Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Black Madonnas

I'll date a single mother - but I'd never date a bad one.
Why would I take any woman seriously who puts me ahead of her own children.
If I died, wouldn't she do the same with my future progeny?
My father died when I was one.
My mother was insecure and unstable.
My mother always had a need for the approval of others.
These flaws caused her to put us children in bad situations and hostile environments.
I know, firsthand, of the consequences of bad single mothers.

I know, I know... this is supposed to be the Holiday Season and we should be filled with joy and cheer - but most of the people with which I interact on a daily basis are more concerned with survival than they are with doing any better for themselves.
I wonder, Is morality a luxury reserved for the rich?
What about Hope?
Is Charity also reserved for those with the means to share their excess goods without any sacrifice of their own?
And without such traits - how can anyone expect things to get any better?

A lot of Black men are pretty effed up.
Why else would they just leave their children to be raised by anyone other than themselves?
Why else would they assume that an under-prepared, dependent, and immature woman is their best option in a potential partner?
We men must think beyond the immediate satisfaction of a brief sexual encounter and begin to focus on the future consequences of our actions.
What man in their right mind would leave their progeny in the hands of a woman for witch they have no affinity?
Or worse, in the hands of government agencies?

But back to the Black Madonnas... .
Since Black women are some of the most churched people in America - are these women following their model of The Virgin Mary as that of a passive single mother?
Do these women just assume that God will raise these children,
or that these children will raise themselves through trial and error?
Why are so many single mothers failing to pick up the slack left by absentee fathers?
Or is this really a problem of flawed future fathers mating with flawed future mothers and creating an environment for flawed future children?

Okay, I finally saw Precious.
I hated the movie, but damn it was good.
Paula Patton is pretty, Mariah looked kind of tired but I still would fall in love with her voice.
I hate Sherry Sheppard, and Mo'Nique even more.
But in this movie, both women appeared as I view them when they assume that they are at their best.

I hated the character portrayed by Mo'Nique because I see this archetype almost everyday in my day-to-day life.
I hate these primary parents who assume that they are more important than their children.
I hate these primary parents who assume that their happiness is their ultimate goal and not that of their children.
I hate these primary parents who assume that their failings or inadequacies will be passed on to their children.
(And who seem to constantly remind their children of such.)
I hate these primary parents who seem jealous of their own children's successes.
I hate these primary parents who later try to make amends but who often come up a day late and a dollar short.
I hate everything Mo'Nique's character represents.

But why wouldn't such women exist?
What woman, brought up in the popular Mega-Church, would have the gumption to choose an alternate model?
Are these churches teaching and enabling these women in their continuation of the ultimate single mother model?
Maybe we should focus on the influences of these women.
Maybe we should place the blame on the Black men who are supposed to be leaders within each community (Usually Black ministers.).
Maybe the problem returns again to the Black man.

2 comments:

  1. WOW! To me the real question is asking how many men get stuck with a woman they just got pregnant. Then when times get hard they didn't love her anyway so it's not hard to step away. Then even if he tries to do the right thing by this woman he never loved she gets his checks garnished, him thrown in jail, and then tells the kids he doesn't want to see them.

    We have on whole a bunch of teenage moms who in their 30's try to raise young men and fail horribly. So many of them put their needs ahead of their children because they were not mature enough to have them anyway. Now the boys who never become Men leave because they still think they should be single. The baby mama damn nears makes them a felon because of the laws and out of being scorned poison the ground and the minds of the children. So who wouldn't walk away from that shit!

    Women on whole have been programmed to be victims. So why wouldn't they feel they are burdened by society's norms. The same girl who wants attention is the same in womanhood and will still seek this out.

    See to me the same kind of women existed in the good times. It's just society forced them to be homemakers and thus even if they were messed up in the brain they cranked out well nourished kids. Since society and women's lib has taken off these restraints all this pinned up rage has manifested in f*cking up families as a generation of women can't even be women!

    Their mothers raised children with no man and they came out alright. Now these same women refuse to do what's right by their children so they end up messing up their whole life. No love from a man, no love from their kids, and no love or respect from the world!

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  2. To be lonely or to be partnered is the problem all single mothers have to grapple with. I am one of those that has chosen to keep men out of my family space until my children have reached adulthood. I have friends who do the same as we all realise that our children must take our primary focus and it is not possible to share it with a man. It is sad as that leaves our children with only remote male figures in their lives but I feel it is less of an evil than men that may come and go.

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