Why Memory is Critical

Joshua 4

1 When the whole nation had finished crossing the Jordan, the Lord said to Joshua,

2 “Choose twelve men from among the people, one from each tribe,

3 and tell them to take up twelve stones from the middle of the Jordan, from right where the priests are standing, and carry them over with you and put them down at the place where you stay tonight.”

4 So Joshua called together the twelve men he had appointed from the Israelites, one from each tribe,

5 and said to them, “Go over before the ark of the Lord your God into the middle of the Jordan. Each of you is to take up a stone on his shoulder, according to the number of the tribes of the Israelites,

6 to serve as a sign among you. In the future, when your children ask you, ‘What do these stones mean?’

7 tell them that the flow of the Jordan was cut off before the ark of the covenant of the Lord. When it crossed the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. These stones are to be a memorial to the people of Israel forever.”

The concept of memory is critical because it is a deliberate attempt to focus on ideas and identities to nurture survival in the heart of the struggle. Memory can be considered the bullets that attack the amnesia of the truth. Memory helps foster a sense of history and pride in oneself. Memory is the root of one’s foundation, while the present cultivates the new growth of that memory.

The United States in particular is very critical of the history it chooses to promote and actively stimulate to the masses, while simultaneously deciding what needs to be forgotten, or brushed under the rug. A fecundity of books are released yearly about the founding fathers of this nation, presidents, and war heroes, but when it comes to acts such as Americans original sin that is just looked at as the past. America believes that the ushering of those indigenous people into lands that are impossible to cultivate is a form of adequate restorative justice, but by being cognizant of how America treats history is important to understanding why the upkeep of black history is important to the growth of black memory.

When it comes to telling the painful narrative of the bloodshed, rape, brutality, and commodification of black cultural identity we are told to just simply get over that and are expected to adopt a philosophy of benign neglect. America loves to teach its rich history of triumph, but wants to ignore blacks in America when we stand up and attempt to tell ours.

Black people didn’t just get great because America became a powerful nation. We as a people had to fight, walk upright, protest, confront oppression, and die by surrendering blood and limbs. Instead the country wants to tell half-truths and edify the idea that people marched and Lyndon B Johnson recognized America’s fought by signing a Civil Rights Bill. We are made to believe that affirmative action, the disembodiment of Jim Crow, and the integration of blacks into American tradition propelled us, but due to America’s amnesia they forget that we had preexisting civilizations of greatness before slavery.

This is why memory is critical, not just in the paradigm of an American context, but the global troposphere. We don’t have to romanticize about ancient Kemet (modern day Egypt), but it’s important to talk about its greatness. We shouldn’t be covered under the candid view of slavery, AIDS, poverty, and cultural deprivation, instead we should be conscious of everything. Through anthropological research and findings, we now know that everybody was birthed out of Africa. So when we are depicted as less than equal and unmolested of intellectual virtue the world has to notice that thinking started with us. While other civilizations were running around in caves we were birthing logistics, mathematics, and welding the fabric of the world.

Just as the scripture that predicated this essay stated, we must get those stones (memory) and show them, the children, so that they are familiar with the context of where they came from. We must refuse to accept the notion that we started in docile positions of suffering and failure, we must understand that we come from a long lineage of astronomical achievement.

Whenever we attempt to actively attempt to change the white supremacist narrative that they are great for no other reason other than the color of their skin, it is met with controversy. When we challenge this idea of sub-categorical social Darwinism we are made to look inferior or as reverse racist. We must begin to realize that we come from a great people and that we’ve been doing more things than dominant society is willing to give us credit for.

However, when credit is administrated to us an asterisk is always followed by it. Affirmative action, minority scholarships, and political correctness are always the headlines. Again, this is while memory is critical, these social systematic initiatives don’t give us a leg up against others, it does nothing but provide the opportunity for people like Cornel West, LeBron James, Ben Carson, and many others to have a shot at exhibiting their skills and abilities in a wider global kaleidoscope.

We can’t get caught in these petty racial and patriotism games. Being cognizant of these experiences isn’t anti-white, black, brown, red, or yellow, and it doesn’t make you divisive of America, instead it makes you pro-human. The truth can be discomforting, but it must be told so that when we tell our children about these stones they were understand the significance of their purpose in the collective imagination.

When our children are confronted with a culture that thinks less of them, even before they can speak, they will know to take these stones with them to help them navigate those hindrances of mazes that they will encounter. That memory of preexisting greatness can used as a countervailing weapon to counterattack obstacles on their road towards success.

Also, we can’t romanticize just our greatness, but we must also not forget the struggle as well. We can’t be absent minded of the institutionalized discrimination and racism that still exist. We have many that are still struggling and fighting for equal seats at the dominant society’s table and for the ability to create their own.

We don’t want to create a dichotomy of black elitism and underrepresented blacks, we must all stand as one. We can’t be ashamed to know that our grandmothers slaved away in someone’s kitchen or that our father was some white family’s driver. We must understand the struggle that occurred so that we can enjoy some of the limited privileges that we benefit from today. Those people were looked at as even less than how we are today, once we remember that then we won’t be so stuck up on ourselves.

We must resurrect the memory that has been stolen and bastardized because we have a responsibility to control the narrative of our story. If we lose control of the narrative other people who come along probably won’t tell the story from a factual point of reference that disputes the whitewashed narrative that they try to attribute to us. It is up to us to protect our memory and take those stones to create monuments.

Our job is to provide to those coming behind a biography of where they came from, why they are here, and how they can achieve. We must not challenge the verdict of suffering with re-trials, but we must fight against those cases against us from the historical context of landmark victories and achievements that is in our collective memory.

 

 

The Relative Deprivation of Ferguson

“Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communist revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win,” Karl Marx (Marx 1848).

Marx believed that the people at the bottom would rise because of absolute deprivation many would oppose that idea and would be more inclined to deal with relative deprivation, especially in social oppression that don’t solely focus on economical oppression.  Marx believed that once those at the bottom (proletariat) were to the point of receiving the maximum amount of oppression from the bourgeoisie possible only then would they ban together to rise up. We can’t really blame Marx for not taking into account his thoughts on absolute deprivation when his Communist Manifesto dealt with mainly economics instead of social movements.

Many people around the world are watching what is and has unfolded in Ferguson, Missouri regarding the death of a young man by the name of Michael Brown. All life is precious, but he's just like Eric Garner, Ezell Ford, and countless others whose life were ended by law enforcement. Even though these men were unarmed, they were killed, not because individually they may have posed a threat, but because black humanity is not valued in a country that initially brought them here as commodities.

People in Ferguson are not just protesting and rioting over the death of one child, but over decades of frustration with the local police department in St. Louis County. When you have a group that has been eviscerated from traditional American experienceand made to look at themselves as subhuman not worthy of social equality.  

Even though the city is compromised up of mainly African American residents (66%), the mayor and 5/6 of the city council members are white. Even though the population figures give off the notion of a strong black structure within the city, which is simply not true. The city still retains a white power structure, even though it isn’t reflected of the citizens that it governs. When incidents like this occur elected officials are not in tuned with the concerns of their citizens. The police force is also not reflected of the people. The force has 53 individuals on their roster, only three are black.

People in black communities, males especially are already have a disdain for law enforcement, which can be attributed to their legacy of brutality and racial profiling amongst blacks. Even though we can pinpoint “good” officers, the institution of law enforcement is rooted in the oppression of persons of color.

The killing of Michael Brown is the straw that broke the camel’s back, a sentiment that many black residents in the area might allude to. A community that has been deprived from a dream that they bought from the country they reside in finally became fed up and stood together in solidarity with more than hope, they raised up and demanded justice, not just for Mike Brown, but for the racial tension that the county has been plagued with over the years. These leading events brought on the protest and the revolution that we are witnessing now. Which can be explained by the theory of Relative Deprivation

James C Davies thought of social movements when it came to revolutions. He created the J Curve, this deals with rising expectations that explains why Marx’s theory didn’t support the reasons for why the oppressed would get involved in social protest and movements, instead of positioning themselves into roles of social and political activist. Davies argues with his J Curve model that people will rise up to join social causes after periods of gradual improvement in the economy start to slow down. 

Even though economic prosperity is slowing down or decreasing the people’s expectations for where they should be at in life isn’t, those hopes and aspirations continue to escalate (Davies 1962). This curve shows how we get into the theory of relative deprivation.

Relative Deprivation in hindsight is the understanding that you are being deprived of something that you believe wholeheartedly that you should be entitled to. 

People will start to look at those around them who have considerably more than them and will soon become discontent with where their lives are (Walker & Smith 2001). 

Relative Deprivation doesn’t only deal economics, but it also includes political and social deprivation. The perception relative deprivation has dire consequences for behavior and attitudes, including feelings of stress, political attitudes, and participation in collective action. The theory was founded upon by Robert Merton, but one of the first formal and widely used definitions came from Walter Runciman who used four points to argue his interruption of Merton’s theory. 

His four points were

1.​Person A does not have X

2.​Person A knows of other persons that have X

3.​Person A wants to have X

4.​Person A believes obtaining X is realistic (Runciman1966).

Those citizens Ferguson don’t have the law on their side like other residents so they understand the feeling of disenfranchisement in regards to what they believe they deserve.  People will feel outraged and will have the sense of urgency to come together as a collective once they feel they are being denied justice, upward mobility to a higher status, or even a privilege.  That is what happened to those residing in Ferguson and others who can understand the rage of the over policing of a community who feel racially harassed by the police. These people live in a nation where every 28 hours a black is killed by the police or a vigilante. Marx argued about absolute deprivation which states that people react merely off of just negative conditions instead of what they relatively have in place of what they feel they should have.

Political scientist Ted Robert Gurr gave three values in his book “Why Men Rebel,” arguing his point on different values that a man needs to be content and what happens when he is placed at a disadvantage in obtaining and/or maintaining those values. The included welfare values, interpersonal values, and power values. Welfare values included those that make physical contributions to life, interpersonal included those that directly correlated with satisfaction that we received from non-authoritative interactions, and lastly power values spoke of our environment influenced our behavior (Gurr 1970). Gurr wrote on page 58, “"Men are quick to aspire beyond their social means and quick to anger when those means prove inadequate, but slow to accept their limitations.” When a man see that he isn’t achieving the same level of affluence in society Gurr argues that biological he gets to a where he needs justification for this. This justification usually leads to blame of different organizations whether it’s a school system, government institution, or business. In most instances those who are doing this will place blame on prominent individuals within those organizations. Once you place this blame on others you are essentially becoming a victim of decremental deprivation, which basically states that you are placing the fault on other things that are taking away from your own opportunity of equality. 

Gurr’s last value which was interpersonal, which called for status, communality, and ideational coherence. Which is important so that people can have a sense of identity, those in Ferguson and across America are denied that opportunity because black has become synonymous with bad. Gurr also writes in, “Why Men Rebel,” the notions of aspiration, progressive, and detrimental deprivation and how each can result in the gathering of frustrated people to help form a social movement.

When people assert the claim that we shouldn’t make this a racial issue, but a human rights issue we must not take that half-truth for face value. Of course anthropological research shows that there isn’t any biological difference between black or white people, but socially it does exist. Idealistically we should all be considered as equal and this should be a case of the over militarization of the police, but we must be conscious of why it happened here, in a predominantly black, low income suburb of Saint Louis, and not Beverly Hills, California.

We can’t not look past this a race issue, because we live in a country that doesn’t look past minority races. Black and brown cultural identity has been eviscerated to a level of extinctness in the terms of being embraced to the dominant society’s imagination, unless they can use it as a commodity.  

Ferguson isn’t a unique place, many are spread out throughout the nation, we must now decide how do we stop another Ferguson from being sick and tired, of being sick and tired.

Love, Hip-Hop, & Edification

"You see I loved hard once, but the love wasn't returned, I found out the person I'd die for, they wasn't even concerned...but she convinced me I was worth less when my peoples would protest, I told them mind their business, cause my s*** was complex, More than just the sex I was blessed, but couldn't feel it like when I was caressed" Lauryn Hill 

 One of the black boys I work with let it be known from our one-on-one conversations that he was struggling with his English homework, this particular student was taking high school English and they were at the point in the semester where they were learning how to not only write about emotions, plots, characters, settings, and perspectives, but to identify it in literary work. Not to diminish what we are taught in these classes, but when a class population can't identify with the stories that are being taught can we actually say they are being educated, as opposed to being schooled? So I decided to put The Raven by Edgar Allen Poe aside and plug my iPod up, we listen to different songs from the likes of Tupac, Chief Keef (yes Chief Keef), Nas, and Lauryn Hill. In most instances we ask the wrong questions, instead of pondering whether they can do the work we must ask ourselves whether or not they can relate to the work. Can they find themselves or others they may know in their school lessons. 

This was a teenager from Black Omaha, he lived on the north side, he doesn't know about the emotional attachment to ravens, so how can we expect him to find himself in this type of work that was being taught. When we listened to Nas "One Love" he was able to relate to knowing someone that in the petitionary because he later revealed that his father was there, during these moments he was picking up on characters, plots, and settings, but it wasn't until Lauryn Hill was played that roles switched and I was being taught. Lauryn Hill's verse on Manifest took me back, it had me thinking of my own past situations and caricature flaws. 

 At the beginning of her verse when spoke of her hard she loved and how it wasn't returned, that bar was profound in itself. Not to discredit the rest of her verse, but that one line spoke volumes. As men before we even hit puberty we have this underlined expectation to break hearts with the seeds of misogyny, patriarchy, and sexual promiscuous expectations planted in us, we aren't taught how to deal with our hearts when they have been mishandled or the love we are expecting hasn't been returned. We then begin the process of escaping the entrapment of collapse spaces to deal with our agony and despair. 

 We now become autodidacts when it comes to teaching ourselves how to deal with hurt. We are programmed to not take the time to deal with those issues, but to carry that baggage to alternate locations or vaginas. Like Boosie so bashfully spoke, "I got my heart broke at 14, that was way way back. So all the girls after that, it was straight pay back." On the surface we as men seem to not intentionally hurt women that may come after, but our willingness to trust them is compromised. We tend to charge them to this fictitious game of social interactions in the form of relationships or like Fabolous stated, "situationships." We develop this, "pimp or die," mental complex on the surface, but internally we are still trying to mend punctured wombs, and damaged hearts. 

 We begin to go through stages of blaming ourselves and conjuring meanings of why things went astray. Maybe it was someone else, or I didn't make enough money to keep them around. Men in todays world and historically have been defined on their ability to provide security. In contemporary times that security comes in the means of finances. When we begin to internally ask these questions we like L Boogie begin to feel like we are worth less than we really are. We begin to limit our abilities and feats to these expectations and desires of people who at the end of the day may not even be worthy of the potential that we have. Since men are taught that emotions are a sign of weakness we don't know how to respond when our existence starts to be determined by gaining another woman's favor. 

 I believe after men get betrayed once it's difficult for us to trust, or even have a functional relationship where trust can be 100%. Spaces are needed where men can have these conversations without the feeling of judgment or having their manhood questioned. Pain that was planted years ago may never surface due to social norms, but the implications can manifest itself on future crops.

Criminalizing Rap

Since the late 80's and early 90's movements have been in place to ban rap music, not just by white policy makers, but also black leaders. Many argue that rap music is to blame for the black on black crime and sexism that is experienced in not only Black America, but American in general. Dominant society through their bullied pulpit has placed rap in a paradigm of barbaric violent drug selling criminals and iced out coons. Now that  cooperation's  have notice that this genre is a hot commodity not only in America culture, but globally. Even though those generalizations aren't an absolute lie they are however half truths. These half truths create the perception that not only criminalize the hip-hop culture, but also give reason for those on the outside to stereotype and target our children that grow up in this era about their identity. Even though rap music isn't mutually exclusive to blacks or brown people we now ourthe main group of people criminalizing our children for their preference of Hip-Hop. Countless times I hear or read of people being critical of children reciting rap lyrics by having this assumption that they lack the ability to read. We now seem to have an increase of Bill O'Reilly's in black faces.

Whenever blame needs to be deviated, rap music has always been the scape goat ever since it departed strictly from being solely about the party and began to be a direct reflection of the issues affecting those in hoods across America.  Through the commercialization of rap music it hasn't been as embracive, defiant, or challenging as it has been in the past, but still till this day it provide a voice box to those that the local and national news ignores or tries to dehumanize. Chuck D once coined that rap music was the black CNN because they were speaking live and directly on issues affecting us directly from the source instead of through the eyes of speculation catering to cooperate sponsors. From artist such as Tupac all the way to even party rappers such as Nelly, Hip-Hop in it's essence isn't just about violence and sex, but it shows that even though those living in party may not have much, they still find ways to enjoy themselves. When we look at it through the guise of being The Black CNN it forces us to maximize our potential to look at issues through our cerebral acuity. 

Opponents always criticize songs of the genre without putting it in its factual relevance, even though that shouldn't even be an issue, this the only genre where people demand that it be critical of social injustices. We must ask why don't we demand genres such as rock, country, or even bluegrass to live up to those same expectations such as rap? Why don't panels exist telling artist like Garth Brooks to start speaking up against injustices concerning that of the feminist movement, or gay rights issues? We must note that a lot of rap does speak on those issues many demand, but the issue is that since we don't own or have significant pieces in the media those songs are just brushed away, or thrown into a sub-genre of rap called conscious. We are made to think of conscious rap like the vegetable's or the vegans of hip-hop. We know it's good for us, but know one really wants to eat vegetables, especially when we have all these other fattening, deadly, but other delicious choices. In hindsight conscious just means that you're awake and aware. Not to knock rappers such as Common, Nas, Lupe, Mos Def (Yasiin Bey), but are they anymore aware than Ice Cube, Biggie, Jay-Z, or even Lil Wayne? Even though one of your favorite FOX news prudent may highlight the low level of schooling some of these "ignorant rappers" have we must be aware that their level of education is higher especially in regards to their ability to articulate issues affecting urban areas of collapse.

For instances one of the greatest philosophers of rap culture Tupac Shakur is always heralded for his gangsta image and songs like I Get Around, but we ignore lyrics like, "Just the other day I got lynched by some crooked cops and till this day them same cops getting major pay, but when I get my check they taking tax out, so I guess we paying the cops to knock the blacks out."  For someone to be as gangsta as Tupac is very familiar with law makers subsidizing minorities own oppression through their economic base. For someone who doesn't have a degree he gave us a lesson in social stratification in what might take a professor an entire lecture to get across in merely just a few bars. The great thing about rap music is that they put information where everyone can get it, they aren't just speaking to their colleagues in verbiage that you need to keep an old English dictionary on deck just to grasp in regards to the verbal linguistic that they are expressing. Rappers not only speak through their frustration and vulgarity, but their intellect as well. When you look as these artist that the media tries to force us to dislike or have a disdain for they are not as radically different from the conscious community that we choose to ignore. Rap has always been socially critical, even if they aren't speaking on the issues that you feel need to be at the forefront they still are speaking the truths of society. Not only are they mindful of ills that others in society have upon us, the culture is also indicative of itself. 

When rappers are talking about, cashing it out and how many kilos are in their chain we have intellectuals such as Talib Kweli reminding them, "These cats drink champagne and toast death & pain like slaves on a ship bragging about who got the flyest chain." With rap becoming hated and now even more commercialized many of today's new artist profess in their music this sense of, "Nigga We Made It," but we have elders in the genre reminding them that they are still slaves in more contemporary forms like Kanye stated in his last album (Yeezus). Even though at the present time you may be able to buy that chain, big mansion, and foreign car you're still at the mercy of slave owners in suits and ties in 100 story building instead of the big house. Most rappers don't have control of their own music in the aspect of royalties, let alone their own stage name. The man owns that, so in theory he owns you. We can't as a community attempt to ban the bling rap or what some may label the coon rap because these artist are being honest even though this type of music is the only kind at times that seem to be at the forefront. It does however speak to the desires of those in urban socially enriched denied areas fiend for. We feed those in poverty stricken areas that we need to hate everything about us and aspire for wealth, which isn't a bad thing in regards to the latter, but we have this habit of showing blacks that we are different from them and whites that we can have nice things as well. The problem with is that we are subconsciously teaching our children that their worth is lessened if they don't have the latest sneakers, Italian clothing, or car. Even though the genre started being about the party that wasn't its limits, but the commercialization of it is attempting to change the etymology of what rap is. When we do this we negate and desensitize the revolutionary aspect of it.

There was a time in the mainstream where rappers speaking out against injustices regularly, not just doing the aftermath of instances such as Trayvon Martin and Rekia Boyd. Rappers in past times used to frequently articulate counter veiling narratives that allows them to destitute the legitimacy of stereotypical views of people. These rappers got aggressively eloquent. For instance when Ice Cube said, "F%#k the police coming straight from the underground a young nigga got it bad cuz I'm brown, not the other color so police think the authority to kill a minority...messing with me cuz I'm a teenager with a little bit of gold and a pager, searching my car looking for the product thinking every nigga is selling narcotics." Cube was not only speaking to white America, but also talking to other black folks in higher classes who may not know the frustration that is occupied in the hearts and souls of less privileged black and brown people. This type of rap music speaks out against intellectual devaluing of black people, even though it's done with an aggressive tone you want to try to ban it, but why? When a culture that's foundation is based on discrimination and exploitation is challenged we look at this form of defiance as a problem. Ice Cube was promoting violence as means to right wrongs, but he was asking why do you feel that blacks should only exist in lower spheres of existence. We tell America's children that anything is possible and to chase the dream of this country, but when Cube spoke of his gold and pager he was articulating the notion that when blacks have a little more or achieve greater than what are expected of them we must question legitimacy of it because that's not normal, it's almost sacrilegious for blacks not to be poor.

That's why when the great sociologist Christopher Wallace grabbed the baton back in the early 90's and spoke, "We used to fuss when the landlord dissed us, no heat wondering why Christmas missed us, birthday's was the worst days, now sip champagne when we thirsty." Even though many may consider this bling rap like I stated earlier the difference is that B.I.G. gave a backdrop why black and brown people are so obsessed with expressing how they made it. We can't treat this culture as only just a form of entertainment, but we must look at it a teaching model to understand what is going on in these communities that we are trying to build and elevate. We can read all the statistics on poverty, get degrees upon degrees, but if we aren't making that connection with the people we are trying to help we will forever be lost in search of that promise land. By trying to simply disregard this form of expression as merely misogynistic, violent, and oppressive we are ignoring the voices of hope and anger of disenfranchised souls who in most instance go unnoticed. One of the reason why it always under fire is because it attacks the foundation of the American dream that is sold internationally of what a great place this country is and exposes the truth of not only race relations, but class relations of urban chaos that this democracy that we live in chooses to ignore. 

When we allow the commercialization to continue to criminalize in the way the censorship movement did we lose our identity and allow those putting us in the forefront to define us in ways that they see fit. The political activist of the culture begin to become blurred and the thug image is then highlighted creating this perception of us being menstrual rappers for the appeasement of white corporations. Gangsta rap has now become rappers wearing skinny jeans talking about shooting someone who he resembles instead of the music that preached unity defeating a higher power or professing the reason why these issues exist. Now the genre is in limbo between white politicians using it as a means to categorize its listeners into a box, while black leaders are blaming it for the destruction of black people in general. Neither side are looking to dig deeper within the surface to fully hear what is being said, instead they are being warped in the agenda control that doesn't allow them to be one with the struggle that is trying to be heard. 

Rap is more than beats and a rhythmic intricate scheming pattern instead it's a voice that speaks for the people without classifying itself as a right wing republican or a left wing Democratic party that has ties to the republicans. It is truly independent in it's motivates, but awakens the conscious in those who walk with their back slumped down afraid to express the pain that they are feeling day to day by simply ignoring issues as just," the way it is." No one will deny the movements that occurred during civil rights from speeches in churches and on monuments, but we must progress to understand to reach a younger generation of truth tellers that we must explore different avenues to get the message to them. We are beyond the days of hearing great speeches such as the Ballot or the Bullet, instead this newer generation are more inclined to receive that same message of political inclusion and group economics in a 4 minute song by Nas or Rick Ross telling us to put our whole team on.

Don't sweat the technique by continually to be like our mothers and telling us to cut that "s*&t," off instead embrace that even though the revolution may not be televised it will be heard through rhythmic anger.

Formulating Her Identity

In the terms of gender identity most experts if you ask them will likely come to a majority consensus that one’s sense of what it is to be a man or woman is determine by society, aside from sex organs, of course. For the purpose of this essay I would like to ask whether black women determine who they are, or do men make that decision, more importantly what is the black mans role in it?

 

When a white man looks in the mirror he sees himself as a human, a white woman, likely will see herself as a woman, a black man will identify with his blackness, but where do black women fall into the archetype of this mirror? What does a black woman identify with, is it their race or their gender and why are their sexuality being primed when we think of them? One of the main issues in resolving these issues is that people are too comfortable with the norm. A black man will likely reference how they treat and view women as them mirroring other societies, but for instance if Martin Luther King, and other leaders let the mirroring of society control the aspirations in life then we wouldn’t have had the Civil Rights Movement. We as a community, male and female, need to understand what is reflecting back to us, and a plan to break that mirror that doesn’t give women a right to choose what roles she identifies with.

 

At early ages black girls are taught that their bodies are their temples and that they must be protected, when we begin to prime a girl’s body this reinforces these stereotypes that a woman’s body are her most important asset going for her. A black woman at a time was only useful for manual house labor and reproduction, now modern day images of Sarah Baartmen have transitioned from pornography to the mainstream with the intent of profit for cooperation’s, while black men are used as pawns to exploit and degrade black and brown women. Like an old saying, women are made to think that their only future is behind them, not in the sense of the past, but in the sense of their gluteus maximus. Even though women essentially have a choice in the matter of whether their bodies will be used as a commodity or something that has no direct correlation of how they will be financially compensated, but a patriarchy governed society in most cases can overpower the desires she wants for herself.

 

The issue isn’t a choice, but the problem lies in the fact that a perception of beauty influences hiring practices and the jobs that are promoted to women that pay substantially more than those in the service sectors. Even though we can look at higher paying careers where a woman’s intellect is more primed even then they are judged on a higher ceiling and have to push through a heavier door. Physical beauty isgood, physical beauty is great, I would never tell a girl to be ashamed of that, nor will I tell her that you should feel guilty of the image that GOD created you in, but when physical beauty is a means and an end of success we then begin to idolatrize the financial and pleasure that a woman’s body can provide which eventually leads us to avoid her intellect. We also see this with of a lot of the women we force girls to look up to. For example when we look at someone that is as beautiful as Gabrielle Union we aware that has been in multiple films and her own series, but we always seem to focus on her beauty, but we almost always disregard the fact that she has a Sociology degree from UNL. When these images are pushed to not only girls, but boys as well then this begins to stunt our growth because even though we may not have a direct connection with these people we’re still looking at them as role models, not for the smarts that they may have, but only their beauty.

 

A lot of these girls grow up without fathers or other male figures in their lives that are accessible to showing them a type of love that isn’t romanticized. Girls growing up need to experience love from a man that is sensual, instead of love that has an expectation when it is given to our young women. Many of us instill in our young ladies that they need to love themselves, I feel as though that isn’t enough. I feel for people to develop healthy social lives they need to know what love is and what it feels like. When a girl isn’t receiving that type of attention from a father figure they may feel as though they aren’t good enough, or worthless. This may begin a process where they feel as though any attention from any guy is sufficient, when at times that attention may be given with ill intentions. We see these scenarios too often in music and film where a black woman’s role is to be over sexualized.

 

Many people might try to counter argue about the notion that we don’t complain when white women are in these realms. To answer those critics I feel it’s important to note that you can go to different arenas and outside of media to see white women in different roles that don’t highlight their sexuality, but channel their smarts and brains. I have no issues with women of color being sexual objects, but when we see a trend of that being the only light we see them in then we must combat this problem. We as men and women have become too comfortable and complacent in seeing women as being sexual beings instead of being free, brave, and fighting these oppressive practices. Of course we shouldn’t deny the beauty on the outside, but what about her soul, heart, and cerebral capacity. For a lot of women they are reduced to confirming to stereotypes to make a substantial living, but instead as a society we need to open up additional avenues of opportunity for women to explore other paths that highlight their analytical ability instead of reducing them video models, strippers, some man’s eye candy, or trophy wife.

 

In this patriarchal society a woman’s body is taught to her to be a temple, but not as something precious instead as a means to an end. However when we send our boys off in the world we at times, jokingly tell them to, “Go out and get up on these hoes,” but telling women that they have to be earned. How can we expect boys to do one thing, but for women to be saints that are pure? We have men that walk around with this sense of entitlement and women being shamed if they feed into what we sell our boys. We are subconsciously elevating our boys into the roles of pimps, one of the most misogynistic people to ever walk earth. By doing that will have made a conscious action to reduce women to being hoes and bitches. We can argue that we didn’t make the rules and that we are just products of the system, but when you choose to promote these gender stereotypes you are still guilty of doing something wrong, you’re just as guilty as the creator of them.  

 

These practices aren’t just in the media and job markets as I stated earlier, but also in the church that women numerically rule. When majority of a congregation is dominated by women have we ever wondered why it most churches it’s almost taboo for them to rule? Of course we can take their money, but in the end we subjugate submissive roles within the arena of a religious institution. This is not only ecclesiastical apartheid, but reinforces classical passive stereotypes and roles that we have placed on them.

 

How can we tell our young girls to go out in the world fearless and to define themselves when we as a society repeatedly devalue them not only in entertainment, but in the home, classroom, and even when they enter the church? How can we tell black girls that they rock when we are limiting the levels of degrees they can rock in? Studies show that most children conform to gender roles as early as 4 years old, but who is at fault? Frederick Douglas once said, “It’s easier to train young boys than to fix broken men.” Let’s make a philosophical shift, if we aren’t fixing the males in our community how can we expect more of our young women?

 

Who really wants to see our young ladies of color excel? Who’s really pushing them to achieve all that is possible without expecting anything in return? When we ask, “Why do you love black women,” does you answer place in a sexual paradigm, or does it articulate her intellect, acuity, and/or strength? We must figure out who is truly the problem, is it the girl dancing on the pole or the men who first proclaimed that a woman’s most precious part is her temple?

The Black Male Rejection of Black Women

Why do black men seem to prefer white women, at least over black women?  Is it the desire that gravitates black men towards white women, or is it the rejection of black women? When looking at the fabrication of American culture and the doctrine of race relations this helps us explore a route to the answer.

 

When we look at it from an historical context black men were effeminized and placed in an infantile state, not in the sense of being homosexual (I don’t believe you can systemically make someone gay), but he was taken out of his role of being the protector that societies and cultures ascribe most men to be. The black man was forced to be a witness of the black woman being raped by a white man, and he couldn’t do anything about it. This reinforced that power structure that put whiteness above blackness and masculinity above femininity. Even though these incidents didn’t turn most black women away from black men it did however, as one can assume messed with the mans psyche to know that his protector role was void and suppressed towards his slave owner. He spends his whole life trying to vie for the approval of his master, due to this power structure.

 

Aside from obtaining freedom the closet thing to being one with the white man was having a white woman. From the definition of white in the dictionary and also by law white has always been defined as pure, fair, just, clean, and unpolluted. However, when we look at black it’s always menacing, evil, threatening, and intimidating. When at times it was against the law for a Negro not to just marry, but even stare at a white woman. The definitions of what iswhite and black psychologically places white in a superiority mental context, but the laws systemically place white woman at the top of the food pyramid and now becomes forbidden fruit for the black male. A white woman’s word was always held in high regard. Even in today’s culture; if a white woman cries wolf we believe her. She exemplifies what womanhood is outside of what feminist argue the white woman is held in high regards when we think of women. Even if a black man doesn’t necessarily want a white woman his curiosity leads him towards her just to see what the big deal is. Even though he may love black women he’s being socialized to see her as less moral and nothing more than bearing of slave children. So in hindsight he sees the black woman as nothing more than someone amplifying and rendering black people’s own oppression through her vagina even if it’s by rape. These same issues rear their head in the 21st century, but in different forms.

 

From music videos and even in erotic videos white women are celebrated over black women, especially in cases if the white woman has a body image that many associate black women with. In the terms of wide hips, big butts, and darker skin (tans), even though part of the problem is priming only a woman of colors physical attributes as opposed to her mind white woman in most cases will always be favored even in erotic forms. In the physical we constantly reinforce the image of white women above black women.

 

You can go to any black barbershop in America and when the topic of interracial dating occurs when have been taught as minorities to always put women of color into competition with white women.

 

Some black women are porn stars, strippers, in half naked in music videos, on welfare, have children by multiple men etc., but they aren’t the only ones and all black women are not limited to that. We have black women going and graduating from college at higher rates than us, but when those women are always looked at as too strong. We shame them and prime women on their sexuality, but act like they are breaking down the family dynamic by ignoring “family norms,” but when white women are ignoring these norms we look at they as women who have their own and don’t us look at us as a meal ticket. Times are changing, even though black women and black men never really had that housewife role, black men are now trying to have work and be a housewife. This sort of reinforces that notion of slavery when a woman had no choice but to submit to their master and now the black man is trying to emulate his oppressor by showing dominance over the black woman in his life. So this gives them an unconscious excuse to go towards white women because they “don’t complain,” and “know their role.”

 

White women in a lot of cases are looked as status symbols, they garner acceptance psychologically, or at least believed they do. Even if the white woman and black woman are from the same socioeconomic situations the white woman isn’t judged off of that from a black man’s perspective, but the black woman shamed for it. No matter if a white woman has kids or not, on welfare, or in good financial shape, a gold digger, or you leave off of her she will always be deemed as a trophy and highlighted for all qualities while black woman are shamed for their faults. We judge white women on an individual basis, but we cast all black women into stereotypical paradigms until they prove us different. As we look back in time black women are good for us to lay down with, but white or lighter women are who black men want to be shown with. Many black men such as me still love black women, but society has tried to systemically and psychologically attempted to keep us hating ourselves.

 

I don’t feel as though black men consciously just want to be with white women as some may make it seem, but I feel as though they are being taught to reject black women as a whole because they are still deemed as bad, sinister, and only used a means for child bearing. We still believe that their vaginas are the means for being diggers, putting black men on child support and the reason why taxes taken out of our check (even though more whites benefit). Even though the first love we receive is from our black mothers, over time society tries to teach us to hate them.

Who Loves Our Black Boys?

Are black boys the target of a racist society, or are we merely criminalizing them to the point where they're fearful of one another? Who really loves black boys aside from their mother? Have we actually taken a moment to ask young black boys, “Who really loves you?” Do we lead young black males towards a path that primes them only to see their masculinity as a beginning and end of who they really are? We have been taught through homophobe principles not to show compassion and love for them because that’s not masculine, who really cares?  How do we end this cycle of autophobia? 

We have a generation of black males that walk around with their heads held down and always looking over their shoulder because they may be Zimmerized or shot dead because their music  is too loud. We have men walking with their backs slouched which allows others to ride them and make them feel ashamed for who they are. When you walk with your back straight no one can slow you down because you’re moving with a purpose. We have cohort of brown and dark skin boys who are afraid, intimidated, and made to feel dishonest about themselves; this begins the process of what Dr. Cornel West likes to call the niggerization of a people. We have become so fearful of ourselves that we are willing to consent to our own domination from street gangs all the way to enlisting into the armed services to kill people that look like us in foreign countries.We are the pawns of social assassination, all while being economically commodified. Blacks boys have to come to the context of why am I hated, why am I unsafe, and why am I unprotected? What is it about me that strike fear not only in white folks, but my own damn people?  Who is there to teach these boys not to accept this and fight against it? Without getting a check in return or personal notoriety, who is really standing up to tell the truths of these black boys who have been stigmatized, victimized, and made to believe that are a non-factor in the grand scheme of things.

The life of black boys has been made into a mockery and they are degraded daily. Whether it’s for their hairstyles, the way they dress, and even the music that they listen to. We as a race have contributed to the ways that these boys are being criminalized in this society. We speak on their dreads; tell them to make sure all your tattoos are covered because we don’t want them to be suspected or to be offensive towards cooperate (white) America. We complain about their sagging pants, but how often do we raise their expectations of what they can be? We criminalize their dress, but what are they dressing up for, or more importantly what are we dressing them up for? It seems that now it is a capital offense to be a young, black, male in the country and if you’re outside you can be shot like wild game, or at least in the state of Florida.

It seems that we are only cares once it too late. We only tell them that they are beautiful once their parents and the community are grieving. Our young people need to know other men are pulling their boot straps up so that they can fight for their rights so that we can eliminate the terror from their heart.  Revolution doesn’t have to start with a reaction to a tragedy or oppression; you can ignite a revolution by just having a love in your heart for the people. We have groups of men who have made it out from socially neglected areas, but we have forgotten about the ones left behind. It would be idiotic to expect everyone to work for the cause, but we need more men who are willingly to bring back those degrees to the hoods they left and uplift these young boys who don’t get the love that they deserve. Folks get so worried about their careers, promotions, their status, and not making the oligarchs and plutocrats upset that they are afraid to tell the truth, or they begin to take the role of head field slaves. Not all, but some of the black elite use their status as a means to talk down on others who may not have had the opportunity to be afforded an education, not just at public schools, but the illustrious private schools from Yale to Tuskegee. We have elites who think they are better than the less fortunate. Too many of us who are college graduates use that piece of paper as means and justification to devalue others of our race to the point where we leave them out of the positions that the Martins, W.E.B.s, and others were trying to get us out.  Don’t let these made up views of us being the exception dilute the truth.  

Once we are afraid to tell the truth we allow ourselves as adults to remain niggerized that we remain adapted to injustice, give up, and ignore the indifferences that occur and leave our boys lost with no none to aspire to follow. We have somehow adopted this ideology that we have to make it out the “ghetto” and never look back, but it was a time when we thought of the ghetto it wasn’t anything demeaning or disgraceful, but it was where a whole contour of people came together and had love for one another, but now since we are in a time where the counterrevolution is winning we try to divide and separate ourselves from one another.

Not to ignore the work that has been and is being done, but the counterrevolution is winning. They tell us to take our 96 and 97% collective vote to elect state legislatives who make laws to protect us, but since our issues sit outside of the given agenda of a conservative who has special interest groups pulling his/her strings, and left wing liberals who don’t have a spine to walk with, but who also have money thrown at them to care about other social issues result in us getting left out. We continue to be made to feel that we are invisible. The youth are not looking for handouts; they are just for someone to love them and to tell the truth about the suffering that they are enduring. Not to marginalize black boys from other groups (which all are precious), we as men especially must not be afraid to express our love for them.

Even if we may disagree ideologically about what needs to be done, we must all care. Not for any status, promotion, recognition, but we must care for the people. The fighting of oppression is not a sprint, but a long distance race, and the only thing that we get you to that finish line is to have a strong love in your heart for the people. We can spend time blaming single mothers, the prison industrial complex, white folks, educations, economics, but at the end of it all who really loves these boys, besides their mothers? When was the last time told a black boy you loved him and wanted him to do well? Like Marvin Gaye said in the summer of 1971, “Save The Babies.”

Who really cares? If you won’t tell them, I will be strip of my “masculinity,” to express to those boys that I love them.