The Socialization of Black Boys

I was reading a very interesting book entitled "The Origins of War in Child Abuse" by Lloyd deMause. The book is provided free online at the link. It basically proclaims that the violent behavior exhibited so often by men is not be the result of higher testosterone levels as has been the common belief, but rather due to the childhood conditioning that they commonly receive from their mothers:

"The only neurobiological condition inherited by boys that affects later violence
is they have a smaller corpus callosum, the part of the brain that connects the
right and the left hemisphere.16 The larger corpus callosum of infant girls
allows them to work through trauma and neglect more easily than boys.
Furthermore, boys who are abused had a 25 percent reduction in sections of the
corpus callosum, while girls did not.17 This means boys actually need more love
and caretaking than girls as they grow up. If they do not receive enough
interpersonal attention from their caretakers they suffer from damaged
prefrontal cortices (self control, empathy) and from hyperactive amygdalae (fear
centers), their corpus callosum is reduced further, and they have reduced
serotonin levels (calming ability) and increased corticosterone production
(stress hormone). All these factors make them have weak selves, reduced empathy,
less control over impulsive violence and far more fears than girls.18"

So as we see, for neurobiological reasons, boys are in greater need of love and caregiving than girls. This brings up the question of whether they actually receive such greater love and caregiving:

"The central psychobiological question, then, is this: Are boys given more love
and attention than girls by their caretakers in order to help them offset their
greater needs? The answer, of course, is just the opposite: boys are given less
care and support, from everyone in the family and in society, and they are
abused far more than girls, so by the time they are three years of age they
become twice as violent as girls.19 Boys’ greater violence by this time,
including their propensity to form dominance gangs and to endlessly “play war,”
are the results of their greater abuse and distancing by adults and being
subject to demands to “grow up” and “be manly” and “not be a crybaby” and not
need attachments—attitudes taught by their parents, teachers and coaches. By age
four boys’ play is full of provocations that test their self-worth: “At 4 years
of age, girls’ insults to one another are infrequent and minor…Boy/boy insults,
however, are numerous and tough.”20 The so-called “aggressiveness” usually
ascribed to boys is in fact wholly defensive, as they try to ward off their
greater feelings of insecurity and hopelessness.21 It isn’t “aggression” males
display; it’s bravado—defensive testing and disproof of their fears."

So as one might clearly suspect, boys are typically shown less affection and given less support than girls. Such lesser affection probably comes from both mothers and fathers, yet that which comes from mothers is most important:

"The mother, of course, is the focal point of this widespread distancing and
insecure attachment pattern. High levels of violence and of testosterone have
been shown to be associated with poorer relationships with mothers, not fathers,
since mothers are the primary caretakers in most families (even in America
today, fathers spend only an average of eleven minutes a day with their
children).22 It is not just genetics but more importantly maternal environment
that Tronick and Weinberg blame when they see from their studies that “Infant
boys are more emotionally reactive than girls. They display more positive as
well as negative affect, focus more on the mother, and display more signals
expressing escape and distress and demands for contact than do girls.”23 This is
because from infancy boys are expected to “just grow up” and not need as much
emotional care as girls—indeed, boys are regularly encouraged not to express any
of their feelings, since this is seen as “weak” or “babyish” in boys.24 While
mothers may sometimes dominate their little girls and expect them to share their
emotional problems, they distance their boys by not making contact with them and
expect them to “be a man.” This begins from birth: “Over the first three months
of life, a baby girl’s skills in eye contact and mutual facial gazing will
increase by over 400 percent, whereas facial gazing skills in a boy during this
time will not increase at all.”25 Boys grow up with less attachment strengths
because careful studies show that mothers look at their boys less, because both
parents hit their boys two or three times as much as they do their girls,
because boys are at much higher risk than girls for serious violence against
them, and because boys are continuously told to be “tough,” not to be a “wimp”
or a “weakling,” not to be “soft” or a “sissy.”26"

Here is more good information on the subject:

"Perhaps because boys’ needs are greater than girls’, harried and often depressed
mothers give them less love and attention from birth. Careful studies reveal
that mothers look at and talk more with their daughters than with their sons,
spend more time interacting with them, smile more at their daughters than at
their sons, direct more orders and prohibitions toward their sons, and use more
severe disciplinary styles and more shaming techniques toward them.50

If they are ashamed of what their mothers have taught them they are and by their continuing need for her understanding, they “learn to suffer quietly, in retreat behind the mask of masculinity [and] cover up the more gentle, caring, vulnerable sides of themselves.”63 If, of course, they are brought up with love and care, like my sons—and probably like yours—they grow up neither violent nor war lovers. But abandoned and abused boys regularly hide their shame and fears behind a defensive fantasy of grandiosity, dominance and violent bravado.64 The violence they exhibit both kills other Bad Selves (called “enemies”), who like themselves are seen as both angry and weak, plus it provokes the violence of others, inviting self-destructive, suicidal responses. Confrontation, “carrying a chip on their shoulders,” is their defense against admitting that they feel weak, rejected and worthless.65"

So how does all of this relate to the excessive violence that is so prevalent among black men? Is the lack of affection and support received by black men greater than that of other men. One study entitled Parent-child Play: Descriptions and Implications, does address this basic idea:

Blacks:
1) Infants are doted on; much attention to food and clothes.
2) But 'most black women believe the children are easily spoiled by too much attention including being held, carried, and praised.'
3) Infants are often left unattended for long periods of time. Black infants forced to be autonomous earlier than other groups.
4) Teenage pregnancy is tolerated but mother soon becomes disinterested in baby and grandmother takes over most of the care.
5) High levels of physical discipline, including 'shaking and spanking, often with belts and switches.'

Cuban-Americans
1) Teenage pregnancy not sanctioned. High rate of abortions.
2) Infants are the center of attention of entire extended household.
3) Infants are carried everywhere and rocked a great deal, are scolded infrequently, and are seldom physically punished.

More details of the study can be found here. The trends shown by the study applies to both teenage and adult mothers.

So this leaves the final question of whether there is a difference between the affection level given black girls and black boys. For a couple of decades, the idea that black mothers love their boys and raise their daughters has made it into black folklore, despite there being no empirical evidence to support this notion. One study finally takes a look at it with the following results:

'While no differences were found in the way that the mother uses control with her children, the mother did appear to have a more warm and guiding-producing relationship with her daughter. This finding runs contrary to the stereotype that the “African American mother ‘loves’ her son, but ‘raises’ her daughter.”'

So the evidence seems to say that boys are shown less affection and support than girls, black mothers show less affection and support to their young children than other groups and black boys receive less affection and support than black girls. While numerous other factors certainly are among the reasons why black males today show so much excessive violence, evidence does support that lesser attention and affection from their mothers at an early age could play a major role in this.

Response to Von's Rant

Well, I guess will have to respond to idiocy. The profane and unladylike blogger known as Von has responded to my previous post with the usual insults, straw man arguments, false accusations, etc. In her attempt to try and seem intelligent, she doesn't realize how dumb she seems. Here is what she says:

Rocky likes to cite old studies with small sample sizes and random blogs with
little validity/credibility in his comments and blogs. This is when he's not
using SURVEY results as if they hold some magic key to more creditable data that
one would find in a scholarly database such as JSTOR. He gives no thought at all
to the source of the study/blogs, sample size, age of the study, demographics of
the study, or any of the other stuff they teach you in Data & Research
analysis in college. He does this in an effort to IGNORE real numbers and
statistics that can't be refuted. He also does this in an effort to IGNORE
decades of continuous research from African American social scientist that go
against his ideas about black men.

This is comical. I presented the research of this man in the blog post that she is ranting about. I'll take the research of a trained and experienced PH.D over the rantings of an imbecilic blogger who provides NOTHING in the realm of data to counter any of the data I produce. Her data is her own proclaimed observations. So basically she says that peer reviewed research takes a back seat to what she allegedly sees with her "own eyes" (which are probably fabricated observations). She claims all of this research by African American social scientists that contradict me, yet she provides none of them. If she new anything about JSTOR, she would know that Rebekah Levine Coley's work IS on JSTOR and her research has been described as "comprehensive". I have presented Coley's work and her work was presented on dingbat's blog. I'm quite sure that she is feeling quite the fool she is now.

http://www.jstor.org/pss/1132081

http://www.jstor.org/pss/3599997

http://www.jstor.org/pss/3599896

On his blog he didn't bother to address the actual post, For My Critics: If You
Have A Better Solution Bring It ( here). Instead he did what I would expect from a
deflector: He nitpicked his argument while attacking me. He can't argue my
points so he decides to assassinate what he assumes is my character with
no evidence to support his bullshit. Let's get to it....

Hey, I can come to you blog and go word for word against you. Oooops. I forget. We would have two exchanges and your cowardly behind would block me from posting because you couldn't take the heat.

Ummm.... I guess "Rocky" (who suffers from selective reading...like most
hypersensitive black men that respond in the way he did) missed this statement
from that post....
I got nothing but love for the REAL "good" black men who
are handling their business (that includes actually being faithful, loving ONE
woman, and making her your wife)... The key word in that statement is
REAL. We got fakes and frauds in the black male population, but people like
Rocky like to ignore this reality and simply focus on a black man being
"productive" as proof of his "goodness".

Sorry. That little bone you attempt to throw does not change the fact that you are attempting to establish "REAL good black men" as minuscule in numbers as shown by how you specifically declare "MOST" so-call good black men to be snakes in the grass. Even David Duke has said that there are some blacks that he has a lot of respect for. Does that statement make him a non-racist. No. Just as your statement doesn't make you anything other than what you actually are.

There are fakes and frauds in every population including the black female population and I never said that being productive is proof of goodness. I disputed your notion of MOST productive black men being fakes and frauds.

I would like to know what makes "Rocky" think a man is above evil simply because
he is productive?
??

Your Straw Man has been addressed above.

The part of my blog you decided to nitpick didn't have much of anything to
do with black men not "seeking a wife" as you put it, Rocky.

Seems like backtracking to me:

"Where the hell are these so-calledgood black men when their female
counterparts are seeking marriage?"

Instead it had to do with self-proclaimed "good black men" being anything but good. It had to do with black men claiming to be one thing but turning out to be no better than the Pookie and Ray-Rays they hold themselves so high above. It had to do with self-proclaimed "good" black men USING women instead of being true stand up good men. Your deflection here is amusing because it shows how far out the box people like you will take things to supposedly prove something incorrect. You have no defense for this behavior and I'm certain you have witnessed it at some point in your life.

No, it had to do with you proclaiming MOST productive black men as being this way. It's a lie and a distortion that I am tossing right back into your face and you respond with insults and nothing of substance. Typical.

I would like one of my readers that has followed this blog for some time to
point out to me where I have EVER placed an emphasis on education and income for
a woman to pull a man. Show me where I have EVER stated that a woman is entitled
to a man simply because she is educated/professional/ and making bank...I'll
wait....

No one proclaimed that you place such emphasis in your blog. I said that nuts like you often think that being professional and educated automatically makes a woman a catch because that commonly makes a man a catch. In other words, you fall into a group of women who feel that female professional success should be a male draw as male professional success is a female draw. It has nothing to do with what has been stated in your blog.

This fool is acting like he knows me when clearly he has no idea.

I know your type.

The black race is the only race I know of that expects the WOMEN to CONTROL the
way MEN behave instead of the men just having some sense of MORALITY.

This is a common falsehood pulled out of the rear ends of women such as yourself who promote black female victimism. If you have read any reasonable amount of comments from black men, you will know that one of the most common complaints is directed at black women who hook up with thugs and hoodlums under the guise of "changing them". This is quite different from the clear cultural impact of the continued sexual rewarding of bad behavior. If you had any degree of intelligence, you would see that no one is talking about any one or more women being responsible for changing the behavior of individual grown men. We are talking about a cultural impact that contributes strongly to promoting the development of men who practice such bad behavior. It has been shown in research and the common sense that you lack prevents you from understanding this.

The sad reality...a lot of black men's greatest asset is their dicks. They
don't have anything else to show for their manhood except it. The bedroom is the
one place they feel superior compared to other races of men (need proof? Click here). No matter what black women do these
individuals will find a way to have sex. So the idea that black men will change
if the black women they get down with stop "rewarding" them with sex is
bullshit. Some black men on my blog have even admitted as such....

So are black women's vaginas their greatest assets? As you can see, black women are the most promiscuous women and the difference between them and white women in promiscuity is almost identical to the difference between black men and white men.

Bottom line: It's not on the woman to change a man's behavior (because she
can't change him)...the onus is on him. He has to WANT to do better. The notion
that black men sell drugs, become thugs, and deviant to get with black women
goes against everything we know about the lifestyle from sociologist and from
these individuals themselves. Every drug dealer I've ever encountered has cited
four things as his motivation to become a thug/drug dealer:
Easy/quick money
and plenty of it (or greed).
Poverty
Inability to secure adequate
employment.
Car, clothes, and the finer things in life.
Sociologist have
backed up this mindset in their analysis. In every "hood flick" I have watched,
produced by a BLACK MALE, the motivation for the drug dealer was money and
material things. NEVER once have I heard a single drug dealer say he started
selling drugs to get women or get laid. NEVER. In fact, these individuals
subscribe to a "Money over hoes" mentality or "Get money...fuck hoes." Women
just seem to enter the picture at some point. They are an afterthought. They
have nothing to do with black men's actual motivation to sell drugs or become
thugs. Any type of "sexual reward" from women is an afterthought for most of
these individuals who are driven more so by the factors listed above.

So sex is not a major motivation for getting money? Right?

Again with her alleged "personal experiences" and now we have "hood flicks" taking priority over research. Such comedy. As for backing up this mindset:

"For instance, a recent study by Colorado anthropologists Craig Palmer and Christopher Tilley suggests that the formation of young male gangs, with all the associated viciousness and violence, may be driven, partly, by reproductive competition: sexual access to females. By tracking a sexually transmitted disease outbreak in Colorado Springs during the early 1990s, they found that gang members not only achieved a kind of power/money status within their community, they had an unusually high number of female partners, compared to the nongang members involved in the outbreak."

This is so easy.

"Black Unconscious Thought"

Here is an excerpt from the the black female blogger known as "Von", who basically is a profanity spewer whose blog quite commonly includes black female victimism and black male bashing.

What about them? Where the hell are they when the “bad” black men are fucking up
the community? Where the hell are they when shit is popping off and black women
and children are dodging bullets in the neighborhood or trying to protect
themselves from rape or some other bullshit? Where the hell are these so-called
good black men when their female counterparts are seeking marriage? I’ll tell
you where MOST of the so-called good black men are: They are off somewhere
taking advantage of their position sexing up every damn woman (and possibly man)
they come in contact with ( here
and here).

Most of the so-called good black men are wolves in sheep’s clothing. On paper
they look real nice/appealing, but once you dig a little deeper you realize just
how whorish and trifling they are. They are no better than the Pookies and
Ray-Rays they try to pull rank over. More often than not these so-called good
black men have a little money, a decent job, and some education. This is the
MAIN reason they walk around feeling special. However, instead of being stand up
men (or REAL good men) and seeking a wife, they take advantage of their low
numbers and the high number of single black women. So, I say FUCK THEM. I can’t
see myself being allies with these so-called good black men because I don’t
respect or trust them.

Finding a true stand up black man is like finding a needle in a haystack. Great
if you find one (I count my blessing daily) not the end of the world if you
don’t find one (my life will keep moving with or without a man...I love my soon
to be husband dearly but I'm not going to lay down and die if things go south).
I got nothing but love for the REAL "good" black men who are handling their
business (that includes actually being faithful, loving ONE woman, and making
her your wife), but let’s not act like those individuals are the majority or
even half of the African American male population. There aren’t enough of these
men to go around. These individuals cannot take up the slack for all the other
fucked up black men. Black folks need to concede to this reality (which helps my
case).

Now what this is a prime case of is the enormous difficulty women like her have in giving black men any credit. She can’t comfortably claim that all or most black men are uneducated street thugs, so she must find a way to degrade those who are productive. Thus, she eliminates any sense of them being of quality by declaring them to be worthless simply because they are not “seeking a wife”. Of course, not “seeking a wife” as she puts it is actually a case of these men not marrying the first black woman each of them encounters.

The reality is that the vast majority of black men do plan to marry at some point and are always open to it when and if they meet the right women. What fails to do and what those of her type fail to do is to acknowledge that most black women today are not very appealing from the standpoint of marriage. Yes, there are plenty of very sexy black women with desirable bodies and faces; more than other groups in my opinion. There are many who are very fun to be around. The problem is that it takes far more than that to be considered marriage material. Many of our women lack the sweetness men like and instead exude course personalities that border on masculine while readily obtaining masculine tattoos and discarding any sense of ladylike behavior. Many take pride in being loud and using profanity. Many black women are very pugnacious and give off the impression that a life with them would be life lacking in harmony. Men don’t mind a challenge when chasing tail, yet we don’t want to have to be challenged daily by our wives. We don’t want to constantly be pressured to please a woman who cannot be pleased. We don’t want a woman who can see no other use for a dollar other than to spend it (which is why the average single black woman has a medium net worth of $5.00). When a man marries a woman, what belongs to him tends to belong to her while what belongs to her remains hers. Thus, a man is expected to contribute to the spending habits of his wife and women who are irresponsible with money will be irresponsible with their husbands’ money.

And let’s face it. Studies have shown that a woman’s marriage possibilities decline as her weight goes up and one can easily see a direct relationship between black women’s general weight problems and their inability to get husbands.

Yet, women such as Von treat being educated and having a profession as all a black woman should need to get a husband (and most are actually not highly educated nor professionals). This is a prime example of black women trying to place their points of view into the heads of men. Women desire professional men because women place priority on men who have money. Men don’t place nearly that amount of priority on women’s earning potential. Thus, being educated and professional is low on the list on what men seek in a wife. We want good looks, a sweet personality, common sense and a positive attitude. We don’t want the cynicism and truculence so many black women are socialized to have.

THIS IS WHY SO MANY OF US AVOID MARRIAGE.

As far as what the “good” black men are doing about the “bad” black men, I would challenge her to tell us exactly what good men are supposed to do. A man’s ultimate responsibility is to his family. His responsibility is to protect and provide for his wife and children and to use his influence to guide them. How exactly does putting them and himself in jeopardy by confronting thugs and drug dealers fit in with protecting his family? Would it not be stupid to start a war against drug dealers and gang members so that they can vengefully break into your house and rape your wife because you were “snitching” to the police or trying to mess up their business? A good man tries to build up his finances so that he can move his family out of that situation. Otherwise, he does what he can to protect them and this involves not drawing the attention of thugs to himself so as to endanger his life and the well being of his family. She even contradicts herself when she says:

“These individuals cannot take up the slack for all the other fucked up black men.”

She can’t even remain consistent. According to her earlier statement, not being able to “take up the slack for all the other fucked up black men” would eliminate them from the category of “good black men”. How can they not be confronting the bad black men while at the same time trying to “pull rank” on the “Pookies” and “Ray-Rays” ? One should at least try to remain consistent within their one post.

In reality, community activists fill practically every black community. It is not hard to find black men volunteering time to try and help steer youth in the right direction. There are many black men voluntarily coaching youth sports leagues. There are plenty of black men working in community centers. But since they are not confronting drug dealers in suicidal fashion, they are not good men. Amazing.

The greatest way to get rid of bad black men is to stop rewarding them sexually. The worst street thugs and players routinely attract the attention of some of the most desirable women in the community. Much of what men do is for the purpose of attracting women so if a community is filled with drug dealers, hoodlums, gang members, etc., one can attribute this greatly to the number of women who find them appealing. What should be doing is telling the Latifahs and Kameishas of the world to stop their thug-love.

Check this out:

To get to the root of male-on-male violence, we need to take a closer look at
human sexuality and human sexual selection. We all know that women are the
ultimate selectors in the sexual game (and if you don’t know that, then go ask
ten different married women who made the ultimate selection). The facts are
pretty straightforward: Women ovulate once a month, and a pregnancy takes nine
months during which you become increasingly immobilized. Men, on the other hand,
produce millions of sperms each hour, and are not physically affected at all
while they are waiting to become fathers. Who has more reason to choose their
sexual partner carefully, men or women? Who is the buyer and who is the seller
in the sexual market?
What this means is that men have always had to work
hard in order to prove their worth to women. In fact, the competition between
men has been so fierce that only half as many men as women have passed on their
genes throughout history, according to a research report from
2004. This kind of competition to get access to sex and to have the ability
to pass on your genes has never been a situation that women have needed to face,
and for the most part women simply fail to understand this aspect of being a
man.
Men will compete in whatever ways are available to reach the top of the
food chain, and be able to provide for women. In a civilized society that will
usually mean constructive behaviors such as working hard and becoming a well
respected person. In an uncivilized society, which has been the case through
most of history, men will instead resort to violence towards other men, to fend
off the competition. Why are so many women attracted to bad boys and even
prisoners? Well, during most of human history that kind of behavior from men was
an effective way to be respected by other men and therefore rise to the top of
the food chain.
Male violence is therefore the end result of a dance in
which both women and men participate. Women select the most suitable men, men
compete to be chosen (using violence if needed), women again select the most
suitable men (regardless of whether they used violence or not to become
suitable), men compete to be chosen… On and on it goes.

Here is more:

“The more men have to offer, the more valuable they become to women as a
reproductive resource,” Geary says. “For this reason, men in all cultures are
highly motivated to attain social status and control of culturally significant
resources. Male-male competition is about making themselves attractive to women
but the competition also can lead men to compete in lethal ways to gain control
of social resources.”

Even The President Has To Take The Fault

I have a lot of respect for First Lady Michelle Obama. She seems to be a woman of class and elegance, yet this statement shows that she is not unique in all of her perspectives and does subscribe to at least some of the idiosyncrasies common with women. In response to a question of who apologizes first when she and The President have an argument she says:


'I always wait for the president to say sorry because I am a woman,'

This statement goes a long way in showing the modern dynamic not only common with black relationships, but common with relationships in general. Women expect certain treatment for no legitimate reason so they resort to the “chivalry” card, even if “chivalry” does not even apply.

I am not familiar with a man apologizing first falling under the umbrella of chivalry. What this shows is the tendency to try and create an atmosphere of automatically giving in to the whims of women and in this case, using it as a way to facilitate the strong trend for black women to not take fault for anything.

Logically, one would conclude that the person who generally apologizes first is the person who is in the wrong. By saying that your husband always has to apologize says that you always have to be right. This mentality prevents black women from any sense of self-reflection. They often don’t see fault within themselves and when they do, they attribute those faults to outside forces. They blame their excess weight on their children, job schedule, etc. They blame their bad relationships on the men they choose to have relationships with. They blame their single status on the men around them. They blame their status as single mothers on the fathers of their children. They exclude any blame on that which they have the most control over and that is them themselves. Thus, nothing ever changes. They can’t change the behavior of the people around them to compliment their character, they can’t change normal functioning of society around them and they refuse to change or alter themselves.

When this happens, they resort to bitching. They verbally lash out at the world around them including the men they interact with, black men. They make anti-black male blogs, proclaim that there are no good black men, try to use white men and the notion of interracial dating as some type of means of payback, criticize white women, etc. This is why the IR bloggers are strict about moderation. They don’t want their faults thrown at them because doing so tosses a monkey wrench in their need to point the finger at everyone but themselves.

Then they resort to straw man arguments. When they are advised to take responsibility for themselves, they treat it as if folks are asking them to take all responsibility for the black community. Simply asking them to stop sexually rewarding thuggish behavior in men, not allow themselves to be impregnated outside of wedlock, not be so pugnacious, put some priority on keeping your man happy, etc. is treated as placing the burdens of society upon them. Studies have shown that black men participate in housework and childcare more than any other group of men whether the wife works or not, yet you have the IR bloggers declaring black women to be the mules of the black community. If they take the true informal definition of “mule” (somebody regarded as stubborn or intractable), they may have a point, but the definition that they apply to the word actually does not apply.

The Yvonne Hiller Rampage

What goes around comes around.

It’s funny how much the black female IR bloggers ridiculed Omar Thorton, a black man, for his workplace shooting rampage, yet a very short time later, we have Yvonne Hiller, a black woman, do the same thing. Here is the story:

HORROR IN THE WORKPLACE
By DAVID GAMBACORTAPhiladelphia Daily News
gambacd@phillynews.com
215-854-5994

A FEMALE EMPLOYEE who was escorted out of the Kraft Foods building in
the Northeast after being suspended last night returned within minutes with a
.357 Magnum and began firing at fellow workers, police said.

She killed two female employees on the third floor and shot and
critically wounded a male employee in a stairwell, police said. Sources
identified her as Yvonne Hiller, whose address not immediately
available.
Police Commissioner Charles H. Ramsey told reporters that Hiller
then went to the second floor and hid in an office.

She was unaware that in an adjoining office, seven employees were
hiding. They called police and told them where she was.
As police approached
her hiding place, Hiller fired a shot through the wall at them and at one point
reloaded her weapon, Ramsey said. Hiller surrendered when SWAT team members
entered the room about 9:30 p.m., he said.

The drama at the plant, on Byberry Road near Roosevelt Boulevard, began
about 8:35 p.m., when Hiller was escorted from the building after being
suspended from her job, Ramsey said. It wasn't clear why Hiller, a 15-year Kraft
employee, had been suspended.

She got into her car and several minutes later drove through a barrier,
jumped out with the high-powered handgun, ran into the building and began
shooting.

Police, firefighters and emergency equipment swarmed around the
building.

About 100 employees, who make Oreo cookies, Philadelphia Cream Cheese
and Oscar Mayer bacon, were evacuated, and busy Roosevelt Boulevard was
temporarily shut down.
The wounded man was admitted to Aria Health's
Torresdale hospital in critical condition.

Chief Inspector Joseph Sullivan hailed the actions of a mechanic who
encountered the woman on the third floor and followed her to the second, talking
with police all the while on his cell phone and encouraging other employees to
evacuate.

At one point, Hiller realized she was being followed, turned around and
fired at the man. He sprained an ankle ducking the bullet and required hospital
treatment, Sullivan said.

"His actions made a big difference to police," Sullivan said. "Inside
that building is a labyrinth. Without his information, police would have had
trouble making their way through the building."

Tanya Bussey, whose sister Valerie Johnson works in the building, got a
scare when her sister called her after the shooting erupted.
"My sister
called and said there was someone in the building who was shooting and that she
was going to hide, and then her phone went dead," Bussey said.

She said that panic gripped her and that she and another relative raced
to the building. Her sister finally called back and said she was safe and
sound.

Andrew Wells said his father-in-law, who works for Kraft, phoned his
own wife and said, "Someone came down the hallway. There's shooting in the
bakery."

Earl Cooper, an electrician at Kraft, said he and a few other employees
were working in a small lab when a supervisor entered and shouted, "Keep
everybody back!"

"Then I heard a couple of gunshots," he said. "Kraft is like a big
family. People were worried if their friends were all right.

Here is a good example of the hypocrisy of the so-called black female empowerment bloggers. They are all too willing to point the finger at black men for pathological behavior, yet so unwilling to look at the pathological behavior within themselves. What is notable is that her case will inevitably bring out white voices critical of the violent behavior that they associate with blacks. So while these IR bloggers are pointing fingers at black men while praising white men, many of those same white men are using the example of this one black woman to point the finger at black people in general.

It is also important to note that the two people she murdered were targeted and both are black women.

Interracial Divorce. A New Study.

Hat tip to Andrew over on his blog "Mr. Laurelton Queens" for pointing out a new study entitled "Broken Boundaries or Broken Marriages?". Andrew references Evia's discussion of this study and her rather comical attempt at discrediting it. It is that attempt that I am going to discuss and how it relates to a certain habit exhibited by her and her fellow IR bloggers along with discussing some key points of the study.

Basically, the recent study by Vincent Kang Fu and Nicholas H. Wolfinger, both of the University of Utah, contradicts a previous study posted in a journal from the National Council on Family Relations by concluding that interracial marriages between black women and white men are more prone divorce than all other marriages involving white men. Evia's reaction to this is as followed:

Anyway back to the study sent to my private emailbox. Another red light
about the linked-to study above was that the women in the study married in
the 1980s and 1990s, were in their upper teens (TEENAGERS!) and early 20s and
typically only had high school diplomas and "some" college.

Really?

The National Council on Family Relations (NCFR) research that I
posted first in October 2009 studied couples who were more educated
and more mature in age. Those black women were women like us. The study
referred to the similar education level with their white husbands and the
vetting that went into selecting each other. This is a far cry from the way the
very young select their mates.

The typical bw-ir candidate these days is NOT a teenager and not
even in her early 20s.
The type of bw who I aim my blog at or who
reads my blog is not the type of bw in the study who is a married teenager
or early 20-something with a low education level. LOL! The typical bw who
reads my blog is a college grad and many have 2nd degrees and/or are the
graduates of professional schools, i.e. law, medicine, or have professional
licenses, i.e. cpa, pharmacy.

I would EXPECT for American women who marry when they're teens or early
twenties with high school diplomas or "some" college to not be able to meet the
challenges of marriage. So I'm not surprised if those relationships had a high
failure rate. Successful marriages are helped tremendously
by maturity. So those research findings did NOT contradict what
I've said here. I would venture to guess that those women also had lower
incomes, fewer options of all types, lower social exposure,
lower social standing, etc. than many bw who read my blog or are interested in
dating and marrying out these days.

Now here is the problem. The "NCFR research" is actually research by Bratter and King that was posted in an NCFR journal. Fu and Wolfinger reference the Bratter and King study and compares it to their own study. Fu and Wolfinger note that they themselves "use data from the 1995 and 2002 waves of the National Survey of Family Growth to investigate divorce differentials between endogamous and intermarried couples". Likewise, they note where Bratter and King acquired their date for their research. Can any guess where they acquired their date from? FROM THE 2002 NATIONAL SURVEY OF FAMILY GROWTH.

In other words, all of those surveyed in the "NCFR research" were surveyed in Fu and Wolfinger's research. The difference is that Fu and Wolfinger's research likewise included the 1995 National Survey of Family Growth. This is noted on page 22 of the paper:

"Bratter and King (2008) use the 2002 NSFG, half of the data that we use".

So the question is where did Evia get the idea that the study that she likes had more mature, better educated and more financially able women being surveyed? All of the women from the study she likes participated in the study she doesn't like and the study she doesn't like additionally includes women from a version of the very same survey done seven year earlier. So where did Evia get this notion from? Quite simply, SHE MADE IT UP. She does something that she and the rest of her IR/black female empowerment cohorts routinely do. They simply imagine up things and present them as facts and damn anyone who asks them to provide evidence.

Now the interesting part of study is that it aims to show whether the generally higher rate of divorce for interracial marriages is due to intermarriage in and of itself or more so due to the acquisition of spouses with high divorce propensities. The research explains that black marriages have high divorce rates and the research leans toward the reasoning being that both black men and women have high divorce propensities. Basically, black people in general bring personal characteristics to marriage that increase the likelihood of divorce. The hypothesis is that if divorce rates for intermarried couples reflect a predicted mix of the divorce rates for the two constituient origin groups, then the divorce rate is not due to marriages being interracial. This is the finding of the research with regard to black/white marriages. Marriages between whites and blacks dissolve at higher rates than endogamous white marriages because the intermarriage contains a black spouse and not because they are intermarriages.

With regard to women, the research shows that Hispanic women have the lowest divorce propensity, followed by white women and then black women, who have the highest divorce propensity. Whether married to white or black men, black women have a high likelihood for divorce. Black men also have a high divorce propensity as well as Hispanic men, yet Hispanic marriages have the lowest rate of divorce of all marriages. Seems that Hispanic women's low divorce propensity is able to overshadow the high divorce propensity of Hispanic men.

Fu and Wolfinger also show the inadequacy of Bratter and King's research along with others. They state that:

These studies and others share a conventional approach for assessing the
effect of intermarriage on divorce: they directly compare the divorce rates of
interracial and same-race couples, ascertaining, for example, whether divorce
rates of Black wife/White husband couples differ from those of Black/Black and
White/White couples.

THIS APPROACH IS INADEQUATE because it does not uniquely identify the
effect of racial intermarriage on divorce. In the above example, Black
wife/White husband couples differ from endogamous White couples in two respects:
(I) the presence of a Black wife and (ii) the crossing of a racial
boundary. Either could be responsible for the higher divorce rate.
In order to uniquely identify the effect of intermarriage, a statistical model
must control for first-order racial differences in divorce propensities.
Only then can the effect of crossing a racial boundary be identified.

Continued Silence...

Of course, this is to be expected. If the so called “black woman empowerment/IR bloggers” (also known as the “Something Screwed Crew” (SSC) are geared toward promoting black woman victimism, one would not expect them to mention when black women are the victimizers. Yes, we can criticize them for not mentioning when black women are the victims of non-black men, but it is reasonable to not expect them to mention the reverse. Yet, we can criticize the hypocrisy.

These women constantly preach the notion of the angelic black woman as well as the noble white man. They hide the truth of just how much the pathologies prevalent in black America are prevalent among black women. They also are deceptive when it comes to the actual direction of media bias. Take a look at the following incident from about 8 months ago.

Three women charged in connection with SF man's murder
Bay City
NewsNovember 25, 2009

Ben Merrill (Courtesy photo)
SAN FRANCISCO —
Three women were charged with murder and robbery today in connection with the
shooting death of a San Francisco man in a park near the Pittsburg Marina
earlier this month, Pittsburg police Lt. Brian Addington said. The victim,
22-year-old San Francisco resident Benjamin Merrill, had a date with a woman in
San Francisco on the evening of Nov. 2, but she didn't show up, Addington said.

As Merrill was walking home through the city's Mission District at about
1:30 a.m. on Nov. 3, two women pulled up to him in a car. They asked for
directions and engaged him in conversation, Addington said.


Investigators believe those women were Pittsburg resident Kiarra Price and
Richmond resident Teareney Brown, both 20 years old.

After talking with the two women, Merrill allegedly willingly got into
their car, possibly to go have a drink with them, Addington said.

The group ended up in Pittsburg, where they stopped at the house of the
third suspect, 21-year-old Pittsburg resident Kendra Fells.

Fells lives about half a mile from Marina Park where Merrill was shot,
Addington said.
The group drove to the park and got out of the car, at which
point the women allegedly robbed Merrill and Price allegedly shot him.

Price, who also had an outstanding drug warrant, was arrested Friday after
investigators saw her leave her house in the 200 block of Kingsberry Place in
Pittsburg, Addington said.
Brown, who also had a warrant out of Alameda
County for vehicle theft, was arrested Monday at a relative's house in Oakland,
authorities said.

Fells has not yet been arrested, but police have a warrant for her
arrest, Addington said.
All three women have been charged with murder and
robbery, Addington said. Police have recovered the vehicle they believe was used
in the shooting along with Merrill's iPhone, Addington said. When police first
found Merrill, they were unable to identify him for two days. He did not have a
driver's license on him and had no criminal record, so his fingerprints were not
in any law enforcement database. Shortly after the shooting, however,
investigators issued a flyer to law enforcement agencies with a photograph of
the victim. Coincidentally, Merrill's cousin, who was watching a trial in San
Mateo County Superior Court, happened to look over and see a police officer
holding a copy of the flyer, Addington said.

When Merrill's family contacted Pittsburg police and gave them
Merrill's name, police were able to look up his fingerprints in the Department
of Motor Vehicles database and confirm his identity, Addington said.

Investigators have since talked to the woman who stood Merrill up the
night before the shooting and do not believe she was in any way involved in his
murder, Addington said.
"She ended up having a rock-solid alibi," Addington
said.

Now, of course, this isn’t posted to imply that white men or any men are in danger when fraternizing with black women (most of woman of any group are decent human beings), but similar incidents involving non-black women are practically unheard of. The tendency toward street crime among black women relative to other women is similar to that of black men relative to other men. Black women make up half of the female prison population.

Also, if the young man had been robbed and killed by three black men, their faces would have been pasted all over the media. It took some reading and research to find out that these were black women. Any images that had been posted of these women have been removed. The white man/black woman relationship is routinely protected while the media is more than happy to warn white women of the ‘dreaded’ black man.

Let’s face it. This young man had Jungle Fever and saw an opportunity to take part in a ménage à trois swirl with the possibility of a 4th addition to the fun. A dream come true. They took advantage of his naivety and the understandable attraction to black women. This is a young man with no criminal record who had his entire life ahead of him. It is sad on so many levels. May he rest in peace.

Teareney Brown

Notice The Silence

I think that it is quite evident that if the man pictured had brown skin, kinky hair and/or other characteristics identifying him as black/African American, the so called "black woman empowerment/interracial" bloggers would have found this case from one month ago and plastered it up all over the Internet. Yet what we observe is deafening silence.

Sheriff says man killed woman with hammer, dragged her about a quarter mile


Orange County Sheriff's office says a 35-year-old Kountze man has confessed to killing a 26-year-old Beaumont woman over the weekend and later dragging her body behind his pickup truck.

Authorities say William Baker Bibb is charged with murder and is being held in the Orange County Jail on a $1 million bond. Authorities say preliminary autopsy results show the woman died of blunt force trauma to the head.

The Orange County Sheriff's Office says they received a call at 11 a.m. Saturday morning of a dead body near the Rose City Sand Pit in Rose City. According to the Sheriff's office, the man called 911 claiming he and the deceased woman were victims of a crime.

But authorities now say Bibb confessed to killing Theresa Adell Ardoin sometime Saturday morning after a "fight." Orange County Sheriff's Department say Bibb picked up Ardoin from Magnolia Avenue in Beaumont and drove her to a sandpit north of Rose City.

The sheriff says Bibb and Ardoin were acquaintances and allegedly got together to "possibly do some drugs, have sex" at a sand pit, but they argued. Bibb allegedly struck her with a hammer.

Authorities say after killing her, Bibb attached her body to his pickup truck and dragged about a quarter-mile to the canal.

Authorities say there is no evidence that the crime was that of a hate crime. Bibb is Caucasian, while Ardoin was African American.

The Orange County Sheriff's Office Criminal Investigations Division is investigating the case as murder.

The Orange County Sheriff's Office is being assisted by detectives from the Orange Police Department, Pinehurst Police Department, Vidor Police Department, and the Orange County District Attorney's Office.

The Orange County Sheriff's Office is calling this one of the worst murder investigations they've ever had. Workers and business owners at the sand pit property said it's hard to believe the gruesome story of what happened over the weekend.

Jason Miles has driven through the gates at the Rose City Sand Pit as a freelance truck driver for several years.

He said he can't believe he now shares his workplace with crime-scene investigators.

"Such a horrendous crime - and just knowing that it happened nearby where you work is even more of a shock" said Miles.

Investigators said William Bibb confessed to killing an acquaintance Theresa Ardoin Friday night near a clearing in the sand pit. Investigators said Bibb beat Ardoin to death with a hammer, then tied her body with a rope to his truck, and dragged her a quarter mile dumping the vehicle and Ardoin's body in a ditch.

In a press conference Monday, the Sheriff's office said though Ardoin is black, they won't investigate the murder as a hate crime, citing the evidence doesn't point to her death being about race or religion.

"At first he had given us a set of facts and then whenever he was really questioned by the investigators about his facts that didn't make any sense- then he realized he needed to tell the truth" said Chief Deputy Rodney Harrison with the Orange County Sheriff's Office.

But the truth is, some businesses in the area are upset.

Nearby business owners said some of the gates leading to the clearing are never locked - leaving the property exposed to anyone coming in and out whenever they please.

For Miles, he said that knowing someone took advantage of the isolated dirt roads he works on every day, is upsetting.

"It's very sad to hear that anyone loses their life to a violent crime and just knowing that it happened here makes it that much more close to home" said Miles.

Leaving Miles with a new perspective as he works within the yellow tape, a haunting reminder of the weekend's events.

God rest this young lady's soul. She paid the ultimate price for "opening up her options" and the IR and Black Woman Empowerment bloggers don't care.

"Going Off"

A punch to the face hurts. A punch to the face of a young woman by a man hurts more because it not only hurts the recipient of the punch, but likewise hurts the hearts of any men who to some reasonable extent value women as flowers to be protected. But the punch to the face, beyond how it hurts the recipient and hurts our hearts, is a prime example of the penalty often paid for the widespread phenomenon of “going off”.

The phrase “go off” in this context is derived from the common usage referring to a bomb exploding. We hear folks refer to a bomb “going off”. In much the same way, a person is referred to as “going off” when that person, as a result of anger, offense, discontent, fear, etc., loses control of their emotions and behavior often resulting in irrational and overaggressive behavior. They often become loud, confrontational and volatile. Such behavior has often resulted in detriment not only to the person “going off”, but likewise the people close to them.

A controversial incident occurred more than a year ago in Bellaire, Texas (a suburb of Houston). Robbie Tolan was shot in front of his house after being ordered to the ground under the suspension of auto theft. We know now that he was unarmed and driving his own car, but he ended up with a non-fatal, yet quite detrimental gunshot wound. Why did this happen? It is because his mother came outside and WENT OFF. Her actions resulted in her being pushed against the garage door, which in turn caused Robbie, who was lying on the ground, to react as any young man would when seeing his mother manhandled. He got up to protect his mother. This resulted in a gunshot wound, hospitalization and surgery. Consider that both of his parents came out of the house. Only one WENT OFF and that one was his mother. Her reaction and Robbie’s subsequent reaction served as the officer’s defense in the criminal trial. The officer was acquitted of all charges.





I posted the above video a while ago but it is a strong enough example to show again. This is a very prime example of GOING OFF. This woman went completely off due to taking offense to overhearing someone criticizing her attempts to cut the line. This resulted in the guy who was criticizing her being beaten to a pulp by her 300 pound ex-convict boyfriend and that same boyfriend going back to prison for a rather long time as a result. Nothing productive came out of her GOING OFF. Plenty of negativity came out of it.

Now back to the recent event. A young lady was accosted by a Seattle police officer for jaywalking. As a result, the young lady WENT OFF. Now a reasonable person who is thinking rationally would know that resisting the police almost NEVER accomplishes anything. It doesn’t prevent you from being arrested. It doesn’t prevent you from getting a ticket. It doesn’t prevent you from being shot. If anything, it makes arrest, shooting and ticketing more likely. What this young lady accomplished was making a situation far worse than it should have been and causing a naive friend to take a masculine punch to the face. Now I know that there are those out there who are itching to ask why the young men watching didn’t physically defend the women. Well, this takes me back to the pizza shop video and the incident in Bellaire, Texas. Often when women go off, men suffer the most. Let’s say that one of the young men did go up and begin fighting the police officer. What could have happened? Well, for one, he would have been committing a felony. Second, the risk of being shot instead of punched in the face would have been far greater for him (as was shown in the case of Robbie Tolan). The one guy who did get physically involved did so intelligently by attempting to restrain the young lady who got punched. But this goes to show just how much potential there is for men to suffer due to women GOING OFF.

Now here is the next point. Without a doubt, “going off” is a staple of black women and many actually take pride in this. It’s the notion that sistas don’t take any sh*t. This is a part of what so many black women view as their “strength”. Over aggressiveness, knee-jerk reactions, being confrontational, being argumentative, showing stubbornness, tactlessness and feistiness, etc. are things that many black women pride themselves on. This is what defines the “strong black woman” today. What we are seeing more and more of are black women suffering the consequences of such behavior. The unfortunate McDonald’s incident comes to mind when the teenage girls took repeated punches from a grown man (who I think has yet to be identified). We are seeing more and more black women getting tazered and manhandled by police. I have personally seen groups of police having to team up to arrest an irate black woman.

Such behavior has often put black men at risk due to the traditional desire of men to protect women. Black men have been shot or incarcerated because of defending black girlfriends who have unnecessarily gotten involved in confusion. What we are beginning to see now are black men being less and less likely to defend black women and furthermore, we are seeing the same thing from non-black men. Chivalry is dying everywhere and is practically dead in the black community because many men are tired of defending those who are more than willing to start trouble.

Men are also tired of being on the receiving end of those who “go off”. That is why so many black men are quick to curse women out today. Men often feel the need to save face because it is so common for women to go off on them in public with no consideration of how humiliating that is to men. Many black men are resisting commitment to those who would routinely go off on them during the relationship. Even the best of black men have to walk on eggshells when around their women and these women seem to not understand why men are so resentful of being talked crazy, yet lose respect for these same men when they take being talked crazy to in stride.

The "Tom Willis Syndrome"

With the recent break-up between Halle Berry and Gabriel Aubrey, I have given a bit more thought to something I have long noticed about the dynamics commonly involved in relationships between black women and white men. It is something that I have pinned, the “Tom Willis Syndrome”. As anyone who tuned into The Jeffersons back in the day would clearly have noticed, Tom Willis was quite submissive to his wife Helen. His response to her raising her voice to him was a quick “yes dear”. It is interesting that even 30 plus years ago, this dynamic between white men and black women who are married was prevalent enough for it to be represented on television.

Much of the rumor mill indicates that there was a similar dynamic between Halle Berry and Gabriel Aubrey. The most prevalent example is her passionately and blatantly kissing other men on stage without regard to his feelings and rumors suggest that she likewise disrespected him in other public settings whereas he simply took it in stride. Such rumors didn’t exist with respect to how she treated the black men she was with before. Quite simply, it is doubtful that David Justice, Westley Snipes, etc. would take such disrespect in stride.

It’s not so long ago that we witnessed a rather demanding and lazy black wife on one of the “Wife Swap” shows whose white husband waited on her hand and foot and did all of the work around the house while she remained in an inclined position. It didn’t seem to bother him at all. Another episode of such a show showed a staunch conservative interracial couple whereas the black wife was EXTREMELY vocal in her views while the white husband simply remained quiet. Likewise, not too long ago, we witnessed a black wife state on national television in front of her white husband how much respect she had lost for him simply because he was recently out of work due to this current bad economy. The husband didn’t even try to defend himself. We saw how Tiffany “New York” Pollard dominated and disrespected the winner of her second reality show, George “Tailor Made” Weisgerber (who had already married one black woman before).

Now this is not to say that white men are passive in relationships. What this is referring to are those white men who tend to seek relationships with black women, especially the less than 1% of white men who marry them. These men seem comfortable with taking the passive role in relationships with domineering women, and see black women as a prime source for such dominance. While black women tend to not respect passive men, they tend to remain in relationships with passive men for long periods of time. They may treat the men poorly and even mess around on them (such as tongue kissing other men on stage), yet they are less inclined to leave such men and such men are content to be dominated by such women. This is in all likelihood why such relationships last longer than average. On the other hand, when such women are with dominant men, they respect those men a lot more and show such respect, yet the inevitable routine friction causes such relationships to not last as long. The fact that the effort of gaining respect from your woman may break you and your woman up is a dynamic quite prevalent in relationships with black women. Such is the irony.

A good example of the tendency of certain white men to desire domination at the hands of black women is the number of videos on Youtube showing “mixed wrestling”. These are basically videos portraying the sexual fetish of men purposely being physically manhandled by women in thong bikinis. Notice that such videos seem to always include white men and a disproportionate number of them involve black women.

Spending Habits And Divorce

A lot has been mentioned of the high divorce rate for black marriages and it has been shown that money is the leading cause of today's divorces. With black men and women typically making less money than their white counterparts, one might deduce that this very factor makes finance influenced divorce more prevalent among blacks. But there is another factor, that being financial habits. A recent study gives a startling revelation about the financial circumstances of single black women:

"Women of all races bring home less income and own fewer assets, on average, than men of the same race, but for single black women the disparities are so overwhelmingly great that even in their prime working years their median wealth amounts to only $5."

"Among the most startling revelations in the wealth data is that while single white women in the prime of their working years (ages 36 to 49) have a median wealth of $42,600 (still only 61 percent of their single white male counterparts), the median wealth for single black women is only $5."

Now the disparities in income level between black women and white women are not even remotely as great as the disparity in median wealth between the two groups. Single white women don't come close to making twice the money single black women make, yet single white women seem to possess 8,520 times the median wealth of single black women. From the same study:

"Married or cohabitating white women have a median wealth of $167,500. Married or cohabitating black women have a median net worth of $31,500."

So when black women get married or live with men (predominantly black men), their median wealth becomes 5.3 times less than the median wealth of married or cohabitating white women. Quite a difference from 8,520. Seems that the greater frugality of their husbands make a world of difference. So how do black men do with regard to median wealth? Let's see:

"Excluding vehicles, [working age] single black women have a median wealth of $100 and Hispanic women $120 respectively, while their same-race male counterparts have $7,900 and $9,730. The median wealth of single white women is $41,500. To put it another way, single black and Hispanic women have one penny of wealth for every dollar of wealth owned by their male counterparts and a tiny fraction of a penny for every dollar of
wealth owned by white women."

"With so little in reserve, half of all single black and Hispanic women could not afford to take an unpaid sick day or to even have a major appliance repaired without going into debt."

So while black men seemingly are not doing great with regard to holding on to personal wealth, they are doing far better than black women. Even looking at the chart on the page, black men with children of any age have a median net worth of $26,000 compared to $100 for similar black women. Black men with children under the age of 18 have a median net worth of $10,960 compared to a median net worth of $0 for similar black women.

Of course, the claim will be that black women are overburdened with single motherhood, yet the fact is that there are 13 million single black women overall and 3.1 million single black mothers. Single black mothers, at less than 25% of all single black women, should not have such an extreme effect on the overall median net wealth of all single black women. So what is the reason? Here is a hint:

Almost seven in 10 (68 percent) Black women say that they buy what they really want ˜ in good times or bad. And many Black women face the temptation of unplanned spending when they are feeling stressed - nearly 40 percent report that they shop to cheer themselves up.

Two in five Black women feel guilty about how much they spend on expensive brands.

"For some Black women, excessive spending makes the road to long-term financial security even longer," Mims said. "To an extraordinary degree, Black women consider themselves trendsetters and centers of influence. Opinion-leading has its price."

As anyone knows, when a woman marries, she expects her husband to contribute to her spending habits. A woman who tends to spend money that she doesn't have will similarly expect her husband to spend money that he doesn't have. This is, in all likelihood where the "gold digger" stereotype came from. It's a misnomer. Black women are not any more likely to be gold diggers than any other group of women are are possibly less likely to be. What is prevalent is the tendency to demand excess expenditure from their men; excess being that which can't be afforded. Whether black women's men make 20 grand a year or 200 grand a year, quite often those men are expected to invest nearly all of it toward their women's desires. This inevitably causes conflict and contributes to the high divorce rate.

Demanding Love and Commitment

In 1981, Jennifer Holiday demanded that "you're gonna love me" and "I'm not going" in the the Broadway musical, Dreamgirls. Later on, Beyoncé asserted that "if you want it then you should have put a ring on it". Does it not seem that in modern times, a man's love, dedication, commitment, etc. are all things that women demand or are things women challenge men to do? Has the art of winning a man's heart been totally lost?

More commonly today and to an an even more exaggerated extend within the black community, there seems to be great priority in snagging men through pressure. Men are expected to yield to the pressure to marry women they impregnate even if those women have won no more feelings from these men than sexual arousal. Men are supposed to marry women because women "deserve" to be married or because men are obligated to marry them. Men are supposed to marry women even if doing so sacrifices their happiness and emotional well being. Many women feel that they must force men to respect them as opposed to winning men's respect. They feel that they must force men to accept responsibility as opposed to helping create an environment that inspires men to accept responsibility.

Today, men are no longer the kings of their castles. They generally don't even share the rule. Women rule the nest nowadays even when a man is in the house and they don't rule it based on being deserving, but rather by fighting a battle that their men overwhelmingly cannot win. Men hate to argue with their women, especially with the irrational way that women fight and argue. Such arguing and discourse is stressful for men while women seem to strive on it. So men give in and become resentful. Such resentment manifests in the passive aggressive ways so many women complain about and prompts men to keep their eyes open for ways out as soon as something they feel is better comes along.

Back in the day, women were socialized early on to be good wives. When a guy impregnated a woman, he could be reasonably confident she would make a decent wife. Nowadays, a man has no idea what he will get. Pleasing a man is currently low priority for women and often seen as demeaning. Men are viewed by women as unemotional creatures who are available to be verbally and physical beat up at a whim, yet when men allow such abuse, the women lose respect for them. So a man has a choice of being looked down on by his woman or fighting her to a degree that endangers the relationship. It's a lose-lose situation. Men are more and more avoiding such nonsense and women, in common irrational form, can't see this for the world and routinely accuse men of being immature and non-committing.

Black women, specifically, seem to have larger egos than other women; egos that are almost male-like. Such egos make any type of submission to their men or any type of catering to their men's egos out of the question while these same black female egos are satisfied when they demean their men. It is not uncommon for black men to be cursed out by their women even when not deserving of it. If a black man complains, he is asked to "man-up" and take it, yet if he takes in in stride, he is viewed as a punk. Making a suggestion to a black woman is commonly interpreted as telling her what to do and often results in a firm "nigga, shut up". Hell raising is a common response by black women to anything they disagree with. Black men are not supposed to have any feelings, any needs, any desires, opinions, wants, etc. in a relationship unless they are thugs or players. Thugs and players are treated like kings, yet rarely make good husbands and fathers.

Winning a man's heart should be first priority. Not trapping him with pregnancy. Not throwing the coochie at him from the jump. Not starting the relationship by throwing your kids off on him under the guise of a packaged deal. You should inspire him to love you through sweetness and supporting his efforts to be a man. Show him that when he comes home to you, he will come home to comfort. In a world of 5 billion, the only importance a man has is the importance he has within his own home. Support him building his own personal castle and he will love, protect and provide for you till the end. Leave the male-like egos behind. They are quite unappealing.

Black Women and HIV. Stop Blaming The Brothas.

In a world where men are generally held responsible for the actions of women and where this is taken to another level by the so called “black female empowerment bloggers” as it relates to black men, it has been very much noted that black men are blamed for the high rate of HIV infections in black women. Fuel is added by research indicating that most HIV infected black women were infected by heterosexual contact. By looking at it simplistically, it would seem that black men are the culprits, yet looking at it a little deeper shows a slightly different story.

First of all, it has been established through research that only 3% of HIV positive black women can attribute their infection to sexual contact a man who had sex with another man. This makes sense since studies indicate that only around 3% of black men are homosexual or bisexual, homosexual men of all races tend to be exclusively intimate with men once they come out of the closet and so-called “down-low” men usually don’t have multiple female partners (they tend to have one lady and multiple men). Thus, the vast majority of black women never have sex with men who have had sex with other men.

So eliminating gay or bisexual black men, we can see according to this chart that there were 7,340 new cases of HIV infections among black women in 2009 compared to 3,290 new cases for heterosexual black men during the same year. And since lesbian contact accounts for such a minuscule number of infections as to not even register, practically all of these women infected by sexual contact are heterosexual or bisexual. Hence, we can see that there are at least twice as many heterosexual black women being infected by HIV as there are heterosexual black men even when the three percent of black women infected by men who have sex with other men are eliminated from the group.

So what this shows is that a heterosexual black man through random chance is at least twice as likely as a heterosexual black women to have sexual contact with a member of the opposite sex who is HIV positive. Even if we consider those who are infected by intravenous drug use, the number of black men being infected in such a way is fairly similar to the number of black women being infected that way. At face value, this would seem that black women are more of a danger to black men than the reverse as it relates to spreading HIV, but we will be honest and not go there because the disease is spread much more easily from man to woman than from woman to man. This would account for the greater number of heterosexual black women infected than heterosexual black men.

But studies indicate that black women are infected with HIV at 21 times the rate of white women while black men are infected at 7 times the rate of white men. So why are black women not infected at 7 times the rate of white women as black men are compared to white men? Why are black men not infected at 21 times the rate of white men as black women are compared to white women? Why the discrepancy? Here is my theory.

Black women have a greater tendency than other women to seek intimacy with the very type of men who partake in more risky behavior. Those would be your thugs, hoodlums, pimps, players, etc. These are the very men most prone to having high numbers of sexual partners, least likely to use protection and most likely to partake in drug use. It is this tendency, in my opinion, for the bulk of black women to seek out the smaller number of 'bad boy' alpha males and their willingness to share these males as opposed to seeking one on one relationships with more stable, conservative males that contributes to the excessive infection rate prevalent among black women today.