You need to stop getting it twisted, black women of America. Black men are not intimidated by successful black women. This is a fallacy that has been allowed to fester like a sore in the black community for decades, helping to expand a vast rift between the sexes, say comedian Steve Harvey and actor Hill Harper.
Harvey and Harper, both New York Times best-selling authors, insisted that when they appeared at the “Why Can’t Successful Black Women Find a Man” event in Atlanta, women drew the wrong conclusions about their black counterparts based upon misinformation. Intimidation is definitely one of them, and Harvey proceeded to systematically strike down that notion. He instead offers up another theory.
“I think’ it’s more shame than anything else. I think y’all confuse [intimidation with] shame. I’m sorry, I’ve been broke before. You don’t intimidate me, I’m just embarrassed that I didn’t have myself where I wanted to be or trying to figure out how I can get myself to where I can compete. But it’s not intimidation,” Harvey explained through the buzz of female disapproval. “If you meet a man who is intimidated by you, you haven’t met a real man.”
Harvey, author of Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man; and Harper, author of The Conversation, sat down opposite Sherri Shepherd of “The View” and radio host Jacque Reid for ABC’s “Face-Off” to talk about why African Americans have the lowest marriage rates in the nation. No other American ethnicity is even close.
Harvey continued: “Let’s say you make a lot of money and have a car and a house, and let’s say this guy has not quite turned the corner financially. When you look at him, he fits the criteria of what you are looking for. But when you sit down to talk to him, you begin to talk about where you are in life. And there’s nothing wrong with that. You’ve accomplished a lot and you’re proud of that. He is not intimidated by that. He is now ashamed, ’cause now he asks himself ‘what do I have to offer her?’
After a pause for counter arguments, Steve finished up his theory this way: “A real man is just going to get up. He’s still a man. He just ain’t got what you got. When he’s finished talking to you, he’s going to get up, there will be somebody with less, and he can go be king over there. If he can’t be king with you, he can go be king somewhere else. So it’s not intimidation. A lot of women would help themselves if they would get off that.”
A real-life scenario involving Harper and Shepherd corroborated Harvey’s theory. Harper shared with the audience that, long before he and Shepherd hit it big on TV, they had a chance meeting inside a Taco Bell in L.A. Shepherd entered first after getting off the bus. Harper came in shortly thereafter. And even though Shepherd thought Harper was very attractive, she refused to talk to him because “he wasn’t driving nothing,” she admits she said back then. “I was on the bus. He had nothing to offer me.”
Harper was not intimidated. He just kept it moving. And look at Hill Harper today. Shepherd missed out on a golden opportunity, Harvey says.
–terry shropshire
