What I’m about to say, I mean every word with the core of my being.

Black people are doomed.

There is a virus so deep within,one can only compare it to AIDS. HIV enters the body, and the human immune system doesn’t recognize this invader as foreign–it accepts the virus as a part of the larger system–the body. Silently, over time, the virus reeks havoc at the very DNA of the host, a series of maladies–the flu, sores, weird cancers–are merely a side effect of the larger problem. The human wastes away from within by a force it never even noticed invaded…and is conquered.

I wrote a piece that appeared Madame Noire today about sex slavery in the United States, and how many of the victims, as young as age 11, were being coerced into the sex trade. Most of them black, most of them fatherless and needy. The pimp comes in to provide basic needs–sometimes food and shelter–other times, oftentimes, it’s an emotional need. The pimp tells the girl she’s pretty. He tells he loves her, asks him to call him “Daddy.” He asks the girls to call him something they’ve always wanted, but perhaps couldn’t articulate–a father. A provider. A protector. A giver of love.

That hole is so big it’s a crater…a Grand Canyon even. The girl, lonely and in need of masculine, NON- SEXUAL love, clings to the man who gives her just a scrap of attention. He gives her all she wants at first, then when she’s hooked and feels some snatch of comfort, the pimp pulls everything from out under her. She’s then desperate, DESPERATE to regain that love, comfort and approval he gave, and she will do as he says. Even if it means she has to give herself 20 times to a john in one night…even if it means giving a blow job to your ex-boyfriend for millions of people all over the world to look on, laugh at her, and deride her.

This same vulnerability results in an “Amber Cole,” who was also DESPERATE for male attention, love and approval, and in this case, a boy (trained by the MEN around him) exploited that vulnerability so he could gain “pimp” status with his buddies.

As a mother of three girls, it is so clear to me, so black and white, elementary, simple, rudimentary that girls need love, attention and protection from a benign masculine figure–the optimal dude would be THE FATHER OF THAT CHILD. But 73% of our children–the majority of them girls, because that’s how it works, always more girls than boys–are born to unmarried couples that often result in absent fathers within the first five years of the child’s birth.

What I can. not. fathom. is how black women have almost wholesale bought into the notion that black girls are just short black women, and when they get preyed upon, it’s their own fault.

Exhibit A

“Kayla” said:

You know what’s shocking? Kayla’s comment just isn’t that shocking. The commenter said it best:

I don’t agree that the world dislikes us, but I damn sure believe we dislike ourselves, so much so that we offer our own flesh and blood for sacrifice to the den of lions. Where is the maternal protection? We so-called “strong black women” are too weak to stand up against this foolishness, in this world where black girls are mere commodities and sperm receptacles.

And please spare me the tiny violin about how these so-called mothers were abused themselves and devalue themselves and that’s why it’s no big deal, yada yada blah blah blah. That’s bullspit. When you’re a grown woman who was abused, you don’t suddenly have amnesia about how shitty it was that Uncle Larry crept in your room when you were nine years old, nor do you forget the hole in your heart from the absence of your father, and how trapped it made you feel when you mother told you to never utter his name. These women DO NOT forget. They stop caring.

Well I’ll tell you what. Other black mothers may abdicate there roles as mother bear, but I will cut your heart out and hand it to you if you hurt any of mine, and that’s not an exaggeration. That’s a dead-on promise.