Why do some of our Black Men fall into these categories?

A pastor friend of mine asked on his Facebook on March 10, 2011 at 3:42pm:

“What happened to Black men..to cause us to change our course of nature from Women? To deny the Queen a Father, a Husband, and a best friend...to now be a baby daddy, a prison inmate, and a mamaz boi? What have we become?”

This led to an interesting discussion that after a few amens I felt I should share what I said. Please feel free to share your own thoughts about this very touchy subject. Love and grace my fellow readers =)

My response:

"I think I'm w/the first few comments. Society's women started expecting less and demanding less. "Every wise woman buildeth her house: but the foolish plucketh it down with her hands."-Prov 14:1. If we didn't marry a man who settled for this nonsense, if we believed better for our husbands, would they not rise to the challenge?

But could it be we let Jay-Z and Nikki Menaj and Beyonce or whoever is hot and in the big screen or on the radio dictate what a man or a woman is supposed to look like? We let commercials about weak fathers or sitcoms about unhappily marrieds or cartoons about neglectful parents feed our minds and cause us to act outside of the context of what true men and women should act.

We need the mind of Christ and the only way to walk in that is to tackle these issues head on, and nip them in the bud. Who is teaching men to be men? Who is teaching women to be women? Will each one please teach one? We need the Oreo effect going on here...

Glory to God bro it's so true I don't even blame the men. How can Adam thrive if Eve keeps on eating the fruit from the tree in the middle of the garden? How can a man grow in love with a woman whose heart is snares and nets? A true woman of God will not only choose wisely but grow that which she has.

I can admit I was responsible for a lot of foolishness that I advocated in the past. Who but I allowed it? All a woman in America has to do to prevent years of heartache and pain is say "no". "No" is a powerful thing =).

Personally I do not call my husband one of my children. I call him a man. I expect him and encourage him as a man, and try not to jokingly demean him as many of us women can easily do without noticing. I try to align my vision with the God-spoken calling on Kenny's life. Praying for his strengths to become stronger and letting his weaknesses die from lack of sunshine. While we usually find people try to attack problems by always bringing them up, it's usually more effective to keep our eyes on what the big picture is supposed to look like and leave the problems at the altar.

Truth is, as wives we are supposed to be prophetic, doing our husbands good and not evil, edifying, exhorting, and building up our household with our words and our actions. Warning him of impending danger if God sees fit. Being obedient to him. Honoring him.

Isn't it the most beautiful thing when you find a couple happily married serving Christ together? With a real man who leads? And they are truly in love and edifying each other, not tearing each other down? What if we made that the majority? We really need to keep fighting for the mountain in the area of media so the world can see it is possible.

In the meantime, we need to pray that women be edified in their call to build, and men be edified in their call to lead, and that spiritual parents will make themselves available to even the most obscure opportunities to make disciples. Aiight fam =) love and grace"