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Hoodwinked! Led Astray! Run Amok!

So, I woke up like any other day and decided to check my Twitter, Facebook & Ning for the haps. Forget reading a paper, to really get the pulse of the people - let's see what they're talking about. And I walked into ANOTHER fight about black relationships. I'm not going to share the names or venue, to protect the guilty, but I will share with you their points of contention.

They were arguing over some points regarding black female empowerment, and whether or not those points aligned more with black empowerment (the entire community) or the denigration of black men. Please note that I've now officially exhausted all the fancy language I intend to use in this post. Put simpler, it was the "ABW" (angry black woman) vs. the "BBM" (bashed black man). Stereotypes and incendiary language abounded.

BlackBoysAreStupid.jpgNow, I'm not well versed in feminist ideology, but I've always been from the school of black female empowerment. Or so I thought. Although I rarely use the term, I identify with the idea of the Strong Black Woman, or Independent Black Woman. After logging on and reading a bit of both sides, and listening to the wise words of one of my friends, I had to reconsider my position.

It occurred to me that maybe the feminist was wrong and sounded a bit bitter. As did the BBM. They both sounded like the outlying ends of a whole black relationship discussion spectrum. It also occurred to me that they just might be an incredibly vocal minority. The fringe, for lack of a better word. Here's the thought, put simply:

What if...those fringe writers/bloggers/twitterers/authors weren't speaking for "all" or "most"? What if they're really just sharing where they are, in this moment? What if we stopped giving them credit for being the "voice" of the masses that they're suggesting they speak for? What if we questioned the "truth" of what they're saying? Great points aside, and whether I agree with them or not - who is qualifying these folks to speak on behalf of...us?

So, I decided to do a quick straw poll on one of those points of contention: whether/not black men actually want to get married. It wasn't simply to prove anyone wrong/right, but to figure out if maybe, just maybe the common perception (read: blog post) regarding the attitudes of black men was skewed.

I polled 57 of my friends, exes and high school classmates, with and without their knowledge. Okay, I simply looked at some of their Facebook relationship statuses. #dontjudgeme. Here's what I found:


  • 23 are married

  • 13 of those 23 indicate (act) as if they're happily married

  • 28 of them want to be married (I'd guess happily)

  • I think one or two of the remaining 6 is gay. I'm scared to ask. No, they're not exes, nosy!

  • The remaining 5 are exes that don't like talking to me...lol


Note that this poll is far from scientific. Don't let that stop you from believing it's the gospel. Far too many of us take a blogger's quoting of statistics and run with it, simply because it's on the internet. Don't believe me? Ask your own M/F friends, ask your exes, poll your social circles. Do your own research, and stop taking blog posts, tweets and discussion forum topics for granted.


Beyond that, stop believing that the most vocal minority is an authority on black relationships. One black man doesn't necessarily speak for all (or most) black men's thoughts on any issue. Same thing for women. The person who talks the loudest, or gets the most page hits, or most site traffic, or is most often cross-posted, or most track-backed/retweeted isn't the one representing common thought.

You do realize that one of the oldest tricks in the social media handbook is to a) write an inflammatory headline, b) add incendiary content, c) cross-reference well known people/bloggers/celebrities/pundits/websites and d) post about it a LOT, to make sure EVERYONE sees where you stand, right?. It's easy to gain a reputation on the Internet quickly, simply by starting a flame war. If the prize here is traffic, the very vocal outliers win it easily, because we all buy into it. Even if the prize here is to get people thinking/talking/posting, the very vocal minority still wins.

So, after my lil straw poll (which, btw, took HOURS. Thanks, exes), I returned to see if the "neo-feminist" and the "bashed black man" were still arguing. They were.

Here's the lesson: The more people that buy into the idea that black women and black men cannot get together, the more books, adspace, seminars, radio shows, tv specials, websites sell. The money here is not in the cure, it's in the come-back. Truthfully, if we just talked, we'd find a great deal of variance in that black relationship discussion spectrum. Common black folks would fall in between the two outlying schools of black relationship thought.

We've been bamboozled, and as long as we pick up rocks to help throw them at our perceived opponents, we will stay that way.

Meh. Who would've thought that we'd progress to the point that we're quite literally throwing internet sticks and stones at each other?

There are good brothas all around us... LeprechaunBlack.jpg

This is how the conversation begins and ends. That statement is the alpha and the omega, and it answers every question regarding the state of black relations in this country:



There are good brothas all around us...

Let me just say this - I KNOW that good black men can be found anywhere. The problem isn't their existence. They're not like an elusive unicorn or the Alabama leprechaun...if a good black woman catches one, that doesn't guarantee her marriage, 2.2 kids, a pot of gold and happily ever after. The problem is that there aren't enough of them. The problem is that the good ones aren't necessarily addressing the rest of them.

And the problem is that the idea of being a "good brotha" is very subjective. An illustration...

I met a self-defined good brotha. By his own definition, he was "educated, successful, spiritual, single, financially stable & attractive". All good, right? Well, he was also living with his female "friend" roommate for the last 19 years (strike 1), thus unable to entertain at his home (strike 2). He also didn't believe in "dating", but preferred to "hang out" with his female "friends" at the same social events (strike 3). He also made it clear that long-term monogamy wasn't appealling to him - he "really didn't see the point" (strike 4). So this "good brotha" made it a habit to call me only during office hours, or text in the evenings (or lin the middle of the night - strike 5), and invite me to where he and his other "friends" were hanging out (damn, what strike was I on???). I eventually blocked this "good brotha".

Here are my issues with the "good brotha" mythology:


  • it places the fault with women for their inability to "catch" or "keep" a good brotha

  • it suggest that because good men are all around, the women that can't see this are flawed

  • it refuses to address or even acknowledge men's culpability in the issues that plague the black community

  • it ignores increasing incarceration rates and their impact on the black community

  • it ignores the education and achievement gap in the black community

  • it suggests that good men are overlooked, and the negative stories are propaganda (and therefore, untrue)

  • it let's good men off the hook for addressing no-good men (they are not their brothas keeper)


The "good brotha" mythology is also empowering marginally-not-bad brothas to claim good status. Basically, in their mind: If you don't suck, you're good.

Not on drugs? Or selling drugs? I'm good.
No baby mamas? I'm good.
Not unemployed? I'm good.
Not in prison? Haven't been in prison in the last few years? I'm good.
Not behind in my child support? I'm good.
Not MIA in my child's life? I'm good.
Not stupid as hell? I'm good.
Not on the DL? I'm good.

I could go on, but you get the point.

Listen brothas, I'm as frustrated as everyone else about the demonization of black men, and the negative characterizations. But our community has issues and black men (as the community leaders they are supposed to be) need to step their collective game up. We can't do that as long as those of you that are good (or marginally not bad) keep wading in De Nile.

There are good brothas all around us... isn't the response to all the issues I listed above that need addressing. We can't start resolving problems if we're afraid or too sensitive to identify them. C'mon son - stakes is high.

There are good brothas all around us......if so, you are your brotha's keeper.

*sigh* my people make me really tired sometimes...

From a discussion board I frequent, someone shared a story about President Obama being stopped and frisked by the NYPD. Now, I'm avoiding linking the story for this post, because I'm not sure whether the story is true, but it was published on 5/18/2010 - so if you're interested, you can find it.

Here's my issue with the whole thing though. Someone posted the story (sans sources, authors or hyperlinks) to a discussion board, and the conversation ensued. Comments regarding how "things haven't changed", "we all look alike", "brown" people are devalued in this country, and "racial profiling" followed.

The problem with this, IMHO, is that this story seem a bit implausible. The NYPD frisked the POTUS, without interference by the Secret Service? Or the NYPD kept the Secret Service at bay, while they frisked the POTUS? Or, maybe the POTUS was walking outside of Secret Service range, and the NYPD took it from there?

Yeah, see....that sounds like a bit much, right? So, I asked the person who originally shared the story the source and got....*crickets*. Hm...that's curious.

Well, my fingers know how to Google too, so I did. And here's what I found (click the pic for a larger image):

blogging_nyt_obama_frisked.jpg


O-kaaaay. I spy what I think may be the problem. The NY Times, by most accounts, would be considered a legitimate news source (my editorial comments about multinational corp news media are topics for another post). So - the NYPD frisks Obama headline appears on the NY Times website. Hm - might that give this headline credibility? But the NY Times uses Blogrunner, and blogrunner crawls both news sources and blogs for keywords (including Ray Kelly). Blogrunner's crawler comes across this headline, pulls the RSS feed and voila - it's published on the NY Times' website.

A closer glance (and a couple of clicks) and I've got the actual post, which is a blog post. The blogger may be a legitimate blogger, and may run factual stories from his local community that have yet to hit major news-wires. Completely within the realm of possiblity.

But what makes my fingers hit keyboard - what truly sticks in my craw about this, is the willingness of my people (black people) to take an uncorroborated story about the POTUS and run with it, as an example of the static state of race relations in this country. It screams "this is how it's always been - and this is how it will always be. We'll always be profiled, oppressed, victimized - so of COURSE that story is true..."

*screeeech* pump the brakes. Are we still really going with the whole "it's the oppresion, mayne - it's always the oppression" theory? Still?

It's 2010, people. One of the things that drives me nuts about social media the internet is people's ability to use it without gaining any knowledge from it. In other words, we're not getting smarter for having it available. We're getting dumber. Less analytical. Thinking less critically.

Steps 1-6 of internet usage: Sort. Filter. Analyze, Disregard. Rinse. Repeat.

Seriously @ my people (brakka ppl). Steps 1-6 above should be followed for any story you stumble across on the internet. Again - this story may be true, but I'm waiting for corroboration. This ran May 18th. It's now May 23. And no one's picked this up yet? o_O

We have to be more discerning & analytical, and stop getting out backs up about any slight we collectively come across. Pick your battles (and choose well).