THE STANDARD *The week, judged by one standard — applied to everyone.*
Three stories, three different rooms, one question underneath: who gets credited, and who gets charged automatically.
1. STEPHEN A. BROKE A RULE NOBODY WILL SAY OUT LOUD
He said he helped her get the job. That was the whole offense.
Stephen A. Smith sat down with Cari Champion and Jemele Hill and said he went to bat for her at ESPN — that he's the one who had to go talk to Skip when Skip didn't want her. She said her own work got her there. Both can be true. That was never the argument. His actual mistake was claiming any of it out loud. Name me one successful Black woman who says she's where she is because of a Black man. I've never seen it. Not once.
2. TWENTY-SIX WOMEN, $1.3 MILLION, AND HE NEVER PLAYED A DOWN
The con isn't the story. What made the con work is the story.
Federal prosecutors say Daejon Love spent four years posing as a San Francisco 49er, and that 26 women across four states lost more than $1.3 million before he was charged last month. He answers for that. But nobody hands a stranger that kind of money without already counting a bigger payday coming back. You cannot con an honest person. A con needs a partner — somebody who wants the shortcut badly enough to stop asking questions. We'll say his name for four years and never once count the arithmetic that fed him.
3. SHE HIT RECORD AND THE TAPE SIDED WITH HIM
Nobody's connecting this one, so I will.
Taylor Paré filmed her boyfriend to prove to the internet that he doesn't listen to her. Watch it. She starts recording after he's already upset, and the loudest line on her own footage is him telling her she never listens. She brought the evidence. The evidence went against her. The comments handed her the win anyway. That's the part everybody skipped: not that she was wrong — everybody is — but that being wrong on camera, in her own video, cost her nothing.
THE BIGGER LESSON
Three rooms, one bookkeeping habit. Credit only moves one direction — away from the man, no matter who did the lifting. Blame only moves one direction — toward him, no matter what the footage shows. Twenty-six people chased a shortcut into a million-dollar hole, and only one name gets said out loud. A ledger you only read in one direction isn't accounting. It's a story you decided on before you opened the book. Read both columns or quit calling it a standard.
THE BOOK
You can spend your whole life applying for credit from people who are never going to sign off on it. Or you can stop applying. The Angryman Standard: Traditional Relationship Solutions for the Modern Man is about setting your own terms and leading from them — a king doesn't beg, he writes the rules. theangrymanchannel.com/book.
Know somebody who only reads one column? Forward this. The standard only works when it lands on everybody.
— The Angryman.