Friday, March 29, 2024

For Colored Men Who Are Blamed For Genocide: The Male Bashing is Enuf…

November 9, 2010 by  
Filed under Misc., News, Opinion, Weekly Columns

Like
Like Love Haha Wow Sad Angry

(ThyBlackMan.com) It’s not that Black men in general hate Black women.

Truthfully, a small percentage of Black men may dislike Black women, just as a small percentage of Black women may dislike Black men.

But there is money in pandering to the hatred of Black men.

There always has been.

Since the founding of this nation, there have been cartoons, literature and verbal propaganda spread about the “danger” of Black men, stoking the fire of hatred toward us for the harm we may visit upon society.

Black men have been blamed for everything from the defiling of white women to vicious crimes of varying types, and from the destruction of communities we move into as well as various and sundry crimes against humanity, except the plague.

Wait—if AIDS is the new plague, then, well, Black men have been blamed for the plague, especially if you give credence to the “down low” propaganda  which dictates that Black men are secretly having sex with other men so that they can infect their wives and girlfriends with HIV and kill them and their babies.

The problem with Black male bashing used to be that it came from the hearts and minds of vicious racist mongrels who were too ignorant to realize that one group of people could not be responsible for the destruction of an entire society.  Well, perhaps one group can, but we’ll leave that for another column.

Currently, some of the meanest, hateful propaganda about Black men comes from Black women.

And, now the old Black male bashing is becoming the new Black male bashing because “The Color Purple” just won’t seem to die and thanks to the sellout of all Black manhood personified in Tyler Perry, more Black male bashing drivel is being recycled.

I wrote two years ago that while some may cheer for Perry’s success, making claims of what it may portend for other Black films, I weep for what it portends for the Black male image.

What of the Black male, relegated to specific extremes of hypermasculinity or emasculization near eunuch status?  What of the Black boys who are taught by Black women to hate/despise their fathers? What of our new culture of Black male effeminization?

Perry is demonstrating clearly where he stands in all of this.

I now consider him an enemy of Black men.

I’m shocked that he didn’t don the dress and force a role for Madea in his new male bashing film.

For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf,” had all but died, except for the book that has been given to new generations of Black women as some pathological rite of passage. But Perry, who has enough success to create or purchase stories that uplift the entire race, has chosen this story out of all stories over time as his new watermark.

Certainly, “Sounder” was available for the remaking, as was “Imitation of Life,” or “Nothin’ But A Man.” And even though Puff Diddy nearly destroyed “A Raisin In The Sun,” the piece would still make a fine remake for the silver screen.

The problem with the likes of “Color Purple,” “Waiting to Exhale,” and “For Colored Girls…” is that they completely crap on the Black male image by presenting us as one-dimensional characters who appear in the stories for the mere purpose of harming Black women.

Seriously. Name one fully fleshed out positive Black male character in either “Color Purple” or “For Colored Girls…”

I’ll wait.

No I won’t. Because we all know there are none.

“For Colored Girls…” does nothing new, showing evil Black men who rape, toss babies from windows and, of course, have secret sex with other men.

And the subsequent destruction carried by promoting such ignorant stories is that Black women all over begin to identify with the downtrodden Black female images in the stories, which means that they identify the Black male images as representative of Black men all over.

This goes far in promoting the Black man as the omnipresent boogeyman with one true goal—the destruction of the Black female.

Of course, some Black men harm some Black women, but not all or even most. And portraying horrible images of Black men in stories proclaimed to “uplift” Black women serves only to drive a wedge between an already divided home. It makes it more and more palatable for more Black women to view Black men in general as their source of destruction and accordingly, their enemy.

So, what is the solution?

I’m not suggesting that we only present positive images of Black men. But I am suggesting that we demand and create more positive images of Black men and Black women, particularly images of us loving each other.

But that won’t happen until we show Hollywood collectively that we just don’t want to see another tired story full of Black women harmed by destructive Black men.

But first, we have to show Black women just how destructive these kinds of movies are to the Black male image and to gender relations in our community.

At some point, Black women will have to understand that their empowerment/freedom should not/cannot come at the expense of Black men. Those Black men who love them want them to be powerful with freedom–we just don’t want to be diminished in the process.

There is harm and destruction coming from both sides of the gender divide.

There is also love.

We decide which to promote, and right about now, I think that Black Love is in desperate need of promotion.

As a writer, I’ll be doing my part with my upcoming stage play and film, both scheduled for 2011.

What will you do?

Written By Darryl James


Comments

8 Responses to “For Colored Men Who Are Blamed For Genocide: The Male Bashing is Enuf…”
  1. toomanygrandkids says:

    Aren’t you the same author of the article that bashed black females for having multiple baby daddies? Didn’t you state that black females were just as much to blame for the problems in the black community? Whether it was you or someone else, I agreed with that article because it was the truth.

    But this article is a different story. “The Male Bashing Is Enuf” Seems as though you and those like you don’t like it when black males are revealed as males on the down-low, who DO infect others with HIV/AIDS. Shouldn’t you tell those males, “Enough!” It causes anxiety when males are exposed for being child murderers. Have you told them, “Enough!”

    I’ll wait for your answers. No, I won’t.

    But, I will say that it doesn’t do anyone any good by trying to protect these males who DO carry on in this type of manner. That’s what prisons and mental facilities are for. If these males weren’t a threat to society, there wouldn’t be a need to expose them. So revealing their behavior isn’t wrong nor bashing.

    If they fit the characteristics of what you described in your article, will you ever be man enough to tell THEM, “ENOUGH!”

    And what’s up with all of this hateration towards Tyler Perry? To me, it sounds so much like jealousy.

  2. Smart People Answer – Only the true intellectuals read further please…

    Even though this article is old, and it appears Tyler Perry has put some serious capital behind a couple films promoting a more “everyman” image of the black male in America, this problem of “Black Bashing” as an aesthetic and/or style preference in American discourse, literature, film, and music is rarely worked out quantitatively.

    How much does Black Male Bashing cost a black male in

    1 – Anxiety (did you know that our brains produce chemicals that become toxic when we experience episodes of racism or shame.)

    2 – Post Traumatic Stress from negative racial encounters i.e. getting stopped by and frisked by the cops unnecessarily, getting ignored by your boss on the job or loosing a promotion to some everyone else knows should have gone to you, never seeing images of black men until a negative incident or statistic is revealed.

    Even though some of these examples can occur without regard to race, part of a learned cultural defense against negative cross cultural interaction for black men has been to assume that this incident can escalate into a fatally racist encounter.

    Once we start putting numbers or quantifiable values around issues, we can see progress, otherwise lazy black women and lazy black men will continue to let the social math of divide and conquer keep us bashing each other.

    Don’t Hate…Calculate!

  3. zillz says:

    At some point, Black women will have to understand that their empowerment/freedom should not/cannot come at the expense of Black men. Those Black men who love them want them to be powerful with freedom–we just don’t want to be diminished in the process.

    word.

  4. zillz says:

    i had to think about this for a couple of days before i wrapped myself with an opinion.

    and this is what i’ve come up with…

    We’re being tasked with TOO MUCH!

    We have to focus on ourselves. Black men and boys. work on us and only us. Not save the world. By creating and exemplifying what we want and need to be, thats the only way I see to succeed. There will always be those who choose to exemplify the other image / the other elements.

    But we can’t worry about that image or the women or leading anymore.
    We have bigger issues. And NO ONE is helping us. Not the sistas, not old leaders. We’re really going to have to do it ourselves. for ourselves. by ourselves. Create our own images and opportunities. Cultivate our own communities and promote our own values.

    AND THEN… we can meet everybody else at the finish line, if they can catch up to US.

  5. As I left the theatre after watching For Colored Girls, I asked myself how would I begin to sum up what I just viewed. So many won’t get my point of view but then again I am not writing this for them. I am writing this for me or rather for us. Many talk about the male bashing and bad images that black men are portrayed as in this film but I wonder if the cast had been white or another race would we be so quick to say the same?

    In reality I didn’t see For Colored Girls as a bad portrayal at all because I, unlike MOST, understand that this doesn’t alienate or depict ALL black men or men in general. What it does do is shed light on the MANY women, including me, who have been, and in some cases, is still trying to find a state of intimacy that goes far beyond sex. Trying to grasp on to something that makes us whole. See if you have never been in those situations it’s easy to critique and point out all that is wrong with the film. But for some, this is a reality EVERY SINGLE DAY! I could tell by the watery eyes that glistened in the shadows of other women and even MEN, YES MEN, who were all shades of our ethnic rainbow as they watched this movie along side me tonight.

    And though these episodes in the movie may not correlate with your EXACT history, how many of us are still trying to find who we are through the eyes of a mate? We sacrifice so much of who we are to please people who don’t value what we give because they are only here to take. And black women have been taking for rides since slavery and ridden into the ground until the rainbow is no longer enough. Is it the fault of the black male? Not entirely. We have to except responsibility for the situations we put ourselves in and that was one main message in this movie that people have overlooked. However, there are many of our males who are the characters we saw in this film. Maybe not to the extreme of some but it is more existent than not! Let’s not get all brand new here. If it isn’t you, it’s a relative or someone you know. At the same token, if it’s not you as a male, then this table or platform from which I speak is not for you.

    But I know those characters all too well. I know the women they have dated and the situations they have been in. It was not a movie at all and in the end, there were no group hugs. At the same time I also know men who step up to the plate and hold down their families and would never as so much THINK of doing what was displayed in that movie. They are honorable black men who are examples of greatness.

    Yet, I can only speak from being a woman of experience. A woman who has given so much of myself for loving a few black men who weren’t worth my time. A woman whose seen the generation failures between mothers and daughters since I was born. A woman who has seen some of the girls I grew up with become unidentifiable to their own afflictions of abuse and sexual promiscuity. If you aren’t that women then again, this isn’t for you. But what I do know is whether you are honest on Facebook or in your social circles, we all have had some rough times and your personal rainbow wasn’t always enough. If you aren’t honest with anyone else, be honest with yourself.

    So in essence, I applaud the film and it is my hope that somewhere every man and every woman who needs to find their own EXIT out of their misery will do so. We want love and we go through some extremes to get it, both men and women. Unfortunately, too many of us are giving our own identity away for the sake of trying to have what we think will heal our pain when we are actually pushing ourselves further away from it.

    I don’t expect some to agree. You’re not me. You’ll never be me or see the things I’ve seen to fully understand. But as a woman who is still searching and continues to go through things trying to get to that place of peace because everything isn’t always great, I can relate.

    I salute my men who hold it down and I don’t bash them but sadly, I know more who don’t than those who do and unfortunately that is my truth. You can’t blame me for that.

    Renee Jennings

    http://www.facebook.com/reneejennings
    reneejennings@rmediagroup.com

  6. Giosincere says:

    I don’t even want to see the movie after this review..
    The movie (industry) theatres ain’t no good..
    All they trying to do is spread their poison
    on all levels about all topics especially us.
    They’d do anything to destroy us further..
    We further their agenda by supporting these movies.
    I’m good~
    Thanks for the article..
    Peace and Love

  7. One says:

    I couldn’t have written a better article if I tried. I’ve levied this argument before and it continues to amaze me how women LEAP to the defense of Tyler Perry because he (and his collective works) represents some form of validation. The problem is that it continually comes at our expense.

    Its bashing because it makes NO effort to represent black men in the same light or dignity that it showers upon the alter of the struggle that is being the black woman.

    It’s bashing because it embodies the strength and plight of the black woman in direct opposition to the existence of a black male presence in their lives. We often serve as the hurdle to be overcome, the wall to be torn down, and the opposition to be defeated.

    It’s bashing because it’s pandering in its most egregious state as it pits the success and ascension of the black woman squarely as the result of the downing their black male counterparts.

    And until you, the supporters of this type of modern-day minstrel show where Tyler Perry and his ilk have donned the black face, until you get this, you’re part of the problem. Their backhanded slighting of black men serve little more purpose than to fuel our rage against their audience… the black women to carry their banner.

    Black man against black woman… no one wins that war. Yes, we both have reason to be angry at one another. The difference is that a black woman’s spite is en vogue. Her bitterness is justified and rewarded with net sales. It pays to paint us as the villain.

    And the simple truth is that while our anger and umbrage is no less valid… it is, however, less profitable.

  8. Darren says:

    The first thing I’m going to do is respond to this article with honesty before laying out my plans for the healing of the black household. I’m a firm believer that both men and women have a right to be angry when it comes to the representation of our feelings towards one another; however, I have to be honest and state that Black men can’t get into their feelings when we are portrayed negatively on the silver screen and in the media. Too often we give meaning to the stereotypes by behaving in ways that bring on the criticism that we can’t handle. And I say that we can’t handle it for the simple fact that we feel the need to “respond” and lash out at the making of this movie. Women identify with these movies because there are women that are still going through these things. No, all Black men aren’t like this, but too high of a percentage are. And as a Black man I can honestly say that I know of at least ONE Black man that women complain about. I’m sure if you’re honest with yourself, you know one or two as well. Rather than lash out because these movies are being made, we need to sit down at the table and find out WHY they are being made and why are they so popular. Why do women feel the way they do towards us? Everyone is talking but no one is listening.

    Not until men and women can sit down at the table and talk to each other instead of AT each other will we make any progress. We have to be able to come to the table and not get defensive or lash out when we hear negative things we’ve done. Both sides have screwed up, but apart of healing is acknowledging what was done (as opposed to pretending it didn’t happen or making excuses as to why it happened) and then moving forward. Well written article but imo it only adds fuel to the fire that furthers the divide.

Speak Your Mind

Tell us what you're thinking...
and oh, if you want a pic to show with your comment, go get a gravatar!