Dr. Boyce Watkins

Dr. Watkins is a money man. I have been following him for a while. He is from Kentucky, where I currently live. He has yet to become a favorite son, but I think he will. He has a good mind.

Yet, he, like so many others need to insight a riot to make a point. On his website TheGrio he talks about why black women are not marrying. He makes fun of the fact that women are responding to Steve Harvey's book. He feels Steve is not qualified to talk about relationships because he is a comedian. He does the very thing he says black women when they judge a man by their occupation.

Unfortunately, this is a societal problem. Recognizing this early in life is one of the many factors that has kept me married for 20 years.

Dr. Watkins is wrong to say Harvey has no position or useful suggestions, comments, or advice about relationships. The mere fact that his first marriage failed, and that he has married again gives credence. He has tried, loved, lost, and tried again.

Just a few years ago Dr. Watkins was talking about he'd never marry. He changed his tune. He could write about the shift in awareness that led to his marriage and be valid.

We must share our stories, especially blacks because we lost so much when it comes to relationship building throughout history and still today. It is our plantation mentalities, our lack of relationship models, and our own humanness that keeps us from getting and staying married.

Black women have been given an unfair pass in this country. We have been historically easier to employ, more employable, and more trusted mainly because we didn't have a man in our lives. Black women not being married has benefited America in the following ways:

1. Created generations of scapegoats, (imprisoned, unemployed, uneducated, unloved).
2. Ensured the woman will have to work, therefore less available to care for her own children thus keeping the cycle of poverty going, foster homes full, and prison doors rotating.
3. Black women feeling superior and capable of doing everything (superwoman syndrome).

The strong black women is often portrayed by the mother working several jobs, having strict rules she can't realistically enforce because she is at work, or wherever. She has also been the force behind the stressed out, angry black woman image that haunts most black women, especially when it comes to finding a mate, and getting a promotion on the job. Any black woman showing self-knowledge and awareness, tenacity, straightforwardness, and confidence is often labeled angry, a bitch, or a control freak. She is rarely given a chance, especially not in love.

We are lying to ourselves if we think we are doing it all. At some point, something is doing you. For black women, it is usually our loneliness. When it becomes unbearable, we often make drastic moves that most often lead to another man, another bill, another baby, etc. We know the drill. We try to fall back on, "I thought we were going to be together. He said he loved me." To explain our impatient. We lie to ourselves instead of finding out who we are and what we need and what God wants for us. We have the baby, live together, make bills, before we get a ring on it. I wish I was stereotyping.

We have got to get this thing together and that means rich, poor, black, white, professional, non-profession, scientist or not, we all want to be loved. It is not rocket science.