Tallahassee is a surreal city for dating for young black women, but I’m not sure if they know it. And they don’t seem to be taking advantage of it.
During the 1999-2000 school year, FAMU was only 56 percent female, according to blackexcel.org, so it’s almost a 1:1 ratio. Comparably, across the country, about four educated black women with a degree all compete for one black man with the same credentials.
However, in government studies of 29 states, black women accounted for 71.8 percent of new HIV cases in women from 1999 to 2002, according to a recent New York Times article. And an estimated 67 percent of black women contracted the virus in 2001 through heterosexual sex, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.
Nevertheless, they are still compelled to give bisexual brothers a chance because “the threat of death is not enough to persuade black women to protect themselves if it means being alone, childless and with less income,” said Dr. Gail E. Wyatt, a psychiatry professor and associate director of the UCLA AIDS Institute in a New York Times article last week.
According to the New York Times, 30 percent of these black male bisexuals are infected with HIV and only 10 percent of them know it, which has caused a recent surge in the frequency of HIV cases among black women.
That is the real world my black sisters – the scarcity of black men could cause you to be one of those women who choose a man over your health.
You’re living in a dream right now, but it will more than likely to soon turn into a nightmare. So it would be smart to leave FAMU with not only a degree, but a potential husband or at the least knowing exactly what you want in a man. When you leave you won’t have to lower your standards, but some of you will certainly have to change them
Don’t end up being part of those 70.8 percent of black women age 15 and older who are not married according to a 2002 Census report. But hey, maybe you don’t want to experience the two pinnacles of humanity – love and family.
Ibram Rogers is senior magazine production and African-American studies student from Manassas, Va. Contact him at ibramrogers@aol.com.