When A Sister's Love Has A Price Tag Attached - Brief Article

Ebony, Oct, 1999 by Kevin Chappell

I was furious when I pulled into my driveway after my commute from work. No this time, it wasn't my boss who upset me, or the rush-hour traffic, or the bad drivers who always manage to make the rush, hour traffic even a bigger headache. No this time, it was the radio, or rather the songs that were being played on the radio.

I had turned it on in search of a thumping tune to take my mind off my surroundings, or maybe some old love song to help me ease out of my work mode. But on this day, my station-surfing was futile. For about an hour, the only songs I could find were ones that verbally assaulted me and all other Brothers, songs in which Sisters were calling us everything from scrubs to good-for-nothing-type of Brothers. Even a tune by Whitney Houston, the queen of modern-day romance, espoused disdain for Black men, telling some Brother that he did something that wasn't "right. But it's okay. I'm going to make it anyway. Pack your bags up and leave. Don't you dare come back to me."

While I couldn't figure out exactly why Whitney was giving the Brother the boot, the other two Sisters made their feelings perfectly clear. They weren't downing Black men for being unfaithful, untruthful, unromantic, or for not understanding their pain. These Sisters were dissing Brothers for not paying their bills, not buying them expensive gifts, not taking them to exotic places--in other words, for not spending enough money on them.

One screamed, "Why are you all in my grill? Can you pay my bills?" while another called Brothers who were short on material possessions, "scrubs...who get no love from me."

What's going on here? What's with all of the Brother bashing? Is this what relationships in the '90s have evolved (or rather deteriorated) to? Spend serious money on a Sister, and you can stick around. But if you don't, you best keep stepping--and if you don't step fast enough, she'll give you a few choice words for you to carry with you out the door.

Did I miss something? When did dating go from paying for a Sister's dinner to paying her telephone bill, from taking her to the movies to taking her to Jamaica, from buying her roses to buying her a rose-colored Benz?

Maybe I'm just naive. Maybe it--the unspoken rule of the dating game--has always been that way. Maybe a Sister's love has always had a price tag attached to it. Maybe long dough has always held a special place in a Sister's heart. Spend this and you get that. Spend a little more and get this and that. Spend everything you got, and get this and that and then some.

But now, for the first time, these rules are being verbalized, sang about, spelled out in brutally frank--and sometimes downright derogatory--terms.

Sisters used to want to keep up with the Joneses. Now, its more like the Jetsons. Heading into the new millennium, flowing futuristic is no longer a Sisters dream, but a necessity. Larger carats, finer restaurants, fancier cars, furrier furs, leather this, silk that, designer this, imported that, and so on.

What happened to romance? Taking out a loan to finance a Valentine's Day gift is not my idea of being romantic. Busting my budget to pay for a Sister's birthday getaway to Barbados doesn't do much for indicating my true feelings toward her. Running my credit card to its limit to buy a Sister a pair of diamond earrings doesn't show how much I care about her.

And while most ladies are quick to say that they don't need a man to take care of them, that's exactly what many are looking for. Oh, they talk a good game, how romance and love and caring are the most important things in a relationship. But as soon as a Brother balks at her demand for the high-priced goods, as soon as he begins to talk about saving and starting small and being patient, as soon as he denies her request for the marble-sized diamond locked up in the back vault of the jewelry store, all of that love stuff is pretty much out the door, along with the "scrub" of a man who just wasted her time.

But I must admit that we are partly to blame. Somewhere along the way, a Brother slipped and raised the bar by buying a Sister something he had no business buying her. Instead of encouraging her to wait, save for it, or at least put it on lay-away, he went ahead and bought it. Soon, she was all over town bragging to her girlfriends, who in turn, stepped up the pressure on their man until he gave in. The snowball effect continued throughout cities and towns across the country until now you have some Sisters who are trying to figure out how to break a Brother's back pocket before he even backs out of her driveway on their first date.

Maybe one day, more Sisters will abandon their pay-to-play mentality and realize that the important thing is not the depth of a man's pockets, but the depth of his love. Maybe one day more Sisters will put more importance on keeping their relationships on the right track than keeping up with the Sister down the street. Maybe one day more Sisters will realize that it's not about putting a levy on love and putting down a man who can't show her the money. Fruitful relationships are about realizing that the most important thing a Brother can give you--his love, respect, honesty and dedication--is something money can't buy.