black men rolling over are just playing the long game or are just annoying lackeys to them.  Sure, make fun of me for having a lot of female friends, but unlike the women pushing this narrative, I’m at least self-aware to know why I’m surrounded by women I’m not dating or sleeping with.  Can the #MenAreTrash crowd say this?  Can the #MasculinitySoFragile say this?  Can the lovers of carefree black boys say this?