Zoey and Luca team up for a project to create a fashion collection. Meanwhile, Jazz and Sky school their friends about the difficulties Black women face when dating. Full recap of this week’s grown-ish, “It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp” by @luvthispayne.
Greetings good people!!! On the eve of International Women’s Day, grown-ish gave us one hell of a treat of an episode. It was a love letter to black women everywhere. I’m so super excited about this week’s show that I’m not even gone waste time asking how y’all doing. Lol! We just gone get right into this recap! This recap will be a little different than the others I’ve done. Disclaimer: this is the most personal recap I’ve written to date because this episode really was close to home for me. All that to say, I’m sensitive about my sh*t! Here we go:
“The most disrespected woman in America is the Black woman. The most unprotected person in America is the Black woman. The most neglected person in America is the Black woman.” Malcolm X. This was the tone and theme of last night’s episode. Disrespect and disregard of black women. It was all about desirability and how black woman are frequently the least desired among both men who look like us and those who don’t. In fact, according to statistics, 82% of non-black men show some bias against black women in online dating. Hmmmm …..
The episode opens with everyone out for a little weekend fun. Sky, Jazz, Nomi, Ana, Vivek, Luca and Aaron are all out at bar. Seems like everybody and their mama is getting some play/love except the black women. Let me just say this looks all too familiar. Anyway, Jazz is wondering what the hell is going on or happening that is causing black guys to stop dating black girls. As usual, anytime a black woman tries to speak up about her experience, there is someone attempted to explain how she’s wrong. *insert eye roll here*
Cue Nomi and Ana. Ana butts in that maybe it’s just a slow night. That’s easily rebutted because Jazz and Sky says it’s been a slow ass semester. Then Nomi suggests that if the twins aren’t getting love from black men, then maybe it’s time they open themselves up to the possibility of dating outside their race.
Sky perfectly retorts, why does she have to be the one to “open up?” Why do black women have to change what we like? I cannot tell you how many times I’ve had to seriously have this conversation with my black girlfriends. We’ve all had to start to think about whether we are going to have to let go our desire for “Black love” because black men ain’t checking for us in the same ways we’re checking for them. Le sigh.
Of course, Captain Save a Woke aka Aaron has to add his two cents about how he could ONLY ever see himself dating “A Queen.” He only dates black women ……. But wait just one minute there homie. Apparently, the only type of black women that Aaron likes are the ones who could pass for Rachel Dolezal… I swear to everything this episode just got more and more realistic as it progressed. You know how many Aaron’s there are out there? Shout out to Luca for always always always calling Aaron on his bullshit. Luca is the one who points out that essentially all Aaron’s “Queens” are more Egyptian than Nubian. Meaning all his girlfriends look like that ambiguous biracial girl in commercials for white hair products that’s trying to cross over to black women.
Men like Aaron glorify black women who are light skinned with curls that dangle past their shoulders, soft features and light eyes. They date and accept black women so long as they don’t have 4c hair, a wide nose or be darker than a brown paper bag. I’ve met more than my fair share of Aaron’s. I am struck but how all too authentic this episode was.
Aaron is color struck. But he’s not alone on Cal U’s campus or in real life. On campus Sky and Jazz have noticed that when they look around, black women are seriously at the bottom of the list. Last chosen and least often dated. You want to know what the list looks like. I wrote a song about it, wanna hear it? Here it goes:
White Girls with an Accent (See: Gal Gadot)
White Girls (See: Kylie Jenners & Minka Kellys)
Exoctic Women (Girl What Are You Mixed With) (See: Karreuche, Chrissy Teigen)
Latinas (Self-explanatory)
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Black Women
But of course explaining the list wasn’t good enough, because Aaron was still in disbelief, so then Jazz had to take it to the COLD. HARD. FACTS. With examples. Starting with athletes wives, men like Kobe, Tiger, Michael Jordan all with non-black women. Your rappers girls, men like Big Sean, Dr. Dre and Lil Wayne, all with non-black women. Then you have all the other A-List celeb actors with non-black women like Cuba Gooding Jr., Omari Hardwick, Jamie Foxx, Terrence Howard, and Ice T to name a few. Say what you want but more often than not we see in pop culture black men who are not married to or dating black women and the message seems resoundingly clear, black women are the least desired.
Vivek might be the only dude in the club with some sense. Hoping that the examples they’ve provided helps Nomi and Ana understand, Jazz checks to see if it makes more sense now. But Ana is still minimizing the very real phenomena by basically saying its not her fault because she didn’t put herself on the list. Maybe not but her “black” features did. “Everybody is always checking for the girl who looks black but nobody is checkin for the girl who actually is.” Seriously, right this moment, I SCREAMED! SCREAMED because I felt this word in my SOUL. Wait, I think there is actual footage of me in my bedroom when this moment happened:
The idea that men are attracted to blackness as long as it’s not in black women is evident in the voluminous amounts of women getting lip injections, and ass shots. But just as they are explaining desirability and the double standards, Jazz has to send her drink back because something didn’t taste right with it.
When she sends her drink back, Nomi decides that maybe the reason that the reason black guys are checking for them is because of their “attitude.” Won’t even lie a little bit, this moment had me seeing red and I had to take a break from the episode because this moment got WAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY too real. But our ClapBack Queens took the time to make sure to let Nomi know she’s full of SHIT. My words not theirs. Nomi can do the exact same thing as Sky and Jazz but somehow when they do it, its black girls are difficult, sassy and full of attitude. I cannot tell you how many times as a black woman I have been labeled as having an attitude or being bitchy because I refused to accept a certain type of treatment. White women do not get labeled in the same way, and its exhausting!!!
Not only are the tropes and narrative of stereotypes exhausting but they have real implications. Like Jazz explained, it’s different when the stereotype is something like being cheap. Being labeled as cheap won’t stop someone from trying to get to know you or be with you. But contrarily, being labeled difficult or attitudinal does cause black women to get eliminated from some dating conversations altogether.
Frustrated, Jazz starts to maybe consider her options but Sky is not so sure this is a good idea and it creates tension between the two sisters. Jazz explains that she doesn’t really know what she wants, maybe she does want to date outside of her race. But Sky’s point is super valid because she explains that if her sister is going to do so, that the decision should be because she wants to and not because she feels like she HAS to. Every single week I fall more in love with Sky and Jazz. They really are my favorite part of this show!
This episode was the single most relatable episode of grown-ish I have seen so far. As a single 30 year old black woman who is trying to date online and in real life, I’ve experienced time and time again the rejection of not being the ideal standard of desirability. Add in that I’m a fat black woman and dating really gets dicey. Few things make you more undesirable than being black and fat.
Honestly, the accepted beauty standard is largely a European aesthetic and the closer you are to that look, the more desirable you are deemed. The further you stray from that look, the less attractive you are considered. Now there exists exceptions and they were brilliantly laid out in this episode. Those exceptions include biracial ambiguity and black features like full lips and big asses without actually being black. Couple the beauty standards with a few stereotypes about black women being argumentative, difficult, and sexually prude, and you get women who are frequently chosen last.
My close girlfriends and I have had this conversation many times about how common it has become to see black men disregard and exclude black women from their dating preferences. How heartbreaking it is to feel like we are not worthy of their affections, that there is some flaw that makes us unlovable or more difficult to love. In pop culture, we often see a black man’s success and achievement punctuated by a white lover, and at some point as a black woman, you ask yourself, why not us?
I know this conversation is tricky and far too dense to discuss in a short recap about a show, but I am glad that grown-ish took the opportunity to tell a very real story about just how got damn hard it is to date when you’re a black woman. I’m also hopeful that one day we might get even further into the conversation and get a fat black woman’s perspective on dating as well. For now, I am at least glad that in this television reality, Jazz ends with possibly a new love interest. While the conversation definitely needs to continue, for now, Jazz’s new potential flame is enough.
See y’all next week!
Twitter: @luvthispayne
