I Want my Denzel

Has anyone ever heard of Jimi Izrael? Neither had I until this morning when he was a guest of Jacque Reid on the Tom Joyner Morning Show.

After giving him a Google, it turns out that the dude has been on the scene for a while. He is a regular contributor to The Root, moderates NPR based round table The Barbershop and considers himself a “Black Hip Hop Culture Expert” according to his self listed profile on Blackexpert.com.

Now I’m all for an intelligent and well spoken black man, but I think it’s safe to say Jeff Johnson will neva eva have to worry about this bird taking his job on the TJMS. After hearing his wanna be “conscious commentary” he reminded me of the one who gets beyond blazed at a party, then launches into a soliloquy of “knowledge dropping”, all the while not making a bit of sense. The more he talked, I swear I could hear the Peanuts teacher ( whaa whaa..whaaa whaaa) and yet I couldn’t seem to tear myself away from the radio.

This is what is funny. It seems as though dear Jimi is about to release his first book entitled The Denzel Principle: Why Black Women Can’t Find Good Black Men, due out February, 16, which sounds like a good title but we need not get it twisted.

After reading a few of his blog commentaries as well as an excerpt from his book, I started to see a pattern; and feel relatively comfortable to say old Jimi is pretty well known for making ridiculous generalizations about black woman and why we, as the title says, can’t find decent black men.

He writes:

“Black women’s unrealistic standards are probably borne of bedtime stories about handsome, rich men on majestic horses rescuing damsels in distress. Girlfriends often tell similar apocryphal tales about the friend of a friend who nabbed a rich, hung sugar daddy who saved them from a life of dishpan hands and lower-middle-class drudgery. Through the influence of popular media and the misguided advice they give each other, sisters combine these images and presumptions to draw a composite of a perfect black man. No way he could exist, but far be it for something like common sense to stop the average woman from looking. Her friends meet men who are so close—so close, girl! With just one fatal flaw, like he snores or doesn’t get DIRECTV.”

WTH?

The real deal is that we have a “brotha” who to me is severely delusional and trying to sell a book by riding off the hopes that some poor damsel in distress, as he put it, will want to hang on to his every word simply because he’s a man. Quite frankly, I am appalled by his overconfidence and find his so-called platform to be blatantly misogynistic.

There are a multitude of reasons why a significant number of black women are disproportionately single in comparison to our white counterparts but the implication that we are over-sexed gold-diggers is definitely not one of them. Even though I’m sure it will be a most entertaining read, I can’t be bothered by Jimi or his musings, and even more so find it hard to believe why we as black women would even consider his opinions relevant.

In the immortal words of many a great black grandmother, Jimi needs to get somewhere and SADDOWN. I make no excuses for my “high expectations”, and I’m certain my fellow sisters feel exactly the same.

TS

Tags: commentary, good black men, Jimi Izrael, single black women