“I got a ‘Love Jones’, for your body and your skin tone, five minutes alone and I’m already on the bone, plus I love the fact you got a mind of your own, no need to shop around you got the good stuff at home” – Method Man; Rapper, Actor
I’m always in
constant thought about what will help us get better? What’s the cure? Cure for
what? Cure for the regression of Black America. Black Lives Matter is such a
brilliant name to be out front of a movement to progress Black America to
equality. Not supremacy. Equality. While I’m sure they have a full plate, I
often wonder how effective Black Lives Matter could be with viable branches. I
pose this question because contrary to popular belief, while not minimizing its
catastrophic effects, cops killing unarmed black men isn’t our biggest problem.
It’s not the murder weapon to our extermination. Our oppression. Or even our
depression.
I don’t have all the
answers but I have some of the dominoes. I think a lot of things have been
systematically put in place to cripple Black America, but most of them come
back to a fundamental war tactic, divide and conquer. What more effective
divide than dividing us at home?
If you check the
stats, black women are the least married demographic. Black married couples are
the highest divorced demographic. If you check network television, there’s one
black married woman on primetime. I know television is fictional, but art
imitates life. As a 28 year old, I speak with a lot of people daily in this world
of mass communication that we live, and the most disappointing part is how few
of them want to get married. So many people have been hurt, maybe once, or they
constantly see so many images and acts of betrayal that having a family has been
removed from the “American Dream”. Scratch that, from the “{Black} American
Dream”. Without going into his actual politics, this is one of, if not the
number one, the most inspiring impressions President Obama and his lovely wife
Michelle and kids left on me. That, THAT, should be apart of our dream.
This is why marriage
is important in the black community, because what you practice at home is what
you’ll consciously and unconsciously do once you leave your house. Unity was the
number one weapon in the effectiveness of the Civil Rights Movement. It’s not
even close. No matter which group or leader you credit the most champion the
most, be it Martin, Malcolm, Marcus, Fred, or other, their power came from the
army of loyal followers behind them. An example for modern day times would be “The
Beyhive”. Stay with me. I know everyone isn’t a die-hard Beyoncé fan, I am,
that’s my aunt and Jay Z is my uncle who taught me everything my parents didn’t,
but have you ever seen what happens to anyone on twitter that speaks ill of Beyoncé?
Her dedicated militia of followers “get in formation” in the hundreds of
thousands to defend her honor. While on an entirely different spectrum of
sacrifice and importance, my point is, there’s strength in numbers. There’s
strength in unity. There’s strength in unwavering support. There’s strength in
love. Those are all the underlying proponents of marriage. We have to get back
to getting married and staying married. A loving couple provides balance in a
world of dysfunction. It provides balance of influence on a generation of kids
that have more information, true and incorrect, at their disposal than ever
before. Children have age requirements on a lot of things because they haven’t
had enough experience or brain development to know how to reason in the real
world. By never showing them HOW to love and that love is NEEDED in the
household we leave their brains undeveloped even into their adult years. By not
prioritizing marriage we leave a trail of single parent homes that have been
proven to be a perpetuator of poverty. We have to get back to loving each other
fully. Too many of us have lives that resemble love and hip-hop and not Uncle
Phil and Aunt Viv.
On a personal level,
separate from the social level, I think we were put here primarily to love. All
of us. That’s the true happiness in life. Can you be happy and single? Yes. Can
you be fulfilled and single? I don’t think so. So many different things happen
in this life that nobody should have to go thru alone. Not even the good
things. I don’t want all the money in the world. But I do want to make
exceptional money to live a comfortable life with luxuries. The main luxury to
me is time. Affording the time to do and see certain places and things… I don’t
want to do that alone. I don’t think being rich is better than being in love
mutually. I know people with millions that still long for companionship. If I
became a billionaire and never found a wife to live for and die with I’d
ultimately feel like I wasted time. Being the richest person shouldn’t be the
goal for everyone. We have to change our priority. We have to change our
future. We have to change our hearts. We have to change our division. We have
to change our children.
