Hello World, 

If the election results in your state didn’t go quite the way you voted, shake it off today…God’s mercies are new every morning…Stay engaged, but more importantly stay prayed up…Okay, off of my political soapbox and on to the issue of the day on this here blog…

This week I have happened upon three articles about black relationships that have caused me once again to lament the messages that are being disseminated about the state of black on black love…

On Sunday, I read this article “No Scrubs? The Dilemma of Modern African-American Women” by New York Post reporter David Kaufman….According to this misguided writer, the choice of Rachel Noerdlinger, chief of staff for City of New York First Lady Chirlane McCray, to be with ex-con boyfriend Hassaun McFarlan is proof that black women have nobody to date and must date ex-cons if they hope to be with black men at all…and that the only choice for black women at this point is to boo up with white wen…I know Rachel Noerdlinger assists the wife of an elected official, but who elected her Black Women’s Dating President…I am reasonably sure this is not a title she even wants…Obviously this woman likes a “bad boy” for whatever reason…She is not the first one and she won’t be the last one to like a rough neck…and that goes for women of all races…

A day later, I see this – “Well-Traveled, Intelligent Black Man, 34, Seeks ‘Sista’ OK With Him Making Less Money” on theroot.com…Jermaine Terrell Star says the sistas ain’t checkin’ for him because although he “spent all of [his] 20s traveling around Eastern Europe—mainly through Peace Corps, Fulbright and language study-abroad programs—and earning degrees,” he wasn’t making moves on the career front, relegating him to a lower salary when he finally did enter the working world…making him not the optimum choice for black women who entered the working world when they were in their ’20s and have the salaries to prove it…

So which is it? Are black women forced to choose from ex-cons or not willing to date black men who don’t quite measure up financially? I just don’t think both can be true…

Now on to the article that made me have to gone head and whip up this blog post…“How the ‘Black Church’ Cheated this Woman Out of the Possibility of Marriage With Kids…” Raina T. Shaw on beyondblackwhite.com said that while she was yet holdin’ on for a black man in the church since she was 19 years old (praying, tithing, believing and serving/volunteering in the church), — the saved and sanctified men eventually passed her up for “someone that wasn’t even in church. Usually, it was somebody that they fornicated with and got sexually turned out. After that they didn’t care if the woman was “saved” or not. He was going to make a convert out of this freak of the week with three kids! The men talked holiness, chastity and celibacy but wanted the same thing that other non-Christian men wanted after all. The church girls got tricked and are tricked on a continuous basis to this day.”

Then she went on to say that the black church encourages black women “to settle for under achievers, ex-cons, drug addicts, men on the downlow that are fighting the feeling, men with many divorces and children, under and unemployed but they get a pass from the saints because they know all of the scriptures.”

Finally, she broke it all the way down and said she does not regret “passing on marrying and having children with dysfunctional, unmarriageable men but, I am absolutely sure that had I not limited my dating pool to so called ‘saved,’ “Christian” men in the black church and black men in general, I would now be a wife and mother.” Oh yeah, she is also looking forward to “tak[eing] up with a non-black gentleman that recognizes and appreciates a black queen like myself when he encounters one.”

You may also want to check out similar commentary on “Honest Question: What Do Folks Expect Quality Black Women to Do? Shrivel Up and Die?” which is about Jacque Reid’s quest to find a quality man…

Now, let me be clear…I’m not against interracial relationships…wherever you find love or love finds you is beautiful… but I am against black women being cast as desperate and without options and black men being cast an ex-cons or not marriage material altogether…What say you?

Any thoughts?