“font-family: Verdana; line-height: 18px;”>As my St. Louis American colleagues partied down at the Salute to Education, lucky for them I was home resolving monumental life questions, sinuses swollen, popping Benadryl and drinking tea. I am sure they are grateful.
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“font-size: 9.0pt; line-height: 150%; font-family: Verdana; color: black;”> Luckily for me, I have a lot to draw from with the New York Times’ review of Ralph Richard Banks’s new book, Is Marriage for White People? “font-size: 9.0pt; line-height: 150%; font-family: Verdana; color: black;”> You may recall, I last discussed black male joblessness for the past four decades. Themes in this review by Princeton’s Imani Perry dovetail into my continuing analysis,
“font-size: 9.0pt; line-height: 150%; font-family: Verdana; color: black;”> Three options present. Do many black women 1) opt for self-actualization through motherhood, with no expectation of marriage to the child’s father, 2) self-validate solely from relationships with men, bearing children as an afterthought, or 3) believe pregnancy will secure the relationship, keeping the man in their lives?
“font-size: 9.0pt; line-height: 150%; font-family: Verdana; color: black;”> Either way, father or father-figure absence seems not a good thing for children, male or female. Don’t know what your bottom line is, but this is definitely mine.Â
“font-size: 9.0pt; line-height: 150%; font-family: Verdana; color: black;”> My pastor is a stickler for parents bringing children to church, stating frequently: “If you don’t put God in your children’s lives, you don’t love your children.” I’ll go him one better: If you don’t plan your life, you (and your children) will have to take what you can get.
“font-size: 9.0pt; line-height: 150%; font-family: Verdana; color: black;”> Don’t get me wrong here. I understand the odds, unemployment, the prison pipeline and narcotics flooding our communities, all instances of massive repression targeting black men. Even beyond these, a very few men escape an affliction I call “Man-Stupid.” One symptom of this neurosis is the refusal by a man to identify and accept the feminine in himself, leading to the full-blown psychosis: male supremacy.
“font-size: 9.0pt; line-height: 150%; font-family: Verdana; color: black;”> It is my belief that male supremacy and white supremacy are identical: “I am better than you.” Black women must fend off both, in the same way the black community must counter both external and internal pressures.
“font-size: 9.0pt; line-height: 150%; font-family: Verdana; color: black;”> Nine months ago, I spent the night in a Ferguson jail for insisting on seeing a man beaten by eight policemen while having a panic attack in a parking lot. I was arrested and booked on a felony larceny committed in Los Angeles, my request to see the paperwork refused. If I’m lying, I’m flying.
“font-size: 9.0pt; line-height: 150%; font-family: Verdana; color: black;”> Conversations from adjacent cells by dreadlocked young black men, ostensibly drug dealers, included regrets about their fathers not being there for them, and how they were determined to take care of their children. The tragedy is and was that, even with being on the right track, they believed this was all they could do.Â
“font-size: 9.0pt; line-height: 150%; font-family: Verdana; color: black;”> Gil Scott-Heron sang, “Must be something we can do.” One thing, we can leave those stankalicious/genocidal Tea Partiers out of the discussion.Â
“font-size: 9.0pt; line-height: 150%; font-family: Verdana; color: black;”> Ruth-Miriam Garnett is author of
“font-size: 9.0pt; line-height: 150%; font-family: Verdana; color: black;”> Laelia, a novel. Her newest book is Concerning Violence, New & Selected Poems. For tour and book events, contact latalewestley@aol.com
