Is It "Short-Man Syndrome" - Or Chadsplaining?

Is what happened last week between David West and I just another case of “short man syndrome” – or yet another case of “Chadsplaining”?

“The single point that I wish to get across before we start anything, is I am not here to debate with anyone. I have devoted all of my adult life to this subject. I only debate my equals; all others, I teach.”
-John Henrick Clarke

Earlier this week I interviewed one Mr. David West, hubbie of Mrs. Kassie West, the “PAC NORWEST Karen” who interjected herself into the “Saint Kevin” Samuels “Average at Best” controversy that made Samuels a household name since (“Ladies This Is NOT Normal… 35 & “Average at Best”: No Chance with High Value Man”, Kassie West, Dec 14, 2020, YouTube; “The “You’re Average At Best” Video – The Full Interview”, Kevin Samuels, Dec 9, 2020, YouTube). First meeting Mr. West on another popular and up and coming female YouTuber’s channel known as Jessica X, one of the things Mr. West and I discussed was male height and its impact on dating and mating in particular (“Conversations With A Henpecked Husband | Kassie and David West”, Jessica X, Dec 23, 2020, YouTube). I broached the topic earlier this month with Mr. West to counter his argument that Mr. Samuels’ retort to Ms. Average at Best, that he was “beating younger women off with a stick” was absurd. As it turns out though, the empirical evidence is on Mr. Samuels’ side; after all, he stands at 6’4″ (the same height as the fictional Superman – more on that in a bit).

When Mr. West and I met again, this time over at my place, we tackled the matter of male height and dating yet again, but this time using myself as the proverbial measuring stick (“Mumia Obsidian Ali & David West: One On One”, The Obsidian Media Network 2, Jan 27, 2021, YouTube). At 5’7″, I’ve been on the receiving end of some of the worst forms of heightism on the part of Black women (and before you say anything, yes, “White women do it, too!” – more in a sec). My reason for doing so was to make the case that contrary to Mr. West and other “honest critics” of the (Black) Manosphere, we do have legitimate claims, concerns and issues that we routinely discuss. For me, heightism against men by women and the larger society, is one of them.

As I noted in our heated exchange, not only was Mr. West, standing at 6’1″ and a former US Army Ranger, in any position to upbraid and lecture me about the matter because, simply put, he knew nothing about that short man life, he was woefully ignorant about the empirical evidence and the facts – and that was just for starters. Part of the reason why I make a big stink about the matter in our time of “wokeness” is to highlight the outright and rank hypocrisy on the part of women themselves, who have no qualms being the very kinds of insensitive jerks to “the other”, but then turn right around and mewl and whine about not getting chose due to “colorism”, “featurism”, “baby mamaism” and my personal fave, “body positivity”. You simply cannot make this stuff up.

Mr. West’s “dignified” but empty response, was to accuse me of having “other things about you” that was to blame for my struggles in love, not height; after all, Mr. West claimed, some of his best friends were short and happily paired off. Funny how you rarely if ever actually heard directly from these short guys, though; you always hear ABOUT them; but almost never FROM them. Funny that, indeed.

Repairing back to his own channel to give his take on our exchange, Mr. West reduced my arguments down to just the sour grapes hating of a short guy with a complex and is merely angry about it – and no doubt, there will be many that will agree.

But do the facts align with Mr. West – or the O-Man? Let’s take a quick spin around the Almighty Google to find out.

Academic study and research have found that there is an undeniable bias against shorter statured men, particularly in the United States. Yes, Heightism is as American as Apple Pie, it turns out. No big surprise since it was only America that made Racism a thing, right?

Shoutout to Malcolm Gladwell, darling of the New York liberal elite, for his 2007 smash-hit New York Times bestseller “Blink: The Power of Think Without Thinking”. In it, he discusses in great detail how “implicit bias” informs just how pervasive American Heightism really is against shorter guys – from Wall Street to the White House, as it turns out. By the way, in case you’re wondering, Gladwell is shorter than average for an American male by way of Canada, at 5’9″.

So, without further ado, to the evidence – and before we begin, and since Mr. West and I are the major “combatants” on this matter, we will use our relative heights in various domains of American human endeavor to determine if the facts are on my side, or his, OK? Remember, Mr. West is 6’1″; I’m 5’7″.

Here we go:

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US PRESIDENTS
An excellent website gives a listing of the heights of all of the previous 45 presidents, with James Madison being the shortest at 5’4″ and Abraham Lincoln being the tallest at 6’4″(!). In between, there have only been six presidents who have been my height or shorter, which would include American founding father John Adams and his son, John Quincy Adams (yes, it’s true: height is largely hereditary). On the other hand, there have been THIRTEEN presidents Mr. West’s height or taller(!), including the aforementioned Lincoln, Barack Obama, John F. Kennedy, the disabled Frankiln Delano Roosevelt, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Ronald Reagan, and Donald Trump.

Not only that, but considering the fact that the shortest president we’ve had in the modern era since JFK was Jimmy Carter at just under 5’10”, and with an overall average height of American presidents at 5’11”, we can comfortably say that Mr. West has a better chance at becoming leader of the free world than I do. Oh, and in case you’re wondering: It may be a matter of debate as to whether Joe Biden actually won an election, but his height isn’t in doubt – he’s 5’11”.

So much for presidential diversity, right? (POTUS: Presidents of the United States website, “Presidential Heights” section)

OSCAR-WINNING BEST ACTORS
Since Mr. West recently used a listing of famous Hollywood actors for the most part, to highlight just how wrong, wrong, wrong the (Black) Manosphere was on the matter of “high value men” not wanting to wife up baby mamas (and for the record, I fully concede that his assembling some two dozen of some of the best well known names in the business IS impressive), I thought to go one step further than his list (which we’ll double back to in a bit) and see if the empirical evidence against shorter guys holds up when it comes to Hollywood’s highest honor – the coveted Oscar. the website “Celeb Heights” comes through in the clutch with the definitive answer – of the some 80 actors listed, only eight are my height or shorter: Ben Kingsley, Al Pacino, James Cagney, Bing Crosby, George Arliss, Dustin Hoffman and Richard Dreyfuss. On the other hand, nineteen – or double(!) the number of Oscar winners are Mr. West’s height or taller, including such names as Burt Lancaster, John Wayne, Forrest Whittaker, Tom Hanks and Daniel Day Lewis. By the way, not only are there double the number of Oscar winners Mr. West’s height or taller vs. Oscar winners my height or shorter, there are double the Oscar winners his height who have won the coveted award more than once, with Hanks winning twice and Day-Lewis winning a whopping THREE times. Only Hoffman, representing for us short guys, have been able to pull of a double-bubble like that (CelebHeights.com).

DAVID WEST’S “HIGH VALUE MAN SCHEMA REVISITED”
In his Jan 5, 2021 video on YouTube titled, “Buck The System #020 – Rebuking Donovan Sharpe & the Degeneracy of the “Manosphere” and beginning at the 1:45:33 hour mark, Mr. West gives an impressive listing of “high value men”, mostly from Hollywood, who wifed up baby mamas (the terms is being used loosely here, since Mr. West makes no distinction between divorced and widowed mamas, from women who had kids without benefit of marriage first, the way I do). Again we have to ask: Does the so-called “short man syndrome” rear its ugly head once again, or will the evidence in favor of taller statured men like Mr. West prevail? Let’s find out:

Colin Jost: 5’10”

Jason Mamoa: 6’4″

Alex Rodriguez: 6’3″

Evan Spiegel: 6′

Joe Mangianello: 6’5″

Russell Wilson: 5’11”

Kurt Russell: 5’11”

Antonio Banderas: 5’9″

Harrison Ford: 6’1″

Jim Toth: 6’1″

Steven Spielberg: 5’8″

Penn Bagley: 5’9″

Ted Danson: 6’2″

Erwin Bach: 5’8″

Thomas Kail: 5’6″

Blake Shelton: 6’5″

James Cameron: 6’2″

Brad Falchuk: 6′

Daniel Craig: 5’10”

Pierce Brosnan: 6’2″

Sean Connery: 6’2″

Roger Moore: 6’1″

Timothy Dalton: 6’2″

Albert R. Broccoli: 6′

Matt Damon: 5’10”

Billy Ray Cyrus: 6′

Jeff Bezos: 5’7″

Prince Charles: 5’9″

Christian Bale: 6′

Chris Hemsworth: 6’3″

Hugh Jackman: 6’2″

Denzel Washington: 6’1″

Tom Hanks: 6′

At the 1:56:42 hour mark of the above video, Mr. West, by his own admission, states that the combined average height of the men on his own, handpicked list, is 6’1″ – and, since this is a list of largely Hollywood actors, celebrities and the like, I should like to note that the only short guy “leading man” on it, is Banderas, at 5’9″. Combining this with the aforementioned Oscar Best Male Actor winners over the span of its eight decade history, and it’s pretty clear – there are few if any short leading men in Hollywood.

Mr. West makes it a point to list all but one Bond actor, the odd man out being George Lazenby, who stands at 6’2″. In fact, the shortest Bond to date has been Craig at 5’10”. Looks like you can’t be a spymaster if you’re a short guy, huh?

“THE BACHELOR”
With the hit ABC reality tv series “The Bachelor” in its 25th season and featuring its first ever Black one in Matt James, one wonders if all we’ve seen so far holds true there as well? We didn’t have to wait for long to get the answer, for the Almighty Google comes through in the clutch yet again, with this full listing of all of the heights of all of the bachelors in its’ show history (“The Bachelor: All Leading Men Measured From Tallest To Shortest”, Screenrant.com, Nov 23, 2020):

Both Matt Grant and Matt James share the same first name and the same height at 6’5″

Ben Higgins: 6’4″

Sean Lowe: 6’3″

Colton Underwood: 6’3″

Travis Lane Stork: 6’3″

Charlie O’Connell: 6’3″

Nick Viall: 6’2″

Jesse Palmer: 6’2″

Byron Velvick: 6’2″

Ben Flajnik: 6’2″

Arie Luyendyk Jr: 6’2″

Brad Womack: 6’1″

Chris Soules: 6’1″

Peter Weber: 6’1″

Alex Michel: 6’1″

Bob Guiney: 6’1″

Jason Mesnick: 6′

Andrew Baldwin: 6′

Aaron Buerge: 6′

Lorenzo Borghese: 5’11”

Juan Pablo Galavis: 5’11”

Andrew Firestone: 5’10”

Jake Pavelka: 5’10”

So there you have it, folks: of 24 bachelors, only FOUR are under 6′, and only TWO are 5’10” – the national average height of an American man(!). The ladies might be cool with dating a Black guy, but they absolutely do NOT want a short one. In fact, if you don’t believe me, check this out, again from the same website above:

“Jake Pavelka took on the leading role in the 14th season of The Bachelor, and his height became an issue right from the start.

While most sources have him at 5’10”, some websites claim he was only 5’7”, and a couple of the girls on the show were pretty rude about the fact that they didn’t like “short” guys.”

Now, THAT is very interesting in light of the current controversy concerning “The Bachelor” during Mr. Matt James’ tenure; seems that the ladies want a little “body positivity” represented on the show – for them, of course – short bachelors need not apply (“The Bachelor’ body-shaming incident puts the show’s bigger problem on display” Jan 28, 2021, Yahoo! News):

Ahem.

Now, we could go on and on, but really, do we need to? The empirical evidence at this point – and that would include reputable research from highly regarded and respected, academic institutions – is simply overwhelming.

So, when I talk about American Heightism against men by women, I’m not “whining” – I’m stating empirical, statistical, FACT.

Any questions?

A FINAL WORD TO ALL THE SHORT GUYS OUT THERE: DO YOUR PART
Now that we have firmly established the evidence that proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that there’s a “there, there” with regard to heightism, we now move to this fact: It is still no excuse for you not to do what you need, should and must do, to be the best you can be, come what may. And since I am the one who has broached this topic, I will be the example to live up to what I’m saying.

In addition to training my mind to the highest degree, becoming successful as a businessman after the close of my first career in the trades and being one of the “founding fathers” of the Black Manosphere, I finally decided that it was important to get in as best shape I can. To that end, I hired a personal trainer to help me – Mr. Marcus Cargill of Cargill Fitness – and help me he did! Thanks to him my chronic back pain is a mere shadow of its former self, and I’ve now graduated up to “two-a-day” workouts! Not looking to get all “swole and buff”, just looking to stay in good shape for a man of my age and despite my disability. Following “Saint Kevin” Samuels’ example (along with the “Style O.G.”), I try to “look good, smell good and become the best version of myself”.

And you can, too.

All of the men I’ve mentioned above are only a mouseclick away – tell em the O-Man sent you!

My name is Mumia Obsidian Ali, the Dating Coach for the Non-Select Guy, and I approved this message!

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.