As I was writing The 6 A’s of Manhood for African American Men and flushing out  what it means to be a real man, I was exposed to how much of a man I previously wasn’t and how much more work I had to do on myself. It wasn’t so much of my actions I needed to change but some of my thinking was still utterly skewed. When it comes to how we think, our thought process is dictated by the lens in which we see the world, our lenses are shaped by our life’s experiences and those experiences are shaped by the environments in which they occurred. That last sentence shows you how complex our thinking is, how easily it can be faulty and how hard it is sometimes to change it.

As a young man coming up, just like every man in my area, I would brag about how many women I’ve slept with. (Since the faulty thinking in the hood is your manhood is determined by how many women you’ve slept with.) Even though sexually misusing our Queens is a travesty, this wasn’t the real problem. Not only would I brag about how many women I slept with, I would brag about how I was the king of dealing with women for two months. That was my thing; seek out the baddest most stuck up women, deal with them for two months then move on. Sad thing is I cannot tell you why this is something I did for years.

The reason I say this is worst than just sleeping around is because two months of “dating” creates an attachment but I knew I wasn’t trying to be attached. There is no way these women, who began falling for me, gave me their mind, bodies and spirit were not mentally and emotionally broken after I walked away from them and the next man has to deal with it as a result of my actions. As I was perusing Instagram, I came across a post which read “You and your boys spend years damaging women, then turn around and want a woman that’s not damaged when you’re ready to settle down.”

After reading that, I was instantly convicted because I have been and in some ways still am that man. While I have learned to have some patience with women because I understand the trauma they have been through dealing with guys like I used to be, I’m still guilty of calling them crazy without taking the amount of accountability for creating the craziness that I should. I’ve also been guilty of trying to find the woman with the least issues instead of choosing to help the woman I’m with heal from her brokenness.

Now I understand that wanting to deal with the least issues I can seems like the logical thing to do but HOW DARE I, the man who can’t even remember the names of some of the women he’s broken, the man who intentionally got women to fall for him just to leave them in two months, the man who used his looks, charm, articulation of speech and money to manipulate women into having sex with him have the audacity to try to find a woman who isn’t broken after all the breaking I did.

I know men usually get upset with me when I hold us accountable like this but I’m just talking about me here.

How can I praise myself for the number of women I slept with then turn around label the women who gave their bodies to me as whores and not wifey material? How can I want a woman to accept me knowing I will always inadvertently have her around a woman I had sex with before but if I know one man she slept with she’s damaged goods? Shit, how can I want a woman with an amazing body when I need to do a million pushups to get rid of these a cups? But most importantly, how can I, after all these years, finally get myself together and look at women who I’ve broken or men like me have and tell them Hakuna Matata it’s in the past? Seeking a woman who isn’t broken is like a well known thief looking for someone to trust them. I can’t search for the fruits of that which I did not sow.

Today more than ever I realized my personal hypocrisy. I have historically looked for the type of woman that my actions created the opposite of. As a man who is responsible for damaging women, I now have to take the time to help repair them. Not only in my own personal relationship but with Black Queens period. Even though this blog is primarily about me, every Black man needs to take this type of introspection, so as a whole we can help our women heal from the damage many of our men have caused.

Fellas before you talk about how women do things wrong too, understand I am fully aware of what they do but right now I’m talking about us. We have to do better in our actions but most importantly we have to do better in our thinking. We have to take all of the negative labels, stereotypes, generalizations and downright condemnations off of our Queens. I know we’ve been trained to call our Queens whores because of how many men they’ve slept with but let us pots stop calling the kettle black. I know dealing with their brokenness is hard but if we’ve been a part of breaking them, then we should be a part of putting them back together.

Our women have accepted us FLAWS AND ALL but we have repeatedly chastised them for being anything less than perfection. To my brothers, my fellow Kings, I beg you to see, speak to and build up the Queen in every Black woman, regardless of her past actions and her hurts. After all, isn’t that what they do for us? It’s time we give our Queens what they’ve given us.