More Tiffany's please
As more Black women find love on reality tv, I hope we see more story lines like the gentle love Tiffany receives from Brett.
Love is one of my favorite things to talk about. I’m obsessed with love, as a verb and an adjective. Whether it’s the love I have for my friends, or me pondering how I apply love to my job, it’s the center of happiness for me. But romantic love is one of the things that is the trickiest for me, and I think that has to do with media representations of people who look like me – Black women – when they look for love.
When I first sat down to watch Season 4 of Love is Blind, I was expecting more of the same. I expected the Black women to be booted off pretty early, and we wouldn’t learn their names. If a Black woman *did* make it out engaged, I wasn’t expecting the relationship to last very long. If it did, I wouldn’t have been surprised if she was forced to accept a certain level of disrespect and compromise (looking at you, Jarrett from Season 3) that the non-Black women didn’t really have to deal with.
But then came Tiffany Pennywell, who partnered with Brett Brown after they got out of the Pods. I’m sure many of us Love is Blind superfans found ourselves in awe at how different Tiffany and Brett felt from other Black couples who make their way onto these reality television shows.
The first time I ever saw Black women looking for “love” on television was the VH1 reality show, Flavor of Love. The show was a ratchet version of the Bachelorette, but a cultural game changer. I remember being in the single digit ages watching the show at my dad’s house (because my sanctified mother definitely wasn’t going to let me) in awe at the revealing outfits, the loud conflict, and the fact that there were beautiful young women who were actually fighting for rapper Flavor Flav’s affection.
Now that I’m older and actually serious about the role romantic love plays in my life, it’s mortifying to me that the purpose of the show wasn’t really to inspire other Black people to find love – the purpose for the audience was comedy.
It was funny to watch VH1’s Tiffany Pollard, more affectionately known as New York, go back and forth with Deelishis and other girls on the seasons, in deep desire for Flavor Flav’s affection. It’s funny to watch more than ten Black women go into the kitchen and see who can cook the best meal for Flavor Flav (Hottie attempting the chicken in the microwave was funny, but that is beside the.
But things like that aren’t tests for true love, they’re tests to see who wants Flav the most, and who would be the best at serving Flav, with no thought to what the Black women seeking his love needed from him.
When you put this in the context of what happens for Black women when trying to seek romantic love in real life, it becomes more infuriating and discouraging. It’s well known that Black women are seen as the least desirable on dating apps. But not only this, we’re the only group of people that has a higher divorce rate than marriage rate, and we’re less likely to marry someone who matches our education level (which feels like another conversation about student loan debt because at what cost?!).
These facts, along with media depictions of our hopelessness in looking for love can easily be discouraging. I know it has discouraged me in the past.
It’s why I found myself so encouraged by Tiffany Pennywell. Tiffany came onto Love is Blind as her full self, and I loved her from the time I saw her on the television. She has a story of many Black women I know – 36 years old, successful in her own career, and looking for someone to share that life with, while also refusing to settle in her search.
She was a breath of fresh air from what we saw on Perfect Match, where even a fine rich bitch like Anne-Sophie couldn’t be taken seriously (I will never forgive Netflix for making me think Colony and Anne-Sophie would have lots of camera time on the show only to “Strong Black Woman” them out of the show!)
We deserve more of the gentle love that Tiffany got from Brett Brown. We deserve comfort when we’re stressed out about wedding planning. We deserve the feeling of certainty you get when someone you’re falling for is clear about their intentions with you in the ways that Brett was with Tiffany. We deserve gentleness, tenderness, and a place to cry and let our guards down.
The scene I was particularly struck by in Love is Blind, was when Tiffany found herself stressed out about wedding planning. She said she didn’t want a wedding, which made my heart drop considering how much I’ve been rooting for Brett and Tiffany. Brett, upset by seeing Tiffany cry, surprised her with a display of these beautiful photos he took of her. The point was so she could see herself through his eyes.
While this might feel small, the gentleness is what got me. I often think of bell hooks’ six ingredients of love: care, commitment, responsibility, respect, knowledge, and trust. Yes, it’s TV, so we don’t really know if Brett and Tiffany have all six of these ingredients down in real life, but I do think their story is the closest we’ve gotten to seeing a Black woman be loved wholly and fully in this reality tv world.
What I’m Reading
Black Family’s Baby taken
Right before Black Maternal Health Week, a Black family in Texas had their baby taken from them by Child Protective Services. The family had a home birth. When their newborn daughter, Mila, developed a case of jaundice (which is very common for babies), they opted to take their midwife’s advice to treat it at home instead of taking the baby into the pediatrician. That pediatrician called child protective services, and the family hasn’t had custody of their baby.
The story here makes me wonder about how Black women have been taking our abysmal maternal health outcomes into our own hands by hiring doulas and having home births assisted by midwives. What happens when we decide to do things our own way, defying a health system that feels dangerous for us to seek treatment in?
Read Refinery29’s Unbothered piece on it here.
Brian Kemp vs. Donald Trump
Is Brian Kemp trying to curb a second Donald Trump Presidency? Some would say he attempted to do just that when he told fellow Republicans at the National Republican Convention in Nashville to keep focused on the prize: the White House. As the 2024 election shapes up, Kemp told his colleagues that people in Georgia wouldn’t vote for a nominee focused on the 2020 election.
Georgia, my home state, made national headlines in 2020 when it chose a Democratic nominee for the first time in decades, voting for Joe Biden over Donald Trump. Trump, incensed by the loss, tried to pressure state officials, including Kemp, to overturn the results. He might end up facing an indictment because of it.
Read Greg Bluestein’s analysis of Kemp’s move here.
Also, wtf is this?
Sorry! I’m Kenya, a journalist based in Atlanta, my hometown. I was trying to think of other ways to reach my audience as social media seems to be crashing down. So this is just my little corner of the internet where I can do what I want. I’m really mostly interested in politics, Black people, and Black women’s empowerment and wellness. I hope you’ll continue to love it here.
You may see some of my skate videos here, too! And pictures of my cat. Like this one!
