Eligible, Black, Male, and Hopelessly Single - Are Women to Blame or is This a Societal Issue?

As a man, I’d feel a certain way if I had a girlfriend but I wasn’t able to take care of her. Nothing special, but you’d like to be able to at least go the movies every weekend and buy her nice things. Yeah, I’m in school now and working towards something. but I’ve actually stopped dating a woman I was interested in because I wasn’t where I needed to be financially. It’s a pride thing.

The quote above is from a great article over at the Good Men Project webpage, entitled Eligible, Black, Male, and Hopelessly Single. This is a great read… so much truth in this article.

I can relate to many of the comments in the article, especially the one above. The exact same epiphany occurred to me several years ago. I stopped dating a young lady (cute Mexican accounting student in her mid 20’s), because I could not court her the way that I wanted to. The relationship was probably not going to go anywhere anyway, but I called it quits early. My obstacles, or what I saw as obstacles, always came down to a lack of money & resources. That was 8 years ago & I haven’t dated since. I don’t see myself as good enough (not for the women I find interesting).

I decided that I had to work on building myself professionally/financially if I was going to date seriously, and be successful. Yes, my pride played a big role in that decision and is a big reason why I don't date today.

But I’m torn about that way of thinking. On one hand, I think dating should be about compatibility, shared values/interests, and the connection between two people. It should not be all about the superficial - the status chasing, the big job, nice car, expensive condo, etc. However, on the other hand, I recognize (& hate) the fact that the real world of dating has a system of rules set up, rules mostly established by women, that forces me to play that game (the superficial game) whether I want to or not.

It’s just interesting to see money as being not only the reason people are divorcing, but now it also seems to be a big reason why singles have a hard time meeting and connecting in the first place. Also interesting to see that my experiences are not unique. I want to say women are to blame for this… but it comes down to society and a pop culture that has warped the minds of Generation X (My Generation) and Generation Y even more. People (women in particular) are watching too much TV. Men are expected to be well-to-do from the first date. There is no building anything together anymore. Today, women consider the man who isn’t fully established monetarily as a loser…. And they move on to the next one, and the next, until they find the attorney, the Barack Obama, the CEO, the Banker, the doctor, the entertainer, or professional athlete that they want. Women aren’t even looking for personality and character anymore… things about the inner core of the man himself… those items are secondary to her. Today, women are searching for titles…status, money…. It’s all about what you do for a living. Whatever it is that you do either has to be raking in cash…or has to have the potential to do so.

When you are a Black man almost exclusively interested in interracial dating, like myself, the problem doesn’t go away.

The article is a great read… the comments section is also very interesting.

A Heartfelt Moment From A Black Father

hat tip-Miranda

from Daddy Dialectic:

This is a heartfelt discussion from a Black father. It touched me deeply.

Saturday, May 14, 2011
A Day at the Park
Posted by Shawn Taylor
1. I’m unsure why, but I get asked—quite often—about the hardest part of being a father. The people who ask me this are almost all younger cats who are about to become fathers or are there already. That question is a Pandora’s Box. Being a father is hard in a million different ways: Balancing fatherhood with partnership; being able to do the things that I love to do on a consistent basis (for example, writing—I’m writing this at 3am, while everyone is asleep and I have a moment to myself); the loss of money; having to send your child to childcare because both parents have to work to afford all the additional costs. Working all day, coming home at night and only seeing your child for forty-five minutes before their bedtime—in these ways and more, daddyhood is hard as hell. But none of this (yes, even the money problems) even comes close to the raging difficulty of being a father of color.

2. Being tattooed, visually Black (I’m half Jamaican and half Puerto Rican), over six feet tall and muscular, holding a little ethnically-ambiguous toddler makes many people double, triple, quadruple take—and also, for some odd reason, loosens tongues, mostly of white folks, and creates an environment of familiarity. And yet they still manage to see me wrong: In my daughter’s twenty-two months of living, I have been labeled ‘uncle,’ ‘babysitter,’ ‘guardian,’ ‘cousin,’ but never father. I can’t tell you just how crushing a blow this is. I LOVE being a father and I think that I am becoming a better one by the day, but to have one of my greatest joys discounted is painful.

3. Do we really live in a society that is still stuck in the lie that Black men cannot be fathers? Well…I must admit that I was on that same shit for a while. When my partner told me she was pregnant, I had fears that, at the moment of birth, a Greyhound ticket would appear in my hands and I’d leave my partner and new child to fend for themselves. I thought I’d become an absent father sleeper agent—the baby’s first cry would activate me and my mission would be to get as far away from mother and baby as possible. Because, throughout my whole childhood, I never once had a friend or met anyone (of color) whose father lived with them, or in some cases, even knew who their fathers were. There is a generation of brothers and sisters born after Viet Nam and before the release of Ghostbusters that are a tribe of fatherless children. My own father, I saw the bastard five times in my life.

4. People mistaking me for everything but being a father almost invariably happens at the playground. While the mothers (rarely do I see fathers at the playgrounds—but it could be where I choose to let my daughter play) are sitting in groups, either texter-bating or focusing intently on some new piece of thousand dollar baby gadget—I’m in the sand, on the structure, kicking the ball. I’m playing with my kid. Over at this park in El Cerrito, California, I was teaching my daughter how to hang from one of the monkey bars. She is a ridiculously daring kid and will try anything, as long as it is dangerous. This kindly older woman (dressed up like a fashion model to go the park) smiled at me and said, “My uncle used to do the same thing for me. He always let me do the things that my father would never let me do.” She drew out the “never” as if I was tossing my daughter over an open lion’s mouth. I told this woman that I was an only child, that my kid didn’t have any uncles, and that I was her father. She glanced between my daughter and me several times, and finally said, “Noooooo.” Wow.

Read the rest of this beautiful piece at the link above.

Media Alert- Black Men in the Age of Obama

From CNN.com

- In the CNN Newsroom, Don Lemon moderates a roundtable discussion airing on Saturday, Oct. 31 at 10 p.m. (ET) and Sunday, Nov. 1 at 7 p.m. (ET). Conducted at historic Morehouse College, CNN education contributor Dr. Steve Perry, Bishop Eddie Long, author and entrepreneur Farrah Gray, Tyree Simmons (aka DJ Drama) and Morehouse senior Tyrone McGowan reveal their insights into what has changed, if anything, in their lives, families, workplaces and communities in the year since the 2008 presidential election. Follow Lemon leading up to the roundtable discussion for behind-the-scenes access on CNN.com through the Newsroom blog and other social media platforms.

- Tony Harris highlights his interview with radio host Steve Harvey, who wrote a first-person essay “When A Man Loves A Woman” for ESSENCE Magazine, airing on Friday, Nov. 6 starting in the 11 a.m. (ET) hour.

- HLN presents a week-long series of interviews beginning Nov. 2 during the 4 p.m. (ET) hour. Richelle Carey sits down with actor and author Hill Harper on relationships; Harvard University professor and author Dr. Alvin Poussaint on education; and Syracuse University professor Dr. Boyce Watkins on finance; to name just a handful of the featured interviews.

- On the new CNN.com, CNN, HLN and ESSENCE Magazine take an unprecedented look at President Obama’s impact on black men in America. President Obama has urged black men to take responsibility for their lives and families and he’s called on all Americans to volunteer to help restore their communities, located at http://www.cnn.com/obamaeffect. Has President Obama inspired Americans to take action? What are the challenges still facing black men in America? Audience members are encouraged to share their thoughts in the discussion through iReport, the network’s user-generated online news community.