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.