Anthony A. Samad: This brother is tripping!

[DeltaVero]

ANTHONY A. SAMAD: How Stella Got Her Sense Back!
by Anthony Asadullah Samad
August 22, 2005


The nationwide blowout behind mega-romance novelist, Terry McMillan, and “the groove” she found on a Jamaica vacation, a young, tender, fertile 20 year old that she turned around and married, allows us to revisit this companionship discourse that turned black male-female relationships on its ear. I usually don’t do relationship commentaries. I usually leave that to my colleagues (Ask Deanna, Veronica’s View, and The Bridge-Daryl usually holds up the men’s end). But there is an interesting social interest aspect in McMillan’s divorce from Jonathan Plummer, that should be analyzed—this whole politic of motives that caused the whole man-hating “Exhale” movement in the first place. “Stella,” a pseudonym for McMillan herself, was the poster chick for “scorned women,” a conclusion easily drawn by her earlier works, Disappearing Acts and Mama (one of which was allegedly about gone-bad relationship with a former “ex”), but had finally found love in the most unconventional of relationships. Most people thought she had lost her mind. She claimed she had found her groove. Now, it seems, after Plummer revealed his true sexuality, that Stella has come back to her senses.

Other than an outstanding factionalist in the relationships “gone wrong-gone right” genre, we can’t forget who Terry McMillan is, and what she represented in the man-less woman’s movement of the 1990s that spurred a generation spring-fall (older women, younger men) relationships, the whole “f**k a man” bi-curious alternative to a cheating man movement (black woman were on the DL tens years ahead of black men), and a generation—check that—three generation of women (hers, and the ones before and after) that promoted a role reversal in relationships whereby the woman became the “bread winner” and the man was just something to be “maintained” and played with when it was convenient. Men who couldn’t compete financially and emotionally, or were in some way otherwise “flawed,” were seen as weak, and were to be disguarded. Since her landmark fiction romance novel, Waiting To Exhale, black women worldwide sympathized with her characters, a bunch of imperfect women, in search for the “perfect man.” Women everywhere started holding their breaths with every man encounter. Many of them passed out holding their breaths. Many others turned blue holding their breaths. “Sista-friend” circles invaded every household and even men in happy relationships had to endure the stares of man hating women sitting in their own house. But when Terry “exhaled” in her follow-up revelation, the semi-autobiographical novel, How Stella Got Her Groove Back, with a man that obviously wasn’t her emotional or financial equal—many who read her works all these years had to do a “double take” that America’s number one “man-hater” broke all the rules and found love in all the wrong places. And though it ran counter to everything that “sista-friend” circles despised in men, relationships “in the moment” now became “fair game” for women as they rushed down to Jamaica in droves, the Bahamas, Cancun, Aruba, wherever they thought there was a “groove” to be found—black women was there. This whole “cruise craze” was started by professional looking to get their grooves back.


Women “on the hunt” created a whole new genre of men—called “Metro Men, or “Metro-sexuals,” who pamper themselves like women (hair, nails, toes, clothes, accessories, etc.) while waiting for the right woman to take of them. Now, I don’t want to cause a controversy, but as the African American’s sexual politics became more convoluted, so did the ability to discern straight men from Metro men from gay men. So, with DL phenomena dominating the relationship discourse, every black man now walks around with a “question mark” on his crouch, as black women are now back to questioning the sexual motives of men—this time, in the context of life and death (as black women lead HIV contractions) rather than love and commitment. That brings us to Jonathan Plummer, whose attraction to McMillan was legitimate. Young men have always had fascinations with older women, and older women have always played a role in seducing younger men. However, the permanent relationships were always reserved for older men and younger women—so when Terry McMillan said “I’m gonna do this,” it was obvious to most what the attraction was from the outset. Jamaica? Beaches? Bikinis? Towel Boys? Martinis? You add it up, and doesn’t equal intellectual compatibility. Plummer, who got U.S. citizenship out of the deal, looked like a “Metro-sexual” or a “kept man” before term became popular. Back in “the day,” we would have figured him for gay, but Terrie claimed she didn’t see that. They say, love is blind, because everybody else said, Hmmm!! Now we know, hmmm was right, and Stella picked wrong, for all the wrong reasons. Terrie McMillan needs her “sista-friend” card pulled and her “man-hater” playbook turned in. She committed the ultimate sin for women holding their breaths for “Mr. Right,” “lust deception” and framing it as love.


At the end of the day, Ms. “Ever on guard for the ever deceptive Black Man” ended up being deceived herself, and what she didn’t fall for was love—but an ole’ fashioned d**k-whippin that has been conflicting flawed relationships for centuries. Terry got “tamed,” got famed, and got framed—all in the same relationship. And now she’s mad because he has to pay, when that stuff has been happening to men for years (ask any NBA player). Now she’s back to her old angry self—gettin’ played—and havin’ to pay for it—will do that to you. But all is right with the world again…All men are dogs again, all relationships are imperfect, the “perfect man” (and woman) is still an illusion, and Stella got her sense back.


Anthony Asadullah Samad is a national columnist, managing director of the Urban Issues Forum and author of 50 Years After Brown: The State of Black Equality In America (Kabili Press, 2005).

He can be reached at www.AnthonySamad.com