Did you know that the average cost of a Ph.D. degree is a quarter of a million dollars? Black women carry the most college debt of anyone in the country – and take a wild guess as to who will have to pay for it?
“I’ve got one that can SEE!”
John Carpenter’s “They Live”
She’s baaack…just when I thought that Ms. Millennium Falcon Butt herself – the self-styled “Feminista Jones” – would waddle off into the sunset, here she is back to crow over a down-to-the-wire, illegitimate “win” of Joe Biden, Kamala Harris and the Democrat Party for the White House. Jones, whose failures in “stopping street harassment” and “getting Black men to get on board with Black Feminism via smutty books” are well documented, has now seemed to have gotten a second wind being a solidly middle-aged “politically engaged” Black feminist woman. Her latest hustle? Being a “doctoral student”.
But we’ll get into more detail with that in a bit.
Let’s delve into the latest with Ms. Jones, shall we?
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BLACK WOMEN “SAVED DEMOCRACY”? REALLY?
Writing an op-ed piece for the Philadelphia Inquirer (oh, how the mighty have fallen!), Jones attempts to make the case that not only was it Black women who “saved democracy” from the clutches of president Donald Trump, but they haven’t been showed the appropriate “gratitude” from the rest of the American people (“Black women saved democracy yet again. Where’s our moment of gratitude?“, Nov 10, 2020). No, I mean seriously. Hollywood screenwriters couldn’t make this up.
Clocking in at just under a thousand words, Jones rattles off the usual Black feminist leftist boilerplate about “xenophobia, racism, sexism and ableism” that the Trump era is shot through with, completely disregarding the fact that illegal immigration hurts Black male labor. My own life is a prima facia example, as I experienced this first hand in my previous 22-year career as a blue collar, union-card carrying skilled tradesman; my employer, in an attempt to save money and cut costs, hired “Manny, Moe & Jack” – the three illegal Mexicans who spoke no English whatsoever – to do my job on second shift. Due to me being so good at what I do (with the ability to do the work of three men!), my employer hired me back to the position inside of a month, with full back pay AND a 20% raise, per union standards.
Not all Black men in labor were as fortunate as me, however, and the numbers bears this out – that is, until Trump was in office. During his time there, Black male unemployment fell to all-time lows – and contrary to what people like Jones would try to have everyone believe, no, that was NOT a “trend that started under Barack Obama”. Trump’s stance on putting a stop to illegal immigration made it directly possible for Black men to have a chance to get a foothold in the economy – you know, like the ones on lockdown that Jones and her ilk tingle over? We’ll come back to that in a second – but first, I just have to marvel at Jones’ rank hypocrisy. She rails against Trump’s supposed “ablism” and caustic attitude towards “others” when she herself has taken shots at disabled Black men, blue collar Black men and shorter statured Black men – all while holding herself out as some paragon of virture and champion of the dispossessed.
What a monumental joke.
Anyway, getting back to the topic: What Black women REALLY “saved” was their lavish suite of Welfare State/Hubby State/Big Daddy Govt bennies – all on the the taxpayer’s dime, mind you – and Jones is but one yuuuge, pardon the pun, example of this.
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“WHOHE” REVISITED
Elsewhere in her piece, Jones recounts the alarming number of murders that take place in Philly, and the large numbers of brothers on lockdown in the joint and the high poverty rate for a major American city. It all sounds good in the abstract to “care for the needy and the oppressed” – until you remember the late Mr. Walter Wallace, better known to some by his rap name “WhoHe”. Wallace was the Black man who was gunned down by Philly cops late last month for refusing to drop his knife and hit the deck. The ensuing citywide riots – the second in months, mind you – resulted in uncounted numbers of stores and businesses being looted, busted, burned and destroyed – including one owned by Ms. Jameelah Scurry, of “La’Vanter Boutique” in North Philly. In addition, upwards of 60 of Philly’s Finest were attacked, assaulted and injured (“Watch: Black Woman Describes Anguish of Her Boutique’s Destruction by Philadelphia Looters”, Breitbart.com, Oct 29, 2020). Of course, in her narcissistic, self-serving quest to grab the spotlight, Jones forgets all about this sista. So much for “sistahood”, huh?
“WhoHe” was made out to be the prototypical “good boy” only with some “mental health issues”; but thanks to intrepid news outlets not in the tank for the Radical Left like Jones and her ilk, we know the truth about the late Walt. According to a piece appearing on the Newswars website (“Meet Walter Wallace Jr, The Career Criminal Whose Shooting by Police Triggered Riots in Philly”, Oct 28, 2020), Wallace had a rap sheet that was longer than a roll of toilet paper – and so many mugshots that the author admitted to not being able to fit them all into the frame(!):
“Black Lives Matter rioting and looting in Philadelphia on Monday night was triggered in response to police shooting a career criminal with a lengthy record who charged at them with a knife.
Walter Wallace Jr, 27, has so many mugshots I couldn’t fit them all into one properly-sized header image.
The media, which has done everything in their power to either ignore or cover-up the BLM riots in Philly, chose to use what appears to be a high school prom photo of Wallace in their stories — which didn’t dare use the “R-word” (i.e. riots) despite having over a dozen mugshots at their disposal.”
The Newswars piece also notes that Wallace’s first criminal offense occurred at the tender age of 13 – when he attacked and assaulted his teacher.
Here’s some more highlight’s from Wallace’s prolific antisocial criminal career:
“Court records show Wallace was currently awaiting trial for allegedly threatening to shoot a woman and her house up.
In 2017, he pled guilty to robbery, assault, and possessing an instrument of crime after kicking down the door of another woman and putting a gun to her head.
He was sentenced to 11-23 months behind bars.
And in 2013, he pled guilty to assault and resisting arrest after punching a police officer in the face.
He was arrested in March after he allegedly threatened his child’s mother over the phone, saying “I’ll shoot you and that house up.”
In 2019, he was charged with resisting arrest by “kicking the windows and door panels of a police patrol car.”
In 2016, during a robbery, he allegedly grabbed a woman by the neck and held what she believed to be a gun to her head, according to court records.
In 2013, Wallace’s mother had a protective order against him which he allegedly violated when he “threw water in her face and punched her in the face” and “threatened to return and shoot” her, according to court records.”
And finally, you can see “WhoHe”‘s smash rap hit, “Stop Playin'”, still playing on YouTube as I type this; it has at present, over 80K views(!).
One has to ask, if poor Walter Wallace was so “mentally disturbed” as his parents wailed on about the day he was finally put down like the rabid dog that he was, HOW was he able to gain access to an arsenal that Frank Castle would be proud of? Moreover, one also has to ask: Is “WhoHe” and his ilk Black women of Philly – like Feminista Jones, whose professional claim to fame is as a glorified itinerant social worker that specializes in “mental health” – going out on a limb for?
As I look at the mess my beloved hometown has become, I can only slowly shake my head.
We would be remiss if we didn’t mention the fact that Wallace, despite his mental infirmity, was no slouch in the Baby Daddy department – his brief life saw him sire NINE little “WhoHe”‘s of Tomorrow(!). One wonders if Black women’s interest in the “brothers on lockdown” – like Wallace – has more than a purely professional, “fight the power” interest.
And one wonders, who will be picking up the tab for Wallace’s bedroom frolics, er, kids? Hmmm…
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THE FOURTEEN PERCENT
Jones also states in her article that of Black Philly men polled by POWER, which is a “faith-based group”, 14% of them planned to vote for Trump (I guess it really is true about that old adage that “politics makes strange bedfellows”; Jones is supposedly anti-organized religion). Unfortunately we don’t know more about this cohort of Black Philly male Trump supporters, because it only gets one sentence in Jones’ diatribe.
But what we do know from other sources bearing on this and the previous election, is that Black male Trump supporters are “likely to be a working-class or lower-middle-class black man, over the age of 35, and interested in alternative approaches to addressing what ails black America,” and “tend to be more receptive to core messages of self-determination, financial success as a function of hard work, and personal responsibility, especially when conveyed in a plainspoken, hypermasculine manner.” Many Black men – myself included – see Trump as an aspirational figure, of hardscrabble grit and scrappy gumption that doesn’t back down from challenges left, right and center.
But there’s more. As the excellent piece on the growing and by now undeniable gender political divide obtaining in Black America on the Vox website observes (“The gender gap in black views on Trump, explained”, Mar 9, 2020), Black male Trump/GOP supporters seriously disagree with Black women Democrats on the Black Family – what that means, what it looks like, and most importantly, “Who Leads?” – who calls the shots in the home. Black women Democrats like Jones clearly hold a different view than Black male Trumpers – the former who favor “Baby Mamaism” and other “alternative” forms of family; while the latter supports a kind of “James Evans” model of the family unit, with the Black man as the undisputed lord and master of the home. It doesn’t take a “doctoral student” like Jones to know that a low-level acrimony between Black men and women had been simmering just below the surface on these and related issues for many, many years; and it doesn’t take an inside the beltway policy wonk or political watcher to know a dynamic figure like Trump was all it took to bring it all to the surface.
As Barack Obama’s 2012 reelection web-based ad, “The Life of Julia” bears out, not only is there a growing cohort of single women in the country generally, Black women are the most unpartnered of all – and the Democrats know it. Since the turn of the 21st century, they’ve been slowly but surely retooling their party apparatus to accomodate the needs and interests of Black women – the vast majority of whom WILL be single, for much and in many cases, all their adult lives. Women in general, and Black women in particular, know that they need help if they are going to survive – it’s just that differing women in the American polity deals with that age-old challenge in differing ways. Insofar as the last election was concerned for example, White women continued to support Trump by a clear majority – 55% as I recall. Compare that to the nearly 100% Black women gave to the Democrats – and then consider the marital rates of both groups: According to BlackDemographics.com, only 26% of Black women are currently married, compared to all American women at 46%; when it comes to “never marrieds”, Black women clock in at a whopping 48% – almost half of ALL Black women(!) – compared to the country’s women overall at only 31%. And, when you add in the divorced, widowed and even separated, you wind up with Black women totaling an incredible 73% “single ladies”, vs. an overall “single ladies” total for the country at large with 54% – a nearly 20 point difference(!).
Put this together with the top six occupations filled by Black women according to another excellent piece earlier this year on the Center for American Progress website (“On the Frontlines at Work and at Home: The Disproportionate Economic Effects of the Coronavirus Pandemic on Women of Color”, Apr 23, 2020) and there’s simply no getting around the fact that, for the overwhelming majority of Black women, they simply will not “make it” without financial help. That used to come in the form of a husband. Now it comes in the form of the Welfare State/Hubby State/Big Daddy Govt – the main conduit of which being, the Democrat Party.
And Black women know it.
Beneath all the bromides about “racism”, “social justice” and being so “appalled” at Trump’s behavior, as always, when you really want to know what motivates people – in this case Black women – simply “follow the money”. And make no mistake about it, this IS about money – money divorced from the need to “check in” with Black Male Authority in the home, which is just how A LOT of Black women like it. They have successfully figured out a way to get the resources of productive, competent, industrious, successful Black men, without having to “deal” with him. Black women understood that another four uniterrupted years of Donald Trump could put a serious dent in that neverending gravy train of bennies, and moved heaven and earth (and untold numbers of dubious ballots, I might add) to get him outta there. Lest anyone think that I’m making any of this up, simply go and listen to what “Gasoline Maxine” Waters had to say on the matter, among a great many Black women in American life, and listen for yourself (“Maxine Waters Says She ‘Will Never, Ever Forgive’ Black Voters Who Don’t Do What She Says”, The Federalist, Nov 2, 2020). Brittany Cooper suggested in an Oct 15, 2020 tweet that Black women go on “sex strikes” to reign in “rogue Black male elements” who dared not to vote for “Black (female!) interests” (how is it possible for anyone to take such a monstrosity seriously?); MSNBC’s Joy Reid threatened to revoke Black men’s pass to the “family cookout”; Fox Soul’s “Cocktails with Queens” show dished on how they simply couldn’t “date Black men who voted for Trump” (as if honestly, anyone of any consequence were checking for those washed-up has-beens?).
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“IMMA PH.D.!”
When I first got wind of Jones’ missive, I quickly scanned over it to get a sense of how long it was – I can only take her in small doses, dontcha know – when her byline caught my eye. It noted that she was a doctoral student at Temple University, which is in North Philly. That line alone picqued my interest.
I say that because “going back to school” is one of the go-to moves for over-educated Black women like Jones do because they can’t deal with real life in real time. It reminded me of “Saint Kevin” Samuels’ ribbing of his similarly situated Black female callers on his popular late night live show over on YouTube. Because Black women like Jones have no real lives – which, make no mistake, WILL INVOLVE A BLACK MAN – they instead fill up their lives with “causes”. This is one of the main reasons why so many Black women of Jones’ ilk have so much time to devote to the Cause of the Week – because they have no man, no kids and in effect, no life (for the record, Jones is a divorcee of some years and mom to a son, who lives with his dad). In a previous age we would call such ladies “Busybodies”; today, we just call them pathetic.
Readers of this column might recall my “The Spinster Bubble Is About To Bust Wide Open” (Negromanosphere.com, Feb 3, 2020), in which I discussed one Ms. Karen Jennings, 65, who went back to “get her master’s” in theology – no disrespect to those of a Higher Calling, but that’s a pretty worthless degree at a very late age. As it turned out, Ms. Jennings – who chose to be a spinster and turned down marital prospects – is now crying the blues, because there’s no one around to take care of her in her twilight years.
But seriously, whose fault is that?
For those who might read this and think that I’m on some “enforced monogamy” stuff, please don’t get me wrong: In no way am I for attempting to “force” people to get together. In an age where not only marriage but relationships are based not on necessity but hedonic, mutual pleasure and enjoyment, I – a self-described hedonist – would be committing a sin and shame if I were for a hidebound way of doing things from a bygone era. I have no problem with Ms. Jennings, or for that matter, the Formerly Freaky Ms. Feminist Jones, living out the lives they choose.
I just don’t either doing it on my dime as the taxpayer.
For Black women like Ms. Jennings – and as we’ve already pointed out, they are legion – the responsibility is theirs and theirs alone to order their lives and prepare for the future accordingly, should they choose to go it alone. And for Black women like Feminista Jones, it is her responsibility to figure out what she’s going to do with herself, instead of being a perpetual nuisance and making everyone else’s life miserable because she can’t figure out how to keep a man around longer than it takes to bust a nut.
It may be inelegant to say, but it’s true nonetheless – women are a bill. They’re more expensive to deal with, contend with and care for – even parents with boy and girl children know this. Simply put, females are more expensive to care for, than are males. Government spending bears this out, year on year – even when you control for kids, as we do in the cases of Jennings and Jones, neither of whom have kids to care for.
And the same is true when it comes to “education” in our time. While Black women love to crow on and on about how they’re the most educated of any group of Americans in the country, when the bills come due they suddenly get quiet. But the facts are in: According to Black Enterprise Magazine, Black women have hands down, the highest school loan debt (“STUDY: BLACK WOMEN HAVE THE HIGHEST AMOUNT OF STUDENT LOAN DEBT”, Aug 5, 2018). Indeed, one of the more notable (and biggest, to be frank) examples of this is “Sturdy Stacey” Abrams, whose staggering debt of nearly a quarter of a million dollars – the lion’s share of it due to “going to school” is a powerful case in point (“Stacey Abrams Has $228,000 of Debt. Here’s How the Georgia Governor Candidate Got it, and How She Is Paying It Back”, Yahoo! Finance, Nov 6, 2018). I have no figures at hand as to the default rates with Black women on these “school loans”; but my gut and experience in dealing with Black women along fiscal lines tells me that I would not be surprised if there were an above average percentage of Black female deadbeats out there.
Not at all.
Back to Jones and the “Imma Ph.D.!” phenomenon: One thing that I notice anytime topics like these come up, is that no one ever asks “Who pays for this?”. It’s because, and sadly I have to include at least 80% of Black men in this one, far too many Black people believe stuff comes for free. It doesn’t. Everything done in our society is done at someone else’s expense – either your own directly, or someone else indirectly. And the latter has truly corrupted the Soul of Black America, and has all but hollowed us out.
Just for shits and giggles, I went searching around for “the cost of a Ph.D.” after my morning workout, and found a nifty website called “Beyond Ph.D. Coaching”. It’s owner, Steve Tippins, who is himself a Ph.D. and has some three decades of experience in the teaching field, gives a rough estimate of the cost: roughly a quarter of a million dollars, over roughly 8 years(!) (“How Much Does a PhD Cost?”, Feb 1, 2019). Assuming Jones has started her “doctoral studies” within the past year – and assuming that she has what it takes to finish – she will be done in roughly 6-7 years from now. She is only months away from turning 42, which means she’ll have become a “Doctor of Some Irrelevant Bullshit” around her 48th or 49th year. And, if what Tippin says has any merit, the price tag for all this will be yuuuge – almost as much as Jones’ hindquarters.
Who’s gonna pay for this, you may ask?
Sure, Jones, having something of a “name” and being an Ivy League Affirmative Action grad, could possibly score some fellowships and the like. But I have the sneaking suspicion that, like soooo many Black women along these same lines – Karen Jennings, anyone? – Jones will also be swimming in even more school debt than I am fairly sure she has already. And, given her fiscal escapades of the past few years, I for one am not particularly confident that she will handle this new set of debt any better. In the meantime, 6-7 years, on average, is a long time to keep avoiding what Charles Murray in his excellent “Coming Apart” called, “the stuff of life”. Which is relationships.
And which Jones utterly sucks at.
Now adjourn your asses…
MOA
Mumia Obsidian Ali is a citizen journalist, podcaster, talk radio show host, newly minted dating coach and soon to be author. You can catch his daily live shows on the global livestreaming radio website Mixlr, as well as the all-new members-only Obsidian Radio Zoomcast, and his podcasts on YouTube and Black Avenger TV, as well as his weekly dating coach column at the Negromanosphere website. He’s also a semi-professional pest.
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