Monday, August 31, 2009

When "Anything but a BM" Fails



I was on vacation in Hawaii for 5 days and just returned on Saturday. I spent a lot of time lounging and reading and people watching. Vacation spots are the best place to people watch because most folks are middle class and up and appear to be "normal" on the surface. Anyway, I noticed the couples vacationing and most were same-raced. There were a few interracial couples, mostly white men with asian women but there were also BM/WW and BW/WM. Ironically, the number of BW with WM was greater than BM with WW. The clucking hens would have been proud.

When I got home someone had emailed me this clip from the Today show featuring comedianne Sunda Croonquist:
Comedian Sunda Croonquist has been getting big laughs making ethnic-stereotype jokes about her husband’s family — but it’s no laughing matter for them. In fact, Croonquist’s Brooklyn-based mother-in-law has a zinger of her own for the former beauty-pageant queen from New Jersey: a defamation lawsuit.
This bi-racial woman married a jewish man and is now being sued by his mother for jokes she made at her expense.
Furious at being perpetual punch lines, Croonquist’s in-laws are seeking unspecified damages and demanding that the court force the comedian to remove offensive statements from her comedy act, Web site and recordings. They filed the suit after seeing material on Croonquist’s Web site, which they claim makes it easy to identify them as the butt of her jokes.

The comedian said her routine is a natural extension of her multiracial background, and that she bases many of her jokes on the natural culture-clash moments that occur within families of mixed backgrounds. “It’s my reality,” she told Roker.

On a more serious note, Croonquist said that despite her obvious commitment to Judaism, she has suffered through painful incidences of exclusion from her husband’s family. “It’s not been easy,” she told Roker. “I’ve been asked to step out of family photos. I guess I’m just not right for the bar mitzvah picture.”

The comedian said that she has been the brunt of her in-laws’ jokes as well. “They made jokes at my expense. Not on stage, but in temple.

Now, I am not going to bash Sunda for her decision to marry interracially. I don't really care. But this story is a prime example of women thinking that because a man has "status" and can "provide a good life" he is a good catch. This man allowed obvious tensions between his family and his wife to go unchecked for 15 years! He ALLOWED his mother and family to make all kinds of slick remarks and jokes about his wife and didn't set an ultimatum. He was weak and spineless. He made bi-racial children with this woman yet did not defend her from attacks and forced her to use "humor" to deal with their racism. What advice would he have given his children on how to handle racists? Just shrug it off? Joke about it?

He claimed he was "surprised" by the lawsuit but bore witness to his family's treatment of his wife for years. My question is, how did it get to this point? How did the husband and wife become some delusional that they didn't see this coming?

I think it is also telling that Sunda is still just "laughing it off" and making jokes. I am sure the bloggers will say that this is just one case of Sunda not "vetting" a man carefully. So why isn't it just "one case" when a BM is violent towards a BW or just "one case" when a BW is in a low quality marriage to a BM?

The point is that men of ALL races will let you be the "man" in the relationship if he is so inclined. Any man will let you take the brunt of any situation if he sees that you are willing to self-sacrifice. Sunda's husband knew she would rather internalize the pain of having her in-laws not like her because she is black/bi-racial than kick him to the curb. Women with strong relationship skills, regardless of race, would have been OUT OF THAT MARRIAGE if the man wasn't able to protect her. Women with poor relationship skills, the majority of women, end up like Sunda to some degree.

Looking stupid on national television.

3 comments:

  1. 1. Having tensions with mother in laws happens across races and cultures. You said that her husabnd has not defended her, but what you've left out is that his lawfirm IS defending her and he has come forward and stated that his mother has been offensive towards her. That doesn't sound like a man who has cowered in the back while the women fight. Why omit that info from your write up? I have witnessed black women having problems with their black husband's mother-is that man supposed to cut his mother off comlpetely?

    2. You are taking far too many liberties as a psychologist and marriage councelor in assuming that humor was her "last resort". For some people, it's their first. And chances are if she's able to speak about it freely to an audience without showing signs of distress, it's probably not too painful for her anyway.

    I was initially happy to see a blog that seemed like it would have a cool, alternative take on this madness, but this blog is as bias and propagative as the others. To say that I side with men because men are rational is no less of a generalization agains women (black women) as the BS that you claim you're against.

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  2. Ps,

    How do you know that woman's dating history, and if she is of the "anything but a BM philosophy"????

    YEP, this blog sucks.

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  3. I'm with Bossip. You know NOTHING about why this woman married this guy and yet you've written up a whole post basically portraying her as a golddigger (saying she married him because of his status when you don't even know if he HAS status...perhaps you just assumed he did cause he's white...sounds like self-hatred to me) who married a Jewish man cause she disliked BM (the title of this post). Sounds just like something a BM would do...

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