Fuck That, I'm Angry Too

Man, I'm starting to get quite pissed.

As the reign of the Queen of Darkness draws to a close, a lot of media folks are trotting out stories about how her supporters feel cheated and angry for the way their candidate has been treated. The stories are filled with angst about what sort of retribution these women will seek against Obama and Democrats in general, and trot out the usual complaints about male media bias.

For one of the latest spiels in this vein, check this out.

You know, I can respect women's complaints that Hillary got a raw deal when it came to sexism in the media and in the general public. I remember the Bros vs. Hoes t-shirt (I wrote about it here.), I remember the "Iron my shirt" comments and I have noticed some of the ways Hillary has been defined by men.

But, I draw the line at people claiming that Obama got some sort of "boost" because he was a man. That he had an easy road, that he doesn't deserve to be where he is and his success was "given" to him. Y'all know those code words, y'all know what these mainly white women are trying to say.

The nigger didn't earn shit.

And that sentiment is wearing really, really thin.

Come on folks, you can protest the sexism directed at Hillary without making backhanded insults towards Obama about his qualifications or his campaign. The man graduated from Harvard Law, he graduated from Columbia, he's been a state senator and a U.S. Senator. The man is not some random bum off the street with no job and no degrees. This is a man who has achieved just as much in his life as Hillary Clinton without the benefit of being white and being married to a powerful white man.

Let's get this shit straight right now.

Hillary did not have to deal with questions about whether she was woman enough or white enough to be President. She did not have to deal with accusations that she was a Muslim spy sent to overthrow the American government. She did not have to deal with death threats as early as Obama, nor have to explain her association with any random black person that white folks don't like. Nobody gave the right wing accusations that Hillary was a lesbian the same national attention that they gave the accusation that Obama loved Farrakhan and disliked Jews. No national newspapers wrote treatises on Hillary's sexual orientation the way they did about Obama's faith.

For the last damn time, Obama has not gotten a free fucking ride and every time I see a white woman claim that he has I get a little more pissed, and a little more certain that racism is still a massive problem in this country. There is no logical way anybody can examine Obama's resume and compare it to past presidential candidates and say that he doens't deserve to be winning. Just because you don't support the man doesn't give you the right to impugn his qualifications.

Look, these claims are rooted in a deep-seated belief by far too many white women that they are the ones really getting the shaft in America because they do not get all the "help" that minorities receive. This idiotic belief ignores the fact that white women benefit the most from affirmative action, that they have always benefited from being white and that they have actively worked to keep minorities down while aiding the white power structure.

Susan B. Anthony once complained that it was digusting that the law allowed a nigger man to vote while white women were denied suffrage. She convienently ignored the fact that few black men could actually exercise their "right" without becoming strange fruit on Southern trees, or receiving beatings in the North. White women rush to label themselves as the ultimate victims throughtout this country's history, yet forget that they actively worked to exterminate Native Americans, enslave African Americans and deny rights to every other minority.

True, sexism has always been a problem, and likely will always be a problem. But, for so many white women to insinuate that they have always been the oppressed and never the oppressors is beyond ridiculous. In fact, I would argue that very few minority men have ever been in a position to hamper the progress of most white women. In fact, it's much more common to find white women in positions of authority over minorities.

Every time somebody claims that Obama doesn't deserve his success, I feel like they are saying I don't deserve my success. I feel like they are claiming that there is a white woman somewhere who would have gotten my job if I didn't have black skin and a penis.

And that pisses me off.

It's time that the media address the fact that the claims made by white women are demeaning to black folks and based in longstanding racial stereotypes. It's time that they allow us to rebut those comments with facts of our own about just how vapid the complaints of many of these privileged women really are.

My anger is just as important as theirs.

The Blueprint

My parents gave me their blueprint for manhood. Their instruction started early in my life and continues today. Here's a sample:

1. A man takes care of his responsibilities, all of them. That means kids, houses, debts and any other responsibility you assume as a man.

2. A man never hits a woman. Ever. I caught the worst ass-whipping of my life for putting my hands on a girl in middle school. Same year, I fought a dude, and didn't even get touched.

3. A man cares for his family, he supports his family, but he must be The Man in his family. That's my dad's legacy there.

4. A man takes his direction from God, but follows no other man blindly.

Those are just four of the dozens of Man Laws my parents drilled into my brain over the course of my life. My brother and I grew up in a household where the primary goal was turning us into productive, independent men. Every activity was geared to that end, and we both knew that at age 18 the job had to be completed and we had to be ready to strike out on our own.

Later in life, when I talked to friends and associates who grew up in different households I realized that many people did not get that same instruction from their parents. Whether it was because they grew up in a single-parent household where manhood was a nebulous and rarely discussed concept, or their parents just thought that kids should be allowed to be kids, lots of cats I met along my journey had never really developed a coda for being a man. They were flailing about while depending on their friends and life experiences to give them a blueprint.

I thought about manhood and my definition of a man recently when I came across an article in the LA Times discussing gay life at Morehouse College in Atlanta. For those of you out of the HBCU loop, Morehouse is one of the most prestigious black universities in the country and counts Martin Luther King Jr. and numerous other luminaries among its alumni.

The article discusses exactly how much of a struggle it is for gay men to integrate into an all-male campus that has been known for decades as one of the best places for a black boy to become a man. While Morehouse has always had a significant gay population, it has also been known as a bastion of conservative black manhood; the type of manhood that makes no allowances for men who love other men.

I thought that raised some good questions.

My parents were anti-homosexuality. I grew up in a conservative black home and attended conservative black churches for the most part. There were gay people in those churches, everybody knew about them, but they weren't allowed to openly champion their homosexuality. Their presence was only tolerated if they didn't discuss exactly how they felt about people of the same sex.

That's the way things worked.

In my household, being a man did not include liking other men. In fact, men who were gay were viewed as an inferior type of man: punks, sissies and faggots. The same sort of sentiments were prevalent at my predominantly black schools and when I hung out with all my friends. You couldn't be a real man and be gay.

I didn't begin questioning this concept until pretty late in life, probably towards the second half of college. See, college opened my eyes about a lot of things, particularly that being gay didn't make you a bad person and being straight didn't make you normal. I'm not saying I was a champion of homosexual rights, but I think I began to move past the idea that gay people were weird and embrace the idea that they were fully and completely human. While I still think being being gay is a sin, I began to understand that didn't give me the right to treat them as anything less than my equal.

In college, it rapidly became clear to me that being gay had no impact, positive or negative, on an individual's ability to be a good human being. Homosexuality does not jibe with my religious beliefs, but using a personal belief system to justify vile behavior towards others is a coward's ploy. My parents didn't raise me to be a coward.

It seems that a lot of folks at Morehouse are having to have the same internal discussions because gay men there are demanding equitable treatment from their peers and the university's administration. I imagine it's very difficult for some of the people who've grown up in households similar to mine to deal with challenges to their traditional definitions of manhood.

But, I can't even comprehend how difficult it is for gay men on that campus. I remember at Howard University that the cats suspected of being gay were generally avoided in the dorm, and often formed smaller cliques among themselves for protection and companionship. This sort of isolation must be worse on an all-male campus due to how easily men fall into despicable behaviors when surrounded only by other men.

It seems like a heavy burden to bear to believe that your sexual orientation is blight on the university you attend. I cannot imagine the strain that inflicts on college students struggling to determine their identity as adults. I have nothing but sympathy for these men, and I salute those of them who are willing to endure the slings and arrows of their peers to make the journey easier for those who come behind them.

There are many different routes to manhood, it's time to acknowledge them all.

This is Just a Damn Shame

I'm talking about this.

That's just unacceptable. Right now I'm seething and wishing for a way to inflict bodily harm on the folks responsible for the death of Staff Sgt. Ryan Maseth. Severe bodily harm.

Maseth died in one of the most painful ways known to man, electrocution, because President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney decided that it wasn't good enough to start a war for oil and revenge, they needed to make sure all their buddies got paid off of it. And those buddies have been fucking over American soldiers ever since.

Read the story, pay attention to the fact that the Pentagon was aware of unsafe conditions in the showers in Iraq since 2004, and understand that Ryan Maseth died in 2008. 2008. For four years the same government that loves to go on and on about patriotism and supporting the troops allowed men and women in uniform to clean themselves in deathtraps.

Sickening.

One Dozen.

That's how many soldiers have died from electrocution in Iraq, many of them because of improperly installed and inspected showers on American bases. Showers installed by a company, KBR, that is a spin-off of Halliburton which used to employ one Dick Cheney. One dozen soldiers forced to serve extended tours of duty because the same man who got FIVE deferments during the defining war of his generation wanted to makes sure his homies got paid.

12.

Like many of you, I have let the Iraq War become background noise in my life. Sure, like most black folks, I never supported the war in the first place, and I've always known that it was begun with ulterior motives.

Yet, I'm still shocked to see exactly how debased this country's leaders are. What kind of men are ok with allowing soldiers to die so they can save a few bucks on inspections and equipment? What does it say about our nation as a whole that we would allow these men and women to suffer these indignities without raising a hue and outcry that could be heard from sea to shining sea?

There is a rot that resides in the marrow of this country. It is the rot that allows us to engage in petty disputes about campaign surrogates when men and women in Iraq can't wipe their asses safely. It's a sickness that leads us to rail against the unfairness of allowing illegal immigrants to "take our jobs," all while we stand idly by while soldiers suffer because the president and his buisness cronies didn't do their jobs.

We have become a nation consumed with the inconsequential and, as the old folks would say, "stuck permanently on stupid." There is no reason for us accept the idea that our leaders have the right to not only involve us in an unjust war, but that it's business as usual when they fail to properly equip and protect those same soldiers in a combat zone.

Where is the outrage?

Blissfully Ignorant.

I've said it before, and I'm sure I'll say it many times in the future; most white folks don't have the foggiest idea what it's like to be black in America.

None. Zero. Nada.

It's weird that two groups could co-exist for so long in the same relatively small country and yet have such a divide when it comes to cultural norms and mindsets. This is not to say that either white people or black people are monoliths, but typically there are certain touchstones in both communities that provide context during interactions.

Without that context relationships are strained and offense is often given. Often, that is unintentional or even accidental. That doesn't make it less painful, but it can place things in a different light.

That's what I took from this article.

This author probably believes she wrote a snappy, humorous article that attempted to discuss a serious concern she and other feminists struggle with. She probably thinks this concern is valid and that the terms she used are understandable given the realities of the world.

She couldn't be more wrong.

The blog attempts to ask whether Obama will be a staunch advocate for feminists and feminist issues. I understand that question; it's a question that lots of individual groups have asked about Obama. Shoot, even though most other ethnic groups assume Obama will automatically be looking out for black folks when he reaches the White House, lots of black people have wondered whether we can depend on him to do right. Consequently, the question isn't a problem for me.

But, in order to make her point, the author traffics in crude stereotypes about black people, drugs and affirmative action and then leaps to the amazing conclusion that black men everywhere, Obama included, need to apologize to all women for OJ Simpson being acquitted.

That was a "Wow" moment for me.

The flippant assumptions about black kids and drugs and "quotas" were bad enough, but when the author decided that her litmus test for Obama, and by extension any black man, was whether or not that would excoriate OJ, well I think we crossed the line into Bizzaro World. Real quick, somebody explain to me when OJ Simpson became my problem?

Do white people feel required to apologize for Thomas Jefferson's and George Washington's slave holding? Or how about for those hicks down in Jasper, Texas who thought Mr. Byrd wanted to be dragged behind their truck? I have yet to get my formal apology from the white people in Louisiana for electing David Duke to political office and I put in my request years ago.

We all know black folks get held to a different standard, but that's taking things to the extreme. I don't remember many black people championing OJ or loudly proclaiming his innocence. I remember us cheering when he got off in court, but that was more about the unfairness of the legal system and the mastery of Johnnie Cochran. To claim that OJ's freedom is something Obama needs to apologize for reinforces the idea that any time one black person effs up we all need to do some penance. And then to juxtapose that belief with a comment about random black men being falsely executed for the deaths of white women(curiously no mention of the white women who falsely accused black men of rape), well it just shows a stunning lack of understanding of what it means to be black. Just an amazing degree of ignorance.

Obama has battled with white feminists throughout this campaign because they see his success as an impediment to the candidate they favor and love. They see the sexism Hillary has faced and blame it on Obama even though he typically has nothing to do with it. That's his cross to bear, and I understand that.

Yet, far too often these white female feminists have exposed themselves as being woefully under informed about black issues in America despite their willingness to consistently co-opt the Civil Rights movement to aid their own endeavors. That is inexcusable and just plain lazy.

Ignorance is only bliss to the unethical.

(P.S. Even when Obama does treat a woman with respect he can't win.)


(P.P.S. Apparently Obama has spoken about OJ and it turns out he things OJ DID it.