Who You Callin’ a B*tch? (Radio Edit)

Drake, Kendrick & the Collateral Queens Hit by Strays

“On some Bobby [subscribe for expletives] / I wanna know what Whitney need…”
— Drake, Family Matters

Dear Whitney,

I didn't plan to write you this letter. And I’m pretty sure you’re not expecting it, since you haven’t got a clue who I am.

So, let me see if I can give you some context, right quick.

About a year ago – I’m pretty confident you’ll recognize this part – the “greatest night in hip hop” happened. And it was Drake. And Kendrick. And diss songs. I could not believe what I was hearing.

I bet you couldn’t believe what you were hearing either.

Your baby mama captions always screaming, “Save me”
You did her dirty all your life
you tryin’a make peace
I heard one of them little kids might be Dave Freeee’s

Don’t make it Dave Free’s
’Cause if your GM is your BM secret BD
Then this is all makin plenty [subscribe for expletives] sense to me
Aye, let that shorty breathe
Shake that ass, [subscribe for expletives]
Hands on your knees
Hands on your knees
Hands on your knees
Shake that [subscribe for expletives] for Drake
now, shake that [subscribe for expletives] for Free…
— Drake, Family Matters

Yikes.

I know we call it “catching strays,” but Drake aimed at you, lyrically, and fired.
To call any wound the result of “strays,” I’d have to excuse Drake’s bull[subscribe for expletives] behavior.

And I’d have to excuse mine, too.

About a week after Not Like Us dropped, I was co-hosting a podcast, ranting through my take on why this beef was historic and… important and… well… exciting. Feminist that I claim to be, though, I was sure to assure my co-hosts and the listeners:

Now there’s built in misogyny here. I’m not arguing that there isn’t. So I’m just going to call that out. It’s part of—like… This is so beyond any polite conversation that, okay, I get it, and I’m not not paying attention to it. And we can definitely come back and address it. ’Cause it’s [subscribe for expletives] up.

Yep. That’s what I said I would do.

I spent a year treating this beef like a part-time job. Watching reactions. Watching breakdowns. Watching reactions to breakdowns. And breakdowns of reactions. Don’t even get me started on the lyrical breakdowns.

A year.

And you know what I never did? What I said I would do.

And that’s [subscribe for expletives] up.

STAT

I asked myself how I forgot my sisters like that. How I forgot my sister like that.
Her words came back to me:

I never wanted to be a statistic
Born into the cradle of my father’s fists of fury
against my mother’s yellow skin
Divorced before I could walk
There’s a stat for that

I remembered how I was stunned the first time I heard her say this poem.
How some of my own words came to mind:

First memory
blurry through my tears
Still clear
Even after all these years…

I had no idea she was—
And she had no idea I was—
Trying to piece together something we each knew had been broken for a long time.
I don’t really remember much else about that night except for Thalia and a microphone and a mouth full of Truth.

Raised by a single mother
Educated in a system designed to frustrate
with the realization of all I never got
Way too late in the game
Made it through high school
By 18 there was a baby boy
There’s a stat for that

We grew up in Flatbush, Brooklyn. I bet there were some differences, growing up in Compton. But I bet if we all compared notes, we’d have a lot in common. Chocolate City things.

Like, my pops never laid a hand on me or my sister. So, we went untouched. But that doesn’t mean we went undamaged.

We couldn’t do [subscribe for expletives]
to our pops or our mother
so me and Thalia
beat the [subscribe for expletives] out of each other

People told us to stop fighting.
Our parents told us to stop fighting.
My father told us to stop fighting.

Yeah. Seriously. It was like, “I LEARNED IT BY WATCHING YOU!” Ok. That’s a really old reference, but just know two things:

1. The 80s were hilarious.

2. The Drug War was a joke.

But seriously? Stop fighting?

Cool.

Nobody ever mentioned where we could drop off our trauma, like dated electronics.
So, we carried it around in our hearts, in our heads, in our hands.
By the time we were in high school, the physical fights died down—
but our fury converged in our throats.

And the way we spit it at each other? Kendrick and Drake would have been impressed.
bell hooks, maybe not so much.

“Young people are cynical about love. Ultimately, cynicism is the great mask of the disappointed and betrayed heart.”
- bell hooks, All About Love: New Visions

Those words were published in 2000. 25 years later, I look at my generation and think:
Professor hooks’ “new visions” were prescient ones. Dating stories feel more like combat than romance. And I don’t think that’s because I’m only hearing “the stories.”

The cynicism in Drake’s sociopolitical hellscape of a rhyme speaks to why Black women across generations seem to feel disappointed, betrayed, and fed up.

For real this time.

Dear Yvette

Over the past few years, I have developed avatars that represent specific groups of people who seem to gravitate toward and get a lot out of the coaching we do. One of my avatars is named Yvette.

Yvette is a Black woman. 35-50. Lifelong learner. May or may not have children and/or a significant other. Frustrated with the gap between her intelligence, talents, skills, and accomplishments and the results she’s getting.

As I thought about her, what she’s facing, what she wants based on conversations with clients, friends, social media, I had a great idea: “LL Cool J had a song called ‘Dear Yvette.’ I’m gonna go play it and have a little fun while I’m thinking. This’ll be great.”

It was not great.

The fun little bop I remembered from The Top 8 at 8, is actually a slut shaming mess:

Yo, Yvette, there’s a lot of rumors goin around
They’re so bad you might have to leave town
See something’s smellin’ fishy and they say it’s you
All I know is that you made it with the whole crew
They say you’re a man-eater during the full moon
Mascot of the senior boys’ locker room
They said Yvette walked in, there wasn’t too much rap
Her reputation got bigger, and so did her gap
Cause girl, your mama shoulda taught you better
I’m’a sit down and write you a long letter.

[Chorus of Male Voices]
Dear Yvette…

-LL Cool J, Dear Yvette

Yikes.

Maybe the 80s weren’t quite as hilarious as I remember.

What would make LL think he could talk to Yvette like that? I mean… other than the fact that the very culture that was REQUESTING the song made it okay by celebrating the disrespect and being 1% as vocal as we were about… let’s say… the rumor that somebody stole LL’s radio when he was getting off a bus in Laurelton.

[RELAX! I AM ASSURED THAT WAS NOTHING BUT A SCURRILOUS STREET LEGEND.]

The funniest part – Not funny “ha ha” – is that the whole song plays like a joke. I’m pretty sure there was no actual Yvette. And I can’t decide what is the worse scenario. Because either:

• There was no Yvette. And we all thought it was funny.
  OR

• There was an Yvette. And we all thought it was funny.

Either way, Yvette deserved better.

When Straight Outta Compton, the NWA biopic, was released a friend invited me to join him at an industry screening where Ice Cube and O’Shea Jackson Jr would be doing a talkback. During that talkback, Ice Cube launched into a rant I’d seen versions of over the years. He calls women [subscribe for expletives] and hoes– Well, not real women– just the [subscribe for expletives] and hoes. Real women – And this is key – don’t mind.

Laughter rippled through the audience.

I was disappointed to say the least. After all, Cube is a grown man now. He was sitting there with his grown son. He is a businessman and a man of the world. And he has to know that there are Yvettes who are harmed by his choice in ways that are a lot like the impact on either of our sons when young Black men are reflexively labeled “thugs.”

It felt like he didn’t know, wouldn’t show or just didn’t care what happened to Yvette.

And some in that screening, across genders, still thought that same ol’ joke was funny. Dear Yvette was released in 1985. Straight Outta Compton was released in 2015. 30 years of infinite iterations of that joke and I could see how Black women might feel disappointed, betrayed, and fed up– for real this time.

We only let it out
through our fists flyin
both so pissed off
both swinging
both crying
too young to see
that we was both dying
both grown
before we shared all we was hidin
Now I’m’a be truthful
the [subscribe for expletives] was quite useful
Box cutters in hand
Make sure folks understand
If you mess with him
You’re gonna deal with her
And if you mess with her
You’re gonna deal with him
And they don’t even give a [subscribe for expletives]
If they win
Start some dumb [subscribe for expletives] tomorrow
They will do it again
- Coach Orlando

My sister and I have always loved each other. I mean the feeling. The instinct to defend each other out in the world was always there. We loved each other very much. We just didn’t know how.

What’s Love… Got To Do With Anything?

What’s loooooove…
- Ashanti, What’s Love?

Got to do– got to do with anything.
- Ja Rule, What’s Love?

Everything.

It seems to me that my brothers and sisters, a lot like my sister and me, are so pissed off, both swinging, both crying.

It seems to me a whole lot of folk want to love and be loved and simply don’t… know… how.

Before we get to how, though, here’s my working definition of love:

the investment in the optimization of outcomes for someone or something.

English translation: You want the best for them. (Works for your beloved. Works for your favorite team.)

Preparing to write this, I texted several Black women I know to present a hypothetical:

If I were to go away for a year and during that year Black men were doing a better job of loving Black women, what would I see when I returned? Here are some of the responses:

• More nodding heads while we’re speaking, less dismissing of our lived experiences.

• Respect, honor and end to false expectations

• The first thing that came to my mind is that they are actively doing a better job is loving themselves. First and foremost.

• If Black men were doing a better job of loving Black women, I’d feel protected emotionally, financially, physically, and psychologically. That means you’d see softness that isn’t always possible when we’re constantly bracing. You would hear more laughter that’s not laced with cynicism and see a relaxed me, without my shoulders touching my earlobes because I’d know that I’m being listened to the first time I speak, not when I’ve raised my voice or when I’ve exhausted myself trying to explain why I matter.

• more happy black homes, less dv in black homes, possibly less abuse in those homes as well. young men being more respectful and responsible, possibly more black graduates of all kinds.

• There would be no need for armor, no edge in my voice, no shrinking, no hyper-vigilance. You would see shared responsibility, not putting all the emotional and logistical labor on me. You’d see partnership, not patriarchy; a partner who demonstrates pride in my intelligence, ambition, and success instead of resenting me for it.

• You’d see a partnership where tenderness is abundantly proffered, not rationed; a partnership where protection doesn’t only mean standing in front of danger (assuming I’d get even that) but standing up in everyday moments when someone speaks over me, ignores me, questions my worth. That’s that real, every day, lived safety and protection not just from harm, but from erosion. The kind of safety that makes softness possible.

• If Black men were doing a better job of loving Black women, you might see us exhaling.

• Maybe, most beautifully, you’d see Black women believing that we are safe with Black men.

• A lot of procreation, love, commitment, unity, and success.

• Treating us with kindness vs soldiers who are so strong

• Wow. Great question. In only a year’s time, what we see might not be so great. I think that it would take us time to trust the change. Maybe you would see less popularity with rappers like Sexyy Red. Maybe we’d see fewer child support cases in the Black community. Maybe we’d see less fascination with examples of Black love b/c it was more common. The last might take more than a year.

• Respect, honor and end to false expectations

I’m gonna go ahead and guess that you’re a bit more dialed into the pulse of the Black woman than I am. So, maybe this is less surprising for you than it was for me. But there was such genuine care in the responses. (This was not balloon popping energy, Whitney.)

Honestly, I wanted to run out and tell as many black men as would listen–

Try a Little Tenderness

Oh, she may be weary
Them young girls, they do get wearied
Wearing that old shaggy dress (yeah, yeah)
But when she gets weary
Try a little tenderness…

- Otis Redding, Try A Little Tenderness

Try a little tenderness. That would be my Paul Revere cry as I galloped through Black man country.

But then, that brings us back to how, doesn’t it? Because she may be dealing with a lot. She may be dealing with the stats.

When the housing market fell
I went into foreclosure
There’s a stat for that

When the recession consumed thousands of jobs
I too fed her thirsty belly
I know there’s a stat for that

So afraid of joining the stat of African American women as the highest newly reported cases of HIV
I chose God and abstinence as my best survival option
Here I, we stand facing each day as if the last actually offered promises of a brighter tomorrow
The story of my life will be called RESILIENCE…because I always come back fighting

Bruh.

Some shit we can’t fix.

Try a little tenderness.

Try love.

Try loving Black women.

Try investing in the optimization of outcomes for Black women.

Try genuinely wanting the best for the Black women in our lives.

Try love. Not in exchange for physical affection or any other immediate return on investment. We’re not talking about day trading, fellas. We’re talking about investment. And that’s long term.

Let’s take some of that energy we pour into our “Mama” songs – Hey. I love a good “Mama” song. I’m sure there’s a Black man somewhere who doesn’t, but I ain’t met him yet. – and let’s pour that energy into ALL Black women.

That’s what I’d say, Whitney. I don’t know who will listen, but that’s what I have to say. That’s what I plan to say. Maybe I could put forth some words Tupac actually said:

And since we all came from a woman
Got our name from a woman and our game from a woman
I wonder why we take from our women
Why we rape our women, do we hate our women?
I think it's time to kill for our women
Time to heal our women, be real to our women
And if we don't we'll have a race of babies
That will hate the ladies, that make the babies
- Tupac, Keep Your Head Up

But then, again, he also said:

In the locker room
all the homies do is laugh
High fives
’cause another ni**a played your [subscribe for expletives]
- Tupac, Wonder Why They Call U [subscribe for expletives]

So, I just wanna level set that we’ll probably have to focus on progress over perfection.

The Real Real Ni**a Challenge

Cornel West has said that “justice is what love looks like in public.” I like that. I’ve spent time with it. Looked at it from a bunch of angles. And of course I love that it works when we think of justice being the investment in the optimization of outcomes for everybody.

I often hear talk of Black women needing to be a Black man’s peace. I think there’s a phrase from our history that should be recycled:

No justice, no peace.

What Drake did to you was not just. You had no quarrel with him. And he chose to try to hurt you for what? To make Kendrick mad? Failing to see you as more than an extension of Kendrick, to consider your privacy, your person, your pain is the opposite of love.

When you put your hands on your girl
is it self-defense ‘cause sh’e bigger than you?
- Drake, Family Matters

Get it?! Because Kendrick is short. A man brought up the prospect that you were physically abused because he ran out of short jokes, because he ran out of punchlines.

When I failed to keep my word and address the way you were treated, that was not just. Privilege is good for one thing: leveraging itself out of existence. And I didn’t use it that way by a long shot. You are not a punchline. But my behavior has been a joke.

You deserve better. I want to do better. And I know for a fact that there are many Black men who feel the same way. (They may not be the most vocal on social media, but we can get into that later.) So, I’m gonna go looking for them. I’m going to call out for them and see who answers the call.

Let’s see where the Black men are who agree that the way forward is equity and not entitlement.

Some work in progress named Coach Orlando built off of what Professor West said about justice and added “Equity is what love looks like in organizations.”

Our families, our relationships are small organizations. Don’t believe me? We even say “partner.”

Yes, equity. Doing what we can to give everyone in the organization a maximal opportunity to thrive. I know there are Black men out there who know that:

Entitlement asks, “What will you do so that I thrive?”
Equity asks, “What will we do so that we thrive?”

Entitlement waits for a chance to speak.
Equity listens.

Entitlement keeps score.
Equity keeps space.

If you ask me, that’s the REAL Real Ni**a Challenge:
Are you hard enough to try a little tenderness?

I know dudes who will tell you that they would die for “her” or for their kids. And to be sure, there is a place for physical bravery. But what I got in those responses to my hypothetical is telling me that we, Black men, to borrow a phrase may not “understand the assignment.” (Respectfully)

Having seen down the barrel of a gun and faced EMDR therapy for the blurry first memory I told you about earlier… that EMDR dot was WAY scarier. And what I am hearing is that THAT is the courage we need to summon if we are going to accomplish the mission set forth in a conversation between Nikki Giovanni and James Baldwin:

Love is a tremendous responsibility.
- Nikki Giovanni

Love is the only responsibility.
- James Baldwin

It’s time for us, collectively, to handle our responsibility.

It won’t always be easy. Because neither love nor handling responsibilities tends to be. And it may be scary, most worthwhile missions are. The truth is that for many of us the reality is that no one wants to replace that old shaggy dress Otis sang about like we do. But sometimes life…

And it’s hard to sit there and watch “her” want a new dress you just are not in a position to provide. Shit hurts. That’s one of several reasons I had to break myself into pieces as I went through therapy — Still going. No plans on stopping. — but I’ll also share that the reconfigured version of me is the best one yet.

Or as my sister put it:

Stat for That: The Final Stanza

So to the guidance counselors who said why bother
To the mentors who believed and made us fight harder
To the faulty inner city school systems that fail our youth
And the misinformed young brother who thinks slinging is all he can do

To families in shelters standing on shaky ground
Because as your stats go up
The funding goes down

To brothers and sisters out here surviving in spite of it all
Keeping families together
Doing right even when your back is against the wall
I wanna see a stat for that

To more of us out here with Bachelors, Masters, MDs and PhDs
Saying hell “NO” to a system designed to convince that vision is a misconception
I wanna see a stat for that

I, we are what America means
There is something distinctly American about ignoring the stats
Fueled by the predictions of failure
Up by your bootstraps
Kicking down doors denying admittance
Redefining success
Editing destiny to read the way that we have written it

We control the stat for that!

Written by DR. Thalia YVETTE Bishop, PsyD

Dear Whitney

Thalia made it.

But it shouldn’t have been so hard.

She made it.

But she shouldn’t have had to swim upstream.

She made it.

But she deserved to feel the love along the way.

And finally, I think I understand why I allowed a year to pass without addressing how you were disrespected. Part of me thought you’d be fine. So many Black women I know have been so tough and so strong for so long that, despite my best efforts, I don’t afford you any more humanity than Drake did. You’re neither subhuman nor superhuman. You’re human.

And you deserve to be seen as such, respected as such, loved as such.

Had I tried a little tenderness…

But I didn’t. And I can’t get that year back.

What I can do is be accountable for the pain I cause (including through the pain I ignore).

What I can do is stand up and say that white comedians ain’t the only ones who need to start watching how they talk about Black women. (And that’s law!)

What I can do is apologize to you Whitney.

I am sorry.

I hope you had a beautiful Mother’s Day.

And I hope every Whitney and Yvette feels more loved each year.

Yours In Justice, Equity & Tenderness,
Coach Orlando