(ThyBlackMan.com) One thing that greatly bothers me as brother living in The Belly Of The Beast known as America is the constant perpetuation and glorification of of a lot of African-American men as toxically masculine by the mainstream American media.
African-American men in this country for the most part have never been portrayed as well by the mainstream American media. Fast forward to today, the images of African-American men that are common in mainstream media are alcoholics, druggies, trappers, drag queens, gangsters, thugs, super predators, criminals, athletes, entertainers, and rappers.
African-American men in America are some of the most educated because there are about 60% more African-American men in college than in prison despite what mainstream media wants you to believe.
They have also been on the forefront of our liberation since it began which produced some of the greatest African-American revolutionaries and innovators in American history that you never hear about in the American public school history books from Malcolm X, Huey Newton, to George Washington Carver.
The one image of African-American that is often portrayed by the mainstream American media is the toxically masculine one and this image is often used to our detriment because mainstream society holds African-American men to a very low and dangerous standard of being too toxically masculine to the point that they can’t express themselves, live life, or do things without being challenged socially about their appearance, sexuality, or validity. As well as a lot of them being physically abusive and sexist towards African-American women.
Here are the types of toxic masculine African-American men in America.
1. Sexism Towards African-American Women – One of the most destructive elements coming from not only sexist minded guys, but also a lot of the pseudo-conscious guys that I’ve seen last year is the extreme sexism and the intense pushback that they show when someone says that intellectual sisters should also be able to lead the community and maybe that will help quell all these egotistical pseudo-conscious guys that are saying things that are counterproductive to our advancement as a people. And besides there have been many melanated queens who have been strong warriors and rulers throughout history.
2. Violence Towards African-American Women – A lot of African men that have very sexist attitudes towards African-America women come from very dysfunctional households where their mothers were often victims of physical and verbal abuse at the hands of their boyfriends and it creates everlasting psychological trauma for a lot of them and causes them to develop a very negative view of African-American women in general to the point of utilizing their masculinity in a very harmful and destructive way towards African-American women
3. Allowing The Colonial Power Structure To Use Them To Inflict Self-Destruction Towards Our Community – Lil Wayne is an example of the mindset of a colonized minded man whose brain has been corroded and hijacked by the colonial power structure to use his platform as evil rather than good by promoting messages that amounts to various forms of self-destruction towards our people, especially our young men in particular.
4. Horizontal Violence Amongst Young African-American Men – One of the biggest examples of toxic masculinity in our community is the horizontal violence amongst young African-American men that happens on a daily basis and the main catalyst behind horizontal violence in our community is colonialism.
The Conclusion – We must teach our young men how to be a strong, proud, and masculine without allowing their masculinity to become toxically destructive to themselves and their community.
Staff Writer; Kwame Shakir (aka Joe D.)
