do tha numberz

Business Statistics was the class...

Dr. Beraho was the professor...

He uttered these words on the first day of class in his African accent

"Numbers...statistics...can be manipulated to display any medium that you want to work in your favor."

Those words always stuck with me. I'm not saying that numbers don't lie. However, you can make the numbers say whatever you want them to say. Just the other day I was surfing the 'Net and came across a header that read...ABC NEWS : Why are 42% of Black Women Not Married?

Hmmm. The title alone was intriguing to me. I proceeded to go to the website and watch the 7 min video segment on youtube. They proceeded to throw out even more numbers...like... BLACK WOMEN OUTNUMBER BLACK MEN BY 1.8 MILLION.

Word? No kiddin'. Gee...I didn't know that.

The man focus of the piece was to focus on 4 black women, all of whom reside in the city of Atlanta, as do I. Each woman was well educated, successful, young (early to mid 30s), driven, ambitious, and attractive. Qualities that most men would want (black or white). The one thing that these women had in common is that none of them were married and they were concerned that the prospect of them getting married is dwindling away. Does that sound familiar to you? It does to me. I know at LEAST 10 sistas who are JUST like these women. We've talked about this subject so many times that I'm almost tired of it. My perspective may seem somewhat skewed because I am married but I can speak from the conversations that I've had with single bruthas. We're talking about sistas between the ages of 25-34. Let's take a look at the numbers...

42% of Black Women are Not Married. Hmmm...how many women did they poll to come up with that number? Did you survey regions of the country? Did you use consensus numbers? Call me crazy but you can't just throw numbers at me and exepect me to believe them unless you explain HOW you got them. Just because you may be between the ages of 25-34 and a single black female doesn't mean that you fall into this category. For example...the government doesn't define someone who doesn't have a job as being "unemployed" unless they are ACTIVELY seeking employment. If you don't have a job and you are not looking for a job, technically you're not unemployed. The same goes for this "study." Not every black woman who is single is looking to get married.

I think that another reason why SOME sistas aren't married is because they are too picky and have unreal expectations. I said SOME because the ones that I know have those qualities. There is nothing wrong with having standards. We all should have standards. But are they fair to you. If you have a Master's degree, should your man have one to? If you're 5-8, should your man be 6-5 and have the body of a linebacker? We all should pursue what we like. However, if I said that I wanted a sista who had to have a Masters Degree, size 4, no kids, making 6 figures, cute face, and big booty...is that realistic? Probably not. There's nothing wrong with knowing what you like but you have to be practical about it. I'm not exaggerating, tho. I remember trying to hook up one of my female friends 5yrs ago. She told me to introduce her to one of my former college teammates. They were both single and didn't have any kids. I told her that I was hesitant about it because I knew how picky she was. Before I introduced them, she asked if I had a picture of him. I emailed her a picture that we took in college. Her response..."He's cute...but his ears stick out kinda far." Whut? Are you kiddin me?

That was five years ago

I never introduced them. He's about to get married to someone else

And she hasn't had a man since that day!

The moral of the story is that you can make the numbers to say what you want them to say! Is there a shortage of good black men? Hell yeah. Is it hard out there for sistas? Hell yeah. However, I think we all need to be more practical and definitive about what we want and then we'll get to where we wanna be.

Hollatchaboi!