Some Black women have a message for relationship coaches that target them: They’re exhausted with advice.
“If you claim to care about Black women and you claim to use your platform to give Black women some type of genuine service or good advice, please listen to us when we say we’re tired,” TikTok user Tsahai Layne posted.
In her video titled, “PSA to ‘Dating Coaches’ for BW,” she says Black women are fed up with all the content about how they should look, perceive themselves, and where they fall on the dating scale.
“The attractiveness politics, the respectability politics, the fatphobia … some of y’all dating coaches have made a skill out of taking all of those isms, wrapping them in a bow, and feeding it to Black women as a means to quantify why we’re single,” said Layne.
@tsahailayne That’s that on that #fyp #blackgirltiktok #relationships #fypシ #datingadvice #misogynoir ♬ original sound – Tsahai Layne
Her message resonated with Black women.
“Yes, I’m so exhausted from dating advice,” TikTok user Imani commented. “I’m not giving up on love, but I am tired of being told what to do all the time.”
“It needed to be said!” TikTok user KR, added. “It honestly feels exploitative at this point. Gaslighting and picking apart Black women, our needs and wants, in the name of ‘helping’ us is violent.”
While Layne didn’t list any names on this particular video, other people in the comments mentioned Anwar White, Derrick Jaxn, and the late Kevin Samuels — all men who have given controversial dating advice to Black women.
Layne had previously called out White, a relationship coach who calls himself a “fairy godbrother” to Black and brown women, after a video he posted explaining why “Many Black Women Don’t Like Coffee Dates.” His video was in response to the infamous Cheesecake Factory saga that had social media users talking for days. A woman went viral after posting a video explaining how she refused to leave the car because her date took her to The Cheesecake Factory.
White, who says he’s been a dating coach for Black and brown women for more than a decade, is the host of the “Get Your Guy” podcast, which he launched in November 2020. White also worked as program director of the McGill Desautels Master of Management in Retail. He started the video by stating that many women have a level of “entitlement” when it comes to how people are supposed to take them out on a date.
“I’m a huge fan of coffee dates. Coffee dates are really important for a number of reasons, but I want to go into the deeper reasons why, especially Black and brown women, might have this opinion or thought about what dates are OK or if they are sh—g on coffee dates.”
He says Black women tend to stay away from coffee dates due to the lack of effort. Another reason, he claims, is because Black families have equated money to love.
“So many of us were raised in households where our parents worked most of the time, and when they came back, they would try to compensate for the lack of quality time with gifts and money,” he says. “That’s why birthdays and Christmases were so over the top, and we equated money with love.”
Some people agreed with White’s analysis.
“Omg, I agree,” TikToker Netta J commented in his video. “I’ll take a coffee date anytime because if I don’t like you, at least I got a good cup of coffee and less time wasted at the end.”
“I prefer coffee/tea dates bc it’s noncommittal per my pov,” TikTok user AlwaysBetOnBLACK added. “It gives me an opportunity for authenticity to connect and learn.”
However, some people, including Layne, did not agree with White’s analysis.
“I feel like he [White] just has a really big blind spot in this scenario because if you’re going to talk about Black women not wanting to go on coffee dates, you need to actually address the real reason,” said Layne.
She said White brushed over the facts and generalized them into “Black women don’t want to go out with broke men” scenarios.
@tsahailayne #stitch with @Anwar White #greenscreen #dating #blackwomen #cheesecakefactory #fyp #datingadvice ♬ original sound – Tsahai Layne
“I’m going to take it a step further because it’s really not even that,” she says. “A lot of the men who live by the coffee dates, the walk in the park dates, the hiking dates, the no effort dates, a lot of them are following Red Pill podcast, Manosphere podcasts, Manoshpere ideologies, which spew anti-Black, anti-woman rhetoric, and violent rhetoric all day.”
Black women aren’t the only ones who aren’t feeling some of White’s advice. A recent video about light-skinned Black men being “dangerous” has also caused some backlash on TikTok.
“Biracial and lighter-skinned men are often dangerous,” White said in the video posted in November 2023. “They have God complexes and the reason that is the case is that they have a variety of different privileges. Pretty privilege in the Black community, white privilege in the Black community, and male privilege.”
He then went on to explain that biracial and lighter skin men have the entitlement of white men, but the trauma of Black men.
@datingcoachanwar My Controversial Dating Advice About Light Skinned Men! #blackdating #blackgirldating #blacklove #blackwomendatingtips #singleblackfemale #singleblackwoman #blackfemininity #femininityforblackwomen #blackdatingadvice ♬ original sound – Anwar White
Needless to say, this rubbed several men the wrong way.
So, this begs the question, what is the best way for Black women and men to find genuine dating advice from a place of love and genuineness? This question is evidenced by a recent inquiry posed by a woman in the subreddit r/Blackladies.
Reddit users sympathized with the woman and said the best advice comes from people living by what they preach.
“My favorite dating advice comes from healthy couples, honestly. Not some ‘coach,'” said one Reddit user.
“I would only seek advice from someone you trust and take online advice with a grain of salt. There isn’t a right or wrong in dating,” another replied.
“People on the internet are just people on the internet,” another Reddit user added. “You need to find people who know you and the people you have dated who can give nuanced and appropriate advice.”
