So, I heard the song (and hated it) when Neo came out with it and now that Jamie Foxx is rocking the remix (I am upset). The song celebrates a woman that “got her own” and “doesn’t need” a man. And of course the woman they are referring to is a heterosexual woman. Excuse me?

Heterosexual women desire, want, and need men. Point Blank. These songs are sending the wrong kind of message to our young black men and women.
As a Southerner, I don’t feel it’s a woman’s place to pay for a date, take out the trash, fix a plumbing problem, or mow the lawn. Because I grew up in a single parent home (with a grandmother and plenty of uncles) I know women are capable of taking out the trash, fixing a septic tank, and cutting the grass. However, because a woman CAN do something, doesn’t mean she SHOULD do it. This is where the song fails and is promoting a devastating message.

What kind of black community will we be if our men don’t extend a hand of courtesy to our women and they boast that they LOVE women who say “I got it.” Can we really call that a man? Not where I am from, because we live by the rule that “if a man don’t work, he don’t eat.”

We sistas NEED black men. If we come from a people that taught that it takes a village to raise ONE child, how can we think we can raise many children with just the women? I have so many sista friends who are caught between media images of a “strong, independent woman” and crying in house alone. This is tearing them apart. If God said it wasn’t good for Adam to be alone, how can we think it’s okay for Eve to be alone. Women need men.

I never bought into the idea when teenage girls by the name of Destiny’s Child promoted an independent and I won’t buy it now that two adult black males are singing the same song. Black women not only need black men, but black men NEED black women. A community cannot exist without collaboration.

Let’s let Miss Independent rest and promote Jill Scott’s I Need You.