You Cannot Be a Black Activist If You Hate Black Men or Black Women.

Onyx Contributor:  Johnny Silvercloud (@JohnnySilverclo)

You cannot be a Black activist if you don’t have a harmonious relationship with black men/women.

There’s been a huge problem I noticed within the activist community, something I haven’t truly got a grip on.  I guess I couldn’t grasp a full understanding of the issue unless I was thrusted in the middle of it.  Recently I discovered that there was a relatively huge misinformation campaign stemming from one single person within the same community.  A moderately known black female insisted on accusing me, Johnny Silvercloud of being a misogynist.  Yeah, you know the type: the type of black man who seeks to subtract from black women in every wake and turn; the type who doesn’t listen to black women; the type have a significant lack of empathy for black women; the type who seeks to silence black women.  You know… the Tony Sotomayor types.  Yes, this accusation is absurd.  Go ahead a laugh at it.  Sure.

Looking at how such misinformation campaigns exist, similar to discovering a new disease, I’m was given the opportunity to assess and analyze the virus, where it comes from and determine how to, um, vaccinate one from such illness.  So let’s get it on.

Let’s front load this one — you cannot be a Black activist if you don’t have a harmonious relationship with black men/women.  Period.  For those who don’t understand what I’m saying, I’m going to break it down Barney-style:

1. If you are a black woman in the activist community, fighting against racism and systemic racial oppression, but you hate, absolutely loathe black men, you ain’t shit.
2. If you are a black man in the activist community, fighting against racism and systemic racial oppression, but you hate, absolutely loathe black women, you ain’t shit.
3. There’s no space for discussion.

Now, I can totally understand frustrations towards folks, especially with black men and women among black people because that’s who we are the closest to.  It’s certainly easier for a black person to hurt another black person because, nine times out of ten, that’s who we are surrounded by.  But that doesn’t mean that the totality of the whole is corrupt.  Shitting on all black women, or all black men, is categorically absurd and is worse tenfold from any member of the black community; tenfold-squared by a black activist.

Haters, your math of a little off

Using the 2015 Census data indicating that black folks in America (including partial mix black) total up to 46,282,080 Afro-Americans, right beside the male/female percentage of the population (49.1%/50.9%, respectively) we can safely suggest that there are roughly 23,557,579 black females (I use “female” to denote all black females, child, teen and adult) and roughly 22,724, 501 black males.  Pay attention carefully because these numbers will continue to come up conceptually.

One cannot suggest that all 24 million black females are shitty.  Same logic applies, one cannot suggest that all 22 million black males are shitty.  Black haters, please, stop the fucking madness.  Sure, the same applies for white people, but this article is for you, black person.  Stop the bullshit self-hate.

And yes, if you are a black woman hating black men, you are engaging in self-hate.  Same applies for black men; if you make it a thing to shit on black women and never considered their experiences, you are engaging in self-hate.  I like to emphasize this to black men, because there’s always a lot of “black empowerment” talk from black men who never consider the black woman’s part in all of this.  Quite often, the “black empowerment” guy actively pisses and shits on the black woman’s shadow, especially when that black woman engages in behaviours that that black man enjoys.  Get the fuck outta here.  You cannot talk about slut culture without talking about dick culture.

Blind Spots to Specific Privilege Systems

One of the things I noticed when it comes to the divide between black men and women of note is the fact that it’s quite often the two, similar to a white person to white privilege, are totally blind to sociological privilege systems created by white people to divide us.  These sociological systems are setup to keep the black community ineffective in regards to changing our surroundings or accruing enough social capital and physical resources (i.e., money).  If more of us are capable of recognizing these blind spots we can stop becoming our own obstacles.

The Black Man’s Blind Spots

• Male privilege:  while being the main target of Whiteness to destroy, the black man fails to realize the fact that there’s a such thing as male privilege.  From this blind spot the black man will engage in rape culture, dick culture, “slut shaming”, etc.  Another example of the black man’s blind spot here is how he attempts keep black women accountable for their actions regarding sex and bastard children, but FAILS to keep men in check, being that it takes men to make that fucking child. (I think I should note that there’s no such thing as “black male privilege”, it’s just “male privilege”.)
• Also from male privilege, the black man fails to realize how delicate the black woman is, how vulnerable the black woman is.
• One of the things the black man gets wrapped up in is how tough the black woman acts, and how he fails to see this for what it really is — a defense mechanism.  So instead of understanding why the black woman builds walls, the black man then oversimplifies the situation by declaring the black woman as “unstable”, “not marriage material”, “not worthy of our time”, the list goes on.  Like clockwork, Whiteness takes his word for it, and magnifies this claim as American racial canon.
• There’s no such thing as black female privilege.

The Black Woman’s Blind Spots

• While there’s no such thing as black female privilege, there is a very particular preference for black women in the eyes of Whiteness.  The reason being is because since the black woman is STILL a woman, she is not the white man’s counterpart, and thus, not deemed a threat to white supremacy.  This is the reason why black women are placed in positions of elevated note before a black man is, if it’s the white community’s decision. While this isn’t black female privilege, there is a privilege laced in the fact that you are the more favorable pet of whites.  Black women should take note to this.
• The vulnerability inverse; black women who clearly see the male privilege the black man benefits from, look at the black man with disdain, and from there fails to realize how vulnerable the black man is.  This is buttressed by the fact that folks tend to not realize that men have feelings too, fully capable of having their emotion played with, etc.  On the physical level, the black man’s higher body mass and bone density seems to be justification to punish and abuse the black man physically.  The white community sees this, listens to this, and magnifies this claim as American racial canon.

Painful Realizations

I remember there was a time when I was in a relatively short argument with a Black Lives Matter activist.  The activist was a black woman.  In this argument she sought to suggest that I was soft on white people because her friend she invited to her go-away party began talking stupid, and I calmly, perhaps charmingly sought to speak to the fool, but in the end allowed the black lady activist to handle her friend.  I was called ruthless names, as if I’m an instrument of white supremacy or something.  In short, I was attacked for being a black man who speaks with a particular measure; I’m not going to yell at someone if I don’t need to.  It seemed like my reaction or emotionality wasn’t good enough or something.  This was strange, being that this wasn’t my party, wasn’t my foolish friend, and I’m a guest invited there like everyone else.  I figured it would be more arrogant to sit there and take full stage, talking over the black woman concerning her friend.  I let her handle her business.  Her business.  Yet I was called an Uncle Tom and shit.

When I was rightfully defending myself from absurd accusations, I realized one solid thing that I’ve overlooked before:  I was the ONLY black male in attendance.  It was a small get-together, with three or four white males, three black women, and then there was me, the only black man.  Most of the men there were vegans, or some sort of hippie type.  Cool, but yeah.  While I stood accused, I looked at the circle of people present, and realized that maybe… just maybe that this black female activist has a problem with black men.  She goes hard in the paint but has a problem with black men.  Her having a child from a white man, nothing in itself, added to the possibility that she may loathe black men.

One of the things I noticed was how silent those white men were.  They were smart actually because they really had no stake in that argument.  But it begs the question as to why are they there in the first place, why they were selected as men to be so close.  I began thinking, that maybe no one here is used to having a black male perspective on things because black men are nonexistent in this circle.  I realized that I was the foreigner as an intelligent black man, among black activists!

Possible Key Indicators

1. So, while not an absolute, I would definitely say a POSSIBLE INDICATOR that there’s a severe lack of harmony with the other sex is if you check that person’s inner-circles and not a damn thing is found there.  While there’s always going to be a minor (which may still look big) white following to any successful black activist, I’m going to state that personally, I don’t trust a black activist man who is flanked to his left and right by white women, and the same goes for black women.  If you can’t handle being properly challenged by the opposite sex of your tribe, you got problems.
2. How they correspond to the opposite sex, particularly, disagreements.  It’s painfully easy to see if a person has no harmony with the opposite sex of the same racial group when you see them disagree with that member of the opposite sex.  It’s okay to get mad at a person, sure.  But when that person seeks to dismantle and destroy a person’s credibility outside of that argument or debate, hold grudges, engage in massive misinformation campaigns… that person hates the opposite sex, and is by proxy full of self-hate.
3. Look at their fanbase.  Similar to republican presidential candidates, the person in front MIGHT be more polished than their core base.  If you look at the followers of a person, you can find out what that person is really about.  Afterall, why follow someone unless they are in agreement with something that a person says?  They say opposites attract, but in the social media world it’s reverse; those who you attract aKeep in mind, that this cannot be a onesie or twosie, this is the general mass.  The general mass of my followers for example, do not look like the general mass of Tony Sotomayor followers.  This, is the type of distinction I’m talking about.
4. Look at who they are intimate with.  This one is a very dangerous measure in itself, but when you combine this with points 1,2, and 3, yeah, I’m going to have to say this one is a solid.  I don’t seek to suggest that there’s a problem with interracial relationships.  The problem, if there is one, is WHY that relationship exists in the first place, and the possible blind spots it creates whether intentionally or not.  A black woman in a IR relationship with a white man for example, will NOT be used to handling disagreement in regards to race relations from men, because if that white man is smart he knows not to speak on race relations when his black wife is speaking.  There’s NOTHING he can add to the convo.  If that white male is smart, he knows he’s infinitely the student and the black woman is infinitely the teacher.  When you add another black person in that equation — a black male — then you have a teacher/teacher discussion going on, and if you are in an IR relationship, this dynamic fact can be jarring.  Then you go to point #2 to see who that person corresponds to disagreement.  Followed by #3.

Anyway, there you have it.  I’m sure there’s more indicators, but I can only go by my own experience.  I will say this again:  you cannot be a Black activist if you don’t have a harmonious relationship with black men/women.  Period.