Tuesday, April 21, 2009

And They Claim That Black Male/White Female IR Is More Acceptable.

Over and over we keep hearing and reading the notion that interracial relationships between black men and white women are more acceptable. This assertion is most commonly made by the common black female IR bloggers who label their sites as black female empowerment blogs. This article tends to show this assertion to be quite false.

Black man kissing white woman causes stir

St. Louis Post-Dispatch

On the cover of today’s Go! magazine, a regular section of Friday’s Post-Dispatch, there is a photo of a couple kissing to go along with the story “The 7 Best Places To Smooch”. The story hasn’t generated a ton of buzz, but the photo has. Why? Because the man is black and the woman is white. The reader comments at the end of the online version clearly showed us that at least some folks out there are not comfortable with interracial relationships.
April 10's GO! cover of an interracial couple kissing generated unapproving comments from some readers.

The April 10 GO! cover generated disapproving story comments from some Post-Dispatch readers.

Here are a couple of examples:

From 1buschstadiumplz: “Haven’t read the story but dont like to see blacks and whites kissing;”

From taxpayer came this remark: ”This doesn’t surprise me at all. Libs take every opportunity they can to shove miscegnation in our faces. Now that TV has to show blacks in every commercial, notice that they are always posed beside a blonde woman. Not a brunette, a blonde. Its done for shock value. Sickening that a once proud newspaper would resort ot this. Joe Pulitzer is turning over in his grave in shame.”

Reader greggh tried a middle-of-the-road approach: “I’m not judging the concept of biracial couples at all, but in a city as racially polarized as St. Louis, I’m shocked that the PD would go so out of its way to be so gratuitously provacative. This completely undercut the message of the article.”
Other readers were disturbed by the negative comments including dwilliams, who wrote:
“You people make me sick! What a disgustingly racist community we live in. My husband is black, I am white, we have beautiful children and we are both educated. We teach our children tolerance and acceptance of others, even the meth smoking, trailer park rednecks portrayed in these comments. Keep your nastiness to yourself!”
We have deleted some of the comments that included offensive language because that is not appropriate or tolerated on the P-D blogs and we decided to limit comments on the photo to this blog.
I did some asking around in the newsroom about the decision to use the photo. Turns out that the couple is a real couple. The creative director of Go! knows the couple and asked them if they would pose for the story.
Quick research tells me that 7 percent of married couples are interracial and those numbers are growing as the minority groups in this country continue to grow. Tiger Woods, Halle Barry, Derek Jeter and President Barack Obama are all products of interracial parents.
It’s been almost 42 years since the U.S. Supreme Court knocked down a law barring interracial marriage. But today, at least in St. Louis, it seems to remain a touchy subject.

Sunday, April 19, 2009

"Don't Blame It On Rio": Catering To And Pleasing Black Men


I happened upon a blog owned by an individual who goes by the name "Case" and found this interesting article concerning the book "Don't Blame It On Rio". The book, written by Professor Jewel Woods, along with Pulitzer Prizewinning journalist Karen Hunter, examines the growing trend of professional black men participating in the Brazilian sex tourism industry and provides provocative insight on how black professional men view their relationships with black women and the women in Brazil.

Case gives an interesting opinion on this growing trend and how it relates to black male/black female relationships in America:

"Black men seek something in women not of their race because of the images they see around them which doesn’t include beautiful African American women. Professional African American women don’t cater to black men as women of color of other countries are accustomed to doing. It is second nature for them to wait on men and please them in any way they want to be pleased. African American women shun at the thought of pleasing their men in any way they want to be pleased. They expect to be pleased, yet when it comes to pleasing their men, they shudder at the thought. I’m not just referring to pleasing black men in the bedroom. I’m referring to pleasing men outside of the bedroom. It’s the little things that count, such as rubbing your man’s back, running his bath water, cooking him a homecooked meal and feeding his ego by telling him how great he is and how much he is appreciated. It’s the little things that mean so much. If black women were to let down their guards and start treating their men the way they want and expect to be treated, their men wouldn’t be traveling to places like Rio seeking false love. They would enjoy real love with women they identify with and belong with."
Now of course, there will be accusations of generalizations, but this really caught my eye because in my opinion, it makes a very important point. Priority with pleasing men has become lower today than ever before among all groups of women. As is the case with so many negatives in our society, this lower priority appears to be more prevalent in the black community. This is my perception true enough, but I will say with confidence that this is a perception shared by many black men.

I highlighted the part that says "they like to be pleased" because there is great emphasis today on pleasing women and men doing those "little things" for their women, but such emphasis is not reciprocated. This differs from past decades whereas girls were socialized early to become wives and taught what was necessary to keep their husbands happy. They were taught to be nurturers not only of their kids, but of their husbands as we see from the home economic textbooks of the past.

Men today don't expect such extreme service from their wives and girlfriends today, yet the extremes seem to have gone in the complete opposite direction. Even from a sexual standpoint, most literature is geared toward pleasing women. Foreplay is almost always that which a man performs upon a woman despite the fact that men have similar erogenous zones. Yet, black men are afraid to express what is lacking in their sex lives as is so well stated in this article:
"Let's face it: Black men have a huge reputation for cheating. At this point, cheating is expected of married Black men. The irony about it all is that Black women tend to be so sassy and defensive that married Black men or Black men in serious relationships are generally terrified to complain about the lack of overall satisfaction that they receive at home. We talk amongst over selves about it in the barbershops and poolrooms. We talk about it on the phone to our homeboys. We cheat. We go to strip clubs. We try everything except telling our wives the truth. This leaves our women in the dark."
"The saddest thing about the game is when I encourage brothers to discuss the issue with their wives. The result is always the same - the defensive sister, argues that the brother needs to be discipline himself. The woman tells the brother that he needs to stop being so selfish."
What so many women fail to understand is that one of the main things a man considers when determining whether he wants to marry a particular woman or not is whether he will be happy in a marriage with that woman. A man analyzes whether he would be happier married or single. On the other hand, women tend to feel that men are obligated to marry them. "I'm an educated professional black woman and I have the right to be married." There is little emphasis on WINNING A MAN'S HEART while there great emphasis on DEMANDING a ring. Just look at how so many sistas really get into Beyonce's "Single Ladies".

Women, and particularly black women, seem to view marriage as a means to fill a void and any available man that interests or impresses them is welcome to fill that void. These women judge men's decisions on marriage based on this perspective. "He's with me and clearly interested in me, yet he won't marry me". They then accuse him of being immature and afraid of commitment, yet the truth is that despite the men being sexually attracted to them and even finding their general company appealing, these men have not concluded that these women will make them happy in marriage because, quite frankly, these women have failed to put put emphasis on WINNING A MAN'S HEART.

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

The Intimate Homicide Fallacy

With the recent multiple stabbing death of Chiquita Tate, the Something Screwed Crew and other self proclaimed "Black Woman Empowerment Bloggers" have a new tool in their efforts to pin an exaggerated and hypocritical image on black men. They use each incident as 'evidence' of the alleged thousands of black women "slaughtered" by black men each year. Of course, we know that they have no real concern over Ms. Tate. If you go over to the What About Our Daughters blog, you will notice that they spend a small amount of time giving any semblance of grief over this young woman's death and a large amount of time doing what they do so well; bashing black men.

If we actually take a view of the national statistics concerning intimate homicide, you will notice that in 2005, 337 black women were killed by intimate partners. While 337 violent deaths is nothing to shrug your shoulders at, it is a far cry from the alleged "thousands" claimed by these dishonest women. With around 14 million black Women in America over the age of 18, the chances of a black woman being killed by an intimate is around 1 in 41,543 annually. So when they talk about how dating is such a life risking activity, they clearly have no idea of the numbers.

Also, lets look at the enormous hypocrisy of their assertions. In 2005, while 337 black women were killed by intimates, 138 black men were killed by intimates. This means that 2.4 times as many black women are killed by intimates than black men killed by intimates.

In that same year, 789 white women were killed by intimates while 183 white men were killed by intimates. Based on stats, black women were killed by intimates at a rate 2.6 times greater than white women. But black men were killed by intimates at a rate 4.5 times greater than white men. Put another way, 4.3 times more white women were killed by intimates than white men, while 2.4 times more black women were killed by intimates than black men.

So what does this have to say about the RELATIVE rates of intimate homicide for black women compared to black men? More women of all races are killed by intimates than men. In the case of black Americans, black women are significantly more deadly toward intimates compared to white women than black men are compared to white men.

ADDENDUM: It is interesting to note that from 1976 to 1989, the number of black men killed by intimates exceeded the number of black women killed by intimates each year save for three. Seemingly, no other racial or ethnic group in America, besides blacks, has ever had a single year whereas more men were killed by intimate partners than women.