Friday, January 8, 2010

Don't Believe the Hype!

I didn't want to do this post. I didn't wanna address the Single Black Woman "problem"/"epidemic"/"phenomenon" or whatever the media is calling it today. But it's all around me so as the topic of discussion I feel I should have my say.

Why does it seem like the whole world has been on a "po' black woman aint neva gon' git married" tip lately? ("Lately" being the last year, at least) Everyone is throwing around stats about how many black men are in jail, gay, won't date black women or don't have anything past a college education, leaving aaallllll the poor black women without a man. 71% of us are single, 42% of us have never married, 50% of us are never getting married and might as well start stocking up on cats now, 3% of us may be able to get a man of another race, 100% are desperate for a man!

There's a phrase people love: "Men lie, women lie, numbers don't." Well there's another phrase out there too: "There are lies, damned lies, and statistics." Stats can be used to prove or disprove anything, depending on how the questions are asked and how numbers are skewed. So yes there are a lot of "single" black women. How many are single because they don't believe in the institution of marriage or just don't want to be tied down? How many are not interested in men at all? How many are not married but in serious committed relationships? Yeah there are plenty of numbers floating around out there, but ladies and gentlemen, please don't believe the hype!

All of the attention around this issue has lead to a lot of "discussion," i.e., finger pointing. On both sides. Black women saying the reason the majority of us are single is because Black men don't have their shit together. Black men saying we're single because we're too independent/controlling/bitchy/whatever. Others sitting back watching, saying "Those Blacks just can't get it together." C'mon people! Drawing lines in the sand and doing battle is no way to solve any supposed problem we're facing, especially when the problem is "us" not getting together!

Instead of making generalizations and playing the blame game, how about we all take a look inwards. Think about what you as an individual need to work on. What you want from a mate and a relationship. What you've noticed in your previous relationships that didn't work and how you plan to make improvements & prevent it from occurring again. Erase preconceived notions about "black men blah blah blah," "black women blah blah blah" and take each encounter for what its worth, not as the end all be all as far as relationships.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well said, Tori! Well said!!

BluHulk said...

Great post! Couldn't have said it better myself.