missing out on a hidden blessing

So the post before this one had been sitting in draft for a couple of weeks. This past weekend, my mom and I were talking and she shared something that sat me back on my heels. There were men in my family church who were pillars of the community and leaders in the church. Their wives and families looked up to them and followed them. My mom blew my image by telling me how they could not read. She started out telling me about a neighbor who would bring his money home to his mother. Mom explained that his father had done the same thing, because he was unable to read and was limited in counting. I guess my look of shock led her to reveal that these more well respected men had the same secret. They were able to count, but their literacy skills were very limited. She went on to say that these captains of industry in our local African American community would have their wives with them when they went to the bank and other places of business. I listened and thought, the first black millionaire in our community would have had a very hard time landing a good black woman in this era. I was out with a friend the other day, we ran into an older black woman I know through work. My friend is just who he is 24-7 and asked me the spelling of a word. When he stepped away for a moment, the older woman asked "where did you meet him" in a tone that sounded less than approving and more judgemental. I was taken back by her judgemental tone. She obviously hadn't noticed our level of comfort, the shared silent jokes, or his generous nature. She seemed to note that he was different. Now it may have been a bone of contention for her that he was white. After all she takes great pleasure in mentioning the HBCUs her son and daughter attended, however I suspect it was a bit more classicism than racism. But I thought about what my mom had told me this weekend and wondered, how many times have we as black women, our mothers, sisters, friends and even well meaning outer circle near do wells excluded a perfectly good partner candidate because we deemed him not good enough. There are lots of legitimate reasons to exclude a man, but is his social class a good one? My friend insisted that I see Something New when it came out because she and everyone else insisted I was much like the main character. Alone, spending most of my time in my job and focused on having a BMW...Black Man Working. The movie lightly addresses the expectations we have of finding an educated, God fearing, over achieving Black man who out performs us. The funny thing is that this would be okay for those who are in the for profit world, cause you don't see and know first hand what we do. But, those of us in the helping professions know darn well that the odds are against us and yet we continue to look for the needle in a haystack. We know that first of all, black male babies have a higher infant mortality rate than female babies. We know that black girls began to out perform black boys mid way through elementary school, not because we are smarter, but culture and society make it tougher for the boys. We know that the number of black girls graduating from high school out number boys. We know that black girls attend college far more. We know that black males far out number any other race of males in jail. We know based on health department numbers that numbers of black males are homosexual or living on the down low. Yet faced with those numbers, we continue to pray for, expect, accept nothing but an equally educated and well employed brother. This is not my open your eyes and taste the rainbow speech. That's for Evia and her blog. This is my get real speech. Think back to your high school economics class. Remember the terms supply and demand? Well the educated and paid brothers are in high demand, but the supply is low. Guess what that means...ok if you are having problems with this go to your nearest gas station and wait there for the next big travel holiday. The prices will go up. A BMW knows he's a BMW and his price tends to be quite high, so does his taste and frankly he tends to not be worth the hype. Many are arrogant, less than faithful, selfish, demanding and not a few decide they are too value to be trusted to the likes of a black woman. After some thought, I decided that if I found a honest, hard working, good hearted brother who appreciated me and didn't think he was God's gift to women, I would be just fine with the fact that he had a blue collar job. I will not compromise on addictions, down low, two timing, abusive, general trifling behaviors, but education, job title, and what he wears to work are things we can work with. He can be cleaned up and dressed up, but you can't wash hard heartiness off man, you can't shampoo away a "better than you" or a "you're lucky to have me" attitude. I want someone who will cheer me on, and I'll do the same. Not someone who expects me to always take one for the team because he's the star quarterback. I'm not saying an educated, prosperous brother can't be a good husband. I think its just harder for him. If you are a female, ask your grandmother about your granddad's skills and how she helped him. Maybe the perfect guy for you just repaired your car, or rolled your trash receptacle back up to your house, or flagged you to pass on the left side of road. If he's not the one for you...ask him how he feels about "good and plenty thick sisters" and pass the wealth my way! :)