I was just going to ignore this video because... ugh, I am not in the mood for yet another rant about Black women not being able to find a partner. Not only have I heard it all before (and agree with a good portion of it), but, since no one is offering any useful solutions to the problem, my patience has worn beyond thin. Also, when I heard that Steve Harvey was acting as "expert" in this clip... hell nah!
Unfortunately, since I spend way too much time on the internet, I've been coming across this video at every turn. And that is annoying. So to hopefully exorcise this demon let me share my thoughts...
But first, the clip:
Ok, first, and most inconsequentially, how weird were those Black figure things to represent all Black men? Awkward. :-/
But seriously, there was so little new in this clip that I could have written this post without it. Or maybe I already wrote it when Something New came out and everybody and they mama had the conversation about the 42.4% (Did the statistics change? Is it now an even 42%? SUCCESS!). Whatever.
So seriously, what the fuck is going on here? Oh yea... the same thing that's been going on for the past decade or so:
A lot of Black women have never been married (and may never get married).
There aren't enough good Black men.
You could try a white man, but you'd obviously prefer a Black man.
I'm successful and fine, I just don't get it.
blahblahblah
It's the same story that every Black woman I know, including myself, has at one time or other recited with varying levels of annoyance/anger/heartache.
But what all of the stories on this topic lack are solutions. Tell me something I can use or keep it moving.
So maybe I should be happy because the piece above tried to offer some... I just thought they were dumb. Let me explain:
"Black women don't have to settle, but they may need to compromise."
I've heard this a number of times, but I was possibly most irritated here because Steve Harvey couldn't offer anything more than petty examples of Black women's standards being too high; money, education. These have been the big two in the attempt to explain the numbers of highly educated Black single women. But I'm starting to believe that they're possibly the least important. For instance, children. How many relationships have broken up because the two people had different ideas about children (when to have kids, how many, being financially able to support them, children from previous relationships)? It seems that finding a partner who had the same ideas about family would be slightly more important than his level of education. Or what about geography. If your high-powered job is on the East Coast and his is in the South, will you commute? Can you afford to commute? Is that the kind of life you want to live? Again, when and how should Black women compromise on these issues Mr. Harvey?
"Go for the older man."
That's the best advice you have Steve Harvey?... MASSIVE FAIL! What.The.Fuck? No seriously, how does this operate as a solution? Let's go back to the question of children. I'm 26 and if I decide to have biological children with a man I want someone who will be a partner. I don't want a man who will be so old (no offense, seriously) that he can't play with us at the park, can't take turns getting up at all hours of the night to feed/change/rock a crying baby etc. And this I am not willing to compromise on, because if I have a child with someone too old to really be a parent the same way that I would want to, why have children with someone else at all if I'd essentially be a single parent? That makes no sense. So, no Steve, that is not a real solution.
"It's not that they can't find someone to date, the issue is exclusivity."
This, I think, was the most interesting discussion of the whole piece (7 mins... really!?). It's interesting to think that there are women out there who are doing "all of the right things": dating, making themselves available, "keeping themselves up" (whatever the fuck that means) but they still can't get a ring. The women in the video talked about the "backpocket woman" (the one men save for later when they're ready to stop whoring around). This is so beyond trifling it hurts. And how annoying would that be if a man had the nerve to call you every few years just to make sure "you're still single... waiting for me." GAG!
With that sad I'm beginning to wonder (this is obvious sarcasm) that maybe people should start doing stories on (Black) men who don't want to settle down (with Black women). Seriously. Maybe it's time we stopped blaming Black women for being single and start really, critically, thinking about what leads to those circumstances.
"I would love to be in a relationship, a marriage... but I don't feel that that defines me."
And maybe, just maybe, we should stop equating women's happiness (regardless of race) with the presence of a man in their lives. Maybe, just maybe, there are a boatload of women who are just happy single and will be just fine if they never get married. And maybe, just maybe, there are lots of women who never want to get married at all. In that case, maybe we should stop fucking up those women's days by making them another kind of stereotypical statistic.
Stop... think about it.
*P.S.- Check out The Black Snob's discussion of the same clip here.
*P.S.S.- I really am still thinking about a post on interracial relationships, but I've been swamped. C'est la vie...
6 comments:
I also wondered about the validity of Harvey's examples of what black women needed to compromise on. While I think it's a double standard and a perverse form a self-loathing misogyny to think that men should make the bigger income or have more education, what educated woman wants to spend her life with a man who isn't her intellectual equal? Presumably, if you marry someone you are going to be having a lot of conversations with them, and though equal levels of education isn't necessary, it sure does help in my experience. Maybe I'm just an elitist snob, though.
The thing that irritated me most about this piece was that it seemed to assume that never being married was a horrible thing and that all women want to be married. It also didn't even consider that some of those black men --which it weirdly portrayed with black stick figures -- and black women might not want to enter into a heterosexual marriage....
Oh that's a great point about the heteronormative aspect of this discussion that I thought of mentioning but didn't (fail me!). I don't really want to open this can of worms but I often wonder if the silence about homosexual relationships in these debates stems from the Black communities well-documented (even if stereotyped) problems with Black homosexuality.
There are numerous problems here and I just keep saying to myself why deal with it if you don't want to really delve into the issue?
I figured that was the reason that any mention of homosexuality among the black male populace was left out of the discussion in that segment.
Nicole,
I wholeheartedly agree with everything you said in your blog post, and I didn't even have to watch the video (because like you, I've read it quite enough already).
Particularly disturbing to me is the idea of a woman having to wait around for a man to stop whoring himself. Nobody spontaneously becomes monogamous. What's the male equivalent of that old rap lyric, "you can't make a ho a housewife"?
Need more black male accountability, less excuses, plox.
Another way of thinking about this piece may not necessarily be "everyone wants to be married," but "who wants to be alone...."
The silence about homosexuality is noted, but that would add such a complexity as to require another piece altogether. After all, "gay marriage" in itself is a volatile topic. I think we're all watching Prop 8 in the federal district court right now.
Maurice-
You always have great comments but I think that this was the best one yet. I personally love how you've pointed out the double standard in that a lot of men will not even consider marrying a woman who is/was "loose" but men don't have those same kinds of restrictions placed on them. In some ways I think this has a lot to do with the idea that men are "projects" who are meant to be transformed by a "good woman" but women... well they're just supposed to be perfect already (look perfect, can cook, be a freak in the bed etc etc.). It's ridiculous. And I think you're right. The question may more accurately be "who wants to be single?" In that case it can lay the parameters down. If a woman doesn't want to get married anyway, we don't have to pretend that she is part of the "epidemic." Since we're already ok with the perpetual bachelor, we need to be ok with the perpetual "single lady." And we totally need a new word b/c I refuse to use the S-word... (spinster).
Howdy im new here. I came upon this forum I have found It quite accommodating and it's helped me out a lot. I should be able to give something back and help others like its helped me.
Cheers, Catch You Later.
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