The Denzel Principle is a humorous look at the age old complaint of the inability for African American women to find a “good man”. The author walks you through his personal romantic experiences and derives his opinion from that. He feels that African American women have been poisoned by years of Oprah Winfrey, Denzel Washington and Essence Magazine.
There are chapters discussing, his belief that women are not only missing the boat because they are seeking Denzel, but they have been brainwashed into believing he is the ideal man. The opening chapter defines his point of view of how he arrived at this thesis. It begins with him talking about the experience of breaking up with his wife. She moves all the furniture out of the house and it propels him into a walk down the memory lane of his dating life. Some of his anecdotes recall unique time periods in pop culture.
The titles of the chapters are amusing and light-hearted. They are completely explanatory of the arguments within. “Baby Mama Dreams” takes on the discussion of the lack of sex education that causes young men and women to form poor decision making skills with the opposite sex. For example, there is a chapter called “The Exhale Years” in which he goes after the “chick lit” explosion of authors such as Terry McMillan. He believes that these novels helped destroy women’s definitions of successful men and made them encourage demonizing them. Therefore, he believes that men have gotten the short end of the stick.
