“Three of my five ex-boyfriends were Black, and I think that in America you should be free to date whoever you want regardless of race. Jermaine, you are a leader of your people and you should use your voice for good, not for bad ideas, love not hate, equality not discrimination.”

I tried to defend myself with a simple explanation that I have absolutely no problem with interracial couples and that I actually like to see love regardless of how it happens. Jenny was not convinced, and she continued to lean into me hard. I thought she may chill out when my wife arrived, but she didn’t let up at all.

“As a public voice you should do right by the legacy of Martin Luther King and teach equality…blah blah blah…”

Wait wait wait, I interrupt her semi-drunken rant. First of all, the word “equal” is a utopian word that only exists in utopia. Secondly, I’m a Malcolm X type of brotha way before a Martin Luther King brotha. In the words of brother Malcolm X:

“Before there can be black-white unity, there first must be black-black unity.”

Thirdly, if I am a “leader of my people” then I must look at all the dynamics of a particular policy, and regarding the shortage of black men, there is a victim in the millions of Black single mothers who are raising fully African American children. Hence, many black men are having babies with these Black women but are coming up short on fully living up to their responsibilities.

I asked her had she ever been with her Black boyfriend as a group of Black women gave her the evil eye or had some choice words for her? She answered, “yes that happened a few times, but if those women learned how to be a lady and treat their men better without all the drama they wouldn’t have a reason to get mad at me.”

That’s when my wife interjected into the discussion. My wife noticed the ring on Jenny’s finger and asked her about it. Jenny said she is engaged to a white man. I’ll leave that one right there and describe my next encounter with a white woman.

On a separate occasion I was at a sports bar with a Black male friend of mine who has an affinity for white women. He told me one of his good female friends was going to be coming soon. He informed me that they are just friends because she will not continue a physical relationship with a man in a relationship, but that she preferred to date Black men. After this very attractive late thirties white lady arrived (we’ll call her Heather) and we all had a few more drinks, she pulled me into their conversation and asked me

“Why do Black men cheat so much?”

I said, what did I just get drug into? He was trying to convince her to invite him to her hot tub for old times sake. In the course of our exchange she told me that she no longer liked Black men and that she admires her parents for being so faithfully in love after 40 year of marriage. She explains that she wants that for herself and she expects to get it. I asked her why did she think Black men have a bigger problem with monogamy than white men, and did she get cheated on by Black men and not white? She said she had never been cheated on, but she has only dated Black men non-exclusively. All the exclusive relationships she had been in were with white men.

So I told her that she had answered her question herself. I told her that I’d tell her everything she just told me, but I’d put in the form of an answer to her original question.

I answer with: Heather was raised by a loving mother and father who to this day are still married. So Heather has an optimistic idea of what marriage is supposed to be like. Heather has never been cheated on, so she has no baggage or emotional trust issues. Heather is attracted to Black men and has had physical relations with them, even though she knew they had other partners other than her. It’s simple economic law of supply and demand, this increased demand for Black men is not just from desperate Black women trying to fill a hole that their disappearing fathers created, but includes many different races of women. Black men are being used for their sexual prowess to satisfy so many different women’s jungle fever, Mandingo fantasies and ideas of “give me a baby so I’ll have someone to love me”. Black men are having an increasingly difficult time denying themselves the opportunities available to them. Heather used to date Black men, but now she is aware of Black men’s monogamy struggles, and she is unwilling to marry one. She may not have ever committed to marriage with a Black man due to what her parents or society would have thought, so she will end up married to a white man and attempting to develop a stable home like the one she was raised in. This means that Black men develop habits in their wild 20’s that are hard to break as they mature, Black women suffer, as white women get married.

I understand white women’s perspective, it is honest and from a pure source. Yet I’m not sure that they could fully understand or appreciate the dynamics of the Black community or the roll they play in it. It is really not their concern. It is ours.

So everyone should ask themselves two questions: Do I even bother with the low hanging fruit?  And even more importantly: Am I low hanging fruit myself?

Everyone should have there own definition of high and low hanging fruit. Is it determined by looks, financial stability, self-esteem, status, race or inner beauty? If you must, admit to yourself that you are shallow in how you pick your fruit. Just don’t bitch about the frequent bad outcomes of your batch of juice.

Low hanging fruit is a great way to build your confidence and practice your juice making skills, because regardless of the type of fruit, they all want to be picked and squeezed.  Many men that I know only want the fruit from the top of the tree, but rarely have the opportunity to pick one.  They continually walk by low hanging fruit as they wait.  If they are clueless on how to make a great batch of juice, it doesn’t matter if they are getting the top or low hanging fruit.   Once you amass the skill to make great juice, then you can hold out for the best ingredients.  But if you are not a great juice maker, what makes you think you deserve the best fruit? 

Women also hold out and refuse to “settle” for less.  This is usually a great thing, but the same question applies.  I know many women who have been single, are single, and to what I see, will be single for a long time because they don’t take their juice making skills into account.  So we first have to be honest with ourselves.  Secondly, we have to work on us.  And then the top fruit just may fall from the tree right into our laps.

But remember to balance one important point while picking, “substitutes create baggage” (click).

Women often want men to cater to their feelings. But this is often times unrealistic due to the fact that men are emotionally handicapped relative to women. Out of necessity of our God given responsibilities, our emotions have a shut-off valve that is uncontrollable at times. As we mature within a relationship, we attempt to control the flow of emotions to a manageable level. Too much flow of emotions and we start to doubt our own manliness. Too little emotions and our women are less and less satisfied.

Attentiveness comes from an emotional state, thus is a struggle for most men to maintain on a consistent basis. Women’s ability to do this is evidenced by their nurturing nature; this nature also creates a mental barrier to fully understanding the depth of male perceived manliness. This is just one of the frictional points that are common in most romantic relationships, I’m just pointing out the obvious, so both parties can make some concessions regarding the nature of their partner.

In a relationship your partner can be an adversary but not necessarily an enemy. An example of a women becoming an adversary while she tries to be supportive is when she attempts to comfort her man during a stressful time in his life. If he snaps at her or is unwelcoming to her attempts of comfort, it is because he feels that her self-interest in the matter creates more stress for him. For example:

I had a tough week at work, and on the carpool drive home my wife and I were talking about the fact that I may lose my job. She was trying to be encouraging by making positive comments. I was highly irritated and I wanted her to shut-up and stop attempting to cheer me up. Later that night I called my uncle and we began to talk about my work issues. After the conversation I realized that even though he in essence stated the exact things that my wife said in the car, I felt much better and less defensive once my uncle said those words. Why is that?  A person needs to adjust to how their partner needs support.  Sometimes just “leave me the fuck alone” will do just fine.  Just don’t let that method of coping cause another problem. 

My wife became my adversary in that situation due to the fact that my job security is directly linked to my ability to provide for my wife. Hence, my job is linked to my perceived manhood in the eye of my wife. As long as she focused on my problems, even if she was positive, I felt exposed and vulnerable.My uncle on the other hand is a third party that I am not responsible for, so his discussion presents less of a threat to my manhood.  So learning how best to comfort your partner in these stressful situations takes practice and patience. 

On the average, a woman is quite the opposite. If my wife was facing the loss of her job, she’d expect me to listen and engage in a conversation. She may appreciate my analyzing what steps she should take next, but she may be even more satisfied if I didn’t present solutions but just simply call her boss a crazy MF for even thinking about firing my baby.

Another example: My wife also wants me to stop watching sports so much and spend more time with her and the kids. She doesn’t understand that watching the Lakers enhances my life and is a coping mechanism in order to put up with the stresses of the daily grind. She doesn’t realize that nothing gets my blood pumping more, nothing gives me the sense of comradery than being a diehard Laker fan. So when she attacks me or stands in front of the TV during the playoffs and demands my attention it really pisses me off.

Many relationships have internal battles between the vice vs. the relationship. The one that is being demanded of, must objectively look at the situation from the other persons perspective. Because often times the vice is excessive or harmful, such as drinking alcohol. Yet for the demander he/she must not try to understand, but realize that vices are not relatable from the outside looking in, but they are very real. The only answer is objective consideration and compromise.

With a vice in one hand and a relationship in the other, one is forced to choose between the two. Even though neither of the options can singularly fill the void caused by the absence of the other, choices must be made. As for the pusher of the ultimatum, he or she often feels that this decision will determine their worth in the other persons life. That is an irrational mistake, understand, there is only one Kobe Bryant and there are millions of women out there.

Once your partner begins to turn into your adversary, your relationship will tend to take a nose dive.  In building a relationship two people should have open discussions on individual goals.  “Can I support her in that goal?”  If you can’t, you may become her adversary when she wants to invest relationship assets into a dream you have not bought into.  You may be thrilled with her failure or upset with her victory.   So she can’t run home and find true comfort in crying on your shoulder, or she can’t jump for joy with you in celebrating a victory. 

We all have those differences within our relationships.  You can’t possibly see eye to eye on everything.  So how do you continue to be supportive on an issue that you’re not totally behind?  It can sometimes get to the point of sabotage or resentment.  We first have to look at the real reason why we are so against our partner’s dreams.  We should be honest with ourselves and see if the root is jealousy or insecurity.  

“If she goes to college, she’ll think she’s too smart for me and start being attracted to college men.”  

“I don’t want him to open a restaurant because he’ll have power and prestige and female customers and employees will want him.”

If this is the case we rarely can face and admit it because it accentuates our flaws as people.  But that is an opportunity to truly grow as a person.  If you obtain the honest strength sit down with that person and start with:

“I love you and I want to support all that you desire.  Yet regarding your plans I have a feeling deep down that scares me.  When I think of it, my mind starts to doubt…”

By opening up with honest dialogue your relationship has the best chance of surviving.  Those conversations will allow your partner to understand your resistance, and address your concerns with a promise of devotion to the relationship.  Without the discussion, denying someone their dreams, or carrying such a heavy bag of negative feelings will take a toll on the relationship. 

If you remain her advocate, she will find comfort in you when dealing with the stresses of her trials.  To do otherwise will add stress and possibly create animosity towards you.

Once you decide to deal with your stress, you have to decide how to deal with it.  A major part of relationships is the sharing of stresses.  Either one will support and encourage the other, or one will cause the other person stress.  Yet in any case, when two people love each other, ones stress should automatically be the others concern.  So how a couple plans an attack of a source of stress is important. 

Dave Chappelle

There are three ways to deal with stress.  The first of which is Appraisal-focused strategies. This method is the changing of ones perception of the problem. To reduce the priority, or find the humor in the matter.  African Americans tend to use this method culturally.  In studying couples counseling sessions, you will tend to find more laughter and humor between African American couples prior to the raw emotions are evoked. 

The consistent and historical stress of the African American experience has manifested a culture that laughs at their common situations, as seen on many  African American comedy stages.  Even the use of the N word is an appraisal-focused coping methodology. 

This predominance within the African American culture has historically saved their sanity, yet in modern times it has created an expectance in the norm to the point that many find little to no problem with the ever increasing dysfunction of certain immoral social interactions.   Being poor and ignorant is a source of stress, yet in some circles, being ignorant is encouraged, because if you are smart, “you are trying to be white, or better than us”.  

The second method is Problem-focused coping.  This is the attempt to resolve the source of the stress. In this method information is gathered and problems are meant to be managed.  This tends to be the way the average man approaches issues, which typically is not the way women [initially] cope.  

Women generally utilize emotion-focused coping.  This is the main reason why women may find more serenity in the mere discussion of an existing source of stress, as my recent article “Women feel resolve by simply talking about it“ points out.  The main objective is not to attack the issue, it is to fix the ill feeling that the issue caused.  This is why men need to hug a women during a crisis, to give her support for the emotion she is feeling.  If we can comfort her emotion, to her, we have resolved much of the problem.  Yet as we comfort and console, we men are thinking about the source.  Yet if a man that is supposed to be her comforter chooses not to do so because he may be the source of the stress, or just occupied with problem-focusing, he is not effectively multitasking. He needs to be in tune with her emotional needs.

It is to the advantage of any relationship to understand how your partner deals with stress.  With this information we can realize that men and women complement each other in that way, and we can adjust how we interact in a stressful situation without creating more stress for one another. Part III will deal with the affect stress has on relationships.

OOOh, ummm, you think to yourself quickly, “does she want the truth, can she handle the truth, will I still get some?”  Questions to yourself don’t help, just delay your response which makes you appear shifty and uncomfortable…not good.  You want to divert with a joke so you shout in a deep theatrical voice “you can’t handle the truth!”  You smile, she giggles and follows with a sarcastic “than many hu?” The air is let out of the room and you proceed to suffocate.  You feel your throat getting warm, “well,“ you respond, “I am afraid to answer that question because I promised myself on the first date that I’d never lie to you, secondly, I don’t feel that question is irrelevant because if I had unsafe sex with only one person, that would be worse than being with 100 and safe every time.”  You relax because you are proud of your answer.  She replies, “That’s a bunch of bullshit, give me a number and we’ll go from there.”

The particulars to his answers are irrelevant to this story, what is relevant is the dialogue and the additional questions of how often unprotected and the biggy that will be very insulting but maybe very necessary, “ever with the same sex?”  During this conversation we all must determine our level of honesty as well our level of trust in the information provided.  Get tested together, this is where trust and monogomy really is important.

HIV is still growing within our population, we are not in the clear and we are never, outside of abstinence, 100% safe.  I recently read the book “The Naked Truth” by Marvelyn Brown, who was infected with HIV at the age of 19.  Just a reminder…Don’t let love or passion give you a false sense of imperviousness. You are too old for that, and too young to die.

So do you tell the truth, or avoid the conversation altogether?

I believe women often don’t need to seek a resolution to an issue in order to begin a heated debate.   Correct me if I’m wrong, but the simple taking the time and effort to address each other’s issues is more than enough to bring relative peace in the hearts of women.  I’ve often times found myself fighting off romantic advances at the end of a heated debate that to my estimation ended with no resolution.   So excuse me if I’m not feeling playful after that interrogation.  Yet she feels free and quite the opposite.   

So there appears to be a sense of resolution for a women where men sit in total dissatisfaction and discomfort.  The question is, should men appease the conversation despite his perception of a potential deadlocked outcome?   Maybe if we do attempt to find the words to communicate, it will place us in a much better situation than just grabbing the car keys and running for the door.

If a person refuses to trust their spouse, is it due to that person being untrustworthy?  Does the answer to fully trusting lie within one’s own ability to be trustworthy?  Maybe it is insecurities within that person that makes her doubt her ability to fully satisfy her spouse.  Or maybe he doesn’t trust simply due to his past ill experiences, being deceived and witnessing deception from close range?  Some may feel that to fully trust is to be fully taken for a fool, thus are reluctant to take that chance?

If trust is a prerequisite, we must get rid of the baggage of our past, rather personal, parental or vicariously witnessed, we can’t move forward with peace and optimism without resolving the past.  Yet if trust is not a requirement to being in a healthy relationship, how do we deal with the thought of mistrust?

Within 30 seconds they are up in each others faces daring each other to “bust a move”.  So your man proceeds to take all his might to this guys jaw bone, but before your mans fist can make contact, the guys pinpoint jab hits your man dead in the forehead.  Next thing you see is your man falling in slow motion to the floor like an Oak tree in the woods. He hits the floor and doesn’t move as he is knocked totally unconscious for a good 2 minutes.

After the crowd clears, and security assists (carries) your man to his car, you began to try to grasp the nights sudden unfolding of events.  Does this affect his manhood in your eye? Is your ability to look at him as the strong protector gone forever?  What is the conversation in the car like?