Surely this isn’t going to get out of hand?

You’ll understand the need for the opening reference pic in a minute. We’re talking about one of my favorite Crooners, and TGT member, Tank.

Really quickly though, everybody go back and check out our two guest bloggers Rhythmic Journey and Revolution In A Jar. They may be appearing more often. RJ’s piece is on the sad need for “Ghosting” as a minority in a major city.
And we got Revo in to talk to Another Revolutionary. Both pieces are great, so give them a read as well. And leave them some comments.

Now onto the…

Weekend with Ruthless

I have an honest question. What do dark skinned women have against light skinned women?.. Aren’t we all black at the end of the day??

— Tank (@TheRealTank) October 9, 2014

 

So the reality is this statement bent black twitter(because this apparently is still a thing) like Bane on Batman(I know you were expecting an iPhone joke there, fuck low hanging fruit). And apparently, with no singular ability to look at the actual question and the person’s situation asking it, they pounced. Entirely skipping over his reality. Of course, he didn’t really help matters at first.

You should check the comments on my page when I post my light skinned girlfriend and maybe you’ll understand the frustration! #FactsOnly — Tank (@TheRealTank) October 9, 2014

Isn’t life tough enough? The struggle within our own community is the true enemy. Together there’s nothing we can’t do.. #love

— Tank (@TheRealTank) October 9, 2014

Watch the people that are angry at this question..lol Just hoping for an intelligent exchange. Not many intelligent people tho!. #blind — Tank (@TheRealTank) October 9, 2014

I speak freely.. I fear no consequence.. I live and love my life.. #stronger

— Tank (@TheRealTank) October 10, 2014

Now all of that was pretty damning in my book. I mean the man has a point. But before you get all in a huff and restart all the negativity, here’s what a couple hours of black twitter beef made him have to do.

I love all of my sisters! Please don’t let these fools tell you otherwise. I simply would like us to not be divided by shade.. #2much2ask — Tank (@TheRealTank) October 10, 2014

The generalization was wrong so I apologize for that BUT the experience is real! How should that be addressed??..

— Tank (@TheRealTank) October 10, 2014

But like he ripped a piece out of THE Ruthless Wonder’s playbook, he closed all discussion with some serious digital burn.

I’m an easy target but the women who disrespect my lady get a pass..lol. Twist my words to validate ur anger! Enjoy that! Sips ☕️.. — Tank (@TheRealTank) October 11, 2014

So savage, so ruthless, and so damn effective. Everyone may have made articles about it, but even a day later no one was really coming at Tank sideways. Because he hit back VERY hard right in their hypocrisy. Maybe you deserve a medal for that burn Tank. Maybe you deserve 2.

So It would seem like an over a week old event would be pointless for me to cover. And be just generally not news. That’s reason number 1 why this is being done as a weekend piece. Reason 2 is because I have a much harsher piece on a more interesting and hot issue to talk about Monday. But I want you primed and pumped now.

Tank wasn’t wrong. And that’s not the point.

When I was reading up on the twitter beef it was at a site I was linked to, and not one I normally read. This location like most of the ones I read before seeing if a few larger status websites were covering it, was basically someone saying how wrong and color struck Tank is. That he was looking to down all dark skinned women. That he hates dark skinned women. Hell one even said he was dating Zena Foster to pass off a white woman as black by calling her light skinned. I’m going to say that again so you know I’m serious…

A black blogger called Zena Foster a white woman who was trying to pass as black by having her black boyfriend call her light skinned.

Needless to say I was shocked at the level of stupidity. And the worst part? I wish I could say the commenter who called Zena Foster a white woman trying to pass for black, wasn’t at least internet famous. They are on a bigger site than WDDIJ by a mile. But they say “Controversy Sells” so I guess that is why they are bigger than us. Anyway, I noticed they all were doing the exact thing Tank was calling out. And to such a degree I felt the need to write this:

“Tank wasn’t wrong”

– The Ruthless Wonder right before things went bad

See Tank was calling out something that as black people is so infantile and stupid that we try to pretend we don’t do it, right up until it turns into a big thing again. Hell I half thought about starting this piece with “…This is why I like white women.” just to get a rise out of a certain segment with a half truth. And I’m not a clickbaiter in the slightest. Tank may have been inartful with his phrasing, but he wasn’t wrong. And he should be given a pass for the inartful phrasing because it is twitter. You only have 140 characters to get the point across. Let’s be real, no one goes to the tweetlonger links these days. Get it all out or GTFO!

He wasn’t wrong because he didn’t say all Dark skinned women hate light skinned women. His question wasn’t about some hypothetical group hatred of all things light skinned. As he explained in the tweets that followed, he wondered because he gets so much hate when his girlfriend is in photos with him on Instagram. And like lemmings at the edge of a cliff most responders went too far, missing the point, and the last exit from the crazy train.

But him being right that in fact some women in the black community still have a problem with black men dating light skinned women as a preference that they auto-hate, is not the point. In fact, even if he was entirely wrong I would still be writing this. Why? Glad you asked. Because the point of this weekend is actually the inability to have this conversation.

On WDDIJ each author has you read what we post, so obviously I don’t mean in this blog post. But what I do mean is that this inability to talk about the effect of past colorism issues intra-racially, has an effect on how we approach things inter-racially. Anytime someone questions the why of a particularly long-held bias or starts a particularly thorny intra-racial discussion, a large vocal portion of our Ethnic Classification rises up to drag them through digi-mud. And that fact would be sad if it wasn’t so damned appalling. And if we are all being honest, just down right stupid. We can’t get past these issues if no one wants to have honest discourse.

I’ll give you another example tied to that pipe bomb of potential opener I talked about. The stigma associated with interracial dating varies based on the other race involved. And I predict this will cause drama right here in this post. But I’m THE Ruthless Wonder. Please come at me bro. I do this. If as a black person you start dating a Latina, little to no negativity from 90 to 99.9 % black women. You date a middle eastern, southeast asian, or Indian woman, also little to no negativity from 90 to 99.9 % black women. But you show up with the almighty whitey and you’re going to have to deal with about a 50/50 shot of getting some direct, in person, explicit issues with whatever passes for “the community” these days. Female and male, young and old, across all social strata, saved or unsaved, Beyonce or K Michelle fan, Hot water or Cold Water cornbread, and from both sides of ye olde slavery line aka the Mason-Dixon. Why? And before you go “You know why man, white people hate us.” I really want you to think about that. If you’re making a distinction between each race and assuming that the person being dated is doing so for fetishistic or other impure reasons without actually knowing the person. Well what are you? Come on. You know you know the word by now. Say it with me class.

lol

Its okay, you have trouble seeing yourself as a bigot for having those thoughts. I used to have the same trouble. But when I accepted being your favorite SuperVillain, I realized it would have days like this. Look if you want to talk honestly about race, or gender, or inter-racial relations and the intra-racial effects you have to be open to much more dark and difficult possibilities and decisions. Isn’t it obvious that shutting down the discussion topic he brought up is as bad as the idea that he might be color-struck? You’re closed-minded if you feel like he is just for wanting to talk about it. But in the end this is just something to think about. I mean we could get deep into the consequences of not letting go of old intra-racial issues that were really neatly disguised inter-class issues in the black community, but I’ve said a lot here and…WORDS DON’T DO IT JUSTICE!

– THE Ruthless Wonder

I know, I know, but it was funny huh?