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From SeeingBlack.com Literature
54. Tainted ARTIST: SLUM VILLAGE, FEATURING DWELE ALBUM: TRINITY (PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE) (2002) I would be one depressed chick if I measured my success in life by watching television. Twenty-year-olds swerve in hundred-thousand-dollar cars while I pimp the 2 train. But I can be down with them if I acknowledge that for these players it’s always money over b$tches. Happiness means being posted up in the VIP section of a club while half-naked women compete for a glass (or shower) of champagne. The quest for love is a contest where several dysfunctional strangers fight over someone they don’t know. And here I was thinking that the type of love and happiness that Al Green sang about are two unadulterated friends who will still be around to skip down the marriage aisle with me as I celebrate a union where even if my man and I live in an apartment the size of a Gap dressing room, can’t afford cable, and eat tuna fish sandwiches, we can still revel in the fact that we have each other. Am I tripping? Call it environmental, but popular culture has either influenced our views on matters of the heart, or our tainted perspectives have taken center stage during prime-time television. With the help of the bright musician Dwele, Slum Village, a Detroit-based hip-hop group rap about a love that is always free. In “Tainted” they give me hope that maybe I’m not the only unrealistic, idealistic naiveté who still wants a love as pristine as the Galapagos Islands, before humans started to contaminate them. Yet when I mention this type of affection and utter the words “real love” from the hook in “Tainted,” wise women who’ve been through the storm, old playas who reminisce about the good old days, and young dudes who are replacing older ones consider me clueless. Young women tell me to stop fantasizing about a fairy tale. I know women who are only interested in dating men with six-figure 401(k) retirement plans, heavy cars, and disposable income to cover high-maintenance requests. I know men who only want to marry a woman who can cook, doesn’t talk too much, and who looks like a model in public. When I ask about love, I get the Tina Turner reply, “What’s love got to do with it?” When did everything become so tainted? Here’s another inconvenient truth: many of us don’t know what real love is. We either haven’t seen it in our own families, or a dysfunctional version of it took its place. The act of love is very much a learned behavior, even if the feeling behind it is innate. Reality shows have stumbled clumsily into the reality of our lives. True love and happiness aren’t even sound bites in our conversations. Rather, they are like ancient theories that only philosophers are interested in exploring. Hopeless romantic. I’ll take that charge. Maybe I am searching for a nonexistent degree of contentment where I am with someone who loves me despite my Pepto-Bismol obsession, hairy back, inquisitive nature, and affinity for daytime naps. Call me Sleeping Beauty. If I don’t set a standard, I’ll settle for anything. If we lived in a pristine world, everyone’s intentions to love us would be genuine. Gold diggers would be two-dimensional characters found only in novels. “Playas” would be the slang word for athletes. But these constructs exist as living beings. And despite their presence and that of so many other anti-love proponents, I still believe that real love exists and can exist in our lives. How can you put a price tag on that? Copyright c 2007. Published and reprinted by arrangement with Thunder's Mouth Press, a member of the Perseus Books Group (www.perseusbooks.com). All rights reserved. Read and search book reviews and excerpts on SeeingBlack.com's Literature channel and archive. Click here to post a comment on this excerpt or your own literature, reviews or news. Do you shop at Amazon? Well shop through our link and support SeeingBlack.com! © Copyright by SeeingBlack.com |
