The character assassination of black males in the 21st century is a real and immensely popular eventuality, which few of us would care to talk about. In the most sophisticated societies of the African Diaspora, black men are among the largest segment of humans losing their lives at frighteningly high mortality rates. From armed conflicts, to increased homicides in the streets, increased cases of HIV-AIDS, increased incarceration, and dysfunctional habits associated with obsessive drug use and poor mental and physical health. The young black male in today’s global culture wars has much to be concerned about. For it is us, the black brothers, royal black princes and rude boys whom are among the prime actors in a nightmarish anti peace black and black violence which has been adjusted to bloody boiling temperatures and is now crippling peoples, societies, and communities unto paranoid gridlock.
The source of truth and reconciliation
Black men in urban and rural settings of the first and third world need to understand that the writ against them already clearly reveal the vain contempt which many brothers have against humanity. Undoubtedly many black men are being seduced by pop-culture to seek pleasurably more nightlife, forbidden drugs, risqué and wild sexual rendezvous. To the black community detriment, more of us seem to prefer to live within the margin of reality and have already chosen that we will not join the learning curve necessary to cultivate our celebrated roles as real men in this world.
This column serves as a forward analysis to the gender role crisis of black males and the consequences choosing to immorally segregate oneself from the responsibilities of manhood has brought on this minority group of peoples. Rather than choosing to defend or provide a vision for the family, community, nation many black brethren are concerned only about themselves.
My brothers of the African Diaspora, do you truly want to uphold your God given responsibilities? Do you truly want to be a man? Or are the pressures of life and the struggles of sexuality causing you to give up on that which is pure? Have you, in the quest for more passion, been guilty of irresponsible actions, which are now holding you back in life? Stay with me as we continue to discuss, Gender, Race, and Brutality.
Devoid of dignity, self-respect and spiritual consciousness, many of today’s black men in the Diaspora are calling down judgments of death on anything that resembles (to their mind) sinful, impotent, or fragile masculinity. Outrageously, the same group of black men is in the heat of lust rapidly beginning to transform their identity unto an overtly carefree and sexually promiscuous lifestyle. From heterosexuality to homosexuality, bi-sexuality to metro-sexuality, and polygamy to all sexuality. The science, ethics and morality of sexuality among the insular and extreme homophobic societies of the Diaspora have been debated, revised, and reedited by populist new age cultic groups. On show now for all to make their choice about whom they would rather be. Loose sexuality bolstered by male prostitution is on the rise and hurting black communities.
The thoughts, behavior and moods of some afro-centric men have been altered by a popular liberal sex culture. Burying themselves in anything fashionable – earrings, tattoos, athletic wear, wheels, cuts, dreads, fades, braids, jeans, boxers, briefs, thongs etc. – to a point of confusion. Black Men are now shaving off their pubic, leg, chest and facial hairs, waxing their eyebrows, bleaching their skins and manicuring their nails and pedicuring their heels.
Becoming overloaded with sounds, sights, smells, tastes and delusional ambitions. It’s the low-income, illiterate, ghetto black men whom continue to be paraded as the ones fomenting anger. While many poor black youths have joined armed gangs and are challenging law enforcement officials of the state. The entire black race, rich or poor, skilled or unskilled remain challenged in solving its most pressing problems and are in the process facing oppression toward extinction. Of all the Africans based in the old world, of all the Afro-American, Afro Caribbean, Portuguese blacks, Canadian blacks, French blacks, Dutch blacks, Hispanic-Latin blacks.
It’s the Black man whom continues to be among the largest high school dropouts, unmarried, deadbeat dads, unemployed, HIV AIDS carriers, drug addicts, gun swingers, pimps, dons, and deportees living in Diaspora sites across the world. I put it to you, if it weren’t for Black men preoccupation with manipulating females while adopting sexually aberrant lifestyles the black race would not be today is in jeopardy. Denying conventional wisdom and persuading others to accept a superficial revision of what masculinity should be some black men have been pushing their African heritage to the pit and we are now living at risk. The dangers surrounding the reality of a plague of death like AIDS is that a new attitude promoting the abdication from masculine responsibilities has translated into men behaving irresponsibly in their sexual lifestyle.
The contemporary materialist minded black brothers engulfed by a system of rich consumerist enterprise, are longing for more things to cope with the famine and pestilence, which is already upon the earth. This while losing their senses and failing to come to grips with the tragedy of their existence. It is only when black men start to understand and become saturated with the fruits of the spirit. Love, joy, peace, kindness, goodness, longsuffering, and faithfulness, can we truly help in the process of saving humanity from evil. African peoples have to be healed from genocide, civil war, and ethnic cleansing on the mother continent. The humanitarian crisis on the African continent is a catastrophe like no other. Daily thousands of children are being made orphaned at the hands of the poor actions of their forefathers. Disease, sickness, famine, hunger, poverty, disasters, conflict, pestilence, starvation, and death, remain the major story of the African continent for much of the 19th and 20th century. Are we really listening to the documentaries, reading the mystery books and magazines about Africa clearly? Isn’t Africa the cradle of civilization? And if so why is the continent facing perilous times? Why so many bloody wars?
Many historians and scholars have shown that the African continent is where power and creative capacity reached its peak very quickly. The message of conquest, materialistic achievements and economic triumphs, as against arming ones people in combat against thy own people serves as a lesson to why the trauma being experienced by Africans in all continents of the world is so great. The women and men of the Diaspora need to understand that whether it’s a negative action potential, evil spirit, or curse which is upon black people. Somewhere in the mix our own people have lost their way. Africans today have yet to find a unifying language that can help quell the disorder being experienced by our race of peoples. In the process others are judging us. Our attitude and behavioral capacity remain the reason why our peoples are in such turmoil. Those who live on the continent are still hoping that their brothers and sisters like other racial groups, displaced in other parts of the world will someday bring back some wealth, skills, knowledge, heart and soul to invest into the community. God offers all people the opportunity to use their talents to multiply and subdue the earth. Why not the black man?
It is an imperative for the survival of the black race that every African person, whether you are in the old or new world. Black people must recognize that you have family hurting on the African continent. All Africans, every black person have sisters and brothers dying on the African continent, and, in many ways it’s our desire to keep living like nomads, immigrating and seeking political asylum in greener pastures which continue to hold back the race. Through humanitarian relief, volunteerism, Aid, responsive outreach program of good will black people can have help support the recovery of Africans.
Who should be more interested in Africa today? Every independent Pan African country, including Jamaica, can formulate an intelligent response to unifying the peoples of the black race. We have to try and quell the hostilities on an endangered continent for where there remain children. Some have noted that Black peoples in North America, The Caribbean, South America, Western Europe have been capitalizing on Africa’s strengths while leaving the United Nations, individual philanthropists and other religious humanitarian groups the bulk of the resuscitating work.
Breaking the cycle of mental enslavement
The protectors of our family’s heritage, many black men are humbly trying to cope with the realities of earning a living in a global world of free trade and free market.
Yet, the longer the crisis in Africa continues without any meaningful solutions, Black men, will be described as notoriously lawless, defiant, wild and beastly.
For the survival of the black community and black continent more black men must understand why they need to become leaders. If we could only understand the message of Bob Marley carefully and the work of many other afro- musicians whom assumed leadership roles for the purpose of helping to save the race. We would clearly recognize that the role for black peoples, men and women in the 21st century, is one where we should use our new found independence and influence to help save humanity from total destruction. Bob tried so hard to tell youth and man to stop the playing around. He asked in the best way he could, fellow Jamaican and African brethren, to stop the fear, and kick the habits of gun violence, war, and self-aggrandizement. He reminded us that we are a chosen people – our prophets are dying and we have to stop the madness because we have a purpose in helping to fulfill the good book.
If, we are going to save the continent and the race, we will have to learn to interpret the message in the music, so that the process toward peace, greater love and unity can uplift our black people to greater action. Sincerely black men must find a way to clean up our act. We need to break the cycle of the loose sexual heritage of segregation, slavery, and immigration. We need to remain loyal to our communities. Rather than, offering an ideology of raw sex, drugs, guns and raw dollars to the children. We need to find away to offer guidance and inspirational empowerment to the next generation. We only can achieve saving the black community and black continent if all of us would only learn to first be united and educated.
The greatest of the fruits of the spirit needed to be multiplied and used to subdue the earth is love. Love suffers long and is kind, it does not carry envy, love does not parade itself; it is not puffed up, alluring and haughty.
Let us not forget, it is the black male, whom while being given new privilege opportunities to achieve greatness (for example through supportive post slavery, affirmative action programmes in the USA, France and UK) whom have been stubborn, misguided, and thoroughly disillusioned if not numbed by brutish behaviour. Accelerating crime and violence among their own company of black men. Some brothers have been rejecting segregation’s meritorious safeguard programmes of education and have chosen to take up weapons to destroy their own community and continent.
Declining college and trade school admission among young black men unto the reformed educational curriculum’s and specially learning aid programs have signaled a greater warning to onlookers. As black legislators, lobbyists, sponsors, and founders of coexisting educational programmes try to rewrite potential welfare bills toward advancing more marginalized black men in the world. Others are hoping for post segregation relief or restitution in the form of reparations from governments rather than finding real solutions to our problems.
Early in the running, the cost of sending a black student to elementary school through tertiary university programmes over several decades have been made possible through supplemental scholarships, grants, and direct undertaking by individuals to invest in their own future.
Why work and have mutual respect within the community if necessary? Now that the civil rights era have ended some in the black community have sought to make advancements by remaining almost lazy. Popping up as eye soars, in penal institutions, homeless shelters, ghettos and morgues. The male gender deficits in all this chatter about reform of education make the weight of the problem of labour shortages in the black community even more annoying to decipher. At the same time, single afro-centric mothers are a subset within the black community, building on their self-reliance.
The residual barefaced ignorance of many black youths is one where we don’t want to accept the truth surrounding the lessons of the cycles of poverty and what are the precursors to the origins of holocaust among current classes of black peoples. Rising unemployment among the black community is being disproportionately correlated to the reduced levels of black men who are lifting a hand toward completing their education. The black youths are not listening to why education is important. No wonder black leaders in the USA, such as Bill Cosby, have suggested it is a waste of time to try to uplift the black race through educational opportunities. Other leaders within the community also speak of the total failure of many empowerment programs to protect this minority group from further decline. From Washington DC, Bronx, LA, Havana, Rio De Janeiro, Port au Prince, to Kingston, Johannesburg, Lagos, Addis Ababa, the city of 4000 in France and Brixton, UK, the headline is the same – young black men, with too much time on their hands, burning, looting, killing many in sight.
Ambitious minorities can be achievers in society
Arguably few sober, smart and standard bearing achievers do exist in the competitive workforce arrangements. The current rates of unemployment reveal that among all ethnicities in the workplace black men are most susceptible to losing the early battle required to earn more while anchoring our lives with employment stability. The crude cut and thrust of postmodern societies is a difficult lesson for all men, Latino men, Asian men, Indian, Arabian men; you name it Korean, Russian, Caucasian men. However, tactically the men of all other races seem to have been able to resolve some of the major conflicts that provide obstacles for their life. Saving more of their income and being ever prepared to upgrade their skills, sacrifice pride and selfish goals for their family and heritage. It’s the black male whom is usually less qualified than other males because he is hardly prepared to pursue his highest educational goals with determination. Sadly the age-old story of enslavement and victimization remain the black man’s sole reason for why he is falling into a trap of becoming a racial underachiever.
The token success stories of the black race, pop singers, sporting great, and political leaders have uplifted many a black men, but, even while the black community have been warned not to immortalize these nominal achievements. Black men continue to make the same mistakes. Individual black men should not undervalue their own positive action potential waiting for a rising star of their race to rescue them from poverty. Every black brother needs to rise to the occasion. Stop the groveling, and pursue and achieve real ways to inherit wealth, and well-being.
Black men must recognise they first have to participate in and create life before they can want to conquer life’s challenges. It’s a learning curve. The hearts, self esteem, and confidences of black men remain broken. From the cradle to the grave, survival is a struggle. In listening to most young and not so young black brothers speak of why their subset of peoples suffering indignation in living harsh realities. The black brothers usually retain and resort to an ideology of victim hood rooted in poor mental, psychological, emotional, and physical development that they believe have been placed on their shoulders from colonialism.
The choices or reasons for failures in the stages of black men life is always nine out of ten times embedded in cultural tales about racial slavery, segregation, isolation, discrimination, reparations and apartheid atrocities. Yet, just from these men premier pattern of thought, one understand that freedom of thought, freedom of movement, freedom of speech, freedom of will power, freedom to invest monies are not only understood but applied in their contemporary everyday life of relativism.
Wealth and fame remain among the most controlling spirits motivating the forces of afro-centric male conquest for ambitious reign. In today’s fast paced capitalist economy, black men compete within their own ethnic groups more often than other ethnic groupings do with their own race of peoples. This has a lot to do with slavery, yet it also has to do with a lack of capital or disposable income available to the black race. For black men are boxing the bread of their brother’s mouth saving less and investing less than is needed for their sustainable future. No wonder most afro-centric performing artistes, sports hero, and progenitors of wealth usually end up losing their wealth before their life end.
Many black people, in particular black brethren exist rather that living within the reality of the market system. Recognising that the global networks of crude exchange of skills, talents, and wealth are not partial. The doctrine for Black brothers of the America’s, France, UK etc… should be one which accepts that being a minority group in any populist majority rule democracy will always be a challenge. There are other primary and secondary groups of the majority who will not bow unnecessarily to the dictates of a minority viewpoint. The aborigine in Australia, Native American Indian, Christian church in Asia or Black Muslim in France today as a minority ethnic and social groups have less of a voice in the construct of their existence than authoritative intermediary-politicians are prepared to be responsive about. Black brothers must accept that the minority view, group, or interests in a democracy can only be facilitated and accepted on the assumption that it will not contradict or hurt the collective will or unity of the community at large.
It is true; every culture has a different worldview, the afro-centric men and women like any other racial groupings have a strong tendency to influence global perception. And while many others empathize with the historical details of documented racial abuses in our times and would prefer to see justice be done. There is evidence, which suggest the legacy of slavery, isolation, segregation and apartheid could well have ceased being the core realities, which shape the minds of minority afro-centric peoples some time ago. The unification of the races of the world toward forgiveness lies in the renewal of the Creators purpose. Confusion must be resolved peacefully among each racial, gender and social groupings of the World. Humanity and nature can co exists peacefully. Heaven and Earth have been tranquil for much of the time while peoples rebel. Let not wars destroy the Creators glorious gifts.
About the Writer, Philip Dinham
Phil Dinham is a member of our Jamaica prime time news team. He remains a Jamaican citizen in Ft Lauderdale, United States where he is an Arts and Science major at Nova Southeastern Univeristy. Philip is a certified media professional with over six years of experience in formal media relations and radio broadcasting. Comment on this article and all Jamaica Prime Time presentations by writing respective authors at [email protected]
