Fighting to Inhale.
Thursday, June 28, 2007 at 10:03PM 
We brothers have been taking it in the bread basket from sisters for years, particularly, during, and since the ‘Jungle Fever’ and ‘Waiting to Exhale’ genre of the early 90’s. The sisters have had their day in the sun to exhale - voice their frustrations and disappointments in black men through sisterhood pow wows from the convenience of their homes, in books, movies, talk shows, and radio programs. It’s time for the pendulum to swing in the opposite direction. Now, before I continue with this entry I feel the need to let it be known that I love, absolutely love, black women. I love my mama and my two sisters. I loved my grand mamas and great grandma’s when they were here. I love all of my aunts. Of course we’ve had our good and bad days, and you know there’s always going to be that one relative you wish would drop dead but overall our relationships have always been strong and I love them all dearly nonetheless. I’m old enough to have grown up in a time and place where all I ever saw was black women.
I can remember the first day I tried to express interest in the opposite sex like it was yesterday. I was pretty fond of a childhood playmate that I’ll call, Christine. One day I decided to kiss Christine on her cheek - no groping or French kissing or grabbing - just a kiss on the cheek. We had known each other for quite a while and I figured it would be okay since we had played at each others homes. She slapped the living shit out of me and I never saw her again. That was my first experience with a sister. Perhaps that experience may be the reason why I didn’t date throughout my public school years - I don’t know. Nevertheless, I had a pretty healthy attraction to sisters and females in general. It wasn’t until later on in junior high when I began to notice the sisters pairing off with certain types of brothers - the in crowd types, the jocks, the pretty boys, and of course the bad boys. I was none of the above so the sisters went in opposite directions away from me.
The situation became even more profound during my college years. By this time I had definitely developed my own style and personality, which didn’t go over well with the acting black student body at my university. It seemed that every single sister I showed interest in blew me off like I had tentacles growing from my head or a peg leg or some shit like that. For a while I blamed myself - is there really something wrong with me? Am I really so strange that I’m not worthy of social interaction amongst my own race?
Of course my mom gave me pep talks and I appreciated every word. But I made the final decision that I am who I am and I pressed on. It was my sophomore year when I took the flirtatious behavior of non-black females to the next level. Females of other races, particularly, of other nationalities, international students, appreciated the qualities I possessed (i.e. home training, respect for women, class) that many sisters on campus didn’t have on their hierarchy of needs. The final nail in the coffin was when I found out through a friend that a group of sisters had been bouncing to dorms all over campus passing the word - blacklisting me from the social scene.
The other sisters on campus were told by this group of vigilante females that I was off limits because I had white friends and dated out of my race. I wasn’t good enough for these sisters when I tried to show interest in them because I wasn’t a pre-med or business or engineering or pre-law major and I didn’t wear the latest fashions yet I was considered public enemy number one because I chose not to live a life unjustifiably exiled by my own black peers and date outside of their limited realm.
I dropped that brief history on you to let you know that I’m not one of those brothers that just up 
and one day decided to chase after non-black females like a monkey after a piece of candy. I’m not one of those brothers that dated sisters while I was poor and then traded up for a white girl after becoming successful. I’m none of those stereotypical explanations that sisters label brothers with that have a legitimate reason for dating out of their race. My reason for exploration is spelled out for you clearly now lets get down to the business of inhaling.
It’s time for brothers to stop getting kicked in the gutt for crimes of passion they didn’t commit. And by this I don’t mean for brothers to go out and retaliate by criticizing, judging, and ridiculing black women the way black women have done us for the past decade and a half. I mean for there to be a constructive dialogue. But first there must be a clear distinction made between the good brothers and the black males that commit acts of violence, neglect, and lack of responsibility against black women. There are brothers out there like me that have fought hard to do the right thing since day one. Brothers like me that chose not to follow the crowd and hang on street corners or leave fatherless children all over our neighborhoods. There are those of us that chose education over crime. There are those of us who maintained our morals and beliefs whether it was fashionable or not. We aren’t looking or affirmation or reward we are simply looking for acknowledgment and respect.
We don’t make up those statistics of black males that are in prison, dead or homosexual. 
There are many of us out there that are working just as hard out there in the white collar and blue collar arenas as our female counterparts. Black men like me may be fewer in numbers but that most certainly does not mean that we do not exist and it most certainly does not mean we should be overlooked by our own sisters because we aren’t in plentiful supply.
The sad thing is some black women even get the opportunity to date some of us good brothers. But you know what happens? Instead of capitalizing on the opportunity to pursue love and happiness they spoil the opportunity by spilling TMI too soon. They tell too much about their past failed relationships, medical problems, mental issues, misfortunate childhood, and a plethora of other issues that have nothing to do with trying to get the know the person sitting across from them at the diner table. Other sisters go even go so far as to put these innocent, unsuspecting brothers on trial by asking inappropriate questions like “Why do men cheat” or “Why are brothers on the down low” or “Why are brothers always broke” and so on and so forth or they make statements like: “All men are dogs” or some other demeaning, insulting generalization - multiple blows to the abdomen and no bell as even been rung.
It’s often the case that many black women have developed the habit of pointing their fingers at black men and blaming us for nearly everything under the sun that when they finally come across a good brother that is the exact opposite of what they’ve experienced or what they’ve 
been told it doesn’t compute in their dogmatic rationale. Therefore, they don’t know how to act, hence the feelings of insecurity and jealousy women develop if they do happen to become involved with a good brother. Understand while in reading this entry that I’m speaking from my own perspective as well as the perspectives of various like-minded brothers I’ve dialoged with from around the world. Regardless of what country these brothers are from or where they live now around the world the sentiment is the same: Sisters must learn how to come correct in their own behavior as well as acknowledge and appreciate the quality brothers they encounter everyday.
These sisters run into good brothers everyday but why do they seem to keep missing each other? Many sisters don’t bother to make eye contact. More often than not, they don’t show the common courtesy of simply speaking to a brother. I’ve heard all of the excuses sisters make for not speaking to brothers on the street from making the excuse that their mind was on something else to being afraid of being asked out to just pure paranoia. Many sisters abide by the double standard clause.
Many sisters want to say they’re strong and independent but when it comes to men they expect the man to make all the moves. Not all but many black women expect men to initiate 
first contact and place the responsibility for maintaining the interest of a relationship all on men. But how can a brother do all that if a sister won’t even bother to make eye contact or say hello? Sisters, you can’t have your cake and eat it too.
You can’t be so strong and independent that you say you don’t need a man in your life yet you expect a brother to have to break through that tremendous wall you’ve put up. That’s a lot of unnecessary work women apply to the pursuit of happiness when all they have to do is trust their instincts and intuition and take a chance. But in doing so you must have social skills, which means you’re going to have to make the effort to communicate with and understand men, and in doing so black women must understand that there is risk involved.
If dating a brother doesn’t work out as planned one must pick herself up, dust herself off and move on. Instead there is a population of women out there that choose to give up. As my great grandmother always said: “Anything worth having ain’t gonna be easy to get.” My sisters, the time has come to stop whinning and complaining and placing the blame on everyone but yourselves. The time has come for sisters to start thinking outside of the box. Learn how to search for men that are right for you instead of searching for men that you think other women would approve of. Learn from your mistakes and carry on with your lives instead of using the mistakes you made as a crutch not to continue on with your lives.
It’s time for brothers to stop taking hits in the gutt and start inhaling. It’s time to stop suffering in silence and time for us to start speaking up for ourselves instead of suffering along with the rest of the brothers that have caused our sisters emotional and physical harm. It’s time for us to inhale and charge headlong into the interpersonal disparities between black men and black women. Sisters must also do their part in understanding the concept of what a real black man is and encourage young brothers to follow that standard instead of accepting substandard substitutes.
Reader Comments (3)
Good Post well said, I hope at least one or two sisters, that fit this pattern, take this to heart and at least spread the concept.
Yo man, good post. I'm about halfway through it and I want to drop some of my thoughts as they rush into my head, ya dig?
True story, a lot of black females want to sit there and ask me why, oh, why this or that, like I'm responsible for the next black mans actions. Let's be real. And while I'm on this topic let's branch into homosexuality...
Quick story, some legitimate Brooklyn hood rat and I were working together recently and we got into a little dispute. She was bitching about light skinned boys because I was in the room, and for some reason, is a mutual feeling shared among the dark skinned females at my job. I finally snapped, mainly because I was tired of being ostracized for being light skinned, and told her,"That's really ignorant. You are hating on me and we are both damn black people." She then responded, "No you aren't." I then said, "Oh, so I'm guess you're saying I'm white because I dress different, work at Abercrombie and Fitch with you by the way, and that I don't have a BK accent?" By the way, that was all said loaded with sarcasm.
She then said, "No. You're a queer." After that all I said was no, and refused to talk to her from that day forth.
I'm just saying, why do majority of black females harp on this on black males? If I ain't dressing and acting like a thug then I'm gay. I need to get an older female.
Check this out, Jules. Sisters everywhere do that garbage - calling brothers they don't understand or care to understand gay. It's mainly due to the fact that they haven't taken the time to understand the simple concept that people in general, let alone black men, come multicultural backgrounds.
They don't care to rationalize the fact that there are people outside of their hoods that think, act and percieve the world differently than they do. And because these brothers, including myself, operate outside of their (some sisters) limited cultural environment they have no other working definition of these kinds of brothers other than "gay".
It is in this narrow-mindedness that these kinds of sisters inadvertently divulge their own ignorance and intolerence of what is considered a globalized environment. Furthermore, this display of ignorance also proves that their working definition of what it is to be a black man, a male, is limited and or inapplicable due to their lack of exposure to positive male role models.
These sisters grow up in an environment that is largely devoid of positive black male role models and to excaserbate the situation the one or two examples of black men they do come across are insufficient to say the least. Therefore, they grow up expecting a black man to be a "thug" or a "player" or a "pimp" or whatever ignorant disfunctional behavioral role that is in turn accepted and reward these disfunctional brothers for their disfunctional bahavior.
You may have to seek out older females, Jules, because, unfortunately, the value system many of our younger sisters use to base their attraction to males on is skewed and they don't realize their learned behavior is counterproductive until later on in life. In my opinion it's unfortunate that for many sisters it takes bringing a life or two or three into the world before they realize they have to grow up and be more accountable as well as be more responsible and selective with who they choose to be their partners - even, then many of them continue to be irresponsible.