I did it.

I gave in to my curiosity. I read all the blogs, the critiques, the reviews, listened to the arguments, resisted the temptation to pick up a copy from the dude at the store around the corner (mostly because of the recent declining quality of New York bootlegging), scraped up $24 in pennies and bought tickets to see Tyler Perry's 'For Colored Girls.'

Seeing the film brought me to one conclusion: Tyler Perry is now one of the greatest black women since Mahalia Jackson.

Now when I say that, I mean it in the same sense that Toni Morrison meant Bill Clinton was the first black president. Her reference was in the context of how the 42nd president was being treated in light of the Monica Lewinsky scandal. "I said he was being treated like a black on the street, already guilty, already a perp," she told Time magazine.

In that same regard, Perry has become one of history's leading black women because of his ability to understand, reflect, attract, manipulate and directly appeal to that singular niche market. And I'll be damned if he ain't good at it, so like an honorary degree, that should earn him an honorary set of bloomers --other than the one he wears when he's playing Madea.

Am I being a smart a** or hater? Not any more than in anything else I've ever written.

My point is there has already been so much written about how Perry is putting down black men, how he's fueling unfounded black female anger at brothers, how there are no positive roles for black men in Hollywood, how we're always vilified on film, and how we're always portrayed as little more than sleaze, or as particular archetypes -- in this case either a date rapist, a homicidal veteran, a serial cheater or the infamous closeted homosexual (the "D.L. boogeyman").

Dude, I'm so over that.

What I want to focus on is this cat's genius. Now as a film, I thought it amounted to little more than dysfunction porn that really bastardized a classic piece of black theater, and reduced the characters to his typical two-dimensional protagonists (victimized black women) and antagonists (destructive black men, with the exception of Hill Harper, who was there to suggest we ain't all bad).

Whatever.

In reality, Perry is doing what Booker T. Washington did a century ago. Not everybody agrees with him. Not everybody even likes him, but you can't knock the hustle. What Washington did was keep people talking.

Then he did something else: He built what is now Tuskegee University through sweat equity and blind faith in the hopes that black folk would build their way out of Jim Crow destitution. Did it get us our 40 Acres and a Mule? Nope. But we did get one of our most storied institutions out of the deal.

Similarly, Perry built his Atlanta studio based on his recognition of what his market is: black women who will literally spend millions of their disposable income to see preachy, bland movies that vaguely reflect their lives. They don't have to be good, they just have to feel like they can relate. And somehow he managed to employ 300 people, mostly black Atlantans, who otherwise would never get a chance in the movie biz.

If you don't like that Kool-Aid, then mix a new flavor, darn it. It's as simple as that.

Now recently, I took a beat-down from a sista who told me that Perry's work in 'For Colored Girls' reflected a black woman's pain. But I've got to question that. Each of the situations in that movie, and in Ntozake Shange's original work, which the film is based on, is not unique to black women.

I'm sorry, but sistas do not have a monopoly on the type of suffering depicted in the movie, just like brothers don't have a monopoly on the offenses perpetuated in it.

When I think of things black women have gone through uniquely, something I can call "a black woman's pain," I think of Betty Shabazz, Assata Shakur, Winnie Mandela, Myrlie Evers, Coretta Scott King, Fannie Lou Hamer, Angela Davis and so many other women who went through what they went through specifically because they were black.

What this work does is show a reaction of women who are black in those particular situations, but in real life they would not necessarily be because they are black, but because they are human.

So let's not walk around blaming Perry for beating up on black men -- I don't. Full disclosure, I've spend hundreds of dollars of my own money on rap music that dragged black women through the mud. In fact, I was the first person I knew of to have a copy of Snoop Dogg's misogynistic 'Doggystyle,' and nobody asked me to apologize, so black women shouldn't have to apologize for forking their money over to Perry.

What we should understand is that all Perry did was make a movie and get paid. That's what he does. And if we want movies to be made that are different than what Perry is offering, all we need to do is show that we will put our money behind alternatives.

Until then, hallelu-yer!!