This Goes Out To All My Baby Mamas: Nia Long & Black Community Outrage

Sorry for my "hiatus" of some sorts.  The router that allows me the freedom to be on my laptop in my room has stopped working on me and the modem for the internet won't let my laptop just hook an ethernet cord to it so I've been on my Mom's slow/out of date computer.  This computer won't let me do anything I swear.  I generally attempt to write two blogs at least a week because of working and such, but my patience is short.  Hopefully I'll figure things out or I'll be making a trip to the local library with my laptop to write.

Earlier this week I was reading a blog that discussed the recent Essence magazine cover for the month of August that featured actress Nia Long and her two beautiful sons.  The title of the blog was pretty much asking the question of whether or not Essence was "glorifying" single motherhood by having Nia on the cover with her boys (one cover includes both of her children and the other includes the baby).  I kind of brushed it all off until our magazine came in the mail today.  My first thought on seeing it was, "They are all so beautiful."  My last concern was the fact that Ms. Long is 41 and yet to be married with two children under her belt.  Then as I drove to my boyfriend's house a local radio deejay was discussing, or mentioning, the cover and people's feelings on it.  I rolled my eyes because to my knowledge she is a single mother and I kind of got the feeling that she wanted to agree with others on the issue except it would be like the pot calling the kettle black.  After much thought I came home and wrote a Facebook status on the entire thing.

1.) I believe the Black community has the highest rate of children being raised in a single parent household with the mother. So if anything Essence is just reflecting the trend in the Black community. 

I am not about to sit here and tell you all this sob story of how my mother raised me by herself with no help from my Dad because that is nowhere near true.  For the past 22 years of my life I have had the pleasure (somewhat) of living with both my parents.  Despite my Dad being a truck driver he has always been involved in my life even though I did not see him everyday.  I have one aunt and one uncle (recently remarried) who were divorced while I grew up, but they were involved in their kids' lives.  I honestly thought everyone was raised by both of their parents until I came to high school.  Yes, I was that sheltered from the world.  I soon discovered that some of my friends had little to no contact with their fathers and my heart hurt honestly.  

Here's the thing, the Black community has the highest rate of children being raised in households were the father is absent or either the mother and father have not been married.  Because of that every Father's Day we often see people putting a status up about their mother being both mama and daddy.  My favorite status was always from one of my friends who recently rekindled her relationship with her father that said, "I ain't have no daddy around when I was growing up."  I'm not saying that being a single mother is a bad thing that Essence was wrong for "glorifying" with this cover, but it honestly reflects the trend that is going on in our community at the current moment.  Therefore it's not "glorifying" it just showing the truth.  It's time that we realize the dream of everyone having a family like the Huxtables that performs musical numbers for special occasions is not reality.  Even if someone comes from a family that isn't "traditional" it doesn't mean the father is not involved in the child's life.  One of my friend's was raised by her mother, but is very close with her father.  This leads me to my next point.

Spare The Rod, Spoil The Child: Creflo Dollar

Recently many of us read or heard the shocking story of televangelist Creflo Dollar being arrest over a domestic violence allegation by his 15 year old daughter.  According to the story Dollar and his daughter got into an argument over her going to a party.  It seems that Mr. Dollar did not want her going and according to his story the young girl raised her hand at him resulting in him choking, punching, throwing the girl down on the floor, and hitting her with a shoe.  Many in the African American community heard the story and said,

 "What's the big deal?"  

All those years of my mom hitting me were domestic violence?

 I wish I would have call the police on my mom when she raised a hand at me.  I'd be dead.

 Kids nowadays have the pleasure of calling the police up anytime their parents do something they don't like."

Now my parents come from the "old school" where their parents would give them what we call "beatings" in today's society.  I can recall a few stories of my Dad's childhood that included not so pleasant forms of discipline.  Once he went outside without shoes on and stepped on a glass bottle.  The glass got all in his feet and he was bleeding of course.  He said when he came inside his mom started whipping him while he was already in pain and after she finished she sat down and cleaned up his cuts.  The other story is when he did something and thought his mom had forgot about what he did.  He said he went and took a bath and upon emerging from the bathroom a belt came flying into his body.  Stories like this would classify as child abuse in today's society.  This leads to Creflo's incident.