I was just wondering what would the Black community would look like if the presence of Asian owned beauty supply shops and grimey eateries, or filthy White owned food marts, or poorly maintained Arab owned gas stations in Black communities drew as much outrage from Black men as some stupid Black male celebrity appearing on TV or stage in a skirt/dress. I wish we’d define how manly we are by how many of our own children we independently educate and employ. What if we measured Black manhood by how many White neo-colonial agendas we thwart around the globe? I’m all for Black Manhood, and manliness in general, I just want a better yardstick for its measurement.
I’m gonna go out on a limb and state that: Not controlling the economy of your community is equally, if not more emasculating for Black men than wearing a skirt.
I’ll also have to go out further on a limb and state that: Obsessing about the fashion choices of celebrities has got to be at least as effeminate, if not more, than a man wearing a skirt.
Note: There is absolutely an ongoing campaign to sustain all African people in positions of oppression, which the effeminizaiton of Black men (in a Western Cultural Context) is one of the major conspiracies. However, I think we overlook the infantalization and “adolescentilization” of Black men, which is more prominent than the effeminzation.
The Infantlization and “Asolescentilazation” drives much of the opposition to effeminzation, and we end up name calling and finger pointing, while all other races run off with our collective wealth.
The solution to the conspiracy to effeminize Black males is not for us start acting like a bunch of sexist, misogynist, White Frat Boyz, or hyper-macho douchebags; we need to secure Black Power, restore African culture, and take control of the lands we dwell and resources we depend on; that’s how one manifest their Manhood…or Womanhood.
In a Pan-African context, male is not anti-female, it should not be an insult to compare a man to a woman, and one’s clothing does not define them or their standing, their actions and ideology do. Let’s get back to all of that and leave this Gender/Cultural confusion and hostility where we found it, in the culture of our oppressors.
Another Note: If you do make it your mission to expose or correct the effeminzation of Black men in the Western Context, please do so without degrading the feminine, or imposing standards and morality based on Puritanism (because that’s where most of us get our morality, even many of us AfroCentricks, we still stuck pushing Massa’s Plantation Morality). If your are still grounded in Western Morality and use it to oppose Western Liberalism, you are trading one from of oppression for another, while failing to bring justice or liberation to anyone.