My very soul was traumatized very early on by a black man. My father, a black man left my mother and my brothers and sisters and I. A black man, my childhood sweetheart, who promised to love and honor and cherish me all the days of my life, abused me beyond belief. But in my heart of hearts, I could not turn my back on my black man. I could not in all honesty use these black men as a measuring stick for what a man really should be or do. I began a journey into discovering who I was and to learn what I, an afrikan woman needed from the black men in my life, and set about re-writing the entire script that was my life and included healthy black men in that script.

It is my belief that sometimes, we actually forget who we are and where we came from. We tend to believe the lies we are told about ourselves and won’t get it through our heads that we had civilization a long time before our enslavement. How many of us truly understand that we descend from royalty? We are the original race. But enslavement got this all mucked up. The oppressors beat all the pride out of our afrikan men. They beat them in order that they could not rise again to become all that they could become. Some of our afrikan men are still living with that enslavement and have allowed other forms of enslavement to rule their lives.

Just look what happens when they get a little bit of money, what do they buy? Chains! All sorts of gold chains to symbolize money they think. To me, they represent returning to the slavery our ancestors fought so hard to free themselves from! They will put our afrikan women on the street corners or the ‘ho strolls to buy those chains! To me, that is akin to the auction blocks that we are not so far from in our history.  They sell our women for chains of bondage to the almighty dollar, the oppressors dollar. I don’t need an afrikan man like that.

Some of our young men fight turf wars over real estate that they don’t even own. I don’t recall these gang members controlling or buying any land or having deeds to any property.  Are they developing the areas they assume to control? Are these neighborhoods going up in value? What are they realizing from their "gains". They are certainly not seeing the "guns and butter" aspect of economics. Yet, let us bring up the Motherland and we hear all about "tribal wars", which is really an excuse to us to stay dumbed down. I surely do not need an afrikan man like that.

What about the brother that will tell his woman to get her tired behind out of bed to get to work? He has no job, no education, no plans to do anything. She has to get HIS children to daycare and he will take her to work and come back and get her when he gets ready after running her gas out of the car and expect her to pay for it. Where has he been all day is anyone’s guess, but she had better not ask, or she will get the hell beat out of her. Then he will stay out all night doing God knows what to God knows who and bring any number of STD’s home to her. Do I need this?

What about the man who has just gotten out of prison for the upteenth time whose woman has stood by his side each and every time? He has always promised "this time will be the last baby". She has taken his collect calls, put money on his books, taken care of the children and maintained the house. But he comes out and jeopardizes it all by going back to the same old life, drugs and all. When he goes before the judge again for sentencing on the next case he catches, he truly believes his woman is right there at sentencing and expects her to do his time with him. I most certainly do not  need that one.

Oh, I had brother man’s children and have been by his side for 18 years while he went to medical school and started his practice. Now he is not feeling me any longer. He wants the white woman who will look good on his arm and is better for his image. I no longer fit the bill. Ain’t that a blip?  I was good enough to be his lover during the sickness and no money part, but the best parts of his life, he wants to share it with a white woman.

Now I have given birth to my man’s children and have all the stretch marks to prove it. I have taken his infidelity and his beatings and have those scars as well. I have worked to support this marriage and him, and he leaves to get a pack of cigarettes and never returns. I go on to make a life for myself and my children in spite of that madness and here his sorry behind comes crawling back after 5 years and no child support and the kids are grown wanting me to take him back. Ain’t having that mess.

Now Gurl I have found the Afrikan man of my dreams! Seems too good to be true! Turns out he is. Not only is he dating me, but he is dating every Sister he can get his hands on and his feet too. The freak. Cancel his subscriptions! He has enough issues! Talking some mess about don’t hate the playa, hate the game. This ain’t no game brothers! This is life! And I’m supposed to not have any feelings either. Just supposed to forget that mess and chill on that. Humf.

Oh Lawd, here comes "freeze frame". Bro man stuck in time. Oh no he did not just ask me that! Hell to the Naw! Do I look like some Sister that you can just come up to and ask " boo when you gon let me hit that?". Now where in your psychedelic mind did you get some madness like that? Did that jheri curl fry your brain bro man? I ain’t the one! I have nothing you can "hit".  I do not need any man who thinks he can 'hit' any part of my body, no matter the context of the word.

Now what made this beautiful Afrikan man tell me that I needed a man with a "little thug in him"? Say What? And he had the nerve to ask me if he stuttered! Why would I need a thug, a crack head, an alcoholic, a gambler, a repeat felon, a playa, a coward or any man that could not be given away on a beg-a-thon with Keith Sweat, Gerald LeVert and Boyz II Men trying to give the brother away. I am an Afrikan Queen. Make no mistake about who I am. I certainly do not.

What do I need in my Afrikan man? Well, I will tell you.

I need my Afrikan man's arms around me to protect me from the outside.  There is a war out there. We need to win it together. I need a black man who realizes that we need to stop beating the shit out of each other in the name of love and heal each other.  I need a man that understands we  need to unpack the baggage we each came with and together as a couple and not be afraid to see each other's laundry. We can wash it together. We have an afrikan family to heal.

I need an Afrikan man who can turn me on just by being in the room with the sight of his black skin.  I need for him to understand that the sexiest thing about him is when he is working hard for our family or for the black humanity that we both hold so dear.

I need an Afrikan man who is not afraid of responsibility and can take care of businesses. I need an Afrikan man who realizes that his children are his business and will not badmouth his past relationships and realize his
part in the breakup.

I need an Afrikan man who will love me eternally and have no need for the white female to pump up his ego, or other women to feed a jacked up sense of his own manhood.  I need for him to realize that by being my man, he is indeed a MAN.  I need a man whose bad times are better than good times with anyone else on the face of this planet.

I need an Afrikan man who can stimulate my mind and that I can love
for what is between his ears and not for what is between his legs.   If I find a man that I can love for those two things, I will count him as a bonus, sent to me by the gods themselves.   I need perpetual foreplay in my man, loving that may or may not end up between the sheets.  And if we build the foundation correctly, the foreplay can end either in the bedroom or the boardroom of a business we handle together.

I need an Afrikan man who can listen to me, and I mean listen to me for sustained periods of time.  This is the man who can listen to my body and what it needs. 

Now my Afrikan Sisters, we play our part as well. We need to realize who we are. We are Queens of the Universe. We sometimes settle for less because we think we need a man to complete us, when we are really in need of healing from the abuses of life.  If we don’t’ respect ourselves, then we can’t expect anyone else to do it. And the bottom line is we need to allow our black man to rule their kingdoms, with us supporting them all the way.  That, dear Sistahs is what we should be looking for to balance our energies.