Where do I begin? I feel for Lauren, truly I do. She had 5 babies with the man and was with him from the time she was in her early twenties. A couple of things jump at me about Rohan and his Brazilian fiancee. First, how did L-Boogie have 5 (FIVE) kids with a man and not get married. It's true that you can't make anyone do anything, especially if they don't want to, but after 2 kids why not put a cap on it, literally. Birth control works and we have many options. When did she see that he had no interest in marrying her and say to herself I need to pause on having more children until my relationship is stable and progressing. Maybe she had no interest in marriage, but personally I'm not buying that one. The stories about his cheating and her unknown personal issues have all been public. For a while there it seemed maybe she had some sort of breakdown. And yes, individuals and relationships have their ups and downs, but those two managed to make five children through it all. But my broader questions are: what does this shituation represent for other black women at-large and have we totally stopped questioning what is our worth as women?
Marriage brings certain legal rights that baby mama-ism just doesn't, for the father and the mother. For a man, becoming a father is a matter of sex that led to a pregnancy. Now whether he wants to enter the role of daddy is a whole other matter. But when a man decides to marry a woman he is committing to stand by her and their children through anything, take an oath before God and enter a legally binding contract with her. Husbands and fathers are actually willing to face death to protect their wives and children. It's not a role for punks as real men know.
Women need to think hard and long before they take sexual chances with a man that may not be there for them and his seeds. And a man shouldn't toy with a woman's body and bring five souls into this world and not want to honor them with his last name and claiming the mother as his wife. That's just me. Have we become baby makers for brothers while they give their commitment, loyalty and hearts to other women? Why aren't we looking out more for ourselves and for the futures of our children. Sex is a splendiforous thing, but I think sometimes you need to deny yourself that pleasure until you feel safe and know as best you can just who you're connecting to. There's just too much mattress diving going on today and women and girls thinking they're as emotionless and detached as guys are. Deciding to have sex with someone is always a leap of faith but we need to get as much information about who it actually is we're bonding with up front. Questions about his values, what he gives most of his attention to, measuring his actual behavior with his talk and how he views women and relationships are just starters. Because you are connecting, and not just physically. Oxytocin can have you stuck on some dude 2 years later who may not be worth shit, but you could still be wondering about his sorry ass because he sweated on your belly and held you afterwards.
It has just started to feel like sisters have become little more than breeders for the black race, and I hope my feelings are wrong because we offer so much more. And if so, some of that is our fault. Given our low marriage rate and baby mama syndrome, is it just that our men seem to think we're good enough to have their babies but not good enough to be their wives? Or do we just do too damn much while not expecting them to do or offer much in return.
Now you know I have to address race because it is what it is. I'm sure that 2 people of different races can and do fall in love and it have nothing to do with anything but love. Great. But Rohan Marley chose to marry a blue-eyed Brazilian that doesn't look Rasta. There used to be an old saying that "Black men talk black, sleep white and marry light". Well that game seems to have changed recently because many of them aren't even marrying light anymore, they're going straight outside to marry Asian, White or Hispanic women. As if the coveted light-skinned black woman isn't cutting it anymore. Have Black women become so disposable by our men?
If nothing else I wish Lauren the best in charging ahead with her life as a woman, a mother and an artist. And I hope her very public life serves as a conversation piece for Black women around motherhood, wifehood, sex and relationships (or "relationshits" as they can sometimes be).
Although the greater purpose of this blog is to address the relationship between Black men and women I would be remiss if I didn't address Lauryn Hill. I want to first be clear that I love Lauryn as an artist. From her lyrics conscious lyrics and her ethnic style one would surmise that she is a "together sister"! But ohm prayer moon frare do you you even go there!...On second thought, lets go there. That chick exhibited a twisted relationship with men from the start! Let's call a spade a spade. The Fugees broke up because of Lauryn and Wyclef's affair and the chick was pissed when she realized that dude was not going to leave his wife to be with her! Rohan Marley was a rebound and she got him from another woman. Plus he Rasta from a tribe that was already known to be womanizers! All of that behavior indicates that Lauryn is a "lost one"!
ReplyDeleteHi Cotton,
ReplyDeleteDidn't know Lauren was w/Wyclef while he had a wife. That says a lot. Do most of us need to go back to kindergarden and learn about courtship, dating, relationships and marriage to turn this dysfunction around?
Well, it's complicated.. But not really. First let me say I love Lauryn Hill. That is to say I love her art, her intellect and her talent. ..And to top all that off, she is absolutely stunning. So beautiful, and her brilliance only enhances her beauty. So why'd she make 5 babies with a man without the benefit of marriage? Unless that was her plan, I can only say she, like most of us, has a path to travel and lessons to learn.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure she's happy and blessed to have her children, and after everything is said and done, she probably feels having them was worth every bit of pain and heartbreak she may have endured. It's a tricky thing when it comes to saying when a woman should have left a relationship when children were born at a point after the relationship's decline. My parents were married and, though they loved each other, their marriage was far from a success. Now, if I were to pinpoint the time when my mother should have dialed 1(800)Divorce, I would not have been born. So, it gets a little hinky, in that regard. Who's to say when a woman should have left a man, and thus, which of her children should not have been born.
See next entry..
But, Wonderful 1, at the same time, I totally get what you are saying. Sometimes it’s easier, less painful (at the time) for a woman to see all the good, great things about a man. It’s easy to get caught up in what could be, instead seeing and accepting what really is… or isn’t.
ReplyDeleteAs far as the issue of black men being fixated with mixed-race, Asian, or white women.. , like you, I also believe folks of different races have every right to mingle, and tingle and do the darn thing- date, marry, raise families… When it comes to consenting adults.. and the freedom to love, or be with (to whatever degree) the person(s) of your choice, it’s all good. But I have noticed the trend you’re speaking of. Yeah, it’s by-product of enslavement, and it’s continuously promoted and sustained by movies, television, and advertising. So my thought, in that regard, is this: I think black women need to relax. Step back, step up, sit down, breathe-in/breathe out… whatever it takes to realize how wonderful we are.
Every woman on the planet has something about her race, ethnicity and culture that feeds and fortifies her womanly glory. For black women,.. well.. we’re most directly descended from the first woman to grace the earth. Our beauty, femininity, and womanly essence are borne of antiquity. There is divinity in the ancient. Yeah, that makes us really quite marvelous. Most unfortunately, the evil and depraved brilliance of enslavement sought to denigrate and defame black women. Much is spoken of the emasculation and dehumanizing of black men, but we rarely speak of how enslavement assaulted the black women’s sense of femininity. Laboring and toiling like beasts of burden with intermittent breaks to be raped and beaten.
See next entry..
Devaluing and degrading black women’s femininity, while placing white women on a “pedestal”, was brilliantly strategic on the part of white male enslavers in two respects, in particular. (1) It encouraged black men to see white women as special,.. so special and highly prized (as compared to black women) that even looking at a white woman could cost a black man his life. To a great degree, the strength and power of men within a community, comes from the men’s desire and innate drive to cherish the women of their community. Weaken that desire, weaken that drive, and you weaken the men. Period. (2) It provided the enslaver a standing explanation each time the birth of yet another little caramel-colored baby bearing his features came to his wife’s attention: “White women are too pure and delicate to withstand the brutality of carnal lust. Niggras… well they’re barely women at all. Much better to subject them to my raw, base, urges, and spare you, my dear..”
ReplyDeleteThe campaign to depict black women as unfeminine, unattractive, and undesirable began with enslavement, and it continues, ever strong, today. That’s nearly 400 years non-stop. As a result, many black men and, (more importantly) many black women have been conditioned not to recognize the exquisiteness of African, and (predominantly, obviously, no- she ain’t mixed) African descended women.
So.. back to my thought of black women just taking a load off, and relaxing when it comes to “our men” preferring other women to us. The first thing I’d say is we need to stop putting energy into claiming black men as “our men” and work on claiming ourselves. That is to say we need to love ourselves, appreciate ourselves, and really adore ourselves. Perhaps Lauryn did not adore herself enough. Stunning as she is, gifted as she is, intelligent as she is, perhaps she was compelled to pursue, seek after, claim “her man”. Something else we’ve inherited from enslavement is the thought that we have to do it all, make it all happen and withstand every and anything because that’s just the way it is. Pain, suffering, heartbreak, baby-mama-hood, cohabitation and sex, but no marriage.. Just like all other women on the planet, it’s up to black women to set the standard. ..And that standard should be that we love and respect men that love and cherish us.
I have love and hope for Lauryn, and faith in her, as well. She may have been down, but she's not out. Not by a long shot.