“I do not agree with what you have to say, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it.”

Evelyn Beatrice Hall

Kodak Black recently added his name to an increasingly long list of high profile brothers that have publicly stated their opinions of black women.  That includes Tyrese Gibson, Kyrie Irving, and Gilbert Arenas. To be clear, by opinions I mean they stated their preferences about black women that weren’t positive.

As we all know by now, we as black men are allowed to have our opinions. We just aren’t allowed to say them publicly if they run counter to the idea that black women are anything other the mother of civilization, queens, perfect, beautiful, or something to that effect.

Now, we can go forth and back until the proverbial cows come home about people’s opinions.  The simple truth is that people like what they like. They like what they like for the reasons why they like what they like. They owe you, me, nor anyone else an explanation neither an apology for their preferences.

Last time I checked, America is still a free country. People like myself and my brothers and sisters in arms have kept it that way. The First Amendment guarantees freedom of speech, especially if someone doesn’t like what you said. As David O. McKay eloquently put it, “Freedom of choice is more to be treasured than any possession Earth can give.”

It is a fruitless endeavor and fool’s errand to try legislating people’s personal preferences. It always has been and always will be. So, I’d like to come at this from angle that I haven’t heard many people on either side of the argument address.

Let’s look at the facts. What you have are four black men, Kodak Black, Tyrese Gibson, Kyrie Irving, and Gilbert Arenas, spanning various ages, backgrounds, professions, and varying degrees of success in their chosen professions. What do they all have in common?  All four of these black men, independently came to the same conclusion as it pertains to black women.

A quick search of Google or Youtube will yield a nearly endless supply of articles and videos of black men that have, and are expressing similar sentiment as it pertains to black women. Why is this important? In science, to gain credible results, one must have a large and diverse sample size that accounts for variables to come to viable conclusion.

While the brothers listed don’t represent a large sample size in and of themselves, the fact that they reached the same conclusion, independently of one another is important.  As previously stated they represent various ages, professions, and success levels. When coupled with data gathered from Google and Youtube searches, we’re provided with a cross section that it is representative of black men in the aggregate, and can use statistical analysis to start to draw conclusions.

According to the data, the rational conclusion to draw would be that irrespective of looks, wealth, success, or profession that black men seem to have the same problems with black women. Also it would seem to suggest that black men with means or of some degree of success that have options often exercise them, meaning they prefer nonblack women over black women.

This is the real issue at play here.  Dating/mating is a negotiation.  Negotiations are best done from a position of strength. The simple fact is that the black men that have the most negotiating capital aren’t choosing black women.  Let’s be real.  Sisters aren’t all up in arms and bemoaning the fact that Pookie, Ray Ray and brothers of their ilk aren’t choosing them. The vast majority of sisters see them as being beneath them anyway.  No, this is solely about the fact high end brothers that the sisters feel they deserve aren’t choosing them in high enough numbers.

With that established, let’s examine why this may be the case. Again, it is pointless to try to determine or even to debate why someone finds someone else physically attractive. That is pointless because it’s subjective and thus can’t be proven or debunked.

So, rather than deal in conjecture, let’s deal with what we know as fact. Again let’s look at our data. Our cross section of data compiled shows that brothers across the spectrum have the same complaints levied against black women. If men, who don’t know each other personally independently come to the same conclusion, as an observer what logical conclusion can you draw?

Evidently, there must be validity to the statements that are being made. In science, results are considered valid if the results can be independently replicated, and we clearly have that as various black men representing a cross section of the aggregate are coming to the same conclusion.  Is it more likely that all men got together and collectively formed this opinion, or their collective, independent experiences caused them to arrive at the same conclusion?

The preponderance of evidence is pretty damning. The simple truth is that at the very least some of the gripes and complaints that brothers have about sisters are valid. It’s valid enough for a large enough number of brothers to choose nonblack women as partners, and valid enough for sisters to take notice and to be angry about it.

Of course, the answer for the sisters is never to take an introspective look at themselves to see what is driving this sentiment among black men. That would require a willingness to change.  Why would they? After all, the media is constantly telling them how great they are; Black Girl Magic, Black Girls Rock, right?  We all know that’s not the case. By any metric of value, black women come in last; marriage rate, cohabitation rate, interracial dating, etc, yet even so see no reason to change. To be fair, this isn’t true of every black woman, but applies to enough that collectively they’re value on the open sexual marketplace is low collectively.

Brothers you have the right to your opinions, standards, and preferences. Continue to exercise them.