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On (Black) Masculinity: It’s Fragile + Illusive

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Harry Brod’s essay “Studying Masculinities” has some straight ahead information on teaching and understanding masculinity.

I reread it last night and was reminded of how good it is.

I am going to post excerpts below, with some comments.

On How Privileges Work

[All]Men, as do whites [men and women], have a vested interest in not asking questions about sources of privileges. Any form of oppression maintains its power by masking how it operates, making its structure as invisible as possible. To shed light on masculinity is therefore at least potentially to threaten patriarchy.

Ahhh. This why my conversations with @beautynubian are so illuminating on Twitter. We stay talking about patriarchy, gender roles and what it means to have a gendered political identity and be? going out on dates. #somuchwin.

So much of masculinity and femininity rests in asking the why people do what they do? Is it natural, taught or a combination therein?

Or we look at what is being assumed when an action is taken, ie, walking on the outside when walking down the street with a woman. Who gets to walk on the outside when TWO women are walking down the street?? #ummhmm.

On Questioning Masculinity

Quoting Michael Kimmel “…for a man to admit that he has questions about masculinity is to admit that he has failed at masculinity.”

So eloquent. Yet so direct.

On the Uselessness of? Blaming Men for Sexism

For at least some men, moving away from being personally blamed for sexism facilitates moving toward taking personal responsibility for it.? It is difficult, if not impossible, to take effective steps towards positive personal and political change if one imagines oneself thereby to be taking steps in opposition to oneself.? But if I see that my target is not myself but rather social forces and what they have done to me, I find such steps become not only possible but desirable.

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Its another thing to be at brunch and my gentleman friend feels like I called him a four letter word because I said that he did something that was patriarchal. What he doesn’t know is that there are SOME WOMEN that I don’t care to be around because THEY are hella patriarchal. The issue isn’t whats between your legs, but your politics, whats between your ears. How you think about stuff. #ummhmm.

I like this paragraph by Brod because it gets at getting men to see the social forces at work, and not simply blaming them for being sexist. What is the benefit of doing something like that? Where is the space being created for education or transformation. There is none with blame. That doesn’t mean I’m not gonna call a negro man or woman out if they are outta pocket. But it does mean that I will open up a discussion, if the person is willing. Or leave them alone if it is taking too much work.

On Men In Masculinity (Feminist) Studies Classes

Men who are willing to question masculinity to the extent of devoting a semester to examining it therefore pose? threat to their own and other men’s power.

The act of simply being willing to question masculinity and learn about it threatens how society is organized. #ummhmm. Peace to the men who are willing to learn.

Another quote that I found interesting is from Global Gender Issues in the New Millennium.

“…Heternormative masculinity is an extraordinarily fragile and unstable construct and identity that leaves men having to prove repeatedly that they have “it”. They are put in constant fear and anxiety that they will be dubbed less than real men and therefore, be demoted down the gender hierarchy and be subjected to greater violence by other, higher men.”

This has me thinking about how men are subjected to violence in similar to how? women are, but under difference circumstances. It all turns on “conform to the way its done”? or get smashed. Gimmie your number, or imma call you a ______ and slap you. Act like a man or imma sock you in the face and call you a _____. You get my drift?

How do men deal with this psychologically?

Especially Black men, constantly having to be on guard, performing.

Isn’t this shit a lot of work? Ya’ll get tired. How you deal with it? Do it ever drive you crazy?

Thoughts about the fragility of masculinity?

Acting White and Black English

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If you correct my English I might curse you out, give you a side eye,
or a simple blank stare.

If I am not at work,? I don’t speak standard English. It is not what
is most comfortable to me.

Last year, on one of my blog posts cross posted on Racialicious I began to explain in the comment section how I don’t use standard English, unless I have to.

One comment in particular reminded me of how we “blame the victim”,

  1. blueblack wrote:

    The inability to speak standard english will only create a permanent underclass of young African-Americans who lack the communication skills to navigate through 21st century America. To make a conscious decision to speak a certain way when in a non-professional environment is one thing, but the sad reality is that the overwhelming majority of these young people don?t have that option. They can only communicate in a manner that screams ? I am completely uneducated!?

    Posted 29 Nov 2009 at 9:31 pm ?

My response to this is that the unwillingness to speak standard English does not create an underclass.

A society whose minimum isn’t a livable wage, creates a permanent, multi generational under caste.

Furthermore, the Dec 1st NY Times article on how Ivy League educated Black men are scrubbing the negroness from their resume’s because they can’t find employment flies in the fact of? “pull up your pants, speak English and get a job” narrative.

Ann Ferguson’s Book Bad Boys: Public Schools and the Making of Black Masculinity is probably my favorite book of the forty or so I read last year. Its social justice oriented, theoretical and it centers the voices of Black boys.

Below I will provide excerpts from Ferguson’s book with a brief response, to some of them.

Black Kids Don’t Want to Act White

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So basically, Black kids aren’t hating on Black kids, the institutions are hating on them. #umhmm. There is some truth to that.

Acting White as a Radical Critique

“…the claim that “acting white” is a prerequisite for success becomes and insight on the part of youth into the normalizing techniques of the institution…This theory emphasizes the reproduction of class relations through schooling…it propounds that success and social mobility …is dependent on the mastery of middle class linguistic codes, lifestyles…”

Why do Some Children Choose Black English?

“…they are exposed daily to Received standard English daily through family, community, television, movies and the classroom.”

Quoting P. Trudgill ” To suggest to a child that his language and those with him he identifies is inferior in some way is to imply that he is inferior.”

“Useni Perkins contends that Black children use [Black English] because it is more in harmony with the millieu in which they must survive? pliable speech they need to navigate the locale.”

So Black children use Black English, or a variety of home languages because they need it to get from point A to point B, and to be connected with their families.? I understand that. Its about time that the rest of us do as well.

One of the social costs of assimilation is being separated from your families or LOSING your friends and having to start over. There is very little conversation around this issue. Yet it pervades the lives of high achieving-low income students of color.

Language tells people where we come from. It is also an indicator of how much power our parents have in society, as education tends to reflect our families class status, i.e.? we move out to the suburbs so our kids can go to “better schools.” Or we stay in the hood because that is all we can afford.

People don’t know what do with me, because I am fast talking, country, Brooklyn, I have hella “been to’s” and if you come at me sideways I MIGHT get rational and legal. #ummhmm.

Thoughts on Black English and Acting White?

Do we choose language as an act of survival?

Black English a language?

Negros + Pre Prom Parties

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Driving over to the Celebration in Black Writing festival in Philly on Saturday, I noticed that a party was happening on the sidewalk in front of a apartment building. The host point out, driving down Diamond street in South Philly, that the festivities that we observed were a pre-prom party.

The scene was eclectic. Balloons, a barb-q-pit, aunties, and uncles, mommas, daddies and babies outside, in chairs and on a little snatch of a stoop.

For these pre-prom parties, high school seniors rent limos, wear fancy outfits and the entire block comes out to send them off. They take pictures together and everything.

Its an expensive affair that can range from, I would imagine, a couple of hundred to a couple of thousand dollars when clothes, hair, photos, food and limos are taken into consideration.

The host when on to say that she is a teacher and thinks its a waste of money, because many of the students haven’t invested nearly as much money in college.

Of course the sociologist + anthropologist in me was fascinated.

As she was talking two things came to mind.
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The first is that these prom send off parties can be read as a proxy for weddings.

When else can and do working class Black families get together, get dressed up, take pictures, cook and a few members ride in a limo.

The only time that comes close is at funerals maybe, and those times are somber and devastating. Prom parties are more upbeat and joyful, I would imagine.

Given the fact that most working class teens only have minimum wage work to look forward to (the majority of this country works in the service industry and our two largest employers are Walmart and the Government) and the fact that some of their friends get sent to prison and murdered (Philly had 305 murders in 2009 and 333 in 2008), it makes sense to me, from their perspective, to make a big deal out of the prom.

Have you been to or seen a pre-prom party?

Thoughts?

Too much ballin? or A reasonable celebration given the conditions?

The Hyper Marginalization of Black Fiction

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Publishers Weekly cover from Dec 2009

The other day I was reading an interview with Ishmael Reed and he said some things about Black fiction that got me to thinking.? The interview was with Jill Nelson for his new book, “Barack Obama and the Jim Crow Media: Return of the Nigger Breakers.” Tell me how you REALLY feel Mr. Reed.

There is one part of the interview about Black art that stood out to me:

Jill Nelson: Why were you unable to get this book published in the United States?

Ishmael Reed: This is attributable to the state of black letters. Serious fiction and non fiction by blacks are becoming extinct, except for that which upholds the current line coming from the media owners and the corporations that all of the problems of Africans and African Americans are due to their behavior. This is true not only for literature but for black theater, film, art galleries and opinion columns as well. I saw a show of Kara Walker?s work at the Brooklyn Museum. I feel that this young brilliant artist?s growth is being stunted by museum curators, and big money capitalists. Even some white intellectuals support her most mediocre work and pit her against the great Betye Saar who uses a variety of materials and subject matter and whose work contains more depth.

This gave me something to think about, in terms of the serious, capital F fiction vs. hood lit conversation.

A little about my book background. I am a long time book list keeper. My? book list weighs a ton. And I don’t really get to read fiction often, so quirky fiction is special to me both because of my lack of time for it and its scarcity.

In fact, looking at my book list I realize that I have always had the eye and mind of an archivist (I have been working on a database of Black women artists which will be a link page on NMM then a site in its own right eventually.)

@Blacksnob Tweeted about Paul Beatty. Then @janie_crawford saw it, and I tweeted her a link to my post on Paul Beatty’s Slumberland.

Then @janie_crawford and I had a conversation about the fact that Paul Beatty needs to be on Twitter. Say? Word. I was beginning to think about where are these Quirky Black Fiction writers who have published in the last ten or so years, as newcomers?

There is a range of “Black experiences.” We are heterogeneous as shit, even if mainstream media would have folks think we are either the Cosby Show or The Wire, I know better and I would imagine that you do too.

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There is some shit that we are subjected to because of how whiteness as a social system dominates, but yes, Virgina, we are all different.
Truth be told our lives are a mixture? and we need to have a range of art that captures the variety.
The hood lit vs. official lit argument is binary, doesn’t serve our interests
and is hyper counter productive.
However, I know that certain niggafied images of Black people serves the interest of maintaining White Supremacist Patriarchal Capitalism.
More that that here, here and here.
So. It is in that spirit that I make a list of Quirky Black Fiction Writers.
Here are ten. Please add more in the comments, if you got ’em.
Danyel Smith– More Like Wrestling
Carl Hancock Rux– Pagan Operetta
Ernesto Quinonez -Bodega Dreams
Junot Diaz –Drown
Matt Johnson- Hunting in Harlem
Nichelle Tramble– The Dying Ground
Paul Beatty – Slumberland
Percival Everett – A History of the African-American People (Proposed) by Strom Thurmond, as told to Percival Everett & James Kincaid (A Novel)
Victor Lavalle – Slap Boxing with Jesus
ZZ Packer– Reading Coffee Elsewhere
Zadie Smith– White Teeth

Looking forward to your comments.
Read anything good lately in general?
You have names for the list?

Dope Boys and Libertarians

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I had two law school best friends.

One was a Muslim lady, from Staten Island, whose family was from Pakistan.

The other was a white dude, DJ, from Memphis,? a Libertarian who stayed wanting to sue the government. His name is Jake Bear (JB).

I got on with the libertarians because we were intellectual minorities in our academic environment. They had a critique of the government, and they tended to be really bright. And the liked me because I listened to their arguments rather than simply dissing them outright.

I fell out with JB at the end of my second year because he didn’t believe in Negro programs, which have been dismantled by the Olin Foundation and Ward Connerly over the last 10 years on the grounds that they are unconstitutional. By negro programs I mean the ones? that I have been participating in since I was 11 years old. Programs intended to expose low income high achieving and/or underrepresented youth to prep school, college, summer enrichment programs, careers, etc.

I got along with JB because of his stance on the Drug War and other policies that had materially adverse affects on people of color. He was also cute like in a Wolverine kinda way and he knew Dilla beats.

A central tenet of Libertarian thinking is that the government has no say so in the policies of private business. Libertarians are also exTREMELY deferential to states rights. EXTREMELY.

Absurd, right. Well.

Which is what Rand Paul was getting at on the Rachel Maddow show @2:00.

Much of the fear around Rand is his open association and identification with the Tea Party Movement. Which I get. However my read of that is that these folks can elect members to senate and the congress than those of us who are more radical on the left may want to consider doing the same.

LUKE, use the force. #luls.

You ask, Renina, how is this connected to dope boys? Well.

Boom.

I was talking to my brother, dig dug, reformed dope boy, married father of several little bears, who enjoys going to PTA meetings and school events in his cement and paint stained work clothes, gold fronts and corn rows. #yerp.

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Here is the rub.

Dig dug was willing to do the jail time, and NOT snitch.

This was absurd to me. Why would I want to do a stint because someone else jacked someone. I thought it was idiotic.

Dig dug’s explanation was that, he could not snitch, because he had to go back and LIVE in the hood in East Oakland, where known snitches disappear.

It is irrational and absurd, yet it is true.

While his rationale was obscured to ME, it made sense, when he put it like that.

Every social system has its rules, including dope boys, street cats and Libertarians.

While they may seem absurd on its face, when we think about the social contexts and rules, things may begin to make sense.

Peace to Gramsci and Common Sense. #ummhmm.

More on Rand Paul, President Obama, the free Market and political economy, here. Via @rafikam. Its worth your time.

Why is it so hard to accept the rules the govern other peoples worlds?

What does it mean that tea partiers are electing folks now?

Is it particularly significant?

Do you buy my dope boys and libertarians connection?