Recently, a young woman was trying to decide between marrying a man for sex and marrying a man for his financial stability. She wrote a letter to Steve Harvey and Shirley Strawberry, who co-host a popular segment on “The Steve Harvey Morning Show” called “Strawberry Letters,” hoping to get some guidance. Steve’s reply? “Your crazy ass, sitting here talking about ‘the other guy’… make up your damn mind! You either want a real man, or you want an animal … You could have just picked one, but you cain’t, because you triflin’.”
Steve Harvey has long been a successful comedian and radio personality, but his career really took off when he began dispensing no-holds-barred relationship advice. He is “an expert on men,” as he puts it. And women can’t seem to get enough of Harvey’s straight shooting, sending his first book “Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man,” onto the New York Times bestseller list and prompting his recent follow-up, “Straight Talk, No Chaser.“
Harvey is not without detractors, who point out the thrice-married comic relies on played-out gender stereotypes and places all the blame for bad relationships on women, while ensuring that men are left largely to their own devices. But in a world where love advice comes from televised matchmakers who want to regulate everything from how you dress to how much curl to put in your hair, Harvey delivers his tart takes with charm. Still, can anyone really be an expert on what all men want?
We spoke to Harvey over the phone from the set of his radio show to discuss the media’s obsession with single black women, why dating white men isn’t trading up, and why he won’t write a book for men.
I listen to “Strawberry Letters” on your morning show, and I wonder: Why do you think women call you with their problems? Because it’s clear that some people are actually struggling to change, while others appear to be seeking a justification for their current situation.
Absolutely. Well, I think people know I’m gonna give it to them straight. Steve is going to give you his opinion — his strong opinion — and there’s an outside chance that he might be right. And for the record, I am right 98 percent of the time.
The popularity of your first book suggests that you’ve tapped into a very specific problem. While your audience base is primarily black women, it’s also crossed languages and cultures. Why do you think the book resonated with so many women?
See, the universal problem all women have is men. What women don’t understand is that men, we’re all the same. I don’t care what color we are. We have the exact same traits in all of us. And based on the fact, I can say that I’m an expert on manhood. Not an expert on relationships. But I know exactly how men think in just about every situation. If you’re dealing with a man, I know what you’re up against.
And so “Straight Talk, No Chaser” is intended to answer all the questions you heard from women on the road.
Yeah. There is no creature on this earth more inquisitive than a woman. A woman will get it figured out eventually, please understand that. “I found out he was married, I found out he was a liar, I found out about other kids out of town.” But I wanted to help women figure it out sooner rather than later.
It’s a beautiful thing to act like a lady. But I need for women to know how men think. Be sexy with him, but not all at once. Give a man everything he needs, but not until you get what you need. A man isn’t going anywhere just because he can’t have sex with you for 90 days, unless he was out there just for the sex. I mean, let’s understand it.
Women are the most powerful species on Earth. Why do you keep relinquishing that power to men, when it’s men that need you? Men that can’t live without you?
Not long ago, you were on a “Nightline” panel about black women and dating, which has been a hot media topic for the past year. There was even a news report from Russia on black women in America and being single. Why do you think we have such a fascination with why so many black women are single?
I think media and society recognizes the value of African-American women, as they should. African-American women are so strong. They have held together families seemingly on their own. And the focus is on them because there is such a wide disparity in available men of the same race because of educational problems, incarceration problems, unemployment problems.
Our community suffers greatly from those three things. But still, the African-American woman stands so tall and is so visible in the community, in the workplace, in the family structure. How are they doing it? It’s almost a sense of admiration — you all are having this trouble, let’s find out how you all are getting it done? How can you continue to face all that you face, and still be as beautiful and strong as you are?
I don’t think the mainstream media is going to say that. And I don’t think the people in Russia are going to say that. But when you look behind that curtain, I bet you that’s there.
In all the dating advice being offered to black women, a few themes emerge. One is that since black men are unavailable, black women should date outside of the race, specifically white men. What do think about that?
It’s like this — you can go to white men if you want to, I’m comfortable with all of that. Please understand. Just like black men, some white men will be out of work. Some white men will cheat. Some white men will have relationships going on outside of the one you’re in. Some white men will have bad credit. Some white men will get locked up. Some white men will be poor communicators, just like black men. They won’t want to listen to you sometimes when you want to talk. All the things that can happen with black men can very well happen with non-African-American men.
I’m all for a person going for love. But people who date outside their race because they think it’s gonna be some improvement, they are sadly mistaken.
How have the fellas responded to your book?
It’s funny. It’s been 50-50. “Man, I’ve been trying to say this to my wife, and I just didn’t know how.” Or, “Man, I can’t believe you’re dropping all the trade secrets like that.” Come on, let’s get real here. Women are trying to find love and happiness and want monogamous relationships. If that’s not what you’re about, let them at least have a level playing field. Tell them the rules we are really playing by. We can agree or not agree. If they want to be a part of your foolishness and your games, at least let them know what foolishness and games they’re getting into. And if you don’t like that, it’s OK –men don’t really buy books anyway.
So there’s not a book for men in the works?
What I did with this book was, I slid a lot of conversations in for women to have with their men about some key issues. But unless men change, I will not write a book for men, because I don’t want it just sitting on the shelves.
Nearly 15 years after it debuted on MTV, “Daria: The Complete Animated Series” is finally being released today on DVD. For fans of the disaffected title character, the release marks a much-needed return to Lawndale High School. Set in a mid-Atlantic suburb, the series revolves around Daria and her family, the Morgendorffers. The minutiae of modern life are filtered through Daria’s caustic lens, providing moments of apt reflection about the nature of adulthood. At first glance, Daria Morgendorffer appears to be a strange icon to come from the same network that gleefully produced “The Hills,” “Laguna Beach,” “Jersey Shore” and “My Super Sweet 16.” After all, Daria’s deadpan delivery and constant cynicism don’t exactly fit with the new programming, and her friends are far too multidimensional to be seen on the channel today. Between the eclectic artist Jane Lane and the archetypal high-achieving model minority Jodie Landon (and matching boyfriend Mack), Daria finds backup during the turbulent teen years — especially while dealing with Beavis and Butt-head clones Kevin and Brittany — and the machinations of the Lawndale’s self-proclaimed fashion police and popular girl squad, the Fashion Club. The series’ complex web of teen life is almost impossible to imagine in the demographic-obsessed media market that has emerged since, when so many personalities gracing MTV direct all their contemplative energy toward the nearest tanning bed.
I grew up with “Daria,” entering high school during the first season and graduating in 2001, a year before the Daria crew. Through the years post-high school, I’ve come to the same conclusion as many of the devotees who signed petitions and clamored on message boards for the series’ DVD release: “Daria” could have only happened at that time, during that strange, transitional period after the grunge and gangsta rap of the early ’90s and before the boy bands and teen queens stepped up to create a glittery pop landscape in the ’00s. It spoke directly to those of us on the borderlands between generation X and Y, growing up with the shadows of Kurt Cobain, Tupac and Biggie looming large, who could relate to “The Truth About Cats and Dogs” and “Reality Bites” as well as “The Craft” and “10 Things I Hate About You,” who could identify with the screaming discontentment of the 1990s but could also feel the lighter, more hopeful influence of the easygoing and revirginized 2000s.
“Daria” was the rare teen show that understood its audience did not need to be pandered to, that they could tackle major ideas and concepts without a family-friendly filter. (When teen-focused Nickelodeon spinoff The N, now known as Teen Nick, re-aired episodes of “Daria” in 2002, it made the unpopular choice to edit and remove controversial content, resulting in major modifications to storylines.) The only other series to obtain icon status with kids like me was the critically acclaimed but short-lived “My So-Called Life.” Other shows during that era were beloved, but only those two had the courage to show adolescence for the messy, insecurity-laden time it truly is. Instead of superficial conflicts between friends, the”Daria” and “MSCL” grappled with dark, dazzling inner lives. These were complicated heroines in complicated times. (And the times, they were complicated indeed: the presidential impeachment trial, the Battle for Seattle.) Normal teen shows position parents as lovable wisdom dispensers, but on “Daria,” all characters received at least one opportunity to be seen as three-dimensional human beings, with shortcomings and unrequited desires of their own. And through the world of “Daria,” many of us devotees found a lens from which to understand our particular brand of outcast experience, one that carries into our adult lives.
One of my friends, Shani_O of the PostBourgie blog, uses an icon of Jodie as her Twitter pic. While Jodie didn’t rack up as much screen time as other members of the “Daria” universe, her predicament was powerful: being a minority in a majority white school, her longing to just be herself rather than a representative of her entire race. A lot of us — particularly brown viewers — could relate to many different characters, but it is Jodie’s need to be everything to everyone that speaks to us most. As we entered the workforce, we found that the story didn’t end in high school, and that those of us who were black would spend our lives proving we were good enough again and again. In the TV movie that served as the series finale, “Is It College Yet,” we see Jodie engaged in a battle for her future — tired of wearing the mask of perfection, she lobbies her rigid father for the right to attend the predominantly black Turner College, where she feels she can finally just be Jodie, and not have to worry about what white people will think. Her father disagrees, believing that a more prestigious (and white) university would be a better choice. Jodie wins the battle — to spend four years just being herself — but many of us who had our first taste of the real world understood that for Jodie, this would only be a brief reprieve.
“Daria’s” humor was full of sharp one-liners and clever quips, but underneath that was insight about human behavior and even social issues. Here’s an exchange from an episode called “Fat Like Me”:
Quinn: And the doctors said that Sandy’s leg will be in a cast for at least a month! Poor Sandy, crutches don’t go with anything!
Daria: That’s the same thing those landmine victims are always complaining about.
Rewatching “Daria” episodes now, I’m struck by how much of the satire still rings true. Sandy, Fashion Club overlord and the quintessential mean girl, creates a more stringent admissions test to the club, rolling back the maximum allowable weight by 3 pounds, saying she was alone in taking a stand against “the burgeoning obesity problem tearing apart the very fabric of our land.” (Did Sandy provide the template for MeMe Roth?) Later in the episode, Daria and Jane are watching “Sick Sad World” when they announce Hitler’s been reincarnated by “a madcap leggy blond.” If she exists today, I’m sure that serial cheater and white supremacist-tolerant Jesse James has slept with her. And Quinn’s farewell address to the Fashion Club, admonishing the remaining members to let no chartreuse be “too chartreusy,” is so full of cutesy made-up words it could have been written by a Lucky staffer. The issues Daria raised were not exactly new; after all, weight drama, racism and ridiculousness in the name of fashion are all American institutions. However, in the ’90s, we never thought such empty spectacle would become the norm.
It wasn’t just the humor of “Daria” that has held our imaginations for well over a decade, it’s also the simple humanity in the stories told. Even during the golden years of Janeane Garofalo, Daria was still a strange and quirky heroine: the designated smart foil to Mike Judge’s cartoon forerunners Beavis and Butt-head. (The show was a spinoff.) Series creator Glenn Eichler (who now writes for “The Colbert Report”) and lead writer Anne D. Bernstein (who moved on to other MTV projects and “The Backyardigans”) created a world completely separate and populated it with interesting and dynamic teen characters who did not base their lives around dating. This idea should not be novel, but in a media landscape that sees most female characters as sidekicks to more interesting and motivated male characters, an unfriendly intellectual powerhouse like Daria was like a balm for the soul.
As “Daria” began its final season, the writers became even more reflective, looking for ways to probe teenage experience without falling prey to clichés. The penultimate episode, “Boxing Daria,” dives into Daria’s own insecurities and partially explains how she built her personality fortress in the first place. When the memory arises of a fight between her parents — caused by Daria’s lack of playground social skills — she lashes out at family and friends for the whole episode before realizing she is most enraged at her self. True to form, the writers of Daria treat these scenes with depth and complexity, having space-cadet-dad Jake chime in to acknowledge that Daria’s maladjustment “was part of the deal. It was the other side to you being so smart and perceptive.” It was a poignant moment: Daria’s realization that her parents loved her, even if she wasn’t always easy to deal with. For some of us viewers — awkward, intelligent, insecure and, yes, slightly maladjusted – it was a kind of epiphany. To hear that our quirks weren’t just character defects but signs of intelligence was nothing less than monumental.
In the black community, you don’t have to seek out Tyler Perry movies; they come to you. I watched the original “Why Did I Get Married?” over at my mother’s house one night when I visited for dinner, after she and my sister (avid cinephiles) anxiously popped in the DVD before I could even object. A few months later, on a bachelor/bachelorette wedding outing, the bride-to-be introduced the movie — about four African-American couples struggling with their relationships over one disastrous weekend — by announcing, “This is everything that should not happen on this trip.”
But as ubiquitous as Tyler Perry movies are, they are equally as contentious. And as “Why Did I Get Married Too?” (which did not screen prior to its release) opens this Friday — most likely met with big box office and lukewarm reviews — I am bracing myself for the inevitable debates to come about Tyler Perry, the man and the work.
Over on my blog, Racialicious, any discussion of Tyler Perry immediately becomes polarized, with fans and detractors fighting for comment space. Does Tyler Perry really speak to the black community, or just a small, primarily religious and middle-class portion of it? Do his movies condone domestic violence? Should we support his movies regardless of what we think of them, knowing there are so few successful black filmmakers? And don’t even get readers started on Medea — the wisecracking, pistol-packing grandma with a heart of (tarnished) gold, the role that catapulted Perry to fame. The debate gets louder with each new release, but the argument boils down to one question: Does Perry’s importance as a black filmmaker — who uses actors and actresses of color — outweigh the mediocrity of his work?
It’s a question I go back and forth on. As a feminist, I bristle in my seat at his treatment of women. Nichole at Postbourgie throws a wrench in the Perry machine, noting:
TP wants to teach women how to have successful relationships by making sure their male partners are satisfied. His morality plays, on stage and film, scold women: Be quiet, in appearance and voice. Don’t try to be more than what you are. Serious ambition is a danger to the family. Be grateful for “good enough.” Wait for the right man to notice you. Don’t bring attention to yourself. Be appropriately thankful when a man takes care of you.
Of course, part of Perry’s problem is the unfair burden placed on him as one of only two prominent African-American filmmakers, along with Spike Lee. There certainly are other black directors — Gina Prince-Bythewood, John Singleton, Kasi Lemmons and Darnell Martin, to name a few — but only Lee and Perry have the power and influence to produce major motion pictures, which puts an intense scrutiny on their choice of subject matter and project. (Tyler Perry’s decision to write and adapt Ntozake Shange’s “For Colored GirlsWho Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf” wasn’t exactly met with parades. I wrote about my own misgivings at the time.)
But while Spike Lee’s movies are searing investigations into the black American psyche, Perry has more in common with the bland Hollywood romantic comedies of Ken Kwapis (“He’s Just Not That Into You,” “License to Wed”), Garry Marshall (“Valentine’s Day,” “Raising Helen,” “Runaway Bride,” “Pretty Woman”) and Robert Luketic (“The Ugly Truth,” “Monster in Law,” “Win a Date With Tad Hamilton”).
Tyler Perry, at heart, is an entertainer. He’s good at churning out stories about people battling with life and love. There’s nothing remarkable about the scripts that he produces; in a way, he’s only doing what thousands of other white filmmakers do — he’s eking out a living making formulaic date flicks. But consider the fact that the romantic comedies of the past year barely featured minority extras — far less minority heroes — and you get a sense of how extraordinary it is that Tyler Perry puts African-American stories front and center in his films.
In the meantime, I just bought two tickets to “Why Did I Get Married, Too?” on Fandango. But if anyone asks, I’m there supporting Jill Scott.
A shocking statistic sent ripples across the Internet earlier this month. It made the rounds on Twitter and even nabbed a couple of headlines before fading into silence: Black women have a median net worth of $5.
This one tiny fact, pulled from a lengthy paper by the Insight Center for Community and Economic Development, was given far more attention than the core of the report: a discussion of the perfect storm of gender and racial discrimination, mommy tracking, wealth and inheritance that puts young women of color on fiscal bumper cars before they even turn 18. Reading through “Lifting as We Climb: Women of Color, Wealth and America’s Future” felt like flipping through the pages of my own life and the lives of the women around me; it paints a familiar picture of how hard it is to exit poverty and build a financially stable existence.
When I left home at 17, I moved out with two garbage bags full of possessions, $1,000 meticulously saved from two different $7-an-hour jobs and not much else. I had no car. I had no driver’s license. I had no credit history. Even if I had received a blessing from my mother, there would be no cash to help out, no bestowal of funds my parents had saved in a college fund. I was on my own. As the report explains, the key to financial stability is wealth (for example, assets, savings, stock holdings, business income), which can be passed from generation to generation, to ease the path for those struggling in their youth. However, for the more than 46 percent of single-parent black households that have zero or negative wealth, there is literally nothing to pass on — many households are struggling to stay afloat, living from paycheck to paycheck.
I left home nearly a decade ago, and if I had a time machine — well, I’m not sure I would have tried to talk my younger self out of making the leap toward independence, but I am sure I would have told her to prepare a little better. There just aren’t that many career options available to a 17-year-old runaway. I managed to return to an old job cutting up cold cuts and assembling sandwiches at Blimpie’s before leveraging a high school internship into my first office job. This was my first exposure to the work world, and the first time I had to navigate a semi-professional environment. Later, I enrolled in school in order to escape a lifetime of dead-end jobs and hourly work. At the time, I did not realize what I was seeking was access to “the wealth escalator.” Report author Mariko Chang defines the wealth escalator as “fringe benefits, favorable tax codes, and valuable government benefits — that are tied to employment, income, and marital status.”
Many young women are locked out of the wealth escalator due to various workplace realities. Generally, service positions (where nearly one-third of black and Hispanic women work, according to the report) do not offer benefits like paid time off, health insurance, or 401K plans. Professional- and managerial-class jobs provide these benefits, generally as a part of the hiring package. This lack of benefits tends to have a heavy effect on the lives of working women, forcing many to choose between their job security and personal illness or family emergency. And since many women cannot afford the loss of income from missing work, they will often find themselves in debt after a bout of illness or an accident. As expenses mount, income shrinks, placing women into a financial bind. The pathway out of this is to land a better job — but thanks to constraints from the personal (aptitude, education, familial responsibilities) to the structural (racism, sexism), finding a new gig is easier said than done.
As I went a little further in my career, I discovered just how much ignorance keeps us in the financial wilderness. For those of us working our way up from service positions, who may not have the benefit of professional or managerial parents and friends, it can be shocking to learn there are other, workplace-based options to help enhance your savings. The first time I landed a job with a decent benefits package, there was a human resources professional there to explain to me the various merits of certain health insurance plans, why there was a 401K plan with no matching (and what pre-tax contributions meant) and how I could use these things to achieve my own personal goals.
If only more of us were that lucky.
Steve Harvey 
MTV's "Daria: The Complete Series" comes out on DVD this week 
Tyler Perry and Janet Jackson 
(Credit: Unknown) 