Can Black women ‘have it all’?
Driven on domestic violence awareness
Caribbean Life, November 6-12, 2020 35
By Terri Schlichenmeyer
You can’t stand to watch
another happily-ever-after
movie again.
You’re done with all those
romancy novels, tender songs
of love, and dreams of flowers
every Valentine’s Day. Statistically
speaking — and being
realistic — that stuff isn’t in
the cards for you, and in “Black
Women, Black Love” by Dianne
M. Stewart, you’ll see how this
might have happened.
About a decade ago, the Census
Bureau released a sobering
fact: nearly three out of
four Black women in America
were not married. More than
half of those women had never
even been to the altar and, says
Stewart, it wasn’t really their
fault.
“The trouble is not with
Black women failing to value
marriage,” she says, “it is the
shrinking demographic of
those whom Black women want
to marry.”
Book cover of “Black Women, Black Love: America’s War
on African American Marriage” by Dianne M. Stewart.
The issue, she says, goes
back to the time of slavery.
By the very act of being
brought to America on slave
ships, African women were separated
from husbands, families,
and cultures and, once
here, were shuffled from place
to place. For young enslaved
women, then, finding a new
partner often meant looking
elsewhere, “on different
estates,” leading to more
separation. Sometimes, slave
women had no choice in partners,
period: they were told
who they were going to marry
and procreate with.
Post-war, it was discovered
that some of the unions created
or forced during slavery
weren’t always recorded, leaving
former slaves with multiple
spouses, scattered families,
invalidated marriages, and
war-widows who couldn’t prove
their status.
By the early 1900s, Black
women began losing their husbands
— and their own lives —
to attacks and lynching. In the
1930s, Aid to Dependent Children
(later, AFDC) was created;
by the 1960s, such programs
“punished Black love” through
programs that essentially sent
Black men away from their
families. And in this century,
the astronomical rates of
incarceration of Black men of
marriageable age mean fewer
Black men on the “marriage
market.”
So “will Black women ever
have it all?”
It’ll take some adjustment,
as author Dianne M. Stewart
indicates, and the solution may
be controversial and absolutely
will require change in government,
in our collective attitudes,
and within an individual
woman’s mindset.
To be clear, this isn’t a How-
To guide. It’s not even a relationship
book, really. Instead,
“Black Women, Black Love”
lays out an eye-opening, painful,
provocative history lesson
that points solidly back
to, and underscores, Stewart’s
point: that Black Americans
— men and women — have
been manipulated for centuries
toward a dearth of romantic
options, through no fault of
their own.
And yet, before offering a
number of ideas for change
within the Black community,
Stewart reserves some blame
for Black Americans themselves.
She points, for instance,
at perceived “value” that allows
unmarried Black men to “develop
simultaneous relationships”
and delay settling down, and
she examines Black attitudes
toward dark and light skin and
perceptions of marriageability.
This leaves readers with
thought-provokers, things to
reflect upon, and reasons to
roll up their sleeves. There’s
work to do, and “Black Women,
Black Love” could finally get
you that happily-ever-after,
after all.
“Black Women, Black
Love: America’s War on
African American Marriage”
by Dianne M. Stewart
c.2020, Seal Press
$30.00 / $38.00 Canada
336 pages
“Black Women, Black Love” author Dianne M. Stewart. Heather LaShun
By Nelson A. King
Marie Driven, the Haitian
American managing partner
and co-founder of the Brooklyn
based entertainment company,
Playbook Media Group
(PlaybookMG), has said she has
wrapped up Domestic Violence
Awareness Month with a particular
idea in mind.
She has partnered with boxers
and mixed martial artists
to offer self-defense courses for
survivors.
Driven said she delved into
the “complicated topic,” via
numerous online platforms,
over the past few weeks, both
as a guest speaker and a moderator,
with the mission of helping
to raise funds for people
impacted by domestic violence
and are still surviving.
Recently, she opened up on
social media to share her own
very personal story.
“On May 13, 2020, I was
physically abused by the person
I was dating,” she said. “It was
such a shocker to me, because
I would never think he would
take his anger so far, especially
with my birthday being a week
away.
“I will always remember my
two black eyes and a broken
nose, which motivated me to
protect myself to engage in selfdefense
training and women
empowerment,” she added. “I
decided to build strength with
my trainer and started to box
with my boxer to learn how to
defend myself.
Through the healing process,
Driven said she discovered
that sessions with Solfitness @
solfitness7 helped with coping
with “the trauma,” and that
they “positively impacted mental
and physical recovery.”
She said they inspired her
to “organize this program for
domestic violence survivors
and (to) encourage others to
activate their power within.”
Driven urged readers to
help fund the Driven Against
Domestic Violence Self Defense
Courses via online donation:
www.gofundme.com/f/drivenagainst
domestic-violence
/driven-against-domestic-violence
/driven-against-domestic-violence
/driven-against-domestic-violence
