Now just about everytime news of  some sort of program to and least TRY to tackle the single parenthood epidemic, or when yet the 50-11th report comes out to state the obvious that kids suffer from single parent households, here come the writers over yonder whining and crying because they feel attacked.

Chicks, you need to get over it. It ain’t all about you and your ego and your pride and justifications for wanting to do whatever the flip you want regardless of how it might affect others, so just shut up. Britni Danielle starts her piece like this:

It looks like the media found a new group to throw under the bus this week: single moms.

I really just want to say…keep our names out your mouth, yo…but I’m going to take a more diplomatic approach.

I’m not going to be so diplomatic.  You see, because the people who have to bear the burdons for the fallout of kids of single parents who don’t have the wherewithall to produce kids that want you to call them “doctor” at the age of seven are frankly getting tired of the bullshit. People are weary of paying for programs and mentorships and blah blah blah save the children stuff just so things can continue in the same way. Many of these folks who complain about the recent focus on the single-parent fallout just don’t want ANYONE to say ANYTHING EVER, but readily will ask for a handout to fix the mess.

And the irony is that the title of the piece, “Stop Talking About Single Mothers Unless You Have a Solution,” is that solutions ARE being offered, but you just don’t like any of them. These people reject all solutions that may require some behavioral adjustment. It’s so retarded and ridiculous and I sometimes wonder if Dr. Seuss isn’t really dead but he’s behind the green curtain eating ‘shrooms and pulling all the strings.

Look, there are times in our culture that we lean liberal, and then there are times that we move in a a more conservative direction. The single-parent debate has until recently, had it’s message dominated by liberal voices who want to defend single parenthood as a rite of feminism, and frankly don’t give a crap about what happens to the kids after, as long as someone else foots the bills. It’s been this way for decades, so it’s no surprise that so many women are shocked SHOCKED!! that they are losing ground in dominating the conversation and subsequent polices.

Not to be all all, “I told you so,” but…I TOLD YOU SO. In 2010 when people were all in our arses about the “absurdity” of No Wedding No Womb, I told you this day (and many more of the same days) were coming. There are people in high places who are working hard behind the scenes, and frankly these defenders of foolishness don’t have a snowball’s chance to stop it. And from a mother whose first child was born out of wedlock, I’ll be first in line cheering on the change, and I won’t let my own pride and ego get in the way of acknowledging the fact that we need to do better by our kids, because that’s what mature people do.

In poor communities, women are increasingly choosing to become become pregnant and give birth without getting married to the men who impregnated. And for many of those women becoming a single parent seems like the rational choice. The men that are available to them are not marriageable by middle-class standards but the women still want to have children during their prime reproductive years. The end result is that the women have children with men whom they will probably never marry, men who are unlikely to remain romantically involved with the mother until the children turn eighteen, men who will have a limited role–if any–in their children’s lives.

These unwed mothers do the best they can but unfortunately their best is often not good enough and the mothers are unwittingly contributing to the creation of the same environment that encouraged them to become single parents.

Economic troubles of the last few decades that left low-skilled men with high unemployment rates are perhaps the main factor creating a scarcity of marriage-ready men in low-income communities. As quoted in a New York Times article, David H. Autor, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has indicated that he has reviewed research which indicates that being raised in a single-parent home actually leads to worse outcomes for boys than it does for girls.

Professor Autor said in an interview that he was intrigued by evidence suggesting the consequences were larger for boys than girls, including one study finding that single mothers spent an hour less per week with their sons than with their daughters. Another study of households where the father had less education, or was absent entirely, found the female children were 10 to 14 percent more likely to complete college. A third study of single-parent homes found boys were less likely than girls to enroll in college.

“It’s very clear that kids from single-parent households fare worse in terms of years of education,” he said. “The gender difference, the idea that boys do even worse again, is less clear cut. We’re pointing this out as an important hypothesis that needs further exploration. But there’s intriguing evidence in that direction.”

Yes, more study is needed but it doesn’t seem like a stretch to assume that single women would be better at raising girls to become women than said single parents would be at raising boys to become men–especially considering that many of the men populating lower income communities are–using the same phrase Christopher Jencks, a professor of social policy at Harvard University, uses to describe said men–“a mess.” The men that are surrounding these single women are a mess and these are the men that serve as models of manhood for young boys to model themselves off of men; these “mess” of a men are the men that the single women date in front of their children; these “mess” of a men are displaying the personality and behavioral characteristics that the single women ostensibly don’t want their own sons to model–but how do the women know how to train their son’s up to behave in any other way?

The evidence is suggesting that the end result of all this single parenting is what you would expect: A cycle of women having children with unmarriageable men and then the male children grow up to also be unmarriageable–wash, rinse, repeat.

At least one former policy wonk has woken up to the fact that something more needs to be done than removing any remaining stigma from single parent households. Jonathan Cowan, the president of Third Way, a center-left policy research organization, and a veteran of the Clinton administration said, “If Democrats have as their goal being the party of the middle class, they have to come to the realization that they’re not going to be able to get there solely through their standard explanations. We need to ask, ‘How can we get these fathers back involved in their children’s lives?”

Another good question might be, “How do we decrease the number of single parent households from being created in the first place?”

A good answer might be the one provided by Christopher Jenks: It’s time for society to help make make lower income men better prospects for marriage.

Source: “Study of Men’s Falling Incomes Cites Single Parents“–New York Times
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Jamila Akil is a Senior Editor at Beyond Black and White. Follow her on Twitter @jamilaakil

This is one of those times to admit I was wrong. Several members within the BWE community warned me about including Tim Alexander (and another guy who I won’t mention because he’s not nearly as bad) in the male line up of bloggers and activists for the inaugural event of No Wedding No Womb back in September 2010. The women were concerned that Tim was a widely-accused black woman hater, and he had no place in our outreach. My concern at the time was that our lack of black men participating might give some the impression that all of us women were just a bunch of harpies. It was important to have male voices speaking up on this issue, because men listen to other men. I felt that adding male voices would add another dimension of credibility to the movement, and I was (mostly) right. A significant number of black men stepped up in that fight, including Lamar Tyler, film maker, activist and blogger of Black and Married With Kids. And also who could forget SPEECH, the lead of Arrested Development, who produced an entire song?

No doubt that without these male voices, much of the message of No Wedding No Womb would have fallen on deaf ears. I still believe black men are essential to delivering the message because they make up 50% of the conversation. I knew some people wouldn’t like it, but it was absolutely necessary to get voices outside of the BWE community to cooperate, and it’s because we did this that #NWNW was tweeted 100,000 times in one night, got and continues to get national coverage, and is a smashing public awareness success.

However, male participation can not be helpful if they use it as an opportunity to blame black women for everything, and that black boys and men are helpless victims of evil and disgusting black women who are hell bent on destroying black people. NWNW has maintained from the beginning that both males and females must take responsibility in order to affect change.

The following is a Facebook exchange between me and Tim Alexander. Please note how the conversation devolved into him accusing me of hating black men, implying I’m some evil and disgusting baby momma who had a gaggle of children before a white knight saved me, and how the other men in his woman-hating group thought I was a raging narcissist because I think something of myself. I’m sharing this with you because this is an indicator of the pathology in the black community.

I think it’s pretty evident what Tim and his minion’s think about black women, and I wish I had had the full spectrum of that hate when I asked him to participate, but I didn’t. I was new to the scene, and had no idea. I was wrong, and I own it. For all those I might have hurt of offended, I sincerely apologize.

In two words…GO BLOOMBERG!!

However, the race to shut down this initiative has been fast and predictable. Those who want to cling to the delusion that they can make crappy choices and expect others to fix it has also been laughable. Some, even a author over at Clutch, is attempting to frame the program as shaming unwed mothers. What a load of crap–Bloomberg is targeting teens who have not yet conceived!! Why the HELL are these chicks so against motivating girls not to repeat the cycle? Is it because they WANT these girls to be as miserable at they are? You’ve got to be suspicious of people who don’t want better for others than they’ve had for themselves. It’s disgusting.

And as usual, people are attacking the fact that this program isn’t soft and cuddly enough. Because not a damn thing in these banners is a lie:

Every. Single. Banner. Says. The. Truth. THIS IS THE TRUTH! Why are you mad because Michael Bloomberg co-signs it? The warped thinking is the reason why the black community as a whole stays losing.

Here’s Clutch’s position:

Shame is not a prevention tactic. Education is. Economic mobility is. Community resources, like Planned Parenthood, are helpful in educating future mothers and fathers about the potential consequences of teenage pregnancy. Instead of shaming women, Bloomberg should offer jobs and community programs instead of backward advertisements.

Wait. Let me get this straight–shame = bad. More entitlement programs and less personal responsibility = good.

I have some bad news for all the defenders of foolishness–get ready to see a whole lot more of these types of initiatives. I said it was coming two years ago, and here it is. Society has lost it’s sympathy for this nonsense. It also doesn’t help that white people are starting to show evidence of the negative effects of out-of-wedlock pregnancy, but their 40% is child’s play compared to our 80%. But for many who are proactive, white folks most likely won’t ever reach the epic depravity of a 70-80% out of wedlock rate, and trust and believe there are many behind the scenes who are determined to see to it.

The tide is indeed beginning to change, and those who seek to preserve dysfunction for their own selfish reasons and consider themselves put on notice.

And of course it’s the black people SO OFFENDED that someone outside of the community having something to say about kids having kids…I mean, how dare he? Well when you’re expecting people like him to pay for and pick up your slack don’t be surprised when the folks with the money want to have a say. Newsflash: You can not expect others to clean up your messes when you make bad decisions. The attitude of entitlement, the “You owe me!!” attitude is epic. What mayor Bloomberg and advocates of No Wedding No Womb advocate is not about shaming the kids and mothers who are already there. It’s about changing the cycle with kids who are at risk. Why are there so many in the media hell-bent on not allowing people to do everything they can to get kids to make better choices? It just doesn’t make sense.

Of course the zombies of the GAT-DL will come out to say Bloomberg is a racist for girls to want better fro themselves and their children. Watch how they’ll twist themselves into pretzels to justify this toxic culture while lobbying for everyone’s money to finance it.

Did you hear the children scream, “THAT’S WHY YOU’RE GAY!”? OMG, is this America or some third world ghetto? Nope. I checked. It’s Atlanta.

A friend of mine who brought this video to my attention said that she spend her internship not far from this neighborhood, and she reports that it’s horrific. “I left with the quickness. The people that you see in that video, are the people who are common in the area. The women have no fear, and they will fight a dude in a minute (and yes, most of the men will fight back). I had to do student teaching in an area close to it, and I hated it. I parked my car within a view of a window so that I would make sure I could see if a student broke in. As a matter of fact, on my first day at that school, I walked in on a gang fight. Talk about being happy when my student teaching assignment was up!!” she told me.

She also said something that was quite poignant. “The sad thing is that the children have zero guidance. While doing my student teaching, I was asked to teach the girls how to care for their personal hygiene. I didn’t want to do it at first, but then I realized these girls are so lost they don’t have someone to take the time to teach them how to care for their bodies. Most of the children in that area are being raised by teenage mothers and/or grandmothers beacause the parents are in jail. Fathers are not present, and most of their food comes from school lunch. Additionally, I did an assignment with the students in which I asked them what did they want to be when they got older. About 80% of the children included, “I want to be white.”

Stop there. These kids, being raised with no guidance and in utter chaos wish they were white. I thought about that for a second. I don’t think the kids wished they were white because they thought whites were inherently better, but because when they see white people outside of their neighborhoods and on the television, those parents and children are not burdened by the disease festering in the black community. Children crave structure, both parents responsible and involved, a reliable food source, and mothers and fathers who don’t behave like creatures. It’s not the color they crave, it’s the lifestyle. Who could blame them?

Some of you might balk at my language, but if it walks like a beast and talks like a beast, it’s a beast. God help the kids who have to live in this Hell. Like Khadija once wrote, the peace walls are coming, especially if the black, underclass, out-of-wedlock rate continues unfettered.

Click here for the full story.

Look at that face. She was all eyes.

Fifteen years ago today the most exquisite creature came into my life. She hardly ever cried when she was born, almost like she didn’t want to impose. Now as she reaches the precipice of womanhood, I can’t help but marvel at how beautiful, smart, poised, and caring she is. More than anything, she is a GOOD person. She’s fiercely loyal, and has a good moral compass. She is gifted–according to test scores, she’s smarter than 90% of the kinds in the State of California, thank-you-very-much.

Maxi Me changed my life. Giving her life gave me life. Every decision I made from the moment she was born was for her. She helped me choose the man who would eventually become her stepfather, because I chose that man according to what kind of stepfather I knew she deserved. He is not “stepdad,” he is “Dad.” Her real father is “Daddy,” and they both love her fiercely.

I remember nine years ago, when Maxi had a terrible accident when a window shattered and literally tore her eyelid open and threatened the loss of her eye. She was rushed to the hospital, and I seven months pregnant with Clo Clo, was a complete emotional mess. Both men raced from their respective jobs and rushed to her side, and as she was sedated and getting reparative surgery, my husband, Mike, held one hand, and her bio dad held the other. The wiped their tears and whispered assurances in her ear, and messages of their devotion. They have butted heads at times during the years, but in that moment, the only thing that mattered was Maxi. That was a scene of pure, colorblind, fatherly love. At that moment, I was so proud of those men. Her fathers–their love has shaped who she is.

In this photo, you can still see the scar from the window accident, on the right eyelid.

When I look at her, I can’t help but puff up with pride. I poured my everything into her, and got so much more in return. She isn’t just my daughter, she is my friend. She is my rock. She understands me, knows me, and loves me still. She is the inspiration for No Wedding No Womb.

I have no regrets. I would do it all again.

Now off to the mall to spend a small fortune at H&M and Forever 21.

The Negro Family, which later came to be widely known simply as “The Moynihan Report,” did not even originally have Moynihan’s name on it’s cover–the document was only meant to be distributed to high-ranking members of the Johnson administration in order to spur discussion regarding what policies could be implemented in order to assist the Negro family with the task of fully integrating society. But, Moynihan was also issuing a warning. The Negro family was already suffering rates of familial disintegration, poverty, and out-of-wedlock pregnancy at rates far higher than white families; if something was not done soon, he warned that the problems of lower class blacks (i.e., a “tangle of pathology”) may well become self-perpetuating, if they had not become self-perpetuating already.

To the dismay of many within the Johnson administration, including Moynihan himself, the Report was leaked to the press. Black leaders and leaders were less than impressed with the way that Moynihan described the black family, using language that they felt was overly pessimistic and which blamed the victim instead of blaming the racism of whites. The usage of the phrase “tangle of pathology” to describe the multitude of problems in which lower class blacks were often enmeshed infuriated black leaders. Before the report had even been officially released to the public, articles appeared attempting to call Moynihan’s words and intentions in writing the report into question.

Eleanor Holdmes Norton, civil rights activist, graduate of Yale Law School, and feminist, was one of the few black leaders who agreed with what Moynihan wrote in his report:

As far back as the early 1970′s she had tried unsuccessfully to get civil rights leaders–most of them men–to pay more attention to the needs of black families. Discouraged by the response, she had defended the Moynihan Report to [Ken] Auletta, observing sadly, “that it had to come from a white person tells you about the failure of black leadership.” (Freedom Is Not Enough, author James T. Patterson)

Some black scholars such as Herbert G. Gutman, author of the tome’The Black family in slavery and freedom, 1750-1925′ insisted that although the black family has not come out of slavery unscathed, blacks were “resilient”–black families had retained an extended family structure to support each other and to protect against the vicissitudes of life during slavery and Jim Crow. According to the Gutman, the black family members should be praised for their adaptiveness in response to the conditions of racism. This insistence that there was really nothing wrong with black families–white racism was the real problem–deflected attention away from arguments seeking to create policies to help ‘heal’ the black family; if the black family isn’t broken, then why continue to talk about fixing it?

President Johnson, who was seeking to keep support of the Vietnam war high and needed that support in order to ramp up the war efforts, did not want to simultaneously request funds to divert towards social programs designed to assist the black poor.

And then, in mid-August of 1965, riots erupted in the Watts area of Los Angeles, California. The racial tension in the Watts neighborhood erupted into violence that lasted 6 days until being squashed by the National Guard. Despite the fact that blacks were rioting after a long period of being discriminated against and outright harassed, many white Americans began to see blacks as being ungrateful and unworthy of having their needs assuaged or their complaints addressed.

At the time the report was released, some feminists felt that too much ink was being spent writing about the problems of black men. Why should the focus be on black men when it was black women who–by working low-wage, unskilled, dead-end jobs–were raising children alone in impoverished and often violent surroundings? Moynihan was referring to the black community as being a matriarchy, yet the majority of black women were struggling just to make ends meet.

The black family continued to take a metaphorical beating while everyone was discussing and disagreeing with each other. Drugs became more easily and more widely available with black communities in the 60′s and 70′s, which lead to an increase in crime and problems related to drug addiction. Mass incarceration of black males facilitated the creation of a pseudo-prison culture among young black men.

Finally, decades after the Moynihan Report had been published, black academics, scholars, and other public figures began to speak out about effects of the disintegration of the family on black Americans. Comedian Bill Cosby gave his infamous speech before a meeting of the NAACP about the reckless behavior of lower class blacks. John McWhorter wrote Losing the Race, a book about how blacks were falling further and further behind the rest of society due to their own failure to adapt and acclimate the standards and mores that were allowing all other racial and ethnic groups to improve their standing.

Over 40 years after The Negro Family, all that has happened is talk. The Million Man March, a historic event that was supposed to encourage black men to step up and fully participate in the healing of black families had virtually no effect.

Barack Obama has done nothing directly to help black families, besides giving a few speeches in black churches where he admonishes black men for their failure to be loving husbands and fathers. Obama has talked, but he has done nothing to change policy in any way that would turn the tide on the unraveling of the black family. When 20 children were killed in a mass shooting in Newtowne, CT, the President announced proposals addressing gun control approximately 2 months later. How many black men were killed in Chicago and Detroit last year and yet the President has committed to no efforts to either modify or create new public policy to help black men or black families?

At this point, it remains highly doubtful that there will be a turning of the tide. For the last 40 plus years the trends that Moynihan pointed out, particularly that of rising rates of out-of-wedlock children, have been increasing, not just for blacks but for all Americans, although blacks still have by far the highest rate of out-of-wedlock childbearing. The black family has become ever more fragile, with fewer and fewer black children expected to grow up in a home with 2 parents. And, this at time when family structure is a better predictor of whether or not a child will be successful in life than that child’s race. Children who grow up in a single-parent home are truly the disadvantaged, just like Danial Patrick Moynihan predicted.
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Jamila Akil is a Senior Editor at Beyond Black and White. You can follow her on Twitter @jamilaakil

Chevonea Kendall-Bryan was begging a teenage boy to delete a sex tape of her being abused when she plunged 60ft from her bedroom window in Battersea, the inquest heard.

Coroner Bernard Richmond QC told Westminster coroner’s court that he believed Chevonea was leaning out of the window to convince the boy, known as E6, that she would jump if he did not erase the mobile phone footage but that she never intended to follow her threat through.

The inquest previously heard that Chevonea, who self-harmed, was the victim of school bullying.

Her mother Amanda Kendall said her daughter had been upset as a result of the bullying, which started when she was in year eight, when she was slapped and pushed by other pupils.

Ms Kendall told North Westminster coroners’ court last week: “Chevonea was very bubbly and always laughing and joking. She was a nice little girl.

Chevonea may have been a nice girl, but she was yet another vulnerable black girl, hungry and in need of male approval and psychological reinforcement. I am convinced that a 13-year-old CHILD is only interested in having sex not because she likes it, but because she has a hole in her heart so big that she’ll do whatever she needs to in order to feel loved.

This girl was THIRTEEN. THIRTEEN. Barely a teenager, two years younger than Maxi Me. Ladies, we have a responsibility to reach out to young black girls and at least TRY to teach them that sex does not equal love. Thirteen-year-old boys think with their penises and their hormones rule everything. They will tell a girl who is hungry to male attention absolutely ANYTHING they want to hear so they can hit it. And don’t expect them to keep it a secret–today’s technology allows for them to prove their conquests in irrefutable real time.

At least the Evening Standard is calling what happened to Chevonea what exactly it was–sexual abuse. I wonder if the boy who taunted and abused her will finally delete the tape.

If you know a “Chevonea,” take her into your arms and tell her she deserves so much more.

Not only that, but the words in which one chooses to describe themselves tells a lot about how that person feels, both consciously and sub-consciously if you know what to listen for.

As a natural linguist I often noted the subtle difference between a person’s choice to use one set of words versus another to generally explain or describe the same thing.

It’s not entirely our fault since an individual’s vocabulary is only as good as the vocabulary of those around them.

In addition, a vocabulary also consists of words and phrases based on whatever words are commonly used to describe the everyday phenomenon of human existence.

Why do the words that we use matter so much?

Because it is through this collective language that we pass down the shared experience of being Black. Though people may differ in their capacity to comprehend the meanings of certain words, we are still able to understand the implied meaning beyond the surface level of our dialogue.

It is this meaning that we should pay more attention to if we are to ever hope to change the ways in which Blacks exist in society.

One area in which we can apply our hypothesis is by examining the way in which we, as Black people, approach parenthood.

As we know, OOW births are rampart in the Black community, and though I am not a traditionalist in the least, the fact that so many children are born to ill equipped and negligent parents can’t be ignored.

The Chicken. The Egg.

If we look at the different phrases used to describe the act of bearing and raising children there is a telltale clue to the difference in the way in which Blacks view parenthood versus other groups.

Could the slight difference in terminology cause things to be so much harder later on down the road or is the hard experience of being born to Black parents best described by the words used.

Mom, Where Do Black Babies Come From?

Dysfunctional women start families by ‘getting knocked up’, when I visualize this phrase it brings to mind the entire act of conception as something violent, and accidental. Like a drive by shooting; no witnesses, lots of blood and senseless

By using the phrase, ‘she got knocked up’ we alleviate discussion of how a woman becomes pregnant, and even more important than that….who ‘knocked her up’?

White women ‘get pregnant’, by accident, on purpose, by happenstance and any a number of genuine, acceptable and easily relatable reasons. Birth control does fail, condoms pop, schedules change, champagne flows, and sometimes you just aren’t being as responsible as you have been these last X amount of years since you first been sexually active and began taking steps to avoid pregnancy.

Middle class White couples and other cultures are able to maneuver children in a space that makes room for the children to exist as part of the larger fabric of Standard America. Parents may sulk, grandparents may tisk, but everyone moves forward with intention when a couple prepares for a child, even when the child was originally unintentional.

Low class/ill prepared women refer to themselves ’having babies’, rather than a more middle class concept such as ‘starting a family’, ‘reproducing’, ‘becoming a mother’, ‘adding an addition’, ‘not being careful’….you get the idea.

With less open dialogue about sex, birth control and the stigma of abortion, black women who need to be vigilant about their reproductive capacity are left to skip landmines and when they aren’t able to, the proof of her ‘fault’ is being pushed in a stroller as she walks alone.

Thanks for child……and now what?

Women and men unprepared to have children approach the pending birth as an end process instead of a lifelong commitment to the care, development and support of another human being. Lower class mothers increase in weight, may or may not continue to work, attend school and continue on with their own lives while pregnant. Inexperience and ignorance may cause some to neglect to make accommodations for the child until after the child is born.

It is at this point where a new child get tossed into instability as she/he is placed from family member to family member as the unprepared mother tries to move forward as if things didn’t change even though she is now a parent and her child has basic needs. Attempting to rally the support of the father may include his participating with care, but if he is employed then he has his own responsibilities that supersede the childcare necessities of a child. At some point

Could this difference is expectations may be a reason why Black men do not feel the need to stick around to provide something they do not feel they have within them or are they unwilling to give another human being something they themselves did not receive during their own childhood?

Women who are socially stable enter into parenthood with the awareness that they will be “raising children”; the children born to healthy familiar environments are considered a part of the clan social system and are deserving, and valuable. These families go about the business of gathering resources in preparation of a long haul commitment to the survival of the pending child.

I don’t think this phenomena is unique to married couples, I believe the willingness to participate in the development and care of a child is something that can be achieved by any welcoming and stable family structure, be it same sex, platonic friends, unmarried couples, adoption, or single parents.

Lower class women, with less resources to begin with, need to take into consideration the resources of the potential father before deciding on whether he is capable of contributing to a child. The willingness to become a father, no matter how genuine, can not take the place of financial resources, no matter how great his intentions and commitment to she and her child.

A woman shouldn’t have a baby and those around her call it a blessing and pray on it when they know there are no means to raise the pending child, nor is its presence necessarily welcomed.

The Gift of Life is an Unwanted Mistake

I was attending church for awhile during my pregnancy. I had no ring on my finger, but the father of my child and I were in a committed relationship, we lived together and were normally stable. At this point, we were having an abundance of problems and he had moved out, though we were still together as a couple.

My child’s babysitter was a wonderful woman who found her way to redemption at the alter of the Lord. She never neglected to invite me or anyone else to Sunday service. It was a kind gesture. I won’t lie, I’m suspicious and very intolerant of religion, so I keep my distance although I’ve visited multiple places of worship and have been greeted and warmly welcomed. I’m just not into the whole higher concept thing.

Nevertheless, I attended a service and some how seemed to draw the attention of the pastor during his sermon. He preached and prayed and admonished those in the audience who need forgiveness to go forward and kneel and beg the Lord for forgiveness. This wasn’t the largest church ever, but it wasn’t so small that he had to give the entire sermon next to me.

There were so many people running forward that they had begun to pile up on one another. I turned and look at the pastor and he’s facing me..still preaching.

He then reaches out to grab my arm and LEADS me up to the alter.

I didn’t know what to do…….my initial reaction was to back his ass up off of me in the ways I employ, but I’m in a church and pregnant! I can’t fight or fling right now.

I opened my mouth to protest in sailor language but thought about my babysitter, whom I would never want to insult.

I thought about how disgusting and ignorant I think people like this are. I kick myself  and ask how did I allow myself to be duped into being here right now.

I. WAS. LIVID!!

Yes, I was pregnant.

No, it wasn’t planned.

No, I wasn’t married.

Yes, we were happy….(after the initial shock of how I got pregnant but that’s a story for another time. I think MOST parents have a five second (or more) disconnect of a *blink blink* when hearing about a pending birth).

YOU might think my actions a sin but there is no way in conscious Hell that I would go about carrying a child that I love while also allowing myself to ashamed of the thing that I love that I am carrying inside of me.

I was ‘off my meds’ at the time after finally having received mental health service for bi-polar. I was initially taken off my normal meds and given Prozac, thought to be safer. It took 48 hours for the drugs to have me suicidal and being hyper delivered to the Dr for an evaluation. After that scare I refused to take any meds during the pregnancy, my mental condition was fragile on paper, but I was back to myself…aggressive, sporadic and manic.

That’s religious madness and I feel sorry for any woman who has had to carry and bear a child under circumstances where she’s dammed if she does and dammed if she doesn’t….LITERALLY.

Many women are simultaneously told that a baby is a “blessing” and should not be aborted yet she should is shamed and made to regret having created and her choice to bear the child.

I did what I needed to do in order to make myself as healthy and stable as I could while also preparing to carry and deliver a child. Both he and I were employed, with stable health insurance providing jobs, I was home at the time on disability.

My child attended a good school, we were surrounded by friends and family anticipating our child. We were closer in age to 30, than 20…I had no reason to hang my head.

How does it benefit anyone involved to shame the mother of a child in a time where she could use as much support and guidance as is available? Like any mother, I’m sure there are times when she’s scared and possibly overwhelmed, are there no kind words? No advice? No reassurance…?

Guess what a new mother has never done before???????????? BE A MOTHER!!

These mothers suffer emotionally abused and neglected. Possibly abandoned by the father of their child and when those around her should be gathering together we point fingers and whisper.

We, especially females, encourage new BC mother’s to put on her ‘strong black woman’ pants as we stand in line to hand out indifference as target practice of what’s to come only because that is what we choose to offer her.

Were we to ask what the implication is on the psyche of child when a society deems them mistakes, sins and burdens yet hypocritically claims love to that same child, what would the answer be?

There can be only one answer.

Either you love, accept and welcome this new person that will require strength and perseverance of you that you never knew you had or you are sorry that you did what you did and but somehow also chose to complete the birth of a person that you wished wasn’t here.

Children placed in adoption are loved. Children kept within their own families are hated. How does that happen?

The black community can’t have it both ways. I know of women who abuse their children in a multitude of ways but they will be quick to tell you how ‘good’ of a mother they are because their children wear Jordans yet eat off the floor.

Having basic needs met is the standard of care for some parents and that’s unfortunate when a child is born and one if not both parents check out because the situation has lost its luster after the baby showers, congratulations and good wishes and popular FB updates.

Children realize when they are unwanted. They grow up to be resentful and hurt spirits who question their lack of worth by the very people who created them. These children go out into the world expressing their feelings of worthlessness to others that look like them; the community, or their own offspring, their families.

Generations upon generations of humans deemed unwanted by their family, their culture and the greater society. We should not only question the manner in which we bring children into disjointed circumstances but also why we choose to do things that are inherently destructive to our future are black women.

I heard you were knocked up a couple days ago when your boo of only eight months, Kanye West, announced that his 5,000+ audience pay homage to his “baby mama.” I’m assuming he gave that title to you, as you are the carrier of the Kanye spawn.

Before I go on, I want you to know that I have nothing against you personally–I think you are quite beautiful and financially savvy (plus I spend hours in the mirror trying to get your smokey-eye look). But I want you to know that your newly-crowned status of “baby mama” will most likely have a ripple effect in the black community like nothing you’ve ever imagined.

Did you know that 80% of black children are born to mothers that are unmarried to the fathers? Most them aren’t as wealthy as you and Kanye, and many of the children of such situations will suffer from poverty, drop out of high school, use drugs, get caught up in the penal system, and make babies with other folks when they are not financially and psychologically prepared to raise them. Like many of these women who also are not wives or life partners, but “baby mamas,” you are now the honorary ‘Queen of the Baby Mamas,’ and young black girls far and wide will look to you as the shining beacon of baby-mamadom.

It blows my mind that people with as many resources as you and Kanye have could have this pregnancy occur by accident–you know where babies come from, right? Plus, no shade, but I’ve heard you enjoy all the “practicing,” which leads me to believe you and Mr. West did this on purpose, and that is your right, because in this country anyone, no matter how inept, selfish, narcissistic, insane, ill-tempered and unprepared, there’s no law to preclude anyone from making babies. But you know what’s funny (not in the ha-ha way but in the sad, that’s-a-damn-shame way?) While REAL black women have children outside of marriage and are seen as used, damaged goods by the very same men who themselves have out-wedlock-children, nothing you will ever do will be wrong in that regard.

Kanye was raised by his dearly-departed mother and was reportedly abandoned by his father when he was just three years old–and it shows. While his mother made sacrifice after sacrifice, Kanye is flippant about black women, and wrote a song about gold-diggers–did you hear it? But of course, you’re not a gold digger, typically only dark-skinned black women are called that name. Nothing you will ever do will upset your trophy status, you are the source of millions of black boys’ wet dreams.  You in all your glory, have replaced the black women as the standard of beauty for the black man. And since you have mega-millions of your own money, I’m sure it will hurt less if or when Kanye moves on to someone with less stretch marks. I think my friend Kola Boof said it best:

A few years ago, Kanye West and Jamie Foxx had a huge hit with a song about Gold diggers. This caused, at last, a music video that focused on beautiful child-bearing age Black women—the Black Man’s mother. At the end of the song Kanye announced, “I’m going to leave you for a White Woman!” And all of Black America and the White Pop music world laughed, applauded, cheered and drove the song to #1 on the charts—despite the fact that almost none of today’s rich and famous Black men being exploited for their money are getting bilked by Black women.

Wait!! Will Kanye insist on a DNA test to ensure that he doesn’t provide 18 years of support to a child that’s not his, like he talks about in his video? No? He only meant that for the black ‘hood boogers?’ Oh, okay.

I’m not going to spend any sleepless nights worrying about your little bun, because with all the resources you have–a close knit family and buckets of money–I’m sure your child will be more than fine, especially if he/she takes after you in the looks department.

But just know that as the newly-crowned ‘Queen of the Baby Mamas,’ there will be young girls and women with markedly less resources and more melanin than you that will follow in your footsteps, because HEY! “If Kimmy K can do it, so can I!!”