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. 

Rise Up Ye Mighty Black People

We, as descendants of slaves, as people of color, MUST strive for excellence in all that we do.  We must live according to principles of excellence in our daily lives, spiritually, emotionally, physically, and mentally.  Living in alignment with excellence means making a conscious choice to do what’s right over what’s easy, what’s comfortable, or what’s familiar.  In lieu of spending hours gossiping on the phone or endless hours on the computer in the pursuit of meaningless sex, we must examine our selves, our lives, and look to grow, mature, and evolve. 

I challenge you to stop thinking of yourself as better just because you go to church every Sunday, dressed in your overpriced fineries to show off to the congregation, when you step over the homeless on Monday without so much as an ounce of compassion or love in your heart for those who need a helping hand.  We must stop trying to get over on the system, trying to figure out the easy way to get something for nothing, and rather make the choice to have integrity, to do what’s right for the community, not just yourself.  It’s time now to consider the ramifications and consequences of our actions and stop living for the moment or the almighty dollar.  If we consider the feelings of others, if everyone considers the feelings of others, we can transform ourselves from a selfish, insensitive, immature community to a compassionate, giving, enlightened family.  Find a reason to see the good in someone, to reach out to another because you connect on a deeper level, not just because you think they have something to offer you, or because you want to feel insecure and petty jealousy. 

Speak truth to power.  Hold your tongue when you feel the urge, the driving and compulsive need to lie, and utter only those words that are true.  Embrace honesty with your entire being and reprogram your brain from your conditioning that tells you to create stories and deceptions that make you feel better about yourself and learn to be honest and truthful with yourself so that you might be able to be honest and truthful with others.

We must accept our greatness, our royalty, and our divinity with humility, grace, and modesty.  Would a Queen exchange her body for a car payment or money to get a new pair of shoes?  Would a King create a prince or princess only to leave them unprotected and un-nurtured?  Would a true manifestation of the Divine be more concerned with a car, clothes, or plasma TV than in helping those less fortunate? 

Ask yourself, are you living a life of excellence or do you merely exist?  Are you striving to become a better person every day?  Are you actually trying to become a better person: not richer, not more attractive, not get more stuff, not sleep with more women, not use more men, not cheat the system, not beat the man.  Are you striving to dispel the myths and combat the stereotypes?  Are you daily striving to learn more, to push yourself further, to excel in all you do? 

Love 04/03 by AfroerotiK | Blog Talk Radio

Love 04/03 by AfroerotiK | Blog Talk Radio

Love.  It’s mysterious, it’s often times elusive, and it’s what we need for our survival.  It makes our hearts go pitter patter and we fall head over heels into it.  We are going to be talking about Eros: how to find it and maintain it.   We, as a society, have become so disconnected and fragmented; love has lost its meaning.  We equate Hollywood romance with love, we want to be loved but we are terrified of being hurt so we shut ourselves off from it.  Some people have never seen true love so they define it as the drama that goes along with relationships.  Well, this is the conversation where we are going to get down to the nitty gritty on L O V E.

Joining us for this in-depth discussion of love is Grace Chung, author of We Must Stay Tuned to Make Music: Love-Actions for Your Partnering and Personal Evolution and owner of the website Love Actions.  We will be talking about the things we need to do within ourselves to attract love and the things we can and should be doing with our partners to maintain love.  Grace Chung is a wife, mother to a 13 year old girl and 11 year old boy, fine & graphic artist, and author. She has always been a keen observer of human nature, with an artist's way of seeing beyond the norm, and a love of articulating her thoughts and visions. Being with her husband for 17 years has made partnering a topic she literally lives. She sees success in partnering as not so different from success in bringing out our best selves. It comes down to staying tuned and taking Love-Actions.

Black Erotica's Scottie Lowe of AfroerotiK 03/25 by myCultural Conversations | Blog Talk Radio

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Submissive White Men

It’s a topic so important that we have to do a follow up.  On our last show, we talked about the dynamics of individuals who are aroused by being called racial epithets during their intimate moments with partners of other races.  The last half hour of the show was dedicated to submissive white males and their agendas.  There just wasn’t enough time to go into the multi-layers of this HUGE phenomenon so we’re going to dedicate an entire show to peeling off the layers and exposing this trend, where it comes from, and what it all means.

On this show, we are going to be exploring the different types of submissive white men, what it  means to Blacks in a racist society to have so many white men sexually submissive, what impact does this trend have on our culture, why this trend has remained so hidden in plain sight, and we will hear from the mouths of submissive white men and Black dominants who will tell all their secrets.  Join us for this fascinating conversation that will surely open your eyes and make you rethink everything you know. 

Listen to internet radio with AfroerotiK on Blog Talk Radio

Sexually Submissive White Men 03/20 by AfroerotiK | Blog Talk Radio

Sexually Submissive White Men 03/20 by AfroerotiK | Blog Talk Radio

It’s a topic so important that we have to do a follow up.  On our last show, we talked about the dynamics of individuals who are aroused by being called racial epithets during their intimate moments with partners of other races.  The last half hour of the show was dedicated to submissive white males and their agendas.  There just wasn’t enough time to go into the multi-layers of this HUGE phenomenon so we’re going to dedicate an entire show to peeling off the layers and exposing this trend, where it comes from, and what it all means.  

On this show, we are going to be exploring the different types of submissive white men, what it  means to Blacks in a racist society to have so many white men sexually submissive, what impact does this trend have on our culture, why this trend has remained so hidden in plain sight, and we will hear from the mouths of submissive white men and Black dominants who will tell all their secrets.  Join us for this fascinating conversation that will surely open your eyes and make you rethink everything you know.  

After Dinner Treats

Her breathing was calm; I could tell she was having a peaceful dream.  I love watching her sleep; it is my private time to revel in her beauty and sweetness.  Hours earlier, she wasn’t the serene and slumbering vision that lay before me.  Earlier, she was a woman in charge, driving me to heights of passion that most men only dream about. 

I had taken her to dinner just to give her a special treat . . . and somewhere in between the appetizer and the salad; my girl decided that she had to have me, come hell or high water.  Damn!  I love that feeling.  She went to the ladies room and returned with a slightly damp pair of panties discreetly in her hand and a seductively wicked smile on her face.  She dropped the panties in my lap as she slid back into her seat, exposing her bare mound for my eyes only.  They couldn’t have weighed more than a few ounces but the presence of her red silk panties lying there against my hard-on made them seem like a ton of bricks.  I desperately wanted to hold them to my nose and inhale her sexy scent but I dared not in the very public restaurant. 

“Uhhh, waiter, check please.”  I couldn’t get out of there fast enough.  My lady had other plans as she told him to come back later with the bill.  She slid her chair closer to me, undid my pants barely beneath the fringe of white linen tablecloth and freed my raging erection.  Her silky smooth fingers gently caressing me made me want to nut right there.  She took a breadstick from the table and lowered it out of my view.  She was squirming and moaning ever so slightly indicating that she was doing really naughty things with that thing.  I wanted to pull that, “Oh, I dropped my napkin let me get it under the table” trick but that only happens in fake assed porno’s.  When she put that breadstick in her mouth and started to suck it like it was my dick I almost threw her on the table and fucked her right there for the entire world to see. 

I left the waiter the biggest tip he’d ever gotten in his life and I couldn’t wait to get to the car.  Apparently, neither could my girl.  She was all over me.  It’s a good thing the windows of my truck are tinted.  Once completely inside, she leaned over unzipped my pants and wrapped her full, wet, thick lips around my dick and sucked me until I was moaning.  It was the sloppy, wet kinda blowjob where you know your girl is doing it because she loves it and not because she’s obligated to do it.  She was rolling my balls in her fingers and stroking me off at the same time.  I felt myself about to lose it and I grabbed my shit to keep from busting a nut and I tried to conjure up images that would keep me from having to explain funny white stains to my car detailer and to my drycleaner. 

She wouldn’t stop.  She pulled her dress up and slid over in my lap.  She undid the buttons on her blouse and pulled her nipples out of her bra.  I sucked those perfect, hard, brown pebbles as she guided my dick to her hole. 

Her pussy was so hot and wet I could feel her flesh pull me inside.  I grabbed a handful of that ass and held on tight as she used my dick for her pleasure.  Her pussy was gripping my dick so hard it felt like a vice, a velvety, smooth, hot wet vice nonetheless.  That ridge inside her was working the spot on the head of my dick and was driving me insane. 

We were both moaning like crazy.  She was grinding on me, smothering me with her titties.  I was slapping that ass and my dick was in heaven.  I felt her strong brown thighs grip me and I knew she was cumming.  Man!  I coated every single inch of her womb I came so hard. 

I wish I could say that I fucked the shit out of her when I got home but I would be lying.  Truthfully, she rode me until my dick was sore.  We both surrendered to the exhaustion you feel at the end of the most satisfying and delicious night. 

Copyright 2004 AfroerotiK  All Rights Reserved

Inside Me

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Esther Perel: The secret to desire in a long-term relationship

Reclaiming our Goddess Sensuality w/Makeda Voletta 01/08 by AfroerotiK | Blog Talk Radio

Reclaiming our Goddess Sensuality w/Makeda Voletta 01/08 by AfroerotiK | Blog Talk Radio

Ladies, this show is for you.  Women have come to embrace derogatory, pejorative terms to define their sexuality, misogyny is a staple of our society, and the act of intimacy has been reduced to recreation.  We have internalized the pain of rape and abuse and it has shown up as fibroids and painful menses and a host of other female problems.  Join me as The Body Scientist, Makeda Voletta, shares her Divine feminine wisdom on healing our wombs physically, emotionally, and spiritually, embracing our Goddess energy, releasing the negativity we hold within us that prevents us from experiencing true bliss.  We are going to discuss the infamous jade egg and other practices that will strengthen and heal our sacred spaces and discuss what it means to be an empowered, sexual being. 

America is too racially immature for a movie like Django

It was after much contemplation and serious debate that I made the decision to go see the Quentin Tarantino movie, Django Unchained, this past weekend.  Having majored in African and African American studies in grad school and having done more than my fair share of research and study about chattel slavery in the US and its effects on the collective consciousness of African Americans, I decided that I would go see the movie upon which so much controversy has been brewing and decide for myself if the movie had any merit beyond “entertainment”.  It is a movie, and by default, its purpose is to make people suspend reality for a couple of hours and get lost in a world of make believe, so, with that in mind, and having weighed the pros and cons, I set out to see for myself what all the hype was about.

Prior to seeing the movie, I was very much aligned with the Spike Lee camp of detractors who were pretty outraged that a white person would dare to tell the story of slavery.  Having only seen one movie by Mr. Tarantino previously, I was not impressed with his cultural sensitivity to the Asian people and wasn’t expecting much more than a gross/cartoonish depiction of the horrors my ancestors endured.  I can say without reservation that Django unchained offered THE most accurate depiction of slavery I’ve ever seen in a non-documentary film.  Hats off to Mr. Tarantino for not only doing his homework about what slaves had to endure but also kudos to him for grasping and interpreting the dynamics of race relations that very few people, white or black, seem to be able to comprehend. 

Much has been made about his excessive use of the N word.  I, personally, don’t ever use the word unless it is in the most academic of discussions.  I do not think it has been morphed into some sort of term of endearment and I fully recognize its impact when said in front of white people.  My ancestors bled and died at the base of that word so I refuse to casually throw it around out of respect to them.  The Black people who do use it, especially those who feel comfortable using it in front of other races, are largely ignorant of the impact of the word or the origins and stigmas attached to it.  Black people today use it because, for centuries, that’s what we were called and that’s all we knew ourselves to be.  The messages passed down generationally haven’t changed one bit and its use today is almost exactly as it was intended to be used during slavery.  That being said, there was not one instance in the movie where the N word was used inappropriately.  It was used in the exact context and frequency that it was used during slavery.  The theater I went to see the movie at was predominantly white and movie goers laughed and chuckled at the use of the word, largely out of nervous discomfort and I suspect because that’s the way they use the word in private conversations and they were rattled by its free/uninhibited use.  One can only assume they felt a certain level of comfort being around other whites and confident that the Black movie goers more than likely use the word so frequently there was no fear of reprimand or riot.  What the movie did was create an atmosphere of acceptance of the word whereby whites could go home and discuss the movie and casually throw the word around without respect or reverence for its impact. 

The gentleman who sat next to my boyfriend apparently thought EVERYTHING in the movie was funny.  He laughed incessantly throughout the entire film.  It took every ounce of strength in my body not to take my shoe off and beat his ass to a bloody pulp.  I was so outraged, so angry that I seethed and burned with hatred for him.  His insensitivity and callous disrespect made me see red.  My boyfriend, who is not of African descent, didn’t seem to take issue with him whatsoever.  He saw my discomfort and he ignored it.  He didn’t ask me if I was okay, he didn’t tell the guy to shut the FUCK up, he felt the white man had a right to respond in whatever what he wanted and that I just had to suck it up.  Had I been laughing throughout a Holocaust movie inappropriately, the usher, the manager, and a half a dozen movie goers would have insisted that I leave.  Had I been with a Black man, he would have insisted that the guy shut up and put the fear of God in him.  Again, I have no doubt in my mind that we would have asked to leave the theater, not the man who disrupted and ruined the experience for me.  It just proves that today, as in slavery, that if you’re white, you’re right, if you’re black, stay back.  Not much has changed since slavery.  The feelings, opinions, and personhood of Black people is insignificant to that of whites. 

I do not watch violence as a rule so a great portion of the movie I spent with my eyes closed.  Tarantino made a shoot ‘em film with carnage galore.  I can’t imagine that the gun violence was any greater than most movies but the most chilling scenes were the ones where the violence was an accurate of what slave life was like.  The slave being ripped apart by dogs, the Mandingo fights to the death, and the brutal rape, whippings, torture, branding, and abuse of slaves was chilling and accurate.  Movie goers don’t get that.  To them, it was all a part of the entertainment, made up. 

There is much that movies goers, both white and black, are too uninformed/ignorant to get.  Samuel L. Jackson’s role was one that depicted the relationship of the house nigger to the master.  Because our conversations about race in this country are so superficial and juvenile, the understanding of how a slave with the consciousness of a Stephen could exist.  Left to their own devices, moviegoers will assume that he was a self-serving, back-stabbing slave with an agenda to better himself and control/destroy all the other slaves.  In reality, house slaves were the creation of slave masters and their allegiance was part and parcel of the system of slavery that needed slaves pitted against one another for its survival. 

With the exception of the white protagonist, white people in the movie were depicted as stupid, outrageously cruel, and one-dimensional.   They were lazy, treated slaves with despicable inhumane torture and were nonchalant and flippant about using their property, HUMAN BEINGS, for whatever deviant purpose their puny brains could conjure.  Slave owners were just that. 

There are many more aspects of the movie that could be dissected, examined, and discussed but, unfortunately, America is too racially immature to have any such discussions.  White people are insistent upon inflecting the comment, “I’m not racist,” “Slavery was in the past, let it go,” or, “Can’t we all just get along,” into every conversation about race.  They control conversations about race with their ignorance and refusal to learn, accept a different point of view, and their thinly-veiled racist beliefs.  How many white people watched that movie and went home to watch interracial porn where the N word is thrown around like rice at a wedding?  How many white people who say the movie routinely refer to Obama as a nigger and go on rants online where they hide behind a computer screen to espouse racist beliefs?  If I’ve said it once I’ve said it a million times.  White people have to wear a sheet, burn a cross, and run around screaming, “I hate niggers,” before another white person will dare to imply that they MIGHT be racist. 

Black people are just as misguided.  Black people think the movie represents some form of revenge, a win for Blacks as it were.  Bullshit!  That part was fiction.  The concept of a Black man being a gun-wielding bad-ass and able to ride off into the sunset with his lady love is more like science fiction.  But Black people are so willing to embrace that “feel good” dynamic of the movie because we don’t want to face our shame and humiliation at being connected to a slave past.  EVERYONE wants to assume that they would be the one slave in 10,000 who would revolt and kick ass and take names later.  The truth of the matter is, slaves were subservient and bred to be docile and millions upon millions of slaves conformed to the rules in order to live, to survive, because they didn’t know any other way.  Black people are terrified to acknowledge a connection to a slave past because they feel as if recognizing the impact of slavery on themselves means that they are by default inherently inferior. 

It won’t be until we can have an intelligent, informed, comprehension about slavery, race, and all its many, messy complexities that a movie like Django will be effective.  For now, we are painfully diseased and incapable of having a dialogue about slavery/racism that goes beyond any more than cliché and rhetoric.  Django was created with the potential to create an amazing dialogue about race but sadly, the nation just isn’t ready for that. 

Copyright 2013 Scottie Lowe