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.