Someone recently posted in my yahoo group a list of 7 myths about Black men. The list was supposed to counter these lies with truth. Unfortunately, the list didn’t really address the core issues, it simply was a way for some poor soul to try to feel validated as a human being. I understand that need but it should have been done with much more introspection. Therefore, I’m going to step up to the plate and dismantle his list of lies and myths of Black manhood summarily and with efficacy.
Black men are morally and intellectually inferior.
The intellectual inferiority of Black PEOPLE, not just men, is directly related to the fact the educational system is designed to keep Black people stupid. Black PEOPLE are not inherently or genetically intellectually inferior. If you undereducate an entire race for hundreds of years, yes, unfortunately, you are going to have a race of people who aren’t intellectually superior. That’s not an indication of our capability or potential as a race, it’s just a manifestation of the fact that whites are the beneficiaries of a better education in this country. Poor nutrition, a staple in the black community, leads to lesser intellectual capacity as well. That’s not something that is inherent to Black people, it’s across racial lines. If a child is raised on sugar and processed food, they aren’t going to be able to have their brains develop properly because they lack the essential and key nutrients that stimulate brain function. Again, not inherent to Black people, it just so happens that we’ve been socialized to eat out of Styrofoam boxes, not gardens. Black people are just as capable of learning and intellectual superiority as any other race. Unfortunately, we were denied education for our first 250 years and it takes a lot longer to catch up. Unfortunately, the playing field isn’t level so we haven’t been able to catch up en masse the way we could have. There are plenty of examples of Black brilliance in spite of our handicaps and that speaks volumes to our potential and our natural intellectual gifts despite the roadblocks that white people have institutionalized to keep us oppressed. Moral inferiority is a joke. White people are so amoral it boggles my mind. Who else could start a war that kills thousands of people, endangers the environment for thousands of years, destroys hundreds of thousands of lives, for MONEY? Serial killers and pedophiles and bestiality . . . white people got immorality on lock down but the media is white so they have a vested interest in making us look immoral.
All black men are well-endowed and are better lovers.
Many, many, many Black men are better endowed. Not every single one, but a great many are. The reason why white slave masters were so intimidated by Black men is because they did in fact have larger penises. They would gather around in mobs and castrate Black men in order to feel empowered. The fact that Black men tend to have larger penises, and more muscle tone, which would make for a better lover, is not a myth. The myth comes in making their larger sexual organs and better skills something negative. The Black man is not a sexual savage. He should not be defined by his sexual skill or endowment. He is far MORE than just a big dick and a primal fuck. Sadly, most Black men have come to define their manhood as just that.
Black men prefer white women
White women are seen as the standard of beauty in this society. They have been put on a pedestal as the icon of beauty for hundreds if not thousands of years. Black women, in this country, have been told for hundreds of years, not only are we not beautiful, but that we are ugly and undesirable. It’s no great shock that many, many Black men subconsciously see white women as more attractive, better partners. We have a nation of black women who are trying to change their aesthetic to those of white women, wouldn’t it stand to reason that a woman who doesn’t have to have a relaxer to “correct” her nappy hair is better than one who does? Doesn’t it stand to reason that if a black boy is told that he is black and ugly that he would want to make sure that his kids have a chance at being mixed and beautiful? A great many black men see white women as more beautiful subconsciously. White people feed their subconscious lust for white women by saying, “love knows no color,” and thus allowing them never to heall their wounds and address their own issues of self hate. Thankfully, not every Black man prefers white women, but the failure as a culture to address the centuries of brainwashing Black people have endured, does in fact create a large percentage of black men who feel white women are more socially, sexually, and/or romantically desirable.
Black men are irresponsible fathers
Seven out of ten black children are born to single mothers. Black women are raising their boys in homes without fathers, in emotionally incestuous relationships that cripple their sons and make them incapable of accepting responsibility as adults. It’s a cycle that will repeat itself till the end of time unless we address the emotional maturity of black men. Parenting skills in Black men are dangerously lacking for the most part. Again, that’s not something that is inherent to us or a genetic trait that is passed down. It’s a manifestation of socialization and a byproduct of lessons learned, and unlearned, in slavery. African men were just that, men, and completely capable of raising their families. During slavery, breaking up the home, preventing men from being good fathers was essential to controlling the slave population. (THERE WAS NO GOD DAMN WILLIE LYNCH) The model for the black home was set when responsibility was taken from the black man and it’s damn near impossible to give it back to him now. Even when black men are present in the home, their parenting skills are usually based on a patriarchal “I’m the bread winner and the disciplinarian: model which is unhealthy as well. Are Black men incapable of being good fathers? Absolutely not. Are the vast majority of Black men emotionally crippled as to not lend themselves to being good fathers, unfortunately, yes, but it’s not an unfixable problem, its not something that in inherent to Black men because of genetics.
Black men are superior athletes and entertainers
Black men ARE superior athletes and entertainers. Again, the problem isn’t in stating that as a fact, it’s in relegating that to the only things Black men are capable of. No, not every single black man is a superior athlete or entertainer. Our naturally muscular bodies and our natural rhythm lend themselves well to sports, dancing, singing, playing music. There’s nothing wrong with that. The problem lies in saying that’s the ONLY thing Black men are capable of. The problem lies in relegating Black men to roles of entertainer or athlete. Are there some white men who can sing and dance and have muscular bodies? Of course. But no one is telling them that’s all they can be. Check it, white people wouldn’t have kidnapped and enslaved us if our bodies weren’t superior and our dark skin didn’t make it easy for them to differentiate us. Anyone who could survive the middle passage is a physically superior person, genetically. The fact that white people like to be entertained by us is more of a commentary on them than anything disparaging to us.
Black men are poor businessmen
I’ve never heard of this, Black men are poor businessmen, myth. I’ve heard the myth that black business are poorly run so I guess whatever Black man wrote this list co-opted the myth to fit black men. It’s almost redundant at this point to mention that there is nothing inherently inferior about Black people that makes us behave in negative ways OTHER THAN the set of circumstances that white people inflict on us. We aren’t as likely to have inherited businesses, trust funds, endowments, willed fortunes, and insurance policies to give us the capital to start and run a business. We also have, what I call, the Black people disease. We have been socialized to fear our own success; we would rather work for someone else. There’s no DNA code for Black people that renders us more likely to be an employee than an employer, it’s just that we have been taught to follow the rules, not make our own. White people are taught that they can do anything, its drilled into their heads from childhood, We are taught that we have to do whatever we can to barely stay alive and that we have to conform to do it. Those of us lucky enough to have gotten different messages are more than capable of running successful businesses.
Black men contributed nothing to the advancement of civilization
I’m not sure why gender is an issue here. Black PEOPLE, both men and women, were the architects of civilization. This propensity to erase women from history is yet another example of how black men have been socialized to accept the norms of the white man. Erasing Black women from history serves what purpose, to elevate Black men to a position of superiority? The need for black men to want to rule over Black women, to diminish our contribution is one learned in slavery and it’s self destructive.
Oddly enough, the most glaring myths about black men are missing. Black men are supposedly more criminal, drug addicted, and lazy. Those are the myths I would have love to seen addressed. In each of those instances, I think white people take the award, hands down. Stealing land, stealing people, stealing resources, slaughtering millions of people. THAT’S Criminal. White people can find ways to justify their criminality in ways that boggle my mind. In my local newspaper yesterday, they had a picture of a black baby left in a car white the guardian was robbing a bank, took up half the front page with a color picture. Two weeks ago, a woman was arrested for embezzling a million dollars from her company and her husband was the State Comptroller for the state of Delaware. Page six, no picture, two paragraphs. Her husband is the man responsible for the finances of an entire state and that wasn’t even enough to warrant being on the front page. White people might not be genetically more criminal but they certainly are socialized to think their criminal behavior is justifiable, invisible.
I don’t know about now, but I know when I was in college 20 years ago, white people were doing drugs like they were vitamins. Black parties I would go to, everyone was concerned with dancing and rubbing your little thing up on someone, there might be some weed somewhere. White parties, there was coke, and pills, I don’t know what kind, and they wanted to drink until they puked. Drug addiction certainly isn’t genetic but white people have this, “I need to get fucked up,” attitude far more than black people. Now, with all of these manufactured drugs like X and meth, that are being produced in white homes and neighborhoods, its hard for me to comprehend how anyone could say that Black people are more addicted to drugs. We might have more homeless drug addicts but that’s not a measure of us being more drug addicted, that’s just a measure of how white people treat their drug addicts and a whole measure of economics.
One could argue that if white people weren’t so lazy, they could have built their own nation rather than having to enslave people to do it for them. Is that a trait inherent to them? Far be it from me to say that, god forbid. In fact, SOME might say that white people are inherently more violent, that they’ve made violence a form of entertainment, that aggression is what they are capable of most. My great grandfather was a sharecropper for a white man. He would work 16 hours a day to grow and harvest food for the white land owner. At the end of the year, that white landowner would steal the profits he was supposed to share with my great grandfather and keep them for himself. One of those men was lazy, one was not. Sadly, the entire system of sharecropping was built on the model that the black man would work for an entire year and the white man would reap the benefits of his hard work and not give him one thin dime, and in many cases force the black man to pay him. If one were making an argument about who was inherently lazy, it would be hard to form the argument that it was black men.
Myths and stereotypes have origins in truth. The problem becomes when Black people are narrowly defined by their stereotypes. Black men are more than just big black bucks who can run and jump and shoot and breed white women. If one asserts that Black men are incapable of more than that, that all they are is a collective of negative traits that have been ascribed to them, that’s the definition of racism.
Copyright 2006 Scottie Lowe
Scottie Lowe is the founder, CEO, and the creative driving force behind AfroerotiK, THE most unique website dedicated to showing the true beauty of Black sexuality in all its many facets. AfroerotiK creates customized and personalized erotic stories written from a decidedly Afrocentric perspective and embraces diversity in sexual expression. Tired of erotica that portrayed black women as man-stealing gold diggers and brainless nymphos, and black men as thugs, players, and emotionally immature dick-slingers, she decided it was time to write erotica that represented the complexity and full spectrum of African Americans. Look for her highly controversial upcoming book, In Loving Color, to create quite a stir with literary works of art that are dripping with sensuality and explore groundbreaking, socially relevant topics. It will include breathtaking photography that will be sure to arouse and stimulate intense passion and establish In Loving Color as the standard for Black erotica.
No comments:
Post a Comment