(ThyBlackMan.com) I was a bit taken back by this article. In my pondering over the points of the psychological diagnosis spewed by this brother, it resonated with me, that the seemingly endless depth of sickness we suffer, as a people, infects the root at an even deeper layer. It infects our community at the core, and it affects our daily lives in regards to our relationships to one another, and the effects of this rotting root controls what we choose not to see around us presently, but moreover, our refusal to acknowledge our role as silent contributors in the cycle of generational genocide.
As one of history’s greatest writers, James Baldwin, would describe the role of a writer worth their weight; is their contributing their gift to our world via The Arts. He compared the writer to the painter: The painter has the responsibility of creating a painting, one brush stroke at a time, until the blank canvas reveals the image the painter imagined in his mind. But, as a writer, we have the responsibility of penning words, syllable-by-syllable, to blank pages, until we have created a story which, hopefully, makes a point, or causes a thought, or, most importantly, moves the audience. As writers, our words are gifts to society.
Now with this great gift, and the responsibility of carrying this gift, we must pause from time to time and ask ourselves, what message are we relaying to our people through our penning?
I authored the article, “Sisters, Stand Up” on this site. For those who read it, hopefully, you understood my point to be, as sisters, we need to stand up for our brothers, try to understand their struggles, become their helpmates, and to tame our tongues against negativity towards our brothers. It’s a part of our responsibility to our community, and we must heed in taking on this role for the sake of our children and our future.
I feel it’s necessary, especially, after reading the comments from the article, “Kenya Moore the Doppelbanger”, that I speak to the brothers about standing up for us. We struggle as Black women in this society of inequality and injustice. Some of us struggle psychologically trying to fit into this physical world where we are sometimes made to feel that how the Father created us is not good enough (especially, for some of our Black men who are successful). Yet, some of us struggle with balancing our career with family, all the while hoping the necessity of motherly nourishment of our children isn’t being affected, nor the required skills of maintaining a healthy, loving relationship with our mate isn’t being compromised. Then many of us struggle with carrying the weight of our Black males (whether son, husband, father, uncle, nephew) who have succumb to society’s pitfalls of drugs, imprisonment, etc.
Just as you, brothers, we struggle in this society where we are thought of as inferior due to our ebony hue, and also due to our gender. In the eyes of white supremacy racism we are labeled by society as loud-mouthed, gold-digging whores. Brothers, that’s a horrible image for your wife, daughter, sister, mother, aunt or niece to bear. We need you to stand up for us and proclaim to society that you, as Black men, as our bothers have our backs too.
The point I hope to bring about in this article is, it doesn’t matter if you are a painter, writer, entrepreneur, ball player, or mechanic, we all have a responsibility to our community as a people to uplift one another, and not tear one another down. If you observe a problem, ponder what you can do to remedy it, pray about it and move change it if you can. Other than that, if you don’t have anything encouraging to say that may uplift your brother or sister, then tame your tongue against the negativity, and don’t say anything at all. Let’s end the cycle of spewing the poison of the tongue against our own people.
Staff Writer; La Royce
One may read over more of this sister writings over at; http://laroyceblog2014.com.