What Love Is..and What It Isn't

Because of recent events in the news regarding Steve Stephens and Cedric Anderson killing women, children, and an elder, because they were having issues in their relationships, I am thinking more and questioning myself and others about that topic that is always a topic, or a question, or a concern with us or with someone in our lives.

Yes, I am talking about that four-letter word - love.

The clichés about love abound, but I wonder if we know what love really is?

According to Complimentarity, Thoughts for Afrikan Warrior Couples:

Searching to find oneself in another, looking for completeness in another, seeking to change another into what one wants, placing enormous amounts of energy in managing another’s impression of you so that they see what you think they want to see or what you desperately need them to see…

Money, employment, the type of car one drives, one's attire, and the rest of it doesn’t mean a thing when it comes to love. For instance, Steve Stephens was a supposed “good guy”. He was educated. He was gainfully employed. He worked with children. He was a member of a respected Black fraternity. He had all of the outward signs of being that guy.

You know that guy. We all do. He was the guy who is supposed the good guy, the nice guy, the guy who isn’t a ‘thug’. He’s the guy that women are told that they should give a chance.

Joy Lane gave Steve Stephens a chance. And for a myriad of reasons, from his gambling problem to the rumored issues with his sexuality, the relationship didn’t work.

And yet, one day, because he was angry at his girlfriend who broke up with him, he decided that he was going to, in his own words, do some sucker shit. And as a result of his actions, an elder in the Cleveland community, Mr. Robert Godwin, died at the hands of Steve Stephens and was posted on a popular social media site.

Stephens wanted the world - the world - to know that two Black women, his mother and his girlfriend, were responsible for his behavior and for the murder of Mr. Godwin. However, Steve Stephens accepted no responsibility for his actions.

What’s sad is that there’s a cadre of folk who sent death threats to Joy Lane, who send her messages that it should have been her who died, rather than the elder, messages in which she was called vile and disgusting names because she ‘made’ Steve Stephens kill one of our elders. See what happened because she should have called him.

Now, let’s look at the case of Cedric Anderson. Cedric Anderson was the ideal man. His wife, Karen Smith, thought she had a wonderful husband. He was a pastor. Perhaps she didn’t realize that Anderson had previous charges of domestic violence. She believed he loved her. After all, they married.

Once they were married, it seems that Anderson’s behavior changed to the degree that Karen Smith moved out of the home they shared. Shortly after that, Anderson showed up at Karen Smith’s school, where she was a special education teacher, killed her, killed one of her students, injured another student and then killed himself.

It seems that Mr. Anderson was very good at impression management.

Pathetically, another cadre of people would say, “Well, she picked him” as if picking him made her responsible for his behavior. Or, some would say, that she must have done or said something to make Anderson do what he did.

Of course, anyone with a functioning brain cell should know that Joy Lane, Karen Smith, or anyone else, is not responsible for the actions of grownass men.

I also wonder what so-called relationship experts, a lá Steve Harvey, Rev. Run, or Tyrese, would say about men like Steve Stephens or Cedric Anderson. For instance, would it have mattered whether Joy Lane or Karen Smith had weave or butt injections, or how many 'miles' either had on their vaginas, now would it, Tyrese?

I think not.

And here is the truth of it. There are a lot of employed, educated, wage-earning, home-owning, car-driving so-called ‘good’ Black men who work with children, who are African-centered, who are pastors, and who are leaders in their communities. Black women just need to ‘give them a chance’ less we be accused of our standards being 'too high.'

And here’s another truth. There are plenty of employed, educated, wage-earning, home-owning, car-driving, church-going, so-called ‘good’ Black men who work with children, who are African-centered, who are pastors, and who are leaders in their communities who are capable of being emotionally, verbally, and physically abusive to their women, and are capable of being users, narcissists, sociopaths and psychopaths.

Their disguises and self-proclamations as ‘good men’ hardly matter.