Last week, Mrs. Rocque explained that she and her husband were invited to appear as guests on a radio show to discuss relationships and an article that she’d written for their EBONY.com column. They soon discovered that the host had a very unfavorable view of their marriage:

The call started out innocently enough. We were introduced, said our hellos… and then the host went into a pathetic attempt at trying to attack our spirituality because we don’t label ourselves as Christian (sue us), and asked me how I was able to learn anything because my husband was “incapable” of teaching me since he’s not the head of the household. (Side note: We’re vocal about being partners and that we play to each other’s strengths and weaknesses whenever necessary; there isn’t just one head for us all the time and it works out just fine. All that stuff about “you can’t have a two-headed snake” doesn’t apply here. Newsflash: life isn’t that black and white.

Here, she explains how the unfortunate encounter ends…

However, I would have been an “angry Black Woman” no matter what because, according to them, “most Black women are angry.” We all know that anyone who says “most [insert ratchet generalization here]” really thinks that it’s all, but tries to save face without verbally lumping in the whole group. These were the types of people who, even if I had been happy-go-lucky, would still believe that stereotype about me (in hindsight, he referred to Michelle Obama as “Big Mama,” for goodness sake)… which is pathetic, but also why I don’t feel bad that I lost my cool. I’ve always understood that you can’t make people see something they don’t want to see, so, no sweat off my back.

Mr. Rocque would come in and back up my points but I was so livid that I refused to back down. At this point, I’m assuming we didn’t hang up partly because this was so amazingly warped that it was hard (kind of like the train wreck theory), and because when a person is under attack, they either fight or flee, and I chose to fight that day.

So, here we were, pointing out his irrational beliefs and inconsistencies and wasting an hour of our precious anniversary (which they knew all about, by the way). Finally, all hubby and I could do was laugh at their shenanigans until the conversation was over with.

I wanted to call the producer afterwards and give her some angry Black woman for that a*s, but Mr. Rocque got on the phone and explained our disdain in his signature cool, calm and collected style; she played just as dumb and clueless (but it probably wasn’t an act). Mr. Rocque is better than me. Let’s just say I have early Malcolm X tendencies, and Mr. Rocque is Dr. King through and through.

We finally did some research on this guy—who has the nerve to be a “reverend” and “author”—and came to find out, not only did he rally against the NAACP for their belief that the Tea Party is counterproductive to the African-American community, he also said giving women the right to vote was the worst thing that America could have done! And that slavery is the best thing that happened to Black people because it brought us to this country. How pathetic is that?

Shortly after the interview, we got an email from a disturbed listener who congratulated us for calling this guy out the way we did, then explained how most of these men have never been in a functional relationship, let alone a marriage, and some have even allegedly been abusive toward women—big shocker.

So thats what almost ruined our day… but we wouldn’t let it. It did, however, open our eyes even more so to why it’s important that we work together as a unit. We understood this before, but back then we felt like our battle was more about people who are simply anti-marriage cynics. Wrong. Some people aren’t just anti-marriage but they’re anti us being unified.

That self-hating degenerate saw something in my husband and I that he will never have–i.e., self-love, happiness and respect–and it sparked enough rage in him to go out of his way to attack us because that’s what he does best. Even worse is, he doesn’t even know that he doesn’t like himself. Part of his tirade on that show was “saving our boys from becoming wimpy men.” Get outta here!

Apparently, to them, men who respect women arent men at all because they don’t know how to lead us away from our evil ways. This is why education is important, because there are still a lot of people, men and women, who feel this way and don’t even know it.

As much of a waste as that hour of my day was, we still went on to prosper and I just want that good “reverend” to know, you or men like you could never be half my man.

That being said, I’m eternally grateful that I married a well-adjusted man who respects me, and us. We’re not perfect but at least we’re happy.

Mr. and Mrs. Rocque are the couple formerly known as Anslem Samuel and Starrene Rhett, Chicago-based journalists who found love in between bylines. Follow the newlyweds musings of a marriage in progress here, on Twitter and via their joint blog.