I was going to head to bed a bit earlier tonight but I saw something on my facebook timeline that propelled me to speak. It's no secret that the black community has its issues when it comes to family dynamic in that we seem to not be together the way we were when our parents were coming up, and certainly before them. At a certain point we stopped valuing and placing emphasis on staying together and started this whole dynamic of quick relationships and even quicker separations and/or divorces.
Tonight I am not going to hit anyone with statistics or even a list of sources to back what I have to say up. I am going to go completely off of my experiences as a black woman in this current climate. I have been off and on in a relationship for the better of twelve or so years. We started out strong and then, as with any relationship that's not completely solid, things started going bad and eventually just ran off into a ditch. We are currently still in the ditch but working to tow it out.
In this whole experience of being in this relationship I have always had issues with my mates lack of respect for me as it pertains to disrespect from his family and, at times, disrespect from him. We can normally figure our issues out and correct miscommunication but when it came to his family being rude he was always very silent. I can't recall many times where he stood up for me and never stood up for me where I could actually see it. For all I know he could be lying about that as he's known to lie from time to time for various reasons that I don't altogether understand. Nevertheless one can only hope that this is something he's working on as we are in totally different positions at this time in life and anything less than respect will guarantee that not only is he going to get cussed out but so is his family. Gone are the days of never sticking up for myself in hopes that he does because I don't have any faith that he ever truly will however, with work on his end, that faith could change.
A similar situation happened on my facebook timeline. There was an acquaintance who was having a bit of a tiff with her brother in law. This man was calling her everything but the child of god on her own facebook page, under a story that had nothing to do with anything. It seemed like he just had an axe to grind and chose that time to be a bitch. Well, he rambled off the insults of her being a bitch, whore, welfare queen, etc and even called her mother a bitch. There was absolutely no respect in this situation. I have always been of the school that if you have a familial issue or grievance to hash out you work it out amongst yourselves, you don't include everyone in your business. He, however, added everyone in his business by posting on her public page so me and another woman decided to take up for her. The bigger situation here is that her husband was nowhere to be found on that post. Nowhere at all. He said nothing, nada, zilch, nine in her defence. I didn't even see a "hey bro, let's move this to messaging" or a call me message in the least. He just let his brother unload on his wife for a good two hours off and on with me and the other woman taking up for her, as well as her mother.
What's funny about this whole ordeal is that I was going down the timeline in a group that we are all in and came across a controversial post. I didn't see the big deal about the post and neither did 99% of the other commenters but he found a huge problem with it and let his feelings be known. He was calling people immature, "bitch niggas" and everything else. You could feel the rage emanating from the computer screen when you read his comments. After a while his wife jumped on and attempted to take up for her husband. It wasn't that big of a success but at least she tried, right?
Why is this a big deal? Well, both of these situations is surrounding the same people. In one situation you have a very quiet and meek individual who is allowing another man (brother or not) to disrespect his union, disrespect their newborn and disrespect the mother in law but in the next situation you have an angry and obnoxious man who is going at other women on the post and making his feelings known. This is a group and thread of people that, chances are, he doesn't know in person but he still spent the energy in trying to get them to understand why the post was offensive and then having an angry response when they failed to see his way of things and then you had a wife coming in to protect her man.
This is the current climate of the relationships in this community. It's almost like the roles have reversed and the black man is passive and scared while the black women are protecting their relationship and their mates honor. I am not a fan of this role reversal. When I think strong, black man I think of a man who can handle his own. He may not have all the money in the world but he takes care of his and will never be the type to let someone (family or not) negatively cross him or his union. It seems a lot of black men are not that these days but they are wanting and requiring a higher level of respect and submission than they have shown themselves worthy of having. Everything that this man has displayed reeked of scared little boy with a penchant to go after women he doesn't know in a forum he doesn't have to be in but when the drama was brought to his front door with a man he knows really well he ran with his tail between his legs. I could say that this is not typical but I am actually dating one like this right now. He can have all the disrespect in the world for me when he gets mad. I become every bitch and whore he can think of but when his family opens their mouths he has nothing to say, even if that means allowing those people to disrespect the union we are supposed to be in.
What I don't understand is how black men think that being with a black woman and not respecting her is going to serve them in the end. I want to know why they think that allowing other men to disrespect is going to gain them respect and submission. I actually just watched a video on YouTube about this earlier as well, the Zo What Morning Show. I will link that video with this blog.
I don't know what's going to become of the black man and, by extension, the black relationship but they are going to have to get it together. Get it together in the sense that they no longer agree with allowing people to disrespect their women and children. Get it together in the sense that they, themselves, hold each other to the same standard that they, themselves, won't be disrespecting women and children so much so that they will check other men if they witness it happening. It's easy to point out what others need to do but it takes a real man to look in the mirror and see what the issues are and work, actively, to change it. Until the black man gets his soul on the right path, get his spirit right and gain their dignity back this community will always be off in a ditch because, contrary to popular belief, black men are actually the forerunners in this community. It only looks like women are the forerunners now because the black man has checked out and started dating other races in hopes that the grass is greener but in the end the same issues they had with black women will always manifest in other race relations because our issues are embedded within us. No amount of running from self and hiding in the bosom of other races of women is going to erase those issues.
Black women, we are not off the hook. There comes a time in all of our lives where we have to require more of the men we are with. We have to hold them to a higher standard and actually require them to reach that standard while not settling for less. I am not speaking financially. You can have all the money in the world and still be in a jacked up relationship. Never get blinded by dollar signs. We need to make sure that once that man has elevated to a level of being able to lead us we actually let them lead us and not take over things he's actually handling. We need to make sure that the standard is set from the get-go that disrespect, lying and cheating is not going to be tolerated and then stick to our guns if they do it by leaving the situation alone. Stop trying to make a minute man into a forever husband because it won't work, their mindframe won't be in the real game. We need to also hold ourselves to a higher standard and work to achieve that standard as well. No longer is it cool to sit back and collect welfare when you're able-bodied to work or try and shack up with a "sugar daddy" to prevent actually working for self and doing for self.
All of this is the result of white supremacy. I know some will throw their head back and sigh but it's true. The deterioration of the black community was a plan. It was a plan that, unfortunately, has worked. To have the entire community together, in loving unions, is to have the possibility of us wanting change, collectively. Right now we want change and we know things have to change but we aren't in a position to actually come together and force the system to change because we are busy still going at each other over issues that was planted into our community by the white supremacists and worrying about dumb shit like hair weaves and who's more conscious. At the end of the day we need to get ourselves together and it starts at home. Ignore the programming we have been forced into and build up our community again. Once we become one again is when we can finally kill that system of lies and depression we call white supremacy and replace it with a system of justice. This will never happen until the black man and the black woman repair the relationship between us and that begins with first acknowledging that there is a serious issue and then actively working to unpack those issues and work through them.
Zo What Morning Show Discussing Black Relationships with Tariq Nasheed and Margo Hudson: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edLXMzupk68
Thursday, July 28, 2016
Monday, July 11, 2016
Method to my Madness: Voting for Donald Trump
I don't normally blog much about current events mainly because I do all of my posts about events on my facebook page with like-minded people to prevent hurt feelings and bickering which oftentimes takes away from the purpose of the initial conversation piece. Nevertheless I am an African American woman who is fed up. Fed up with this white supremacist system we are operating under and fed up with people who seem to be blinded to that fact in spite of numerous black deaths at the hands of the police (race soldiers). In the last few days three men have been executed by the police either for absolutely no reason or for victimless crimes like selling cd's on the street. The main mantra after each death is "just cooperate with the police and everything will be fine". Of course, in all three of these instances, the three men were cooperating with the police and they were still murdered in cold blood.
This country has always had its issues with race relations. When you really dive in deep you find that this country was built on bloodshed, colonization and classism where if you aren't white you are not really given rights. My community has been raked over the coals the most. When you go back to Africa we were removed from our land and brought over to the American land through the transatlantic slave trade. We were mistreated for hundreds of years, forced to live on plantations where we worked day in and day out picking cotton. I wish it was as simple as picking cotton but we were also whipped with chains, raped, murdered and split from our family units, among other heinous things. People like to think that we were freed from being slaves because white people had a change of heart but this is not true. At the time there was a secession of the southern states in America from the northern states of America. The south was doing extremely well at the time, financially, on their own and they wanted to maintain being able to make their own choices which included expanding the slave trade amongst other things. Abraham Lincoln didn't like the idea of the south moving away on its own as this would null the Constitution and America would cease to exist so there was a war fought known as the Civil War. The south fought to keep themselves sovereign and the north fought to bring them back into the union for economic and constitutional reasons. Slaves were merely chess pieces, property to be owned, in the grand scheme of things as neither side really cared for the welfare of them.
Nevertheless we were freed as slaves a year or so later and was promised forty acres and a mule, each, to make up for the gross injustices that was carried out against my community. This was never delivered on completely and to this day we have never received reparations. We eventually moved into the Civil Rights Era where prominent leaders attempted to get us rights, and in some ways they succeeded, in a lot of ways they failed and we are reaping the consequences today of those failures. As of today we are still fearing for our lives. It seems as though this country truly hates my community and a valid reason has never been put forth. There has been racism in this country since its founding and the beginning of racism was, indeed, white Europeans. They have treated everyone of color bad but they seem to have a special hatred for my community. President after president has been appointed and black people, once we got the right to vote, has dutifully voted for who they thought was going to do the best job for us however no president has ever really stood up for us. Everyone else demands and issues get addressed and the black community is wading in the water just hoping to get even a small lifeline.
Everyone thought that Barack Obama was going to be a good fit and good look for our community but even though he's the first black president he has done nothing for the black community. The racism in this country runs deep. He is not even able to mention African American without white America getting upset and saying he's being divisive. So, what does he do? What everyone else does; he sold out to white supremacy. Suddenly whenever he truly addresses this community he refers to us as thugs and points out black on black crime which is a white supremacist talking point. Sure there's crime within the black community but name a community of people who don't have the same issues, and on a much larger level.
Well, it's election time and we are down to two candidates: Hillary Rodham Clinton and Donald Trump. Hillary Clinton is married to former president Bill Clinton. When Bill Clinton was in office he signed a lot of different policies into law that was a large detriment to my community, one being the three strikes law. Why is that a detriment? Let me give you the cliff notes. In this country black people are seven times or more likely to be stopped and profiled by the police. Due to the economic drought in a lot of our predominately black neighborhoods a lot of black people are selling drugs. Drug possession is punishable by jail sentences. One charge may not jam you up but it's enough to get a conviction on record which makes it impossible to get gainful employment. Once you are released from prison you have to live, right? So to live you need money. Where does one who needs money go to make money if they have a conviction? Back to the street to sell drugs. Once you get arrested two more times you are pretty much put away for an undisclosed amount of time (varies state to state but it's not a small sentence). Due to the fact that the police targets predominantly black areas they pick up and arrest more black people even though white people sell drugs at the same rate as black people. Therefore black people are being funneled into the private prisons to make money for the government which is a form of modern-day slavery. While Hilary's husband was busy ruining black lives she was not complacent. She coined the term "superpredator" during this time. This label was specifically placed on black men which defined them as being highly probable to commit violent crimes. Due to this term society became more and more afraid of our community thus racism increased ten-fold but the truth is black men are not being pushed into prison for being "violent", they are being placed in prison over victimless crimes which includes heavy incarceration over selling drugs.
Now, as you can imagine I have my concerns about Hillary Clinton becoming president which would put Bill back in office. They did a lot of damage in their eight year reign, I shudder to think what's up next for us. Now we get to Donald Trump. He has been very vocal in his hate for all groups that are not white. He's been brazen, disrespectful and has really cultivated the extreme racism we see going on to this day. Once he started speaking out about his hate all of the racists that was undercover started becoming more vocal and taking off the sheets, so to speak. Trump also has a history of racism regarding his apartment complexes where he was denying applications of black people who was qualified to lease out. He has successfully been sued over this.
That brings me to the point of my post. You are probably thinking "why on earth would you want to consider voting for Trump if he's been outwardly racist towards all people of color?" Simple. He's a white supremacist and he's an honest white supremacist. What I don't respect about Hillary is the fact that she will go to the "hood" and dance and use slang, trying to convince us that she's for us when she's assisted in demonizing us and won't admit to it. She was given a chance to apologize for coining our men superpredators when she had no justifiable reason to do so and she never did and her husband Bill backed her up. These people are liars, fakes and possibly the worst choice for president. With Trump we know what we're getting. We know he hates us and we don't have to sit back blinded, dazed and confused. This allows us to form together as a community and figure out a way to overthrow the white supremacist system to replace it with a system of justice. If a large part of our community is being lulled to sleep by the Clinton's because they think these people care about them when they don't that makes it infinitely harder to form together to push change. We are long overdue for a revolution. We have been beat down, murdered, discriminated against, as well as other crimes committed against us since we were brought to this country and not much has changed although the laws have changed to give the illusion that this society has progressed. I like to view Donald Trump as the reset button we need to force a war and get some of these matters out on the table so we can push for change. Things can't keep going like they are, we are literally being executed on the streets. I think that Trump would be a horrible president but he would give us the boost we need to finally get things going. He wouldn't be president for long because, no doubt, he's going to offend everyone and he might be impeached but before he gets impeached we would have started the process of overthrowing the system of white supremacy.
Don't get me wrong. I am not against white people. Most of white society have been lulled to sleep with the same lies and they need to wake up as well. White people are not the enemy. Our issue is white supremacy which is perpetuated by the government while white people merely benefit from this system but aren't much better off in the grand scheme of things when you really think about the possible goal with white supremacy. While it would be nice if white America would wake up, turn off their cognitive dissonance for a moment and really hear black people, in the end I think it's up to black people to get this ball rolling and I think Donald Trump is the proverbial bomb we need to get things started. This is the only reason why I would ever vote for him.
Resources:
Transatlantic Slave Trade
True Reasons for the Civil War
Forty Acres and a Mule
Civil Rights Movement
Three Strikes Law
Information on the Superpredator Myth
Former President Bill Clinton Taking Up For The Superpredator Myth
Regarding Trump Not Renting To African American's
Various Racist Comments From Donald Trump
The Unprovoked Deaths of Alton Sterling and Philandro Castile
Alva Braziel Execution (He Was Shot 10 Times!)
President Obama Refers To Black People As Thugs
The Murder Of Freddie Gray (led to the Baltimore Riots and President Obama calling black people thugs)
What is Classism
What is Colonization
This country has always had its issues with race relations. When you really dive in deep you find that this country was built on bloodshed, colonization and classism where if you aren't white you are not really given rights. My community has been raked over the coals the most. When you go back to Africa we were removed from our land and brought over to the American land through the transatlantic slave trade. We were mistreated for hundreds of years, forced to live on plantations where we worked day in and day out picking cotton. I wish it was as simple as picking cotton but we were also whipped with chains, raped, murdered and split from our family units, among other heinous things. People like to think that we were freed from being slaves because white people had a change of heart but this is not true. At the time there was a secession of the southern states in America from the northern states of America. The south was doing extremely well at the time, financially, on their own and they wanted to maintain being able to make their own choices which included expanding the slave trade amongst other things. Abraham Lincoln didn't like the idea of the south moving away on its own as this would null the Constitution and America would cease to exist so there was a war fought known as the Civil War. The south fought to keep themselves sovereign and the north fought to bring them back into the union for economic and constitutional reasons. Slaves were merely chess pieces, property to be owned, in the grand scheme of things as neither side really cared for the welfare of them.
Nevertheless we were freed as slaves a year or so later and was promised forty acres and a mule, each, to make up for the gross injustices that was carried out against my community. This was never delivered on completely and to this day we have never received reparations. We eventually moved into the Civil Rights Era where prominent leaders attempted to get us rights, and in some ways they succeeded, in a lot of ways they failed and we are reaping the consequences today of those failures. As of today we are still fearing for our lives. It seems as though this country truly hates my community and a valid reason has never been put forth. There has been racism in this country since its founding and the beginning of racism was, indeed, white Europeans. They have treated everyone of color bad but they seem to have a special hatred for my community. President after president has been appointed and black people, once we got the right to vote, has dutifully voted for who they thought was going to do the best job for us however no president has ever really stood up for us. Everyone else demands and issues get addressed and the black community is wading in the water just hoping to get even a small lifeline.
Everyone thought that Barack Obama was going to be a good fit and good look for our community but even though he's the first black president he has done nothing for the black community. The racism in this country runs deep. He is not even able to mention African American without white America getting upset and saying he's being divisive. So, what does he do? What everyone else does; he sold out to white supremacy. Suddenly whenever he truly addresses this community he refers to us as thugs and points out black on black crime which is a white supremacist talking point. Sure there's crime within the black community but name a community of people who don't have the same issues, and on a much larger level.
Well, it's election time and we are down to two candidates: Hillary Rodham Clinton and Donald Trump. Hillary Clinton is married to former president Bill Clinton. When Bill Clinton was in office he signed a lot of different policies into law that was a large detriment to my community, one being the three strikes law. Why is that a detriment? Let me give you the cliff notes. In this country black people are seven times or more likely to be stopped and profiled by the police. Due to the economic drought in a lot of our predominately black neighborhoods a lot of black people are selling drugs. Drug possession is punishable by jail sentences. One charge may not jam you up but it's enough to get a conviction on record which makes it impossible to get gainful employment. Once you are released from prison you have to live, right? So to live you need money. Where does one who needs money go to make money if they have a conviction? Back to the street to sell drugs. Once you get arrested two more times you are pretty much put away for an undisclosed amount of time (varies state to state but it's not a small sentence). Due to the fact that the police targets predominantly black areas they pick up and arrest more black people even though white people sell drugs at the same rate as black people. Therefore black people are being funneled into the private prisons to make money for the government which is a form of modern-day slavery. While Hilary's husband was busy ruining black lives she was not complacent. She coined the term "superpredator" during this time. This label was specifically placed on black men which defined them as being highly probable to commit violent crimes. Due to this term society became more and more afraid of our community thus racism increased ten-fold but the truth is black men are not being pushed into prison for being "violent", they are being placed in prison over victimless crimes which includes heavy incarceration over selling drugs.
Now, as you can imagine I have my concerns about Hillary Clinton becoming president which would put Bill back in office. They did a lot of damage in their eight year reign, I shudder to think what's up next for us. Now we get to Donald Trump. He has been very vocal in his hate for all groups that are not white. He's been brazen, disrespectful and has really cultivated the extreme racism we see going on to this day. Once he started speaking out about his hate all of the racists that was undercover started becoming more vocal and taking off the sheets, so to speak. Trump also has a history of racism regarding his apartment complexes where he was denying applications of black people who was qualified to lease out. He has successfully been sued over this.
That brings me to the point of my post. You are probably thinking "why on earth would you want to consider voting for Trump if he's been outwardly racist towards all people of color?" Simple. He's a white supremacist and he's an honest white supremacist. What I don't respect about Hillary is the fact that she will go to the "hood" and dance and use slang, trying to convince us that she's for us when she's assisted in demonizing us and won't admit to it. She was given a chance to apologize for coining our men superpredators when she had no justifiable reason to do so and she never did and her husband Bill backed her up. These people are liars, fakes and possibly the worst choice for president. With Trump we know what we're getting. We know he hates us and we don't have to sit back blinded, dazed and confused. This allows us to form together as a community and figure out a way to overthrow the white supremacist system to replace it with a system of justice. If a large part of our community is being lulled to sleep by the Clinton's because they think these people care about them when they don't that makes it infinitely harder to form together to push change. We are long overdue for a revolution. We have been beat down, murdered, discriminated against, as well as other crimes committed against us since we were brought to this country and not much has changed although the laws have changed to give the illusion that this society has progressed. I like to view Donald Trump as the reset button we need to force a war and get some of these matters out on the table so we can push for change. Things can't keep going like they are, we are literally being executed on the streets. I think that Trump would be a horrible president but he would give us the boost we need to finally get things going. He wouldn't be president for long because, no doubt, he's going to offend everyone and he might be impeached but before he gets impeached we would have started the process of overthrowing the system of white supremacy.
Don't get me wrong. I am not against white people. Most of white society have been lulled to sleep with the same lies and they need to wake up as well. White people are not the enemy. Our issue is white supremacy which is perpetuated by the government while white people merely benefit from this system but aren't much better off in the grand scheme of things when you really think about the possible goal with white supremacy. While it would be nice if white America would wake up, turn off their cognitive dissonance for a moment and really hear black people, in the end I think it's up to black people to get this ball rolling and I think Donald Trump is the proverbial bomb we need to get things started. This is the only reason why I would ever vote for him.
Resources:
Transatlantic Slave Trade
True Reasons for the Civil War
Forty Acres and a Mule
Civil Rights Movement
Three Strikes Law
Information on the Superpredator Myth
Former President Bill Clinton Taking Up For The Superpredator Myth
Regarding Trump Not Renting To African American's
Various Racist Comments From Donald Trump
The Unprovoked Deaths of Alton Sterling and Philandro Castile
Alva Braziel Execution (He Was Shot 10 Times!)
President Obama Refers To Black People As Thugs
The Murder Of Freddie Gray (led to the Baltimore Riots and President Obama calling black people thugs)
What is Classism
What is Colonization
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