You aint my dam momma! Why must black women forcefully define manhood?

My step mother once told me, when I was 11 or 12 years old, that some women won’t let you be a man. She said this in a conversation we were having after my father and her had broken up. The conversation was about the reasons some people split. She was going through all the standard reasons and side comments that everyone uses. She went through the its not your fault and we still love yous associated with this conversation that are pretty much universal, I sat and took it just like millions of children before me. There was one thing she said that day that I never understood, at least not until recently, almost 30 years later. She said, when the conversation momentarily turned to relationships in general. She said, “some women won’t let you be a man.” It haunted me for 30 years but I think I may know what she was saying, finally.

Some women won’t let you be a man sounds crazy because how can someone let you be a man? If they can then you are not a man anyway, sounds about right, at least to me. But I think its not as cut and dried as that, I think its more subtle and far more ominous that the words express. Some women automatically grap the biggest grocery sack, leaving you the smallest bag. Some women walk right up to the door and go in, never giving you the chance to open it for them. Some women hover over you and correct you constantly and in front of others. Some women don’t know how to make up and as a results insignificant arguments are never settled. Some women don’t just get a job they get a penis and seem to want to make you the wife in the relationship because they make more money. Some women even think that anything that causes a man pain is the fault of the man for allowing them to do it. There are as many fucked up in the head women as men, why do we fake like this isn’t true? For some reason the motto of black relationships has changed from “together we can do anything” to “you ain’t my dam momma.”

I love my black women, I love them to the point of dating them exclusively. What other race of women have all the sexiness and femininity of all the other races combined? None. Black women are also the only race of women capable of understanding the complex emotional turmoil that America heaps on the black man, all the others think we are just crybabies. So I would perish if I was forced to do without my understanding, loving, beautiful, strong and faithful black women. All I want to know is, can you stop being my mother long enough to be my woman? Can you drop the strong black woman role, not permanently but at least when we are together. Some women are even strong black women in bed. I don’t know about everybody, but sleeping with my (figurative) momma isn’t something I will rush home for. Sometimes black women can be scary to approach even when they are your so called “soul-mate.”

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Its not the strong part that scares us as black men, it’s the blanket coverage that being a strong black women means. A whole lot of black women are like dikes in strength, and just as dikes don’t know the subtle intricacies of being a real man, they only know what they have seen, not whats on the inside, so when a situation presents itself that calls for a mans inner touch, they can’t give it, they revert to strength, bullying and overkill. I am in no way saying that black women don’t know strength, you would have to be a fool to say that. I am saying that a lot of the time our black women use vinegar when honey is needed. The Strong black woman role starts to be all consuming, the strong black woman may see her man as weak because he didn’t do what she would have done in a particular instance. I actually feel sorry for a few of the young ones because they will never know the joy of relinquishing control to a trusted and powerful black man. They will never be a queen or a princess because they are too busy being king.

When I say that allot of men are scared of women I don’t mean physically scared like you would be of a dangerous situation, I mean the type of scared that the police make you. The type of scared that doesn’t stem from being afraid of what the other person will do, but the kind of scared that comes from being afraid of what you will do in a particular situation. And just as with the police you may end up nervous and acting skittish even if you have no reason to be, just due to past experiences. I also don’t mean to put it on our sisters because us as men failing and hurting them over centuries has made them become the family head, the single mother and the bread earner in our society. And all you successful black dudes sped it along by leading them on and breaking promises that led them to distrust us as a whole. And the ones that don’t bring baggage like that still in their hearts watch us closely for signs of trechory.

I don’t have an answer or cure for the deep and ingrained damage that American society has done to us as a black people but I do have a suggestion for our black couples, women in particular. Quite trying to be my momma. Quit trying to raise me like you would a child. Quit trying to define my manhood. If I was trying to define your womanhood your breasts would be bigger and so would your ass. Just love me and let me make mistakes as I do you. Don’t compare me to other men you have had and don’t lump me in with the bad relationships you have had. And lose an argument some dam time, the saying isn’t “aint nobody perfect but jesus and black women.” It says aint nobody perfect but jesus.” Quit forcing us to be the weaker half or either a brute/dog sonofabitch in relationships, work with us to find a happy medium. And most of all quite acting so white and then losing faith in us because we cant or wont join you. If you can’t first do these things, quit looking for a man and have another child. We want partners not emotionally unstable gods or kings. A marriage or relationship should not be a competition with the woman’s man-less friends acting as judges. It should be a partnership, offense and defense not winner and loser. Oh yea and quit caring so much about how other see you and so little about how your man sees you.

Darius Harris - Black mans diary


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