THE TOXICITY OF THE BLACK MAN WITHIN THE BLACK POWER MOVEMENT
Written By: Angie MATONDO
“To be a black man required a code of silence. You didn’t express feelings, you weren’t hurt, you couldn’t acknowledge hurt, and pain and rage and anger. Because that would’ve been admitting vulnerability and vulnerability was associated with being feminine.” Marlon Riggs, in Black is, Black ain’t
Black masculinity, Black manhood, a subject tackled and deconstructed in the late Black director Marlon Riggs’ 1994 documentary film Black is, black ain’t. It is not unknown that men all around the world have developed an unhealthy shield against anything that doesn’t align with their notion of masculinity. Their aversion for femininity has led them to entertain made up rules which supposedly help them maintain their manliness. This phenomenon is even more pronounced in the Black community, as it originally stems from a desire and need to break out of the harmful stereotypes and behaviours associated with Black people pre- and post-slavery by the racist imagery disseminated by the media of the time.
Anatomy of Black gender roles
The original depictions of Black men, such as the Sambo, or the Jim Crow character, a lazy, blissful and irresponsible buffoon helped propagate effectively the idea that Black people weren’t worth of freedom and inclusion in the United States. This kept the public opinion from even conceptualizing the Black man as an equal of any kind. This was reinforced by the creation of another character, Zip Coon, one meant to portray what would be of a Black man that was given freedom. His inability to adapt to civilized society, due to his unintelligent and ridiculous nature would definitely prevent the Black man from ever achieve the merit required for the emancipation that could be given by the public’s eye. But these stereotypes not only deprived him of the credibility needed for freedom, but also of the masculine identity essential in the integrity of a “real man”. In fact, these imageries had for purpose to reverse Black people’s gender roles and humiliate them. While the men were portrayed as weak, incapable to provide and basically useless for a functioning society, the character of the Mammy, a Black woman, was the one supposed to embody Black masculinity within the two. While submissive and loyal to the White people she served, efficient in her domestic work and ability to nurse others’ children, she was brutal towards Black men and her own family. She was the representation of a decadent population in which there was no patriarch, but a matriarch, and this went drastically against the general consensus of gender roles. By her overweightness, her dark skin and overexaggerated features, she was also denied of any sexuality, which was of course another way to portray her as unwomanly. There was a need for White people to tarnish Black people to uplift their own with their opposed features and behaviors, as a way to keep Black people as slaves. On one side, the society-approved soft and beautiful White woman and her strong educated husband, on the other the violent, loud and ugly Black woman and what you could barely qualify as a man societal standards per se.
Reclaiming of the Black Masculinity
These portrayals erased whatever was left of Black people’s self-esteem, and enticed a long and tortuous route searching for a way to uplift themselves back into a semblance of confidence. During the Sixties, emerged the “Black is Beautiful” movement, meant for Black people to pride themselves in their Afrocentric features and reject the harmful influence of the White Eurocentric beauty standards. While it brought a new feeling of self-love within black folks and encouraged them to accept themselves as they are, it also seeked to reverse the idea that Black men were demasculinized: “The top priority was restoring what society has repeatedly stolen from us”, says Marlon Riggs in his documentary. Indeed, the Black Power movement was on a quest to reclaim the Black Race. But as a way to carve a place for themselves in masculinity, Black men inadvertently pandered to the White standards of what it meant to be a man. By trying to appeal to hegemonic masculinity, they placed a toxic and detrimental criterion to attain. Sexuality, strength, virility became central to the identity of the Black man. Their bodies were sexualized, while the feelings that were deemed too feminine were repressed. No sensitivity, no cries… Toughness was fundamental. This not only inevitably stirred conflict and struggle within the Black community, but also enabled White people to label Black people as violent and dangerous as this reclaiming of Black strength was weaponized against them and still is. Black men, by defying their degrading portrayals, actually conformed to the idea of a man created by White supremacy and the patriarchy, all for it to turn its back against them once again unexpectedly. To let the Black man achieve this ideal, they also pleased themselves in demeaning the women of the community. They followed closely conservative and misogynistic beliefs that gender roles were inherent to any kind of human society, and that men automatically carried higher roles than women. They believed it was “what God intended”, while omitting how the whole concept of Christianity in the United States was forced onto Black people and is still and always a result of colonialism and the Atlantic Slave Trade. Indeed, Christianity is a white supremacy doctrine that was cast upon them as well. The Black community often fails to deconstruct itself enough to acknowledge that. But already in the 1977 short film Diary of an African nun, we were able to explore how insidious Christianity was for Black folks and how it reeked of White supremacy, as African populations were stripped of their culture, veiled under a white lens. Religion has become a huge part of overall African culture, as a way to unite, love and rejoice as a community, but it was important to stay critical of it and its wrongdoings, especially its rough role for women that was used as a justification for all their mistreatment.
Black women’s belittling
Early in the Black Power Movement, Angela Davis was known for her critique of the Black Panther Party and their overlooking of the women’s side of the Black oppression. Although the BPP remains to this day the most influential Socialist Party of the USA that ever existed, and its social programs raised the standard for leftists’ engagement worldwide, this critique stays very relevant. As the BPP also participated in the reshaping of the Black man, for example for their famous habit to carry out guns and practice “copwatching”, aiming to confront the misconducts of the Police Department, and in general their controversies regarding the use of violence, lots of its male members had a tendency to keep a very chauvinist view of the Party. Early issues of the Party’s newspaper advocated for women to show their support for men, but solely as subordinates. Which is aggravating when the majority of the Party’s members were women, and most of its policies were carried out by women. The education programs consisted in majority of female professors, and the Free Breakfast for Children Programs were also mostly women-led. Elaine Brown, the first and only woman leader of the BPP said: “A woman in the Black Power movement was considered, at best, irrelevant. A woman asserting herself was a pariah. If a Black woman assumed a role of leadership, she was said to be eroding black manhood, to be hindering the progress of the Black race. She was an enemy of the Black people…I knew I had to muster something mighty to manage the Black Panther Party.” She is known for helping women achieve higher and more visible roles within the Party. Huey Newton, one of the founders of the Party was involved in a couple violent crimes against women, like the murder of Kathleen Smith, an eighteen-year-old prostitute, or the rape-murder of Betty Van Patter, a bookkeeper hired by Elaine Brown for the Party. She eventually left the Party after reprobating the clear bias and mistreatment that was enabled towards women, as male members vocally expressed their dislike of the outnumbering of women among them.
In general, it is important to take Black men accountable for their belittling of Black women within the community. Black feminists who spoke out were punished, called bitter and ostracized due to their lack of unapologetic behavior towards Black men, and the community, which seeks approval from whoever is at the top (Black men) condemned them and isolated them as well. Angela Davis stated that “At the time of its emergence, Black women were frequently asked to choose whether the Black movement or the women’s movement was most important. This was the wrong question. The more appropriate question was how to understand the intersections and interconnections between the two movements.” It’s important to deconstruct ourselves and unlearn misogynistic behaviors, as well as acknowledging the intersectionality of being Black and a woman. Today, women are often still overlooked in Black movements, for example My Brother’s Keeper, the private initiative initiated by President Barack Obama to improve Black and Latino boys’ quality of life was striking by its lack of interest in uplifting their female counterparts. Women were and still are essential to the integrality of the fight against racism, and it is only slowing down the movement to ignore the common purpose of social struggle by depreciating the efforts of one side of the community.
