Straight Black Men Are the White People of Black People

Discussion in 'Group Discussions' started by Infinite_loop, Sep 21, 2017.

  1. Infinite_loop

    Infinite_loop Is this thing on?
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    original: http://verysmartbrothas.theroot.com...e-the-white-people-of-black-people-1814157214

    It feels counterintuitive to suggest that straight black men as a whole possess any sort of privilege—particularly the type of privilege created for and protected by whiteness. In America, we are near or at the bottom in every relevant metric determining quality of life. Our arrest and incarceration rates, our likelihood of dying a violent death, our likelihood of graduating high school and attending college, our employment rates, our average net worth, our likelihood of surviving past 70—I could continue, but the point is clear.

    But assessing our privilege (or lack thereof) on these facts considers only our relationship with whiteness and with America. Intraracially, however, our relationship to and with black women is not unlike whiteness’s relationship to us. In fact, it’s eerily similar.

    We’re the ones for whom the first black president created an entire initiative to assist and uplift. We’re the ones whose beatings and deaths at the hands of the police galvanize the community in a way that the beatings and sexual assaults and deaths that those same police inflict upon black women do not. We’re the ones whose mistreatment inspired a boycott of the NFL despite the NFL’s long history of mishandling and outright ignoring far worse crimes against black women. We are the ones who get the biggest seat at the table and the biggest piece of chicken at the table despite making the smallest contribution to the meal.

    And nowhere is this more evident than when considering the collective danger we pose to black women and our collective lack of willingness to accept and make amends for that truth. It’s a damning and depressing paradox. When speaking about race and racism, we want our concerns and our worries and our fears to be acknowledged. We want white people to at least make an effort to understand that our reality is different from theirs and that white supremacy is a vital and inextricable part of America’s foundation, and we grow frustrated when they refuse to acknowledge their role—historically and presently—in propagating it.

    When the racism isn’t blatant or doesn’t appear to exist at all, we want them to give us the benefit of the doubt. Because we’ve trained ourselves to be able to sense it—even in minute and barely perceptible amounts—because our safety depends on our recognition of it. We share how it feels to be stopped by a police officer, or perhaps to walk into an all-white bar and have each eye trained on us, or perhaps to jaunt down a street in an all-white neighborhood, and we want them to understand how words and gestures they consider to be innocuous can be threatening, even if there’s no intention of malice.

    Although we recognize that not all white people are actively racist, we want them to accept that all benefit from racism, and we become annoyed when individual whites take personal exception and center themselves in any conversation about race, claiming to be one of the “good ones” and wishing for us to stop and acknowledge their goodness.

    But when black women share that we pose the same existential and literal danger to them that whiteness does to us; and when black women ask us to give them the benefit of the doubt about street harassment and sexual assault and other forms of harassment and violence we might not personally witness; and when black women tell us that allowing our cousins and brothers and co-workers and niggas to use misogynistic language propagates that culture of danger; and when black women admit how scary it can be to get followed and approached by a man while waiting for a bus or walking home from work; and when black women articulate how hurtful it is for our reactions to domestic abuse and their rapes and murders to be “what women need to do differently to prevent this from happening to them” instead of “what we (men) need to do differently to prevent us from doing this to them,” their words are met with resistance and outright pushback. After demanding from white people that we’re listened to and believed and that our livelihoods are considered, our ears shut off and hearts shut down when black women are pleading with us.

    Making things worse is that black women and girls are also black people in America—a fact we seem to forget whenever possessing a bad memory is convenient. The effects of racism—metaphysical and literal—and the existential dread and dangers felt when existing while black are not exclusive to black men and boys. They face the same racisms we do and the same doubts from whites about whether the racism actually exists that we do, and then they’re forced to attempt to convince their brothers and partners and friends and fathers and cousins and lovers of the dangers of existing as black women, and they’re met with the same doubts. The same resistance. The same questions. They are not believed in the (predominantly white) world or in their (predominantly black) communities. And we (black men) remain either uninterested in sincerely addressing and destructing this culture of danger and pervasive doubt or refuse to admit it even exists.

    I’m not quite sure where I first heard “straight black men are the white people of black people.” I know I read a version of it recently in Saki Benibo’s “The 4:44 Effect.” Mela Machinko tweeted, “Cishet black men are the white people of black people” over a year ago and apparently received so much criticism for it that she temporarily locked her account. But in a conversation we had earlier today, she shared that her tweet was actually a revision of another tweet she’d read. (A month after Mela’s tweet, it was revised again by @rodimusprime.) I also know that I’ve read pieces and been a part of conversations connecting our (black men’s) relationships with black women to the relationships we have with white people but never quite heard it articulated this way.

    Either way, that statement, that phrasing and what they suggest are shocking and succinct: simple, subtle and fucking scary.

    And it’s true.
     
  2. OckyDub

    OckyDub is a Verified MemberOckyDub I gave the Loc'ness monstah about $3.50
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  3. BlackguyExecutive

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    I think some of this is hyperbolic misandry but some of it is real talk. Think-pieces like this could be so much better if they were written with less emotional subjection and more authoritative narrative.
     
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  4. OckyDub

    OckyDub is a Verified MemberOckyDub I gave the Loc'ness monstah about $3.50
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    Or written with relevant examples. I just simply had to shake my head.
     
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  5. Nick Delmacy

    Nick Delmacy is a Verified MemberNick Delmacy Da Architect
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    The comments on the original article are very interesting. It seems as if everyone immediately jumps into their corners to defend their per-determined biases without even really discussing the crux of the essay or if any valid points were made at all.
     
  6. BlackguyExecutive

    BlackguyExecutive Je suis diplomate
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    Most definitely. The headline is masterful because it allows to you make a determination before actually clicking. Whoever wrote this is probably gonna make a few coins off of this. I used to love the root before it became simply another ad-driven click bait site. I loved that black writers were given a platform. Now it's let's post controversy for the sake of clicks.
     
  7. Winston Smith

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    Well @BlackguyExecutive pretty much summed it but

    Checked in specifically for this because a) I knew someone would post to CA; b) y’all would recognize it for the blackety black black click bait bullshit it is.

    I used to like VSB. i thought it was a cheeky millennial take on race issues. Then I saw founder Damon Young sold out, er, sold the site to Univision. Cool, his site, his pocket change to make. I see he”s trying to make his change on the angry black commentor caitlin circuit and now, in addition to pulling checks from Univision, he’s got a gig with GQ out of this. Yeah, I haven’t read GQ since Karl Kani and TROOP was a thing, but still, they must be on bad times if the poor man’s Ta’Nehisi Coates is on the payroll.

    In short, sellout bullshit meant to appease the newfound white audience, primarily white feminists, who like to devour black anger culture without having to actually deal with black people. Nice drive by on black men, framing everyone who doesn’t agree with his position as being an Umar Johnson. Reminds of an old Ben Folds song

    “Once you wanted revolution / Now YOURE the institution / How’s it feel to be The Man / Its no fun to be The Man...”



    I’ll be back in a month to see if Nick and Ock pulls a Damon Young and sell off Cypher Avenue to Queerty :smugdon:

    lol...
     
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  8. OckyDub

    OckyDub is a Verified MemberOckyDub I gave the Loc'ness monstah about $3.50
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    :mynicca:
     
  9. OckyDub

    OckyDub is a Verified MemberOckyDub I gave the Loc'ness monstah about $3.50
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    Would sell with the quickness and use the monies to build a Cypher Ave cabal of websites.
     
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  10. Infinite_loop

    Infinite_loop Is this thing on?
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    I ll have to be guilty as charged here. I was definitely baited by the headline. The author had an opportunity to really expand this idea, but he ended up being neither inspiring nor convincing. I used to love verysmartbrothas.com but as soon as they got “acquired”, i knew it was the end of the road for some quality content from them.
     
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  11. OckyDub

    OckyDub is a Verified MemberOckyDub I gave the Loc'ness monstah about $3.50
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    This is the ONLY place I've seen on social media feeds where Black gay males have criticized this post on any level.
     
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  12. Nick Delmacy

    Nick Delmacy is a Verified MemberNick Delmacy Da Architect
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    Say what you will about the click-baitness of their site now, VSB has always had a large and vocal readership that post hundreds of well thought-out and often hilarious comments like this:
    Its like the CA comments times 100...This article already has 648 comments and was only posted the day before yesterday.

    As a website creator/editor, I admire that kind of enthusiastic reader interaction and discussion, especially since most of it is pretty well thought-out.
     
  13. OckyDub

    OckyDub is a Verified MemberOckyDub I gave the Loc'ness monstah about $3.50
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    To me VSB is transforming into a Black Buzzfeed. Their tone is same as Ebony or Root (their now host site)... a Black Feminist (Queer) echo chamber.

    Its as if these sites act like the only time a Black male is doing something good, is when he's stroking a Black women's ego by not sleeping with 'Becky', or Braxton.

    They're making bank off of and catering to the 'woke' - misoganoir - kale eating - "I'm claiming Father's Day too" - hive ...good for them.
     
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  14. Nick Delmacy

    Nick Delmacy is a Verified MemberNick Delmacy Da Architect
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    EXACTLY!

    [​IMG]
     
  15. Winston Smith

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    In as few words as is possible for me, the problems I had with the article

    1) The aforementioned self-awareness of click-bait title. It's DOUBLE bullshit because he goes out of his way to bash straight black men in the title (comparing black men in general to white men is like comparing holocaust victims to Nazis) and doesn't address HOMOPHOBIA only the supposed misogyny of straight black men. Otherwise, why go out of the way and single out straight black men. Is he saying black gay men aren't sexist toward black women because gay men are effeminate and black-woman-like? If so, how does holding such a stereotype of black gay men make HIM any different than the other straight bros he pretends to be so above?

    2) You can address misogyny among black men without throwing them all under the bus.

    3) I stand by the comment that Damon Young is a poor man's Ta'Nehisi Coates. Whereas Coates has the talent and chops not to need NY Post-type headlines, he also would have expounded on the idea in a way that was deep and yet accessible. When you have real talent, you don't need to resort to Fake News bullshit.

    The only brother I regularly read on The Root nowadays is Michael Harriott. When he had the balls to call out and diss fellow Univision site, the Hillary-esque "Jezebel", he made me into a regular reader

    http://www.theroot.com/the-five-types-of-becky-1798543210

    Yeah, Nick, the next time you diss a black gay web series or director that makes money off of soft core, Imma throw this GIF RIGHT BACKATCHA. Lol
     
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  16. ColumbusGuy

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    ok any meeting of any kind is off Rico. Even in the context of hyperbole this analogy...smh. Not wanting to meet Rico X.


    Cypher Avenue...just another site to demonize white people. *sigh* have fun going it alone as you know when all other ethnic groups talk shit about whites to you-they talk shit about you to whites that is ten times worse.

    We are lost as a nation.
     
  17. Winston Smith

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    rotflmao

    [​IMG]

    for a white guy you can be as dramatic at times as a black church woman throwing hot grits on Al Green....
     
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  18. ColumbusGuy

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    I had hoped you would take it in the spirit of a me working overtime and on my days off while having been sick as a dog all damn week and tired as fuck and high as fuck on these damn myriad mix of cold meds I am taking lol. Just trying to spice things up in my physical misery/mental drug fog state.

    And I got cussed out by a white bitch customer, and then a white bastard customer, within an hour of getting there.

    I admit it. We are...

    White_devil_title_page.jpg

    I am gonna transition into something...not sure what...but it will be non-white. At least most of the non-white customers who get pissed off go behind my back and complain about being racially profiled-the whites can't do that so they just cuss me the fuck out and go berserk, throw shit at me, smh. 95 percent are cool..that other 5 percent make me want to become a serial killer.


    *the only hot grits I can remember getting thrown are in the Madea Family Reunion?-on Blair Underwood the evil black man wife beater?(back on topic with the bad straight black man)...sorry. Wasn't Maya Angelou in that also?-that swirler!!! LOL
     
  19. Nick Delmacy

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  20. Cyrus-Brooks

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    It's undeniable straight black men benefit from straight privilege and male privilege in certain situations. They also have the bulk of power when it comes to the black community and every black person who falls outside of their group is lower on the hierarchy. However we do need to be nuanced in our understanding of this. Straight black men are very if not most disadvantaged when it comes to employment. Most employers would rather hire black women, immigrants, whites, or anyone who isn't a black man. Also straight black men make up a disproportionate number of people under control by the state via law enforcement or the criminal "justice" system, which only serves to make them unemployable even after their sentence is up.
     
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