Thoughts for the Week

Who is or who isn’t a BWE writer/activist?

I can tell you categorically who isn’t!

If a black woman makes it black women’s obligation to rescue the race or uplift or save the race, that black woman is NOT part of BWE thinking. Don’t get it twisted please. Refer to this blog post for more on the 6 key markers of BWE writing.

Battle of the mind

Watch out for those who want to defeat you mentally, or who sow seeds unknowingly or deliberately that defeat bw in the mind so that they take themselves out of the game of striving for betterment. Evia reminds us that life is a battle of the mind. Some of us think we can consume media and be around certain ideas and attitudes day and day out and be unaffected. Most of us don’t realize that some of these ideas attack our self confidence, we only know there is damage when we find we have high levels of anxiety when we are called upon to do certain things etc. And in a world like ours where a high level of confidence is increasingly required and required to be turned on at the drop of a hat, some of us are seriously undercutting our abilities by ingesting negativity, doubt and being around self undermining chatter. And self undermining chatter doesnt have to be obviously negative of self-debasing, it can be an attitude or behavior that locks in self defeating patterns.

Ever since the issue of bw loving beyond race got given another high profile boost with Richard Banks book, I have been noting how some bw would rather talk about how ‘no one wants them’, and how undesirable they are (in the comment section of mainstream publications) as if they can actually by saying this attemtping to reinforce the idea of bw undesirability that might be 'dissipating' because of these kinds of media highlighting. I have read a fair few comment sections, even commentaries on this whole issue of bw dating out and most often it isn’t even others telling bw they are undesired, it is bw themselves introducing that bit of information.

I know that there are some bw who cant believe any good about themselves because they have been fatally damaged in this regard but I also know that many of these commentors have seen and even experienced white men being attracted to them or their freinds or family members (because these examples are all around us especially given that about 1in every 6 bw who is married is married to a non-black man) and thus to continue to offer the notion of bw undesirability seems quite deliberately about thwarting ‘attempts’ to get bw to break bw free from the notion that they can and should only aspire to be with bm! 

They subtly execute this plan to close bw off within the walls of Black community, reminding others of how bw are unattractive, just in case they have forgotten why they need to keep away from bw or why bw should view the whole debate to expand their horizons as invalid. It is indeed amazing how bw would do anything to prevent the ‘loosening’ of bw from the black pact.  I am convinced that whether these women are aware, they are doing this or not, they are colluding with the agenda of keeping bw from freeing themselves from race conscription (a lot of bw mindlessly drive forward their own oppression).
A lot of bw have become poisonous to bw generally and sane black women need to get away from their company least they begin to mimic the patterns of behaviour and attitudes that continues the self -segregation of bw.

It is clear that self-spite is becoming a common response among black women.


Pretty Much on your own

We all go through life pretty much on our own. In other words no one takes us by the hand and walks us through life, instead we have people who might come alongside us from time to time but ultimately it is down to us to live our lives. Thus I am worried when bw don’t want to put one foot in front of another or take risks but need detailed guidance on how to go about living the suggestions made by BWE etc. Stop asking for step by step guidance. See yourself as an adult who is has to get into the rough and tumble of life. Life is about risk taking about something to show for being on this planet for 80 years and yes some of what you will have to show will be scars and mistakes mixed in with the victories won because you made an attempt.


Continue to side-step

Here are other things you have to side step as black women (continuing on our theme of the last blog post).

• Side step the matrydom life expected of bw
• Side step the fact that media doesnt favour and is even hostile to bw by creating your own impression
• Side step the injunction to be with only black men and if not then alone
• Side step the push to make you responsbile for black men and for black community

Wondering about Interracial dating?


I have written an E-book e-Book that gives a comprehensive insight into the relationship reality facing black women today, including her Interracial Dating Option. Get yourself clued up!

Questions to be sent to: relationshipadvice@dateawhiteguybook.com

Become side-steppers par excellence

Oh dear, just as soon as I thought I would have a spare moment to begin work on the Facebook page I find myself thrown into a personal time sapping project. For those who have signed up and those who requested for invites, I am on the case, so please be patient with me!

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I tell black women that they have to learn to become side steppers per excellence, this I believe is the primary task which confronts black women today because there are just too many obstacles, traps, plans etc that are laid out ahead of each individual black woman. People want black women to be this or that and there is a 'rig' in the system that helps folks conveyor belt black women towards these designated and appropraite 'places' and roles determined for black womanhood.

You must learn to side-step peoples expectations, their traps, side step the places they have prepared for you to occupy, side step their anger when you dont comply... all the while doing it with a smile on your face pretending you dont see their consternation and incredulity when you dont go the path they feel is the one you are meant to be on.

The modern black woman who will succeed will be a 'secret agent' in pursuit of her interests, and she must carry it all out with stealth ane finesse.

An aside here, I found myself thinking the other day about how black women who boast twice the college degrees of black men and etc are easily manipulated by these same black men who dont have as many degrees and qualifications. These men are able to control many bw who boast of having PHDs and the likes, wow! I was watching this manipulation/control dynamic unfold the other day on a black website, how as soon as a certain black woman began to say things that were essentially 'shooting herself in the foot', all of a sudden she acquired a whole host of black male cheerleaders who suddenly materialized to encourage her in her foot shooting 'enterprise'. I sat there shaking my head with a wry smile.

Have you noticed that black men are in no way confused about where their interests lie! You couldnt even convince a black man who is drunk to change the dynamics of a situation to change to flow against his interest, you cannot convince a black man who is half asleep to work against his direct self interest the way that black women do as a matter of course. Like a heat seeking missle, a black man knows where his interests lies even if hidden under layers of rubble or crisscrossed with a thousand and one options.

Yet faced with the choice of doing something to damage their interests and doing something that would further their inetersts, it is black women who are often scratching their heads wondering which they should take, and that is of course if they are able to distinguish between the two in the first place!

Whenever I see a situation online where a gaggle of black men have gathered to cheer a black woman on, just know that woman has a gun pointed at her foot!

Anyway learn to side step peoples schemes and plans, their machinations, their ideas of where you should be placed as a black woman, what weight you should embrace, what reward for your efforts, essentially the pillars of your identity. You will even get pressured by black women into these appropraite roles for the black woman so in essence you have to learn to do this side-stepping dance with all and everyone.

Take time out to create a picture of who you are and what kind of life you want to lead and your goals for different areas of life, make it as detailed as possible. Over time you can refine this picture of you, afterall we all change and so does our priorities, as we get shaped and changed by life and by encounters with people, places and ideas, however at least you will begin your refining with a clear understanding of what you want for yourself and what you are departing from.

It is important to know yourself before others tell you who you are and as a black woman many such others will want to 'plug' you into their set up, their ideals and their vision of the world. Apparently for many, black women are not and cannot be independent entities with the rights to self-determination. If black women choose to go against what is expected or deemed right for them, it seems to unbalance the 'identity' of a whole host of third parties!

Wondering about Interracial dating?



I have written an E-book that gives a comprehensive insight into the relationship reality facing black women today, including her Interracial Dating Option. Get yourself clued up!

Questions to be sent to: relationshipadvice@dateawhiteguybook.com

Face Book Page 'Black Women Reintegrating'- Update

Please bear with me all those who have requested an invite, I am still figuring out a few things!...

Over the years, my work has shifted axis into being about the overall well-being of black women (BWE for short), from having a purely black women into interracial dating focus. I have been thinking about a general theme under which to summarize my work as it now stands, to encapusulate what my core thrust is and also my evolution of thinking, and also give a broad scope for any possible expansion of the work.

Over the months I have come to see that a whole lot of what i do can be said to be 'calling' black women to reintegrate into general society, to get into mainstream and the general playing field and succeed. To learn how to win within the society in which they find themselves.

After all these years, I have come to see that very little benefit accrues to black women 'holed' up both physically, socially and indeed mentally in the 'black community' context. I am watching freinds dry up on the vine, loose sparkle and enthusiasm expending all their energy for naught trying to patch back the community, when 10 holes appear for every one they fix. When I tell them that saving the black community is conditional and conditioned on black men themselves being inetersted and fully participating, they seem to get it on a logical level but their emotions are still tied in and invested in the old failed model. I have talked about black women accepting, greiving and moving on in the past and the sooner some of you complete the process the sooner many of you can get on with reaching those goals of life that will gladen your hearts in the fading years!

Richard Banks' Sister Speaks!

Black women continue to 'sit' out the general game of life waiting at the sidelines for a promised black social resurrection that never comes. Many black women particularly above the age of 35 will never be able to to recover the years and resources they have invested in this mirage.

Black women who circumscribe themselves within 'black community' as their only or primary operating area, run a great risk of experiencing lack, limitiation and misuse. This reasoning runs counter to everything we have been told about how 'our communtites' provide us with succour and nurture and that the wolf will eat us if we move out of the protective domain of other blacks.

I have resisted a social network page, but I now see a need for a page on which to continue this particular element of the BWE work ie bw re-integrating that dont fit under this current blog theme.

My page will focus on a community of black women (with a few others), who are serious about the challenge of reintegrating back into the general societal playing field and winning within it.

Some reasons for the facebook group around reintegrating

1) I do not agree or believe that Racism is the main culprit for the areas of social underachievement of black women. I say 'the areas' because we all can see that black women are making great strides in education and business however there are areas which mean so much to black women that they cant seem to get fulfillment. We know them all, OOW, singleness. There are also other attendant issues due to holing up within the black 'confines,' including increase in HIV infections, black women increasingly becoming victims of violence, street harrasment and other black male entitlement expressions, black women pouring out their resources and recieving nothing back neither having anything to show for all their efforts etc etc.

These are areas that are about making black women's lives meaningful.

The notion that all these issues are because of overarching racism is revealed as false especially as issues like singleness numbers and OOW numbers where not as high as they are today as little as 30 years ago! I believe this notion of 'racism' is the issue ior that only when racism is tackled can black women's situation improve is a notion blocking out useful discussions about how black women can turn their fortunes around. I believe this idea also provides the greatest mental block to all black women can be, and enjoy in the now! I hope that with the FBG we can look at and exchange real strategies for succesfully navigating mainstream which is where black will now have to forage for her sustenance.

2) I believe that it is only by choosing to move and carve out a space in mainstream that black women can enjoy better personal and social conditions, achieve respite and social consideration. Think of all the issues plaguing the black woman in her community, yet many want to maintain that it is in this community that black women can experience love, acceptance, belonging, and support. This assertion is simply theoretical thinking in the face of stark social indicators that show that black women would be safer, more accepted for their skin tones and hair texture, less victims of crime and harrassment by positioning themselves in a broader social context. We hoped that we would never have to say this but it is undeniable now that black women on average will experiencing better conditions and 'peace of mind' by locating themselvces out of the black community. I hope to with this facebook page that we can 'define' the common issues affecting black women so as to come up with strategies.

3) I feel strongly that it is a matter of urgency to pass on 'intelligence' on effective living to the younger black women. As I have written in a fair few blog articles, we are at the point where we are or even have lost a generation of black girls because we the elders (even the black community as a whole) has essentially thrown them to the wolves. We abdicated this responsibility of guding the young girls aright and have left young black women to fend for themselves and come up with their own survival strageies and it is no suprise that many have gone astray and internalized inferiority and low esteem giving the toxicity and dysfuntion within which they are functioning.

There is also the deliberate misguiding I see happening. I do not think the lack of coaching and effective training of black girls is something that just happened but continues the age old agenda of 'preparing' the young black girl to be the 'galley slave' to their community. Indeed if they get 'consumed' by the toxicity and dysfunction evident in black enclaves, this is seen as all part of the function that black women perform (collateral damage and canon fodder) thus there is deliberate misguidance and lack of direction giving.

Many black girls are also trapped in an atmosphere saturated in anti-black woman sentiment which means they are unable to tell who is for them or against them. They gleam information within an anti-black woman set up as well as anti-black woman portals and references that they dont know how 'being for them' looks and feels therefore they lack the ability to determine freind from foe.

4) Mainstream challenges you to do better, to be world class rather than mediocre because you are appealing to a wider audience and working within healthy wider competition spaces. These mainsteam conditions sharpen you. Unfortunately many black women are currently guided by in-group thoughts, priorities and chatter, they are becoming even more insular and unable to make sense beyond the black community realm. It cringed when I heard a black woman speak to a public forum a couple of days ago, because even though I could tell that she was speaking from the 'black ideology', she sounded so off current thought and reasoning. She was taking about things which society had now thought was a most ineffective way of viewing the situation. A lot of black women are 'off' in their thoughts and thinking and it is because they have cut themselves off wider thought systems and are holed up mentally in the 'black community' context.

and so
I am still tinkering around on the facebook page at the moment but if you do feel you can identify with the core concept of the group, feel free to ask for an invite. I reiterate, there will be an empasis on black women integrating into mainstream to win. There will be no discussions on how to bring back black unity and black women have to be happy to move on from worrying about black men and their situation/issues.

Facebook group is 'Black women Re-integrating'- Halima Anderson


Wondering about Interracial dating?


I have written an E-book that gives a comprehensive insight into the relationship reality facing black women today, including her Interracial Dating Option. Get yourself clued up!

Questions to be sent to: relationshipadvice@dateawhiteguybook.com

Who you calling Beautiful!

Miss Universe Leila with Mum + family members

Ok so we all saw folks go hard after Miss Universe to ‘catch her riddn' dirty.’ So far they have said she is not Angolan, others say she did not enter validly and there have been talks about forged papers (why is it that whenever a black/non white person is scrutinized we will soon come up with the ol’ illegal immigrant routine). In addition to all the ‘she came in the wrong way’ talk, Miss France directly attacked her win by taking the issue directly to her looks and her manner (google it if you want to read that whole business not worth the folder it is saved in!).


I guess we can all admit that all these reactions speak to a ‘discomfort’ in Miss Angola winning the crown of Miss Universe. One wonders at this because she isn’t the first black woman to win it.

I reviewed a few youtubes after the event and what I saw gave me an inkling into all the nervousness. I saw a woman having fun with her beauty, a woman who was in no way doubting that she should be there and comfortable with the idea of being judged as worthy of the crown. I believe this is the root of the discomfort. ‘If you are a black winner, act like you know it was ‘given’ to you seems to be the general consensus for black beauty queens, not that you took your place among the beauties of the world. Leila wasn’t arrogant, but relaxed with her beauty.

As an aside, I see a lot of bautiful black women around me but very few are relaxed in their beauty, there is often a hard edge there as if waiting for someone to come and accuse them. Are they psyching themselves up to accept looking beautiful, or is it the same ol' life beat down at work? 

From start to finish there was a knowing twinkle and fun to Miss Angola as a woman she was relaxed with her beauty.

The other thing I noticed was that in many folks mind there was a resistance to the idea of now having to take black women seriously in the beauty stakes.

I was reading a few message boards and their comments before Miss Angola’s win. They noticed that she was there but very few put her in top 10!

Peoples impression of beauty and of beauty queen winners adjusts itself to the judges vote over time. Case in point, no one doubts that Miss India is always a serious contender in these Miss universe and Miss world pagents, when over a decade ago they would have made anyone’s top twenty list. We have learnt to ‘appreciate’ the beauty of Miss India (which by the way has been there all along), because India pulled off a back to back win  at a Miss world contest (or was it Miss universe) a few years ago. When an Indian winner suceeded another Indian winner, well, we no longer take Miss indias for granted.

I also remember the first time reality shows like ‘American idol’ hit our screens. In the beginning no one could call the winner, we all sat glued to the TV, pitting our wisdom against that of others. Very soon a formula emerged and we started to pick our winners based on how we thought the judges would vote and it was all unconscious. When they did win we hailed them the real and undisputed winners and held our judgement as ‘independent’. But was it really!

I saw the message boarders do the same thing, that is pick winner who were the usual suspects. So they raved about Miss Ukraine, Miss Russia, Miss USA and they didn’t pick one black contestant but tokenized Miss Angola (so they weren’t blind to her beauty afterall!).

Anyway when she won, many started reassessing their judgement and admitting they could now see why she was Miss Universe. They could see 'this' and 'that' beautiful trait in her (which had been there all along mind you). So she could well have been veiled until the judges decision forced them to go back to their initial impressions which they discounted and buried in their subconscious bid to choose the winner according to the usual ways these competitions tend to go.

Of course the usual racists emerged with the usual stereotypes to keep things rooted in the past.
 
I wasnt too worried about them but am happy some folks were jolted into the place where they would have a 'quiet' reflection on how and who they judge to be beautiful!
 

You are the Pathfinders for your life
Black women need to understand that they are the pioneers in this new and exciting life of abundance and liberty they hope to enjoy. Many of you are having a hard time because you are looking to older others to provide guidance. These others either have stale and even dangerous advice for you or they are like many black mothers I see today who dont even know which way is up!

I live on the outskirts of London at this point and I often see young African girls left to fend for themselves. The mothers are there but being socially backwards, isolated, church mad and of course working low paying gigs, these African mothers dont have the vital and strategic information needed to help direct their daughters to a higher plane of living.

Yes I am being a bit harsh here but the gist of what I am saying remains true, many black mothers are so out of modern life, they have out of kilter prorities and funny notions in place that it is actually dangerous for these women to give advice to anyone! Many of the daughters understand this ,but when they look to others they still get offered outdated directives on how to take on life. See many black women are carried away by women who look together, have their hair 'did', wear expensive shoes and gold watches but they are still continuing the agenda of 'farming' black women for the work of the black community. These women have refused to come to terms with modern society but want to hold to black indignation and continue ancient feuds and keep ruminating on past slights. They still want an us versus them situation with black and white and they would rather die than allow a reapproachnment between the races. They are so emotionally attached to never ending the black-white feud almost as if they are sworn to it for eternity. This mindset keeps them and women who look to them for advice in emotional and social lack and limitation regardless of the rolex watch!

I have instructed a freind to let go of the emotionally draining battle she is having with her mother and just accept that she is on her own and going to have to rise to the task of finding her way through this world. She is going to have to be savvy, look for mentors and cultivate the necesary attitudes to enable people take to her and show her the ropes. Her mother is one of those who still talks about 'finding a man in church' lol, she could well be in a bubble for all the advice she gives and insists her daughter follow.

No wonder many black women fail, or they reach a career hieght and then make a false move. Most of our mothers never walked the corriders of power and werent privy to how things are run so even with the best of intentions they dont have the right advice for their daughters. For many black women who live in europe, we will actually be the first 'elder' generartion to pass on wisdom for living, to those coming behind!

I will expand this discussion in a future article.

 
Wondering about Interracial dating?

I have written an E-book that gives a comprehensive insight into the relationship reality facing black women today, including her Interracial Dating Option. Get yourself clued up!

Questions to be sent to: relationshipadvice@dateawhiteguybook.com