So I am sitting at the airport allowing recently intaken data to flood my mind and I find my thoughts turning to a few podcasts that I watched by TonyaTKO, mainly discussing the lack of protection that black women receive, and it really resonated with me. Most of my life has reverberated the tales of the exploitation and degradation of black men; how they have worn a target on their backs and thus required the due diligence and protection of black women. Naturally the black woman responded (for the most part) to the best of her ability with the resources provided to her, which is not a far leap considering that the black man is her son, whom she brought forth into the world through blood and pain. However I have come to notice that the black woman is held to account for the dysfunction within the black community and the shortcomings within the lives of her offspring, and after a careful and thorough review of the issues with an aim at identifying the root, this blame is both unbalanced and unfairly levied. This imbalance brought to mind the questions; how did we get here, where does the true onus lie, and how do we fix it.
Like so much of the dysfunction within the black community, I believe this issue begins in slavery. We frequently hear tales of the buck breaking that demoralized the black man, however not enough attention is given to the def-eminization of the black woman. The idea of male rape is terrifying to many (particularly men) due to the perceived loss of masculinity, however little thought is given to the loss of femininity through loss of protection and agency. For hundreds of years black women were raped by their oppressors and blamed for it by the rapist (denying his own guilt by constructing the image of the black harlot whom is so wanton and lustful that it is impossible to rape her, his wives and daughters (whom bought into the idea of the black harlot and displaced their anger at the rapacious, scandelous nature of their men onto the victims of their torture), and her own men (whom displaced their own frustrations at their lack of capacity to protect as men onto the women, finding it easier to blame and find fault with her than to face the fact that the degradation travels down the entire genealogical line when the man is conquered. This problem is exacerbated when the black man hates his emasculated self, the mothers that brought him into the world as such, and the women that bear his seed in the same image of himself. He hates the scars that his women now bear, as those scars are reminders of his ineffectiveness, so he displaces his shame onto her, and labels her as less than so as to not deal with the inferiority he feels within. Subsequently, a cycle of blame, division, insecurity, self-loathing, and destruction is perpetuated.
In such a situation it is easy to point a finger at the initial trauma (slavery) and rightfully so. However one would be remicse to ignore the roles of contemporary black men and women. Furthermore, as tramuamatiziang as slavery was, our ancestors exited slavery with a sense of unity and strong family values. So, where did we go wrong? Well, this is a complex issue with several situations culminating into the conditions that we face today. Please bear in mind that the opinions I express here are just that, opinions, and additional respectfully presented theories are welcome. One notable post slavery occurance was the imprisonment of the black man as a way of regaining his slave labor under another, more image friendly name. Subsequently, black women continued to hold de-feminized positions to maintain the family in the absence of the black man (and lets not forget that black women were already thrust into a cycle of defeminization, as black women were regarded as men and expected to take on masculine roles in the absence of men). We also see the initial attempts at establishing a successful society “by the sweat of our brows” thwarted by angry, jealous whites bent on maintaining the oppressive status quo, thus re-opening the wound of ineffectiveness within black men. Additionally, we see the impact of religion on the minds and homes of black folks, especially when the pastor steps in as a surrogate male figure when one is absent from the home; reinforcing the fire and brimstone self hate that worked to keep black folks as docile slaves through upholding unrealistic ideals and images as the mark of worthiness and scapegoating normal human failings as the reason for systemic oppression. During this time, black people were assaulted on all fronts, and instead of cleaving together to pull through we collapsed into an abyss of ignorance, fear, and ineffectiveness.
Of all of the questions and theories that were posed, the most important (in my opinion) is how do we fix the issues at hand? For starters, we must first acknowledge ALL of what has been done to us; good, bad ugly; negative emotions; faulty logic-ALL OF IT! Then we must take a good hard look at what the likely goal of the oppressors is/was and make a conscious decision to not allow that end to take place AND not exploit one another in the process. For example, I think a specific goal was to destroy the effective workings of the black family by setting spouses/partners against each other and convincing the black population that children are a burden that syphons resources and strains relationships instead of a beautiful cherished gift that should be planned, prepared, and worked for (let’s face it- since colonization the colonizers have killed off vast amounts of indigionous people and filled the indegionous lands with colonizer offspring while sterilizing (or attempting to) the indigiounous people, leaving just enough to act as servants to the colonizers in their ancestral lands, but that is a post for another day), and it has worked. We have people with intelligence and resource to raise children afraid to have them lest they find themselves saddled with an inept partner, and on the other hand we have uncontentious people multiplying like rabbits then leaving uneducated children to fend for themselves amongst a predatory exploitative class whom quickly scoop them up and set them to task fulfilling the dreams and goals of the colonizers for just enough sustenance to survive and the illusion of free will. Our inability to heal this divide will see us eternally subjugated beneath the shackles of oppression unless we make a conscious effort on both sides to heal, forgive each other fully, actually listen to the needs of all parties and act in the best interest of the collective with a selfless integrity that refuses to take advantage of the trust and consideration that we place in one another. Only then might we begin to have a fighting chance at turning the tide.
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