I have been on a month long break from this blog, and my thoughts have 'piled up' over everything and anything. I am going to have to do a clearing house style post today to just share from a range of issues.
By the way, thanks to those who emailed and wished me a good one. I think some people do realise that we BWE bloggers are human with needs of rest and nuture and sustenance.
I always remember how Evia talks about sustaining those who are doing a good work, so that they will not only continue, but others will step in and take up the call. Anything rewarded continues and we all need to get into the idea that we need to appreciate those who work on our behalf and I dont mean just financially, you still have a kind word or good deed that you can share even if you dont have money (and I must say thanks again to those who have contributed financially to me and for the work I do, you will not miss your reward. Amen).
Sadly I see an abundance of arrogance among black women, with regard these issues. Some of you are very spiteful and jealous of the BWE bloggers (possibly because you think they have somehow happened upon the leadership of some 'big' movement and you envy that) and you say nasty things about them at the same time enjoy the fruits and employing the principles that they have offered up freely. I trust the 'universe' to be fair on this one, and if you repay good with evil and lift your hindleg at anyone who you have been blessed off, and if you have at anytime benefitted from the work of BWE bloggers (even if it was some nugget or the other of advice you gleaned), and yet turn round and repay them with insults, false accusations, distortions, character attacks etc, then it will not be well with you. Amen. TAIHTSAT.
A few thoughts
On the ever confused state of black women
Every other person seems to know what time it is except black women. Black women appear to be in a particular mind about things which no one else is in, or shares with them. You get black women saying things like 'well I thought we are supposed to be doing it this way' or 'I thought this is what we should be saying.' Yet no one has been doing or saying things that way for years. Black women are so obviously and painfully out of step with everyone else that even a blind person can see it. It leaves one tapping their chin wondering, how in Gods name could anyone have stayed in this isolated and marooned mentality in the midst of everyone else behaving differently? What could have kept them shelterd from reality?
This particular 'lag' in black women's perception and in their thinking on things is a constant and repeating theme.
Their general befuddled state, and the 'so what page are we on now' type confusions black women are displaying especially when the general society has stopped reading and operating from any such 'books' that black women are engrossed with, suggest that 'blocks' and 'filters' have been set on black women's minds to filter out vital information that could have gotten them 'in tune' and in mental line with what the rest of humanity is now doing. This is the kind of thing done to keep people in an exploitable state, not knowing their rights and their opportunitites. The mental marooning of black women means they continue to have their rescources accruing to others, not knowing their rights and oppotunities in the current dispensation.
Black men’s dedication to the race
Are black men dedicated to the idea of black community? Well one way to acertain this is to look at how black men have positioned themselves and responded to the critical ‘needs’ of the community in terms of black male input.
Indeed, instead of locating themselves 'in' the black household and adding to rescources and the push for black families and the black community, they have evidently chosen to locate themselves 'outside' of it (as evidenced by single parent homes headed by black women) and outside it, where they can serve their individual interests better and indeed then constantly negotiate upwards, the price for their ever marginal involvement. Operating by sheer market forces and not the higher principle of 'community outlook' clearly puts black men in the category of self-server.
Another thing that black women havent caught up about black men
Black men now see us as rivals for the attention of white peoples. Over the years, black men have begun to view black women as their rivals for the affection, attention and other attonement overtures of white people. Notice how black men talk about how 'white society props up black women at the expense of black men, notice how they come with a catalogue of their own complaints anytime black women raise the issue of their trials in wider society, to take the focus off black women and block black women from the possibility redress, indeed any redress is due black men not black women. They are also 'measuring shoulders' with black women over IR because for them, it is about 'more white people have to like us than like you,' and 'our profile and universal appeal must be higher than your'. Any wonder then that many are fighting tooth and nail against black women opening up their options, all the while with a blonde on their arm.
We have become competition with them for any rescources coming by way of white people (in their minds this is all it is about), hence the sabotage, blocking and ruining of black women's PR with white males and general disorienting of black women re their wider options etc. Think about it, this is classic competition dirty tactics. Rival is the correct sentiment for how many black men now view black women, but poor black women always the last to figure things out and still running with the belief that black men are their 'brothers'.
Black women do indeed have to learn to watch people and deduce who and what they are from their actions not from handed down definitions.
About the framing of the debate about why black women are not marrying
As you all know, another day brings another article about the singleness plight of black women. Recently I read some commentaries and articles again putting the situation down to black women 'driving off' black men (in other words, black men's desire to marry and marry black women at that remains intact and unchanged). When I finished reading the commentary, the obvious question occured to me- as it usually does these days given how black writers and intelligensia have been afflicted with a strange case of 'ignore the huge polka dot elephant in the room'. Anyway the rhetorical question arose and it was, 'I suppose the situation couldnt possibly be that black men are no longer interested in marrying black women to any great extent. No of course not, everything with black men remains the same; this includes their interest in marriage, their motivation, the women they deem worthy of marriage etc etc etc, the issue is all down to black women and their snooty faces. If they could just smile, the rates of marriage would rise faster than the stock market.
My fear is that black women have become very adept at such convulated and disengenious reasonings themselves. I have just read an article written by a black female journalist regurgitating this 'its black women's fault' -of course in nice professional language but that is the bottom line of what she is saying. It is scary because I see intelligent black women who I feel have the trained critical skills to notice how these types of discussions and debates skirt black men's involvement in the state of things. These women unquestioningly go ahead to reproduce these faulty discourse styles and ones which are bent on castigating women as themselves!
Two things are clear, the objective of these articles is damage limitation and to head off any movement away from black men given the state of things. This is indeed an attempt to pull back black women into continuing to confine their choices to black men.
Secondly, I realize that admitting certain things about what is really going on with black men, will collapse the very precept around which building black unity becomes possible ie admitting that black men are just not into marrying black women anymore and by extension building black families, would then make the whole black love/unity aggitation look ridiculous given that black men could care less. It would be like, 'Why are we even pushing for this when the vital piece is missing'. The black unity aggitators know this deep down, that admitting black men are not onboard means admitting the defeat of the whole idea and so, these aggitators (who are predominately black women), will continue to collude with other parties in to not admit the truth just to keep hope alive. Hence they will continue to issue false reasons for the situation and fake solutions and those black women who unfortunately incline their ears to their voices will continue to chase their tails on this one.
The foolish-making effect.....
I know I shouldnt be amazed at what black folk get up to but I said to a freind after reading another article trapping black women in the false dichotomy of 'black men or no men', 'This article is just like me writing a full scientific piece, about how to get your daily vitamin C from eating oranges'.
If I wrote a ten page document about Vitamin C and eating oranges, surely along the way someone would ask, 'but cant you can get vitamin C from eating Apples or Kiwis or etc..' The fact that me, the writter, wrote a ten page article without reference to any other sources of Vitamin C (which is something even a 10 year old knows) would make me an absolute moron, in everyones eyes. But not in the black community. We acknowledge these types of faulty premised 'black men or no man' articles as very valid discussions. I find the whole thing very unnerving and have started to think seriously about carrying my tin foil hat with me to any 'black meetings', so that the 'rays' of whatever idiocy inducing mind control at work doesnt take me in to.
Notice how that women who are all about up 'black unity' display amazingly low levels of intellectual abilities, when you really engage them on the issue. You get a lot of ducking and diving key issues around the possibility of this black love/unity. I used to wonder why such women would suddenly seem dumb and not be able to add 1 an 1 to get 2. Even women with PHD's and etc would suddenly start struggling over obvious issues or try to meander round critical questions about how possible this black love-unity thing is. Clearly in order to believe all this black unity tripe you have to suspend your intellect and power down your critical abilities, because thinking critically is not conducive for holding unto the 'black uplift' blind belief. Indeed you cannot use your brain too keenly if you are a 'black unity' proponent or else you would see clearly how the numbers dont add up and the fundamentals for achieving so called black unity (principally the committment of black men) dont exist to make it possible. Thus being all about black unity means you must depend on strong emotions to carry you through the inherent inconsistencies and glaring gaps of the pro-black unity position. You must switch off/down your brain activity to a level for this black unity spiel to make sense in the light of how things are. Which brings us right back to the cause of foolishness among black writers.
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Great article, Halima. I certainly hope you got the rest you needed in order to recharge your batteries. I understand what you’re saying in regards to a ‘what if’ scenario of black men disclosing their disinterest in bw as life mates, not because bw are emasculating, but because bm are blind followers to the trends wm set. However, I believe a few bm back in the 90s made these type of confessions that they believed ww were naturally better than bw, and they wanted nothing to do with bw. Instead of these bw listening to the raw truth from the horse’s own mouth and moving on with their lives, they decided to employ shaming tactics of what Evia dubbed as ‘The Contract’. They were trying to get anti-bw bm to honor the unofficial agreement of black love/unity. I believe you did a blog post about one of these shaming tactics from the young bw college students at Brown University many years ago, and how that resulted in an unmitigated PR disaster for them. I remember growing up watching all those talk shows where bw were practically begging bm to leave their non-bw partners and come back home. If they weren’t begging then they were shaming with honoring The Contract mess. Both strategies failed miserably and the bw always came off looking desperate, jealous, and very undesirable to ALL men. They played perfectly into bm’s self-serving agenda, while at the same time elevating other women at their expense.
ReplyDeleteI don’t know if the overwhelming majority of bw want to be set free and live a full life. I think there is more hope for the younger generation of black girls who have not yet come into full womanhood. I think a lot of older bw are married to martyrdom. They choose to perish at their own hands.
"Rival is the correct sentiment for how many black men now view black women, but poor black women always the last to figure things out and still running with the belief that black men are their 'brothers'."
ReplyDelete*This is a very key statement and they have to be shown and given anecdotes to demonstrate this fact. Black women it seems want people to think for them instead of thinking critically for themselves.
They/we [black women] have been trained to go by a certain set of orders within a matrix of sorts. And have been taking this blue pill over and over, while the rest of the world has moved on. Black men who regard this are not so much on the blue pill(in this sense that black women are) they in many cases help contribute to the matrix, at the time in a kind of matrix themselves. (I know it sounds twisty)
But I do notice that when life examples are brought to the surface and compare it with their own life, there is a kind of pensiveness that materializes on their faces. Perhaps a small spark of thinking on their own, instead relying on machines to do their breathing for them---an awakening out of a coma.
"If I wrote a ten page document about Vitamin C and eating oranges, surely along the way someone would ask, 'but cant you can get vitamin C from eating Apples or Kiwis or etc..' The fact that me, the writter, wrote a ten page article without reference to any other sources of Vitamin C (which is something even a 10 year old knows) would make me an absolute moron, in everyones eyes. But not in the black community."
ReplyDelete* Excellent way of putting it. And there are BETTER sources of Vitamin C Amla (Indian Gooseberry) being one of them. lol.
Miss Phantom
Stunning post. Hope you had a great vacation. I agree with all everybody has expressed. Sadly, I am beginning to think that due to the bc indoctrination, a lot of bw are damaged beyond repair too.
ReplyDeleteI don't usually comment, but I'm glad to see you back, Halima!
ReplyDeleteI hope you enjoyed your time off.
Your post was beautiful because it spoke the truth. However, it saddened me because of the simple fact that many black women still don't seem to get it. My heart aches for black women because so many of us are willing to settle for less than God's best for us.
You are right about black men seeing black women as rivals. I just recently had a discussion with a guy on youtube who stated that he didn't like soap operas showing more BW/WM than BM/WW relationships when in reality it was the reverse. Furthermore, he felt all this race-mixing wasn't good for the black race.
I told him that preservation of a race was a man's job and that if black men were so concerned, they could marry black women. No one was stopping them from doing so.
I told him it was sexist to allow black men to date outside their race but not allow black women to do the same. Finally, I told him that soaps showed more BW/WM relationships because their primary audience is women and they were trying to cater to the needs of their black female viewing audience.
He always had a quick comeback, but he has yet to respond after I made these last few comments.
I also wanted to say thank you and God Bless You for the work that you do. You are definitely helping to make the world a better place.
You bring up an interesting facet about intellectual discourse and the abandonment of it for emotionalism to cling to totems. It's also what many African Americans do regarding their nearly blind support of Obama. There's no room for any criticism as they take it as a personal assault. Some want to play devil's advocate an produce either or scenarios giving these men the benefit of the doubt. Even now with Van Jones leaving his WH position so many black women have been shocked to find out he's married to a white woman. I don't care about that but I do care about how so many women are so thoroughly indoctrinated to have assumed without checking that he would be automatically married to a black woman since he's espoused that black unity talk and Civil Rights when it was convenient for him. As soon as black women WAKE UP from the fog it's on, but is that even likely to ever happen on a mass scale? Not likely when so many "educated" women are as dense as rocks when it comes to real discernment about the fact these men are of NO VALUE WHATSOEVER to them collectively speaking. I'm beginning to wonder how this indoctrination could have taken so well and lasted for as long as it STILL does and what's really going on?
ReplyDeleteActs of Faith:
ReplyDeleteI'm beginning to wonder how this indoctrination could have taken so well and lasted for as long as it STILL does and what's really going on?
My reply:
Dreams and hopes from Big Momma's time when more black men (and especially the prominent ones) were "our shining princes" and the community really was a community and it had such high hopes.
Evia once called it "magical thinking," that if we say the magic words over and over again and "keep hope alive", things will get better.
Without any connection to notions of a black community and black men, they believe they will have nothing...they will feel they have lost their grounding, their identity, their blackness, culture, etc.
PVW stated...
ReplyDelete"Dreams and hopes from Big Momma's time when more black men (and especially the prominent ones) were "our shining princes" and the community really was a community and it had such high hopes.
Evia once called it "magical thinking," that if we say the magic words over and over again and "keep hope alive", things will get better.
Without any connection to notions of a black community and black men, they believe they will have nothing...they will feel they have lost their grounding, their identity, their blackness, culture, etc."
Those women are LOST. Their brains have been fried. The focus must CONTINUE to stay on the minority of BW who still have a chance.
We must continue to expose the CURRENT reality until it sticks.
The past is GONE never to return again. And really, everything couldn't have been that tight to begin with, since everything feel apart so FAST and almost completely in the aftermath of Civil Rights legislation.
The majority of BW simply must be written off because they've already voluntarily written THEMSELVES off.
That is their choice. WE have to make it PLAIN to the younger generation of BW - who haven't been emotionally disturbed yet - that there are BETTER, NORMAL, and POSITIVE choices to make. Positive life enhancing choices with a BIG payoff for them and their future children that are available to them NOW.
They don't have to end up in the pitiful and sorry position most BW have voluntarily placed themselves in.
Personally speaking, I'm not going to fight with anyone to save them. You're either on board or not.
The focus has to stay on the minority.
this is a fascinating discussion and I don't think the dynamics you're uncovering are unique to black men and black women! I think you are driving at some key, psycho-social mindsets that huge populations of white women would benefit from thinking about. Wow. I'm Jewish/white, by which I mean that my experience of being white is different from being a white WASP. I'd like to ask a very blunt question: is it OK for me to be in this discussion?
ReplyDeleteYup, many bm now see bw as rivals. Bm have no idea how feminized they look when they do this. This reminds me of a convo I had with a black misogynist a while back. He had the nerve to link one of the anti-bw youtube videos (on a board with mostly wm) and I brought in a video about how people often stereotype wm as serial killers but many bm have committed the same acts of murder...but we don't hear about it. It wasn't my intention to start the rivalry on that forum but he decided to go with it by bringing up the Duke rape hoax. What he failed to realize was that I had called it a hoax dozens of times on that blog so they were all aware of where I stood. But lo and behold, the black guy tried to connect me and other bw to the accused. I played my cards right and allowed him to eat his words. Needless to say he ended up in a verbal dispute with one of the wm posters, LOL on that very thread. Not all bm are that stupid but the ones who want to rival bw need to take heed. I don't know what it's like in the UK where you are, but here in the US, bm have a bloody history when it comes to dealing with whites. They are fighting a losing battle when it comes to rivalry with bw. This is not to say that bw should engage in such a rivalry. Whatever the case, I would encourage bw to visit blogs and forums hosted by whites in order to combat negative press put out by some bm.
ReplyDeleteThis is a great post but I do think all of the IR and BWE blogs are helping Black women. Going by the 2008 Census Marriage stats, I think black women are coming around - slowly but surley.
ReplyDeleteHere is the "RACE DIFFERENCE/4" section stats from the 2008 Marriage Census. The note at the bottom of the report says "Race is
regardless of hispanic orgin."
I used the "RACE DIFFERENCE/4" section as the main info because this is what the media and other reports tend to use. I'm sure the 2006 Census stats of 117,000 marriages between BW/WM is familiar with many people. Info from the "RACE DIFFERENCE/4" section has 18,000 more marriages between BW/non-Black Men than between BM/Non-Black Women.
Black Woman/White Man marriages 2006 at 117,000 and 2008 at 164,000 (47,000 marriages from the 2006 Census to the 2008 Census)
Black Woman/Asian Man marriages 2006 at 6,000 and 2008 at 12,000 (6,000 marriages from the 2006 Census to the 2008 Census)
Black Woman/Man "Other"marriages 2006 at 23,000 and 2008 at 27,000 (4,000 marriages from the 2006 Census to the 2008 Census)
Black Man/White Woman marriages 2006 at 286,000 and 2008 at 317,000 (31,000 marriages from the 2006 Census to the 2008 Census)
Black Man/Asia Woman marriages 2006 at 34,000 and 2008 at 44,000 (10,000 marriages from the 2006 Census to the 2008 Census)
Black Man/Woman "Other"marriages 2006 at 45,000 and 2008 at 39,000 (-6,000 marriages from the 2006 Census to the 2008 Census)
To check out the data visit:
http://www.census.gov/population/www/socdemo/hh-fam/cps2008.html
http://www.census.gov/population/www/socdemo/hh-fam/cps2006.html
Scroll to "Table FG3. Married Couple Family Groups, by Presence of Own Children Under 18, and Age, Earnings, Education, and Race
and Hispanic Origin of Both Spouses:" and download the CVS or Excel files."
To view files
http://office.microsoft.com/excel (Might have a Free trial)
http://www.openoffice.org/ (Free. Choose "Calc" from Open Office to view files after you install Open Office files)
http://docs.google.com (Should be able to view it here for free)
If someone can understand this data better, please give the info!
Also regarding Black Women and marriage -
ReplyDeleteIn the 2006 Census 71.1% of Black Women weren't married. That number dropped to 70.8% in 2008. And these stats are from ages 15+. I used the 15+ age on up, because that's what the media always quotes.
"Table A1. Marital Status of People 15 Years and Over, by Age, Sex, Personal Earnings, Race, and Hispanic Origin" Open and Download "Black Alone" and see the "Married Spouse Present, Married Spouse Absent" columns in the FEMALE section.
http://www.census.gov/population/www/socdemo/hh-fam/cps2006.html
http://www.census.gov/population/www/socdemo/hh-fam/cps2008.html
A 0.3% increase in *married* BW could be better, but I did notice that *unmarried* Hispanic women increased by 1.3%, *unmarried* Asian women increased by 0.1% and *unmarried* White women increased by 0.8%. And although they are all still married far more than Black Women overall, at least Black Women did increase in marriage, instead of decrease like all the rest. Maybe we'll catch up someday. LOL!
To view files
http://office.microsoft.com/excel (Might have a Free trial)
http://www.openoffice.org/ (Free. Choose "Calc" from Open Office to view files after you install Open Office files)
http://docs.google.com (Should be able to view it here for free)
If someone can understand this data better, please give the info!
Sorry, on the IR marriage stats I meant to write: Info from the "RACE DIFFERENCE/4" section has 16,000 (not 18,000) more marriages between BW/non-Black Men from 2006 to 2008 than between BM/Non-Black Women for the same period.
ReplyDeleteAlso, for the record, marriage between Black Men and Black Women grew from 3,965,000 in 2006 to 4,104,000 in 2008.
And to clarify the "Race is
regardless of Hispanic origin." These statistics do not take into account the mixing of ancestries within the same "race"; e.g. a marriage involving Indian and Japanese ancestries would not be classified as interracial due to the Census regarding both as the same category. Likewise, since Hispanic is not a race but an ethnicity, Hispanic marriages with non-Hispanics are not registered as interracial if both partners are of the same race (i.e. a White Hispanic marrying a non-Hispanic White partner, Afro-Latino marrying a Black partner, etc).
OK, I think that's it. LOL!
Well Done! Glad you are back and continue to write more quality stuff! Keep up the good work! God bless you!
ReplyDeleteWelcome back. Judging by the quality of your post, the time away did you well.
ReplyDeleteHi!
ReplyDelete"this is a fascinating discussion and I don't think the dynamics you're uncovering are unique to black men and black women!"
Yeah, I've heard of some Asian men going all "white men are stealing our women!!!" and other Asians both men and women telling them to knock it off ("that attitude's not attractive," "I can date who I want," etc.) and some Asian men going all "my black wife says this happens to black women too."
BTW, I actually found this page when I was looking for a Maya Angelou reference. Somewhere in her autobiography series she talked about how some people say only guys risk rejection in dating and romance but girls can't answer no or yes unless guys ask us first and some girls don't get asked, and I can't remember which of the 6 books this was in.
Shel, thanks for those stats :)
ReplyDelete