The Myth of the Super Black Woman

At the risk of offending women in general and black women specifically I have undertaken the task of destroying a commonly held myth by both whites and blacks. This myth has so permeated our collective conscious that it is often depicted in story and movie. This mythical black woman is often times portrayed as some super human single black mother who has overcome tremendous obstacles to raise her family despite the odds. It has given way to the belief by many that black women have some inherent strength or ability that allows them to be able to raise children successfully without men. The danger of this myth is that because of it today many black women are choosing to do precisely that. They have accepted and fostered this false belief to the point that many look at men as merely sperm donors and have no expectations of their presence in the lives of their children. Let me state unequivocally and without wavering the experiment of women raising children by themselves has failed and failed miserably.

Due to the fact that so many men have allowed themselves to be silenced by feminists today any male that in any way calls into question a woman’s desire to give birth, raise, and fail her children is considered a chauvinist. Because we have allowed women to frame the arguments surrounding family, children, and reproduction men no longer have any opportunity to take part in the discussions or analysis of these issues. Despite the propaganda of some women and the lack of concern by so-called news organizations the evidence is clear. The vast majority of children raised in single women head of households are suffering and as a result the society at large is suffering. The society is suffering because not only do these children create social problems, but this lifestyle is growing throughout our society. Granted divorce is playing a larger and larger role in our society and creating a large number of these homes, but what is also playing a major role is the desire of women to have children without the expectation of having men in the lives of their children.

To me for a woman to deliberately have children without the expectation of having the father in that child’s life is the epitome of selfishness. With all of the empirical data we now have concerning the ill-effects of such a household on the great majority of our children it would be considered unconscionable for anyone but a woman to consider such a choice. I don’t agree with the logic that many of these children are accidents or mistakes of reckless people. If you make a mistake and have a child under these conditions that is one thing, but if you have multiple children from multiple men then this is no longer a mistake it is a lifestyle choice. The evidence is clear that not only is this detrimental to our children’s well being, but also to our nation’s well being. It is not about a woman being strong enough to raise children alone. An example would be if I break the doorknob on my door and I use some rope to open and close the door, granted that would work but that is not how the door was designed to work. No matter how I would like for it to be otherwise the fact remains I am making the best out of a bad situation. Young women who are raised in fatherless homes make up 85% of the future single unwed mothers so we are perpetuating the education, crime, and social problems into generation after generation. The proof is that in the 1960’s 20% of all black children were being raised in single mother households; today that number is almost 70%.

In spite of the rare success stories that we see on the television the truth is that most of these children grow up in and remain in poverty, they are poorly educated, and prone to criminal activity. We hear about the 15% that are successful and ignore the 85% who are not. Imagine if at your job you were 85% wrong about whatever it is you do and then not only were you not terminated but you were promoted as a success story. Black women are not genetically or culturally disposed to be able to withstand the rigors of raising children alone, no woman is. The sad part is that this is not a problem of poor or teenage women, but a choice being made by older women. The majority of new unwed mothers are women over 21. We have turned having a baby into a fashion accessory or a substitute for missing intimacy.

There will be those who criticize me for "picking" on the women, but let’s be honest women have always driven the reproduction and repopulation of the species. It was the morals of women in the 1960’s that had the rate at 20% not the morals of men. There will be those who say black women don’t have the requisite number of potential partners and my answer to that is that if black women are doing such a good job of raising these young men why are there not enough good men? Are there other external reasons for the lack of good black male suitors? Of course there is. There is racism, there is systemic marginalization of black men, and there is lack of economic development. The problem is simply this and it hasn’t changed since 1960, until we begin to stabilize our families and provide a healthy environment for our children to develop the tools they need for success all the integration, money, and opportunity won’t make a bit of difference. If we open up a door and our kids are not prepared to go through it then we all fail.

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The Marriage Trap

Now that we have two states that have sanctioned same sex marriages and one that has been in effect for four years in Massachusetts, what do we know about how gays are responding to marriage? While it is still early in the process, I think there are some trends that we can see beginning to take shape. Before I continue, in the interest of disclosure I have to admit that while I personally for religious reasons do not condone the practice, I would not begrudge anyone the opportunity to partake of wedded bliss. Why should we heterosexuals be the only ones to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune?

What many married gays are learning is a lesson any married heterosexual could have told them from the beginning; that marriage is hard work. It is not for the faint of heart or to be entered into lightly. After Massachusetts enacted the law to allow same sex marriage I was immediately curious if gays would fair any better than heterosexuals at marriage. With about 50% of all heterosexual marriages ending in divorce, I thought it wouldn’t take a lot to do better than we have managed to do. While this may come as a shock to many wing-nuts after the initial wave of marriages the numbers have trended downward ever since, for many gays marriage is not the answer. Understandably when you have been treated as an outcast and your relationship seen as rebellious and vilified it is difficult to all of a sudden become mainstream and a lot of those that did have found the terrain treacherous.

For some, the marriage learning curve is steep.

“It’s been a mixed bag,” said Jacob Venter, a 44-year-old child psychiatrist who married Billy Boney, a 36-year-old hairdresser, a month after it became legal to do so. They have disagreements over money, the in-laws and whether to adopt children or have their own.

“Nothing turns out the way you imagine,” Mr. Venter said. “There are no role models for gay marriage.” [1]

One thing is for sure that whether you are heterosexual or gay, marriage requires a lot of work and a commitment on both sides. As a society we no longer value commitment as we once did. We have become accustomed to disposability in not only our food, toys, gadgets, but also in our relationships. As we have become a more mobile society we have lost connections to people, places, and things. As the data begins to be assembled I believe that gays will prove to be no different than the rest of us in many of those regards. I believe that gays will marry and divorce at roughly the same rights as heterosexuals. Marriage is a reflection of us as a society and reflects our attitudes toward ourselves and one another. It reflects those things we value and those things that we easily discard. The problem is that in a marriage those things being discarded like so much of yesterdays garbage are people.

Too often today people are getting married for the wrong reasons. The biggest threat to heterosexual marriage today is not same sex marriage but divorce. We as a society must do more to strengthen the bonds of marriage for all of us through support and encouragement. I know in my community participation in marriage is at an all-time low and the prospects appear to be getting worse. I agree with my wing-nut counterparts that marriage is under attack, but it is not from the gays. It is under attack from a society that values the individual more than the group. A society that promotes selfishness over sacrifice and ego over humility. For all of us, a marriage based on these things will not last.

It has been written that gays demonstrate a lack of commitment to relationships and that many are sexually active with multiple partners thus making marriage a tenuous proposition at best. I am not completely sold on this analysis and I think as marriage becomes more accepted in the gay community the numbers will suggest that gays are for the most part just as monogamous as the rest of us. The thing that I have taken away from the data that I have seen is that we all suffer from the same pitfalls and pressures of marriage. The gay experience will prove to be no more successful or will fail no more than any others in marriage. Shockingly marriage works about the same for all of us. We all suffer the same pressures, disappointments, and joys of marriage regardless of our sexual preferences. I guess that is why we are all human.

“Lesbian and gay couples get divorced for the same reasons that heterosexual couples do,” Ms. Kauffman said. “Honestly the only thing that is different is that some people rushed to get married without thinking it through just because they could. It was an incredibly heady historical moment, and some people probably made the decision hastily.”

“I knew there was an issue with us prior to the marriage,” Mr. Bettencourt said, “but we thought maybe this is the thing that will help us stay together. Stupid, obviously. It was almost like I needed the marriage in order to consummate the relationship in order to break it up.”[2]

Sound familiar? I thought getting married would fix what was broken in our relationship is a common refrain from heterosexuals as well. I guess that doesn’t work for anybody; gay or straight. Whether you are gay or straight, marriage is nothing to take lightly and with all the euphoria floating around with each new milestone it is easy to get caught up in the moment. Welcome to marriage. Abandon all hope those who enter here…

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/15/us/15marriage.html?hp
[2] http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/15/us/15marriage.html?hp

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Black Marriage Day?

There is a problem in the black community, no it is not a problem, it is an epidemic that receives little if any coverage in the media and very little discussion in the community. The problem is the significant decrease of marriage in the black community. No community has a more anemic record of marriage than blacks. The lack of marriage has devastated the black family and in turn damaged the black community. The number of marriages has been declining for all races and groups in America for the last 30 years. While this is a troubling fact for our country as a whole, my emphasis is on the damage this decrease has brought to the black family structure, because it has been one of the leading causes of internal strife in our community.

The bad news is that the number of Black married couples is only half the number of married Whites, and the situation is getting worse. In 1963 when Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his "I Have a Dream" speech, more than 70 percent of all Black families were headed by married couples. In 2002 that number was 48 percent.

An even more alarming statistic is the increase in the number of both Black men and women who have never been married. Nearly 45 percent of Black men have never married and 42 percent of Black women have never married. More to the point, an increasing number of Black women will never get married. The percentage of Black women who are married declined from 62 percent to 31 percent between 1950 and 2002.[1]

As an Orthodox Christian, I have religious reasons for wanting to see the black family strengthened and our communities restored through marriage. I believe that marriage was created by God to protect us from ourselves. Human beings by their nature are selfish creatures and if given the chance would choose selfish pleasure over responsibility. Imagine a world without marriage, where there were no boundaries to seeking selfish pleasure. Even with the institution of marriage some people still have a hard time denying their selfish interests. But even if you are not prone to religion, the social evidence is clear. Children from two parent homes regardless of their race, economic status, or culture do better than those from single-parent homes. We have had study after study that bears this fact out, only the most ignorant and fanatical person would argue otherwise.

So with such indisputable evidence how is the following even possible? A community activist in Richmond, VA. was speaking to a group of young black girls about marriage. She began the conversation by asking the girls two questions and their responses to these questions speaks volumes about the state of our communities and our future. It also reveals the level of spiritual mutilation and psychological injury we have allowed to be done to our daughters.

RICHMOND, Va.— The questions Richmond activist Adia Blackmon posed to a group of 13 girls were basic.
How many wanted to be mothers?
Blackmon, charged with mentoring the girls, counted 13 arms in the air.
How many wanted to be wives?
Their response shed light on a community that leads the nation in levels of single-parent homes.
"Only one hand went up," said Blackmon, who was floored by the response from black girls as young as 11.
"They said they wanted the fathers to be involved and wouldn't mind them coming around," she said.
"But they did not want to be married to them."[2]

The responses of these girls should be alarming and heartbreaking to anyone concerned about not only the state of the black community, but also the mental health of our young girls. As a response to this and similar situations around the country someone decided to have a “Black Marriage Day”, during this day which was designed to celebrate and hopefully encourage marriage in the black community some 200 cities featured seminars, award dinners, and vow-renewal ceremonies. Any efforts to improve the state of marriage is a noble goal to be sure and should be applauded. The issue I have with this celebration and the similar ones that have been held to highlight different problems in the black community is that in the midst of an epidemic our answer is a one day event? Our children are dying and all we can muster is a one day occasion. Sometimes the apathy of our community is mind numbing to me.

I’m sorry but we have life and death issues occurring in our communities that are going to require a bit more than these one shot publicly stunts. The resolutions to our problems are going to require the full input and the full-time efforts of our community as whole. These are complex issues and they did not occur overnight. We have allowed them to fester and go unchallenged for years. It will take years to overcome the malaise and spiritual deprivation that we have allowed to permeate our collective consciousness. Today, we have accepted children out of wedlock in the black community as if this were the normal state of life. I am not advocating that we return to the dark ages, but there is a big difference in a mistake and a life-style choice. Many of our young women are opting to using men as sperm donors only, having the mistaken belief that men are not necessary to raise a family.

Anyone who chooses to bring a child into this world alone with the following statistics from the Census Bureau or these from the Responsible Fatherhood Clearing House is not showing love for a child, but instead selfishness. If you know that by having a child alone, you are more than likely sentencing that child to a life of struggle from the very beginning, this is not love. It is unfortunate that in our community for many women, if it were not for their children born out of wedlock, they would be alone. It is time we recognize the damage not only being brought to us from the outside, but also the damage we are bringing on ourselves. I can’t control what others are doing, but I can control what I am doing to myself.

I wrote an essay on gentrification and how do we integrate the poor into these new neighborhoods and I received a number of comments about how what I was suggesting was to make them more “white”. This troubled me because for many their racism is so ingrained that for them anyone who acts responsibly is equated with acting white, so the reverse of this is naturally to act irresponsibly is to act black. I would have accepted it better coming from devout racists, but these were comments from so-called liberals. The point is that no matter what our station in life is, we all have a responsibility to ourselves and to each other, this goes for the billionaire right down to the beggar.

[1] http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1077/is_1_59/ai_110361377 - BNet
[2] http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/5658666.html - Houston Chronicle

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