Over the last few days I’ve had many Black males tell me that women should dress a certain way to avoid being cat-called or harassed in the street by men who are strangers to them.
All I could think about reading these comments and in-boxed messages is how the fucking White people kept arguing that Trayvon Martin dressed like a “thug” and his hoodie is what provoked George Zimmerman to stalk and murder him.
Then I tried to argue that it shouldn’t matter if a woman is naked and in an alley at 3am, it does not open the door for any man to assault or harass her, that we are obligated to conduct ourselves as responsible community members and defenders of other community members.
I was hit with; “you have to put some responsibility on the woman, she needs to make sure she carries herself correctly, and avoids putting herself in situations…”
I really could not believe my ears. Much of this was coming form “conscious” Black men, from “ACTivist.” These same men would then distress about Cat-Calling being criminalized and thus Black men will have yet another reason to get caught up in the System (as if White folks needed more excuses when we’ve already had genocidal incarceration rates for the last 2-3 decades).
As I read their responses my mind went to Mike Brown. I kept thinking about how the White people who Support Officer Darren Wilson kept saying that #MikeBrown provoked his attacker, how he was in the street and if he was not in the street he could have avoided the conflict that lead to his murder.
Then these Zimmerman and Wilson supporters also cry about fearing for the lives of these murderers because of retaliation. They criminalized the victims then morph the aggressors into the victims; just like these Black men did when they say women provoke the harassment, and the the System will use harassment to further criminalize a population that has already been fully criminalized.
Then I have the Feminist who jump up and yell: “Black men have Male Privilege in this Patriarchal Society!!!” They say this because Black men too often commit heinous crimes against Black women…(they commit them against Black men too…but that’s not as relevant to the Feminist). [Read Black-on-Black Crime by Dr Amos Wilson for real insights on criminality in the Black community.]
The Feminist force me to reflect on how we focus on the individual perpetrators of White Aggression and seem to always fail to see the larger Systems and Institutions that perpetuate our oppression while training up individuals like Zimmerman and Wilson every day. So even if Zimmerman was convicted of murder, and Wilson was incarcerated; we’d still be oppressed, we never seem to get to that.
We don’t understand that we live in an atrocity inducing System and it cannot thrive without Global Atrocities, that’s what the economy and power structure is based on, and plucking one or two low-level White Aggressors out of the mix will not fix a damn thing. Atrocities have sustained this System since Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean blue, and will not end until the Global System he laid the foundation for is totally dismantled.
Black Feminist often refuse to admit that the Black man is not the architect or controller of the Systems and Institutions of White Domination that oversees the oppression of Black women, and that White women (her Feminist White Sisters) have more standing and power in the System than Black men will ever have.
Therefore, even if Black women got 100% equality with Black men, or even if they surpassed us as many social indicators seem to reflect they have, she’d still be subject to Genocidal Oppression along with Black males and Black children; because our oppression has never been gender based, it’s racial and cultural oppression. Our oppression manifest in all social interactions, but but has the same damn sources in this era: The Systems, Culture, and Institutions of White Domination.
We, as a community really need to improve our level and methods of understanding and analysis. I hear people often proclaim that they “ain’t about talking, they are about doing the work,” but if your work is based on incorrect or incomplete analysis you will find yourself on a political Hamster wheel, working and running like hell but getting no where.
Over the last several years we’ve lost so many great scholars, and the few who remain are largely ignored in the era of the YouTube Ranting Internet Celebs who parade as Scholars. They have driven us deeper in the the Battle of the Sexes that was declared between Western men and women when they first fought over the remaining bone marrow in the Caucasus Mountains centuries ago; our community has been infected with so many Western pathologies for so long we think they are us, we can’t even identify what is from us and what ain’t.
We end up mimicking/adapting our Oppressor’s Pathologies and implementing their ineffective solutions.
The Feminist wanna pretend that Black men are just like, or worse than White men in every respect, esp. in the arena of Misogyny, and I’m done trying to debate hardline Feminist. They will ignore 10s of thousands of years of history that happened before there was any such place called Europe, or any such thing as Western Culture, they want Gender Unity over Pan-African Unity, they want Gender Liberation over Black Liberation (leaving out Black men and even children); and I say leave them to their missions.
The pathological, insane Black Misogynist wanna paint the Black woman as the enemy, and even as the oppressor, or a weapon of our true oppressors, I’m not tolerating these sick individuals any longer. From Tommy Sotomayor on down the line; we need to Expose, Isolate, and Expel these New Negros from our movements and our communities.
Those who understand the historical balance Africans were working towards and in some instances achieved, and understand that Black people are unique in our culture, personalities, and mentalities; that we are not just White people with dark skin, that we, when left to our own devices, free of cultural contamination and ongoing invasions and deprivations; we have constructed and will constructed enduring and humane systems and institutions.
Those who still have an understanding of our African roots and what the Africans, united and organized still will bring to the world; we need to build and let those who are so committed to their pathologies have them, we can’t allow these distractions.
We all need healing, to H.O.W. (Heal Oppressions Wounds), but we can only heal ourselves and others if we recognize the wounds and are open to the healing processes. The major part of H.O.W. will come in our organized opposition to our oppressors and enemies; we can’t wait to heal then fight, because the healing is embedded in the Struggle; Frantz Fanon and many other Scholars have taught us this.
Forward.
#BSANI
