This was a blog I posted on my tumblr. Wanted to share and get some feed back on. Tried to organize my thoughts without being to long winded or by rambling. But it was hard:
My best friend. Her boyfriend. Very much so in love. They had a problem. Sat down to talk about it. Said a few things that might have hurt one another. No raised voices, yelling, or screaming… Realized that there are some things that they both needed to work on. Internally. There wasn’t any external factors involved. None whatsoever. After the discussion, they went on to cook dinner, talk some more, clean, go to bed finishing off with an I Love You. End of story.
They are both African Americans. Attend a majority school. Now sadly to say, if you were tell someone a story like this (in my environment) to your homegirl and n*gga (a term that we commonly use with no guilt) they wouldn’t believe it. That’s the perfect relationship. “Ain’t no body have all dat.”
This pains me to no end. Why is it so hard, painfully hard, for black love to exist. I’m pro-interracial dating as well. But black love - we have a problem here. And its internal. I have a beginning to the unsuccessful black relationship (in the environment that I am in), but no end. So help me out here:
Education and black love. Back in the day, when African Americans finally had the right to attend universities and colleges they pushed themselves to do better and be better. Thrived in academics. Made a point that I can be just as smart as anyone else lighter than my skin color… We attended HBCUs to be surrounded by amazing black people who too wanted to do something for themselves. Blacks found comfort in their profound people. Wanted to look for a spouse, who the same, wants so much more and BETTER. And then today’s generation decided to slap its disease in our schools. I love my HBCU but I can only count two genuine and heartfelt relationships on this campus. No one comes to school thinking “I’ll meet the one who aspires to be like me or greater…” Because half of these schools are starting to fill with individuals who have no business being here…
50/50. What I have realized within HBCU’s (today and near future) is that there are two crowds. The one who came here to surround themselves around educated beings of the same race and color. The ones who did amazingly well in majority schools. The ones who wanted to find something within their race. Something profound. And there are the ones who got in with there 1.9 GPA and lack of vision in their future. The more-than-a-handful crowd that got in because… well… we wanted more people. So now you have the talented ten looking for another talented ten spouse in a pool of, excuse my words, incompetent individuals.
No pain, no gain. Now our talented ten, who have amazing potential in this society of ours, do not feel the need to push so hard. Because we already know this handful of people are 100 times better than the ones who slipped in, so why give it an extra push to be better and do better when, naturally, I AM better… No more academic pain in our systems. Sad but true. Even I feel the lack of competition in my field. Even I’m guilty for my shamming and effortless work. Which then trickles into the way we carry out our daily deeds. We become lazy with people. We have no patience to work things out with the good people. Because there’s others around who won’t give us so much trouble. We don’t need the difficult. The lack of trust begins. Then society takes over our insecurities with that lack of trust… And then females become crazy by “policing” our men with their every move. And now men not having the patience with the one female who wants to take her time, because there’s another next door that is quick to let you have whatever. it. is. that. you. want. There’s no more “good” pain in our society because we’ve become impatient with it…. Hence we have no great gains in our relationships.
It’s one thing to see it with a group of people who don’t know any better. But this nasty disease is trickling into our own being. We have no healthy relationships. Not even the healthy minded and educated souls of our race have the patience anymore.
That story up there of this “perfect” argument is far from perfect. It’s being real. It’s about understanding. Our relationships die so quick because the minute we get into an argument we leave the option on the table for the other person to walk away. But why does every relationship have to end? Why can’t it just grow?
Now why am I relating this to school? College years are our prime years. Where we grow and we learn and we fall and we jump back up… If this is the example we set in our school… Why would it change when we leave?
My HBCU builds us up for the real world, but slowly took the hope of amazing healthy relationships with our people… I’m trying to figure out when and how it will reverse. Change of action? Change of thought? It’s an aching pain for me…
That’s all for now.
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**Side note: I speak from attending an HBCU and seeing the difference in successful relationships after leaving here verses attending a majority university.**
