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Only the Gorgeous and Smart Need Apply
April 21, 2004
By SHERRI DAY
Thomas Lopez-Pierre was looking for just the right men for
the Harlem Club, a private social club for
African-Americans and Latinos that he was forming in
Manhattan.
For $5,000, mid-career professional men could become
charter members; $2,500 would make them general members.
But this club did not want just any moneyed men. Rap stars,
Hollywood glitterati and professional athletes - what Mr.
Lopez-Pierre labels the "ghetto-fabulous crowd" - would not
be welcome.
Women could join the Harlem Club, too. But only as
associate members. And they had to be 35 or younger,
unmarried, childless, college educated and willing to
submit a head-to-toe photograph, to prevent unattractive
women from making the cut.
And to ensure that there would be a steady stream of fresh
pretties at the club, Mr. Lopez-Pierre planned to rotate 20
percent of the associate members, who pay no dues, every
three months. The goal, he said, was to present members
with undeniable marriage material.
"When people think of the Harlem Club, I want them to think
beautiful, intelligent, highly successful women of color,"
said Mr. Lopez-Pierre, the public face for the club's 15
charter members, men who do not want their identities known
for fear of public backlash.
The club has not held a single event yet. And while Mr.
Lopez-Pierre - who is 35, married and the publisher of
Regine, a small magazine for black and Latino professionals
- has helped run an online dating service, he has never
tackled anything like this before.
But since the beginning of the year, when Mr. Lopez-Pierre
began an e-mail campaign directed toward members of the
black bourgeois, the Harlem Club has been at the center of
a controversy. Some critics have called it elitist. Others
say it is little more than a brothel for the business
class.
On a recent afternoon, Mr. Lopez-Pierre was reviewing
applications for all potential members. A photograph of a
woman wearing a coquettish grin and a cropped shirt
received a positive assessment.
"She's got a great stomach," he said. His praise was more
effusive for a bikini-clad woman: "She's our No. 1
associate member."
Reaction to the club has been particularly visceral,
critics said, because its membership requirements highlight
a controversy in the black community, the swelling number
of single black women. According to federal Census data,
only 29.2 percent of black women are married and living
with spouses, compared with 54.3 percent of white women.
Jeffrey R. Gardere, a psychologist who is the host of a
radio talk show about black relationships in the New York
metropolitan area, said the Harlem Club could help
college-educated black women meet men with compatible
backgrounds. But he questions the likelihood of serious
love connections.
"It almost sets up a meat-market situation for these men
who are allegedly powerful and allegedly have all these
degrees to come in and look at these women as potential sex
partners and potential mates," said Dr. Gardere, author of
"Love Prescription: Ending the War Between Black Men and
Women." "I also think that the club may be snubbing a whole
lot of people who may not have college degrees who may be
brilliant."
So far 200 young women, among them doctors, lawyers,
accountants, investment bankers and models, have applied
for associate membership, Mr. Lopez-Pierre said. He has
deleted the e-mail applications of overweight women.
Tiffani Webb, 28, a licensed psychologist who lives in
Brooklyn Heights, said she joined the club because she was
tired of spending her evenings with other single black
professional women who, like her, have not found Mr. Right.
She points to a study by the Community Service Society that
found that nearly half of working-age black men in New York
City are jobless.
"What are your chances of going to a normal, regular
environment and meeting someone who could be compatible
with you professionally?" she said. "It's hard if you want
an African-American man."
It is women like Dr. Webb, Mr. Lopez-Pierre said, that the
Harlem Club was formed to rescue. A group of Mr.
Lopez-Pierre's single friends decided to form the club in
December after attending a holiday party where 50 men were
competing for the attention of the 10 most attractive women
in the room.
The men dreamed of a club that would routinely have more
beautiful women than male suitors, Mr. Lopez-Pierre said.
But they worried that it might not sit well with the
public, so they asked Mr. Lopez-Pierre to run the club and
conceal their identities. (Mr. Lopez-Pierre would say only
that the club's original 10 members are ages 34 to 42 and
include doctors, lawyers and investment bankers. )
So Mr. Lopez-Pierre e-mailed 10,000 of his own contacts
and, through the magic of forwarded messages, sparked a
discussion on an Internet mailing list of black Ivy League
graduates in January. Since then, his name has been a
constant presence around water coolers and e-mail groups.
His comments about the club have been fodder for talk
radio, newspapers and BET Nightly News. His views on women
who oppose the club's age restrictions, for example: "A lot
of these women are in their early 40's, and their
good-looking days are over," he said. "They're career
women."
Some people have applauded Mr. Lopez-Pierre's efforts,
including, he said, 100 men who have expressed interest in
becoming general members. But Mr. Lopez-Pierre admits that
intense negative feedback has caused the club's charter
members to backpedal on some of the initial membership
requirements for women. Earlier this month, he agreed to
allow women with children to apply for associate
membership. He also said that women who did not meet the
physical requirements could pay and become general members.
"We have compromised," Mr. Lopez-Pierre said. "Women who
want to be equals can pay. If they prefer a more
traditional role, we have the associate membership level."
Black women who oppose the club are, unwittingly, among
Mr. Lopez-Pierre's biggest advertising vehicles. In their
fury, he said, they publicize the club by sending his
e-mail postings and the club's Web address, harlemclub.com,
to their friends, who pass the message along.
Debra Dickerson, the author of "The End of Blackness," a
discussion of racism and stereotypes, said Mr. Lopez-Pierre
was profiting from the misery of others. "There is a real
problem in the state of black love, but it is not to be
solved by putting women on the beauty pageant auction
block," said Ms. Dickerson, who says she is an educated
black woman who has never had luck with black men. "I'd
have more respect for him if he would just admit that that
he was an entrepreneur looking for a heartless way to make
money. But it's not just capitalist, it's misogynist and
sexist."
Michael Eric Dyson, a humanities professor at the
University of Pennsylvania and the author of "Why I Love
Black Women," said the club's rules for associate members
send a narrow message.
"We jam up young people in hip-hop for the specious
viewpoints we have about appropriate relationships," he
said. "This might just be the so-called high-class version
of choosing the right woman. That, to me, is problematic."
Although the club sprang from the minds of men, much of
the opposition on the Internet has come from men. Gregory
E. Johnson, a 46-year-old married man who works for a
computer company in Nashville, posted a message on
EventLinks.com accusing the club of promoting classism. "It
sounds to me like he was mostly looking for people who were
doctors and lawyers," Mr. Johnson said. "It just seems
strange to me that a black person or a Hispanic person in
this country would exclude people within their own race,
when we're already excluded with things from the white
race."
While Mr. Lopez-Pierre is monitoring the buzz, he is also
fretting over the logistics of the club's inaugural event,
a cocktail party scheduled for July. The club expects to
sign a lease on a space on Madison Avenue in Murray Hill,
and he plans to hire an architect and an interior designer
to transform a drab 2,500-square-foot office suite into a
lounge.
And, of course, he continues to sift through applicants'
photographs.
"I didn't marry my wife because she was a kind, sensitive
woman," he said. "I married her because she is a complete
package. I married her because she takes her butt to the
gym, and she keeps it tight for me. I want it all, and I
got it all. There are men who want the same."
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/21/nyregion/21harlem.html?ex=1083673925&ei=1&en=1c35d04c1cbb1b9c
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