If You Don't Tell Ch. 02

I found a sofa where Dr. McGuiness said I'd find it and laid my son down. Without making a sound I carefully tip-toed towards the entrance, closed the door a little more than halfway and walked back towards Lae and Raven.

On my way back, I looked around the room and was glad to see that I wasn't the only person overdressed for the occasion. Most of the women present had on some sort of formal wear, whether they be dresses or suits, but a few were dressed down and in one case, really dressed down. That poor soul was leaving nothing to the imagination, wearing panties that doubled as shorts and a silk handkerchief that she somehow turned into a halter top.

No sooner than I had returned to Lae and the Raven, a strange woman came rushing over to the Raven and gave her a hug. "How are you doing Raven, girl? I haven't seen you since the National Convention in September! How are the wife and kids?"

"Ha ha ha. I see you've still got jokes. Just because I make more money doesn't make me the husband and I wish you'd quit saying that. The hubby and kids are fine." She turned to Lae and me. "Monie, Lae, this is my line sister, Harriet Gold, better known as Riel Crazy!" Harriet and the Raven laughed together after they'd both said 'Riel Crazy' in Unison.

"I bet you're wondering why you're here." Harriet asked us after they'd finished laughing. "Raven here likes to keep things on the low so I'll tell you. Dana, or the future Dr. McGuiness to you guys, and I are working on our PhD's in Psychology over at UH. She wants to be a relationship expert and is writing her thesis on some of the thing's we'll be talking about today, but I want to do the group therapy thing. Anyhow, the reason I asked Raven to bring you guys is because we need all different types of women: younger, older, richer, poorer, professional, domestic, family, single, etc. to get a general idea of what type of mindset black women are in today about some major topics."

"I don't mean to be rude, but why does she care when she has all of this?" I asked pointing around. "It's not like she needs to work or anything."

"I'm glad you asked that and that's the type of feedback we need. We don't want people here who think along the same lines, we need some spice up in here!" She chuckled at her own comment.

"Well, to answer your question, it's because all of this is her husbands. Dana's parents have been blue collar all their lives, they don't have anything but their home to call their own, but his family is real big into real estate. Not only that, but they run a few magazines and radio stations. Dana's a smart girl and she believes in pulling her own weight. Just because her husband's family is successful doesn't mean that she has to sit back and do nothing, too many people are doing that now and where has it gotten us?"

Our conversation was cut short by Dr. McGuniess's introduction. "Hello everyone! If you haven't met me yet, I am Dana McGuiness. I'm not a doctor yet, but many of you have already given me the label and that's fine as well. We'll walk into the personal sized auditorium behind us and when we get there will everyone please take a seat?"

I looked around the room and counted six other people walking up the few stairs towards the auditorium that was nestled in the back of the library. When everyone was finally seated, Dana spoke up again. "The reason you are all here is simple, I want to know what you think about certain topics. Three of the people here will not be participating", she pointed to all of them including Harriet, "because I already know what their opinions are and in some capacity they will be listening and writing their own theses. This is the second of three meetings and the topics today will be children, interracial relationships, and of course everyone's favorite, sex and infidelity. Before we get into any heavy discussion, I'd like to introduce myself before we take our chairs out of rows and arrange them into a circle and have everyone introduce themselves. My name is Dana McGuiness. I am 36 years old, I've been married for ten years, and I have one child. Before I began going back to school, I was a guidance counselor, but now I want to write books on how we as black women should enter relationships."

She sat back down and the sounds of moving chairs filled the room as we all invaded each other's personal space by sitting right next to each other in a tight little circle.

Dana started with Lae and went clockwise. Since I was to her right, I had the luxury of going last. Each woman stood up an introduced themselves, each story a little different than the previous one. Some of them were married, a few were professionals, but most of them had children. I listened to everyone's story until it was my turn.

"My name is Simone Hall. I am 27 years old, I have one child as you can see, and I haven't even been married for a year. I'm an office manager and in my free time I clean and play with my son."

Dana smiled. "Once again thank you for lending us your time this afternoon. Now that the introductions are done, let's get into children. By a show of hands, how many women have children?" Dana asked. Out of the eight women in the circle, six of us raised our hands, including Dana. "My first question to you ladies is do you believe a man is necessary to raise a child?"

A girl named Sashe was the first to speak up. I only remembered her name because she was the half naked girl I'd noticed when we first walked in and because she had the kind of name you would attribute to a stripper. "I got two kids and I raise them really good even without they daddies around. I'm a strong black woman and I don't need no man bringing me down."

An older lady that sat to my right, I couldn't remember her name, raised her hand after Sashe had spoken and Dana acknowledged her by calling her name. "Yes Fredericka, what do you have to add to this?"

"I disagree with Sashe. I'm a third grade teacher and I deal with fatherless students all the time and they are becoming increasingly tougher to manage. I can easily tell the difference between the children with two parents and the ones raised with only their mothers around because of the attention that not only the students give, but also their parents. If the mother is too busy or too lazy to call me back for a conference, usually the child will show the same amount of interest. I believe that not only is a man necessary to help raise his children, but is also obligated. Studies have shown that the lack of a male figure in children's lives have a greater propensity to commit crime, go to jail, and create more children that live in the same environment that they themselves grew up in."

"So are you saying that even though we may hate our children's fathers, we're supposed to make nice with them?" Sashe angrily snapped back.

"That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that we should stop lying down with every man we meet, thereby lessening the chance of us having children out of wedlock. Most of these men out there today are only about themselves, so what do we do, we sleep with them and then wonder why they've left us pregnant and alone."

"I disagree." Teniyah said. "I think these so-called teenage parents out there really don't know how to be parents. I think what's really happening is that too many kids think they know everything, but aren't ready for the reality of raising a baby. I love my children and if need be, I can raise them on my own without a man. But as a single parent, it is my job to discipline my children as hard as their father would if he were around."

"I agree." Chantel said. I'd forgotten her name until I saw that she still had her work badge on. She was the youngest of us all at twenty-three, but probably had more life experience than any of us due to her already being divorced with three kids. "I see too many parents trying to be their kid's friend instead of their parent. Being a parent means that not only do you have to love your children, but it also means whooping their ass when they need to be whipped. I raise my children by myself, without my ex's help, and because I stay on them, they do well in school and are very respectful. I didn't need a man to help me with that."

"So are you saying that it's okay for women to raise children by themselves?" Dana asked.

"I'm not saying that." Chantel replied. "In cases of necessity we can do it on our own. It's not like we haven't been doing it already." Nods and "mmm-hmmm's" began to circle around the room.

"I think Fredericka is right." An older lady that sat across from me said. "In case you guys don't remember my name, it's Linette and I'm a family law attorney. Some of you would call me a divorce or child custody lawyer, but my job is to reflect the values society shares regarding how people who are related should treat each other. Just because you can do something does not mean that you should. Children today need both parents in order to be a greater success and with the case my firm just finished, I have the statistics to prove it." Everyone sat quietly in our circle and looked up at Linette as she stood up and read off every important statistic she could remember. "The United States is the world leader in fatherless families with more than 80% of all single households being ran by the mother. More than 75% of people being treated for chemical dependency are from single parent homes, 83% of them have already committed a felony. 75% of all teenage pregnancies result from a single parent household and most of them will also be in single parents as well. If you are a single parent, your child is eight times more likely to join a gang, six times more likely to commit suicide, seven times more likely to dropout of high school and ten times more likely to end up in a juvenile facility which eventually turns to jail. And because black people have the lowest percentage of children living in two-parent houses, 35%, which is almost twice as bad as the next closest race, we are at the greatest risk."

After Linette sat own, the room was so silent we could hear a pin drop and Dana was the first to speak up. "Now that you know what the statistics say, does anyone have anything else to add?" She looked around the circle and no one spoke up. "All of you have valid points, but in my opinion Linette was right; just because you can do something doesn't mean you should. I'd like to congratulate all you women who are fighting the odds and trying to be great parents, but children sometimes need a male authoritative figure in their lives. One male figure, not many figures or they will grow to resent you. Just because you single parents are single doesn't mean that they're father should be out of their lives unless it is absolutely necessary, but if you have a brother, or father, allow your children to spend time with them as well. Well if that's all, we'll dive into the next topic, interracial relationships. What do you all feel about dating outside your race?" She looked directly at me. "Since you didn't say much as far as child rearing, why don't you lead this one off Simone?"

"I don't feel like you can control who you fall in love with, but I'm not gung-ho about interracial relationships either."

"So which one is it? Are you pro or con?" Dana asked.

"I guess I'd be con. As a black woman I'm not really interested in anyone outside of my own race."

"Is it because of how you were brought up?" She kept asking questions directed at me and I was growing more agitated that she had singled me out.

"Mostly, well yes. I was raised by my aunt who is still a firm believer in the strong black family."

"So let me ask you one more question. Are you more upset with seeing a black man with a woman outside his race or seeing a black woman dating outside of hers?"

"I'd be more upset with a black woman than a man. Men will try to get with anyone, so long as she's putting out, but if I see a black woman with a white guy, it just gets under my skin. I don't know why, but it's like she a traitor."

"It's very interesting the way you put that, a traitor." Dana repeated. "What do you think when you see a black woman with a white man, Laela is it?"

"Yes, it's Laela." Laela responded. "And I think the same thing that most women think; that he must eat some great pussy. I don't know if I consider her a traitor, but I definitely take more offense if it's a black woman with a white guy."

"But look at your light skin!" Chantel exclaimed. "How can you take offense to something that created you? Love is a beautiful thing, whether the person is from an opposite race or not. Too many of our black men are out there trying to be, what's the new word, pimps. It used to be players, but I guess its more Negroish to be a pimp now."

Laela was pissed at what Chantel had said and didn't try to hide it. "I'm not ashamed of my light skin, even though I was ridiculed as a child for being a high yellow heifer or the banana girl! Everyday it was the same thing. I was always too dark to be white, too light to be black and I don't want my kids to suffer the same discrimination! You wonder why I don't like seeing white men with black women, it's because when that child comes home crying, a black man would fight for his child!"

"I'm sorry for what was done to you Laela, but this is an exchange of ideas and I don't want you taking this to heart. Our personal experiences shape who we are, but your emotions need to be checked at the door.

"I'm sorry." Laela responded apologetically. "It was just a little riled up."

Fredericka spoke up. "I've dated white men, before and I've seen the nasty stares I've received from other black women and it's petty. They'll be frowning at me while their man is looking at other women in plain sight. I don't care what color a man's skin is so long as he's appealing to me and he treat me the way I deserved to be treated. Contrary to what you all might believe, not all white men have tiny penises and huge tongues. You need to get away from other people's belief systems and find your own. My husband, who is Mexican, is a king among men which is why he has me."

"I'm tired of being judged as well." Linette said. "I've tried dating black men, some as successful as me and some of them not. The biggest problem I've had with most of the ones I've dated is that they can't handle a woman making as much or more than what they make, so they've try to belittle me. I thought I found a man who was above all that, but when he lost his job and I volunteered to support the both of us, he began cheating because he felt more like the wife than a husband and he had to reaffirm his manhood."

"White men tip better." Sashe blurted out and in the process helped me confirm her job status.

The Raven looked curiously at Sashe before saying what she had to say. "I've never been really attracted to anyone outside my race even though I've dated a few. The reason why I think I've never been able to relate to white guys is because we have completely different life experiences. He may think George Carlin is the funniest comic ever, I may say it's Chris Rock. He may believe you need to spend money to make money; my philosophy is save money to have money. When they say that men and women are on different planets, they're right, but black men are a closer planet to me than most."

After hearing everyone else speak up, I decided to say something else. "I agree with R--Teniyah. If given the opportunity to date someone of another race who was in the same mindset as me, I might do it. After listening to these stereotypes that we've all been subjected to and victimized by, I realize that all I did was believed what I was told."

"That's what this forum is for, to help people and to listen to new ideas outside of the boxes that we put ourselves in." Dana said. She nodded to Harriet and the other ladies who began handing out blank sheets of paper to us. As they were passing them out she continued speaking. "We'll be giving you each three sheets of paper. On the first piece, I'd like you to ask a relationship question. On the second, I'd like if you asked a question about sex. And for the third, write your contact information if you'd like to come to the third meeting. After you fold them up, the first two sheets will be shuffled and handed out to random people. The person who receives the question has to answer both questions with as much knowledge as possible. If you receive your own question, answer it as best you know how. Sometimes the correct answers are already inside you, you just need help to bring them out."

For the next fifteen minutes we sat in silence as we wrote our questions and made our contact lists. Since I didn't want Lae possibly getting my questions, I wrote with my left hand. It was sloppy, but still legible. When the questions were finally passed around, I knew I didn't have Lae's paper because I knew her handwriting as well as she knew mine. Dana picked people at random to read their papers answer the questions. It wasn't until she asked Sashe to read her relationship question that I heard mine.

"Sashe, will you please read your relationship question?" Dana asked.

Sashe looked at the paper a few times before she finally began to read. "It's a little hard to read, but I'll try. My co-worker's boyfriend is fine and I know that she's cheating on him. He's a real nice guy and I don't know if I should confess what I know because I really want to sleep with him. Is turnabout fair play?"

"To be honest, I'd tell you-- to fuck that nigga! Fuck him hard and fuck him fast!" The whole room erupted in laughter while Sashe stood up and began riding the pony. "Ride his ass into the sunset, girl!"

"That's terrible advice!" Dana screamed out through her intermittent laughter.

Everyone who wasn't Sashe had tears in their eyes and was holding their stomachs before the room finally quieted down. Even the sour disposition I had clung to for most of the morning had succumbed to the best laugh I'd had in weeks.

"Sashe that was clearly some very unsound advice. If that were your man she was talking about, would you say the same thing?" Dana lectured though still giggling. "The point of this exercise is to give the best advice you can, not questionable counsel. Are you sure that you believe what you're saying?"

"Dr. Dana, I might not be as smart as most of the people you got here, but I have always held to the belief that if he can do dirt, so can I. I think too many people out there are being deceived and it's time for the victims to get some justice. Two wrongs don't make a right, but it sho make it even. My advice is that if you don't like the girl, then she get what she deserves. Y'all may not like what I'm talking bout, but at least I'm real with my shit."

I looked over at Lae to see the reaction on her face, but she just stared at Sashe without even twitching an eyebrow. I wanted her to say something, anything to counter what Sashe had said, but she didn't utter a word.

Dana nodded. "I applaud your honesty. I'm not here to judge you, but mostly to hear your rationale and add some of my own. I want all of you to know that there are different avenues to every answer. Today there are no right or wrong answers, but we have to be honest with ourselves and destroy the stereotypes that we hold as actual fact. Some of us may disagree with Sashe's response, but respect her right to say it. Okay, now that we've been initiated into the world of pure honesty, let's hear more of those questions."

I was surprised how honestly we asked and answered several taboo topics that concerned black women. Oral and anal sex, swinging, masturbation, and bisexuality were all issues that we touched upon. My sexual question was the most timid out of the bunch, asking who was better in bed, younger or older men.