I just don't understand

how major media corporation after major media corporation can release THE SAME GODDAMN STORY ABOUT BLACK WOMEN'S (AND PARTICULARLY, BLACK PROFESSIONAL WOMEN'S) ABYSMALLY LOW MARRIAGE RATES YEAR AFTER FUCKING YEAR and this is somehow still considered was somehow EVER considered news-worthy. You all publish the same UNCITED statistics about how 70% of black women have never been married, and 30% of professional black women aren't married by the time they're thirty, compared to less than 15% of similarly-occupationed White women, and how this many black men are in jail and this many don't go to/finish college/graduate school. 

Here's the thing: WE FUCKING KNOW ALREADY. The LAST thing anyone needs is you people bringing it up OVER AND OVER AGAIN.

Actually, that's not true: the last thing we need is what you always manage to do--suggest some cure-all that we should all employ immediately to remedy this issue. Lower your standards. Stop looking for someone who is your equal. Look for older men. GET YOURSELF A WHITE MAN (in caps because I keep hearing it over and over again).

I'm sure I don't speak for black women everywhere, but even if it's on behalf of me and me alone, I want to tell you all to SHUT THE FUCK UP. Actually, that's not loud enough:

SHUT. THE. FUCK. UP.

Seriously. Take your fingers off the keyboard. Close your mouth. Stop bringing this idea to your editors. (Editors, stop somehow thinking it's news or you're putting any sort of a new spin on it.) Because, guess what...

YOU'RE NOT HELPING ANYTHING.

Not one iota of productivity or social welfare is going to come out of you TELLING THE SAME DAMN STORY again and again. If I'm being honest with you, not much came out of it the first time, except a whole slew of conversations in the black blogosphere and between black friends and community members about what we're doing wrong/what's wrong with us/why we can't get our shit together/what we need to do to fix this.  Just spoon another helping of fear/dread/reasons-to-self-loathe on our plates, why don't you?

I have a secret for you, people who write these articles: THERE'S NOTHING WRONG WITH US. Sure, every individual has their own shit going on, obviously, but there is no one thing wrong with us as a people that you can write some magic recipe to fix. 

Actually, I have some more secrets for you. Secret one: THERE ARE QUEER BLACK WOMEN. YES, WOMEN OF AFRICAN DESCENT WHO ARE NOT, IN FACT, LOOKING FOR A MAN. I would like for you to stop ignoring them, because even if they do not fit the dominant cultural narrative of blackness that YOU, MEDIA INSTITUTIONS, are shoving down OUR throats, they are my sisters and deserve recognition. Secret two: NOT EVERY HETEROSEXUAL BLACK WOMAN WANTS TO GET MARRIED. I'm not sure I do. Outside of religion (because yes, as another black woman who doesn't fit your narrative, I am not religious), I don't really see a point. And with half of marriages ending in divorce these days anyway, it seems like the institution is on its way out, to me. Secret three: INTERRACIAL RELATIONSHIPS ARE NOT SOME NOVEL IDEA THAT YOU HAVE TO OPEN OUR EYES TO. I'm pretty sure interracial relations were forced upon black women for centuries under slavery, and I'm also pretty sure that COUNTLESS LEGAL BATTLES WERE WAGED to lift the ban on miscegenation after we were emancipated, because even then we could recognize that love does not know color.

So, in conclusion, GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY FACE WITH THAT SHIT.