This is a Sista – Phenomenally

I’ve read too many of them and guess what?  The majority of them aren’t being written by those IN THE KNOW.

I’m talking about We Black Women OURSELVES.  Hell, we know why we don’t have a man in our lives right now.

Er, did anyone think that maybe…JUST MAYBE…some Black women are content with their lives as THEY ARE RIGHT NOW?  I know – that’s a foreign concept, especially to those who keep feeling the compulsion to explain to successful Black women why we don’t have a man.

Honestly, I think that Black Women have that certain SOMETHING, and everyone else can’t wrap their minds around it. So, rather than analyzing what that Savoir Fare is, they’d rather try to put a beat down on us, our womanhood, our femininity, our sexuality.  Y’all already know we’re either oversexed (Jezebel), domineering (Sapphire) or asexual and matronly (Mammy).

I’m none of those things.  I am a  confident and sexy Black woman.  You heard me.  Despite being way fluffy at present – I know when I step out of the house, my makeup is put together, I smell good and I look good in my clothes.  Young Brotha are hollering at me; toss in a few Latinos and White Boys too (the British white guys did a lot of hollering when I was at Oxford, especially in my “fluffiness” (code word for “need to lose thirty pounds”).  Even my roomie got on me about the fact that I have a lot to offer JUST AS I AM, and to stop worrying about the weight or anything else these articles say is wrong with Black Women.

Maya Angelou penned that poem that told the world to stop lying  about us, remember?  We’re “PHENOMENAL WOMEN”.  No one ever asks US why we don’t have a man in our lives.  I take it that they may NOT LIKE OUR ANSWERS.

I think it’s also because we’re not sniveling on Oprah or whining on that catfest show (aka “The View”).  When you have intelligent, successful sistas like my friend, Melissa Harris-Lacewell, providing academic commentary on this issue, one would think her commentary, as well as my other friends, Gina MacAuley and Jasmyne Cannick, would be enough to shut everyone else UP on this subject…but as always, because THEY’RE WOMEN, their commentary is dissed and not even heard unless misgonynistic, multiple-married male chauvinist maroons like Steve Harvey add their two cents to the discussion to legitimize it.

I call bullshyt on the whole thing.  I’m a Black Woman without a man, and I refuse to allow anyone to tell me I’m incomplete as a woman; that I have no sexuality as a woman; THAT I HAVE NO VALUE AS A WOMAN, unless I have a man.  My reason for not having a man is pretty simple – I have too many other issues to deal with in my life at this point to focus on a relationship.  It’s as simple as that.  So for those who keep bringing this up, don’t let the simplicity of my response blow your mind while it blows your concepts and hypothesis out of the water.

Look, I absolutely adore men.  I love their builds, their walk, their mannerisms – the clean way he smells when he gets out of the shower and splashes on the subtle, yet masculine cologne that fires up my pheremones.

I even find watching a guy shave being extremely sexy.  But, I’m not in a relationship at the moment, and it is not because I don’t want a loving man to share my life with – I most certainly do.  But until that happens, I’m content in my singleness, do you hear me?

Besides, may I name three examples of successful Black women that supposedly found their “Happily Ever Afters”? I mean, I’m sorry to bring these sistas up, but hey, they’re considered successful and they had allegedly equally successful men that they bragged about and had all-star weddings to prove it to the rest of us. Juanita Bynum, Star Jones and Terry MacMillan.

And look at how those “Happily Ever Afters” turned out.  One married an abuser; the other two married allegedly closeted gay men.

Just to say they had a man, and make the rest of us sistas either envy their good fortune, or feel bad because society has said we’re worthless without a man. I remember attending a luncheon out in Oakland when Terry was promoting her book, “A Day Late and a Dollar Short” which was one of her best books.  She flounced into the Marriott Hotel with her then-husband, Jonathan Plummer, in a “look at me- I pulled this boy-toy as my husband because I got it like that” vibe, which pissed me and those at my table, off.

Two mature sistas took one look at Terry’s husband and immediately said “Tank Full of Sugar” which is code for “He’s GAY.” 

As they say on Seinfeld, “Not that there’s anything wrong with that.”

Except when you try to throw it in the face of other sistas and get your Mack on.

Hell, I’m wondering why do we even have to have this conversation, anyway?  Then, I thought of something, and I wrote it in the comments section of Jill’s post, but thought I needed to front page it here.

Here’s hoping we can end this discussion once and for all.

I’ve read too many of these “Why Successful Black Women can’t Find a man” BS articles – don’t they have anything else to damn well write about?

We are HERE; We are FIERCE; and yeah, you damn well need to GET USED TO IT, because no sista worth her SALT is going to apologize or make excuses for being unmarried.

Could it be that some of us don’t want to GET MARRIED? Foreign Concept, I know, but since I’m one of those sisters they’re talking about, I need to put in my two cents here. At this point in my life, I have too much going on in terms of employment and economics to worry about getting married. I’m not even seeing anyone at present and it’s not because I can’t get a date. I have too much going on to focus on a man right now.

I have seen the women who make a man the Be-All and End-All of their lives, and from what these guys tell me (all ethnicities) that it is very draining to be that much center of attention from their wives, and wish their wives would get other interests besides THEM. Additionally, the women who lose their husbands that they have focused their lives on are lost without them, and unless a well-meaning sista friend gives them a swift kick in the ass and tell them to wake up and get a life beyond their husband, they are a HOT MESS to deal with.

Women who are in successful marriages will tell you that their husbands are mentally, emotionally and physically well balanced men who are not THREATENED by their woman’s success, and delight in knowing he really has a Help-MATE, not a DEPENDENT. Moreover, these men are confident in WHO THEY ARE, therefore, they can allow their woman to BE WHO SHE IS. (Case in Point – our current POTUS. He allows the FLOTUS to shine as the Woman SHE IS, and that’s driving the cracker/goober nation crazy because she and the POTUS obliterated all the outdated stereotypes.)

Yeah, you men need to grow up, but we women need to stop enabling your asses to remain immature, too.

Anyone with multiple marriages (and unless they remarried because of widowhood) needs a good helping of STHU in passing out the reasons why successful Black Women can’t get a man. I haven’t paid attention to anything coming out of Steve Harvey’s mouth since he started hating on his fellow “Kings of Comedy” because their careers took off while his went into the tank (it’s a known fact he didn’t start talking to Cedric or DL Hughley until Bernie Mac died and all of them had to show up for his funeral).

WE Black Women don’t need anymore analyzing about why we don’t have a man. One sista already writes a blog about how sistas need to widen their pool of eligible men to include men of other ethnicities, because we might get a brotha, but that brotha could be so messed up in the head that he is the narcisstic African-American version of Scott Peterson, and we ALL know how his wife, Laci, wound up.

Why are these articles and discussions continuing to make their way into the MEDIA?

Could it be that the women of other races are concerned that the Black Woman may hold more ATTRACTION for THEIR MEN than first thought?

Please, enough with the “Why Can’t Successful Black Women Get a Man” articles already.  But, then again, I figure we Black Women are so fascinating, everyone else MUST spend time to try and analyze us so they can get what WE already have, n’est pas?
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