beyondblackwhite.com

While it is true that many HUBCU’s are excellent institutes of higher learning, there’s another part of the college experience–the romantic and marriage prospects–are often preposterously skewed in favor of the men over the women. While researching data on the upcoming course, The Pink Pill for College, I ran across a 2014 study that gave some pretty grim prospects for black women who attended HBCU’s. In a study published in the Society of Emerging Adulthood, “Factors Influencing Dating Experiences Among African American Emerging Adults,” where I discovered that the ratio of black women to black men is as wide as 6 to 1. For young black female students who aspire for both a degree and potentially a good marriage match will most likely leave with a degree and an extremely skewed mindset about dating and marriage dynamics in the black community.

Despite all her undeniable talent, Lizzo falls into a few of the common stereotypes of black women face: that we are adorned with unrealistic knee-length weaves, and are fat, over-sexualized women who rely on the overdone trope showing our bodies off to get attention, rather than our talent. Because the counter promotion of black women at healthy weights is less frequent, images like this: (Chika, a black female rapper who was promoted in an ad not too long ago looking downtrodden and depressed in her Calvin Klein drawers), get to pin the collective with the fat, unappealing black woman stereotype. I don’t like when black women twerk on a graduation stage. The image of the half naked obese woman, or the warrior woman, or the one-woman graduation twerk team, will be shared more than the black demure, petite PhD candidate or the entrepreneur successfully growing her small business.

But since dads are getting all the attention today, I will call out eight ways black fathers fail their children, just like I did last month for black mothers. It’s one thing to have a whoopsie baby and accept the struggles that result from poor family planning with a wife, it’s another thing entirely to bust an unprotected nut in someone you’re not married to, and turn around and complain on social media that you are expected to monetarily take care of a child you had a 50% role in creating. So, baby daddy didn’t marry baby mama despite doing husband & wife things (siring children), bailed on his family (absenteeism), and complains on social media about his pay taking a hit because the system had to step in to demand a monetary contribution to feed, house, and clothe his kids. The odd social media page uplifting the good ones is a start, but is there any widespread movement telling black men to marry before fathering children, to stop having children with multiple women, or telling them that the “law” or the “system” should not be the thing forcing them to pull their weight?

Money brings out the absolute worst in people, so having clear documentation on how assets are to be divided can mean the difference between a family feud before, during and after death, or having time to actually mourn. Allegedly, one of John’s children had to set up a GoFundMe to finish his college education, and according to the linked article, John was allegedly embroiled in child support issues as well. Though they ended up divorcing, articles I have looked at state that they were committed to co-parenting; I couldn’t find any mention of child support issues. At the time immediately before John’s death, news outlets were reporting burgeoning issues between John’s mother and executor of his estate, Sheila, and one of his daughters, Cleopatra, regarding dividing his assets.