Thursday, February 28, 2013

Do we Black Women occupy the blind spot of society?

I received an email the other day from a black woman who was really down about being ignored and made invisible in our society despite doing her very best in every way. I share her frustration.

When it comes to black women and girls, some folk suddenly don’t know or quickly forget where the boundaries of decency are...congrats to the brilliant Quvenzhane Wallis

I was actually thinking about it the other day when at church. Most of the black women who are well put together, slim and well coiffed and with the best voices in the choir were all ringless. This contrasted glaring with their white counterparts. Even those who would in our society be classed as homely were married or in some kind of permanent relationship.

Of course this has a lot to say about the view of white men and marriage and wanting to be with women in such arrangements, and in addition, says a lot about the fact that the word is not out yet that black women themselves desire these partnerships and are happy to expand beyond black men. But despite the explanations that we can read into the situation, it is all very cold comfort.

We know that the black community represents the 'no marriage zone' for black women, (despite the fact that one or two of your girlfriends managed to get the ring...eventually, this still holds true) and this is why we BWE writers always strongly advice black women to get away from black enclaves and black social milieus where they are not at all taken seriously for marriage.
 
However and also, many white men don’t think they should/can ask black women out, despite all the signs that black women give out, and this is just a fact and I too am getting a bit 'p$%#3' with the excuse that somehow people just don’t know that a black woman might want to be with a man. Indeed I have seen white women who look like they 'don't do men' who men still go after and pursue and never ask, 'is she open to men, to my advances, or is she looking to date?' No one asks these questions, they just assume she is in the dating and relationship game until it is said otherwise. However with black women, it appears the opposite view holds for us and that is, 'she doesn’t want a man, until she says otherwise.' This is what black women face, the general assumption working against them and frustrating their relationship ambitions, the assumption that unless told otherwise we are not into love and relationships and are not a natural target for men's attention, we are 'Miss independent', who doesn’t want or need to be bothered by all this men-woman and pairing off business, we have better and more serious things to do with our time!'

There is nothing wrong with sadly acknowledging the fact that black women occupy the blind spot of society. It helps to acknowledge it and not pretend or skip over the sadness and try to claim it doesn’t affect you especially when it hits hard certain days.

The thing though is don’t waste too much time just feeling sad. It is an issue that affects all black women (some more and some less), which means that you must throw everything at the problem to dig yourself out of this general black female predicament. Like I have said many times, you earn money and resources so you can shore yourself up in areas of struggle, deficiency, shortfalls etc. Not all of us will have troubles or struggle in the same areas of life. I might have a problem in the area of finding relationships and you might have it in the area of finding a good job. You must divert resources to ensure that you help yourself out in the area of your struggles and I must also spend my finances to help me in my area of struggles.

This is how one proactive black women reader of this blog has put into effect my strong suggestion to get registered with a Matchmaker to, as she put it 'expedite' meeting a man for marriage.
 
On another note, I want to tell you that you certainly reach and help a lot of women who read your blog and maybe don't comment on what they learn. We are definitely learning the lessons and applying them in real life. I know the feedback you receive may not reflect this.

For example, on your blogs about self-improvement and expanding your dating set you mentioned a few times about paying for a matchmaking service to expedite meeting Quality men. A few weeks ago I took the plunge and invested a significant amount of money in a matchmaking service! I've been online for years, sometimes meeting great men (usually they lived far away), and I started to get frustrated with the weeding out process. I'm very excited because tonight I have my first 'matchmade' date! So thank you so much, I never thought of taking my personal life to this level until you brought it up.

Ladies, if you can afford (or maybe if you cannot) you should definitely consider a matchmaking service. Yes, it's expensive, but the men usually pay 2-3 times more. I did not know this until recently. Men are not going to fork over several thousands of dollars if they are not seriously looking for a woman who has wife material! These men are SERIOUS! Plus, I know so much about the guy before we've even met.

And yes, I will admit I was initially hesitant because I want to only be matched with White or Asian men. Most matchmaking services are run by (White) women and I feared some sort of sabotage. Well, I can tell you ladies, not all are like that. After some initial surprise, (I was very blunt with my preferences; and on the phone I do not sound "Black") my matchmaker is excited and is making every effort to get me dates with the men I want. I do recommend that you are very blunt with your preferences. You do not want to fork over hundreds/thousands of dollars and get matched with Black men; if that is not your preference. These services only guarantee a minimum number of dates and you don't want to waste a single one!


The fact that we are not seen or appreciated and ignored on the level of being a woman is ugly and disheartening and it is OK to acknowledge this, but if you stay in this state of being sad, what good will it do. You must never give up in trying to turn the tide for yourself. Acknowledge the sickness, the pure twisted nature of society with respect to black women, take a week off if you like, however the sooner you push back the feelings of sadness and get back into doing something, the better. Lastly, do not spread your discouragement online to other black women. Some of us just spread discouragement, we do not realize we can seriously damage others. It is a mature acting woman who knows she is going through a down time and just cuts off and takes time out, so as to not spread negativity. Share positivity and dont feel that you have a right to offload your ill feelings and negative emotions on other black women. What might be a passing phase for you may then very well bring about the downfall of loads of other black women. 


Next blog post available from 16th March

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7 comments:

  1. Nice article and interesting too, thought you'd like to see this video about why white guys like black women

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymVrD5kjIRw

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  2. Younger black women are mixing with non-black men and vice-versa.

    Also, the number of tv shows and advertisements featuring BW/WM pairings has grown.

    It's happening...

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  3. Anonymous3:33 pm

    When I was a teen learning how to drive my instructor was adamant about telling students to always watch out for cars traveling in your blind spot. The vehicle you can’t see can cause more damage than the one you see. With that said, your blog post caused me to ponder, how can bw/bg take advantage of this invisibility or blind spot?
    The available bw women I talk to despise online dating. Should bw start seriously considering more non-traditional ways of meeting mates, i.e., matchmakers and meet-ups? Investing our time and resources where we can get the highest return.
    This reminded me of a post (I couldn’t find it) Khadija discussed the importance of operating with stealth. I have applied this to my life. I no longer tell people my plans unless they can help me get results. It is amazing how people think they are entitled to your life. Anyway, I remember times when I would blab my plans to the wrong people and they would go right into seek and destroy mode. So to those folk I have become invisible.

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  4. The matchmaking service sounds great to me I wonder if there's a UK based matchmaking service that is NOT affiliated with any particular religion. I'd love to say that I have the £1,000's squirreled away for this but I just don't and I'm currently dpending my time working and furthering my education.

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  5. I told my mother all about Quvenzhane Wallis from what I'd seen on the internet stemming from pointless hipster blogs like The Onion letting loose on the poor little girl like they nor anyone else ever did on Jodie Foster, Drew Barrymore, Lindsay Lohan, Dakota Fanning or any of Ozzy Osbourne's kids. I'm glad that enough people spoke up against The Onion to make them apoligise and retract their little joke but this onslaught of attacks against black women, girls and female fetuses has been a long time coming because even in the black construct black girls and women were barely ever treated with delicacy, empathy, a sense of protection and worthiness and as the decades roll by before our eyes these examples of standing up for justice for black girls and women and any empathy at all grow less and less.

    Halima did say on this blog recently that non-bkacks of all stripes will take their cue from black people regarding how to talk to, approach, and treat black women and girls. If everybody else sees that BM and BW have no problem with treating BW and girls as mules, hosts for parasites, 'whipping girls', and the butt of some cosmic joke then they won't feel that there's any problem with that kind of treatment of a person either. BW had even as much as the past 20+ years to clear this up by stoping the monster of misogyny in its tracks and putting people in their place when it comes to treatment of BW and girls from black and white directions but of course BW thought it was much more important to their and their daughters' futures to have their noses up the posteriors of all BM including the most criminal and the most predatory ones.

    Now with the internet age many young and older BW are speaking out and making positive actions against the monster that's grown too large now and I thank God that I've finally been able to witness such a site and I thank God for BWE but it is WAY the heck late in the game even though yes it has to be defeated and killed off, these anti- BW forces but come on BW had plenty of time to crush this while it was smaller back in the Typewriter Age.

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  6. Yes Energize you are absolutely right and those wrong people of any color and gender are exactly why I need therapy right now but I'm happy to see a therapist to work out my demons and any toxic memories in order to improve. But stealth is the ONLY way around saboteurs of BW who live to search and destroy your right to be happy and fulfilled.

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  7. Nice to see this addressed. It is terrible to see the hearts of Black women being crushed yet again by men because of this invisibility nonsense.

    Sad how some people want to take the attack on a young Black girl as yet another opportunity to blame Black women & girls for being hated for decades/centuries by Black males. SMH.

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