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March 27, 2006
What Of Marriage?
Posted at March 27, 2006 09:05 PM in Gay & Lesbian Issues .
A friend and I had an interesting conversation recently. Since the fall of FemmeNoir, I’ve heard a number of comments about the site as it was and what some feel it became. I welcome the soul work involved with these tiny revelations, particularly the fact many believed I sold out to politics and changed the flavor of the site. It seems the site went from a “BC,” meaning Before the Conflict, to “AD” After the Death of my commentaries.
Some felt the site more soulful in its original state and that I bowed to politics and moved away from the experiences of women, love, and relationships. Not only were my close friends complaining about this, I also received numerous complaints about the direction of the site stating I was “missing the mark” and “you sold out.” I also believed I created a little monster in directing some in a direction I really did not want them to go.
Taking some time away from FemmeNoir, not only do I hear them now, I understand. I understand perfectly what they were saying and to those women, my apologies.
My intentions were originally to create a site that would provide information and direct women to various events or happenings in their area, talk about my life as a lesbian, the loss of Christine, and overall make it more personal while providing information to boot. As time went on, I pretty much found myself talked out and thought I would investigate other avenues to provide new content. Unfortunately, the road I chose to travel was one I was (1) unfamiliar with and (2) really had no real contact with anyone after Christine’s death.
As I have mentioned several times, it appeared every time I thought about or planned to attend an event of some type, something always happened to either impede my progress or, as it was last year when I found myself in a hospital, was outright stopped from going. Well, you don’t have to hit a fool too many times over the head before she realizes she’s moving in the wrong direction, thus, “don’t look back.” Knowing if I had gone to the conference last year I would have probably returned in a box, if not by ambulance, is sobering enough for me to get it. But, as it is said, when one door closes another opens and the doors that opened were the hearts of many women who have come to me, either personally or via email, to tell me a little something about what they missed about FemmeNoir and most have talked about what they missed during the early days of FemmeNoir.
Of significance was what my friend said which was not about FemmeNoir per se as it was more on the subject of gay marriage. Since I have not had time to look up or research her statistics, I mistakenly dismissed her statement until it flashed in my face today.
She said gay marriage, in the Black GLBT community will never get a good foothold because many of us are single and looking, only know short term relationships, or have just given up on the whole notion of having a long term committed relationship. Then she added one more thing saying many Black women are all too familiar with being raised by strong Black women – a grandmother, aunt, or single mother – and as such, we never saw those women remarry, though they had boyfriends or long term partners, they never married. Additionally, some lived out their lives as single women whose soul responsibility was to their families and no one else. She felt this interfered with our ability to enter into relationships with other women because we are accustomed to being strong for ourselves and as such, we live, within our relationships, as single women.
Again, I summed up her argument as one woman’s opinion and then I thought about it. I did not want to live with Christine. We tried it for a short time but I found myself resenting the way she wanted to always have control. The woman raised her son alone after her husband’s death. She raised two nephews as well. She bought and sold homes and in a sense, she had to do it for herself with no one’s help. She could not depend on anyone to help her but herself.
For me, I found myself feeling like one of her children and as much as we talked about it, nothing changed. I moved out and moved across town to where I am now and honestly, felt better for doing it. Our relationship was better as well. She did not have to worry about me being a user – something I often felt – because I maintained and kept up with my own. I did not have to worry about what I felt were her negative thoughts about me because I could always go back to my own piece of Mecca, right here at home. She wanted us to live together and I wanted it too, but we could not. We were both too independent, were successful doing things our own way, her way was very different from mine and vice versa. In essence, marriage would not have served us, at least not for long.
The myth of the Black Superwoman can, sometimes, cut down dreams, aspirations, love and will hurt relationships and send them places out of this world. The bitterness Black women sometimes display with one another can become one explosive world war within a relationship and some of those breakups can be bitter herbs and not so medicinal.
In essence, the greatest need is for us to talk about our relationships, honoring those relationships and then, perhaps, we can move on to marriage. As it is, I don’t know many couples who have made it longer than 10 years together. The few I’ve heard about are truly few and far between.
Today on Diversity Inc., I read the following short article on marriage within the Black community:
Is Marriage on the Rocks for Blacks? Compiled by the DiversityInc staff © 2006 DiversityInc.com® March 27, 2006Springtime’s warmer weather is just around the corner, and so are wedding bells, but will the bulk of the people getting married be white?
Joy Jones, the author of Between Black Women: Listening With the Third Ear and a Washington Post columnist, suggests such a scenario is not far off.
In her column, Jones notes that the marriage rate for black men and women has been dropping since the 1960s and that, currently, the rate is the lowest among all racial groups in the United States.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 43.3 percent of black men and 41.9 percent of black women in America never have been married. In contrast, 27.4 percent of white men and 20.7 of white females never have been married. This and other marriage statistics have caused Howard University relationship therapist Audrey Chapman to say blacks in the United States are the most uncoupled people in the country, which Jones finds disheartening.
Jones has heard reasons why black people are leaning toward life without marriage from many sources, including a 12-year-old boy who said “marriage is for white people.”
“But human nature being what it is, if marriage is to flourish – in black or white America – it will have to offer an individual woman something more than a business alliance, a panacea for what ails the community, or an incubator for rearing children,” writes Jones.
With that, FemmeNoir’s focus changes. I will continue to post political articles, but I will turn my attentions more on women, our loves, and relationships. This is truly important. This was the focus of many of Audre Lorde’s articles and yet, I feel at times we have still missed the point. Did we hear her? Are we truly reading her words? Are we listening? Do we care? I do and I’m looking for voices, politically correct or not, to express their feelings and concerns, their joys and their sorrows.
The belief or thought that marriage is something “white folks do” is something we need to get over. Just as the thought in my community that homosexuality came into our community because of “white folks” somehow infiltrating our young and “making them gay” because “that mess never existed in our community [or families] until integration” has got to cease. We must turn the focus, not on what folks are doing outside of our community, but on ourselves in order to love ourselves and each other.
If the above is true – and I’m still not sure yet it is ‘cause I’m from Missouri – we have a lot of work to do in our communities to build families – gay and straight – that will serve as models for others to see. We need to see commitment and love displayed and talked about in ways similar to Cheryl Swoopes when she describes her relationship. I so love her article in Essence – or everywhere I’ve seen her words for that matter. We need to validate our relationships, honor them, and honor those who have taken vows of commitment. Without those models, marriage, whether gay or straight, will not happen and no one will ever take the institution seriously because they have no models and as such, will never consider it.
Interesting Links:
Marriage Is for White People
Dems, what are you going to do about blacks leaving the party?
Marriage is great equalizer for blacks – USA Today
Untying the Knots: Marriage Equality and the Struggle for Civil Rights
Black Marriage Day
The Marriage Movement and the Black Church
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