The Elusive Good Black Man

Contrary to popular belief and many a gospel stage play, there are plenty of Good Black Men – GBM. The one that Gabrielle Union or Sanaa Lathan ends up with. The dude Morris Chestnut has played in every single movie he has ever been in. Black men that want, appreciate, adore, and prefer Black women. These brothers are gainfully employed and never lived with their mother past college or their stint in the Air Force. They dress in Armani and Ralph Lauren and cool thrift store finds. They listen to underground hip hop and tell you their favorite Miles Davis chords. They do community service and get regular promotions at work. These men are not unicorns. They exist in numbers and are at every college campus and Black church in America.
But he’s already taken.
Yesterday I ran into a tall handsome brother I took a class with years ago. His now salt and pepper hair gave his already attractive features a distinguished air. He is successful in his career, very educated, and just sweet as pie because he really, really, really loves his wife and kids.
Womp. Womp. Womp.
There are tons of amazing, love their mother, take care of you when you are sick, ambitious, attractive single Black men in the world.
Then they turn 18.
By then some girl has realized, “You know, this guy is going to medical school and he shall be mine.”
My niece met her fiancé when they were 14 and they have been together ever since. If you wanted him, you would have had to sidle up to him during social studies in junior high. After that, it was a wrap.
Sometimes the GBM gets all the shenanigans out in college. He gets drunk, and goes to Mardi Gras and Howard’s Homecoming. However, he will marry his college sweetheart. The MRS degree has truth to it. Men that are marriage minded take that university time to find a major and a wife.
Occasionally, he takes a wee bit longer ala Barack Obama and marries the woman we meets at his first job post grad school. But a date with these men is like last call. He is closing soon.
Good Black Men are well…Good. They do the right thing. They treat women well and marry the love of their lives. They want to be married and in love and have careers and hit the gym. They try at life instead of just letting it blow them around aimlessly like the leaf in “Forest Gump”.
By the time an attractive, gainfully employed, nice as in not an asshole, black man is 40, he’s been married for ten to fifteen years.
Your only shot at this point is the throw back. Maybe, just maybe, this guy miscalculated and he gets divorced. Or by some tragic, depending on how you look at it, turn of events his wife dies. He has kids, because Good Black Men have children with their wives.
But the window is only open briefly. You better climb in quick! Once word gets out he is single, the girl he went to prom with realizes he was the best she was ever going to meet and is sending him Facebook messages. The divorcees at the Parent Teacher Conference are there in stilettos and miniskirts offering to make him dinner while his heart mends and to do anything she can to help. (Fat Amy wink)
I work with an architect that is a GBM. He checks all the boxes for most women. Tall, smart, handsome, great father. He was recently divorced and less than a year later is engaged. His fiancé is someone he has known for years. She was on the sidelines just waiting for her shot. When it came, she took it. GBM are not single for long.
So teach your daughters. Fuck math. To hell with SAT scores. If you want a good Black man, you find him before college graduation at the latest. After that, it’s just waiting for marriages to end or wives to die or the wife to have the rare sex change…Caitlyn Jenner should give us all hope.