The Results are in

From www.divorcereform.org/black.html

"Today the number of children born into a black marriage averages less than 0.9 children per marriage (less than one per family). "The birthrates of black married women have fallen so sharply that absent out-of-wedlock childbearing, the African American population would not only fail to reproduce itself, but would rapidly die off."

Thanks Felicia for locating this information, what would we do without your research!

Now if this doesnt remove the rose colored glasses from the eyes of black unity aggitators I wonder what will. Indeed, do folks understand what is being said here? In case you missed it, black marriages and the children they produce, can no longer sustain the black community numbers as we have them. The marriage numbers of black folk and the resultant children have so bottomed out, that left to this group alone, we are looking at the so called black community (which essentially and really means the black head count) dying off in who knows, say as little as 3-4 generations.

So to the rescue have come single black women, taking up the task of supplying and topping up the numbers of black folk born. I remember reading Mitchelle Wallace's book years ago where she said that black women see themselves as responsible for birthing the black army. I rolled my eyes at that one, but I can now see how this underlying meme, could be informing the actions of black women, who looking around and seeing the gross disinterest in black men over the fate of the black community, decide to just 'keep things going' for black people, to just keep birthing black children without support, and do this so at least black people do not physically disappear if ever black people should rise up.

All of us know of women who have said, 'Well now that there is no black man come for me, I'll just have kids.' This is all part of it.

Indeed if for black women, it was just about having children and not the political act of 'topping up' black numbers, then black women would be willing to explore other options for fathering these kids not just black men. Indeed if it was just about black women loving the OOW lifestyle then they would have as many OOW for all races of men, white, black, Asian, Native American. Instead you see that black womens OOW status is significantly confined within the race.

Women of every group have offspring, that is what they do, it is a fact of life. However it is the men of the group that decide wether these women will be having these children within the confines of a marriage relationship or not. I repeat,
women of child bearing age will have children one way or another. It is the men who decide wether these childen will be born in or out of wedluck.

I indeed hear arguments blaming black women for opening their legs to irresponsible men, but do the folks who speak so realize that they have these single black mothers to thank for sustaining the numbers of black people existing in this country. Are they willing to now say that black women should not have children OOW even if this sets blacks on a clear path to extinction. hmmm...

Black women are simply displaying their utter commitment to having black children even without any support because as I said above, at the end of the day, if this was simply about ‘promiscuity and getting paid and whatever, black women would be doing the OOW dance across the board and with white, black and Mexican etc (and particularly with better odds of some support from other men). Yep those who blame black women for having OOW please note that without OOW there would be almost no black population for the future.

By the way and for clarification, I am not in favour of black women 'doing it alone.' I am simply pointing out that the whole idea that black men have the will and inclination to build a black community is false and black women waiting for and relying on black men is sadly misguided as a result. The high OOW of black women points clearly to black women wanting to continue the black agenda in the absense of black male participation!

Black women Well and Truly punked!

And I got this one off Khadija's Blog (please see the sidebar link to The Mind Workout) and all thanks to the commentor Beverly for these stats.

While 42 percent of Black men were now married, just 31 percent of Black women were married when Census 2000 was taken. The LOWEST PROPORTION FOR WOMEN OF ANY RACE or origin groups. The 10 percentage-point difference in the percentage of Black men and Black women who were now married was the largest difference between men and women in any of the groups.

(source: http://www.census.gov/prod/2003pubs/c2kbr-30.pdf)

So while y'all were sitting at home waiting patiently for your black prince to come for you, they were out there cranking up their own marriage numbers till now they give you an eleven point lead. Wow! And you can imagine what the numbers are today 9 years later. Jesus take the wheel!

Even though on a whole, men are supposed to have rates of marriage slightly more elevated than women(because of the higher numbers of women to men), it is a big shame on women of any group to have men more married than them at such a greater rate. It underscores once again that black women have lost sight of self-care.

All I can say again is 'Black women, wake up'. 'People are laughing at you not with you'!

Halima is on Break

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What is the required spirit for these times?

When Sojourner Truth spoke about working the fields as hard as any man, about ploughing planting and gathering into barns, when you read about her showing her powerful muscles to her audience, you just know that strong (physically) black women had to be the rule not the exception in her days. There were no two ways about it, she was a creation and necessity of her times.

But are we still in the age of the strong black woman? Do people even realize that a different type is required for a different epoch?

These two questions above actually underscore what should be general understanding (an understanding that I dont sense many black folk have) that, you first of all observe that there has been an era change and then the tools, skills and attitudes, even approach needs to change to keep pace.

In bible times, blessings were reserved for those who had the ability to observe the changing times. We see repeated in the scriptures, the theme of seasons, times, watching, observing, etc with some of the most revered of society being the prophets and seers.

It was so important to keep in touch with the times and know what the season was in the broad sense of the word.

Yesterday was 'Emancipation Day' (celerated by certain countries of the world), and I went along to a 'black' function. I was struck by how stuck in a bygone era some factions of the black political movement are. A lot of the stuff being proposed bordered on irrelevant, things that were effective 50 years ago. A kind of turning totally inwards tends to produce this 'out of touch-ness' among many black folks.

Anyway, back to my point;
For those who have been attentive and can observe, we are in new times, times which require a new type of black woman with a new type of spirit girding her, enabling her to do what needs to be done in her situation.

I believe that the spirit required for black women now, is the spirit of courage.

Courage is required to admit hard things, heartbreaking things, things that quake the spirit and knock the knees. Courage to mourn and cry yet get on with the task at hand, the task of forging a new path and indeed starting over.

Yes there are things one would rather ignore or try to wish away, things you would prefer they be different than they are, and courage is required to realize that a reevaluation of principles, a change of plans and surrendering of closely held concepts and idea has to take place, in some cases, until you are 180 right around.

Courage is in its own way strength but it's essence is quite different from that underlying 'strong woman' which is about being able to take anything and put up with anything.

Black women need courage to admit they have been dupped and used by those they trusted and burnt bridges for, they need courage to admit that they can no longer remain in denial or keep pretending or keep holding out and hoping things will sort themselves out on their own, so they can continue along the path that was decided years ago. They need courage to admit that there has to be a change of framework, plans, actions, courage to relearn and retrain themselves in new ways of being and relating to the world, courage to forge new networks, family links and comfort zones. They need courage to take on the spirit of humilty required to re-establish contact with the rest of society and courage to get on with it now, and while they still can!

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