Princess Stephanie and Husband Jon and their Five Kids
Stephanie Benson
Have you noticed that black discussions seem to proceed in peculiar fashion when there is blame to be levelled. There appears to be an authorised and approved 'way'of discussing issues when some sort of blame will be apportioned, and lets lay it on the line here, when the blame is headed towards black men. Black women themselves appear very adept at applying the rules of acceptable 'discoursing', that it apears almost instinctive, and I sometimes wonder if they realise they are doing this. They seem so coached!
I often say that a commentary can highlight a lot more about what it is trying hard to avoid saying than what it actually is saying.
So what am I actually going on about here.
Well, I know I should keep off youtube but anyway I went on there a few days ago and I was watching a ‘tube’ message form a young black woman commenting on the relationship situation between black men and black women as usual. She gets to a point and says, ‘.. as the black men come in, I notice they all have white, and Latina girlfriends…’
Then she proceeded to say, ‘What is wrong with black people', 'Why don’t we love each other and why do we value whites more than ourselves, and love to be in the company of white etc etc’.
Notice anything about the above statement?
I do. I notice a sharp argument manouver. We go from being very specific; ‘Black men and other women’, to suddenly generalising when we reach the point of indicting the culprits i.e ‘What is wrong with black people' (that is everyone both male and female alike).
It is clear that this woman is talking about black men's choices (she specifically talks about no black man coming with a black woman), she never mentions black women coming with other men. Yet suddenly when it is time for some blame, the discussion shifts to 'black people', rather than black men who she has clearly been referring to. hmmmm...
Let me say here that I have noticed this repeating pattern, in similar debates and discussions about black male culpability, I have noticed what is clearly the strong aversion to pinpointing black males as to blame for some situation. I notice how people meander round blaming black men, like a river would meander round a big bolder it cant/feels it dare not confront. So suddenly we are pulling punches, 'glancing' blows, and 'spreading' any blame so that it is shared by everybody rather than focussed on the culprits. Sometimes I hear people give such detailed analysis of a situation which shows that they have no confusion as to what is going on, but suddenly in conclussion you hear the summation: 'black people need to love each other'. Its such a let down and you just know they are trying hard to avoid blaming who they know they should be blaming. I see people title their discussions/articles 'black men and black women should support each other', when you and they know very well that the issue is not about black women supporting black men (because they go out of their way to do just that), but black men upholding their end of the bargain. They would rather hold a dishonest conversation than admit the truth about the situation. What cowards!
Another example:
In a recent Guardian Newspaper article about disapperance of 'black britons' due to high rates of interracial marriages, the playwright and actor Kwame Kwei-Armah, commented thus:
"An example would be, when we look at most of the Premier League footballers who are black, the overwhelming majority of them have white partners. The signals that it sends to my daughter is, 'When you're successful, you date outside your community, yet when you're not successful you date in.' You're only good for the bad end of it. What psychological effect is that having?"
Notice the broad manouver. He goes from speaking about footballers dating white (as far as I am aware, footballers are 100% male), to 'skirting' into saying something very general/ambigious; 'When you're successful, you date outside your community'!
If this was a vinyl record in rotation, the 'bump' would have everyone stopping in mid dance. We started out talking about a choice clearly being made by black males and we are ending up discussing the issue as a general trend. In fact the last bit of that comment does not tie in with the rest of it (read it again and see)which just shows someone falling all over the place in their attempts to obscure an issue. Indeed in that comment you dont know if he is talking about 'you ' as the black man, or 'you' as in his daughter or black person in general and then by the time he throws in the third 'you' re', I am just scratching my head in confusion! I mean 'who' is only good for the bad end of it is it his daughter or the black man who chooses a white person or someone else also identified as 'you'? Utter confusion, and the type you create while attempting to meander round and avoid comfronting the issue for what it is clearly about; the activities of black men.
But there is another thing, the confusion that he is sowing in his daughter as a result of this 'reluctance', to focus the issue on who is clearly the culprit in this situation. By pretending that black men and women pick up the same message from footballers dating choices and infering that they act on these messages in the same way, Mr Armah is silencing the whole black female narrative around interracial dating. He is silencing the discussion on how black women are made to feel unworthy of 'succesful' men, he is silencing the discussion on it quite often being a situation of black men discriminating against black women, and he is also silencing the acknowlegement that at a time and point when over fifty percent of partnered black british men are with non-black women, interracial dating for black women is not an issue of elevating white or 'rejecting black' but is clearly one of 'rejecting singleness'. This guy is being disengenious at best and manipulative at worst because the aim could very well be to 'guide' his daughter away from the interracial choice, regardless of what this might mean for her chances for a relationship.
It is indeed very disengenious of the actor to pretend that the motivations and actions around interracial dating are the same for both genders, almost every one in the black community is aware that when these issues are disccussed, black women and black men are positioned differently. This seems to me like Mr Kwei-Armah was hoping to suggest that 'black women do it to', to the newspaper. Now I am willing to consider the argument that his reasons might have had something to do with not wanting to potray black women as being left without prospects in the situation, I however think that if Mr Kwei-Armah is having such discussions with his daughter and framing them in this way, he will end up making her feel guilty and putting pressure on her to remain 'true' to race despite as I said, what it could mean for her dating prospects.
It is very clear, the subtext of this manouvering and circumventing that black people engage in in this regard is 'spare black men!'.
And black women obey this 'acceptable discourse' like if it is 'Microsoft programmed' into them.
Yes, thats the shape of acceptable black discourse, it obeys the key precept;‘Don’t you dare blame black men for anything, no matter how clearly the blame rests and even if your detailed and well reasoned analysis leaves you with no other conclussion'.
Get clued up about interracial dating in the IR Dating E-Book
Send your questions to relationshipadvice@dateawhiteguybook.com (I will try my best to give a reply/answer)
11 comments:
To be honest, I am getting very tired of 'poor unfortunate black women' no-one wants to date us, because if all the black men leave, what will happen to us. The world is full of men, black men, white men, or whatever. Black have always married white women, in Pompei 77 BC, there was a house of marriage, where African men married Romanian women. How many Non black men married black woman, the most famous black women was Zipporah, Bathsheba, The Queen of Sheba, Cleopatra, Queen Dido. Now fast forward to the 21st century, black men are doing the same thing, so nothing has changed. I have to agree with you, there is too much of blaming black men, black men are free to make their own choices and we black women should not be pressured into and to be made to feel guilty that we must stay within the race. I am glad that I am seeing more and more black women with non-black husbands. I hope and pray more of us, marry men for the quality not pressured to be with 'our race' and I hope and pray that we seek and have the strength to fight this rubbish, break these strong holds and I am very glad for blogs like this, look at Princess Stephanie, she looks very beautiful, she is very happy with her husband and five children. Keep up the good work and speak out.
I found your blog via Evia's. All of your BW empowerment and bloggers are so smart and the level of discourse is so educational. Thank you all for working so hard on behalf of black women.
Now on to your post.
This "script" that black folks have is nothing new and black womens' inability to disentangle themselves from damaging black male behavior is what is causing their demise.
When the so-called black community is pretty much solely black women and their children yet black men's failures are used to denigrate the entire community (incarceration rates, out of wedlock births, high HIV transmission) it keeps black women locked in the mentality that "we are all in this together". But when they look around, all they see are the black men leeching and mooching and destroying. While the so-called good black men are somewhere else. So who is left to wear the Scarlet Letter? Black women and their children.
I don't know why "we" are so reluctant to just call a spade a spade. We have no problem labeling non-blacks as racist, prejudice, etc. I think that black men have held the black community hostage for the past 40 years or so. It's either fall in line and accept what we do or be destroyed. Look at what happens whenever non blacks try to point out failures of black men to be fathers? They are labeled racists. Or when black women bring colorism to the table - they are labeled as jealous and told to "keep their eyes on the prize" and not let "trivial" things like that tear us apart. So naturally after years of this nearly everyone is afraid of challenging black men. White people gave up a long time ago and other races are much too terrified. Black women are starting to and we all see what has happened. Attacks on places like youtube and other websites. Few honest black men are up for the challenge and those that try are labeled gay or a sell-out. People are terrified. They are acting out of FEAR.
Hello there, Halima!
Brilliant post, as always!
You said, "And thats the shape of acceptable black discourse. It obeys to key precept;‘Don’t blame black men for anything, no matter how clearly the blame rests and even if your detailed and well reasoned analysis leaves you with no other conclussion."
Do you notice that this is similar to how people are careful to self-edit when living under dictatorships?
A Hungarian colleague has often mentioned the horrors of how people were very circumspect in EVERY conversation under the previous regimes. She said her relatives never knew who might turn them in, based upon something they said. Including family and friends.
My (South) Korean personal trainer said he had heard similar reports about life in North Korea. Apparently, instead of praising God for good things, folks there are careful to say, "[Whatever good thing] is thanks to Dear Leader Kim." {shudder}
Yes, the behavior that you're describing IS cowardly and dishonest. The other part that keeps this going are the hysterical denunciations of those who dare to speak the plain truth about these matters. That's why people are afraid to speak out.
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Hello there, Hollywood Blackout!
You said, "When the so-called black community is pretty much solely black women and their children yet black men's failures are used to denigrate the entire community (incarceration rates, out of wedlock births, high HIV transmission) it keeps black women locked in the mentality that 'we are all in this together'.
But when they look around, all they see are the black men leeching and mooching and destroying. While the so-called good black men are somewhere else. So who is left to wear the Scarlet Letter? Black women and their children."
Thank you for explaining this! I hadn't thought of this particular angle.
Peace, blessings and solidarity.
Let me say here that I have noticed this repeating pattern, in similar debates and discussions about black male culpability, I have noticed what is clearly the strong aversion to pinpointing black males as to blame for some situation.
Halima, I've noticed this pattern a LOT. Bw will be talking about what happened to this or that black teen girl or bw, but when it comes time to mention WHO did the deed, they will switch to the passive voice or become non-specific. For ex., they'll say "these girls go out there and get themselves pregnant and just ruin their futures." LOL! This is as if these girls went to the store and got some semen and stuck it in themselves. LOL!!! Another key example of this: mainly AA folks (but definitely NOT other folks) become downright dishonest when they talk about young bw getting caught up with drugs and going to prison. Once again, there's the vagueness about the DBR-bm WHO is influencing these young bw ('ride or die chicks') and leading them astray. These girls get involved with these DBRs MAINLY because no one in the typical bc or black social circle warns them about them. Yes, some black girls and women would still go for these thugs, but a large portion of them would NOT if it were blared at them repeatedly, that these guys MUST be treated as untouchables!!
It's also interesting how some folks view the "Obama effect" on the 70% oow rate among AA women and their children. A bw from my church said to me on Saturday: "Now that these girls see how Michelle got married BEFORE she had children, that'll teach the girls to also get married before having kids." This is that dishonest, cowardly, vagueness again. She knows as well as I do that some of the AA male babydaddies (of various ages) right there in the church REFUSE to marry their babymamas. Left up to me, these males would be put (no, THROWN head first) OUT of the church, but the male minister thinks that it's better for them to be sitting up in there. Yuck! When we have to get up and hug each other at church, I actually have to hug them. It's repulses me to do that. I actually feel unclean afterwards.
Anyway, typical folks from other groups KNOW exactly who the menace is among AAs and who it is who's responsible mostly for the oow births, or who it is that's holding down the rates of marriage among AAs--even though most bw don't seem to be able to face it. After all, we live in a fishbowl and are probably the "most studied folks" on earth. LOL!
According to Julianne Malveaux (economist, author and president of Bennett College), there has been an 800% increase of Blacks in prison and many of the black female inmates are incarcerated by virtue of their association with a felon. It's obvious that these felons are overwhelmingly AA male felons. But even Dr. Malveaux won't come out and flatly warn these young women to stay away from any bm who even remotely fits this felon profile. This is not hard to figure out.
But, just look at how successful the small band of us BW-IR/empowerment bloggers have been at shining the light on the DBR menace. We have prevented many bw from falling into the clutches of DBR males of EVERY group. Just imagine how successful we could be if more high-profile bw were to start speaking out. And they will do it eventually. Look at how long it took for Cosby and Poussaint to speak out.
Yes, the behavior that you're describing IS cowardly and dishonest. The other part that keeps this going are the hysterical denunciations of those who dare to speak the plain truth about these matters. That's why people are afraid to speak out.
Yep, look at what happened to Cosby and even Pres. Obama. Bw in general are cowards about this, but if more of us did speak out, Cosby and Pres. Obama and other right-thinking bm would feel more supported.
I think many AA women are really confused and terrified about what the future will be like for them and AAd if they write off the bulk of AA males. Some think, for ex., that black folks will disappear from the earth if the bulk of AA females marry and have children with wm, for example! They don't realize that AAs and even ALL of the blacks in North America and Europe are merely a sliver of the black population worldwide.
Also, many of these women STILL believe that somehow AAs are going to erect a powerful black nation, but as Halima said in her recent post about that, a critical ingredient for such a nation is missing. The typical AA male doesn't have the desire or the WILL to do that. While many AA females (at this point) are drawn (or indoctrinated) inwardly towards AAs, the bulk of AA males are drawn outwardly towards other groups (idolizes white males and covets white/or more euro females). And whites and other folks KNOW this because they WATCH what AA males do when those males get money or have a choice.
Savvy people (like me and others) do not pay attention to what black nationalists-type males and other bm loud-talkers ***say***; they watch what they DO when they have a choice. Yet, it seems that lots of deluded AA women who I encounter think that whites and other folks aren't able to connect those dots. LOL!!
However, more AA women every day are seeing the light. This is why I encourage/URGE more and more of them to set up sites and/or find some way to spread the light to other AA girls and women. The light MUST be spread as much as possible NOW. If not, the next couple of generations of AA females will live lives permanently trapped in darkness.
I just stumbled upon your blog via Black Women Deserve Better and I just have to say WOW! I absolutely loved this post! You, Khadijah, Evia,etc., please continue to show us how to read between the lines, and see beyond the "Kool-Aid" that's been fed to us sistas. Don't drink it!
When I observe other nations, most of the women in other races are married - even with all the PMS, moodiness, rebelliousness, wickedness, disrespectful attitude, craziness…even with all their actual and perceived defects… even the women that are physically and/or mentally impaired in other races are married…even the least desirable and most wretched charactered women are hooked up…even the most plain, no makeup and modest clothes wearing women are spoken for… men in other nations, the world over - date and marry within their own race…you can randomly pluck a man from any other nation and go thru his dating and marriage history… all of his ex-wives and ex-girlfriends are within his race. Men in other nations tend to overlook whatever flaws a woman may have and get hitched – how else can you explain the 80% marriage rate in these other groups. The black man has no excuse whatsoever, never did have one. The black man deserves infinite blame for allowing the entire black race to go down the toilet.
Halima.....
THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I LOVE YOU!!!!!!!!!!!
I have been waiting sooooooooooooo LOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG for somebody else to notice/point this out! A discussion about the dating habits of Black men demonstrating their discrimination against Black females by universally choosing White, Latina, other non-Black female partners somehow transforms into a discussion about how "Black PEOPLE" do not love ourselves. This is SUCH A CROCK, and I am SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO tired of it! This also happens when the issues of Light skin/Dark skin and Straight Hair/Kinky hair come up. People try to act like being Dark-skinned and Nappy headed is some huge emotional problem for Black males when it clearly IS NOT! It is US, Black FEMALES who have and continue to suffer 100% of being discriminated against simply because we are dark-skinned with kinky hair!
I am so sick and tired of the hatred of us coming from Black males and their enablers/defenders. We Black females must split from the Black community NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
We Black females must split from the Black community NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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AMEN! The black "community" is a joke and its only going to get worst IMO; despite have a black president.
Hi Halima. I used to live in both Florida and then NYC and now I have been living back in London for the past four years just about. I will be moving back to the US this year though.
All that you have said in this particular post I didn't think I'd EVER in my lifetime hear a black woman admit about the discourse between black people that when black men are to blame for something people immediately drop the 'black' from their topic and just talk about 'what men do', but when black people talk about black women they are always ready to go 'black women do this, black women do that' without even caring about it.
I especially didn't think I'd ever live to hear an African American ever admit that this takes place whenever black people talk about black people.
This proves to me that many black men are very arrogant and they want to have their cake and eat it too. Refusing to acknowledge how skewed the interracial dating and marriage ratios are leaves me suspicious of this man's intentions. Black men don't wanna see black women with white men because it's a severe blow to their ego.
I don't wanna marry black men because they're put on a pedestal just like white women are. I don't wanna stereotype anybody but I can't stomache the thought of being married to a black man now or ever.
I cant wait to come back to this to really share how i feel. Loving your blog.
Just signing i :)
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