Excerpts from the book:
The Blackwoman’s Guide to Understand the Blackman
By : Shahrazad Ali.
Chapter 10
In this chapter alone I find many of my fellow friends situations.
May each person finds himself in whatever suits him or her and set himself or herself free.
KNOWLEDGE LIBERATES.
The Blackman’s relationship with his mother is an interesting one.
He is often torn between his love or hate for her.
He loves her because she fed and clothed him, looked out for him and did her best to raise him.
He hates her because she restrained him, rebuffed him, tried to turn him into a daughter, and did not provide him with a father.
He has been taught all his life to honor his mother and he loves her in the best way he knows how.
He tolerates her and tries to get her to understand his points of view.
He fakes respect for her ideals even if he has learned that she is way off base in her
recommendations to him. If he was taught against his father as a child, he now understands from living with his mother, some of the reasons his father probably left her, and that his father may not be so bad after all-
at least he’s a man.
In most cases he does know that his mother loves him and is proud of his maleness. Every mother wants to love and admire her son. His bond with her is a special one if they get along.
If they do not get along he is plagued with unsuccessful relationships with women through- out his life, because his first introduction to femalehood ended
in emotional tragedy.
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The Blackman’s relationship with his daughters is one of protection, futile protection, because he knows deep within him that there is nothing he can do to prevent her from becoming interested in boys and ultimately having sex with them.
He is ill-equipped to deal with her growing rebellion as she ages and usually pulls back lets her have her way.
He feels almost as powerless to direct his daughter as he feels in trying to direct her mother. If he is close to his daughter he enjoys the relationship of being the daddy to a baby girl totally dependent upon him and impressed with his abilities. The girl baby gives many Black- men the only unabridged female acceptance they ever know.
His little girl wants to please him and he works hard to please her. While he may look forward to his son growing up and being able to respond physically to some of their joint activities, he is saddened when his baby girl grows up and they lose their commonality as she draws away from him to explore the world of women.
A world he wishes he could prevent her from entering because he knows what’s going to happen. It has not occurred to him that he could design an alternative plan to the current process of raising girls.
He doesn’t know how to replace the old plan with a more controlled and moral one, because he is doubtful that he could convince her mother to cooperate.
He avoids confrontation with women over his ideas on homemaking or childrearing as opposed to hers.
He is afraid of being rejected and he is scared of being put on punishment of some sort for rocking the boat.
So he pulls back, washes his hands of the whole matter, and lets his woman, the girl’s mother, do her job. The outrage he feels when his daughter is violated is unexplainable.
He is torn between his emotional love connection to her and his need to protect her for as long as he can, and knowledge of his own memories and what he used to do with females when he was young. So to condemn her completely requires that he condemn his ownself and his own corrupt morals. This personal information about his own practices keeps him quiet and prompts him to withdraw from the entire process of making judgments about other family members’ behaviors.
All of this is a part of his acceptance of the idea that men and women are equal, and that women have just as many rights as he does, and they can do whatever they want to do just like he does whatever he wants to do.
This mode of thinking has for years further deteriorated his family and his relationships with Blackwomen.
Those ideas made him mushy, weak willed and malleable, when he should be firm, insistent and authoritative.
In nature when only one parent cares for the brood, it tends to become more mean or aggressive than the other parent. Single mothers manifest this.
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The Other Woman
The Blackman’s life with his other woman is more often than not built on falsehood. The falsehood results from his lack of knowledge of how to maintain a truthful relationship with two or more women at the same time.
He thinks that in order to be qualified or justified to be with another woman outside of the wife or woman he already has, is to lie about the conditions at home.
He thinks he has to put himself in a needy or sympathetic position for another woman to want him or risk becoming Involved with him since he is already committed to sharing living quarters, children, financial and family responsibilities .
He may even tell her that he and his wife do not have sex, sleep with another woman. He explains and convinces the other woman that he is being horribly misused and abused at home for needs that he has that are not met at home, this does not necessarily mean that what he is saying is true. He gets another woman if things are unhappy at home, but he is just as likely to get one of things are what he may consider boringly happy.
He is unpredictable in these instances.
His require ments for the other woman is that she must be constantly delightful to be with in order to transcend him out of the gloomy life he has at home.
She must adorn him with special attention in his food, bath, clothes or skin, or any other way she can soothe his pain of living with a woman whom he swears he doesn’t want.
He is dishonest and so is his other woman, not because they are sneaking around behind his wife’s back, but because their relationship is predicated on fantasy and unreal- ity.
They show each other only their best side. There are no other responsibilities to each other therefore routine, or occa sional conflict, does not penetrate their little world of total happiness and satisfaction. The relationship with the other woman consumes his spare time and interest. Her place becomes his sanctuary. He can always go there and be welcomed. He can soothe her for the sacrifices she makes for him in not being able to go certain places or do certain things. But as long as they can be together and share intense mind- blowing uninhibited sex, they are both satisfied and believe they have something of value to hang on to. If he has any money to spare he helps his other woman when he can.
He gets to know her children if she has any and all the rest of her friends and relatives. The deep seated longing to be together plus the fact that no matter what he goes through at home, he knows he will eventually break free to go to a place where he is valued and nearly worshipped, help him make it through the days and nights in between seeing his other woman.
He is careful about phone calls. If he misses a date or special holiday he makes up with some get-down sex worthy of being carved into the Hall of Fame.
Since the relationship is not based on truth he must continue to devise horror stories of the monster wife. He may even tell the other woman that when the children grow up, his wife finds a job, he makes more money, when the bills are paid
his baby gets well, or when the cow jumps over the moon that he is going to leave home.
Preferably to marry the other woman and live happily ever after.
Fat chance.
When this does not happen, even at intervals the other woman thinks would be the perfect chance for him to make his break, the second level of this clandestine relationship goes into effect. This is the level where small quarrels break out between the man and the woman because of two things: 1) The woman starts to suspect the obvious, that he has no intention of leaving his primary family and 2) she starts to think that he is a fool for staying in a situation he claims is so bad.
The other woman starts to know too much about his personal life and Ste start to think that he’s a fraud and possibly deserves to be treated bad by the wife at home. She may start to put more strident demands on him requesting items, deadlines or activities she knows he can’t possibly meet in the nuation he’s in. She starts to try to force him into a position where he has to make a choice. The Blackman sees all of this Happening and takes it as his cue to possibly pull out for a while or take a chance and do something special for her like spend the might or take her a way for a weekend to reaffirm his unwavering love, and negotiate for more time. This works for him several times until the other woman concludes that this Blackman is Just running a game on her. It can get really ugly after this point depending on how vindictive the other woman is. All of this is avoided when the man comes straight with the truth – that he is not leaving his wife and family, explains how much time he has to spare for a second relationship and does not tell very much about his wife or home life. These kinds of Blackmen are rare. Indeed. Many of them like the suspense, mystery and Intrigue of sneaking. It’s a challenge to them to try to juggle both sides of the universe. He’s under extra pressure at home during this time because he has to be on constant guard not to do, wear, say or mention anything not pertaining to his home affairs.
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Blackman can carry on a lengthy affair like this for years. Some of them can only pull it off for a few months. Whenever his wife at home becomes overly suspicious he lays dead for a while until her calm returns. Many times if he thinks his wife suspects he has another woman he will make love to her right before going out which is supposed to transmit a message that I’m having sex with you to get this over with so you’ll know I’m not going to have sex anyplace else. This is a lie.
A different situation and different woman can inspire him to readiness all over again – even in the same night. But he sees this as reassuring to his wife at home and offers it to her as a comfort. Or hell do the opposite. After coming in late he’ll make love to his wife so she won’t think he’s been out having sex with another woman. He has to keep up his routine at home no matter where Truth of the matter is that he usually has a regular on-going hat life with his wife and take care of her needs before embarlove others so as not to disrupt his home life. Blackmarking are married also will hire the random services of a prostitute for a few moments of detached sex. These days he says he uses condoms more but they say they don’t like them because they interfere with the real feeling he wants of flesh next to flesh. When a Blackman has another woman and moves into her life as her man and husband it is a different situation. He is the maintainer of the woman and provides her with guidance, security, gratification and helps her raise her children. He may even have some there of his own. In this kind of situation both his women in both homes know about the existence of the other one.
He’ll bring his children together if he can, and do his best to deal fairly in each location. The most interesting thing to note about his intimate relationships with women is that women are interchangeable to him. He seeks out a good woman, one who is decent, responsive to him, respectful of him, raises his children well, is moderately attractive, doesn’t hassle him, cooks well, keeps house, is fairly neat, is honest fidelity wise and has a personality that is pleasing to him. The ironic part is that other than satisfying certain needs she doesn’t have to have any special qualifications as far as looks, size or shape is concerned. He just wants whatever he deems as a good woman. Certainly if possible he would like her to be exceedingly attractive, but since that possibility is usually a little remote, he accepts the woman who accepts him. In other words, if the woman has her basic act together one woman is just as good as the next to him. If she appeals to his masculine nature and proves to be sincere he’ll settle down with her and try to make a life with her.
Of course the hi-tech Blackman wants a Blackwoman who is exceptionally good looking, has special legs or shape or hair length. She possibly must have some kind of college degree, belong to an organization, be from a good family, or have an important job. This kind of Blackman sees the Blackwoman as a stallion, a special breed of female that he desires to be seen with as her owner. His woman is his showhorse. He wants to provoke envy or jealousy in other Blackmen who see him with her. This kind of Blackman is shallow in nature and weak in sincerity. These relationships don’t last very long, especially if the woman gains or loses any of her beauty marks. He needs her to boost his confidence.
If a Blackman is in a relationship where he has been faking confidence or being dishonest about his real motivations and is close to being found out, or if he is under pressure to make a major decision or to do something he is secretly afraid to do, he will often just punk-out completely and disappear from the scene. His fear gets the best of him and he wilts at the thought of an honest confrontation wherein he may be forced to reveal his true feelings or fears- so he takes flight. He just disappears seemingly off the face of the earth. He splits. He might leave everything he owned and it might happen at an unexpected time when nothing disruptive is happening in the relationship. This kind of Blackman has to break free to be his real self. The self he manufactured to be with a certain kind of woman can no longer be upheld. So he breaks. He goes someplace else and pretends that the relationship never happened or existed. He runs to someplace less pressured to him, a place where he is not known and where he can slip into anonymity and never have to explain himself. This Blackman is sad. He is sad because he has to live with his failure to thrive in a situation that he obviously lost control of and allowed to control him. He is never the same after each of these exits. He has to make up a new lie to tell himself.