Russell Wilson, Ciara & The "Good Guy" Narrative

I've been meaning to blog about this topic for a minute and I'm so glad I finally have a reason to do so. I was just minding my Kendro business on Twitter this morning and came across a screenshot with a paragraph over a photo of Russell Wilson and Ciara. The two just recently announced their engagement last week while on a romantic, tropical ass vacation in Seychelles. The tweeter asked "What Y'all Think About This?" I began to read the paragraph and the spirit of bitterness and friendzoned realness began to arise in the midst as I perused every pressed line.

Since the pair have dated, many comments similar to the one above have been made by people online, (seemingly the majority of them made by men) insinuating that Ciara, who is a single mom, is deceitful, an opportunist, and has "gold diggerish" ulterior motives. First off, to some very small extent I understand what the writer is stating. I do notice that some people choose to date  so called "bad apples" in their teens and early twenties and then settle down with a "good one" in their late twenties, early thirties, or whenever they decide they're done "having fun". Some people go through their young lives wrecking havoc on loving individuals only to think they deserve the best of the best once they're ready to settle down. Could this cycle of "bad boy" to "good guy" be the case with Ciara and Russell Wilson? Possibly, but we don't know them personally, we don't think the details of their individual dating backgrounds, or their relationship except what we see on social media.

The problem with this "good guy" narrative exampled in this post written by Mr. Dynast, is that it comes off as entitled, juvenile, ignorant, and often smothered in misogynist undertones. According to this post and many posts I've read similar to this whinny ass woe is me, stereotypical nerd/geek sob story, women like Ciara who have children and have dated men who have bad reps, like Future, are not worthy of being with well to do men, like Russell Wilson. 

I feel like this post was motivated by past, personal hurt, which I notice with many males who were social outcasts in high school. Many grow up to continuously make statements that women, especially Black women, do not like "good men" (pertaining to them of course) and that we love to entertain and procreate with rough necks. Typically in high school, the girls these guys were checking for paid them no mind and lollygagged on to a more popular fellow who may have been the player time. According to most of the good guys, these guys their crushes dated were thugs, hoodlums, drug dealers, everything but a child of God and totally undeserving of the girls that they wanted. This rationale, what I like to call "high school hurt", becomes so bottled up over the years that it becomes a norm to think this narrowly and create posts such as this one we are discussing.

What some of the "good guys" fail to comprehend or even bring up is the possibility of girls genuinely being interested in the "bad boys" they chose to date. The possibility that they weren't their type and that it was never meant to be with this person in the first place. But of course when we're dealing with an obvious ego and the essence of entitlement, no logic formed against thee shall prosper. Instead of coping with the latter possibilities, an excuse why that particular girl didn't date the "good guy" has to be created and it's usually placing blame on the girl. The premise of the good guy's agenda seems to conclude that: "I'm smart, so I deserve whichever girl I desire."

Besides, what does being "smart" have to do with being a good mate? Who told you being smart automatically meant you were going to snag a bae? Now I'm not ruling out that some girls truly aren't checking for "good guys", "smart guys", whatever you wish to call them (and to be honest, they're not entitled to either), but how does getting straight A's qualify you to being a good boyfriend? Of course it's an excellent addition to a dating resume, conveys your educational dedication, and is impressive to parents, but how does that tie in to successful relationships? Because with entitled, sexist rhetoric stating a woman has been "ran through" and is "leftovers" immensely shows one's lack of respect for women.

There also seems to be a double standard in this conversation of relationship worthiness. While rapper Jay-Z has no children prior to his relationship with Beyonce (although this has been rumored for many years, but not confirmed), before the two were a couple, according to the lifestyle he has praised in his music and even a mention from Karrine Steffans, he was active in engaging in sexual activity with multiple women. I'll do you all one better: many rappers in the hip-hop/rap industry have been in this situation before getting married. When Jigga married Beyonce, no multitudes of people made comments online warning her of his past with other women. No one reduced him to his sexual past. While these two scenarios are not entirely alike, they are similar and exhibit the internalized sexism many of us have absorbed through societal norms.

Rewinding back to some of our teenage years, or younger years in general, I'm sure many of us have dated people we would never dream of dating now that we're older. To hold past relationships over someone's head in order to justify why they're not worthy of a good mate is insanely immature. Plus, who is to say that a so called "thot" or "hood n*gga", basically anyone the opposite of this "good guy" narrative, doesn't deserve love? Only the "good guys" are worthy of love? Of course there are levels to that question, answer, and conversation, but the idea is a bit extreme, if you ask me.

Look, I know many of us have been indoctrinated by ratchet television and stereotypes in media, especially stereotypes of Black people, but the point is that just because a woman has a rocky dating past and/or has a child/children by a man deemed to be one of the "bad guys", does not mean she is should be minimized to "spoiled goods" and is not worthy of love and respect. This is an ignorant, one dimensional and binary theory that ignores the complexity of an individual person. It's purely placing people in boxes and viewing them through manufactured stereotypes and it's unfair and foolish like Ashanti. You don't get to determine who gets to be loved and enjoys marriage because you're "smart". Russell and other men don't have to abide by these "good guy" rules, because there's nothing remotely good about them. Stop trying to place Ciara and other women in your small minded, stereotypical world of Black single mothers.