Lady P

This past weekend I saw for Colored Girls a Tyler Perry production based on the book “For Colored Girls Who have Considered Suicide when the Rainbow is Enuf by Ntozake Shange.  It got me thinking about what we as women go through.  With the up and coming launch of my new novel “The Forgotten – A Love Story”, I wanted to explore relationships amongst women. This book is not your traditional love story.  It’s about the relationships we as African American women have with each other. (Be on the lookout for an excerpt of the book)  While writing this book, even though it’s fiction, I contemplated how we treat each other and how society views us as women.

                For Colored Girls, the movie is a powerful adaptation of the book which portrays black women in various life situations such as rape, domestic abuse, aids and abortion. But if you viewed the movie closely as I did, you could see the loving and not so loving relationships these women had with each other, family members and themselves. How do we really treat each other?  Do we value ourselves? Are we our own worst enemies?

This leads me to the story of Lady P. I use this as an example of how we as African American women treat each other:

                I met Lady P about five years ago at a football party. I had met this guy one Friday hanging out at the W.  We had a decent time that night so we exchanged phone numbers.  We talked all week.  We had great conversations. We were supposed to have a date but of course something went wrong with his car so our date never happened. Side note: When a man tells you he makes over $100,000 but he couldn’t get his vehicle fixed or doesn’t have alternate transportation, RUN.   I wasn’t all that interested in going out with him after that so of course every option he suggested to reschedule our date I was busy.  He finally invited me to his big football party the following weekend.  I thought that would be fun since it wouldn’t be just us. I was fairly new to Atlanta and wanted to meet new people.

                I pull up and he had a nice house in Cobb County, nothing special.  I was one of the first few people to get there so I had a prime seat and got to watch everyone that walked through the door.  As I sat there I started noticing something odd.  As each guest started walking in the more I was scratching my head saying “hmm” to myself.  Every guest for the first 30 minutes was a woman, a gorgeous woman at that.  When they saw me they gave me the look.  Y’all know the look.  The one that says what the hell you doing here with that fake smile plastered across their face.  I was silently praying that some guys would walk in soon.  My prayers were answered.

                As the night went on, Lady P walks in solo.  You know I liked that. She reminded me of me. She didn’t need an entourage to escort her.  She sat next to me.  We started chit chatting.  She asked me if I knew any one there. I said no.  I asked her the same and she said no.  Obviously she put two and two together.  I didn’t. 

Eventually with my vivacious personality I took over the party and helped facilitate the games.  Lady P wasn’t to be out done so she decided to be co-host.  I didn’t care.  I was having fun so I rolled with it.

                Lady P and I were standing outside talking at the end of the evening and the host kept coming out there.  I think he was feeling himself and his male prowess, maybe even trying to make me jealous, I don’t know, but he was all over Lady P. She of course was pissed about something.  I could’ve cared less about him especially since I thought he was a dweeb. He was so full of it and he really didn’t even realize he had nothing much to show for himself.

Lady P and I exchanged numbers and vowed to hang out.  We got together for dinner about two weeks later.  She kept asking me about my relationship with the host.  I told her I just met the man and nothing was going on especially since he wasn’t my type.  She seemed relieved. After a few glasses of wine she finally revealed to me that she slept with the host and wanted to know if I did the same.  I assured her I didn’t but to be honest, even if I did I wouldn’t have told her. That just wasn’t any of her business. I didn’t know her that well to reveal intimate parts of myself.  Despite that conversation about the host, we ended up having a good time.  Good food and good wine usually helps solidify a friendship.

We hung out a lot after that.  I started noticing though, every time we went out every man that tried to talk to me, she tried to push up on.  I just dismissed it.  I just couldn’t believe someone who called themselves a friend would do such a thing.  Dating, trying to talk to or even looking at one of your friends man was taboo within the sister community.

I got real suspicious of Lady P when at each BBQ I had all my girlfriends would complain about how she would push up on all the men and treat them like dirt.  She was usually the bar tender and she would apparently service the men and not the women.  They felt that she was an ultra bitch.  I would say no that’s not like her. She’s really a good person.

But then she did the unthinkable.  Well it was unthinkable to me.  We were hanging out at a new hip place.  We got there early so there weren’t many people there.  The band was setting up and taking pictures for their website.  Lady P went to the restroom.  I was talking to the band manager getting to know him and all.  He was a nice looking guy so I kept flirting.  We were in the middle of bantering back and forth and he was about to take a picture of me when Lady P jumps her ass in the photo. I wasn’t too thrilled about that but what the hell.  By then the band started playing.  The cute band manager was standing up by me.  Then Lady P got up from her seat and stood on the other side of the band manager.  She then started chatting him up.  The next thing I knew she bent back, grabs her purse, pulls out her cell phone and exchanges numbers with the man. I looked. I then asked

“Did you just give that guy your phone number?”

“Yeah.” She replied as if it wasn’t big deal. “So we can know when and where the band will be playing.” She continued.

“Oh, Ok.” I said as every complaint about her from my other girlfriends was dancing in my head along with a few questionable incidences we’ve had in the past.

She kept chattering y’all know the senseless chatter we do when we know we’re busted. I just looked at her in disbelief.  I didn’t know what to say or do. She went and bought a round of drinks.  I guess she was feeling real guilty. 

The band took a recess.  We walked downstairs to see what was going on down there.  I still didn’t say too much too her especially since the band manager was there hanging around us.  But once we got down stairs I let her have it.  She acted as if she didn’t know what I was talking about. Now, don’t get me wrong, it had nothing to do with the band manager as he meant nothing to me and we just met so there was no connection. What this was about was the blatant disrespect and breaking a code we sisters never break.  We do not talk to, smile at, wink at or get the phone numbers of a man our fellow sisters are interested in.  That’s a line true sisters don’t break.

With all we go through as African American women, such as the movie For Colored Girls so expressively showed, are we reduced to this:  trying to stab another sister in the back for a man? Don’t we have greater issues to conquer like how to fight domestic violence or how to eradicate AIDS from our communities?  Do we have to fight another sister for a man also?

Your thoughts:

1.       Have you ever experienced something like this? If so what happened and how did you handle it?

2.       What do you think is the biggest conflict amongst African American women?

What do you think is the biggest conflict amongst women in general