BLACK MEN AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS - PART 1

The Problems Of Black Men Pale In Comparison To The Solution.

As I have previously written, Black women lose about ten years of their life chasing the illusion of male equality. Black men lose about twice as much time chasing the similar false god. Our problem it seems is that we have a misguided notion of racial equality.

Instead of elevating our maleness through love, family faith and the execution of these three things in support of our children and spouses, we believe that we are somehow entitled to an exalted position in life based on the possession of male anatomy. This is the notion of white male America and it may well be true for them but it sure as hell ain’t true for us and it never has been.

In fact, black men have created a new paradigm for maleness in which the opposite of decent behavior is celebrated.

Now here is where I’m supposed to go back to the plantation and make the same tired ass excuses about slavery, discrimination and the war on the brothers. Consider it said. Let’s ask the question that is never asked: why do we not resist the call of temptation? Why have so many black men stumbled while others have not? And why have black women excelled when they have been subjected to the same racism as men with sexism heaped on top?

It’s The Deathly Hallows.

In Harry Potter, the Hallows were tempting magical talismans that brought power. For black men, the Hallows are temptations to violence, worthlessness and prurience. Black men have fallen into these traps, committing crimes and going into the (for profit) prison system, abandoning their children and spouses and losing their spirit in the exchange and elevating sex from relationship mission, to life mission.

I don’t disagree when people say there are powers in our society out to get black men. But I do disagree that the effort has been successful because our enemies are so smart. Most of the time, we are just ignorant and weak.

I could do a laundry list of black male sins but why? I am all about thinking differently, you know. So, there are two things I want to address. One is a particularly irritating phenomenon and the other is of course, how we can bring about change.

One of the biggest problems in our community is not the undesirable black man but the desirable one who’s full of shit. The temptation of the Hallows has left a class of men in the relationship catbird’s seat. There now exists a world where for every one man in college there are 3 women-- or more.

So you’d think these lucky guys would just take the cream from the top of black femininity and move on, right? No. They decide that life isn’t about family, love and faith. They decide that it’s about sex, money and running from anything that leads to responsibility. They are arrogant, full of themselves and worst of all, refuse to commit, even to women who are bringing a lot to the table. They are picky and want women who are rich, beautiful, supportive, good cooks, even-tempered, sexually dynamic, socially adept and able to maintain a tiny waist and a big butt without ever gaining weight. And still they won't marry you.

Are you kidding me? Get over yourself. And stop asking me to cosign your bullshit. I won’t do it. I won’t buy into your lie. You are not handsome, smart and dynamic. You are plain, boring, not too bright-- and very fortunate. I’m sorry fellas, but if you are forty or fifty and you’ve never been married you are an asshole, gay or a billionaire.

Like any man, I’d love a life where I could just work, get laid and never face anything remotely scary or challenging. Moreover, I’d like to spend this time with women who are demure and accommodating. So why do some men go this route and others do not. I can only tell you what’s in my head and what I know about myself.

You see, I know that somewhere in my DNA there is a slave who remembers that work is pain and challenge is death. He remembers how good it is to get high on corn liquor and forget the humiliation he’s endured and the theft of his manhood. Somewhere there’s a slave who was taught that it was okay to sleep with women and walk away because someone else will raise your children. And he remembers the struggle for his dignity and the generations it took to break him and the damage it inflicted on his self-worth.

Somewhere that slave waits for you to be tempted. He tells you it’s not your fault, he offers succor and explanations for everything. And every time you falter, you can so easily grab the Hallow, revert to that bad DNA and become the most wretched version of yourself.

The hardest thing a man ever has to do is to face himself and accept the history of what he is and then build a future on the best of himself, leaving behind the worst.

And we haven’t done it.

When did we lose it, fellas? When did we stop loving our mothers and ourselves? When did we stop seeing our women as an extension of our own greatness? When did we lose the cultural tradition that women were to be exalted and protected? When did the bad DNA become the definition of who we are and all we can do?

My father, a depression-era vet once said to me “being a man isn’t always about being happy.” For his generation, it meant that men took the burdens of life and their reward was the love and respect of their family, the community and God. And for women, having a man wasn’t an accessory to their life but a compliment to their value.

So if my dad was right, then what can we do? How do we resist and defeat the Hallows?

I will tell you in Part 2.

TO BE CONTINUED.



Copyright 2011

BLACK MEN AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS - PART 2

The Pathway To Our Humanity Is Always A Long And Painful Road.

I have this dream....

I am with my family at African American Town in a major city. Just like Chinatown and Little Italy, it is a place filled with ethnic pride. No one shuns it, comedians don’t make dumbass jokes about it and tourist know it’s a must do destination.

All around me, there are black families, the mother and fathers are casually affectionate and the kids are excited and loud. The little girls beam at their fathers with gentle love and the boys blush when their mothers kiss them....

Then, I wake up.

I am in a mall and all the black women are with their kids alone and every black man that’s with a woman is not with a black one.

I wait to wake up again... but I don’t.

How can we help black men find their way back to decency, love and family? I have thought about this many times and when I do, the problem seems like looking up at a mountain you have to climb and seeing it disappear into the clouds.

Everything we need is so basic. It’s heartening because it seems so easy but also sad that such fundamental ideas have been lost.

Men have to commit to our women and children. If you are heartless enough to walk away from an innocent child, then can you really claim any kind of manhood?

And ladies if he can’t love a baby, he can’t love you.

And guys if you can't love a woman and her child, don't waste their time.

Let’s develop a new paradigm for maleness based on our culture and not someone else’s, based on reality and not fantasy. How long fellas are we going to feel we’re entitled to only what some other man wants? When will we think about what we really want and make that our desire? Malcolm X said we had to deny the dominant culture’s hold on us before we could find our true selves. I think now all we have to do is find our place in American culture.

This is a tough one because it cannot be done without women. We have to reject the notion that every American standard applies to us. We can take the best of this country and reject all the worst. If white men are getting married later, we don’t have to. It they are getting divorced, we can resist and if they want to throw their families away, we certainly don’t have to follow suit.

Men and women can allow each other to be human without being damned for it. If this means redefining the roles of men and women, then let’s do it. And men, no one’s talking about cutting off your package. Ladies, no one’s talking about being submissive. I’m talking about what men and women do when they care about something-- they talk and work it out.

I know the men reading this are decent types who have not faltered or succumb to the Deathly Hallows. So, hear me out: Even as America turns away from being its brother’s keeper, we must hold forth.

Just a generation ago, black men thought it was their duty to minister to the young men coming up. Whether in a church, a barbershop or on a basketball court, men were educating men. Now, we have men like Eddie Long educating our wayward youth. We have rappers preaching to our sons and we have movies with men in drag telling them how to live good Christian lives.

We have to end black homophobia and all the shenanigans going on with these double sexual lives. Gay men are men, too and guess what, you guys can get married and adopt kids, now. So if you haven’t picked a team yet, you’d better get to it because believe me, the down low is coming to an end and real soon.

No more cosigning bullshit. I don’t care who he is, tell him to do the right thing or he’s out of your life. I know the worthless men are fun to hang out with. I know you like being better than your niggerish friend but you are only helping the problem. I just had to cut off a friend, a really cool person because he had just hurt too many women and too many kids. I just couldn’t even look at him anymore.

Black men used to love each other. It was a tough love but it was good and reliable. We called each other “brother” and we meant it. The Million Man March tried to bring us back to that love and it at least started a dialogue.

Finally, we must repair our broken faith. And I do not mean go back to the church because that is part of the problem. The black church has fallen into the hands of many less than credible characters (I’ll save that for another day). But the last time I checked, all religions allowed you to speak directly to whatever God you believe in. And if you don’t believe, then the person you need to talk to is on the other side of the nearest mirror.

Faith restores decency. Decency restores righteousness and courage. It takes courage to love, marry and commit your life to wife and child. And the child brings us back to Faith.

Yes, people, it’s the Circle Of Life.

I have a picture of me, my son and my father on my desk. But when I look at it, I don’t think about the connection of the three generations, I think about all the men not in that picture: my three dead brothers, three dead nephews and the many friends lost along the way. I am an eyewitness to that of which I speak and my knowledge has been bought with pain, blood and loss. So, as we used to say, I cannot be faded.

So I welcome anyone who wants to help.

A wise man once said that “a man without nobility is an idea without purpose, matter without motion and a prayer without faith. Only by union with his humanity, will he ever know grace.”

© Copyright 2011

BLACK WOMEN AND THE DECADE OF DOOM

We Must All Learn And Teach The Concept Of "Female Time."

Many years ago, a lady friend told me that she wasn’t dating much and she didn’t know why. She said the men were coming at her pretty regularly for many years then “All of a sudden the phone stopped ringing.” After this, I watched my friend go through dating hell and now she's single and has few prospects.

So much is being written as the relationship tide turns against black women. There is a lot of enmity out there and I don’t wish to add to it.

However...

I notice a commonality among many women of a certain age who are now having difficulty with dating. When they talk about their history, there is a big gap in the story and it’s about ten years give or take; a decade that magically disappears from the conversation or gets glossed over. And please, I know there are exceptions to every rule. You don't need to remind me.

I started asking women about these years from roughly 18 to 30 or so and what I have learned is that many women have spent this time “dating and having fun.” I take this to mean dating, partying, having sex. They do this with men, many of whom, they do not consider to be husband material. In each case, it is felt to be a right or should I say a rite like a man “sowing his oats.”

From age 16 to 35, a woman’s natural physiology is primed. She matures faster and enters the height of her fertility. Don’t get mad at me; be mad at God. He made it this way. From 35 on, all indicators decline and the threat of reproductive trouble rises. Also, a woman’s physical beauty is at its height. I say this because no matter what men say, we are attracted to good-looking women who can have kids.

So, women have oats too, but the price of that grain is a lot higher.

Tell me why women waste those ten years dating men, partying and sleeping around when these moments are more valuable relationship wise than any others?

It’s the fallacy of male/female equality. When the feminist movement began, it really began for non-black women. Black women have always been afforded the opportunity to have a life and a voice and not always by choice.

Intellectually, the notion was posited that men and women were equals and should be treated as such. Well, maybe in the workplace and in education but certainly not in society. The problem is not literal equality but equality in terms of equal respect for female power. Male-ism is exalted in America but female-ism is not.

Women got in the habit of thinking that “If I have what a man has, then I will be equal to him. And if I keep what I have, then I may be superior to him. So for instance, if you have financial power coupled with sexual power, then you become a Superwoman.

If we made any mistake in mid-20th century America, it was telling women that they could be equal to men by acting like men and not giving them equality based on an elevation of traditional (dare I say natural) female attributes. And because of this, the modern 20th Century woman found herself between a rock and a hard place: too strong for any man but too feminine to live without one.

The Superwomen reached for equality but grabbed a chunk of Kryptonite.

It is wrong but it doesn’t mean you can spend a decade sleeping with losers and ever hope to get married. Correspondingly, men cannot go on an extended adolescence, chasing booty into their 40’s like they are never going to get old and die. For men, it’s more like a quarter century of doom. At some point, we must all accept the stark realities of life. We must step up to the great responsibilities and take them on; otherwise we are not living life but running from it.

All I’m saying is, women have to step up a little sooner than men because their time is more valuable. So if you have a daughter, I say reject the lie that they are equal to men and elevate the value of their natural equality. Send them into life knowing that they must get to the business of being a mature woman early and it does not mean that they are missing out on anything. Teach them that every distraction that leads them away from this notion is an attempt to squander their time, steal their vitality and dump them into the Land Of Single Forever.

By the way, I know this is wrong.

I know you don't want to hear this. I know I'm supposed to offer you tricks and insight into the male mind, then charge you money for it. But there are no tricks and there is no insight to give. Beware of people telling you that you can be a better or smarter woman if you emulate men. This is just another lie that somehow your womanly virtue is lacking. It's bullshit. Being a woman has been working for a couple of million years. I think it's got plenty of its own power.

As for men, I’ll save that for another day. I had to write the article about the women first.

I didn’t want to waste their time.


Copyright 2010

NIGGILEAKS

Lasarius Green Jr.'s controversial website lets out classified information on black people kept secret for decades.

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has company in the cyber information debacle of the year. Lasarius Green Jr, noted radical and shirtless man has just launched a new website that blows the lid off the secret life of African Americans.

Niggileaks is a site wherein Green has listed classified information about black culture and forced black people all over the country to come clean about their shit. "It's time for honesty," said Green from an undisclosed location in Detroit. "Black folk have been in denial for far too long."

Among the many secrets listed is that black people are pissed off at Obama. Niggileaks says that over 43% of black people feel the President went to Washington and joined the club of self-interest and narrow-minded money fueled governing. "The man ran on hope and change," said one man. "I never thought I be hoping his ass would change back to what he was."

Also, it seems black people are sick of the Kardashian sisters having sex with black men. "Them hos ain't black," said one poster. "I don't care how fat their asses are."

Along the same lines it seems black women hate black athletes who sign sports contracts, then start dating white women. Said one irate woman: "They get a signing bonus then a signing Becky."
But the one of the biggest Niggileaks was when Green said that Black leaders and the black church have failed African Americans. "The post goes as follows:

In the 2000's it is clear that the religious-based leadership of mid-20th century black America has failed to live up to the very ideals it literally once preached. The black church has become a Mecca for excess, ignorance, waste and hypocrisy. Bishop Eddie Long is the tip of a very big iceberg-- shaped like a penis."

Black leaders have been out to get Green since the comment surfaced and was emailed around the nation. Reverend Creflo Dollar pastor of a mega church denounced Niggileaks and Lasarius Green for the comments. Green responded by saying. "You can't take that nigga seriously. Come on B, the man's name is Dollar."

Among the other Niggilekas:

1. The Black family is dying because of a lapse of faith.

2. Black women are facing loneliness because of their refusal to embrace traditional notions of femininity.

3. Black men are falling prey to societal traps because of their refusal to embrace traditional notions of decency.

4. Black people have deposited capital into a political philosophy that has yielded little return on their investment.

5. The new Black music is profane, idiotic and a shadow of a once great American artistry.

6. Many of the most successful and intelligent black business people are homosexual.

7. Michael Vick's comeback feels like redemption-- and revenge.

8. Black people justify almost any kind of behavior if it results in financial gain.

9. As money gets tight, Black women are forced to go back to their own hair.

10. As America focuses on immigrant "minorities" and their growing power, black people feel discarded and wonder if they even have a stake in their own country, even as a Black man sits in the oval office.

Charges are being brought against Green by a consortium of black interests. They allege that his site is damaging to an already wounded people.
"That's funny," said Green. "I would say the same thing about them muthafuckas."

Copyright 2010