(in the process of editing) please forgive grammatical errors if you are reading this.
I wish someone would give me an honorary doctorate in Philosophy or Sociology. If I had one I would teach a course in K-12 and higher education. It would be on the Souls of Black Women. Let’s pretend for a wrinkle in time that I am now Dr.Tree Candy philosopher, published author and professor of Sociology at the South Harmon Institute of Technology. We can also pretend that I have been given a grant by the NSF to continue conducting Fringe research on the treatise of concerning the principles of black male consciousness as it concerns the black woman and his emotional empathy toward her.
I will warn those of you who are good, compassionate black men that may read this you will probably want to go Wayne Brady on me after you are done reading.
My hypothesis is that should one ignore the sound of a black woman’s tears, heart beat, and voice will she cease to exist? If I may quote George Berkeley’s work on subjective idealism “The objects of sense exist only when they are perceived”. If I apply that to the human condition but in particular black women, does the depth of their emotions only exist only when they are perceived, ergo the acknowledgment that black woman has any feelings at all.
I posit that if you ask any one on the planet the answer is no. The historical racist attitude embraced by both the white and sometimes the black male community is that black women are creatures of a sexual nature, that they are in fact a sub human species possessing more testosterone than estrogen and incapable of feeling any emotion. Meaning they do not deserve consideration.
They (black women) are strong as an ox, ferocious as a tiger and should be treated as animals for mating purposes only. If black women are in-fact only to be looked upon as sexual creatures devoid of intelligence and human emotion than someone should have started a PETA movement for them long ago. They might be treated better and cannibalized less.
Lucy in the sky with Diamonds.
It can only be described in academic and philosophical terms, that the psychological and emotional malnourishment of the black female soul has had to endure since Ardi & Lucy walked the earth. I am not familiar with any anthropological data that shows an example of any one group of women so highly imitated and mistreated in the history of the world.
Black women in the African diaspora serve primarily as Matriarchs in their communities and villages. They go to the marketplace, they work, they raise children and sometimes have to be warriors. In the united states however that role has become a dual responsibility as they serve as both Matriarch and Patriarch to their children and grand children in some cases. If you read any scientific journals, you will find that Black women outlive their male counterparts. Why is that you may ask? Ask Ardi & Lucy they are the oldest fossils of our ancestors on the planet and yes they are girls.
Physiologically black women are strong. That feisty black co worker you have is the direct descendant of one bad ass foxy Cleopatra going back to the beginning of civilization. I threw that in for a dry attempt at humor but back to my academic ramblings.
In the current state of society, specifically in America we have an extremely high rate of single women, some are raising children on their own, some are waiting longer to be married and others have opted to swim in the same lane. Urban metropolitan survey’s will reveal that a large percentage of black women are sick and tired of bullshit. Tired of being lied to, mental games, lame excuses, non nonchalant attitudes and not being loved or respected by the men we raise and/or try so hard to protect.
Having survived evolution, slavery, the migration, black genocide , experimentation, genital mutilation, the glass ceiling, black on black crime, white feminism, white privilege ,apartheid, the black panther party, misogynistic rap music and institutionalized racism they are left to contend with the black male psyche. Some of whom are experiencing post traumatic slave disorder. What woman on the planet wouldn’t feel resentful and bitter after having to endure that for centuries?
The positive and progressive black female pushes beyond that and does not carry the emotional baggage on her shoulder. She hopes for the unification of the black community and re-structuring of the black family model. But should the PPB as I call her decide she wants to get an attitude, she has earned the freedom and should have a choice to do so without having to feel guilty of being labeled the black bitch. Sometimes a woman just has an attitude regardless of ethnicity.
Note that the black male and female have not always been at odds but at the turn of the century the interest in preserving the black male as a figure head was not always a viable option for the black female since they have been noticeably absent from the black household for sometime. Translation: regardless of why they are not in the household the black woman has been left to fend for herself. There is no time to play damsel in distress to stroke the male ego when you have children to feed and bills to pay.
That Bitch is crazy!
Now that you have had a brief crash course in black female anthropology and sociology,we can get back to the original question. If the black female is ignored and she voices concern about feeling invisible, taken for granted, looked over, abused, mistreated, under appreciated and embarrassed does the collective black male community hear her or care?They will most likely tell you that she is mad for no reason and that they avow no knowledge of or accept responsibility for the reason as to why she is angry, hurt and alone. Simply. “She’s just mad all the time”
They never question why she is mad for fear of getting their heads chopped off but if one took the time to truly understand why she is mad, why she is so hurt and feels so alone they would learn that her soul cries not only for her own mistreatment but that she cries for the world, the babies who are gunned down at school and never return home, the brother who may be in jail, the sister that is in college and she can’t send her money.
The black woman has compassion for other’s and ultimately it may be her down fall in serving as care taker and queen mother to an entire civilization. Humanity continues to bites the hand that feeds it. She gives her culture away, her sons, her daughter’s and never is there a thank you.
Do they (black men) recognize that she has had her own historical timeline apart from their own? Does it even matter? Has she earned a right to have a historically significant attitude the way her Black male counter parts continue to promote her as the “black bitch” to the outside world?
You may be thinking that I would say yes, but the larger dominant community will say no. No, she does not get to have an attitude because she does not exist and there fore does not matter. It is a fascinating concept to say the least. The PPB female has to demonstrate such an amount of restraint and tenacity so to disprove to the world that she in fact is not a crazy black bitch with an attitude.If she is, she didn’t get that way by herself.
I love his big Ego…
A better question would be does the black male feel a sense of entitlement that is not passed on to his female counterpart? I do not want to delve to deeply into the black feminist movement but If there is a sense of white entitlement and privilege there is an equally strong sense of black male entitlement to the white world that does not include black women or the black family. I suggest that fact alone has given way to the development of selfishness in the black male psyche. A black man’s priorities are always more important in his mind even if unequal to her own.
In their pursuit of equal rights and justice they have become so consumed with being given their just due that they have begun to feel that it is only due to them. They have forgotten that it isn’t just them and that had it not been for the black grandmother, the mother of their children, wives, sisters and aunts most likely they would not be walking the earth.
There is a double standard that exists that black men have a right to have a chip on their shoulders but black women do not. There is an unspoken rule that they should suffer in silence. Black women are not encouraged to express emotion unless it is approving and reminds the black male that he is king of the jungle. Anything other than high praise would break the fragile black male ego.
This phenomenon doesn’t exist in latino, jewish, asian or slavic communities. I won’t even entertain the Islamic and Middle eastern conversation. That is a blog all by itself. An American white feminist will tell you that they share the same plight as the black woman but that is not true. A healthy schism has existed between both black and white women since before the transatlantic slave trade and continues with both the feminist and womanism movements. Sorry Becky but your blues ain’t like mine.
Move Bitch get out the way!
I would also hypothesize that even the most decorated and educated black male forgets these very facts on a daily basis while he begins his day to get his piece of the American pie. I am most certain that the average urban male does not consider a modicum of historical evidence that will tell him exactly why his girlfriend has an attitude.
To add insult to injury, what people typically do to those closest to them, they hurt them first. Black women take the brunt of the huge black male ego. We are blamed for emasculating black men even when they defeminize us with their narcissistic tendencies. A real battle of the sexes and no one wants to remember who started the war? No one wants to acknowledge that this infighting within the community is the main propagation source of the “lack of good black men and black woman” myth.
Granted there are day to day personal interactions but even in the most progressive of black professional communities you will hear mutterings that Black women have such an attitude. It should come as no surprise that they would feel that way since they have been ignored by black men for as long as the white world has ignored the black man.
There are some that were not able to handle being ignored and you can find them in your state prison and county jails. I do have to make a small mention of the amount of black women in the penal system and who are in mental institutions. Where is the love? The terms crazy and angry are synonymous with black women.
Research also suggests that this lengthy isolation breeds dysfunctional behavior to the point where some black women do not know what love is and substitute abuse and violence as a means to feel any love from a black man, specifically in urban settings. It’s sad because she thinks that being mistreated, emotionally and verbally abused by spiritually corrupt men is love.
Surveys will reveal that years of suffering in silence and feeling invisible would take any person regardless of ethnicity to be committed to an institution. Unfortunately that would be a vacation to the numbing isolation that these women may feel on a regular basis. My personal opinion is that there should be a memorial dedicated to the holocaust of black women. Lucky for me that something already exists that is a testimony to the plight of the black woman. Jazz and the Blues.
Is there a Pseudo Intellectual PhD in the house?
But I don’t really have a Ph.D in Philosophy, Psychology or Sociology. I have no grant money from the NSF to conduct experiments and I wrote this pseudo intellectual essay because someone pissed me off today and should they ever wonder why I went 51/50 or I end up incarcerated and/or institutionalized someone will know exactly why. I wrote it just to rouse some people to think about things in a different way. One that maybe they have not ever considered and hopefully will want to do some research on.
I will have went to jail because I am tired of defending, supporting ,uplifting and helping any man who has no regard for my feelings and devoid of emotional empathy. The reality is an asshole is an asshole in my book I don’t care where you come from it just pisses me off more that the asshole in this case happens to be black.
Am I an angry black woman ? You bet your sweet bean pie I am. If I scream in the hood will someone hear me? You better believe it. Did I generalize the hell out of black men and probably piss some off in the process? Probably. Do I think all black men are bad, in jail or gay? No.
I blog sometimes to diffuse my irritation with people and things. It alleviates my stress, inspires me to be creative and keeps me out of jail. I feel frustrated from being expected to carry the world on my shoulders with out so much as a can I help you Ms. from my black brothers.
It would be nice if we lived in the world where these qualities were not attributed to “blackness” or the black consciousness.
I get tired of the excuses, the half ass apologies, the holy hypocrites in all religions, the black female bashing, the attitude that somehow the situation that black men have gotten in is a black woman’s fault. I am weary of being blamed for emasculation when the truth is men like our grandfather’s and grandfather’s just aren’t being raised anymore.
Where they do that at?
Who can we as a black community point the finger at for the emasculation problem? Is it women who feminize their little boys with pony tails, is the jails who turn them into the prison bitch, is it the horsewhipping that black men get in corporate america that takes their manhood?What about my womanhood and defminization, that is on constant display and under inspection like Caster Semenaya and Sara Baartman. But no one cares about that.
If black men feel that their manhood is being taken away then take it back and reclaim your throne! This is Sparta am I right? A man’s manhood is something that can never be taken away unless you break him. I doubt that the black woman is responsible for that since this blog was about how black women are seemingly unimportant and have no impact on the black man so how can we continue to be blamed for their emasculation. It’s all bullshit.
It isn’t emasculation when you expect a man to be a man and want to hold him to a higher standard when he does not act accordingly. I’m old school, if you are a man and you aren’t acting like one than you are acting like a woman. That has nothing to do with sexual preference by the way, I have stronger and more masculine homosexual black male friends than my heterosexual ones who cower at the first sign of trouble.
I blame both the black man and woman for that. I blame black women and non black women who raise their children for spoiling them and not teaching them how to respect other people.
It’s not my responsibility to worry about the “black man” anymore since he is most definitely not concerned about me.If that was truly “the man’s” ultimate plan that black women and black men would get to the point where they mistreat each other so much and opt not to bond their families and friendships.. then score one for the big gipper. You won this round Big Brother.
I don’t honestly believe that but what I can worry about is our children that will grow to be future men and women and hope that in this new era that they are global citizens that care about everyone.
F U F U Very Much…
The person or persons that have given me cause to blog such a lengthy entry will never understand why I am upset or why my feelings are hurt because they can not see past their own flawed understanding of what selfishness means.
Selfishness is more than just not sharing, It is having blinders on so that one can not see where they are being inconsiderate. It is a philosophy that affects everything you do. It is an an attitude that the world owes you more than what you give and feel entitled to step on, step over and take from anyone who gets in your way. It is a doctrine that alienates friends and turns them into enemies.
“You and I were long friends : you are now my enemy, and I am yours.” Benjamin Franklin.
