Do you know what that means?

Listening to this song "Independent" by Webbie featuring Lil' Boosie the other day (it's all they play on the radio here in St. Louis), it occurred to me: "Independent" is a club record that celebrates the kind of hard-working woman who doesn't need a man to support her, but when would a woman with two jobs, her own house and her own car even find time to be in a club?

Working a series of soul-crushing minimum wage jobs, which is the kind of shit you have to do when you work here, I've come across my share of broads who work more than one job. (Not counting the check they get to have children.) Many of them work damn near the equivalent two full-time jobs, which makes me wonder how they even find time to sleep.

Lord knows, between the time I spend slinging ad-hominems over the Internets, and the time I spend playing the Nintendo Wii, I've been pretty short on sleep myself lately. And I only work every once in a while.

So most likely, the average broad who spends a lot of time in the club twerking it to "Independent" bears very little relation to the type of woman described in the song. But the main aspect of "Independent" that I found to be BS is that I think it sends out the wrong message.

I mean, on the one hand, there's nothing wrong with a woman who can take care of herself.

For example, could there have been a Don Imus incident if it wasn't in a woman's nature to derive her sense of self-worth from a man?

And obviously any woman who's looking to be with me (don't all raise your hands at once) is gonna have to be self-reliant, if for no other reason than the fact that it's not like I'm gonna be able to take care of her.

Last year, there was a story in the New York Times about these uber-successful broads who had trouble finding a man. They weren't about to snag a man with a similar income, because of course a man of a certain means is gonna judge a woman on her appearance first and foremost. That's Darwinism at its finest. So they'd end up dating these guys with average - or less than average - incomes, and invariably the relationship would end up failing.

Broads like that love to claim that a man who's unable to pull down an income suitable for a man (which is becoming an epidemic these days, if you notice) is intimidated by a woman who makes more money than he does. But as I mentioned at the time, I know I wouldn't be. And I doubt any other guy reading this would be either. Shit, I'd be celebrating!

Now, if she insisted on constantly calling you lazy and bringing up the fact that she makes more money than you do in front of your friends, then obviously that would be a different story. But in that case, the issue wouldn't be so much the fact that she makes more money than you, but rather the fact that she's an ignorant beeyotch who doesn't know when to shut the fuck up.

But I digress.

As I was saying, on the one hand, no one's discouraging a woman from learning a little self-reliance. The shit might come in handy one of these days. But on the other hand, if being independent is such a good idea, then how come only black women are doing it? White women and Chinese women have never been less independent, and I think they might be on to something.

Not to lay the entire blame for the state of the black community on a black woman's independent streak (and hence let white people off the hook), but you have to wonder: Would things be quite as fucked up as they are if black women made more of an effort to include a man in their lives?

Take for example this story in the New York Times yesterday about all of these single black women in Baltimore losing their homes due to this subprime mess. A lot of those women really were the type of women described in the Webbie record, and look what's happening to them: Back having to cut a check every month to someone named Goldstein or whatever.

Now obviously not every woman (certainly not every black woman) is gonna be able to find a man. And obviously not every man (especially if he's black) is gonna be able to chip in much - though a man might at least have the sense not to try to cop some shit he can't afford. But some of us probably could, and we'd probably be better off for it, regardless of what Webbie says.