Black women and girls beware, beware, beware. Beware of the Black women’s cult of perpetual suffering and bad choices. There is a small but vocal group of Black women; I believe they are a cult because they are downright religious about it, who believe our lives are destined to be full of suffering and despair. They believe bad choices and mule behavior (click here to learn about mule behavior) are the norm for Black women. They pray, encourage, actively seek and engage in bad choices because they believe it makes them pious and holy. Who knew having litters of kids, with different dads, no dad around, with a household full children with different last names and doing it by yourself were good things? Who knew trying to fix a man was a good thing? Who knew taking care of your grown ass kids children was a good thing? Who knew poverty and struggle were good things? Who knew having low or even no expectations for yourself and your partner were good things? The maddening thing is that many wear their suffering and bad choices on their chest as a badge of honor and it is not. The world looks at them as an example of what not to do.
They wrap their bad choices and miserable lives under the guise of religion and believe they are suffering just as Jesus did. They forget that their deity suffered so they wouldn’t not have too. They are the ones to tell you to accept your lot and settle for mediocrity because they have decided to. The sad truth is that these women offer bad advice because they are jealous and want you to be just as miserable as they are.
Here are some of the things perpetual suffering and bad choices cult members say and do:
- Tell you life is about struggle and suffering.
- Believe that dysfunction is normal.
- Claim that money is the root to all evil and are content with being broke.
- Try to guilt you from succeeding and steer you towards bad choices. They say “you think are better than me” because they are insecure.
- Tell you, you must fix or uplift a broken man.
- Tell you not to judge poor personal choices.
- Because you are doing well, it is your responsibility to take care of family members who are not. If you don’t you are a “b.”
- Live in violent communities and encourage you to work and stay to save that community.
- Ask you to march for others when they won’t march for you.
- Call you selfish because you take care of your health.
- Call you cheap because you refuse to lend them money.
- Call you names because you refuse to reward bad behavior.
- Call you bougie or a “b” because you do not support criminality.
- Tell you to lower your standards.
- Believe that wealth is sinful and piety and poverty are godly.
- Think it is OK to date a convict.
- They believe it is OK to treat a boyfriend like your husband.
- They think it is OK to date and mate with a man who is uneducated or unskilled.
- Believe it is OK to reproduce with a man who cannot provide for you and himself.
- Believe it is OK reproduce with a man who lacks ambition, self-pride or self-esteem because you must fix him. If he broken it is because you didn’t let a man be a man.
- Believe it is OK to date and mate with a serial baby daddy.
- They encourage women to have litters of children they can’t afford.
- They call litters of children “blessings” instead of responsibilities.
- They encourage single parenthood as a viable option for those who cannot afford children.
- They believe it is OK to saddle grandparents and other relatives with their abandoned litters.
- They think it is OK to reproduce with a man who will not provide for their children.
- They tell you marriage doesn’t matter and they’ve never been married.
- If you are marriage minded, they think it is normal to reproduce with a man who doesn’t see marriage as an option.
- Pressure you to reproduce even though you want to be childless.
- They expect you to provide for and take care of grown individuals and their children.
I want you to observe the people who give this poor advice. Are they happy? NO! Are they living the best life possible? NO! Were there choices they could have made that could have made their lives better? YES! They are probably sick, broken and are waiting to die because they can’t wait to get to heaven. I am asking you, why listen to them? Sister you are not destined for doom and gloom. You are destined for greatness and it is up to you to decide to do so. If you believe in a deity, your deity gave you the free will to choose. Let them stew in their own misery while you focus on living the best life possible. That means doing things that only benefit your life and avoiding people, choices and situations that don’t.
REQUIRED READING: Please read “Sanctified and Suffering” for examples of Black women who choose suffering over their own well-being. (H/T Autumn C. )
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Thanks for reading. The only limit you have is the one you have placed on yourself. Think and be limitless.
Thank you! I was working this summer and I had to support so many family members who are not doing something for themselves. When I refuse to give someone money, the amount of heat I received was ridiculous. It is so draining, especially financially to have to support grown-a&& people when I am still a college student myself.
Meanwhile, none of these people are helping me pay for my tuition.
YES sis. Live the best life possible. You can love them but stay away. Focus on your education and life. I am so proud of you!!
And lets not forget the ubber religious,black wives who stay in abusive marriages with lousy uneducated negro men. They put up with cheats, liars, and they also have husbands who have babies behind their backs with multiple women. Yet they are stubborn and stay. They end up paying child support, for their husbands baby mammas and end up in the poor house as well as losong their own alllllll in the Name of JEEEZZZZUUUSSS!!! and HIS baby mommas. They know they are black and female they are not the mostt sought after, or taken seriously for marriage,so they believe it’s hard to find someone else to marry. one of the problems is blak women self esteem about their looks and hair,they have been been conditioned to see themselves as ugly and unwanted or damaged because society brain washed the black woman to see themselves as lucky just to get a man. The appearance of being “loved,needed ,blessed,wanted and desired”out weighs alternative realities o looking ungodly unChristian We worry too much about what we put on our head instead of in our heads. Being marroed to a butt doesnt equate to love or happiness. Sometimes just going to school getting a fat check as a woman is enough. black women need to get that money true love is hard to find for anyone. Why settle ?
TELL IT!!!!
So true! That is why I don’t have any Black female friends. They think that I am uppity and stuck up nefore getting to know me. And judge my goals for wanting to be a journalist and author as too high standards. But I will work on becoming a journalist one day no matter what anyone tells me.
If they can’t support you and your goals; if they cannot understand that you have high standards, love them, from a distance. LOL!!
If you were posting asking for advice on moving to NYC. Go for it, ask your mother. BUT, I wouldn’t leave without a couple months’ worth of living expensive saved up for emergencies.
Go for scholarships and attend community college first to save on tuition.
Create a blog and reach out to other popular bloggers you admire and offer to guest post.
Always have a job. One that pays tips-barista, waitress, bartender, coatcheck clerk-or benefits.
this is SO ON POINT: “They wrap their bad choices and miserable lives under the guise of religion and believe they are suffering just as Jesus did.”
the brainwashing starts in childhood with religion and so it’s no mystery why we adopt this martyrdom complex. It’s disgusting and needs to die a violent and bloody death,
Another great topic. The sad reality is that no one wants to admit that religion plays a huge part by conditioning many black women to believe that it is their lot in life to suffer. If they change their way of thinking, they will eventually change their lives.
Oh my god I can hardly sit still after reading this! I hope that EVERY single Black woman on the planet reads this and gets a wake up call!!! I am so sick and tired of this doom n gloom sentiment that has poisoned Black women, and that prevents them from having fulfilling lives. I find it absolutely repulsive when women AND men have children in this manner. This is the 21st century, contraceptives are readily accessible all over the place so I don’t understand it! Even my mother tries to excuse riff raff men who create multiple single mothers all over the place, by suggesting that this is just “man behavior”… I’m sorry but “man behavior” are the men who don’t just carelessly impregnate women they don’t want, creating babies that they can’t afford to make. Some might call what I’m saying “poor bashing” but I am sorry there are FAR to much resources and information available for people to make excuses.
Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Love this and will share.
YES YES YES! Those who push these toxic and dysfunctional ideas onto the next generation of Black American women do not truly love them and want them to do better. The fact that what you have shared here is even viewed as controversial illustrates how ‘off’ some people are.
Well what seems to be encouraged is for Black women to stop being Black first and a woman a distant second. Stop living your life like a Black person who just so happens to be a woman. Quit trying to have community with people who only see you as a tool to what they really want. Black men live and thrive off being men who just so happen to Black. The church is a crutch…and a way to manipulate Black women. Religion is a strong elixir and many love how ‘strong Black women’s faith is’. Strong enough that we embrace burdens and slights and turmoil as a badge of pride to be worn. Its all a twisted game that leads to nothing good for Black women and the children they are saddled with. May this nonsense cease with this younger generation.
Some really insightful blogging and I love your fb status updates!!
I wholeheartedly agree with your assessment. I dated a woman who had an adult son that she was providing for, 100 percent. Needles to say, she objected when I expressed that I refuse to spend money on her when she was financially supporting another grown man. If you are taking care of another man that refuse to be responsible for his own financial support, I am not willing to contribute to that behavior. Surprisedly, many black women take offence when a brother points out that men are responsible for themselves. Additionally, many young men today manipulate their single mothers by insisting, how hard it is for a black male to become responsible in today’s society. Let me remind you that we as black men have had to face the challenge of American society for the last 350 or so years. Yet, many of us do learn how to navigate the system, and provide for their families. There comes a time when, despite the odds, a man must rise from his knees and begin to walk with dignity and confidence.
Aww Right, Mr. Mays!, I totally agree,
Well stated Bougieblackgirl. I still consider myself a woman of God or a higher being, it keeps me sane and it’s the only thing I can turn to when I’m having personal issues.
However, overtly religious black women or people overall (men included) are the one’s I steer clean away from. They’re so toxic to black women it’s sickening. I have a family full of them and they scare me to death. It leads to nothing but bad things and I’m sick of them forcing their outdated gender ideas on black women who prefer to be successful in their own right.
We’re not obligated to be mammies to big grown people, I’m sick of that mess.