Why Are Men Trash? Consider The Following…

Onyx Contributor:  H.T. (@517NightHawk), Podcast:  Lansing Anti-Hero

Over the last few years, I’ve watched and ever evolving and increasingly divisive narrative that started as a war against respectability politics and ultimately white supremacist social norms.  But as time went on, the narrative went to where now men were included targets as it’s ASSUMED that because a handful of us managed to fit into predominantly white spaces and flourish, and not get on a soapbox and state the evils of white supremacy to people who could just as easily ignore us as they do them, that we are conspirators in the plot.  Never mind that essentially every black man in the last few years that’s done JUST that is essentially unemployed or underemployed, but I’ll get back to that.  Within this time it shortly segued into saying black men are trash amongst other things.  But for myself, I try to be more of a solution oriented individual than just a rhetoric one, so let’s unpack how we got to where the statement men are trash became the norm.

First, let’s go to the one I often hear that no one seems to want to have a nuanced discussion about:  “Don’t tell women to protect women against rape.  Teach men not to rape.”  See, the problem with this statement is that it works on the idea that just teaching men not to rape means EVERY MAN is being taught not to rape, let alone will listen.  Fact is, the average man knows that rape is wrong and of the ones that know this also know that (just ball parking it), for every 10 guys who know that this is wrong, there’s about 6 that either don’t care, don’t want to be taught better or are legit fucked in the head to where the other 10 have to keep an eye on that guy.  But when you find yourself as a man living in the age of benevolent sexism and people just being obtuse, it becomes hard to get across the fact that perhaps, maybe, men might to be more vigilant in defending women from the legit awful men out here while ALSO teaching women to protect themselves in the clutch of things.  Hell, just the simple fact of free will is what makes this an issue that I’m not sure can so much be stopped entirely on the level at which I often believe is wanted.  Again, there are men who you can threaten with certain death or even castration and it still won’t deter them from being monsters.

Then there’s the issue of money.  Sure, I’ve been told over and over again, money matters in a relationship.  And while I’m all for black women making more money, I often hear in discussions of relationships and finance that most of the men that approach these women don’t make enough money for them.  Fair enough.  But then, when these women’s male contemporaries in terms of financial success stand up and state their demands, they’re met with cries of being corny, lame and should be lucky any woman puts up with him.  Yes, the guy making 6 figures a year, highly educated, no priors or kids, and has his shit together just happens to believe because he has plenty to offer has wants…HE’S the bad guy.  Never mind mind that his female equivalent could and does say the same thing and is met with “YASSSSSSS Queen!!!” and the like.  Honestly, the only time I’ve EVER seen a man of means be willing to essentially beg for love or affection, either he was paying thousands to a dominatrix or was batshit crazy.

But of course, it shouldn’t be a shocker that the standards for monogamy are in flux.  When we entered into the age of the new free love aka the slut walk movement, the standards just for sexual partners kinda went down too.  Seriously, I get why people like to have casual sex, but one can’t complain that men started to lose act right when it became clear that as long as you thought they were attractive, you’d be DTF, never mind if this dude was, yah know, an actually good person.  When it becomes clear that there’s less to almost demand to get sex, something that people want and enjoy and the standards for monogamy have gone into “Must fit my exact demands or no deal” (this goes for men & women) along with anything that sounds like respectability politics being “canceled”, one has to consider this a trade off from such practices.

What’s more, a lot of people on the internet have conflated personal physical preferences with universal beauty standards, and with this, men are expected to never say I like X, as now it is viewed as hating Y physical trait.  I already expounded on it here.  But now we’re at the point that not being attracted to women who were born men is a problem.  Note that I said it’s a problem to just say “I don’t want to date you because you used to be a man”, you could say that the nicest way possible, and you’d still be labeled a bigot.  Combine that with the movement of Carefree Black boys and this is how we arrive at this mass discourse between black men and black women.

So many black women will complain about the influx of “pick mes” who have shown up and started to drown them out and still not understand their cognitive dissonance with the idea that if we make men less “traditionally” masculine, this will cut out toxic and hypermasculinity.  Never mind that the definitions of these two things tends to expand often and only seems to consistently hold on to the point that we need to make black men less like white men, which goes back to my original point:  the standards for black men seem to discount the reality of black men.

As I said above, black men who are famous are expected to potentially sacrifice their careers to prove being woke to their standards.  This is not to say black men shouldn’t stand up for black causes, but I’m of the belief that giving back should be done in action and less in terms of virtue signals.  Start scholarships, create community centers, buy buildings and set up low income housing for impoverished communities, buy businesses that employ black people that need it.  Hell, even set up women’s shelters and other charities for protecting black women.  But to expect them to straight up go in front of a camera and fuck up their livelihood for YOUR beliefs…really?  They could DO so much more, but you’ll demonize them for what they didn’t SAY.

And this is how we got to why “men are trash”:  we’re not expected to protect, provide, have morals or standards, or even have our own opinions and beliefs all because “white supremacy” and “respectability politics”.  Let me remind all of you that even when liberal and progressive white people were trying to get their men on the whole “metrosexual” wave, they all turned on it once it started to cross into ACTUAL androgyny and emasculation.  But here WE are, pushing to essentially push for black men to be our gay best friends rather than potential fathers and husbands, and yet we wonder why black men are just saying “Fuck it, I’ll just be trash then”.  Because we see all the guys who bought into this and we know when you look up and the only men left buying into this either are just playing the long game for sex or are just men who have followed the path of least resistance, you’ll still be saying the same thing.

Men are trash.