The Debate for Black Women: Sisterhood vs. The Dream

Many articles are touting a dilemma facing black women: Hilary or Barack? Decisions. Decisions. And then, after solving the problem of which one to choose with our ever-powerful vote, there is an even greater question: Why?

Looking at Hilary, she is the kind of All-American woman many black women love to hate. The upper middle class upbringing in that meticulously manicured kind of Illinois neighborhood we love to drive through on Sundays with envy. Where the houses are really huge but modestly designed so as not to look "showy." Then, after being the popular one in high school, it was on to the Ivy leagues for Hilary, where she accomplished even more, including but not limited to: marrying a smart, ambitious southerner with a high sex drive who goes on to become President of the United States. Yes, we saw you when we were in high school, Hilary. We were the girls you rarely spoke to, unless there was a plan of action on the table and then you rallied us into the student government meeting demonstrating that you were the "inclusive" one. But us sistahs, never got invited to the sleepover did we, dear?. No matter how perfect we tried to be. Actually, I am speaking on behalf of my Mom's generation, here, but it is true to all of us no matter what year we graduated.

Fast forward in our candidates life to a point when, despite achievements and controversies two things happened to Hilary. First, in the esoteric realm that the world judges her by, she aged. Then, as in the sharp painful world of black women who do not receive marriage proposals from their perfect guys in their 20's because black men are endangered and unwise in this regard, Hilary experienced something black women know very well: being "dogged" by your philandering husband.

Ahhhhhh, we said. Now. I know you Hilary. I am you. Have been embarrassed like you, sad like you, shamed like you for all you were going through, said women of color (and colorless ones), all over this nation.

And so black women everywhere watched her (and him) with a new feeling of kinship. We shook our heads in disgust as we read the sordid Lewinsky mess (the tramp), to learn more about the behaviors of our horny power-craving men and the enticements of the dreaded "other woman." At the same time, a sly smile crept up as we thought about whether or not Hilary would ever leave Bill. The answer was obvious: Leave? Never. Never Happen. One must never concede the marriage or the man to the sleazy vixens who've enticed him. We think this as we wrap ourselves with denial. We laughed as we imagined the kind of woman who said to herself stupidly, "I am so bad, I'm going to leave the President." Now THAT is laughable, generally speaking, but the President of France's wife left her leader for another man. Now this is a woman with some confidence! No, Hilary was not going to leave Bill and we knew it. So we watched and felt that sting you feel, when the thought of the person you love lipping it up with another female, hits your stomach. We said to ourselves, go ahead.

Fast forward again, Hilary runs for Senate and Bill is a doting and devoted husband. I mentioned before that I met Bill Clinton and the charisma is staggering. They really are a powerful duo and it takes a strong woman to be married to a man like him. You have to have the ability to see the big picture - the really big picture. Now Hilary is running for President and women everywhere feel inside that success is the best revenge, so they are cheering for her - even those who say they vote the "issues' and choose candidates on the merits. Them too.

Again the question, who will black women voters choose? Will they back Hilary? Yes they will. Unless...

The power of being black, influential and a political candidate is a double-edged blessing. On the one hand, the black race as a whole has lacked leadership since the days of King and Thurgood Marshall. Starving, famished, we've clung to anyone who even pretended to have our interests at heart, only to be disappointed in the end upon learning the person was empty, vain and motivated by personal grand standing ops. No, we are NOT shallow enough to think the affirmative action rollbacks and welfare reforms had nothing to do with the Clinton Administration. On the contrary, we know they did. We also know about American food conglomerates crushing black economies in the Caribbean and beyond, so that farmers were driven into poverty, dependent on the US and made way for loads of American food products to be imported - not to make our American black farmers rich either - a double insult. This was designed and executed by those who could afford to pay lobby dollars. The Clinton's and Bush's (don't get me started) let it all happen. We know this.

Enter Barack Obama.We are clear on his story and have read his books. Integrity. He screams it from his pores. Yes, his wife is an angry black woman, but you can't half get anywhere in the US without becoming one if you happen to be born female with brown skin. Yes, we've all mentally taken our pass at him, meaning that some are naive enough to think that given the right circumstances he might have chosen us had he not been buried in his Chicago firm trying to find his way. He is our Mr. Tibbs, our movie star, our man whom we can get behind as he fights the battles for justice. We dream of him raiing the Treasury for good and Robin Hood-style uplifting of the poorest neighborhoods. He takes it to them domestically, where African-Americans battles are still fought. He wins becuase just like Bush and Cheney, his boys are running thangs! It is a sexy vision. I know you are thinking everything does not go back to sex, but you know it does; way down in the place people dare not acknowledge.

Okay so, we see him, desparately want a change and quietly hope that Hilary and Barack just make a deal. Then he can be the Ambassador-like Vice President who actually helps accomplish quality foreign relations with all of the brown nations of the world. Peace at last. And Hillary can carry out her vendettas as the most powerful woman in the free world who will get the healthcare thing done. What if college tuition were free? I ask only to allow us to think for a moment of the possibilities.

Yes, I can very much see Barack as President. Who needs another decade of Clinton Bush deals, right? Has America trusted in the new and youthful to serve in the White House before? Well look at Kennedy. My point exactly. All black women have fears for Barack's safety and that of our world should he win.

My former boss used to quote Frederick Douglass all the time saying,"Fear and Faith cannot occupy the same space." Actually I've heard a lot of people say this. Faith is what those people who vote for Obama for President have. Faith, not only that he can do what he says, but that he will grow old doing it. If you have to choose one, let it not ever be fear.

Obama has Oprah, but he also has watered down his rhetoric of late, don't you think? I mean even if he could do nothing, his words were provocational and new...that is, until lately. I think a deal is coming and Bill is not going to let his wife take 2nd chair to anyone. Bill OWES her this. But America is strong and young and college students are more conscious than they have ever been. If the youth vote their passions, Barack will be President.

And I am still in awe of the fact that Bush knows that the entire nation and world is on to what he and his cronies have done. Blackhawk making billions. Carlyle Group even more for their contrived war. Pillaging the Treasury and rolling back affirmative action in education on Martin Luther King's birthday! Do you think no one NOTICED that, Georgie? There is a well known story out of Texas about how Karl Rove crushed the opponents of HIS candidate by having them sent to jail on campaign law technicalities. He had the judges and the power and these men, tyring to be public servants, serve hard time at his behest. The man was a scorned little tortured nerd in high school and not unlike Columbine, Karl Rove has exacted his revenge for decades, on all of us. As out men and women in uniform die, he rests comfortably - as does Cheney who fell asleep in last week's wild fire briefing. We can only pray that what goes around comes around for all of them and that we elect someone brave.

Barack, stop making deals and stand all the way up. And then you will have all of us.

I understand, as we all do that the issues are vast and complex. What of McCain and Mr. 911 who up and left his wife for his staffer and now wants to put her ass in the First Lady chair. Please vote against Giuliani for that reason and her existence alone. The bad judgement to ho it up with you boss while pretending to serve he and his wife is reason enough to give "Judith" no respect. His kids won't. Kids smell character and I don't care who he saved or led on 911. His choice of "better halfs" makes him a suspect rather than a prospect.Listen,

I write on behalf of all my sisters in their varying roles: wife, mother, striver, professionals, aid recipients, survivors, dreamers, adulterers, leaders, intellectuals, winners. We have opinions based in things ancestral. It is how we move.

The Maturation of a Black Pen: Marriage and the Men Who Won't

"Yeah, we had bought our second house, to use as income property, and then she said to me, 'You know, we might as well get married now, James.' So then I said, "Oh what the heck?"

You have just read a typical African-American marriage proposal. Now, before the bourgeoisie get bent out of shape and blast me with video of their romantic marriage proposals under the Eiffel tower, please wait. I said TYPICAL African-American marriage proposal. Where the women wait around for many years too long as the men keep an eye out for that one more piece of ass before they take that funeral march to the altar.

Survey black couples today and you wil find a number of these non-traditional proposals. Couples who have ated for many years or men who, after several long term relationships and even a child or two by another single person, they decided to settle down. It smacks of last resort, ultimatims and pathetic childish behavior on the part of men who know, after all, that the sister will wait for me. Hell, she has waited this long.

I have surveyed black men over and over while having cigars at Shelly's and watching the game (yes, girls to FIND the men you must GO to where they are!). They all say the same thing. They are accomplished degree professionals who are identical in thinking to the baby-daddies running the streets of the hood. They want it all and the perception that they have women in every port: on the Vineyard, in Miami, at their law firm or at the alumni reunion, and they are living the life of Riley is greater than committment, conscious and consideration for their community. They do not even deny, when you ask them why at 38, 39, 40 they remain single, that they are selfish and living for superficial things and gains. Some even father children with successful women out of wedlock to fulfill vain desires. But, marriage? No.

We as women feel embarrassed and humiliated. The chip on our collective shoulders grows bigger each year as we age not having been chosen in our twenties, or even thirties by a man. I know the women who have been prentending this is a perfectly fine circumstance will take issue with my every word. But I am allowing you to peek behind the curtain here. Women want marriage and the partnership whether a picket fence is involved or a condo in Manhattan, we were reared to expect love and family. We sompensate for this loss in many ways. Unfortunately, the less money one has, the more destructive our solutions to the challenge.

Who suffers? Back in the day, there were families of teachers and professionals living alongside single, lower income, workers and apartment dwellers. There were models within the community that people aspired to and achieved. We cannot apologize that the destruction of our black families begins with men and perpetuates the fatherlessness that they all have endured. It is as if men are asking themselves, "Why did my father leave us? Why was he so selfish?" and then without realizing - or maybe intentionally - they exhibit the same behavior. "Ahhhh. I see." The women, the vanity, my life my way..." Sad.

Okay so why is this issue not as prevalent in White America? Why does any self-respecting non-gay man on the fast track marry his college sweetheart and have kids and a mortgage as the foundation of their climb up the corporate ladder? Do they cheat? Sure! These are the men for whom strip clubs were invented. Business travelers! Not the seedy druggies who also worm their way in. No, trust me it is the corporate dollars that keeps that industry humming.
Can black men take a lesson from the white ones? I am smiling now because I knwo my activist readers are going to challenge me to stop jocking white people. I am not. I am "jocking" marriage an the family, a concept that our community - our men in particular - fail to grasp.

The bottom line is: if you do not lok at exceptions and seek the rule, our communities are much stronger ith married couples and black families in it.

On the horizon are men who understand this. And they may not be chocolate flavored ladies, so keep your eyes out for the vanilla ones too!