In a day and age where Black women look at Black men and state that there are no good Black men out there, while other Black women are in situations where they are dating a Black man that is involved in relationships with other women, or even other men one has to wonder just where relationships between Black men and Black women have gone wrong. There are a lot of Black men are torn down, depressed, suicidal, disenfranchised, skeptical, disillusioned, we have fallen out of society in record numbers and have disappeared and too often we fallen into a generational curse of dysfunctional behavior. A lot of us take a good Black woman down with us; after being involved with a series of men like us take on all of the aforementioned qualities and are now looking at men of other races, to subtly fill in for our own inabilities and shortcomings. We were not able to make her feel like a woman, we didn’t build her up, we were unable to do for her what we have not been able to do for ourselves as Black men.
We are all familiar with the statistics. No one has to tell you that, regardless of the numbers, the majority of us are either out of work or in prison, the majority of us have kids we don’t take care of, the majority of us have not went to school, of us that did go to school the majority of us dropped out. The numbers are immaterial at this point. Black women do not know how to treat a good Black man right because their experiences tell them that these good Black men do not exist. Granted, in the beginning, no woman, of any race, color, or creed, is that experienced with good men because human nature dictates that people are going to have a tragic attraction for people that aren’t good for them. That is part of life.
However at some point a woman grows up, matures, and is ready for someone that can be a positive influence in her life. On the other hand a good person does not have to wait until they are 35 to settle down with someone that has made a mess of their life that is ready to be with someone that is good for them. They have a lot of choices early on in their life to defy convention and hook up with someone that actually appreciates them. They don’t have to waste 5 years here, 10 years there, just to find out who someone truly is when the signs were there all along and everyone else but them knew what that other individual was all about.
Black men and women cannot deal with each other on their own. Black men in particular may need positive reinforcement from other Black men if they find themselves in an abusive situation with their woman at home. One can easily take out their own issues, insecurities, and drama, surrounding the idea of what it means to be a man on their partner. Too often we would rather just turn a blind eye and leave other Black men that cannot seem to get it together to their own devices. One of those reasons is our own issues with Black men because we are different than your “average” Black man and other men aren’t hearing us anyway when we could be a force for positive change, despite our own views and issues. It is easier to conveniently ignore Black men that aren’t going through what you’re going through and isolate yourself with people that actually understand you and appreciate you. That is the worst thing that we can do as Black men. We all should forge relationships with other Black men that aren’t in our situation, and do not understand our situation, which we can help; not by forcing our own conventions upon them and getting them to see things our way but by being there when they need us. Someone might never call upon you, you may never get that constant reinforcement that you do from the other people in your life but you are just there to make a difference. Most of us do not want someone hovering over us anyway, regardless of how messed up we are there is this pride about us that desires an absolute minimal interaction on your part. No one wants to be micromanaged; everyone wants to think for themselves.
One of the hardest things to do as a Black man is to allow other people to be the person they are most comfortable with being. Our culture tells us that this is the way that things are supposed to be, and our manhood is found in those conventions, and in exploiting them for our own gain. When we cannot find ourselves through the stereotypes that are presented to us we look elsewhere. So then we are left with the idea that a Black man could only be but so many things, and if not, perhaps he is not truly a Black man. A Black man could be a real man by the human definition, by society’s definition, but a stranger within his own culture.
On the other hand if you found yourself and are living well you owe something to those other men that are still out there struggling that cannot seem to get anything right. You might have your own issues with being weird, different, eccentric, out there a bit that does not absolve you of the responsibility. If the majority of us are not getting it right that does not mean that the few who are should be preoccupied with saving themselves. We don’t spend enough time with each other. We spend time around other men that cannot help us to get to that a different level. We only listen to each other, instead of listening to people that could help us, but might not look like us, and may not be able to completely empathize or sympathize with where we are coming from as Black men.
The only positive reinforcement some Black men have is of a woman. A woman satisfies and fulfills all of their needs, and a woman provides for them, encourages them, lifts them up, and looks out for them. Some of these Black men only know to find another woman to do all of these things when things do not work out with the last woman. They think that they are doing these things for themselves, as a man, they’re not in touch with God, and they’re not in touch with themselves but in reality there is some woman, somewhere, that is doing this for them. They grew up with no one else but their mother, and this is the only thing that they know to do because that’s all they’ve ever been taught. A lot of them do not even have a mother, but are in a similar situation.
They are disappointed by women, because they are asking too much of them. Women have their own issues. They need to talk to other women; if you have your woman hidden in the house somewhere and she never gets out and she does not spend any time with other females you have a dysfunctional relationship with that woman because you will find yourself asking something of her that she cannot realistically do. Women are very good at lying to us, because it does not take that much to make us feel like a man and it is easier to lie to us than to confront the issues within the relationship. So then you find yourself in a position where your woman is having sex with you when she does not want to have sex with you. She allows you to cheat on her, she’ll cheat on you with someone else and make it out to be your own idea, she’ll manipulate the situation to get her own needs fulfilled in the relationship because that is a lot easier than to have that conversation with you. Too often that conversation is emasculating, because you do not want to be reminded of how you come up short with the woman. You’re asking her to do this, do that, and you think she is just down for whatever and at the end of the day you realize that she always held a little part back for herself and you never got to experience the fullness of her, the totality of who she is as a woman because you were willing to settle for that little bit that made you feel good as a man.
So we end up cheating ourselves in our relationships. Had you gotten out more your friends would you told you as much had she gotten out more she would not have to do it because she was getting her self-esteem built up outside of her relationship with you? There is so much more to life, so much to experience but we settle for so little.
