Free -- but it'll cost you

Big girls need not apply.\nNew York City's Harlem Men's Club seeks single, college-educated women between 21 and 39 years old, interested in finding equally-degreed fellas. No baby mamas allowed.\nIf you made Granny proud and got a BA, BS or MD, but lack an MRS -- send a full-length picture with verification of age to Harlem Men's Club, a private social club in-the-works.\n(Yes, I'm serious.) \nShould you pass the pre-screening, expect an application in the mail.\nFor those underage, overweight or still working on that first degree -- don't sleep!\nFounded by businessman Thomas Pierre-Lopez and 10 unnamed black and Hispanic "doctors, lawyers, investment bankers, CPAs and one public school teacher," the organization, according to www.harlemclub.com, gives select women of every race the opportunity to hobnob with black and Hispanic professionals of great standing. And these cats have the reference letters and resumes to prove it!\nHey sista-girls -- be happy! Don't let the ever-widening gap between the number of black female graduates and black male graduates kill your hopes of finding a professional brotha. The ratio is two to one, women to men, according to www.bet.com, and the Harlem Men's Club has the "one!"\nAnd once the actual club opens in late 2004, ladies drink for free!\nThese guys don't play around with chump change either. With male membership fees at $2,500 for the first 100 founding general members (according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette) -- complimentary apple martinis from the hot boy in the Armani suit should be of no surprise.\nBut that's not all! Women pay nothing to join. Loss of self-respect, self-worth and sanity might require post-club counseling, but hey! You just saved a butt-load on membership fees. \n"The Harlem Club is saying 'We can't save all black women. We can save the younger, pretty ones,'" said Pierre-Lopez in a Newsday article.\nWho knew that even with a degree from the prestigious IU School of Journalism I'd need to be saved by some stock broker wearing better shoes than mine?\nIf misogyny ain't alive and pumpin', let me know.\nAs if disproportionate poverty rates, criminal convictions and AIDS cases aren't enough, should I be preparing myself for this?\nThe Harlem Men's Club proves it's not right to stereotype rappers and ball players as the forces behind sexism in the black community, because apparently the "educated" black men can be jerks, too.\nMaybe these educated black and Hispanic professionals don't have video vixens dancing around the law library or groupies waiting outside the surgery room, but these men allegedly seeking "college-educated" black women sure aren't requesting college transcripts and letters from the pastor as part of the application process.\nNot to say that would be any better.\nIt sounds nice -- "a renovated 4,000-square-foot downtown loft with ceilings 15 feet high and a Hudson River Panorama. It will be a place for men and women to network and, on the romantic tip, hook up."\n Give me a break. Any guy who has $2,500 to meet women should be able to find one on his own. And any woman who sends her picture in needs to turn in the degree and start all over again.\n With that said, I guess if dumb brothas and dumb sistas get together, loss to the community will be minimal. But I can't help but to be disturbed by the club's decision to refuse invitations to "certain people." Pierre-Lopez wants no "hoodrats or pigeons … nobody who sings and dances, and nobody who bounces a ball, either."\nAs if the "paper bag tests" of the past weren't enough -- black folks, we've found yet another way to discriminate amongst ourselves.\nQuick! Somebody rent "School Daze" -- classism has become 2004's newest colorism.