This guest post is by the ever-awesome Javania M. Webb. Javania has overcome a rocky childhood from molestation, suicidal attempt/thoughts, and feeling as if she were nothing, to now speaking to women of all ages about the trials and tribulations she has endured.  Javania speaks from experience and has a wealth of knowledge on a variety of topics.  Following her mission, Javania helps to minimize the mental health implications among (young) women, no matter age, ethnicity, race, and/or sexual orientation.  You can find Javania on Twitter or Facebook discussing whatever floats her boat that particular day. Check out Javania’s blog and step into her virtual world.

LGBTQ vs. LGBTQ

Stud on Stud

Femme on Femme

Stud on Femme

Transman on Femme

Transwoman on Stud

Stud on Transman

NEWSFLASH… IT DOES NOT MATTER…

Fighting.

Fighting because someone looked at your “lady” too long at the club.

Fighting because someone bumped into you and didn’t apologize at the club.

Fighting because your “lady” is flip at the mouth.

Fighting because your “lady” forced you to pop her ass because she kept badgering you.

Hate.

Hate because no one understands you.

Hate because you are tired of explaining why you love women.

Hate because someone else is doing better than you.

Hate because you are tired of being looked over.

These examples are simply real and not the end of the problems present in the LGBTQ community.  We are fighting heterosexuals, our family, our employers, AND our brothers and sisters who are just like us.

WHY though?

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***This AMAZING guest post is by Taja Lindley, a full-spectrum doula, tactile visual artist, performing artist, and Reproductive Justice activist addressing the challenges of women of color through creativity, personal transformation and entrepreneurship. She is the founder of Colored Girls Hustle, an initiative that uses art as activism and a tool for creating affirming and celebratory images, messages and adornment for, about and by women of color. You can find her Taja on Facebook, Twitter and Etsy.***

By now we are all too familiar with the preoccupation with the unmarried Black woman in the media. The question that keeps getting raised is: “Why can’t a Black woman understand, find and keep a man?”

Fundamentally I don’t have a problem with conversations about love and relationships. I have them all the time. What’s unfair about this question, and the conversation that follows, is what’s at stake because when single white women search for love, they get an HBO series (Sex and the City). But when unmarried Black women are approaching, at, or over the age of 30: it’s a crisis, it’s a catastrophe with severe consequences for the ENTIRE Black community, warranting late night specials on major television networksand talk shows dedicating entire segments to finding us a man.

The conversation always becomes “what’s wrong with Black women? “ and we get demonized as: unlovable, broken, undesirable, domineering, angry, aggressive, incompatible, uncompromising, too compromising, (in the words of Tyrese) too independent, possessing unrealistic expectations…and the list goes on.

Then here come Black-male-entertainers-turned-experts on their horses with shining armor to save the Black woman from herself! To save her from her own pathological destruction so she can do a better job of successfully creating and preserving the Black family. (Damn, that must be a lot of responsibility.)

Conversations like these put Black women on the defensive where now we need to explain what we think, how we act, and for what reasons so that these so-called experts can give us paternalistic and patriarchal prescriptions for solving the so-called crisis of the unmarried Black woman.

Academic professor and researcher Ralph Richard Banks, recent author of Is Marriage for White People, administers the latest advice for us. He enters the conversation on the assumption that has gone unchecked: that all Black women are successful, and all Black men are victims of America…as if heterosexual Black women seeking marriage aren’t in poverty with a net wealth of $5, suffering from wage discrimination, or also dealing with escalating rates of incarceration. But setting those facts aside, he advises that Black women consider interracial marriage for the purposes of bolstering the Black family and better serving our race. (No, I’m not making this up, see for yourself.)

So clearly what’s at stake here is the Black family. Not Black women’s happiness, not our ability to learn and grow as lovers and partners in a relationship or in marriage. What’s at stake is the responsibility that consistently gets laid on our back about the success or failure of the ENTIRE Black community. As if single parent families headed by women are the root cause for disparities and inequality. (Sound familiar? Yup, kind of like the Moynihan Report.)

My question is: why do people get to collectively comment on my body, my sex, my family, my choices, and my life circumstances? It’s just not fair. The answer: the preoccupation with the unmarried Black woman is part of a larger history and tradition of the hypervisibility of the Black female body. Our bodies, lives, love and labor are always on display as a spectacle for public debate, open for public inspection and consumption (you better believe that people are getting paid for the publication, distribution and sale of these books in addition to “expert” appearances on television).

Black women can’t seem to catch a break! Everywhere we turn we are being judged and diagnosed as stereotypes masked as pervasive problems with Black women. From the billboards that shame and blame Black women for having abortions, and the accusations that our abortions are racial genocide; to the demonization of young mothers and single mothers; to the stereotypes of gold-diggers, welfare queens, and the emasculating over-achieving successful Black woman; to the current preoccupation with the unmarried Black female…We can’t catch a break!

Black women are not a problem. The American public does not always have to be concerned with a solution. We are not broken or lacking, and we are not unfulfilled and incapable of living (or loving) without men. We are whole. So this fear mongering of  “you are not complete without marriage!” has got to stop.

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