In a provocative blog post, Sheila Kennedy asked the AVA's Black women to respond ...

In today's NYTimes, Charles Blow says that the African-American voters who voted for Proposition 8 were disproportionately women, and that outreach efforts (such as they were) were counterproductive.

We have a number of black women here at AVA--what say you? After clicking through and reading Blow, do you agree or disagree?

 Well, here's my answer (promoted here from the comments to it's own blog post):

I don't want to speak for all Black women, but...I'm gonna.

I think the article's author is fairly dead-on. The succinct version of the article, in case you didn't read it:

There are too few "good Black men" (the rest are in jails, institutions, or dead; mean as a snake; screwing children or married to  white girls) and if I can't have one, then for sho I ain't gonna stand by and let some fag snatch one.

I think that's pretty succinct.

Begin Stream of Consciousness.

We don't say anything about the choir director (you know he's just "that way") and will applaud a Black man who fathers some kids before going off to be with the man of his dreams: at least he "handled his business" before "getting all up in that mess." And will quote the Bible while shaking our heads and sucking our teeth. Oh yeah, and follow mean-spirited pastors who rail against those "silly, silly gays"...but pretend we didn't hear when they rail about silly, silly women who think they should have a seat at the table both in church, in the bedroom and in the boardroom (Bible says that women aren't to lead men, don't you know).

Now, there's not a Black woman out there who wants to be treated like an ultra Orthodox Jewess:

Cover my arms? In the summer, too?

Different pots? What are you talking about?

Shave my hair? Nobody'd better lay a hand on my weave. You know how much all this hair cost?

Unclean? Unclean!

No mixed fabrics?

No bacon?

No catfish?

Oh. Hell. No.

Nope. We don't want to apply those pesky Biblical laws to ourselves, but are more than happy to deny Black gay men their shot at happiness cause the Bible (but not Jesus) says so.

At the same time, Black women are feeling pretty abandoned. We're seeing more of ourselves on the silver screen or mainstream music videos as objects of adoration (...that's a good thing, I think), but only those women who are "of mixed race" (white mother and a compelling story) or willing to lighten hair, eyes, or skin (or some combo--like Beyonce).

Black men are inter-racially involved at a rate that is three times that of their Black female counterparts. Still the standard of beauty, white female flesh is, in fact, the desirable ideal. Seems they got that bit right in "Birth of a Nation." Only instead of throwing themselves off a cliff rather than being touched by Black men, they're bedding and wedding them in numbers. But the converse isn't the case. White, Asian, Native American and Hispanic men aren't interested in us. And when one of us does get tired of waiting by the phone for a Nubian King and accepts an offer from a white guy, just listen to the "brothas" complain: The white man took everything else, but leave the sistahs alone--they belong to us.

Not to be outdone, some ethnic groups make their disdain for Black women as dating or marriage partners into a near-Olympic event. Be Chinese and bring Shaniqua home to momma for Thanksgiving. Just give me the address so I can sit outside with a lawn chair, eating popcorn--that would be some entertaining shit.

Wesley Snipes (who we uniformed adored even after his little tax evasion problem) proudly stated that he doesn't date Black women--Asian women know how to treat their men. Every Black woman I know called and read me that article out of Ebony...and went directly into mourning.

And then, in gay society, we've been reduced to a cipher--z-snapping, oh-no-you-di'n't, long-nailed, weave-wearing, fake eyelash sporting, oooh-girling, sassing drag queens. Tres amusant.

We're feeling pretty ugly these days. And we're pretty roundly pissed off.

Then, Black gay men (the same ones who don't protect us in a gay world that treats us as buffoons) want to marry. Not just fuck around, but get hitched. Blasphemy. You bet your ass that they'd vote against it. Their vote, to my mind, though, has little to do with scriptural prohibitions than it does in being left behind.

Alone.

So am I surprised if Black women voted in greater numbers against marriage for gay men and women? No. I'm surprised that the numbers weren't higher.

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