In the May 2010 issue of Essence Magazine, a panel discussion about Why Don't We Get Married? examines successful single men and women on why black people don't get married. As someone who is engaged I don't understand why there are not more married black people. In examining my own family, besides my grandparents, only two of my family members is married. My mom has 6 brothers and sisters, none of which are married, and their children, my older cousins, are not married either. The area that I happen to live in has more single people than other areas in Los Angeles. I have been trying to figure out why studies say that black people don't get married.
There are a lot of children born out of wedlock in the black community, babies having babies and other women ending up pregnant and left with no ring on their finger. According to the article, the Journal for Marriage and the Family found 77% of black adults ages 19 to 35 said they wished to get married, so why don't they? It seems like black people want to be married and according to the article, we take marriage more seriously than our white counterparts. There are many reasons why blacks don't marry. Financial reasons, the expense of a wedding is huge. The lack of commitment from men and women. The men on the down low. The lack of support from family members. The success rate of men vs. women. The list is endless.
After slavery the black family was broken and it was hard to restore it. The sons were all grown up, and had no need to respect their fathers and mothers anymore. The black man was so broken down and made to be the weakest link in the family, that possibly shame kept him from stepping back up to be the man. However in the 50's and 60's, the time of civil rights for blacks, the family was whole again. There were more married black couples then than their are now. I think location has a lot to do with it too. I live in California, where the divorce rates are the highest in the nation. My family in the south is all married with their families, and seem to be very happy. How do we get those southern family values out here in the west?
Nowadays women seem to expect so much more from their men than they did before during the civil rights movement. If they just had a job, it was enough, but now it is a lot harder for black men. Additionally there are not that many black men who are faithful to their wives, nor do they want to be faithful. The rate of successful black women, i.e., Tyra Banks, Oprah Winfrey, Halle Berry etc... are all single, unmarried. How can they find men who are equal to them? Forget about exceeding what they have done or where they have been, just equal. Black women surpass black men in just about every aspect of life. When I was in college, all of my black studies courses where filled with mostly women.
It is hard for me even though I am getting married, but I don't feel full support from my father. I know he is try his best, and my fiance and I have tried to make this wedding as inexpensive as possible, yet my father still complains. When a white woman gets married, or jewish, or greek or italian, doesn't even matter, their fathers are there to pay every step of the way. They may complain and put up a fight, by they are still there to help out and support. I don't feel all of that from my father. He offers help and advice, but I don't see it. We are less than 5 months away and I am trying to remain positive, but I don't know what will happen. I wish he could be as happy and supportive as my fiance's parents. What makes black women and men want to marry if they don't even have the support of their parents. How can we keep up with our white counterparts if we are not even close in numbers to being married?
Movies like Why Did I Get Married Too? show the struggles that black successful couples can have. Cheating, lying, disrespecting one another. Although it is a comedy, that does not show positive married black people. As much as I enjoyed the movie, I was a little sad afterwards, because of our portrayal on the big screen. As much as I enjoy supporting black movies, I couldn't help but wonder if black married couples really do go through those struggles and pains. And why do we get married? Maybe the population has it right to stay single, and make money and not worry about moving forward and back together. Marriage is just a title, and we can stay married to our lifestyles and work careers, and not each other. Men and women don't respect each other as is. There are no positive black married couples. Our media examples have divorced due to cheating, not being able to provide, gold digging women and men and just overall no respect for the fact that they are married. Marriage is hard work, and it is not easy. Perhaps it is a lack of God in their lives to keep them focused. Who knows? Why don't we get married?
The term skinny is not only to be used to discuss people in terms of their size, however it is to be considered a way of life. Living a skinny or happy life; being skinny is a state of mind.
April 18, 2010
April 15, 2010
The Black Man Pt. 1
There are so many different aspects of the black man. Some make think I am not the right person to be able to give opinion on the black man. My future husband is half Italian and half Scottish. Just because I am not dating one, doesn't mean I don't know anything about him. My observations and opinions are based on what I've learned in school, The Black Male class, taught by a black male. My conjectures are also based on the many black men in my life. I will start with my grandfather. He is one of the greatest black men that I know, yet he, like many people, has his down falls. I did an interview with him a few years back, because I wanted to know about him. I wanted to know what his 85 years have seen. I wanted to think like he thought and know what he knew. My grandfather was born in Baton Rouge, Louisana. He hated where he lived because of the racism. My grandfather has dark skin, almost black blue. He is tall and speaks loud with authority. He left his hometown when he was just a teenager because he couldn't stand the yessir and yes ma'am and the mistreatment of his people. He did not stay to fight or become an activist like the late Dr. King or Malcolm X. He did not stand up for himself or his family against the people that brought him pain and agony. He simply left.
Why would a man just leave his family behind? Why would a man just escape from the things he feared? This escape from his reality could it be linked to what his ancestors went through. During slavery the black man could not just escape. He had to stay and be chained and work hard for his master. I suppose he left because he could. He really did not have to stay. He made a choice to hitch hike, at 16 years old, to California. He ended up in Watts, California. What he did during his teenage years was any and everything to make money. He painted houses, he painted pictures for people. He worked to fix houses up, fix up people's yards. Anything people needed so he can make money. He had to take care of himself.
The black man is usually good a providing for himself. He makes sure his clothes are fly, I'm talking about nowadays, he makes sure his shoes are right, his car, his hair and that he is up on the latest everything. I never understood why that was so much more important to the black men. My peers in high school were more concerned with all of that stuff than their education. How hard they worked for what they had is questionable. What makes a man go from caring about the stupidest things in life? My grandfather worked hard for his own personal survival. The slave worked hard for his personal survival and for that of his family. What could have happened in between all those years for things to change. Is the black man selfish? Did slavery force him to be selfish?
In observing my own family and other black men that I have dated, I noticed their closeness to their mother. My uncles are lucky that their father has always been there in their lives. Many men and many women are usually missing their fathers. In order to study and figure this out, I have to view the black men in all is glory. As a young boy, as a young child in to adulthood and then father hood. The black man fascinates me so much but he never surprises me. I feel as if I can tell what he will do based on his situation. And maybe this is true of all men. I don't know. The mother is the one who raises the family and watches them grow from inside of her belly to full grown adulthood. The man is the only who is supposed to maintain the structure in the household. He maintains the focus, the logic and the safety that the family needs. Maybe over time the black man lost this knowing because of the many years of slavery and oppression. He did not get a chance to live up to his white counterparts in so many aspects of family life and career life. Now I am not trying to generalize all men, so you can not take any of this personal. I need to understand my self, my surroundings, my father and the men and women in my life. In order to do this I have to analyze and break down what has happened to our culture. Our generation and our black men. The black man should have been our hero. Some believe Obama is that hero that we need. He is a family man, with a high respected career, heck he is our President. Yet he does not get the respect he deserves by the media or by many of his peers. The oppression continues.
Forgive me for ranting but I must get my thoughts out somewhere.
~ JB
Why would a man just leave his family behind? Why would a man just escape from the things he feared? This escape from his reality could it be linked to what his ancestors went through. During slavery the black man could not just escape. He had to stay and be chained and work hard for his master. I suppose he left because he could. He really did not have to stay. He made a choice to hitch hike, at 16 years old, to California. He ended up in Watts, California. What he did during his teenage years was any and everything to make money. He painted houses, he painted pictures for people. He worked to fix houses up, fix up people's yards. Anything people needed so he can make money. He had to take care of himself.
The black man is usually good a providing for himself. He makes sure his clothes are fly, I'm talking about nowadays, he makes sure his shoes are right, his car, his hair and that he is up on the latest everything. I never understood why that was so much more important to the black men. My peers in high school were more concerned with all of that stuff than their education. How hard they worked for what they had is questionable. What makes a man go from caring about the stupidest things in life? My grandfather worked hard for his own personal survival. The slave worked hard for his personal survival and for that of his family. What could have happened in between all those years for things to change. Is the black man selfish? Did slavery force him to be selfish?
In observing my own family and other black men that I have dated, I noticed their closeness to their mother. My uncles are lucky that their father has always been there in their lives. Many men and many women are usually missing their fathers. In order to study and figure this out, I have to view the black men in all is glory. As a young boy, as a young child in to adulthood and then father hood. The black man fascinates me so much but he never surprises me. I feel as if I can tell what he will do based on his situation. And maybe this is true of all men. I don't know. The mother is the one who raises the family and watches them grow from inside of her belly to full grown adulthood. The man is the only who is supposed to maintain the structure in the household. He maintains the focus, the logic and the safety that the family needs. Maybe over time the black man lost this knowing because of the many years of slavery and oppression. He did not get a chance to live up to his white counterparts in so many aspects of family life and career life. Now I am not trying to generalize all men, so you can not take any of this personal. I need to understand my self, my surroundings, my father and the men and women in my life. In order to do this I have to analyze and break down what has happened to our culture. Our generation and our black men. The black man should have been our hero. Some believe Obama is that hero that we need. He is a family man, with a high respected career, heck he is our President. Yet he does not get the respect he deserves by the media or by many of his peers. The oppression continues.
Forgive me for ranting but I must get my thoughts out somewhere.
~ JB
April 11, 2010
The Black Family
Recently I have been debating going back to school for a sociology degree. I want to focus on the black family. This blog seems like a good place to start my research and get some ideas out there. Starting with my own family is the perfect example for me as well. I am not exactly sure how these things go, but I know that I took plenty of classes while obtaining my Journalism degree, to know something about the black family. Besides just being black myself, I learned how slavery broke down the black family's dynamic. I also took classes on the black male, the black child and the black female. All of whom play a major role in the black family. It is interesting to me why there are so many disparities between black people's income, jobs and family involvement. We are most definitely the ultimate extremes.
You have the successful black man who is out there working, he has a great job, making probably $100,000 a year or more. This man has a wife, a beautiful black queen, 2.5 children and they have a house with a white picket fence. The whole nine yards. He is living the American Dream. And then you have the black man who has nine children, all from different women, no wife, no job and he can barely take care of himself. He is sleeping on different people's couches, and has no idea where is children are. How can there be such a huge gap between the two of them?
In the Hispanic or Latin families, many of them are in the same situation. Asians, Jewish families, all the same. I know that each family has their own problem children, who will never move out of their parents house, but for the most part other nationalities do not have such a huge disparity between families. How can people who were for the most part raised in the same household come out so different? There are many factors that can determine how this happened. I would like to study these factors and family members to better understand. The easiest way for me to do this is to break down each person in my own family. I can only start by studying my own, and then work on studying others.
In addition to my research and recordings being listed here, I am also working on many other things. I may not be able to update this blog as frequently as I would like. I will just briefly tell you, I am getting married this August, I am working on a book, and I am working on my Dear Daddy letters. If you need more information about the book, and my letter writing, you can view previous blogs where I have talked about this.
Let me start by recording, based solely on memory, what I have learned about the black family. We have been broken down to nothing. During slavery when the black men was separately by his wife and children to work for another man, a white man, he could no longer provide for his family. He began working for the white family. His sole purpose was to provide for the white family, and not for his own anymore. Some men take this to heart, and believe they should not work for any white man ever, hence the huge unemployment rate among black men nowadays.
Secondly, during slavery, the black men had to deal with his wife, his queen, his prized possession being raped and beaten by the white man. Imagine the one you love being taken from you and forced to fuck another man. That broke the black man down even more. Not only did he have to provide for a family who was not his own, now he has to deal with his wife being soiled by another man. All of the power is now in the white man's hands. The men that took this to heart have since turned to other men for sex and love or they have taken a white woman for themselves. This has left many black women searching for love, and for the ones who would like to marry a black men, no dice. Hence the huge number of unmarried black women nowadays.
Lastly, the black child, he now does not have a black male role model since his father has been taken away from him. He has no place to turn. His role models include the uneducated, the slave masters who do not look like him, and himself. The most important person in any family is first the father. Men do not realize how strong and important their roles are in the family dynamic. Without the proper family male role model, these young black men do not know where to turn. They view the white man who is raping their women as the powerful men they should be. Hence the men who sleep around, are not fathers to their children, and the greedy power hungry black men of nowadays.
These are just a few of the things that have kept our people down. And even though we have a black president, our people as a whole are not surviving as well as we should be.
~ JB
You have the successful black man who is out there working, he has a great job, making probably $100,000 a year or more. This man has a wife, a beautiful black queen, 2.5 children and they have a house with a white picket fence. The whole nine yards. He is living the American Dream. And then you have the black man who has nine children, all from different women, no wife, no job and he can barely take care of himself. He is sleeping on different people's couches, and has no idea where is children are. How can there be such a huge gap between the two of them?
In the Hispanic or Latin families, many of them are in the same situation. Asians, Jewish families, all the same. I know that each family has their own problem children, who will never move out of their parents house, but for the most part other nationalities do not have such a huge disparity between families. How can people who were for the most part raised in the same household come out so different? There are many factors that can determine how this happened. I would like to study these factors and family members to better understand. The easiest way for me to do this is to break down each person in my own family. I can only start by studying my own, and then work on studying others.
In addition to my research and recordings being listed here, I am also working on many other things. I may not be able to update this blog as frequently as I would like. I will just briefly tell you, I am getting married this August, I am working on a book, and I am working on my Dear Daddy letters. If you need more information about the book, and my letter writing, you can view previous blogs where I have talked about this.
Let me start by recording, based solely on memory, what I have learned about the black family. We have been broken down to nothing. During slavery when the black men was separately by his wife and children to work for another man, a white man, he could no longer provide for his family. He began working for the white family. His sole purpose was to provide for the white family, and not for his own anymore. Some men take this to heart, and believe they should not work for any white man ever, hence the huge unemployment rate among black men nowadays.
Secondly, during slavery, the black men had to deal with his wife, his queen, his prized possession being raped and beaten by the white man. Imagine the one you love being taken from you and forced to fuck another man. That broke the black man down even more. Not only did he have to provide for a family who was not his own, now he has to deal with his wife being soiled by another man. All of the power is now in the white man's hands. The men that took this to heart have since turned to other men for sex and love or they have taken a white woman for themselves. This has left many black women searching for love, and for the ones who would like to marry a black men, no dice. Hence the huge number of unmarried black women nowadays.
Lastly, the black child, he now does not have a black male role model since his father has been taken away from him. He has no place to turn. His role models include the uneducated, the slave masters who do not look like him, and himself. The most important person in any family is first the father. Men do not realize how strong and important their roles are in the family dynamic. Without the proper family male role model, these young black men do not know where to turn. They view the white man who is raping their women as the powerful men they should be. Hence the men who sleep around, are not fathers to their children, and the greedy power hungry black men of nowadays.
These are just a few of the things that have kept our people down. And even though we have a black president, our people as a whole are not surviving as well as we should be.
~ JB
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