I’m a on a health kick lately, so I’ve been spending more time at the gym and less time at the bar. One of my favorite spinning instructors has started teaching a shadow boxing class, so I decided to give it a try. It’s a combination of boxing drills with cardio and plyometric intervals. It was fun.
Except for the 3 “cute” girls in the class.
Don’t get me wrong. I believe in looking put together at all times. I try to make sure my gym clothes match and I comb my hair before showing up, but that’s the extent of my attempts to look cute before the gym. I’m there to get ugly, sweaty, stinky and dirty. If I’m not dripping with sweat and feeling/looking whooped, then it’s not a good work out.
Which is a mindset that makes me different from about 90% of the other black women at the gym. The 3 cute girls in this class had the idea that the gym is a great place to meet guys while kinda doing something active. One kept posing and trying to keep her hair in place. The other two spent at least 25 of the 45 minute class talking to each other while standing or sitting still. Every tough drill was met with mumbles, grumbles, sighs and finally, standing still to talk. Then after class, they put their coordinating jackets on, grabbed their puma bags and walked to their car as if they’d really done something.
This morning, I told the instructor that I had wanted to ask them to leave. Quite honestly, they were distracting me. Plus why were they there, if not to work? What I said opened up the flood gates of 5 weeks of frustration from teaching these women. As a black man who (I guess) frequently dates white women and who puts a lot of time and effort into staying in shape and being healthy, he was perturbed by their “cute” behavior. He spent 10, maybe 15, minutes talking about the frustration of seeing our community deal with preventable illnesses that are attributable to sedentary lifestyles and bad eating. He talked about not seeing blacks on the many FREE hiking trails we have around here (yeah – I’ve experienced that, too). And of seeing the black women stand around the gym and his class and thinking that it’s “cute.” And of having to defend his decision to date white women even though they have more closely aligned interests to him.
And then he asked me why they do that. Well for his class it’s easy. He’s very good looking and likable. Spending an hour with him is pretty cool. These girls probably are looking “cute” for him. But they’re missing the whole point that he’s in shape and healthy and is probably looking for the same thing (or something similar) in a potential mate – meaning that standing around is not going to work for him. In one girl’s defense, she was actually moving, so she’s caught on to that point.
But really, why are we, as black women, willing to sacrifice our health, happiness, and life for vanity? There’s a guest post on one of my favorite blogs AverageBro today. The author used one paragraph to talk about the few black women he saw at a recent Atlanta Braves game. Apparently these women were in heels and were…well…being cute. He used this as an opportunity to point out that when white women go to games, they dress down and maybe this was just another example of why black men date white women. When the comments flared up, he defended his statement, explaining that baseball isn’t the only reason, but is one instance where black women and men aren’t speaking the same language
Like this author, I don’t think that being “cute” is the cause of the demise of the black family, bad health or anything else. But I do think that being “cute” is hindering the growth of black women. The fear of sweating back our hair, the squeezing into that outfit for that event, the whatever we do for the sake of being "cute" – holds us back from experiencing so much in life. What would happen if we just said – I’m going to work out so I can be healthy. We’d be healthy….and cuter. Or if we said – I’m going to go to the baseball game and be comfy and wear my team’s hat and get a hot dog (cause you know eating will mess up your lipstick). We’d have fun…and be cuter.
Here’s the secret being “cute” is not cute. In fact, it’s ugly. Real ugly. Living life, having fun, and being open to new experiences – that’s cute.
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3 comments:
Well to be honest Gracie, if I were you I would have to find another gym. I have a fairly low tolerance threshold when it comes to stuff like that. I couldn't stay long at a gym where the instructor couldn't take control of his own class and tell the girls who were being distracting to get serious or leave. At my gym the vast majority of women are black and they are all focused on working out hard and taking care of themselves. Many of the girls at my gym are currently working out to compete in their local Miss Fitness pageant. We could care less what we look like or how much we sweat. And we have a cute black instructor too. If anything, it is the black men who do the weight training in another section of the gym that tend to be showing off. And there was once this white woman who had her young son running around during class and getting in the way all the time. Me and my friends go to the beach, we go swimming - and shock horror we don't even wear bathing caps!!(natural hair). I couldn't live without my morning walks, yoga classes and I am going to start cycling soon. The majority of black women I know enjoy working out and see it as a time to get away and not be judged by men. But yes, for many women the stresses of life are hard and we fall into unhealthy habits. We need to reclaim our self-worth and take care of our bodies and spirits for ourselves first and foremost.
@nia
No hard feelings, Ok. I think I am in the proper forum now. It's good to hear that you participate in these activities but I feel you are definitely not part of the norm. You say that, "the majority of the women I know enjoy working out", but most of the statistics that I have seen, including personal observation, show otherwise.
Gracie, apologies for jacking your post for a moment, but Nia, I have a feeling that you are not like the ladies that I mentioned in my piece. You would probably be dressed appropriately, meaning, not overly concerned about you appearance. That is by no means stating that you would be dressed poorly.
@gracie
Great Post. 10 cyber capri-suns for you. These things that you are mentioning are small but collectively they make up a disheartening realization. For many black women they don't seem to have a clear understanding of what makes them beautiful.
Interesting response. And I definitely agree essentially with some of what you are saying.
I still maintain though, that if those two ladies HAD shown up to the game in shorts, no heels and sans makeup, you still would have found something about them that you considered made them fall short of white women. And you STILL would have judged their appearance and behavior more harshly than white women.
At the end of the day though, whether black women are going to the gym, swimming or to baseball games, they should be doing so for strictly for their own enjoyment and not have to worry about whether some random black man finds them attractive or not.
But your point is well taken.
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