From OaklandLocal.com
June 30, 2010
Reader, upon reading this blog, you will understand why I hope never to be driven to write something of the sort again . . .
One of the fiery excerpts from Malcolm X’s Message to Grassroots (October 10, 1963) concludes with the following:
“‘I ain’t left nothing in Africa,’ that’s what you say. Why, you left your mind in Africa.”
Apparently, black men not only left their minds in Africa--our history, language, and certain rituals were obviously beaten and bred out of us--but also much of our sympathy, empathy, and love for each other as men, even brothers, was left in Africa, too.
The alarming statistics about violence among African-American boys and men is so oft-cited that they have become clichés: for example, “black men are the leading cause of death among young blacks [male and female]”; “1 in 146 black males are at risk of violent death”; and though comprising only 13 percent of the U.S. population, 43 percent of all murder victims are black, compounded by the fact that 93 percent of them are killed by other blacks.
These numbers suggest a stunning reality, to wit, black boys and men rather easily, seemingly remorselessly, even instinctively, target other black men--their only true peers--as mortal enemies, as constant threats, as arch-opponents, as snitches, as b***h-a** ni***s, as Uncle Toms, as sell-outs, as sucka-emcees, as Afro-Saxons, as ’Bamas and Geechees, as blacker-than-blue and bluer-than-black, indeed anything and everything, except brothers or allies.
Someone distantly related to this writer is riding on a bus or walking down a street in some city between Oakland and Newport News, and, at any given moment, he becomes the thing that must be checked, put in place, denigrated, ridiculed, degraded, punked, punished, peeled back, capped, deaded or put six feet under.
In a lecture about her 2006 book Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome: America’s Legacy of Enduring Injury and Healing (see
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMbhcifWSLU... Dr. Joy DeGruy Leary offers a very sensible explanation for this animosity:
“I recognized something called vacant esteem . . . he [a 10-year-old boy who was physically threatening Leary’s son] wasn’t angry at white people. He was angry with my son. But why was he so angry with my son who looked [italics mine] at him? . . . So what that little boy could see reflected back at him is what he hated about himself . . . I am who I think you think that I am. So that little boy thought that my son thought of him as nothing . . . he wanted to hurt him [Leary’s son] for revealing back to him what he [the 10-year-old boy] hated most in himself [italics mine].”
In Black Skin, White Masks (1952), Frantz Fanon described this same pathology. There, he referred to it as autophobia, a fear or aversion to one’s own image or likeness. When black men encounter each other, we see fear and hate in the flesh, and react accordingly, which is too often in a pathological or violent way.
A shame perhaps greater than, but definitely tantamount to, the intention of the 10-year-old boy (mentioned above) is the one whereby professional, prep-school-Negro, Ivy League, upwardly mobile, Jack-and-Jill-Boulé brothers, not to mention some of those who are employed by Bay Area independent schools, nourish doubt, illogically dissent from, malign, plot against, undermine, bully, block, ignore, disown, denigrate, ridicule, degrade, and discourage their fellow black men for baubles and tricks, for white approval and hollow titles, and, of course, for money that is never enough.
Once, this writer called an acquaintance, a nabob of “inclusivity” at an independent school, and made known to him that he had created opportunities for African-American and other students of color to participate in a mentoring and enrichment program, in addition to receiving PSAT and SAT preparation. Over the course of two years, said acquaintance never explored the opportunity, nor responded to the information.
On another occasion, a brother who was an upper school director told a fourth brother that he and his partner could not present information about an initiative for black boys in independent schools at his conference focused on initiatives for black boys in independent schools--and for no apparent reason.
Not too long ago, a black philanthropist not only accused, but also tried to scandalize a seventh brother because the latter frankly pointed out to the former that “his” philanthropy--which was not really his--made much ado about the need for socially responsible programs for black youth, yet understated the dearth of funding for such programs. When the seventh brother asked where more funding might be found, the philanthropist picked up his phone and started telling random people that the seventh brother had actually scorned him.
And other examples of this black-on-black animosity abound.
In short, black men will never “man up” until we understand and live out the implications of a simple truth: our enemy is not other black men. From this, all else follows . . . even the solutions.
Posted By: Siebra Muhammad
Saturday, July 31st 2010 at 5:57PM
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