Handicapping our Sons

There are certain things one needs in life in order to grow up emotionally healthy.  Because our culture has this deep seated hatred for Black men and, at the same time, an irrational worship of Black masculinity, we, meaning Black society, raise our little boys in ways that dishonor their proper maturation process.  We set the stage for them to be horrible fathers and husbands in childhood with practices and patterns that are nothing more than diseased remnants of slave teachings.  Because, however, these practices are accepted as standard, and touted as healthy, we, in essence, manufacture, disabled Black men.  All of our patterns and behaviors begin in childhood.  We go through our entire lives mirroring the “truths” we learn before we are 10 years old.  So to get to the origins of some of the pervasive and debilitating issues surrounding Black men, which are many of the issued Black men possess in staggering numbers, let’s take an in depth look at the life of a typical Black little boy, let’s call him Damon. 

Damon is a beautiful, brown little boy with all the potential in the world.  He, like almost every black child, is being parented by his single mother.  He was the “byproduct” of a four month fling in which his mother, a very pretty, light-skinned women got pregnant and her “boyfriend” did a Maury Povich and said, “It ain’t mine.”  Turns out he was and the father has to pay court ordered child support and has scheduled visitation.  Damon’s grandparents are “high yellow” and they often criticize their daughter for getting pregnant by such a “Black” man, right in front of Damon.  His mother wasn’t emotionally prepared to have a child, because she, like most Black women, hadn’t dealt with her own issues.  Oh, she is excellent at repeating clichés like, “I’m a strong black woman, I don’t need a man, and, I can be the mother and the father.”  But those are just empty and irrational sayings that have no meaning because any mature adult knows that a child is best reared by two parents in a loving environment and it’s not even emotionally possible for a mother to teach her son how to be a man because she has no clue what it means to be a man.  She might be capable of raising him to be a good person, IF she had cleaned up the mess of her own emotional life first, but she didn’t and she beats the crap out of her son for every minor, perceived, or imagined infraction, every chance she can get, saying that she’s teaching him discipline when all she’s really doing is reinforcing violence and hatred. 

In order to be a trusting adult, you need to have reliable, dependable people in your life, you need stability.  Damon is 8 years old and he’s lived in four apartments already.  He and his mother move frequently to avoid getting evicted for failure to pay the rent.  His mom works a steady job but she spends her money carelessly, opting to buy clothes and shoes, and getting her hair done in order to be attractive to men rather than budget her money and provide a stable home for her child.  She thinks that Damon is the reason she can’t get a man, an although, to her credit, she doesn’t come out and say it, she shows it in her behavior, quick to leave him at various “auntie’s” houses any and every chance she can get to go out on a date.  Damon’s absentee father breaks promises all the time in order to get out of his parenting responsibilities so he can run the streets with all his women.  Poor Damon.  He learns very early that father’s are never present and that women put men first.  The only thing that is constant in his life, the only thing that he can truly trust, is that there is going to be change and disappointments.  He has to make new friends every time they move and he never really feels a sense of permanence or feels like he has a home because he knows at any moment, his mother could say, “Start packing, it’s time to go.”  Damon grows up and he doesn’t let people get close to him because believes relationships are temporary and he’s never had anyone provide stability, consistency, security, or even a sense of being loved in his life.

Little Damon learned early on that he wasn’t good enough, that there was something inherently wrong with him.  His mother would come home from work, frustrated and angry from the job and yell and scream at him.  It was usually her chance to get out all her frustration with the world.  “Damon, you stupid little nigga, you are just like your father, that no good son of a bitch.  I hate him.  You are an evil, hateful child.”  Sweet innocent Damon hears that and learns that he was born no good, that he isn’t good enough as is, so he has to become something else, someone else.  He wears the mask that grins and lies.  Adult Damon adapts his behavior to what he learns as a child by being untrustworthy, never really being his authentic self with anyone, shaping and morphing his personality to fit people’s needs, and ultimately, he can’t keep up the façade and lets them down when the game gets too demanding.  It becomes too tiresome to keep up the image of being something and someone he really isn’t, of pretending to be someone he’s not, so he doesn’t keep his promises, he doesn’t follow through, he doesn’t live up to his word.  But the real authentic Damon, the one inside is looking for validation.  He’s never gotten it, he’s not even sure it exists, so all he knows is to keep lying, keep pretending to be something he’s not to prove to the world that he is worthy.  When he let’s the people around him down, his subconscious mind validates his mother’s words, that he really is no good.

Little Damon learned to lie at an early age.  His mom would always make him responsible for her happiness.  She would call him “her little man” and tell him that he was the only man in her life.  He felt responsible for making his mommy happy.  He hated seeing his mommy mad at him, and she would fly off into a rage when he did something bad, so when she confronted him, he would lie to make his mommy proud of him, to make sure she loved him.  Damon would never get a spanking when he lied, but he would get a beating every time he told the truth.  Mommy, desperate to make Damon the man in her life, never held little Damon accountable when he lied to others.  She coddled him and defended him against anyone who would dare accuse him of anything wrong because she thought any implied imperfections of her son were a reflection on her poor mothering skills.  If his mom sanctioned his lying by telling her own lies then lying couldn’t be all that bad.  Lying got him out of trouble, made people happy, didn’t make people mad at him.  It became first nature for Big Damon to lie, to deny, to deceive, and to lie some more.  Adult Damon lies so much, he doesn’t even realize what the truth is.  He can look a person in the eye and lie without so much as blinking an eye and he has no concept that he’s wrong for it. 

“Little boys don’t cry.”  Little Damon heard it over and over again.  “Be a man, don’t be a sissy, real men don’t cry.”  Okay, so little Damon holds in his tears as best he can.  He wants to be a man, right?  All the men in his life are playboys.  All the men in his life use women for sex.  Every message he gets, from TV to friends to that same absentee dad who blows him off for his dates is that men fuck women to prove their manhood.  When he has sex for the first time, usually at an exceptionally young age, he “feels” this great sensation.  It’s more than physical, it’s a moment of release where he can be himself.  He loves that feeling.  He isn’t able to articulate it because  . . . well because he’s never ever been taught to express his feelings because that’s not something boys do.   He associates sex with feeling good but never with intimacy and connection because those are terms he doesn’t even understand.  Everything in society tells him that his big, black dick makes him a man.  Not once is he told that a being a man means having integrity, keeping your promises, being honest when it means you won’t get what you want.  Big Damon uses women for sex left and right, craving the sensation of closeness, craving the opportunity to let down his guard but completely unaware of how to go about it with a partner.  He knows pornos and women who yell and scream at him for being emotionally unavailable but he doesn’t have a clue as to what they are talking about so he moves on to the next woman to fuck and see if he can’t get that feeling again. 

Damon is every Black man.  His experience isn’t identical to every Black man but in far far too many instances it’s damn close.  Now, the triggers can be different.  I could tell the same story with Damon and he could have lived in the same home all his life, with a dad and a mom who were super rigid and super strict, he could have waited until he was a grown man until he had sex but the messages he learned were the same:  that people are untrustworthy, that there’s something inherently bad about him that needs to be suppressed and that lying makes life easier and that sex soothes his weary soul.  Damon has grown up to be an emotionally immature man who uses women for sex without remorse, who lies constantly, who feels justification for never trusting anyone and who changes his persona to fit every relationship in his life.  The saddest part is that Damon doesn’t see anything wrong with the way he is because it’s been his programming since before he had memories and it’s his natural state of existence.  I’m not saying that the reason black relationships are failing is because of Black men, but I’m saying that until men can break their patterns and as long as society tells them that they are justified in whatever they do, we are fucked as a race. 

If Black men can figure out that the messages they got as children, the bad programming, figure out what happened to give them the blueprint for their life were fucked up, they can start the healing process.  I pray that I can somehow get Black men to see that their blueprint wasn’t designed well but that doesn’t mean that they are bad people and it doesn’t mean that the foundation for their lives is right, we can start heal Black relationships. 

Copyright 2006 Scottie Lowe

Ms Bisexual 2013

Trust me when I say that sistas are more scheming, lying, and down low than brothas when it comes to being bisexual.  I’m bisexual and I wear my label proudly.  I can't tell you how many times I've heard women say to me, almost verbatim, "Well, yes, I am attracted to both men and women but am I really bisexual, who knows?"  Goddamn!  I know.  If you are attracted to both men and women, YOUR AZZ IS BISEXUAL.   The rejection of the term bisexual by women is annoying to me when CLEARLY so many women are-- they are just afraid to admit it.  This whole, "I'm not going to say I'm bisexual because it has a negative connotation," bullshit is a cop out.  There's nothing negative about saying you are bisexual except that people would rather continue to perpetuate homophobia than admit the truth.  

I don't drink a lot.  I might have a drink once in two or three months, maybe once or twice a month if I'm being particularly social.  Can I claim that I'm not a drinker?  No.  Frequency doesn't dictate my "label."  I feel no need to make up another term to describe my drinking habits because I drink so infrequently.  No, I'm not an alcoholic; yes, I am a drinker.  See?  No shame in that.  I am a non-smoker.  I don't smoke, have never smoked, and have no desire to smoke.  I can wear my non-smoker label proudly.  People who smoke socially, or who only smoke when they are stressed out can't claim that they are non-smokers.  They give up that right when they take a puff.  Women who have sex with other women can't claim that they aren't bisexual because they only let women go down on them, they don't go down on other women.  It just can't work that way.  That's delusional rationalization and unhealthy.  No, that's insanity. 

I’ve heard the ever-popular, “I don’t like labels,” but women NEVER seem to mind the label of heterosexual, they only have problems with that bisexual label.  I always hear, “I am not bisexual because I’m not attracted to women emotionally, just sexually.”  That would be great if we were defining the word bi-emotional.  This sista told me once that she wasn’t bisexual because she didn’t like the reaction people gave her when she told them she was bisexual.  Read that again.  She wasn’t bisexual because she didn’t like the reaction people gave her when she told them she was.  How is that logical?  Okay, I’m not Black because I don’t like the way white people treat me.  There isn’t a planet in the universe where that shit makes sense.  You can’t define who you are by how other people treat you.  

The most popular excuse for why women don’t consider themselves bisexual, by far, is, “I PREFER sex with men.”  Well, of course, if you have sex with a woman and you don’t really enjoy it as much as you do when you are having sex with a man, that means you earned the right to be called a heterosexual.  RIGHT!  The definition of bisexual in the dictionary is of, relating to, or having a sexual orientation to persons of either sex.  Nowhere does it say, “only if you initiate sex with persons of the same sex.”

Men I can understand.  Black men are demonized for being bisexual.  Bisexual women are exalted in this society, men’s ultimate objectification fantasy.  We do ourselves a disservice by denying who we are.  It’s untruthful and damaging. 

The Great Afrikan-Centered Homosexuality Debate

Try as I might to get the Afrikan-centered community involved in this dialogue, they seem to think it’s not Afrikan centered to discuss sexuality, especially any topics that they deem Eurocentric.  I am always confronted with the argument that AfroerotiK is not Afrikan-centered because it addresses homosexuality and the Afrikan-centered community denounces homosexuality in all of its forms. 

Because I am an outspoken member of the Afrikan-centered community and bisexual, I will address those claims, defend my position, and outline how AfroerotiK lends 100% of its energy to the promotion of an Afrikan-centered ideology.  AfroerotiK’s mission, first and foremost is to educate and enlighten Africans born in America.  To do so, you have to reach people where they are.  As president, owner, and sole driving force behind AfroerotiK, I can say that while I would love for all descendents of kidnapped Africans throughout the Diaspora to embrace Africa as their cultural and spiritual homeland, I fully recognize that is a reality far from fruition.  Black people, especially here in the US, usually want nothing to do with Africa and must be re-educated about our history, we have to have the centuries old brainwashing that we have endured reprogrammed, we must look to challenge the way we see life and how we navigate the planet.  Black sexuality is cancerous as is.  There’s no question about it that what passes as healthy sexuality in the black community is leading us to an even further and further breakdown of communication and intimacy.  How does one attempt to restore a healthy way to engage people sexually?  Do you do so by condemning people for their beliefs and behaviors, or does the true Africentrist look to the origins of the behaviors, look to the gain an understanding of the person, and try to push themselves to expand their consciousness and embrace a higher way of looking at things? 

Karenga, Dr. Ben and a host of other male Afrikan-centered scholars all denounce homosexuality as being outside of the parameters of Afrikan-centered ideology.  While I respect their contributions to the academic body that makes up their scholarship, I respectfully submit that I don’t think that they’ve evolved past the sexist, patriarchal and misogynist mindsets that have been engrained in African American men for centuries.  Black men have struggled for so long to try to gain the power that white men have had, they are hard pressed to accept a reality that says that women are equal, that homosexuality doesn’t determine one’s masculinity or femininity, or that there just may be another way to look at life than the knee jerk conservatism that we’ve been fed.  To simply denounce homosexuality as wrong and not consider that their may be other alternatives to heterosexuality is a Euro-centered as one can possibly be.  To imply that there is only one way and anything else is wrong is exactly what the slave master would have wanted us to believe, so to use that same line of reasoning to condemn people within our community is absurd.  The Afrikan-centered community’s failure to embrace homosexuality is the exact same behavior expressed in the Christian community whereby the congregation and choir is littered with gay men and turns a blind eye to their behaviors.  Both mindsets are flawed and both need to be addressed if we as a people are to move forward to a truly healthy Afrikan-centered paradigm. 

Sobunfu Some, (http://www.sobonfu.com/) in her work, The Spirit of Intimacy: Ancient African Teachings in the Ways of Relationships, wrote of the gatekeepers, or individuals who were homosexual and were regarded as spiritual sentinels between the earth plane and the heavens.  She clearly outlines how homosexuality was NOT regarded as a sin in pre-colonial African communities, but rather revered as a sacred gift and homosexuals were revered, not reviled.  Both she and her husband, Malidoma, have repeatedly spoken out that this belief that homosexuality is an unnatural from an African viewpoint is wrong.  Rather than accept the research and observation of African scholars who have bridged the Eastern and Western cultures, who have explored both spiritual and earthly realms, those that claim to be Africentric in many cases, insist that homosexuality is wrong and there’s no room for discussion. 

Many of the behaviors and practices of contemporary homosexuals can be seen as wrong, but they don’t have a corner on that market.  For as many promiscuous and manipulative homosexuals there are, there are ten times as many heterosexuals committing the same or more egregious offenses, debasing the intent of what sex should be about.  The gender of the person that one engages in sex with has little or nothing to do with engaging in sex as a vehicle for communication, a way to share intimacy, and a medium of meditation and connection to the One Most High.  If two individuals come together in love, respecting and cherishing one another, committed to fostering growth and evolution in one another, it shouldn’t matter if they have the same genitals or not. 

Homophobia is probably one of the most euro-centered beliefs one can foster.  I strongly believe that bisexuality is the natural state of human beings.  That does not mean that I think that given a chance, everyone will become a homosexual and procreation as we know it will cease.  Afrikan-centered homophobia is based on the belief that if a man is homosexual then he will be less than a man.  Do not for a minute believe that if a man desires to penetrated or engage in same sex eroticism, that makes him feminine or less of a man or is a woman desires to be intimate with another woman she is abnormal.  There are a myriad of factors that contribute to an individual’s sexual preferences.  Genetic factors, influences during essential childhood development stages, adolescent sexual abuse and molestation, societal and religious ingrained fears, and unexplainable sociological and psychological factors all contribute to a person’s sexual orientation.  To suggest that melanin alone prohibits one from being attracted to the same gender is absurd.

How does who I sleep with have anything whatsoever to do with my ability to share my knowledge, to help heal my people, to embrace Africa as my cultural and spiritual homeland?  I have had far too many brothas in the Africentric community try to fuck me and not even pretend to want a relationship with me.  Is promiscuous, un-emotional, causal sex more Afrikan-centered than me loving a woman and building a strong, monogamous relationship?  It’s funny how the Africentric community can INSIST upon the objectification of women vis-à-vis the perpetuation of polygamous relationships that are solely purposed to stroke the male sexual ego when there is more than enough evidence that many, many African cultures embraced matrilineal societies.  It seems that Afrikan-centered has to mean catered to appease the ego to the heterosexual male or it’s not valid. 

Male homophobia is almost too comical to debate.  “That’s for exit only” “A real man doesn’t like that freaky stuff” That absurd rhetoric is from socialization and conditioning, and it’s not even close to being based on any sort of truth.  I’ve said it before and I’m going to say it again.  The prostate is a male sexual organ that is located within the rectum.  It is HEALTHY for it to be stimulated.  Sharing intimacy with a person that happens to have the same genitals as you does NOT decrease your ability to be honest, to communicate effectively.  “Gay” behaviors and homosexuality are related but different issues.  It’s closed minded to suggest that the ONLY healthy relationships are those between men and women.  I guess that’s why I’m no longer Christian and hold no ties to the guilt ridden Judeo Christian rules that tell me that I’m going to burn in hell for loving another woman while a man that fucks any and every woman he can without regard for her feelings gets the stamp of Afrocentric approval?  Indeed. 

What a beautiful world it would be if anyone was free to find intimacy with whomever added the most value to his or her life without any silly restrictions.  It’s difficult to imagine a world where people sought out intimacy and not sex, and that genitals were insignificant in the pursuit of true communion.  I guess I’m alone in my vision.  I am committed to the healthy expression of Black sexuality.  That includes any and all sexual expression that is SAFE, sane, and consensual.  I will NOT promote, condone, endorse, or defend any expressions of homophobia, patriarchy, sexism, or any other limiting and oppressive belief that narrowly defines sexuality or places restrictive guidelines on collective erotic practices.  I seek to foster the intimate, communicative sexual expression of couples, regardless of gender or orientation.  The backbone and foundation of a community is in the health and stability of its relationships.  Honesty and open communication are key to building a great relationship.  I will NOT promote, condone, endorse, or defend any expressions of sex in exchange for money or fulfillment of selfish sexual desires that disregard the emotional needs of one’s partner. 

My acceptance and willingness to embrace ALL people of African descent, regardless of their sexual or gender orientation, is far more Afrikan centered than only acknowledging those that are invested in perpetuating patriarchy. Connecting to an individual’s spirit is far more holistic and Afrikan-centered than homophobia. 

Our Abuse

I had a disturbing conversation with a young lady recently.  She was distraught over the fact that she caught her boyfriend of three years cheating on her with a transsexual.  Sounds like something from Jerry Springer, right?  Turns out she was depressed, quit her job, gave up her apartment, and was going to move back to her hometown to be with her family.  While it seems that her entire identity was wrapped up in this man, and she was having homicidal thoughts because he had the nerve to change his password to prevent her from snooping in his e-mail account any longer, I found out that she and her boyfriend of three years had never had sex.  Interesting, you may say?  But wait, it gets curiouser and curiouser.  Not only had she and her boyfriend of three years never had sex, he was her Dom, meaning their interaction was based on him beating and controlling her and her being “sexually” submissive to him.  Strange you say?  But wait, there's more. 

When I inquired why they had never had sex in three years of their relationship, she said it was because she had been a lesbian all her life and she didn't know how relationships with men worked.  Like any reasonably sane person would do, I sort of asked her if she thought her life and her choices were just a tad bit out of control.  She told me without a doubt that she was just fine.  It was obvious to me without even asking that she had been the victim of abuse when she was a child, so much so that her choices as an adult were extremely dysfunctional.  Without needing validation of my suspicions, I asked her if she had ever gotten any counseling for the sexual abuse she had been subjected to as a child.  She told me of being raped at 10 years old and how she had gotten counseling once or twice back then but she didn't need it any more because she was fine now, that she didn't have any problems at all.  When I made the decision that I couldn't help her and I politely ended the conversation with her, she became incensed that I was doing something to her and I somehow became the enemy and she verbally attacked me.

Black women are so used to abuse, so accustomed to it, so conditioned to swallowing our pain that we don’t even understand how damaged we are from it.  We pass down our abuse to our children and justify it because we think abuse is normal.  I had a conversation with a young lady once who told me her mother let her get raped by her uncles and her mother’s boyfriend.  Her reaction, as an adult, was to defend her mother’s actions and blame herself.  She was suffering from extreme depression and all she could do was blame herself for seducing these men when she was nothing more than a child. 

It seems inconceivable in this day and age when you can turn on the TV and see Dr. Phil and a host of other shows that discuss mental health that a grown woman would not be able to grasp the concept that being raped at 10 years old had some sort of negative effect on her life.  She doesn’t grasp the concept because we as a community can’t even face our own demons.  We rape, abuse, and molest our girl children and tell them that it is natural and normal.  We socialize our sons to use women for sex, we tell them that women are nothing more than objects to be screwed and thrown away like garbage in search of the next woman who looks better.  We validate our pain by holding on to some ridiculous Christian notion that it’s noble to suffer and that when we die we won’t have any more pain.  We sexually abuse our children and sweep it under the rug while pretending that it’s no big deal at all. 

Well, I'm not going to be quiet about it.  I'm going to keep bringing it up until we can discuss our molestation, rape, and abuse without shame.  I'm going to keep working with the abused to help them heal and I'm going to be all up in the faces of the abusers in order to stop this pain.  I'm going to fight for the man that was raped as a boy and who is so afraid of feeling powerless and emasculated again that he forms strings of empty and abusive relationships with women in an effort to suppress the pain.  I'm going to fight for the woman that thinks that she has to dress sexy every day because the only attention she gets is from men that want to fuck her when she shows off her body, a little bit of knowledge she learned at an early age from older men that tried to steal her innocence.  I'm going to fight for the spirit of the young girl that was raped at 10 years old that has no touch with reality and thinks that pain is normal.  You can stand in silence if you want but I will scream and fight and I will not let it go.