Wednesday is style/women day on invisibleblog.com.

by Shawn Whitsell

When I’m not working as a freelance journalist, I spend a great portion of my time working in the theatre arts – acting, producing, writing and directing. Currently, I am a cast member of a play called, “The 70% Club,” a comedy/drama by actress/playwright Mary McCallum (sistastyle.net). The play is based on a New York Times article which reported that, according to 2005 census data, 70% of black women are without a spouse.

This is a shockingly high percentage. It made me think about my own mother and all the years she spent as an unmarried single mother of three between her divorce from my father and her 2002 marriage to my stepfather. It also made me think of my young daughter and nieces. I wondered if the percentage would be higher once they became of marrying age, or if, as a community, we can get to the bottom of this phenomenon, so to speak.

I’m aware that people may look at this statistic and instantly blame black men. Of course we share some of the blame, but it’s not all our fault. The truth of the matter is, there are actually black women out there who are so career-driven that they may not want to settle down until later in life. There are a host of other reasons, both positive and negative, that add to this number.

However, I’d like to focus on particular component - the “babymama/babydaddy” mentalities that plagued African American communities. Sure, there will always be unplanned pregnancies among unmarried people (of all races). I was born unto unmarried teenaged parents so I know I wasn’t planned. I also have a daughter who was born out of wedlock. So, I’m definitely not passing judgment. However, it seems that to a degree, it’s become acceptable to for young African American men and women to have baby after baby (often with multiple partners) without being married (http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/_dmn_black_amer_crisis.htm). Some young teenage girls (and boys) think it’s cute to be 16 and expecting.

We desperately need to condition ourselves and our children to understand that this sort of lifestyle should not be the norm in our community. Of course it will happen, but we shouldn’t be so desensitized to it the way we are. We should look at the epidemic of pregnant teenage girls as a crisis in our community. We need to re-institute the value of marriage and the benefits of having children with the person you’ve committed yourself to, physically, mentally, spiritually and legally. We need to teach our young girls the importance of finding a man who loves her and wants to make an honest woman out of her and not just settle for some commitment-shy babydaddy who doesn’t get around to marrying her until their eldest child is in high school. We also need to encourage the young brothers in the same way. We need to rid them of these mentalities that hold us back and recondition their minds to think more progressively when it comes to marriage and family. Brothers need to understand that our woman is our queen - our jewel - not our bitch, our whore, or our burden.

As an unmarried black man who has certainly made my share of mistakes with women, I know that I have work to do on myself to prepare for a wife. I’m currently seeking counsel from God about this issue. I hope that I can be an example to young brothers in the black community. Most importantly, I hope that I can be example to my daughter, Destiny, about what a real man is so that she’ll know how to recognize one. I’ll continue to pray for the black women in that 70 percent. I pray that they are either happy where they are or that they’ll find that happiness in a mate that I know so many of them are desperately seeking.