I am NOT Mary Jane! Pt. 2

You will get to where you’re supposed to be if you do the work. - Mary Jane Paul

Those are words to live by, but not in the context that she meant. In the words of Kevin Hart, "Let me explain."

I must admit that I don't watch "Being Mary Jane." Why? It's a combination of things. 1. I am not a fan of Gabrielle Union nor her non-acting skills. 2. I don't like what Mary Jane, her character, stands for. She is not only sleeping with a married man (more about my hypocrisy in I am NOT Mary Jane Pt. 3), but she is bothering the wife with the details. Second place is okay with her as evidenced by a speech she delivered to a group of young girls. Here's the speech:

"You know I had this great little sisterhood speech all prepared, but I seem to have left it in my purse at the table. I don’t want to talk about sisterhood, today. I know there’s a lot of professional women here, but I want to speak to the younger girls. You guys signed up for this mentorship program because you want to be successful. You want to be your mentors! You know everybody tells you: ‘Do your best so you can be number one!- But there’s another position…You know I’ve found that being number two (glances over at the wife) gives you all the glory of being at the top without all the pressures of the number one spot. See, the job of any great number two is to figure what the number one is missing, what they refused to see and what they are doing wrong. So, you know take your time, learn, be patient, get better. You will get to where you’re supposed to be if you do the work. Because remember, if you don’t somebody else will. I'm Mary Jane Paul and thank you for listening."

What??!?!! Did you really just tell these girls that it’s okay to settle for #2, even if it’s just temporary? And while you’re referring to that #2 in the business or job context, you’re really saying that it is okay to be someone’s sidepiece, someone’s mistress, as you side eye the wife of your married boo because she is in the audience listening to this crock of bull. What writer thought this up? What executive producer said, “Yes, this is a great idea. Let’s run with it!”

I can’t endorse a show that blatantly sends the message that it is okay to share a man. More than that, I can’t get with a show that shows a successful, beautiful black woman telling our young ladies, our future, that it is okay to be #2. Who has ever been runner up in a contest and said, “Yay?!” As a matter of fact, most of the contests that I’ve seen on TV, the runner up usually gets not airtime because everyone is so focused on #1. Who lives for that? No one.

Let me share something with you, I didn’t watch the episode. I haven’t watched since the first episode. But my twitter timeline was on fire as those that I follow were virtually high-fiving Mary Jane for putting the wife in her place as she sat there at that luncheon. The big deal here is the message that was being conveyed to the young ones just to put a win in the column of the side piece who keeps digging at a hurt WIFE.

No, #2 is not okay. EVER. The goal in life is to have your own. If it is not readily available at the moment, then you either wait for it or you work for it (as a #1, not a #2 in waiting). Work for it in Mary Jane’s situation means to let go of Le Loser, i.e. the married man, and put herself out there to meet Mr. Right. It’s hard out there, but it’d be worth it to not have to deal with the agony she lives with everyday as she continues sleeping with a man who can’t/won’t fully commit himself to her.