by
Black Girl With Long Hair
Meet Dr. Cheyenne Bryant, an author, speaker and life coach with a master’s degree in psychology.
Bryant is also president of the San Pedro/Wilmington chapter of the NAACP and has been instrumental in reviving the branch. Most recently she presented ABT Principal Dancer and San Pedro native Misty Copeland with a lifetime membership and donated $1500 to San Pedro Ballet School’s DancEd Steps Up program, which offers free ballet classes to children.
Bryant’s book, Mental Detox, is described as a guide to help readers “learn to stand in your own power, and know your own authentic voice, no matter how long it has been suppressed.”
Bryant is heavy into fitness and often shares inspirational videos and photos on her Instagram account.
And she has been open about a past experience modeling in a male-targeted magazine.
By all accounts she is a beautiful and intelligent woman, with multiple successful hustles.
She recently visited the high-profile Ace of Diamonds gentlemen’s club in Los Angeles, where she was photographed tipping Maliah Michel, a well-known dancer and ex-girlfriend of superstar rapper Drake.
Ace of Diamonds posted the image to their Instagram account, as did Michel, and Bryant was tagged in the comment section. The photo was soon removed from both accounts. However, within a day, YouTube videos surfaced ‘outing’ Bryant, as though her appearance at a strip club is problematic.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3MWutFL2uc
For a long time black women have been divided up by who is ‘respectable’ and who is ‘ratchet’. This is a false division that distracts from the reality that all black women are worthy of respect. Going to a strip club doesn’t detract from a woman’s ability to lead with intelligence and conviction.
Strip clubs have long been venues where black men go to socialize and conduct business. RHOA cast member Phaedra Parks discussed this in a 2014 appearance on the Bethenny talk show;
“Well anyone who knows me I represent some of the hottest adult entertainers in Atlanta and have been for almost twenty years now so I have no problems with it. I actually frequent them myself to visit my clients as well. Atlanta is really a strip club city. It’s not considered sleazy in Atlanta to go to a strip club because it’s probably 50/50 men and women there at all times as patrons, not as dancers.”
Check out the video below.
The picture of Bryant at the strip club begs the question; what are the limits we place on black women’s behavior, and why?
Ladies, what are your thoughts?
59 Responses
MLK was notorious for multiple affairs. It has been said, erroneously or not I cannot say, that Malcolm was bisexual (a hugely big deal in that era). Somehow neither have tarnished legacies. This is misogynoir. That stripper is also fully clothed. NAACP director did nothing wrong. And I say this knowing my children are descendents of two NAACP founders.
Everyone here that read the story has to comprehend that this is false division as the author suggests. Yet you all are STILL judging this woman, GET OFF YOUR HIGH HORSES!!!!
Child please. if you’re in public office, especially for a historic civic organization like the NAACP, you need to have enough common sense and decorum to stay out of the strip club. Enough said.
Oh my, I’m glad you and Yvette have expressed your viewpoints. I was beginning to fear women don’t believe in respect for self anymore. This “no slut shaming” culture is mindblowing. Like sexuality actually means taking your clothes off for the pleasure of strangers and money. This is a hustle for those women not an art form.
Background check including DNA. Seriously it’s questionable a person’s character, motives for volunteering themselves knowing their background consists of problems that could resurface. Such as a grandmother who sold/sell consumes illegal drugs, violent, abusive and slept with men for crack cocaine all taking place in Wilmington a South Bay community where Ms. Bryant is representing.
Black people have no standards in society. This article is proof. If you have no shame, you have no civilized community.
Way to stereotype all black people! L
To talk about a community or a race as a community, you have to describe the community as a whole which isn’t based on an individual. If I said Black people come from kings and queens, you would not make the same comment. L
Entertainers aren’t exactly the same as leaders of the NAACP. Please… Everyone in a high, moral position would be blasted. TD Jakes at the strip club would be criticize. President Obama at the strip club would be criticize. The National NCAAP president would be criticizes. This has little to do with women of color. This has more to do with public office.
And secondly, how is she a Dr. without a Dr.’s degree?
1. So, a white church playing black music is the standard for determining whether black culture is dead?
2. It’s “dead”, meaning, it’s killing us. It still lives on and spreads around the world yes, because anything black people do will be popular. If we started respecting ourselves and advancing our brain power, that would be the new trend as well. Black people have a swag that others admire and desire, no matter what we happen to be doing. Unfortunately, we doing ratchet right now, and though it is DEAD, in the sense that it is killing us spiritually, and leading us down a road to self-destruction, it will most certainly be in white churches, laundromats, malls, restaurants, etc,. But what really is that saying in a society that glorifies decadence???
I’m curious to know though, are you one with swag? or do you attend the church you speak of?
Damn, best comment so far, I agree 100%. Why is the stripper culture being normalized in the black community. For decades white people and the media have tried effortlessly to reduce black people to nothing more than oversexualized baby-makers with no sense of self-control or consciousness. Now black people are fighting to make that theory true. That is so damn backwards. So what next do we accept as “normal”…Sorry folks, strippin aint normal. That’s something that people who havent gone past the first chakra, or past base level gratification, do. Most you people wouldn’t want your daughter selling her bare ass for dollar bills. (Sadly, some of you probably wouldn’t mind it.) Anyway, This lady is in a position that supposedly represents the ADVANCEMENT of COLORED PEOPLE. You trying to tell me that strippin, is the manifestation of the advancement of colored people, really?
All that being said, we already know that NAACP was started by racist jews, so NAACP aint shit anyway. So in all actuality, NAACP is right on schedule with this regressing bullshit.
Racist Jews who educated 45% of the black children in this country through the Rosenwald fund and Booker T. Who funded and litigated the entire civil rights movement. And who founded and funded many HBCUs while restricted to Jew Quotas in white universities. Sounds legit.
Women are judged harshly and more so women of colour. That is a reality and in understanding that you are clear that in seeking public office the lense on you is wider
You mean the renowned figure MLK Jr. who was cheating on his wife?
I have a slightly different take. Although I don’t see anything personally with her goiing to a strip club being realistically I would expect her to get backlash. I have a very public job. Most people in the surrounding counties know who I am. Because of that I have to be careful where I go and what I do. I went to a strip club once and it was out of state with family members and believe me there were no pics of Cosita taken. I also have to be careful about what I say because I am prohibited from making political endorsements. This isn’t a race thing IMO. I have had people tell me how they saw my white coworker drunk at a bar. As common as out of wedlock births are an Asian coworker of mine got some nasty comments from people because she was pregnant when she got married. Not saying it’s right but it’s the reality when you want a lot privacy in your personal life you don’t enter certain professions. I’m not complaining because it was my choice. I went out of state when I bought my last vehicle because I had a problem with a local dealership after the car would not start the day after I bought it. We had a disagreement about returning my money and they called my boss to complain about me. I block my face out on here for a reason.
that’s a fair point. I basically agreed with you. To make it a simple analogy. I see going to strip clubs like getting blackout drunk. There’s nothing inherrently wrong with it if you’re an adult once in a while, even if I don’t like personally for myself or my friends. But it’s certainly something you should probably keep private.
That aside, the backlash this women is getting is far far in excess of what would be appropriate fora public figure going to a strip club.
This isn’t a church mother. This is a women who posed for car mags and is open about it. A women who has made something of herself. She never claimed to be a saint. She claimed to care about black people, ALL of us. We’ve seen role models with prostitutes and drug habits get less flak. Their controveries were controversies they weren’t seen as “exposing the truth”. The truth is she did something adult but legal. the same can’t be said about cocain or heroin or prostitutes.
It starts with our views on strip clubs and asking ourselves why we perceive them as something shameful and worth hiding? The fact of the matter is stripping is a job for a lot of people and one that takes talent and skill like any other job. We live in a culture that constantly looks to shame sex and sexuality. I don’t think there was anything wrong with her going to the strip club and the respectability politics that are coming into play here need to go out the window along with our dated views on how women should behave.
Did you lift this viewpoint from Dustin on theFriendZone Podcast…I swear it’s what he said verbatim…Or maybe he lifted it from you…?
No, I don’t even listen to the FriendZone. The point isn’t a profound one, though. Stripping is a job that should be respected. The end.
Years ago I interviewed for a job with a congresswoman and they made it very clear that while my personal life was my personal life that I should be very careful about engaging in activities that may reflect negatively on their office. The picture reflects negatively so I can understand the concern some might have.
Definitely so. In my early 20s I wanted to enter a beauty pageant. I asked my boss at the time about it because I knew it could be something that might not go over well. He said if it involved a swimsuit competition he didn’t want me doing it. There is of course nothing wrong illegal or immoral about being in a pageant. I am not talking wet tshirt contest but just regular pageant and my boss said no. Some professions are like that. Now I’m glad I didn’t because I hate pageants but not the point. Depending on your career, your private life may be more scrutinized and your employment may hinder partly on what you do outside work. Also all you high school and college students be careful what you put out there on the Internet.
“Women view men strippers as a way to uplift a repressed sexuality in
themselves. Men view womem strippers to objectify and diminish power and
sexuality in all women.” …What? That’s news to me, all this time I was working under the assumption that men and women who view other men and women nude was because human sexuality is largely visual and hormonal, and that looking at nude people dance on stage is fun and uplifting. Are you seriously saying that because most people in power are men, because the system was designed to work that way, that women looking at nude men at a club is always ok, but the opposite is never ok? Regardless of context or situation?
“Undoubtedly it wouldn’t be a comedy. The male stripper trope in itself
is devoid of the same stigma and dehumanization that comes with women
strippers.” Darling; https://www.telegraph.co.uk/film/what-to-watch/best-stripper-movies/ Took me 8 seconds to find. Seriously though, if that’s the real problem, address the stigma itself rather than the stuff around the stigma.
I am writing in regards to context of social hierarchy. You don’t have to call me “darling”. The handle is Rose.
Ironically, in the site you linked, the male stripper comedies are considered successes, the female stripper comedies considered flops. The female stripper dramas are better received, but again, they are not *comedies*. Clearly there is something wholly uncomical about women being objectified in a misogynistic patriarchy. It is like making a comedy about black enslavement or police brutality against blacks. It is not funny because it is real. A drama, sure. A comedy? Tasteless and wholly unfunny. Male strippers are funny because they are ironic. They are against the engendered stripper trope , which is undoubtedly female and undoubtedly one with little social status.
“Ironically, in the site you linked, the male stripper comedies are
considered successes, the female stripper comedies considered flops.” Sure, but shitty writing is hardly the fault of patriarchal ideals.
“Clearly there is something wholly uncomical about women being
objectified in a misogynistic patriarchy. It is like making a comedy
about black enslavement or police brutality against blacks. It is not
funny because it is real.” No, its not funny because erotica and comedy are difficult to pull off at the same time. Thats a broken comparison.
Again, the stigma is the issue, not people enjoying healthy sexual expression.
I look at it from the perspective of a young Black woman, still in school….rap/hiphop has been around for decades and for decades they’ve been dehumanizing Black women….do you not see the connection between this ‘culture’ and Black women being a small percentage of women in the US but we account for more than half of the women murdered by domestic partners, we are also raped more and assaulted more than any group….The oow birthrate is astronomical, least married, we are assaulted by law enforcement and yes racism has always existed….Black women make up about 42% of’ women’ trafficked…I could go on and on…..Do you not see the tragedy of this so called music being played on church ground where I’m sure little Black girls are playing….Our devaluation and dehumanization, and degradation is so common place it is not even noticed, or censored, not even by Black women themselves…..Would this music still be around if it was directed at any other group?……and don’t tell me this music culture is not teaching everyone how to treat and look at Black women….ANY WOMEN, PEOPLE, OR COMMUNITY THAT WOULD ACCEPT THIS SO CALLED MUSIC AND CULTURE ARE DEAD.
Not all people accept that culture. Not all rap is made by black men. I personally love M.I.A.. Her revolutionary music and personal accomplishments are amazing. Her album “Kala” is a straight BANGER, completely unapologetic, rude, and feminist! I think people, black or otherwise, who ignore and enjoy misogynistic lyrics need to wake up. We agree. However I will not say that all rap is like that. When we think about *which kind* of rap or *which rappers* are given money and investor attention, we have to look at the white and sleeping blacks who own tv and music companies who promote black buffoonery to the masses.
Christ…why do Blacks play silly when anyone mentions this….I’m talking about the black males who dominate the genre and what they say about Black women and themselves…it’s straight hate music and they’ve been doing it for decades…and Blacks want to pretend this socalled music isn’t detrimental or affects how Black women are seen and treated.
Tbh, she’s a grown ass woman, so….
Why do I never see any articles exposing black males who frequent these clubs and their degrees and professional background and resumes plastered all over the place to shame them? I’m quite sure if the lists of clients of call girl services were exposed you would find TONS of these so-called fine, upstanding, professional black males with responsible positions on those lists as well. So she can’t take a night out in one of the cities where this is considered to be the norm? It makes no sense. If people are so abhorred, then they should do away with the entire industry of strippers, pornography, prostitution and even black male made and produced music videos featuring black women as nothing but sexually objectified, hyper-sexualized pieces of meat that these rappers have made a fortune on. If they aren’t going to, then there should be no judgment leveled at this woman for going where the black folks obviously are. If she is the head of the NAACP isn’t that where she should be? Change the overall landscape instead of singling out one woman who was hanging out in the middle of it.
You’re right, they should do away with the entire industry of strippers, etc, etc, but I don’t think the people your are referring to have the power to do that, unfortunately.
They have articles. Please. The author puts entertainers in the same light as doctors and political leaders.
Now if any of us saw a renowned figure such as Malcolm X or MLK or Ida B Wells (not that I’m comparing this lady to them) doing this…what would we think or how would we feel?….The role she has demands some kind of propriety?or circumspection?……..This is what rap and hip hop culture has spawned…..and any community/people that accepted such a culture is dead…..so young Black women get your educations and GO!….There is a huge world out there and this country is huge also….The Black community is dead, IMO…..rap and hiphop was the final nail in the coffin….
I would like to hear you expand more on why black American culture is “dead”, when it is the most appropriated culture in the US? Rap itself has gone from being music on the margin to household music. I live across a white, Christian church where they have fitness group activities outside. I had my window ajar one day, and to my surprise, I heard rap music with uncensored explicit lyrics being played at this Christian church event. Sure, it wasn’t exactly mass, but it was definitely a church event on church property. I thought to myself, “Boy has rap and certain black sub-cultures taken over!” Dead is the last thing I’d use to describe it. Rap alone has propelled urban black American sub-culture to the center stage.
Unfortunately, we are scrutinized for the good, bad, what we say…ect when we represent a high profile company. Choosing sime place else to go would have BEEN a better choice. that’s all.
Leave this woman alone!! She’s not hurting anyone, media always looking for issues where there are none. Is she on drugs? Embezzling money? Inciting violence? Then leave her be. When people hv no business of their own, they mind everyone else’s.
Whether it’s herself or other black women, she is into female exploitation. She is not interested in advancing my life as a black woman. She doesn’t care who I am or why I might be a stripper or a whore, she just cares about impressing the men she has to entertain. She’s a cool girl. Men go to strip clubs (and other places that demean/exclue women) and conduct business there to reaffirm male dominance. Black men go to strip clubs and conduct business and so black women have to pretend it’s okay to exploit women’s sexuality and bodies in order to impress the men.
What about black women who go to strip clubs for male strippers and black men who do it with around/with their female friends?
I’m not saying stripping is always totally pure, but its not always exploitative or demeaning either. Hell, look at the men and women who perform burlesque, you could hardly call that exploitation.
I agree with cyb pauli. There is a fundamental difference between women enjoying men stripping and men enjoying women stripping. That difference is social power. Women view men strippers as a way to uplift a repressed sexuality in themselves. Men view womem strippers to objectify and diminish power and sexuality in all women. It just isn’t the same. I recently saw the Magic Mike XXL movie with hunk Channing Tatum *blush*. I couldn’t help but think, “What would a movie about female strippers be like?”. Undoubtedly it wouldn’t be a comedy. The male stripper trope in itself is devoid of the same stigma and dehumanization that comes with women strippers.
I think burlesque is VASTLY different from strip clubs but you’re right it’s not inherrently exploitative.
Leave this woman alone. She might as well not get married or have kids.. Lol Everyone would know she’s engaging in healtly adult activity. What is wrong with going to a strip club? Like the person said, if she were a man this wouldn’t be up for discussion. What do you think these prestigious universities do when they want athletes? Lol..smh
Why can’t an adult female go to a strip club? I’m confused..
A black female doctor who embraces her sexuality? Fantastic ! There are so many things that society likes to tell people don’t go hand in hand, but here we are proving them wrong.
#YesQueen
wow i must be the only one living in a glass house and who’s sinned in life cause people sure are out here casting stones… I say let the woman live and this wouldn’t even be a conversation if she was a man…
True but it depends on the man…
I see no problem with this. She was patronizing an establishment. We have to stop throwing the words victim and exploitation around when it comes to establishments like these. Exploitation is “the action or fact of treating someone unfairly in order to benefit from their work”. Not all women in the industry are treated unfairly. Not everyone who works in the adult entertainment industry is a victim, nor working against their will. Many enjoy providing the service they are providing and don’t need anyone’s permission nor determination of respectability to do so. The problem is, there are many women who are forced into this industry against their will, which makes her frequenting this establishment questionable, but only for that reason in my opinion.
My problem with this goes beyond respectability. How can she represent the NAACP when she’s publicly contributing to the exploitation of women? It’s a problem. If she’s advancing the cause of colored people, as the name suggests, then this distracts from her cause. SMH, makes Rachel Dolezal look like light stuff.
Black women aren’t people! Only black male lives matter…
May I ask, why you think this?
Pink
Black women are shamed for everything. So, just because this woman has a position of respect, it doesn’t make her less human, less, Black, less woman. Madonna put out a book and movie showing her in sexually suggestive situations with women, she was “daring” and “provocative”. Strip clubs are entertaining some folks and some are women. She may have been on a date, this young lady may be a straight, lesbian or bi-sexual and enjoys the club, it shouldn’t be a huge topic. She obviously is comfortable as who she is. However, I know it’s been put on blast because she’s a Black woman in a place that some Black folks think is degrading and beneath them. Her credentials show she’s capable of doing her job (hustling to survive included), so let her be.
It is OBVIOUS that the writer of this article hasn’t been paying attention to the NAACP. The agency has been a defender of rapists and child molesters, so what exactly is out of step here? Moralism, aside, there is NOTHING WRONG with her patronizing a place where women get paid to pull their clothes off. The NAACP is lucky to have her as its champion. If R. Kelly got two image awards, Ben Chavis raped and PAID settlements, to his accusers, and the NAACP can VIGOROUSLY defend RAPISTS such as the teens from Dunbar Village or the Louisiana man who raped his 8 year old step daughter so violently she had to have a TOTAL ABDOMINAL HYSTERECTOMY BEFORE PUBERTY, stuffing a dollar bill in some chick’s g-string DOES NOT MATTER.
Someone needs to expose NAACP for this mess. Black (male) activists have routinely ignored (black) women’s issues.
Based on her position, it is problematic for me. I don’t think this should end her career, but if I was above her, I would advise that she stops frequeting these types of establishments. This is unbecoming of someone in her position. Sorry, but stripping/exposing your body for money will never be seen as a respectable job in society–no matter how much money you make.
The reason being, using your body to make money is easy, using your brain to make money requires a heck-of a-lot more. That difference alone is why women in the stripping profession will never garner the same accolades as a women stripping a patient for surgery.
I don’t really think going to a strip club is a classy thing to do so I disagree with your contention that people are unfair when they don’t look favorable on it, but I agree somewhat with your point that this doesn’t mean a person should be stripped of any professional accolades that they earned separately. In response to a comment below, I don’t think disagreeing with the strip club scene is saying strippers are fundamentally “less than”. I personally believe everyone is of value as a part of Creation and no one is fundamentally above others. However, some industries are productive, and some are less so and I think the adult entertainment industry in general has a lot of room for abuse and bad behavior because of the nature of the work. But again, unless she was some anti-stripping campaigner I think in this case her professional work can be left to stand on its own and not mixed with her personal life.
I disagree that going to strip clubs (even in Atlanta) is like a respectable thing. I don’t think that’s an appropriate venue to do business. (Which isn’t to say that I deny that business happens there anymore than business happens on the toilet.)
That said I don’t care that this woman goes to a strip club. I have zero interest in the establishments myself but I’m not hating on people who go. Not if they’re my friends or people who head black organizations and we look to direct our comunity.
It sounds like she’s a perfectly respectable woman who has done a lot of work to establish herself as someone to be taken seriously in the community. The fact that she went to a strip club doesn’t diminish that.
There was nothing wrong at all with her being at the strip club. And there was no need to even provide the laundry list of her respected accomplishments because that insinuates that strip clubs are dirty and not for “real women”….but I understand why you did that at the end of the day. Looking down on strip clubs also insinuates that women who are strippers are “less than” which is problematic as we know. I know some may argue that given her position she should have known better, but I see no fault, as long as she’s doing her job well and she’s pssionate, that’s what matters…but hey, this is just my opinion
Since when is sticking money in a half naked perso ‘s crotch a thing worthy of respect? No one is worthy of respect; respect is earned. I’m sick of women thinking that by objectifying and sexualizing themselves they’re somehow “empowered”. No, you’re just rebranding the same thing men have been doing to women for centuries and it is not a cause I will ever give my respect to.
I agrer wholely with this. I am terrified of this new millenial feminism that is so “sex-positive” that women objectifying other women or themselves is political activism and a form of liberation. It is just sad honestly.
Interesting post. I find the adult industry problematic in itself, whether men or women go to them.