The Need for Higher Standards of Behavior from Black Men

The Promise by Kenneth Calvert (Purchase Here)

Black men need far higher standards of behavior.  I’m not sure when it became the norm for black men to adapt to certain modes of uncontrollability and base impulsivity.  When I think about marriage and the responsibilities it brings on, I can’t help but, think about that beautiful woman that may appear in your life:  that one temptation.  Just because, some beautiful somebody arrives in your life and responds to you favorably, are you supposed to sacrifice your well-being, the respect and trust of your wife, just to ingratiate this unbeknownst woman?

It seems that this has become the norm for the black man, or maybe I am misinterpreting what is deemed as normal for the black man.  But it seems to me that it is normal for the black man to have great difficulty with keeping his main man in his pants when presented with this situation (see paragraph 1 for clarification if needed).  It has evolved into a code of behavior.

How can we ever function as a group if we are so easily sidelined, blinded with meaningless pursuits of passions of pussy?  If black heads of families are supposed to assemble, devise a sober, clear agenda for the efforts of black people to serve black ends then how can we ever cooperate if we have to be bogged down with discord amongst our men & women that are subject to such base passions.

This is a valid question, because many of our kind have yet to recognize this as a problem.  There comes a time in your life, where you realize the bullshit is over and you have business to handle.  And the importance of your business overrides any of these mere, short-term goals.

As I see it, Black people, as we strive to define clearer and more appropriate terms of black family, we must strive to do what is contemporarily optimum.  Because to deny any definition or any concept of family structure is to acquiesce to suicide.   We have to commit ourselves to producing the most powerful, gifted, healthy and prepared black children that we possibly can. BLACK POWER.

Squandering Black Wealth

Fabolous, artist of Throw it in the Bag

Throw it in the bag. Money to blow. These two phrases have bubbled into slogans of some of the most popularized songs in America today.  These mottoes display the heedlessness apparent in both the producers and patrons of this music.  Taking into account that both the producers and patrons are black and at the same time blacks are afflicted with 4 times the unemployment rates of whites in metropolitan areas, you would think that these would be the last people to encourage each other to throw it in the bag or blow their money  (Source: New York Times).

But, this is a complex issue.  Black people whom are the participants in this failing equation all suffer from a well-crafted mentality. As a people, the values motivating their movements are defunct.  Essentially, values dictate decisions. Over time, these same values will establish a pattern of behavior and these patterns will eventually become modes of operation. Collectively, black people’s value structure is heavily consumer-driven.

We must be careful to note that a consumer is not a role performed in a vacuum. A consumer is a role that must interact with a producer. Usually in economic exchanges, this exchange is mutual.

Here is the caveat. These exchanges will only take place during mutual benefit. Perhaps in an extreme case, you are forced to purchase dog food against your will at gun-point, you do so because it is beneficial for you to keep your life. The exchange is beneficial for the producer as well because she will be compensated monetarily for the dog food.  So as we can see, this economic exchange does not only account for monetary exchanges but psychological needs involved in the total exchange as well.

If we apply the previous case to the values of black people, we can see how implanted values can mislead us into our very destruction.  If black people continue to possess an overwhelming absorption and desire to purchase/own expensive clothes, jewelry, cars, fine-dining visits, alcohol and a host of other useless junk, that will be the only thing they are left with and the token contribution of their name.

This is the mastery of  the concept used by our opposition.  You have producers, who essentially produce junk.  And on the other end you have a consumer, literally salivating at the chance to acquire the producer’s junk.

It becomes a greater concern, because black people are not the producers.  Giving money to another black person would not be equal to the death of black people financially, but typically the producers are members of other ethnic groups: white, Chinese, Arab, Hispanic, etc.  So in this uneven exchange, black people become the very subsistence of these other groups, while we (black people) are left poverty stricken as we squander our opportunities to build wealth.  We are left with the lowest savings count, the least amount of assets held. We are hardly business owners and we hardly have anything to offer our generations to come.

In terms of the successful members of our race, our musicians, our athletes or our politicians, you will see a common theme.  What brings them to their prominence is the very thing that brings black people to their knees.  And for our freedom fighters, what empowers the minds of our people is the very slogan that will become the defilement and defamation of their legacy.  This is why I often say:

In today’s society and in what terms society regards as successful: to be black and successful is to be constructive for whites and/or destructive towards blacks, and to be black and unsuccessful, a failure, is to be destructive towards whites and/or constructive for blacks. For these two go hand in hand.

Do women of color ever go missing?

This article, taken from Black Agenda Report, reminds me of the media apartheid when it comes to the disappearance of women of color. Every year, we there are multiple stories on white females who disappear, such as Natalie Holloway, Stacey Peterson, and Laci Peterson, but I can’t remember the last time I ever saw a missing black or lLtina female featured on national news, can you?

Prized Possessions: Media Politics and Missing Women

by Sikivu Hutchinson

In a nation of 300 million that’s half-female, only a select group is entitled to rank among the high-profile “missing,” should they disappear. “In the national ‘victim-ocracy,’ small town, suburban and/or university affiliated white women get the most play as valued human interest subjects and cultural possessions.” Skin and class privilege are highly relevant, even if (or especially if) you’ve vanished from sight.

Prized Possessions: Media Politics and Missing Women

by Sikivu Hutchinson

“Location, race and gender play a pivotal role in the media’s fixation on missing person stories.”

When the L.A. Times runs a story on a missing black woman on the front page of its local features section it stimulates inquiring minds. How, in the super-charged climate of breathless cable news reports on Jaycee, Elizabeth Smart and their white sisterhood could such a feat of journalistic subversion be possible? In mid-September of this year 24 year-old Mitrice Richardson, an African American woman from South Los Angeles, went missing after being released from a Calabasas, California jail. Richardson had been arrested for apparently refusing to pay the tab for a meal she ate at a Malibu restaurant. Prior to the arrest, restaurant personnel and witnesses reported that she was behaving erratically and gave the appearance of being mentally ill. After authorities found marijuana in her car they arrested her on charges of “defrauding an innkeeper” and possession.

The Times chronicled the massive search made for Richardson by friends, relatives and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. The story was also picked up by local news and has outraged African Americans nationwide. Questions swirl around the County Sheriff’s conduct in both the arrest and release of Richardson. Why, for example, was she not placed on a 72-hour psychiatric hold (a common practice when dealing with mentally ill “suspects”) when detained? And why, after being released from jail was she sent off into the dead of night in a remote area without a cell phone or vehicle? Families of missing and abducted people of color organize tirelessly to generate any shred of coverage they can get from the media in “post-racial” America. Tired of the media’s ritual indifference to the lives of black women in their community, the mothers of missing women in Edgecombe County in North Carolina launched a billboard campaign called MOMS (Missing or Murdered Sisters) to advertise a slew of suspected abductions and murders of black women in their area. So what distinguishes Richardson’s case from that of the scores of other missing and abducted people of color which seldom score even a few lines buried in a big city newspaper? Location is apparently the only factor that would warrant such an aberration.

“Families of missing and abducted people of color organize tirelessly to generate any shred of coverage they can get from the media in “post-racial” America.”

The Malibu sightings of Richardson were evidently so jarring for local white residents that they elicited instant recollection from those reported to have seen her. Unlike other missing person cases tainted by the urban “grit” of South Los Angeles and other communities of color where crime is perceived to be the cultural norm, the crime free veneer of an almost exclusively white community in which “it’s strange to see a black woman walking in the (Malibu) canyon,” is the subtext. Location, race and gender play a pivotal role in the media’s fixation on missing person stories. In the national “victim-ocracy,” small town, suburban and/or university affiliated white women get the most play as valued human interest subjects and cultural possessions. The endless media loop of search parties, dragged lakes, crack of dawn patrols and tearful living room pleas from grieving family members only lodge in the public imagination as national pathos when “our” little hometown girls are at stake. As exceptions to the rule, Richardson’s case—coupled with the more prominent example of slain Vietnamese-American Yale University student Annie Le—illustrates the extent to which location can obscure the regime of white privilege and entitlement that frames the stories and lives deemed most valuable by the mainstream media.

“Small town, suburban and/or university affiliated white women get the most play as valued human interest subjects.”

Centered in a bastion of Ivy League power and privilege nestled uneasily in the racially segregated city of New Haven, the Le case garnered national attention in spite of Le’s ethnic background. As a member of the academic elite, Le represented a student body potentially imperiled by the urban dangers of crime-ridden housing “projects” and other undesirable areas. And as with any good colonialist private university regime (e.g., the University of Chicago and the University of Southern California) hellbent on takeover of the “ghetto,” these untamed areas naturally sully a city’s cosmopolitan aspirations. Once it was discovered that Le was murdered by a white insider, and not an encroaching racial Other, the tabloid cable news mafia modulated its budding hysteria and moved on.

Clearly the racist “model minority” myth and the promotion of the docile, assimilable Asian stereotype make Asian Americans more palatable to mainstream white society than African Americans. Le and Richardson’s backgrounds are dissimilar save for their being young women of color. Yet take away Le’s Yale pedigree and they would be “united” as victims of the mainstream media’s hierarchy of the disposable. For it is utterly certain that the mainstream media would not have deviated from its nationally sanctioned script of victimized white women if either Le or Richardson had gone missing in South L.A. or the “gritty” streets of New Haven.

Sikivu Hutchinson is the editor of blackfemlens.org and a commentator for Some of Us Are Brave, KPFK 90.7 FM in Los Angeles.

For more information on MOMS: http://essentialpresence.blogspot.com/2009/07/moms-group-puts-up-billboard-to-give.html

The Quagmire of Failed Black Interdependence

Black Interdependence

Today, I’m a featured blogger at Black Conscious Thought.  Black Conscious thought is a blog written by a fiery, young, black woman named Von.  She has some interesting work over there.

Check out the article here or below: The Quagmire of Failed Black Interdependence.

Oct 12 | Meeting 1:

Jarrell:	“Hey I can take care of the fliers!”
Leslie:	“I can call and solicit potential sponsors!”
Tammy:	“Well I can prepare the itinerary and arrange for the venue.”
Mike (Leader):	“Okay, everything is set then. Let’s get everything done and meet November 6th at 8 pm at my place…it’s going to be a success.”

Nov 6 | Meeting 2:

** crickets **
Mike (Leader):	“Where da #@?! is everybody?!”
Jarrell:	“Um…I’m not gonna be able to make it, my boy is having a party…my bad.”
Leslie:	“I didn’t get a chance to call anyone. I’ve just been so busy.”
Tammy:	Missing.In.Action.
Michael (Leader):	“How am I gonna get all this shxt done by November 18?!” [fuming mad, but bottles it in]

This is an all too common situation when dealing with our folks.  Why is it that Black folks show no sense of commitment, reliability or dependability when handling business with each other?

You ever hear someone tell you: “You can’t do business with black folks, you know how they be. I’m about to partner with my white co-worker (or my Asian college roommate).”  I have heard it before and it usually passes as a joke, but there is much truth and seriousness that should be taken into account with this statement.

There is a paradox here though.  Isn’t the European or Asian individual conducting business with a Black person?  Are they enduring the same erratic hardships? In often cases, the answer is no.  How is it that a particular black individual can be productive cooperating with non-Blacks but a complete liability when dealing with his or her own kind? I’ve heard this complaint repeated several times from many of my friends and family.  My older brother, who runs a painting business once told me, “why is it that black people can show up for work on time at the white man’s job but show up whenever they feel like to my job?!”

The answer lies in the mental predispostion of our people.  For some reason, our environment has led us to believe that we are a not dependable and that we are not required to be dependable when dealing with each other.  “Oh he’s black, he’s not gonna trip.” How many comedians have you heard joke about somebody not paying them their money back.  It may be funny at the moment but this further reinforces concepts retrograde interdependency.

Blacks have internalized there powerlessness.  It is so ingrained into their consciousness that they do not foresee any consequences for digressing from agreements held with each other.  But because they perceive Europeans or Asians in positions of power and thus wielding greater control over their lives, they feel more compelled to comply with contractual obligations held with these people.

From an outsider-in-perspective, Asians and Europeans do not seem to possess these behavioral maladies.  It is precisely their ability to cooperate, coordinate and organize that allows them to build, grow and conduct business with each other.

Our inability to cooperate and coordinate is what inhibits our growth. It overrules any possibility for long-term planning because, there is no trust that anyone will follow through with the defined plans. It inhibits our avenues to economic sovereignty, unity and any other form of progressive activity.

All maladapted behavior exhibited by blacks serve an “economic function” (Dr. Amos Wilson).  If blacks cannot accomplish anything together, then they certainly will not be capable of building any businesses.  If blacks do not own and operate their own businesses, then Europeans, Asians or Hispanics will have no worry or threat of potential competition from blacks. In essence, it serves them economically by reducing competition and thus granting them greater market share.  It triply benefits these ethnic groups because they will have Black markets available to exploit, allowing them to capture Black wealth and safely return it to the hands of their communities.  It will also allow them to employ Blacks with jobs that they provide, further reducing the possibility of black entrepreneurship.

As you can see, something as innocuous as telling a business partner, “hey I can’t make it to the meeting this evening because I have to go catch the Mayweather fight…” is group-suicide when magnified and analyzed within the entire socio-political, economic context.  By us bailing on business agreements, whether compensated monetarily or with social capital, we are robbing our children of a stable economic future.  By us producing mediocre results in our dealings, we are allowing other ethnic groups to overrun our communities and extract the products of our human energies. It’s sad because this type of stuff goes on everywhere, just look at the type of business being done on The Real Housewives of Atlanta, especially the episode where Shereè had a meeting with Anthony. This meeting devolves into a screaming match that brings the “hood” out of both parties.

We often hear that the most important thing in a relationship is trust.  And when dealing with business, you often hear the term, business relationships.  Would it ever be possible to build a relationship with someone who rarely kept their promises? Whenever you asked them to do something they did just enough to get by. Or they always found something meager, more important to devote their time to than you.  So why do we continue to shoot ourselves in the foot?  We must take requests and demands from our people solemnly and with devotion, more so than our jobs or any other secondary priorities.  Why, because our future depends on us.  And if we can’t depend on each other, how can we possibly dictate our futures?

Derrion Albert: the latest victim in Chicago’s youth massacre

Derrion Albert, 14-years-old

massacre [mas-uh-ker]

-noun
1. the unnecessary, indiscriminate killing of a large number of human beings, as in barbarous warfare or persecution or for revenge or plunder.

2. a general slaughter, as of persons or animals.

3. Informal. a crushing defeat.

I would love to write with hope that Derrion’s untimely, tragic murder will lift Chicagoan’s consciousness and incite a movement of justice and outrage, but I know better. Derrion’s name will find its place amongst the other martyrs of urban violence—wedged between Bell and Diallo.

Chicago suffered 509 murders in 2008 and while the police department is reporting a 3-4% drop in 2009, they are still poised to reach 500 again. If Chicago had New York’s population and the same murder rate, it easily reaches more than 1,200 murders—a number a modern US has not come close to since New York’s 1980’s narcotics wars or the height of Los Angeles’s gang wars.

Derrion did the things the right way. He was successful in his academics, was adored by his peers, and, reportedly, got involved in the melee trying to help a friend who was in trouble. How can we possibly encourage our children to follow the difficult path when this is so often the result? And how should communities of color respond differently to this type of violence? It’s clear that relying on elected officials and public agencies has failed our youth to date.