Dare To Ask Talk And News About Our Differences 
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The response ‘I’m blessed’, in response to ‘How are you?’ is indicative of Christian faith. The problems in some segments of the black community that you state as reasons that black women should not feel blessed don’t necessarily affect every black woman you meet. Also, black people have faced racism long enough that its reality doesn’t keep us from finding happiness and contentment in day-to-day life. Lastly, for many who have Jesus in their lives, the blessing of that relationship overshadows any tribulation they might face. Thus, they say they are blessed, no matter what the practical circumstances of their lives might be.
User Detail :
Name : Jennifer, Gender : F, Sexual Orientation : Straight, Race : Black/African American, Religion : Christian, Age : 31, City : St. Paul, State : MN, Country : United States, Occupation : Non-Profit, Education level : 4 Years of College, Social class : Middle class,I don’t know whether or not I qualify, because I have been sexually active, but because of a spiritual awakening, I became abstinent. My conviction is to remain so until marriage. I guess that implies that I can’t very well judge someone who hasn’t made the same choice. I do, however, have opinions about people who are “promiscuous.” I wonder about their self-esteem. I frown upon the cavalier treatment of something I consider sacred. I think about disease, unplanned pregnancy and the frequent emotional pain I perceive that people can suffer when they share their bodies with someone who doesn’t love them.
With regard to temptation, certainly. I feel longing sometimes. I have a healthy sexuality. However, it will never go beyond fantasy, because I know I can’t ever have a fulfilling sexual experience outside of a covenant made between myself, my husband and God. I should know, because I tried.
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Name : Jennifer, Gender : F, Sexual Orientation : Straight, Race : Black/African American, Religion : Christian, Age : 31, City : St. Paul, State : MN, Country : United States, Occupation : Non-Profit, Education level : 4 Years of College, Social class : Middle class,Rusty, I don’t know that your co-worker Denyse can speak for all of the young black women you’ve encountered. Maybe her explanation fits for some of them, but there are likely as many explanations as there are encounters. I was raised to return a smile for a smile, and a greeting for a greeting, with one caveat: If you get a sense that someone (a man) is leering rather than smiling, or greeting you in order to engage in a conversation you don’t care to have, you either ignore him or give a very subtle aknowledgment of his greeting and keep moving.
Further, in this day and age, I think many people have grown suspicious of kindness. We don’t expect, or encourage, interaction with strangers the way we may have in times past. Could any of this explain what you are experiencing?
User Detail :
Name : Jennifer, Gender : F, Sexual Orientation : Straight, Race : Black/African American, Religion : Christian, Age : 31, City : St. Paul, State : MN, Country : United States, Occupation : Non-Profit, Education level : 4 Years of College, Social class : Middle class,I praise ACC’s magnanimous response. I wish I felt similarly. In my mind I know that his response is the most constructive, but as a black person who has frequently been confronted with white people who don’t have much experience, if any, with people of my ethnicity, I have a hard time carrying the logic through to my emotional response. I understand that everyone is curious and wary about concepts that are new to them, and that everyone has prejudices. However, when *I* am in the same position as the ‘Newfie’ woman, I work hard to be very careful of how I bring my curiousity and wariness to the attention of the object. I expect the same from anyone for whom meeting me is a new experience. It’s fine, in my opinion, to ask questions about someone’s culture or experiences, but I resent being put in the position to defend my differentness, to reassure someone that i’m ‘okay’. I prefer not to hear what the uninformed suspect about people who look like me, or how strange it is to be around me. I prefer that they grapple with all of that in silence, or outside of my presence, do some research on my general culture on their own, use experience of me as an individual to form opinions about me as an individual and *not* as a representative of a monolith, and *then* ask intelligent, well-thought out questions.
User Detail :
Name : Jennifer, Gender : F, Sexual Orientation : Straight, Race : Black/African American, Religion : Christian, Age : 31, City : St. Paul, State : MN, Country : United States, Occupation : Non-Profit, Education level : 4 Years of College, Social class : Middle class,I’m trying to figure out what you mean. It’s not that I’ve never seen a black person purse their lips or heard a black person suck their teeth, it’s just that I’m not sure of the context. Are these people just sitting somewhere, when all of a sudden, their lips smoosh together? My dad, for example, sometimes cleans his teeth after having swallowed a mouthful of food by sucking on them, but I think I’ve heard white people do that, too.
Hmmm. Well, I’ve seen lots of black people suck on their teeth and make a sillibant sound when expressing disappointment or disbelief, before saying something like, ‘Whatever’ or ‘You’ve got to be kidding.’ Is that what you’re talking about? If so, I think it’s just a non-verbal expression of their opinion on whatever they’re reacting to, a punctuation, so to speak.
User Detail :
Name : Jennifer, Gender : F, Sexual Orientation : Straight, Race : Black/African American, Religion : Christian, Age : 31, City : St. Paul, State : MN, Country : United States, Occupation : Non-Profit, Education level : 4 Years of College, Social class : Middle class,I would have sent this to you via E-mail, but you don’t share your address. I just wanted to tell you how much I enjoy reading your responses. Not only are they balanced, but factually ‘on point’, and very incisive. You should write a book or a column for a newspaper or something!
User Detail :
Name : Jennifer, Gender : F, Sexual Orientation : Straight, Race : Black/African American, Religion : Christian, Age : 31, City : St. Paul, State : MN, Country : United States, Occupation : Non-Profit, Education level : 4 Years of College, Social class : Middle class,This has been thoroughly addressed at least once on this board within the past 100 or so questions. Why not have a look back through the archives? I don’t think anyone’s going to answer, because I think people are sick of answering.
User Detail :
Name : Jennifer, Gender : F, Sexual Orientation : Straight, Race : Black/African American, Religion : Christian, Age : 31, City : St. Paul, State : MN, Country : United States, Occupation : Non-Profit, Education level : 4 Years of College, Social class : Middle class,I’d have to say that if your girlfriend has been with you for 3 1/2 years, it’s unlikely that she’s not attracted to you. There’s a lot of information missing from your question that makes it hard to give an opinion. Does she know you are a virgin? Could she be under the impression that you’re a virgin for spiritual reasons? Maybe she’s trying to respect that. Have you spoken to her about your desire to take things further? That’s really the only way you’ll find out her point of view. Maybe she isn’t a virgin and regrets it, and wants to wait until marriage to have sex again. You never know until you ask her.
User Detail :
Name : Jennifer, Gender : F, Sexual Orientation : Straight, Race : Black/African American, Religion : Christian, Age : 31, City : St. Paul, State : MN, Country : United States, Occupation : Non-Profit, Education level : 4 Years of College, Social class : Middle class,I’m a little concerned with the self-satisfied tone of your post. Despite your contention to the contrary, most black hair does not benefit from daily washing. In fact, overexposure to water tends to have a drying effect, such that the hair becomes brittle and breaks much more easily. Women who maintain that daily washing depletes the natural oils of the scalp are telling it like it is. Really, who are you to assume that you know better about someone ELSE’S hair? If your hair grows the way you say, you likely have a different texutre, to which the standard rules of black hair care may not apply. Well, good for you. But that doesn’t qualify you to give advice to everyone. I wouldn’t be so proud, if I were you. Your hair is probably due to genetics, and not to any superior knowledge about haircare that you seem to percieve that you have. As far as shaving is concerned, there are a lot of women who don’t, of all ethnicities. There could be a variety of reasons: lack of vanity, the idea that if it grows ‘there’, it belongs ‘there’, and a fact that may surprise you–some black men like a hairy woman.
User Detail :
Name : Jennifer, Gender : F, Sexual Orientation : Straight, Race : Black/African American, Religion : Christian, Age : 31, City : St. Paul, State : MN, Country : United States, Occupation : Non-Profit, Education level : 4 Years of College, Social class : Middle class,I’m sure you know that the multi-billion dollar athletic shoe industry isn’t supported solely by poor blacks, but to answer your question, I think that in neighborhoods where no one has much, respect and status is gained by having. It’s sad, but people deal with poverty in a lot of ways that don’t make sense to others.
User Detail :
Name : Jennifer, Gender : F, Sexual Orientation : Straight, Race : Black/African American, Religion : Christian, Age : 31, City : St. Paul, State : MN, Country : United States, Occupation : Non-Profit, Education level : 4 Years of College, Social class : Middle class,I think that, despite the diversity of religions embraced by African Americans, much of our religious heritage is centered on Christianity of the strictest, old-fashioned, fire and brimstone variety. In this tradition, homosexuality is considered a terrible sin, a demon by which one is possessed, not simply a variety of sexual orientation that one is born with, just as one is born heterosexual. Many people use this interpretation of Scripture as an excuse to justify their own hatred, and some people believe in the teachings about homosexuality fervently enough to speak out about it. This is my theory on why homophobia is so much more prevalent or vocally expressed in the black community.
As for the feelings of black people about the comparison between the struggle for Civil Rights in the ’60s and the struggle for Gay Rights today, I can only speculate on the opinions of black people at large. The Civil Rights movement of the ’60s was largely organized around the Church. It could be that black people who object to the comparison object to what they consider the attempt to defend a sinful way of life using as a model a movement that was so invested with faith in Jesus Christ as they understood it. Further, it could be that some African Americans resent the comparison between black skin itself, something that a person can’t help having and need not be ashamed of, with homosexuality, which they believe is a sinful choice, and something of which one SHOULD be ashamed.
User Detail :
Name : Jennifer, Gender : F, Sexual Orientation : Straight, Race : Black/African American, Religion : Christian, Age : 31, City : St. Paul, State : MN, Country : United States, Occupation : Non-Profit, Education level : 4 Years of College, Social class : Middle class,If you’re talking about hard rock, like Led Zeppelin, I think there are a lot of black people who like it. Let’s face it: Zeppelin rules! Besides, hard rock can have some rhythm to it, and some melody, and the artists actually sing. With the harder stuff, like Black Sabbath, Dio, MotorHead, Metallica, stuff like that, I think many black people are intimidated by the scary lyrics and image of a given group, and turned off by what they think of as noise, not music, screaming, not singing, and the fact that you can’t really dance to it. Others may not like it because they just haven’t been exposed to it enough to learn.
User Detail :
Name : Jennifer, Gender : F, Sexual Orientation : Straight, Race : Black/African American, Religion : Christian, Age : 31, City : St. Paul, State : MN, Country : United States, Occupation : Non-Profit, Education level : 4 Years of College, Social class : Middle class,I don’t doubt that what you say is true. I’m responding because it struck me that yet again, the racist types ruin things for others. Specificly, because racist skinheads are the most visible, and possibly the largest group in the subculture, the uninitiated think that all skinheads are racist. In fact, the subculture has its roots in both Jamaica and London, and it wasn’t about race back then. It was about being working-class. There are a great number of skins who are not only non-racist, but some who are virulently anti-racist. They’re kicking ass in a lot of cases, yes. Nazi ass. Given the nature of Rage Against the Machine’s music, The ones seen at the concert were likely this variety. Can’t say about the other bands, though.
User Detail :
Name : Jennifer, Gender : F, Sexual Orientation : Straight, Race : Black/African American, Religion : Christian, Age : 31, City : St. Paul, State : MN, Country : United States, Occupation : Non-Profit, Education level : 4 Years of College, Social class : Middle class,One small qualifying word, ‘many,’ makes a big difference. It may be true when you say MANY blacks don’t tip much, or at all, but the way you stated it is divisive and wrong. I am black, and tip well, consistently, unless the service was appallingly bad. Are you a polite and solicitous server, or do you act as if you are doing your guests a favor when you wait on them? I’m not saying this is the explanation in all or even most of the circumstances, but could it be in yours? Sometimes I wonder whether lots of white people are too bashful to complain when they aren’t happy, and would rather tip poor service than ‘make a scene.’ Most black people I know have learned that if you want something or you aren’t happy, you’d better make it known, or things won’t change.
User Detail :
Name : Jennifer, Gender : F, Sexual Orientation : Straight, Race : Black/African American, Religion : Christian, Age : 31, City : St. Paul, State : MN, Country : United States, Occupation : Non-Profit, Education level : 4 Years of College, Social class : Middle class,It makes perfect sense to me. Dark skin is beautiful!
User Detail :
Name : Jennifer, Gender : F, Sexual Orientation : Straight, Race : Black/African American, Religion : Christian, Age : 31, City : St. Paul, State : MN, Country : United States, Occupation : Non-Profit, Education level : 4 Years of College, Social class : Middle class,
