Sister Souljah released her debut book “No Disrespect” in 1994 and it relates to women till this day and NOT in a good way.It’s titled No Disrespect but each chapter, someone is getting blatantly disrespected.Even when someone in the book is trying not to be disrespectful, they are being just that.
The book has seven parts about different individuals who have influenced “the character’s” life. The story is being told in first person so her name is never mentioned, so I’m going to refer to her as Character. Character has had different instances of dealing with men and that brought her to having high standards, to sharing with someone’s man. She’s seen her parents go from happy to divorce. Her father lost his job, then started having mental health issues, which led to the divorce. Her father would see her and her siblings every weekend to eventually not seeing them at all. Her mother and siblings had to move into a low-income neighborhood where they depended on government assistance. Character saw her mother dealing with nothing-ass men just to get by and make ends meet and that brought on a bad perspective she started to see with men.
Character was always different and “enlightened” and as we say it these says “conscious.” She went to college, dated a guy and was even in a relationship with him, only to find out that he was secretly gay. That’s strike two of her bad encounters with men.
Character meets a friend who teaches her how to be throw herself out there to get what she wants–sexually. Character tried it and it didn’t work until, she met a guy a few years older than her. This man was married but she connected with him on an intellectual level and that’s what started her affair with him. She knew from the jump that he was taken but that didn’t stop her, of course the affair had to end because someone found out about it.
The next man that comes into Character’s life goes out of his way to make her his woman. He lied about his lifestyle and she accepted under the condition that he would stop. After dealing with the effects of his lifestyle and finding out he had a wife AND two kids, she was scarred by men internally and mentally and would never love the same again.
By the time character meets the last man in the book, she has the mentality that if her significant other is honest with her, she doesn’t care if there is another woman in the picture, as long as he keeps it real with her. She had came to the conclusion that there is a shortage of black men and black women would have to share regardless, whether they knew it or not so why not be honest from the jump? Men would cheat without us knowing anyhow so why not settle and have two or three women per one man. If that isn’t disrespectful then, I don’t know what is!! Yes Character really thought that would work out, until his girlfriend of almost 10 years said she wasn’t going for it and she wanted her man all to herself and she wasn’t sharing him. All in all, Character let the girlfriend have her man and left it alone.
So giving you that lengthy synopsis, in 2016 “some” women still have that same mindset of sharing a man. By sharing a man, some females are okay with being a side chick. You would never hear a woman say she is a man’s “other” girlfriend and actually being okay with it. So even if there is a shortage of men in the community society, whatever, we as women in general should never settle. Even IF in the end we are going to end up sharing a man because he would be unknowingly cheat on us but we the world wasn’t made for one man to have several women. I know in some countries and even different religions, men have multiple wife, but again that can be part of different religions and I don’t agree with and I guess that’s why I don’t practice it. The God I know made Adam and Eve, not Adam to have Eve and Eva ya know? Never settle, even if it takes forever to find the right one. Don’t be disrespectful.
Check out Sister Souljah’s book “No Disrespect.” It may be 14 years old but Sister has a way with words.
Danii Gold 