The Black Beauty Deficit

Anyone beating a path to the door of these hefty honies?

“As Black women’s dress sizes go up, Black men’s marriage proposals go down.”
-Kevin Samuels, aka “Samuels Scissors”

As of this writing in early November, there was a spate of articles and human interest news pieces to appear in online and social media, highlighting what amounted to a publicity stunt on the part of some “lovely ladies” out of Hattiesburg, MS – the Blackest, poorest and fattest state in the union. Chynna Turner, aged 30 and known online as “ChynnaDoll29” arranged for half a dozen of her fellow super-sized girlfriends to don Hooters gear and take a snapshot in front of a local Hooters restaurant, which would then go on to spark something of a vigorous debate as to whether the popular franchise should broaden – pardon the pun – its definition of and policy regarding, its long-standing practice of having its fare served up by svelte beauties (“‘Plus-size Hooters’ in booty shorts spark debate: We are ‘sexy and confident’”, Nov 5, 2021, The New York Post). Thus far, Hooters has yet to make any public statement on the matter – perhaps rightly so, observing what happened to Gillette in the wake of its “going woke” (the long time men’s products company lost some $8B USD in profits after its horrendous pro-#MeToo ad: “Gillette CEO: Losing customers over #MeToo campaign is ‘price worth paying'”, Aug 1, 2019, Washington Examiner).

Another incident drives home the point of today’s column: Alabama State University – an HBCU based in Montgomery, AL – features a troupe of majorettes called the “HoneyBeez” – Black women who weigh no less than 260lbs(!) and who perform dance numbers during halftime and the like (for those who don’t know, the HBCUs are renowned for their marching band routines). A recent video that surfaced on Facebook where I had the misfortune to discover it, shows about half a dozen such “HoneyBeez” prancing around in golden sequined outfits and flowing Wookie weaves, barely able to amble up the bleacher stands. It should be noted again, that this is a college campus environment, where it has been proven that the majority of today’s Black women are grossly overweight and/or obese (52%), according to BlackDemographics.com (“Black Obesity Rate by Education”, NCHS, National Health & Nutrition Examination Survey, 2014-2015), and where Alabama is the 7th most Blackest and fattest states in the union respectively.

The ASU & Hooters stunts are the latest salvo in a long decline in the familial, communal and social life of Black America – and while researchers, academics and the like have been scratching their heads as to the reasons for this decline, your correspondent slices open the Gordian Knot with a simple observation:

It is due to what I call the Black Beauty Deficit.

What am I talking about? Read on!

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“SAMUELS’ SCISSORS”
Not long after his historic rise on social media, “Saint Kevin” Samuels shared an insight that has gone on to bear itself out: That, as Black women’s dress sizes have skyrocketed, Black men’s marriage proposals have plummeted. Though not empirically documented by the Ebony Tower, the anecdotal evidence abounds – and only the most ideologically blinkered, would attempt to argue otherwise. Like Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s “scissors” of the early 1960s, where he found that, contrary to what was going on with White men and women, where as White men’s employment numbers went up, White women’s reliance on the Welfare State went down, in Black America the exact opposite occurred: As Black men’s employment numbers greatly improved, Black women’s reliance on welfare benefits continued to climb – “Samuels’ Scissors” notes that as Black women continue to get bigger and bigger, Black men’s proposals for marriage continue to get smaller and smaller. Of course, there have been some intrepid (or foolish) voices online who have attempted to poo-poo this phenomena; but alas, they all have fallen flat on their faces in the pursuit.

Indeed, the link between a woman’s dress size and the size of her engagement/wedding ring has long been known – and that larger ladies either get a much smaller diamond, if any at all. A powerful piece appearing in the New York Times makes the point:

“Women who are fat suffer enormous social and economic consequences, a new study has shown. They are much less likely to marry than women of normal weight and are more likely to be poor and to earn far less…

The findings are from an eight-year study of 10,039 randomly selected people who were 16 to 24 years old when the research began. It is the first study to document the profound social and economic consequences of obesity by following a population for years…

Fat women were disproportionately found in lower socioeconomic classes, and some researchers say this is because poor women are more likely to eat fat-laden food and junk foods and to get less exercise than richer women…

The study found that fat women were more likely to lose socioeconomic status independently of their families’ social status or income and independently of how well the women scored on achievement tests when they were adolescents. The fat women were 20 percent less likely to marry, had household incomes that were an average of $6,710 lower and were 10 percent more likely to be living in poverty.” (Women Pay Price for Being Obese”, Sep 30, 1993, New York Times)

In another piece, written 16 years later and appearing on the National Public Radio’s website, the realities of being with a seriously fat woman for the long term are finally(!) openly discussed:

“It’s well known that obesity can lead to a lot of health problems, but what’s rarely talked about is the impact on people’s sexual health. As the obesity rate has soared in the U.S., more and more marriage and family therapists are getting questions from obese clients about problems in the bedroom…

After they married, Englehardt gained another 60 pounds. Her joints ached. She could barely stand during her nursing shifts. Grocery shopping and gardening left her winded. She had terrible sleep apnea and was exhausted all the time. And then there was the sex. The thought of making love to her husband felt like a chore…

Clearly, there are obese people who are happy, fulfilled and feel deeply connected in their relationships — emotionally and sexually. But in the interviews done for this story with marriage therapists, sexual health doctors and weight researchers, a pattern emerges: Obese people — especially those trying to lose weight — are more dissatisfied with their sexual lives, and obese women seem to suffer the most.” (“For Obese, Intimate Lives Often Suffer”, Sep 21, 2011, National Public Radio)

Could it be that a major reason for the severe Black marital decline – at its lowest point ever since the US Census began recording Black marriages in 1890(!) – is that Black women are just too damn big?

With the average Black woman today, regardless as to her educational level, being a dress size 18/20, standing at 5’4″ and damn near 200lbs(!), to ask the question, is to answer it: In fact, after many years of study and observation of this state of affairs, I have coined a term of my own to put all of this into context. I call it the Black Beauty Deficit.

WHAT IS THE “BLACK BEAUTY DEFICIT”?
The Black Beauty Deficit, as the title implies, relates to the decline of the aggregate beauty of Black women over time; in this case, since the late 1980s to early 1990s or so – the time when Black women’s dress sizes started to take off. Additionally, around this same time, the out of wedlock birthrate in Black America had risen from about 25% in 1960, to a whopping SIXTY-THREE PERCENT in 1990(!), according to the Child Trends website (“Dramatic increase in the proportion of births outside of marriage in the United States from 1990 to 2016”, Aug 8, 2018). And, since cultural attitudes typically follow nuts and bolts changes on the ground, cultural attitudes around both female weight gain and out of wedlock childbearing began to change for the country overall, but especially for Black American society; this is what I’ve coined the “large & in charge” mindset, with huge singers like Jennifer Holliday, the Weather Girls and later, Kelly Price all coming through and making it known that they were the sugar, honey, iced tea. This is the kind of mindset that ASU’s so-called “honeybeez” and ChynnaDoll29 have, aided and abetted by companies out on the make to make a buck off of fat women, like Dove Soap’s “Every woman is beautiful” campaign and outfits like FashionNova trying to cash in on the plus-sized trend.

Taken together, the Black female obesity, Black female out of wedlock childbearing rate and Black female effed up attitudes, made marriage VERY unattractive for most Black men – particularly those on the blue collar side of the ball, what Samuels refers to as “Blue HENRYs” (the latter being an acronym Samuels coined, standing for “High Earner, Not Rich Yet” and speaks to Black men working in the blue collar trades who make in excess of $75K USD a year – which, per BlackDemographics.com, places such Black men in the top 15% or less, of money earners among Black men). Indeed, it is well known and documented that while marriage among the Black college educated continued to remain relatively high, the single biggest decline in Black marital rates were to be seen among the Black working class – and the argument/reasons for this were often blamed on Black men being displaced out of the labor market due to a combination of globalization, deindustrialization, lack of education/training and so forth, no one in the Ebony Tower has ever thought to examine the other side of the equation: Blue collar Black men themselves. Why haven’t they married in our time? Well, the easy, although very politically incorrect answer, is because there aren’t enough attractive Black women to go around in the working class sections of Black America.

That’s why.

Indeed, the single biggest cohort of single, childless, confirmed bachelors in Black America are Blue Henrys, NOT college educated, white collar professional Black men(!). Hard to believe I know, but it’s true – and I say this both as a “Blue Henry” myself, as well as having closely studied the matter for decades. It doesn’t get the media shine, focus and attention because, let’s face it, there are few if any Blue Henrys who actually write and participate in the Black chattering class media. Just like their White counterparts, the Black chattering class media tend to focus on themselves, their interests, phobias, anxieties and concerns – and Blue Henry Black men rarely if ever become part of the conversation, unless it serves another, sometimes larger agenda, of pandering to Black women’s own concerns and need to scapegoat someone for how and why they have failed to meaningfully compete in an ever-increasingly competitive global mating market for the relatively small pool of highly desirable Black men they have made clear they want – but that’s another topic for another day.

Black men who work in the skilled trades, construction, fire and police, heavy industry, manufacturing and the like, would in the past, and in accordance with assortative mating theory, pair off with nurses, daycare workers, domestics of varying stripe, retail girls and so on; back then, those Black women were svelte, childless and pleasant. Today, they are bloated to an immense degree, laden with an average of 2.5 kids by more than one baby daddy, and have horrible attitudes like they’re the ones doing us a favor(!). It makes perfect sense how and why Al Greeze’s “Frustrated: Black American Men in Brazil” featured so many Blue Henry Black men, many of whom were firefighters from Philly and whose firehouse I would frequently pass by everyday. Looking at the options available to them, they decided to put their passports in the air and take their chances in a foreign land for love.

Who can blame them?

Now adjourn your asses…

MOA

Mumia Obsidian Ali is a citizen journalist, podcaster, talk radio show host, commentator, newly minted dating coach and author of “The Book of Obsidian: A Manual for the 21st Century Black American Gentleman”. You can catch his daily live shows on YouTube & Mixlr, as well as his dating coach column at the Negromanosphere website. One of the “Three Kings” of the Black Manosphere, Mr. Ali has contributed to the creation and development of Black Male Media. Follow him on Instagram at @ObsidianRadio. He’s also a semi-professional pest.