"Where We Lost Them," How Sisters Lost the Black Man's Love and Respect

"Deep Love" by Kolongi Brathwaite

"The Black Feminine Dilemma" addresses the difficulties successful Black women experience when trying to begin relationships with beautiful (but perhaps offended) Black men. Well, there is another side to this issue... which a few brothas have been wonderful to point out.

Not all of us sistas have been good to them. And perhaps, those of us who have been good might not have been good all along. Still more of us don't understand what "Good-to-a-brotha" or "Bad-to-a-brotha" entails.

There are places where we lost them... their attention, their respect, their love... and it is terribly necessary that we address those checkpoints if we can hope to rebuild the Black family again.

The Place of Total Dependency
While men enjoy feeling important and needed in relationships with us, they don't want to be made gods in our lives. They don't want to be responsible for purchasing nuanced items--like feminine products and toothpaste--for their girlfriends; some requests aren't valid until wife status! They don't want to become our only source of friendship because they are not our female peers. They don't want to plan all of our experiences, all of our excitements, all of our dreams. They don't want us to be entirely dependent upon what they do or do not do.

For sure, that brotha feels proud when he is asked to lift, to move, to fix, to improve anything, but... he does NOT want to be asked to lift, move, fix and improve EVERY THING. There is a balance to be struck. The moment a sista turns her man into her personal butler, her personal piggy bank, her on-call counselor, she has likely begun building a new exit for that man to use out of her life.

The Place of Infidelity
Women cheat. We do. We make and take booty calls (like men do). We creep away to covert locations (like men do). We make commitments to men who are head over heels in love, and we--intentionally--target other brothas who are willing to be temporaries to fill in the gaps (like men do). We are not innocent here. We have got to realize that in the process of living out these fantasies, what some of us might call "Being a Boss Chick," we breed distaste in the lives of two, three, four, five, fifty brothers. Why do I say that?

The brotha that you play is gonna tell it to at least one more because--we know this--they talk a lot amongst each other (like women do). Break one heart, and his whole crew has to suffer the awkwardness of rebuilding a dude who put his all out there for you to enjoy. The bitterness takes root and grows up in the group. The story gets retold and retold. And guess what happens? A whole team... maybe even that team's following generation... writes us off in one fell swoop.

They decide, "I'll never be played again."

The Place of Abuse
I'm not talking about physical abuse, though that sometimes occurs and some of us want a pass for it.

No honey. You don't get a pass for punching a brother up and crying out, "I'm a lady and you can't hit me back."

I'm talking about women who willfully manipulate good men into wasting or tabling their intellect, their social prowess, their finances, their vocations, their drives. Women who enjoy and exhaust all of the energy in a relationship and then refuse to let a brotha go when the courtship has obviously ended. Women who threaten to expose brothas' weaknesses when things don't go their way. Women who systematically war against brothas being brothas: wanting to watch the game, wanting to watch The Godfather on repeat, wanting to find out what rappers are wearing and driving (whether or not they ever intend to wear or drive any of it). It is abusive to ask a man not to be a man!

This does not mean that we ought to lower expectations such that the brothas can be primitive man, running about the world grabbing up any sista by the hair and just dragging her into a spot for some bang and a good day. It means that there are things that men enjoy, introvert or extrovert, young or old, that they must be allowed to do! They are good things. They are clean things. They are sometimes outstanding things. To ask him not to be and do those things is abusive and criminal.

The Place of Entrapment
Now, there are a lot of ways we can look at this, and I need to be candid about them.

Babies are gifts to the world. They are innocent and pure and totally unaware of what it means to be alive... clueless and totally dependent on their parents. They are beautiful and terrifying at the same time. Some people would take the issue of premarital pregnancy and use it to argue for the woman's right to abort, but this particular conversation has nothing to do with what happens after conception. This has to do with what happens before.

Sistas, you know what is required to raise a child. You know the sacrifices that must be made. Why would you allow a brotha in his moment of passion--if you're going to let him borrow you in his moment of passion and you don't belong to him permanently--why would you let him borrow you in such a way that both of you might end up trapped in a relationship in which neither of you intended to commit? Unprotected, pre-marital sex can't be more than one person's intention to trap the other.

We all know the consequences of unprotected sex, and not-a-one of them ends with lasting, win-win pleasure. If you're still doing it that way, you setting up for the cage to drop and neither one of you will escape. Watch out for a brotha that asks you to "go raw" that doesn't belong to you. That brotha has a problem.

And then, there are some of us who take on men who are totally dependent upon us. This too is a trap. The brotha in his defeated state is a ticking time bomb. He will allow himself to be mothered by you, to be your personal slave, to be subservient to your financial lordship for a time... but after that time, both of your lives are going to atomic-bomb-style explode with anger and hysteria. That you have trapped him by becoming his surrogate mother is a huge mistake. You are still going to lose him the moment he grows up.

The Place of Least Resistance
Finally, sista, don't be mad. The old women used to say, "He ain't gone buy the cow if he can get the milk for free." You might hate that I used that, but the brothas tend to agree... it pretty much applies. The "milk" doesn't have to be the body either. In general, brothas need to see and know that we have standards. Without that, they don't trust us!

It seems contradictory, I know! The word on the street is, "All they want is one thing, and if you don't give it to them, they'll leave you." Perhaps a few will... but if you keep giving it up to the street on every third date, I guarantee you that nobody will keep you. See above. Men talk. If it used to be you and you changed your life, you get our solidarity... but if you are still kicking it by easily giving up the goods, you are asking to be left by the wayside.

These are just some of the ways that we have lost the men that we love, but I want to invite them--the brothas--to further explain to us where we have gone wrong in the equation. If there is any hope to restore the fabled Black love that we once held so dear to us, it rests--surely--on our ability to discuss these issues openly.

Love to You All,


-T. D. James-Moss