Hello, strangers! I haven’t written anything for this blog in awhile, I know. Much of my time is being consumed by sorting things out in my personal life and continuing to establish my writing career. And there’s the book(s) that won’t die.

I’d promised Chris that I’d write again when a story or situation arose that inspired me, and it so happened that I couldn’t help but make an observation about someone else’s happy situation — and the predictably negative response to it from some quarters.

If you didn’t know, R&B singer Ciara recently became engaged to Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson. I couldn’t help but notice that while many people celebrated their mutual joy, others were puzzled or even angry.

I mean genuinely sour and angry!

The anger stemmed from the notion that this black woman somehow wasn’t worthy of moving on from the kind of men she’d previously dated (rappers and losers) to a guy from a stable background, successful, and who worships the ground she walks on.

That reaction was kind of interesting to me, as it came from people who love to blame black women for being fooled by losers. You know that whole black women “aren’t married because they only want thugs nonsense” that some people love to spew. Isn’t it funny how when you make the right choices after having made the wrong ones, the people who were the quickest to point out your mistakes are NOW the first to kick dirt on your happiness?

For me, it’s just more proof there are people in this world genuinely invested in the unhappiness and desolation of black women. That they’d aim their haterade-filled water pistols at a woman as famous as Ciara should be a red flag to any black woman foolish enough to still be looking to this group of black people for permission to be happy in their everyday lives.

I applaud Ciara for having the courage to break the cycle in her own life. I applaud her for not listening to demonic personalities who think having a baby by a loser rapper means she needs to date losers who don’t value her happiness, marriage, or fatherhood. Instead of going after another loser, she allowed herself to be loved by a quality man.

It doesn’t matter to me what the race of her future husband is; what’s important to me is that it sends a very powerful public message to African-American women about allowing yourself to feel worthy enough to be courted like a lady and truly loved by a man. Ciara is not letting the dysfunctional peanut gallery get in the way of her happiness or that of her child.

I hope this public example of a black woman not settling sinks into the minds of a new generation of young black women. I hope these women and girls realize that they aren’t bound by any so-called “unwritten rules” or double standards that tell them once they’ve done X, Y, and Z, they can no longer be worthy of love and should resign themselves to a spot on the trash heap.

(1) You never stop being worthy of love and happiness; you only stop getting it when you tell yourself it’s not something you deserve and

(2) You will never convince people with a vested interest in the desolation and destruction of black womanhood that you deserve better. These evil people will always hope for the worst and quickly point out what you DON’T deserve.

I wish Ciara and Russell Wilson a happy life together.