FOR BLACK WOMEN- TIME TO TAKE RESPONSIBILITY

The popular sayings go like this “black men are useless” or  “ Black men are not real men” things like they use women, get them pregnant and run away from responsibility. It's a popular notion in the black community that a relationship with a black man is pre-set to fail. Women often bemoan and sight that black men cannot be faithful.

This scenario is solidified by those men you hear saying things such as "it is a man’s right" and sighting it as the works of nature to have as many women they can get and that they really can’t resist those “natural inclinations” we've all heard those ignorant utterances. This view is not only dangerous to live by but it is highly erroneous. Practices such as polygamy were practised in most cultures because the social system at that time required it to be so only for functionality and not a way for promiscuity as often interpreted. The socio-economic obligations for families today are different and there is no good reason for this practice to be maintained any more BUT THIS IS NOT MY ISSUE IN THIS ARTICLE.

 My topic is on black women and their collaborations in disastrous relationship outcomes and their participation in the perpetuation of black men negative stereotypes. We need a reality check! There is need evaluate ourselves and see right across the mirror on how we are actually contributing to the mess that is our current social system. We have to stop the business of shifting blame onto the men for our wrong decisions.  Often women are expects at diverting the blame to others especially to the man who has turned out to be a jerk "he used me","he is such a loser for dumping me", "men are evil and heartless" and perhaps the most outstanding of all their crimes is that of the disappearing act when they get the woman "knocked up".

We often hear of how heartless black men are how they lie, cheat, use us and cannot face responsibility. Black women complain about having given their all, financially, materially and spiritually to these men only to be reciprocated with abuse and un-appreciativeness.

My question is when will we start taking responsibility on our part for having low expectations in our lives? Refusing to acknowledge our direct participation in how lowly we are treated borders on narcissism, for the narcissist is never wrong and anyone who comes up to call out wrong behaviour is often seen as attacking and that is the case, one needs only to look to social media to note this. Let us think about this do we rather go on setting ourselves up for failure or be willing to change the outcomes thus taking control of our lives, which means no man can actually hurt us unless we allow them to. 

How do we expect an elevated status when we are aiming low? How do we expect to be treated in a non demeaning way when in the first place most of us are found guilty of associating with low lives. The first step in the right direction is acknowledging the failures on our part.

As a child I grew up hearing on how bad men are. We were raised to see men as a species with inherently evil traits that were created only for the sole purposes of mistreating women. With that background women are conditioned to expect very little in relationships, it’s unfortunate that these views are passed on from women who themselves made wrong decisions, and simply hand over these views to the next generations often without being honest about how they themselves may have contributed to the bad circumstances. 

Given all the analysis’ on men you would expect women to be a little more guarding of ourselves. If men in general are so  heartless clearly we should have learnt, but almost no gathering of women will be dismissed before the subject of men and their bad agendas  is mentioned. I am not letting men who treat women badly off the hook, neither am I suggesting that they go blame free. I am simply saying we are doing it wrong from the start and expect right to come out of it.

 Who is to blame when a woman attaches herself to a married man who later turns to be un-supportive when babies are made in the faulty union? I am calling out the woman who goes eyes wide open for a man with four children, by different women and no form of responsibility he takes for them. Why does a woman like that raise out the red card and cry foul when she finds herself being another deserted baby mama. We need to address the issue of why women go after broken men, before we can lash out at broken men.

I remember taking up with my sister  on how for the second time around in a row I was treated badly by a man. I was obviously devastated and so her response was shocking and unwelcome.when asked why it has happened again and told me straight up that I was playing with fire.  Here I was expecting her to join my pity party, feel sorry for me and soothe me and remind me of how nasty men are, all the while not taking one shred of responsibility of the situations and possibly to repeat it again.

 Thankfully I am the kind of person who believes that the truth may hurt but the truth will help. I reflected on my choices and decisions and realised that it is entirely my fault if I associate myself with a man who has no ounce of self respect for himself. It is ones own undoing when they accommodate a man who has no standards and nothing to offer. I've since learnt that I should never complain about a man who doesn't appreciate my being and my talents if I choose someone I have no common ground with in the first place. For as long as women go after things that have no value in considering relationships then they will never be a point of exhale.

Ever heard of the famous" all men are dogs!" This statement is thrown everywhere and is the ultimate truth for many women, on TV, in buses, at work seems men being equated to dogs is acceptable. I disagree strongly with that statement, unless you've met all men and dated all men you cannot lump up a whole species' because of a few rotten ones that you have encountered. I reiterate that we cannot say all black men are bad when we have lowered our standards by being accomplices to our self downfall.

There is no grander delusion than that of throwing yourself into the lions' den hoping for a "Daniel effect". A woman who dates a thug and expects to be treated like a queen, has titanic delusions of royalty that they are not.

We need to deal with the prevailing fractured mindset that any man is a man. We cannot define a man simply  from a biological perspective that if he dangles some inches in his pants he is a man. There is more to being a man than his anatomy, a man should be measured from a stand point of his values, expectations, lifestyle and influences for him to be called a real man. A man raised in a broken family often struggles to be what a man should be. There are always indicators, his family background almost gives him entirely out, his relationship with females around him tells story, his general attitude also spells out who he is. 

Black women are guilty of not doing their due diligence, going blindly into relationships that have no substance, with men of questionable characters, only to turn around and say there are no good men, meanwhile they are good men out there, men of integrity who are sidelined easily because these men do not help them in participating in their shortcomings. These men expect higher standards from them. The other  problem is that most women are raised with such low expectations in life concerning relationships and any man who expects high standards is discarded and labelled all sorts, in most cases are said to have lost touch with reality.

If we are honest with ourselves we should be able to look back and say "I messed up, and that relationship was never supposed to happen", before we can hate and slander the man for not living up to what we thought. How do we expect a 100% commitment from a men who has zero commitment towards his own life.

The mantra is "there are no good men left", but how does one expect to go to bed and lie with Dracula and expect to wake up next to an angel, faulty people don't change drastically and if they do it is not our duty to place ourselves in the firing line trying to change them you might get burnt! The biggest fault is not even the faulty man, the error is in the woman who has not enough self worth and love for herself who goes after such questionable characters.

The plain truth, hard to accept is: The problem is not that there are no good men left the problem is most of us are looking for love, affection and devotion in the wrong places, without considering the impact of breeding children from relationships that lack the solid basis needed to maintain a successful relationship. The even bigger problem is from the fact that most of us are not raised to want better.

There are many good black men out there but they are often sidelined because women are focusing on things that don't matter, things of little to no value. Often when looking at potential relationships some women have the “what can I get out of it mentality?” and this is strictly in terms of material gain even at the cost of their entire well being all the while ignoring the red flags. This kind of thinking steers the ship in the wrong direction. It doesn't help looking at a man's wallet instead of his mental and social being, I am not saying successful relationships are only with broke man, but rather its about taking into consideration the things that count first.

You will never get a deep experience from a shallow underlying basis. The biggest bad influence is media, it is  the agent used to keep a people from expecting higher. The media throws negative images that become normalised in our everyday life, in the end wrong becomes the right. A woman with 6 kids 6 baby daddies is praised for being able to hold it down and taking care of her kids alone without the loser baby daddies, but that is the whole crisis trying to treat symptoms instead of the root cause,which is the woman who has no problem sinking so low popping kids with different men and yet expect to live a sane life. It doesn't work like that.

I saw a post the other day of a woman who was spewing bitterness at the fact that after having used up all her savings and college tuition to pay for her boyfriend's medical bills after he had been shot 7 times, he cheated, got her friend pregnant and left her.

Many comments on that post made by women  sympathised with her, on how ruthless and an un-grateful bastard he is for doing that to her after all she had sacrificed for him.

I say how foolish can one be? How do you expect heroism for the stupidity of using up all your tuition to pay for a reckless man's medical expenses, which brings to light another issue, desperation. Many woman are needy and desperate for love to the point of downright stupid. A man shot seven times in the neighbourhood is a man that  no woman who respects herself should be with in the first place. That is something very disturbing that women can lower themselves by having relationships with men that spell out disaster in bold. If you are going to be someone's "ride or die" make sure that man is worthy.

 The fact that a woman can fail to distinguish a man who is worthy from one who is not says a lot about herself more than the man. It indicates a major problem, that of a low self esteem and a poor sense of self. While she was occupied on holding it down for a loser boyfriend, there was a fine brother whom she hardly noticed because he didn't fit the norm or it could be the other way round that a self respecting man will never go for a woman with low levels of attainments in life.

They say good men are boring, oh yes I have heard that too many times and if you are a woman you've heard this before. They are boring because they won’t play you around and juggle you with other females? Boring because they call time out on bad behaviour? Boring because they have set high expectations for themselves on relationships and  life in general? Tell me how would you know about good men when all you do is pair up with the bad ones.

We need to be honest with our selves that is the starting point, if there is to be hope in raising successful black families. He has had 4  baby mamas and has never committed to any one of them yet you hand over to him your uterus without considering the repercussions.

The reality is that the majority of us black women are behaving like sheep led without any form of resistance to slaughter by a system and lifestyle that wants to keep us broken. It is the same system that creates enmity between the black man and woman, and prevents them from actually forming strong forces that take our people forward. How do they do this you may ask? Simple by setting the bar so low for women so much that they never have the desire to aim higher for themselves. The women settle for less instead of more and any chance for a well bred society becomes non existent.

If we are going to be successful at anything including good relationships, family and a successful society we need to be real with ourselves on how we have been doing it wrong. We can only stop the cycle of if we peg our self worth higher and teach our girls the same.