Source: NICK AGRO / Getty
Yesterday, we wrote about rapper Joe Budden saying that he can understand why Kevin Hart cheated on his wife.
Like most things that leave Joe Budden’s mouth, I reacted with an eye roll and further avoidance. I’m convinced the man has made it his personal mission to be a troll in our community.
But today, when the women of “The Real” spoke about his comments, Loni Love offered up some interesting and no doubt controversial commentary about not only him and Kevin but about Black men in general.
See what she had to say.
Loni: “In the Black community—I don’t speak for the Black community but I do think that a lot of Black men they really don’t know how to have true, faithful relationships. They think because they have money, because they have power that they can treat women any kind of way. And that is something we need to work on.
Money and power does not mean that you can just do whatever you want to do.
Adrienne: I think sadly, in so many cultures, that is the whole machismo thing. That goes across the board.
Loni: No, it’s not across the board because what is happening is that we are still dealing with the point of slavery. And we are descendants of slavery and because our families were broken up we still do not have an idea of how to have togetherness because our families were broken up.
Adrienne: From that perspective, I absolutely get that.
Amanda: But also welfare reform in the sixties and seventies. This is a long—that’s another show.
Loni: When you hear Joe Budden say, ‘He works so hard.’ It’s not a bad thing. He’s saying, ‘Kevin don’t want to be poor no more. He’s like let me go out here and make this money because I don’t want to go back to where I was in Philly.’ He was using it as an excuse. And we modernize it. He don’t want to go back to where he came from because then he’ll lose the power. You got to understand the whole psychology behind it.
Adrienne: And working so hard is affecting his relationship. So it is a…
Amanda: Conundrum.
As you might expect, in the comment section on “The Neighborhood Talk” where I initially saw this post, several men and women piped up to criticize Loni for singling out Black men, when men of all races cheat.
No comment about the numbers of Black men in the public eye we’ve watched cheat on their wives and girlfriends. They didn’t even mention that she said some and not all. They didn’t give credit for the fact that she mentioned slavery as a very real catalyst for some of this behavior. They just wanted to say that she was singling Black men out.
But I think Loni did a decent job articulating a truth. Slavery has made Black men so thirsty for behavior they behave in disrespectful ways to get it, keep it and feel it when they’re low. And more importantly, she shared that this was something that we as an entire community need to work on.
There’s no fault in that.
You can listen to her comments below.
