Moguldum Studios just released a documentary lending a hard look at the astronomical 72% out-of-wedlock rate in the black community. And I’m LOVING that media has become more vocal on the crisis, because it is a crisis.

Because this is of particular importance to me and my work, I’ll be buying this video. However, I’ll be honest. I hate the title. WTF…”Baby Mama Crisis?” The title alone singles out…who? If you guess black women, then you win the internet.

I’m really getting sick of black women being treated like they are getting pregnant like amebas, with no male sperm necessary. For God’s sake, nothing will ever change if you put ALL the responsibility on black women to police the reckless behaviors of the other 50% of the problem.

There are two sides to this, and a title like that is just ridiculously counterproductive. But hey; people took issue when I created No Wedding No Womb. Hate the names all you want, still doesn’t discount the message. It would be foolish to reject this movie because I don’t like the title. Doing so would pretty much make me a hypocrite.

That’s not to say black women are off the hook. Not even close. If you haven’t yet had a chance to visit BW Think Tank on Facebook, you’re missing out. The publisher makes it plain.

The 40 Reasons Black Women have the ‘A Bum and a Baby’© Experience”
by Breukelen Bleu

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Q&A from inside The Black Woman Think Tank;

“Why do black women want to have children on their own and with the type of men SOME of them have chosen? Every time I asked this question (on other forums) I get shot down, told I don’t understand, I’m a black man hater, I’m a black woman hater and the last but not least the infamous “Crickets”.

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Breukelen Bleu’s answer:

1. We think WE are enough, so if the “baby daddy’ don’t act right, it’ll be ok cuz we “love’ our babies and we the ‘backbone’ of the community anyway. Its the “Thanks For My Child” syndrome.

2. We want the man. Period. We want the man, and so we have a child hoping that this will make him want us.

3. If the man DOESN’T want us, we STILL have a “piece’ of him. And we still have a form of POWER over him. We want to control HIS options, so we think that if he doesn’t want us, at least he will still be forced to DEAL with us, cuz we have his child.

4. Having children makes us feel important. Its that “meaning making’ thing thats talked about in the book, “Promises I Cant Keep’. We don’t believe we can achieve anything else, so having a child – or 3, makes us feel like our lives have meaning. It provides a sense of ORDER, in what might otherwise be a very unstable and chaotic existence. It forces us go grow up and compels us to think long term – something we cant see to do without the responsibility of a child. And if dude doesn’t turn out to be what we hope, then #1 always suffices.

5. Everyone else is doing it. Our mothers, sisters, aunties and friends, all have children by dudes, regardless of whether he is fit, so we do too. The women who are closest to us affect us most, and so peer pressure and influence creates normalcy out of it.

6. Low expectations. We are so used to black men being BUMS, and we believe that we don’t deserve any better, so we don’t look for better. We also have low expectations for ourselves, so we don’t aspire to more. See #4.

7. We spend our childhood raising our siblings, so we don’t think anything of having our own children. It feels natural and normal for us to be Mothers, because we were called upon to play that role, very early in life.

8. We feel unattractive and unworthy. Many of us are overweight, dark skinned and nappy haired. We don’t think we are WORTHY of a ‘good man’, so we will settle for the love of a Bum and a Baby©, instead.

9. We believe in ‘black love’ and ‘black family’. We derive a sense of purpose from the idea that WE are helping do something ‘important’ for Black People. This belief is HIGHLY prevalent amongst the RGB, Hotep crew. And we think that requiring the man be the ‘right’ type (educated, careered, professional/vocational, financially stable, emotionally sound, family oriented) is TREACHEROUS to black men, who have been ‘systematically oppressed and marginalized’. To require more, is to be in collusion with White Supremacy.

10. We think we are Yoni Goddesses. Somebody done told us that our wombs produce magical fruit, and we think we are standing in our “Womanly Power’ by having children – even if the fathers are BUMS. We think we helping usher Matriarchy back in.

11. We don’t use birth control. We don’t want that much responsibility. Use of birth control infers a desire to delay motherhood, until you have accomplished some other things. When you don’t have ‘other things’ to accomplish, you don’t use protection. See #4…again.

12. We want Welfare, Wic and social services.

13. We are trying to redeem the man. We KNOW hes a fool, but we think we can somehow ‘birth’ a BETTER version of him into the world. And we want to prove that OUR wombs, are just as powerful as the wombs of other races of women. We think WE are going to birth the SAVIOR of the black race. (Ie: a commenter who came to the Fan Page several weeks ago, talking bout she raising the next Malcolm X, while sleeping on a dirty mattress on the floor).

14. We want love. We want the families we never had, and we think having children, no matter the man, will offer us the opportunity to create what was not given to us.

15. We use children as an ‘anchor’ in our lives. We think they give us “purpose”, and we use them as ‘motivation’ to aspire for more. We, ourselves are not enough reason to reach for good shit. Children make all the struggling to progress, seem worth it. THis is the mess *I* told myself, when *I* decided to have a child.

16. We hate ourselves. And we want the opportunity to birth a ‘prettier’ version of us. So we find the boy/man who has the type so genes we think will create ‘beauty’ and we have a child by him, no matter if he wants us or not. We want light skinned, good haired children. And we want to be able to prove we were at least ‘worthy’ enough to get a man like that to have sex with us.

17. We hope the man will change. We think that the same motivations WE are using (See #4 & #15) will apply to the dude, too, and that will make HIM grow up and want to be ‘a family’ with us.

18. We hot between the thighs. And we want the men that express the most virility, power and sexuality. It doesnt matter if hes a good person, partner or father material. We simply want to fuck him. And since #11 is in play, a child is the natural result.

19. We competing with some other chic. Dude has a main chic, wife or wifey, and we want what she has. So we have a child by him hoping to FORCE him to leave her, or at the very least, force him to split his time and resources with us.

20. We want what the white woman has. We want men who make us feel protected and we want men who express the “alpha’ traits needed for leadership and ambition. The white man has built an entire WORLD for his woman, and we want men who seem to possess the same traits that it took to elevate HER. The “Thug Loving’ BW do is much more then only wanting a thug. Its about wanting that alpha male, who seems to display the characteristics needed to run the world – or the community. EVEN if said man only knows how to express these traits in a dysfunctional and negative fashion.

21. We want to have children, and we want to do so within wedlock. So even if we KNOW dude ain’t quite right, we will marry him and have children, just so we can SIMULATE what we see other races of women do. Many times we KNOW the marriage isn’t going to work, but we do it anyway, because we want ‘legitimate’ children.

22. We have an ‘IDEAL BLACK MAN’ in our head, and we come across some dude who seems to represent that, even if has many issues that gives us pause. If he is college educated, belongs to the right fraternity, comes from a semi-‘decent’ family, and looks good on paper, we will try to scoop him, EVEN THO he may not be the best partner/father material.

23. We have a natural desire to procreate. We are human, after all.

24. We dont want to mate/marry out. We don’t want the stigma of choosing a non-black male, and we don’t want to face the possible rejection of a non-black males family and friends. We want to PROVE that it is still possible to get what we want, within the BC. So we may pass on a quality non-bm and end up becoming a ‘baby mama’ to some black dudes child instead.

25. We believe that we are morally obligated to proceed with every pregnancy that occurs – especially that first one, or the second one if the first was terminated. We dont want to be the chic who has multiple abortions so if we use our ‘get out of Motherhood free card” during one pregnancy, we don’t feel right about doing it again. And our religious/cultural beliefs, make us think that we have no RIGHT to determine whether a child is born or not. And since #11 is usually in effect, pregnancy is a forgone conclusion.

26. We truly believe the man is going to marry us.

27. The dude ASK us to ‘have a baby’ with him. We love him and feel honored to be ‘chosen’ by a man, believing that if he as REQUESTING that we be the Mother of his children, then he MUST be willing to do all that will be required to be a father AND PARTNER to us.

28. We are raped or sexually violated and are too afraid to tell someone. We get pregnant and have the child, feeling obligated to so (see #25), while also being afraid to expose ourselves to the humiliation of admitting to having been abused.

29. Our judgment is incapacitated by drugs, alcohol or mental illness.

30. We are DREAM STEALERS. We don’t want the dude to have aspirations outside of that which will keep him close to us. So we rush to have a child by him, hoping to limit his options and reduce his ability to make life choices that might take in a direction away from us – or allow him to meet a “better’ woman whom he will HAPPILY have children with.

31. We are ‘testing’ the dudes love. We don’t believe any man can/will love us, so we have a child to see if he will stick around and honor us by fathering the child we ‘give’ to him.

32. We have multiple children, hoping this NEXT dude will be ‘the one’, and will FINALLY allow us to live out #’s 2, 9, 13, 14, 17, 20, 21, 22. We have HOPE that 2’s – 3’s, 4s’ a charm.

33. We’re on autopilot. We just let life ‘happen’ to us, with absolutely NO planning and NO for thought. Children are the natural results of sex, and since #11 is in effect, along with #4, we let “Life’ Happen”, and the children come. This is different the planning of children to let life have some meaning. This is simply letting WHATEVER happens, happen. Children are only one of the possibilities.

34. We believe its ‘natural’ to have children NO MATTER THE CIRCUMSTANCES. We adhere to the notion that nature designed us to have babies, and so having babies is what we should do. We think that ‘God will provide’ or ‘it’ll all work out in the end’.

35. We have a Life Script. We have an “idea’ of what our lives should look like, and that includes children, at a certain time, in a certain number. This the ‘I want to have my first child by 25”, the “I want to have all my kids before the age of 30 so I get it over with”, the “I want 2 boys and a girl” or the “I have 3 boys and I wanna try for the girl cuz I want ot know whats it like to raise a daughter”. We proceed with trying to fulfill our Life Script, no matter if our lives can actually accommodate that desire or not. We dont want to concede that perhaps life just simply isn’t going to turn out the way WE had desired. So we proceed with our blueprint, whether we are actually ready for it, or whether the situation/man is the right one.

36. We want to validate our Victimhood, and are drawn to The Seduction of Inadequacy. We want to show the world, that black men ARE the no-good-doers we believe they are, and that WE are the SBW (Strong Black Women) that we are known for. Its the Archetype that allows to both admonish the Black Males image, while elevating our Image, At. The. Same. Damned. Time. This is a HIDDEN motivation, that most of us are not consciously aware of.

37. We will SETTLE for a childs love, when what we REALLY want is a Mans/ Mothers/Fathers love. The child becomes The Consolation Prize for us failing to have the fortunate luck of receiving our edification and validation from some other source.

38. Having a child gives a legitimate excuse to fail in other areas of Life. We can always say we did not complete/finish/accomplish/attain/accumulate/succeed in some area of Life, because “I got pregnant”. Its a very convenient form of Scapegoating. We are either afraid of success or a afraid of failure. So we ‘get’ pregnant, to have a reason to not try. This happens alot with the girls who leave off for college, and come home sophomore year, pregnant. Black Women are GOOD for that one.

39. We Dumb. Plain and simple. We dont think. We dont plan. We don’t strategize. We have low intellectual capacity from generations of undereducation and breeding with tainted DNA, and we are simply too STUPID to know better. We are intellectually inferior and our cognitive abilities do not lend to logic and reasoning that allow us to make good calls. After generation after generation of struggle, we STILL insist upon believing that WE are enough to raise a community of strong people. We lie to ourselves and say its gone be alright. We are not smart enough to accept what we see taking place for the garbage it is, and so we comfort ourselves with cliches and beliefs, that sooth us in our stupidity.

We’re Idiots. Plain and simple.

I know I was one.

40. Nothing in black women’s upbringing promotes self accountability. We are not rewarded for being responsible. We are rewarded for playing The Victim. Even the church and the democratic party plantation rewards us for poor choices be it forgiveness or programs that enable poor choices.

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And those were just the ones that came off the top of my head.

– Breukelen Bleu © 2014.

In closing…