You’re not here so I play your role to protect mine…
That’s masculinity to my femininity;
I’m talking anything at all just to make it on my own…
My recognition of strength makes you feel unneeded,
And my display of strength makes you feel unwanted,
All this doing our own (thing) is just keeping us un-united.
… Just realize that without the sun and the moon the earth has no gravitational pull or orbit,
So without a me and you, that’s a whole future of histories that we limit.

Artist: Scratch featuring Floetry
Song: “What Happened?”
Album: The Embodiment of Instrumentation

Having Their Say

One friend of mine suggested that black women lack the ability to be vulnerable. His concept describes the modern black woman as a woman trying so hard to be strong that she never lets a man in. She fights against him for her strength, and ends up pushing him away. I can say that many women of color that I know, including myself, are often guilty of this particular offense. For me, the reasoning is simple. Men have come into my life and oft times, departed just as quickly. If I don’t trust you to stay, why would I trust you to see my vulnerability? Simply put, once bitten, twice shy. Now, factor in that many of us have a history of watching our mothers raise us alone while daddy ran free, makes us very hesitant to trust at all.

After a long conversation with another black man who has dated outside of the race, the conclusion was drawn that there is a fundamental breakdown in communication between black women and men. It seems as though we women feel as though we have been abandoned, while the brothers feel as though they have evolved past needing to date a black woman.

That Old School Love

There was a time, long before the sexual revolution and women’s lib, where people dated, loved and married based on societal mantra of “suitable”. The status of “suitable” was based on more than physical appearance and attributes, but based on structures of class, family, and upbringing. These couples while seemingly having more restraints, married more often and divorced less than contemporary couples. Making me think that the more open our dating choices, the less options we actually have.

Many of us have observed the cute old couple that have spent 50-odd years together, who though they might bicker, they still can’t live without each other. In many cases, the passing of one partner leaves them so heartbroken that they lose the will to live and can barely function without their better half. Many of these couples married for reasons that we couldn’t even fathom now, i.e. arranged marriages, unplanned pregnancy, and social status. Yet, over time, without divorce as an option, they have learned to love each other through the good and the bad. They have built strong homes where they have raised strong children, and together have made a life.

Nowadays people can’t even stay in love long enough to make any real love songs. Now every “love song” is more about lust, obsession, and co-dependency than any real reflection of love, but again I digress.

Pop-ular culture

Today families are made up of a motley crew of ex-husbands, baby mamas and step parents. The children that have come out of these unions, me included, entered the gene pool more confused than the living arrangements, leading only to more confused generations. The legacy that we have been given is complicated and without structure. Where once the husband was the father and head of the household, whether in practice or in title, there is now the “Baby-daddy”. He is not the husband, nor does he have anything to do with the household, if he is around at all. At best his role is defined or relegated to weekend babysitter and child support payer.

As far as relationships are concerned, many women no longer know what to make of a man being around, what his roles are, or how to respond to the stresses of the relationship. Many of us didn’t observe our parents interacting in any way that we could remotely describe as positive, so thereby we have very little healthy relationship practice to emulate. I think that much of my healthy family observation came from watching Claire and Cliff Huxtable raise their brood of children on TV’s “The Cosby Show”. To have all of one’s observation of “happily, ever after” come from a 30 minute sitcom is trouble.

Can we blame our baby boomer parents for the dysfunctional state of our relationships? A case could defiantly be made, but to what result? The result would probably be more pointing of fingers and less communication, which in actuality only perpetuates the problem. I think that it is time to heal as a community to ensure the stability of the homes that will be or are raising the next generation. I think that it is time that we, as a people, take the time to speak to our elders while they are still here and learn what worked for them. While taking the time to learn from their lessons, we need to all sit down and hear what each other has to say across the gender line. Instead of just spouting lines of rhetoric and pompous “I don’t need a man/woman” or “all men/women are dogs/chickenheads” epitaphs, we could actively listen to each others gripes, concerns and eventually vulnerabilities. Maybe then we can learn how to love each other for life.