WAKE UP AMER!CA

So I manged to catch a portion of CNN’s Black in America “The Black Woman and Family” and one thing I was floored by was one woman’s solution to the crisis of missing fathers in the Black community; “Marry Your Baby’s Daddy Day”…WHAT?!  So the solution to missing fathers in America’s Black community is for them to marry their mothers?  I will give it to her, the creator does offer marriage counseling for some time before, but I just feel like we should be focusing on teaching and enabling Black America to have hope and strive for the best,  no matter the circumstances from whence you came.  That means treating our Black citizens with enough compassion and respect to provide them with the encouragement and support necessary to progress both personally and economically.

On raising interracial children:

Later an interracial couple made up of a Black woman and White man talked about the raising of their kids to which the mother stated,  “I want to raise my kids Black.”  How in the hell do you raise your kids Black?  As a biracial person myself, this has to be the most offensive thing you can say to someone who is made of more than one “race.”  Essentially, you’re denying part of your child’s identity.  This same mother believes that her kids will be more accepted by Blacks…that’s simply untrue, at least it has been for many.  Yes, your child will have difficulties with other people accepting their racial makeup, but the solution is not to deny part of them and raise them as what you think it means to raise a ”Black” child.  We should be exposing our interracial children to all sides and aspects of their heritage instead of limiting them early on in life and essentially facilitating racial identity issues in the future.  This message goes out to all of America.  WAKE UP!

What is “being Black”?

Later this month CNN will host a two night series called Black in America.  This show, hosted by Soledad O’Brien, will examine the lives of African Americans covering a range of topics including academics, health and family.  As part of the special, you can view celebrities and leaders share their opinions about Black culture.  I took special note of Whoopi Goldberg’s points about being called “articulate” and in light of Obama’s candidacy for presidency, this is an idea that is just as applicable now.  She also discusses her own personal philosophy view of race that I very much agree with.  Soledad O’Brien explains the intent behind the special and her hopes that it will garner discussion and provide a lot of questions for all of us to think about.

And, the series also includes an episode about the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. commemorating the anniversary of his death.  I would definitely encourage you to view the videos on the website and the issues they bring up.  You can view the videos here.

Tyra’s Black Women’s Summit

 

Emmy winning, Tyra Banks from The Tyra Banks Show.

This afternoon the Tyra Banks show re-aired an episode of her first annual summit for Black women.  One of the most controversial topics being relationships.  This episode featured a panel of contributors consisting of black gay males, heterosexual interracial couples and single black men.  One of the most striking things said on the show was that one woman stated that she was having trouble meeting black men because of a few simple facts:  that black men are either insecure about being with a strong black woman, gay, married or already has children.  To me, these sound like reasons any person might be having difficulty looking for a partner.  One woman, an editor for Essence magazine (Angela Burt-Murray) even had the audacity to say that women of other races are taking “our men.”  That is another post in itself.

Now, I’ll address what some of these women were saying about their dating lives:

1.  Black men are scared of a strong black woman.

The truth is Black men are scared of scary women!  There is a lot to examine, and I think that one of the things we need to consider here is the idea of strength in black consciousness.  Because of the harsh oppression that African Americans have faced there is an inherent need to overcome, unite and be very strong.  While I can certainly recognize the significance of this need, I also believe there is a trend in the Black community to overcompensate for the painful past.  This manifests itself in one very prominent archetype, the independent Black woman who doesn’t ”need a man,” and I think what we see here is, in an effort to be strong, we see Black women act impulsively in disagreements and speak of their independence day in and day out.  I can certainly recognize the benefit here, but one of the byproducts of this epidemic is for Black women to continue to be seen as negative and with a lot of attitude.  Black women don’t need to overcompensate here.  Be yourself, allow yourself to be vulnerable and emotional and then you can really allow another person to fall for you.  Stereotypes are meant to be broken.

2.  Black men are gay.

This idea stems from, what I believe, is a ethnic community’s rich history in Christianity and traditional religion.  The truth is that there are Black men who are gay, straight, bi and everywhere in between.  I think if the Black community really wants to practice a strong sense of unity, then there is a need to stop viewing any Black male who doesn’t fit the stereotypical Black male box as gay (and to stop seeing “gay” as wrong, in general).  I think is the most prominent reason why there are Black men on the “down low,” as they call it.  My advice:  restructure what masculinity means in the Black community to reflect honesty, truth and responsibility instead of the traditional gender role that currently prevails that only serves to limit us all.

3.  Most Black men are married.

This affects anyone who seeks to date a Black man, not just Black women.

4.  He already has kids.

I think this is also indicative of holding onto those rigid stereotypes of what it means to be a Black man or Black woman.  The media and personal experience have told us all over and over again that Black males are deadbeat dads, and that if a Black male is a father then there must be “baby’s mama” drama.  First, we need to let go of the term “baby’s mama,”  it is incredibly degrading to any woman who has a child with a father she is no longer with, how about…she’s the MOTHER of his child.  Second, there are tons of conflicts and arguments and discussions to be had when children are part of the picture whether the parents are together or not.  If you don’t want drama with the parent of your child, be a little more careful about who you choose to have sex with and have a baby with and don’t allow yourself to be susceptible to it.  Responsible fatherhood should be revered in any community, whether that man is with the mother of his child(ren) or not.  Black women, allow yourselves to begin to look at “non-traditional” and “single-parent” families as options too, there is nothing with them.