Wookin pa nub in all the wrong places

Poor black women... It's like they can't win for losing!

The ones who don't look like shit are destined to die poor and lonely, just like yours truly. And the ones who do have a little something to offer the world can hardly walk down the street without receiving catcalls.

I tell you, it just ain't right!

(On a semi-related note, I've also read that black women are shrinking. According to this story from ABC News, young black women today are nearly an inch shorter than white women their age and about half an inch shorter than black women born in the late '60s. Scientists aren't sure why. Hopefully, black women don't just start dying out, like the bees did.)

I was over at World Star the other day, checking to see if there were any new videos with my new favorite DJ evar, Kay Slay, and I stumbled upon a brief documentary film called Black Woman Walking. In it, a group of black women and one random stoner-looking white chick (so cute with her little Daria glasses... but I digress) complain about how they can't walk down the street without being verbally, if not physically harassed by black men.

Elliott Wilson-style sidebar: People who've been following this space for more than a few weeks now will perhaps recall that I recently commented on a story I read in the New York Times about how white chicks were moving out of Harlem because they got tired of being hollered at by black guys. Actually, the story was about the demographic changes going on in that area in general, but I thought the part about the catcalling was especially interesting. If I were the editor at the Times, I would have insisted that the entire story be about white chicks who moved to Harlem for the cheap real estate and then left because they didn't like hearing that they had a nice ass. (Pshaw!)

The white chicks quoted in the story were careful to note that they hadn't had anything happen to them worse than just a little verbal harassment. And one broad even went so far as to admit that she would have stayed put, if it had been white guys in business suits trying to get their mack on. I guess at least she was honest. It's too bad there wasn't a slideshow or video to go along with the story, which I know they've been getting into over at the Times. If she was getting hollered at by a lot of black guys, something tells me she's the kind of white chick a lot of white guys might not be interested in. Anyway, I just thought it was fascinating that a woman would go so far as to sell a house she got a good deal on and uproot her life just because the wrong guys were attracted to her. It just goes to show the profound commitment amongst many women to controlling other people's behavior.

Speaking of a woman's ego, the first sign that Black Woman Walking is mostly a crock of shit is the fact that none of the women in it are particularly attractive. If you've ever seen that great VH1 special on video hoes, you know they could have gotten Esther Baxter or Buffie the Body or somebody to talk about how they get hollered at when they walk down the street, which I'm sure they do, for hardly any money at all. A lot of these women who shake their asses in rap videos work for free, just for the exposure. And the ones that don't work for professional blogger money.

The one main woman featured looks like Buh Weet. And I don't mean that in the sense that I've found a woman that I don't personally find attractive, and who probably has an awful personality, so I'm gonna say she looks like Buh Weet, as an insult. No, this woman really does look like Eddie Murphy's classic Buh Weet character from Saturday Night Live, right down to the huge eyes and the crazy homeless person hair cut - like Cynthia McKinney that week she tried to beat up a Capital Police with her cell phone.

Ironically enough, this woman from the film claims that her hair is one of the main reasons guys try to holler at her while she's walking down the street. Seriously? Perhaps this is another one of these cases where I'm a bit too disconnected from my own culture (never mind whether or not that was the culture I was born into) to know. Distinctly ethnic black guys in the comments section, and white guys who aspire to that classification, feel free to clue me in: Are black dudes really feeling the whole Cynthia McKinney look, or is this woman suffering from delusions of grandeur?

I mean, I'd be willing to put up with that kind of hair style, if the rest of her body was... you know, built like a brick shithouse. But of course the film doesn't give you a very good look at these women's bodies, as if the filmmakers were actually concerned with believability. I'm sure they were mostly only concerned with preaching to the choir: lonely, desperate black chicks; dirty college feminist broads, and what have you. Hence, the otherwise seemingly random inclusion of my new fantasy girlfriend, with the glasses. They didn't count on a lot of guys seeing Black Woman Walking. And indeed, I wouldn't have, if it hadn't been posted on World Star.

Do I mean to suggest that there isn't an epidemic of black men harassing women on the street, or that women are wrong to complain about it? No, I don't. I don't engage in that sort of thing myself, but I'm sure it happens. I'm not gonna lie. The idea of standing on a street corner all day, perhaps with a tall boy of MGD, making puerile comments about a woman's figure seems way more fun than blogging. If only there was a way to "monetize" it. I might have to think about making a career move. I'm just saying. Something tells me the problem isn't nearly as bad as it's made out to be in this film.

Let's keep it real. A woman fine enough that she can't walk down the street without constantly being propositioned can probably afford to get a cab anyway. The right man probably hollered at her a long time ago.