“I wanna dedicate this song to all the lovers tonight
And I expect that might be the whole world
Because everybody needs something or someone to love
When it’s cold outside who are you holding?
You know, if y’all don’t mind I’d like to talk about this woman of mine
She’s always complainin’ ’bout me never bein’ at home
But when I’m down broke
She’s tellin’ me about the things that her girlfriend’s got
What she ain’t got and she wants me to go out and get ’em for her
But girl, I can’t be in two places at one time
If you think you’re lonely now, huh
Wait until tonight, girl
(If you think you’re lonely now)
I’ll be long gone
(Wait until tonight, girl)
And you’ll find another man that’ll treat you right…”
-Bobby Womack, “If You Think You’re Lonely Now”

With Pres. Donald Trump announcing a national state of emergency as a result of the Coronavirus pandemic last weekend, the country is grinding to a halt as the Centers for Disease Control and the captains of industry work overtime to contain the worst of the disease. China, the site of where the coronavirus originated, is only now emerging from the outbreak after several months of a severe lockdown. Italy has been ravaged by the disease, the worst hit in the Western world to date. And the latest and worst victim of the plague is the Islamic Republic of Iran – where the rogue Muslim nation has seen the highest number of coronavirus-related deaths in a single day, at well over 100 and bringing their overall death toll to nearly 800 (“Iran’s coronavirus death toll leaps by 113 in a day, reaching 724”, Mar 15, 2020, Arcamax.com).

Here stateside, the worst of the virus has been documented in the western half of the country, with Washington State having the most casualties; as of the time of Trump’s announcement to the nation, the Evergreen State has lost 40 lives to the disease.

In Black America, medical and healthcare professionals trot out the true, but usual suspects about how and why Black folks are particularly vulnerable: The long legacy of the Tuskeegee experiment and other racism-related reasons and excuses as for how and why the bulk and mass of Black Americans stand to be particular hard-hit during this time of potential disaster (“Public health expert says African Americans are at greater risk of death from coronavirus”, Mar 13, 2020, TheUndefeated.com). But, as you might guess, your correspondent as an alternate – and not pretty – take on how and why Black America is particularly vulnerable; and that has everything to do with Black America’s truly dystopian mating patterns today.

As Dave Chappelle wryly observed nearly two decades ago, “Chivalry is dead – and (Black) women have killed it”.

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REMEMBER HURRICANE KATRINA
An easy case in point to followup on the above point, is the massive natural disaster known forever as Hurricane Katrina, fifteen years ago. While better off Blacks were able to get out of Dodge – largely due to their being better educated, married and higher earning and all of the personality traits that come with such things – the bulk and mass of New Orleans Black population were in a bad spot prior to Katrina’s landfall precisely due to a lifetime of bad choices. Politicians like Donald Trump or public health officials like the good doctor Georges Benjamin won’t say this, but I will: much of the death and carnage that came in Katrina’s wake was due to Black America’s mating patterns; and worse, it was due to many – not all, but far too many – Black women’s mating choices. There, I said it.

The many Black women that were holed up in the Superdome amid the stench, squalor and the numerous reports of rape, were single and most baby mamas; the news photos of elderly Black people’s dead bodies strewn in the streets, bloated from the blazing heat and hastily covered over with a sheet, were very likely, single Black women. Indeed, most of the casualties of Katrina were single Black women. And they were casualties in large part because of their life choices – which included their failure to choose a good Black man.

In peacetime, one can afford to be frivolous, to be politically correct; but when death is knocking at your front door, you simply don’t have the time or inclination for such luxuries or pleasantries. The simple, harsh and ugly truth is, that when disaster struck – as it did in the Crescent City a decade and a half ago – Black women and in many cases, their children – took the hardest hit. And they did because of who they chose to mate with. That, is the hard truth.

What makes matters a heck of a lot worse today, is that by all accounts Black women don’t seem to have learned from the events of Katrina – and so, we are on the precipice of seeing the exact same thing playing itself out again – or perhaps much, much worse.

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I TOLD YOU SO
In case anyone out there reading this thinks that my prose is just a weebit purple, consider my writings of the previous year, in which I noted the severe results and life outcomes of Black women who either chose Select Fuckboys to cast their lot in with, or took the oft-bellowed position of how “strong and independent” they were. Last summer, I discussed a more than eight-hour standoff between a lifelong armed and dangerous Black criminal that took place here in Philly (“Lessons Learned From The Summer 2019 North Philly Shootout”, Aug 19, 2019, Negromanosphere.com). The fiasco endangered untold numbers of Black women and children, as the cretin letoff rounds in all directions and rattled the nerves of North Philly’s inhabitants. I argued in that column that Non-Select Guys, being far and away more conscientious, would provide protection and safety to Black women by first and foremost, not living in such deprived and dangerous areas of the city – but, because in the minds of so many Black women, “protection” looks like a David Bautista in Blackface rushing in where angels fear to tread and “taking care of business”, they often don’t learn the importance of tactical positioning – or in other words, that old real estate adage of “location, location, location” – until it’s too late.

Speaking of Black women wailing about “protection”, how about another column of mine last year, in response to dating coach and social media personality Ms. April Mason’s attempts to upbraid and shame “Good Black Men” to come running to her cousin’s aid – only to be met by the Great Wall of the Black Manosphere (“If I Don’t Know You, I Don’t Owe You”, Dec 2, 2019, Negromanosphere.com). In that piece, I argued that not only was it the height of hubris and malignant narcissism on the part of Black women like Mason to demand “protection” after the fact, but to do so ONLY from the very Black men that she and her ilk wouldn’t urinate on to put out if said Non-Select Guys were on fire, giving their best years and all to Select Fuckboys who go upside their heads, sponge off them, cheat on them (often serially) and worse. I spoke for an entire generation of Black men when I declared, as summed up in the title of that column, that “If I don’t know you, I don’t owe you”. She’s never been the same since.

Yet another piece I wrote just last month focused on what I call the coming Black Spinster Crisis, and how Black America was totally unprepared for the long term fallout and unintended consequences of Black women “not needing no man” and “living their best lives” (“The Spinster Bubble Is About To Bust Wide Open”, Feb 3, 2020, Negromanosphere.com). There, I cited the case of one Ms. Karen Jennings, a 65 year old Black spinster who is now crying the blues after a lifetime of being strong, independent and not needing no man – and of course, she is appealing to the government – read the taxpayer like you and me – to bail her out. With projections that in less than a half a century from now, there being more Black spinsters than the entire population of the City of Brotherly Love, the sheer strain on the welfare state will be immeasurable – and yet, Black women, even now on the edge of an American crisis not seen since the Spanish Flu struck my hometown a century ago, are defiant. No wonder so many of them suffer so needlessly.

The simple truth is that the vast majority of Black women are sitting ducks for a “Shit Hits The Fan” type of event – a terrorist attack; a natural disaster; a power grid outage; a global pandemic – and they are sitting ducks in large part, BECAUSE of their personal life choices. Which included, more often than not, selecting a fuckboy who looks good, says all the right things and may be great in bed, but when the chips are down and your life is on the line, they desert you, or in some ways even worse, become an albatross around your neck. Only in the most dire of situations will Black women then turn to guys who have their acts together but may not come in the packaging they’d prefer, for help. And, like the fictional Rorschach said in the excellent film “The Watchmen” (PLEASE don’t watch the series on HBO, it sucks), I will say, “No”.

An essential tenet of “prepping” is, well, prepping – you have to have your act together BEFORE DISASTER STRIKES. If you’re looking to mobilize after the fact, it’s too late – and that is the situation far too many Black women have faced historically as far back as a century ago, that they faced in more modern American history with Katrina, and WILL face yet again with the coronavirus outbreak on American shores. It is, sadly, inevitable.

Brace for impact.

SHAMELESS PLUG AD BREAK: Like what you’re reading now? Wait till you see my very first book, “The Book of Obsidian: A Manual for the 21st Century Black American Gentleman”, which comes out Summer 2020! Here’s YOUR chance to help me bring the dream to life, by supporting “The Book of Obsidian Fundraising Campaign”! All the details are over at GoGetFunding.com. Now, back to the article!

A PERSONAL NOTE AND ENDING VIGNETTE
As is so often the case with writers, mine is in large part informed by own personal experiences and observations, which are then buttressed by empirical evidence, data and research – and so, at this time, I would like to end today’s piece with the following bit of information I have just learned in the run up to Pres. Trump’s announcement last Friday. A middle-aged Black woman that I know of from another acquaintance has suffered a health crisis and was in intensive care. At present, no updates on her status has been posted on social media, and since Philly is all but shutdown at this point it is unlikely that I will get word of her condition either way anytime soon, if ever.

This Black woman was “Hell on wheels”, to put it mildly; and she was particularly mean to Black men she felt didn’t make the cut in her eyes. Refusing to “settle for less” and being adamant about not “lowering her standards”, this Black woman – in her mid-50s, mind you – refused to date Black men who were a bit shorter than she. And, keep in mind please, that as she stands at 5’10”-plus, if she held to the idea that she would only date Black men taller than herself, that her pool of potential mates would shrink considerably, pardon the pun.

It had come to my attention that, about two years ago, she was at a social event where she acted a plumb fool and made everyone’s evening ruinous, simply because she couldn’t get the attention of the “fine, tall” Black men that she wanted, while acting like a stompdown bitch to the shorter guys who wanted to chat her up. It got so bad that my acquaintance and her got into a heated argument at the end of the evening where the former informed the latter about her antisocial self, and as a result hadn’t been on speaking terms since.

This Black woman, like so many millions of her kind, is manless and in a very vulnerable state now; add the coronavirus to the mix and it could very well prove fatal. Studies have shown that couples stand a better chance of better health outcomes than single folks and that, contrary to formerly held and widespread opinion, this is true for BOTH sexes (“Alone”, Spring 2019, City Journal; “The health advantages of marriage”, Nov 30, 2016, Harvard Health Publishing website; “BEING SINGLE COULD KILL YOU: MARRIED PEOPLE LESS LIKELY TO DEVELOP HEART DISEASE BECAUSE SOMEONE IS TAKING CARE OF THEM”, Jun 19, 2018, Newsweek; “How Single People Are Shortchanged in the Health Care System”, Mar 10, 2019, PsychologyToday.com). Her actions over a lifetime, have led her to where she is right now – and it was all preventable. When she needed a good (Black) man the most, she is, for all intents, alone.

And, five will get you ten, that she does NOT have a hospice care plan.

Like I said, brace for impact, fellas.

Now adjourn your asses…

MOA

Mumia Obsidian Ali is a citizen journalist, podcaster, talk radio show host, newly minted dating coach and soon to be book author. You can catch his daily live shows on Mixlr, and his podcasts on YouTube and Black Avenger TV, as well as his weekly dating coach column at the Negromanosphere website. He’s also a semi-professional pest.