Sunday, November 15, 2009

Genocide-Lite: Mass Birth Control
For The Black Middle Class


I didn't know it was quite this bad, but finally read it in print from a Yale University study. I'll break it down in a way they can't and wouldn't dare:

A college education for a black woman is the most effective form of birth control.

"Although black women were more likely than white women to have children early in their academic careers, 45 percent of those born between 1955 and 1960 were childless at age 45 compared to 35 percent of white women born in the same time period."

No doubt that a disproportionate number of abortion clinics strategically placed in black communities from 1973 thru the '80s helped snuff out many babies, along with the stigma of having a child out of marriage, particularly while trying to become successful in a white man's world.

What a fucking tragedy, and one of mass proportions.

I should know, having lost the only child I'd ever get pregnant with at age 19 because my dad insisted I'd be stigmatized and never finish college (a lie so he wouldn't be embarrassed), and the would-be father bailed out, insisting that an abortion was the best thing (yeah, for him, and an act of incredible selfishness considering that his azz was adopted).

The study, which is the first to review longitudinal trends in marriage and family formation among highly educated black women, found that black women born after 1950 were twice as likely as white women never to have married by age 45 and twice as likely to be divorced, widowed or separated.

Over half of my college educated female friends have never married. For that matter, neither have the males. I think the abundance of punani after effective birth control became available is the main reason why so many men stopped getting married.

In fact, the wedding train slowed down for blacks and whites. Since we're the canaries in the coal mine, where nearly every sociological statistic shows up at our door first, we can deduce that this is an evolving trend for all races.

Now let's take that train further down history's tracks for a moment.

The Pill, aka the birth control pill or oral contraception, first became available in 1960, and generally prescribed only to married women until around the mid-'60s when the Women's Rights took the spotlight.

Up until then, women had the handy excuse of no sex before marriage, or at least engagement, out of fear of pregnancy and being considered a tramp. That baby mama shit didn't go over well. Many a couple got married because the girl got knocked up. Ever hear of the term, shotgun wedding? Yeah, that's what happened if her daddy was mad enough to take after the guy who did the deed.

Along came the TV show, That Girl, from 1966 to 1971, and it was "the first sitcom to focus on a single woman who was not a domestic or living at home."

Doesn't sound like a big deal at all now, but that show was instrumental in changing American values. It almost sounds like a male conspiracy set up:

John: "Hey guys, I have a good idea. We're all horny as hell and too cheap to pay for hookers. Let's produce a TV show where an attractive actress lives on her own. The audience will be titillated. Young women will be duped into trying this, and can afford it since we've manipulated them to want to work...

Robert: Heh-heh, can you imagine that shit? Wish I didn't have to work.

John: Crazy, isn't it? Hell, they only get paid 2/3 to the dollar. Let them, since they want to compete on our turf. Without their parents cock-blocking, and with The Pill available, we can all get laid.

Max: By nice girls too, not whores.

Bob: Let's have a toast! Cheers!

That Girl came at the time when the country was in the beginning stages of vast social changes. Until after the show ended and reruns became the norm, single women generally lived at home. This made it so easy to just say no to sexual pressure.

The guy who came around had to meet the parents. Mom and Dad were, by default, a protective barrier from casual sex, i.e., what we call friends with benefits now.

A man had to invest more time in getting something going and have the title 'boyfriend' before gained admittance to the Punani Cave of Delight. His real payoff could come in discovering that he might actually like the girl after taking the time to know her, not just the sex.

So yeah, we can say there was an advantage to living at home and having condoms that broke easily and fear of pregnancy. Until the world changed in the blink of a decade, over 95% of black folks got married.

Now let's take ride that train up to the present.

"Black men are more likely to marry outside of their race, and black women are more likely to marry outside of their education." (source)

Read that sentence again and let it sink in.

Brothas dating white and Latino women didn't used to piss me off, but over the past ten years it seems like a damned epidemic. These chicks just won't leave our men alone, probably because of the stud muffin stereotypes.

In addition to the punani-on-demand in the black community, our men have additional opportunities among other races. And men like sex and generally will actively go after it anyway they can get it, whether it's doing it solo, sweet-talking a girl out of her panties, going to a whorehouse, or settling down.

We can include rape, too, which was more common at one time. The majority of black Americans have someone white in their ancestry who raped a black female hostage to slavery, as proof. Ain't just us either. Hawaiians don't look a thing like their ancestors 200 years ago. I learned that when I went to their museum and saw that their royalty looked like a lot of us. We know about rape in warfare in Darfur and several other African countries. Underclass women during old European times didn't have any protection either. Feudal times? Forget it.

So men will be men, no matter what their race. There's no need for any man to rape anymore, nor get married. Punani opportunities abound. That failing, there's always porn, and porn has never been better since the Internet came. 'Scuse the pun.

We black Americans are the canaries in the coal mine. Trends of all sorts tend to hit us first and hardest than other groups, from drug use, unemployment, crime, declining marriage rates, and unmarried motherhood and no motherhood.

Let's revisit that last statistic. Another reason black women marry down (which translates to economically and/or educationally marrying below her accomplishments) has to do with how well the sistas are rockin' it in college.

Of blacks who get college degrees, 67% - or two thirds - are earned by black women. This means that twice as many black women compared to black men are now finishing college.

Among whites graduating college recently, the percentages are 57% women, 43% men. Among forty-five year old white women with college degrees, 35% of them (compared to 45% of us), have never had a child.

So ain't that a bitch?

You chase the American dream of seeking knowledge and wanting to have job where you get paid well for doing something you like, only to get cheated in one of the worst ways possible. No marriage, no babies, no grandkids. Your direct genetic line ends with you. Endless dates which may have been fun until you were ready to get serious.

What will you have to show when you end? A degree and copies of important paperwork, rather than copies of you walking around?

[Helpful hint: the biologically childless person can leave a legacy in the way of helping others or contributing to society, so try not to feel too bad if you missed that train. Who knows, maybe God had another plan for you.]

The brothas ain't exempt either. A lot of the educated, professional ones don't marry or have children, and they ain't all gay. They're workaholics. And the richer they get, the more suspicious they get of women who throw themselves at them or are simply interested in them because women have always been attracted to successful men, and never have so many women been so starved for love and wanting a family.

People also tend to become more set in their ways as they get older. At 21, you've got a lot more flexibility in your tastes and habits than you will at 35 or 45. You're also more likely to be guarded or become bitter or neurotic from heartbreak and disappointment as you get older. As they say, once bitten, twice shy.

Given this culture's lifestyle, if you're a young adult now, those stats may be much higher by the time you turn 45.

My regular readers know or have a sense that I am a pacifist. I like people, and as a women, I like men. Got mad love for all of humanity. I have a good grasp of how and why most individuals become the way they do. We are products of the times and whatever bubble we grew up in.

If you ain't noticed, bubbles are bursting everywhere.

In this post, I am speaking as a militant. Bust yours. Seek wisdom over knowledge.

The solution is as simple as what black folks did through the 1960s out of necessity, that for you, will be choice: get married, or if you find yourself single with an unplanned pregnancy, don't terminate it if you're a woman, nor encourage the woman to abort if you're the man.

In other words, don't be scared. Where there's a will, there's a way.

Don't be selfish either. Babies nearly always come at inconvenient times, even for married folks. Except for rape, incest, and sonograms that show the mother's health is in danger or that the fetus is impaired, selfishness is all that abortion has ever been about.

It's also a sign of confused thinking that so many say in one breath, I could never put my baby up for adoption, and then in the next breath say, I'm going to have an abortion instead. Just 'cause you can't see it yet don't mean you won't if you give it time to grow.

Your life can be put on hold for awhile to restock the pond. Fuck it if you're in college; you got your whole life to study. And this might surprise you, but it is possible to be married and/or have child while taking college courses at the same time.

If you're a black woman, that unwanted pregnancy might be your only shot; keep those above statistics in mind that 45% of college degreed, 45 year old black women never had children. Too bad they didn't do a study on what percentage of them had abortions. I'd like to read that shit myself.

For those to whom this applies: Brothas, you know all the public and private reasons that you date outside of your race, and Sistas, you know all the reasons you don't.

For both of you, I call you out on this bullshit, and that it is based on stereotypes and/or fear. I'm not even gonna make a list of reasons. You know what yours is, so deal with it by doing something differently.

Chasing the degrees, cheese and getting sexual gratification from endless dating has been made to appear not only normal but desirable. The education part is, but then again, maybe not, if the compromise is your future generations.

The rest is really a detour, which has led our race into what adds up as mass birth control for the black middle class.

As a result of our collective lifestyle changes in the past 30-odd years, the educated class is no longer reproducing itself, and it is they who become our teachers, counselors, medical staff, businessmen, politicians, tax payers and voters. Not having a generation of them around will be more dangerous in the long term because this makes any oppressor's job easier.

Call it genocide-lite.

****************************

Main sources:

1. Marriage, Family on the Decline for Highly Educated Black Women, Yale University, 8/2009
2. Black Women: Successful & Still Umarried, NPR, 9/2009
3. Black-White Differences In The Process of Educational Reproduction, Yale University 4/2009



34 comments:

  1. Hey Kit! Wow, this is some heavy stuff. I'm going to read the study, but your synopsis is eye-opening.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I don't feel comfortable with this post, but I guess I'm not supposed to. So what if abortion is selfish? So what if birth rates are down? Women should have control over their reproductive system. The world is close to bursting at the seems, and global warming is on our tale. Honestly, to me, this post seems to discourage sexual freedom through oppression. It says to me, "have sex for babies and get married to those of the same race as you." I do think that preserving culture is important, but why should that mean actively trying to date within your race? There's something almost eugenic about that.

    I don't really know what to think of this post.

    Why is chasing knowledge and being sexually free wrong? There will still be future generations...you should have kids on your own terms. You shouldn't have kids just to have kids and "continue your race".

    Full disclosure: I'm a white, bisexual, and young male. Take what I say with the appropriate degree of salt.

    ReplyDelete
  3. LG, You ask, "So what if...?

    The black middle class is not reproducing itself. I don't see a whole lot of happiness either, with the 'single and free' lifestyle, and many black women in particular are hardly dating anyone b/c they won't date outside the race. I view this as a crisis.

    I understand your points, and some are well-taken. However, I think most or my black and some of my white readers will understand mine. I'm not trying to discourage freedom or choices. I'm asking readers to consider choices they've been taught to value more than others that may have worked against their long term best interests.

    Thanks anyway for your feedback.

    ReplyDelete
  4. (Sorry if this posts twice!)

    This issue isn't anything new but I thoroughly enjoyed reading your perspective on it.

    I really think it comes down to the fact that black women have been fighting the duel oppression of racism and sexism for years, and are finally getting to enjoy true freedom of choice. So now the pendulum is swinging too far to one side,and women are pursuing careers at the cost of making families.

    It's unfortunate, but women can't have it all. Neither can men--it's just that they long ago accepted that in pursuing career success to provide for their families they would not be the primary caretaker in their children's lives. Women feel guilty for being away from their children because we are biologically programmed to be nurturers.

    So basically, if you are a woman (most especially if you are a black woman) and you want to get an education AND get married, you must date with intention. You don't have time to waste on "friends with benefits" or other dead end relationships. Once you leave college/grad school, you will never again be around such a large pool of eligible bachelors with similar qualifications who are open to getting married. You have to find someone to grow with, because once men finish school, they are content to spend the next 10 years building material wealth and will marry a younger (read: more fertile) woman to build a family with.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Kit,
    Good post. I agree and disagree with your opinion. I think that people should wait for a stable relationship before the word baby is even mentioned. But I also understand that shit happens. I am not foolish enough to even suggest to wait for marriage before doing the wild thang. That would be very delusional. I also am not stupid enough to think that every sexual encounter would be a safe sexual encounter. I know one time in my younger and single days, I have had a condom rolled up in my hand the whole time I was stroking. I did not even think about how stupid that was until after I had nutted. And the sad thing is the female I was with told me it was alright because she didn't like condoms anyway. Two very young and very stupid people. As for interracial dating.... I have no problem with it. My family was surprised when I married a Black woman because all my prior girlfriends were Hispanic. It was not because I did not love my sista's, because I do. It was because back then Black Women would not give me the time of day because I was too dark for them. I was ugly to them. Hispanic and White women were the only ones that would look past my dark skin and see me. So sometimes Interracial dating is something that is done out of necessity. I still have somewhat of a fetish for my Latina sistas. But it is what it is.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Interesting post. It's hitting whites too to the point where they're starting to panic--afraid they won't have the numbers to keep from being overrun by the brown race.

    If black women want a man in their life, they do need to be more willing to consider white men. There's lots of them out there.

    As far as abortion, no point in going back. We need to keep on moving forward, making peace with the flow of our lives.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Brownbelle, You hit so many truths I hardly know where to begin. Yours was a comment I hope others read, and that you consider doing a post on it.

    DirtyRead, Ouch. All those rejections based on your complexion was surely painful. I'm glad you found love and marriage, though. And that story your told of the condom was funny, and being reckless is not all that uncommon. Passion is crazy!

    Wildflower, Agreed. You are so perceptive too, in reading between the lines. I still yo-yo in making peace with that part of my past. While many women get over an abortion and move on, for those who don't and never get pregnant again, I wouldn't wish those feelings and consequences on a dog. It's the sordid side most people are ashamed to write about or even admit to friends... sad b/c so many young women don't have a clue of how they could end up childless. I hope my story, viewpoint, and the stats are information people can consider when making their choices.

    Those stats of nearly half of college educated black women in my age group never had kids hit me hard. I instinctively know what a lot of that shit is about, 'cause I've seen girlfriends go through it too. Some fortunately adopted one child later. Others waited for Mr. Right who never came, and some are quite alone now.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Kit,

    Thanks a lot! I had some free time so I actually did write a post about it. Here's the link: http://wp.me/pDkzA-6W

    ReplyDelete
  9. This is a great post! Very true. At least, I believe it is the case.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Brownbelle, Just read your new post, Black Women & The Feminist Mistake. I like that you're exploring the dimension of (some) black women needing to share power in a relationship "after doing it all so long" when on their own.

    Not just power, either, but allowing their soft and vulnerable side to show (not to be confused with drama), not sweating whose right with personal tastes or small stuff, and letting him take the lead in areas where his competence exceeds yours.

    Miriam, Thanks. As for my views being "very true", that's not my intent. It's more to offer people a look their decisions and some of the consequences.

    As a result of our collective lifestyle changes in the past 30-odd years, the educated class is no longer reproducing itself, and it is they who become our teachers, counselors, medical staff, businessmen, politicians, tax payers and voters. Not having a generation of them around will be more dangerous in the long term b/c this makes any oppressor's job easier.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Wow you touched on so much here, i don't know where to start, except to say that since i am a child of the 60's, i know all to well about what was going down around that time. Most of our parents had over 4 children, that was the norm bc, u are right birth control was not readily available,...i always tell my mom that she dayum well i was the mistake, she already had 5 kids, popped them out almost every year, i cam 4 years after everybody else. And yes, we were taught to hold the punnani until marriage, or truelove, hoping for both. Birth control changed that. The 80's was a Lovefest...or maybe i should say Sexfest, because that's what we were doing. I have several college-educated friends that are not married and are childless, and not by choice either. And lastly, yep i will most likely end up with someone less educated than myself...just from dating around, those in my median bracket are too scared to do it again (if ever), those who stand below me are looking for a step up...

    Great post

    ReplyDelete
  12. Watch Maafa21, it explains how Black Genocide is carried out today. See a preview here: www.maafa21.com.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Anonymous 10:52, Yeah, I bookmarked that site a few months ago. The historical information of blacks and how abortion was used as a tool of population reduction in the film trailer is worth watching.

    However, the site is a front for pro-life fanatics who created it to manipulate black folks for their cause. Still, the film is worth seeing as it documents how blacks got exploited, once again.

    I am not anti-abortion, I am pro-choice, despite all that I and many others have been through from it. I write what I write so people can consider all the choices out there, and then make theirs.

    Mizrepresent, You were "the mistake", eh? Heh-heh-heh. Hadn't heard that term in awhile. Some accidents work out great, don't they?

    ReplyDelete
  14. I love your perspective and your writing has so much character. Full disclosure, I am a white female in my 40's with two bachelors and one master's degree and a professional license and I have four kids and I am expecting number five. I found your post because I have become aware of the eugenic foundation of the birth control and abortion industry and I like to learn more about it. I love how you tied in That Girl. I loved that show as a 5 year old so I know we were being brain washed as I look back. I was very lonely and sad in my twenties because I really wanted to be a wife and mother but I was taught to believe that there was something wrong with that. Thanks to my Catholic upbringing, I did not use birth control...so guess what? I rarely dated and if I did it didn't last longer than when the guy would figure out that it wasn't going to happen. But, I have no regrets, as I was able to weed out a lot of losers and focus on my professional development. It just took my one guy to see that it wasn't gonna happen until he put a ring on it. We married when I was 30 and we have been having babies ever since. We still don't do the birth control thing because not doing it is what brought us together and it is what has blessed us with so many babies. I am finally the wife and mother that I wanted to be. Some would say that I missed out on exploring my sexual freedom. Blah blah blah. I have been making up for it with my one guy! And as a professional counselor, I have seen the fallout, both physical and emotional, of young girls who have explored their sexual freedom through a series of empty sexual encounters. I also wanted to let you know that none of my friends and I mean none of them have had children. They were all sold the same line of BS. So, I think the birth control and abortion industry started as a way to clean up the "master race" and it has ended up completely destroying the fabric of our society. We need to reeducate young women, both black and white. Because women are the gatekeepers of the Punani Cave of Delight. We have the power and we cannot let them take it away.

    ReplyDelete
  15. SFall, Unlike your friends, you were so fortunate to have connected with that right person after waiting soooo long and to be blessed with children.

    And yes, we - both women and men - have been taught to be more hedonistic than we need to be in order to enjoy life. Funny, too, how the "master race plan" backfired on them as well. Seems like this happens all the time and in nearly every culture, adding insight to the golden rule of do unto others as you'd have them do to you. Lol.

    Thanks also for the lovely comment about my writing.

    ReplyDelete
  16. Great post,
    Statistically, I believe black women are marrying and dating outside of their race much more than twenty years ago. The interracial romance/marriage gap is closing between black men and women, which I think will continue for the foreseeable future.

    As far as marriage goes, we live in a very selfish/individualistic society. Nobody wants to sacrifice anymore. It's all about my happiness, my time and so on and so forth.

    Raising children correctly is a serious economic and time draining adventure. American society promotes the idea of putting yourself first above anyone else. We're all super important and we want the best life can give us for the least amount of work.

    With that belief, for many people it becomes too difficult to have a spouse or family. It takes work to be in a relationship. To love someone and stand by their side through the difficult times is not easy. It's easier to break up and start something new with a different person, whose issues you don't know yet or just have random sex partners.

    For some black men/women I think they marry outside of their race because they genuinely fall in love with the person and not the color. For many other black men/women I think it's about trophy wife/spouse status. Being next to this person makes me look better type of ideology. That's true within race too with the whole light/dark skin bullshit.

    Ultimately, it's about choices. The statistics you provided show that Black Americans have chosen to function more on individual interests than collective. This seems to have led to negative consequences for the black community.

    I agree with you, we need to confront our issues with one another and deal with them. Its time to move forward and change how we do things, for the sake of future generations, not so much for ourselves.

    ReplyDelete
  17. The world is overpopulated as it is. I don't think middle class black women having less children is a bad thing. There are so many black children in the foster care system. There are plenty of children to love.

    Besides, I'm a middle class, educated, black woman and I'm not competing with white women to break some kind of baby making record. Hell, I don't even know if I want kids. I'm happy with me.

    ReplyDelete
  18. Anonymous 9:48, I'm not stupid and you're not black. Considering the racist forum thread you arrived from, I'm not surprised at all that you said, "I don't think middle class black women having less children is a bad thing."

    ReplyDelete
  19. Truth, Agreed, and I'm glad the interracial dating and marriage gap is showing signs of narrowing. Otherwise, there will continue to be too many black women left out of marriage, and nearly half out of motherhood.

    Your other points are so excellent that I need not repeat them. Thank you.

    ReplyDelete
  20. I think you hit a homerun. Almost every single educated sista friend of mine over 30 is alone, no steady men, no regular dates. I have seen the one's who have already crossed the threshhold into the 40's pretty resigned to the fact that they can kiss the idea of a man or a baby good bye.

    After all yes many of us keep ourselves up and still are attractive but let's be blunt a hot 40 yo who still wears a 6 just cannot compete as well as a 25 yo hottie. Fact is the menfolk get more choices even when they are over the hill than we do.

    People hate when you say this shit, but its true. I used to feel bad that I was only 19 when I had my first child but had I not had him I would only have 1 kid. So many women put off the babies and then we hit 30 something and guess what? Biologically its a whole lot easier having babies when you are young than when you are older. I was 32 when I had the girl child and before I got pregnant I thought maybe we'd have at least 2 more. Nah...Mama is perimenopausal and it ain't happening.

    Too many of us have bought into success but what is that paper when you are old and in the rocking chair? Paper cannot visit you. ;-) Yet too many sistas are too damn picky. Yeah, I said it and I know that our empowerment sistas would say why should we settle?

    Well because when you get older, and have lived life you realize family is pretty special even when they drive your ass nuts and maybe a decent man who can give you some babies ain't so bad after all even if he is not a lawyer, doctor, etc. I am not saying settle for some broke down half a man, I am saying a decent man with a JOB (even its not making buckets of money) who treats you well and you can respect and love is out there.No, he may not look like Denzel, Boris or Brad but as long as he don't need a bag on his head it can work.

    I agree that having a baby don't have to stop the show. I was 18 when I got pregnant and convinced my life was over, in a strange way my son and later failed marriage motivated the hell out of me. Folks thought I was going to be a welfare Mama instead I busted my ass worked a lot of jobs and did make it to college. Shit, I graduated with a 3.86 GPA and went to grad school and I finished that while pregnant with the girl.

    So I totally feel what you wrote. ;-)

    ReplyDelete
  21. Shay, Thank you for sharing your story and that of your (career wise) successful female friends over 30.

    And your point, "having a baby don't have to stop the show" nails it.

    Until the aspiring and already there black educated classes "gets" this when faced with an unplanned pregnancy and/or delaying marriage too long, we will continue to have genocide-lite - only we will be doing it to ourselves.

    ReplyDelete
  22. God I miss you and this blog. I'll holla at the email and update you on life. Good to see you writing once more.

    ReplyDelete
  23. I'm a Black middle class female, been married for 9 years, with no children and at this point, no desire to have children.

    I must be misreading your post, because I know that you are not encouraging women to have children out of wedlock, just so that they can say they have a child.

    There is nothing wrong with not having children. There is something wrong, however, in bringing children into the world without supportive fathers.

    With close to 80% of Black women having children out of wedlock, there is nothing wrong with some of us deciding that children are just not for us.

    ReplyDelete
  24. Emeritus, Hi! Ditto, and glad to see you're back and blogging again!

    Jamdown, I am glad that you are happily married w/o kids.

    I never said that parenting is for everyone, literate or not, in the post or the comments. The point I made is for people to re-think and consider choices which have become unpopular, and for many, detrimental, since the 80s. BTW, the stat of 80% of black children born to unmarried mothers is erroneous. Here they are:

    "While 28 percent of white women gave birth out of wedlock in 2007, nearly 72 percent of black women and more than 51 percent of Latinas did."

    Note in that same article that "80 percent of the non-marital births, parents stayed romantically involved and in 50 percent of the cases they were living together.".

    ReplyDelete
  25. Keep It Trill,

    If the situation of black women nearing their forties without husband or children is a growing problem then it seems to be evident that a need to decentivize this existence is
    necessary.

    As it stands, modern black women's freedom is inexplicably tied to unlimited sexual encounters, abortion and divorce. Ask a hundred modern black woman if losing any one of these "rights" were akin to unacceptable oppression and a large majority would say yes.

    Yet, there is a cognitive dissonance in this thinking. There is an absolute denial of the consequences such relationship destroying "freedom" entails. To tie one's freedom to unlimited sex, abortion and divorce is to say one is anti-loyal. Loyalty being the fundamental facet of any strong relationship. Modern black women's fundamental "rIghts" are an unequivocal message that being manless and childless is the good.

    This idea needs to be strongly and consistently refuted.

    ReplyDelete
  26. Thor, you lost me a bit at the end when you said, "Modern black women's fundamental "rIghts" are an unequivocal message that being manless and childless is the good."

    I think you meant that our rights, which are the same as any American woman's rights, are pushed as good, but the potential consequences are hushed up, leaving the under 40 sistas and brothas in the dark.

    For all my blogging, I can't think of a single other black male or female blogger that has written about their personal regret of having an abortion. I've read that nearly half of black pregnancies end in abortion, so they're out there. How in the hell is the next generation of women to know what that shit is like if no one writes about it from the heart?

    This includes men too. I've known lots of men who grieved over it, including one now very successful former boyfriend who in his youth lost five friggin' kids that way. The man was choking back tears when he told me and I cried with him. Yeah, we can judge that he or other men should have used condoms or the women shouldn't have been careless, but that's not the point. Until the birth control pill came out, half of births were accidents.

    And since then, the promotion sex before getting engaged and delaying marriage until one is degreed and well into their career has been a collective disaster particularly for literate blacks, more so than divorce ever was.

    I've said it before and I'll say it again: I'm not anti-abortion, but what I am is anti-propaganda of hiding the grim side of reproductive freedom, along with the freedom to wait too long to settle down, all in pursuit of the Almighty Dollar. In a nutshell, we're not making a truly free choice if we don't know all the ramifications of that choice.

    ReplyDelete
  27. Keep It Trill,

    Every sentient being with any sense of civilization knows that the answer to this problem is a return to traditionalism. The problem is that those traditional values and ways of living were exactly what most of the manless and childless women were looking to avoid. And for those that weren't doing this consciously, they nonetheless carried around subconscious beliefs that would lead them to the same place. Namely, unlimited sex, abortion and divorce WAS the epitome of FREEDOM but also why many are manless and childless. This perspective does not require the work of outsiders to make things right. Instead, it recognizes that those women in this state of existence need to acknowledge their principal responsibility in bringing about such a delayed lamentation of things infinitely more important than career and independence.

    ReplyDelete
  28. Thor, Thank you again; I agree and disagree, and here's where:

    You said, "...unlimited sex, abortion and divorce WAS the epitome of FREEDOM but also why many are manless and childless.

    The latter is true, and I'll only speak for myself about abortion and/or divorce being viewed as "freedom". It's more the case of being an escape hatch for an unexpected, ill-timed, or unwanted pregnancy, or if a marriage bombs.

    The unlimited sex as you put it, or for many including myself, the freedom to have sex before marriage without embarrassment, rather than wait until was also an viewed as an escape hatch from the sexual frustration that comes with celibacy.

    I think that for many, these "escape hatches" have been turning out to be an escape from the frying pan and into the fire.

    You also said, "This perspective does not require the work of outsiders to make things right...it recognizes that those women in this state of existence need to acknowledge...things infinitely more important than career and independence."

    I not only agree wholeheartedly with this - for those who aren't allergic to parenthood and the possibility of lifetime love thru marriage - but will add that it applies equally to men.

    Women cannot operate in a vacuum to attain this, and they also are high risk for infertility that is related to STDs and/or abortion, and the normal diminishing fertility and attractiveness to males through their mid-30s. For many, to wait too long is to wait too late.

    As long as men remain suckered into a hedonistic single life of multiple sex partners, and encouraging or demanding abortion when 'accidents' occur, and waiting until they're way into middle age (or never) to marry, the sexes will be (and have been) working at cross purposes.

    The individual is best prepared when they know what those freedoms or escape hatches entail, and decide if taking on will truly better their lives. For some it will, for most whom I've known or read about, no.

    ReplyDelete
  29. Kit,
    I had posted a comment before but maybe it got killed because of a link? Anyway...
    I'm your blog's biggest new fan. Your writing is warm, courageous, and well-informed. Thanks for such eye-opening reading!
    To your examples of how the black middle class is discouraged from reproducing, I'd add that the white middle- and upper-middle class is highly encouraged to reproduce. You cannot pick up a "white" women's magazine without seeing an article wagging it's finger at women who take their fertility for granted. There's also all that stuff about "three is the new two" and "competitive birthing." A survey I read about highly successful white women said that primarily they regretted not having *more* children. Genocide-lite is a great way of putting it. So is a fucking tragedy, and one of mass proportions.

    ReplyDelete
  30. I had to come back and re-read this post after finding out that 2 of my friends have had an abortion in the past year. Girl A expresses regret and seems to have caught baby fever. Girl B seems to be depressed, and said she is having nightmares about the child she would have had and hoping God forgives her.

    It really gave me a different perspective on things. I've never had to make that kind of decision but a year ago I would have gone running to the nearest clinic. Now, not so much. I'll leave at that as I wrote a post discussing that in depth- http://tinyurl.com/ykcq9l3

    ReplyDelete
  31. Karen L., "You cannot pick up a "white" women's magazine without seeing an article wagging it's finger at women who take their fertility for granted..."

    I didn't know that. Thank you for that and the rest of the information.

    Brownbelle, That's really sad - and extremely common, not just to feel what Girl A or B has, but to experience both feelings in different stages of grief or simultaneously. Thank you for sharing that.

    ReplyDelete
  32. you are dead wrong, and still havent changed abit.
    Only the profile picture. Having an abortion is out of necessity not selfishness.

    ReplyDelete
  33. this is a fascinating article. but i do have to take issue with the 'selfishness' call.
    can you really not think of a situation where a woman wasn't raped, her child wasn't the product of incest, both mother and child were healthy but she chose to terminate - not out of 'selfishness'? this smacks too much of conservative womanbashing for me

    ReplyDelete

Hi, this is Kit.

I haven't posted since summer 2010, and comment moderation has been on for a very long time.

My old blogger friends (you know who you are) are welcome to email me.

I can be reached at:
kitsmailbag@gmail.com.