So lately I've been hearing dialogues from black people that'll permit bad white behavior and damn bad black behavior. This patriarchal mind frame is one I'm intentionally breaking away from, but unfortunately many black folks let this thought process control their mentality. It only keeps us as the black community at odds and allows space for white supremacy to thrive. Honestly I am tired of these conversations and while many black people want to allow white people to remain hateful, I'm calling BS and asking for us to be better about self hatful talk.
I was talking with a friend and she was speaking about cat calling. This culture embedded in toxic masculinity is probably thought of as a "black man thing", although men from every race do this grossly. Either way, my friend shared how a white woman was cat called by all these men and how she can see why white people think of us "that way". I'm sorry but in the world is "that way"? Why is a group of men cat calling this white lady the only understanding and interaction she has of black people to even create an opinion of us being "that way"?
This is just garbage. It's garbage thinking and it's garbage politics. Men within suburbs all the way to major cities cat call at drastic levels. I've seen videos of white men following girls for blocks, stalking and harassing them which I believe falls into cat calling culture. No one ever complains about the white boys cat calling and objectifying women's bodies. There have been white men who ran up to my friends and put their face way to close to their bodies then made vulgar remarks. But there is no idea of "seeing how black people think of white people like that". Somehow it is only black men who suffer from toxic masculinity. This is an unfair claim and to permit any white person of preconceived notions off of face value interactions with us is not cool. That white woman had her mind made up about black people before she was ever cat called by a black man. This society displays us in a demeaning light and people eat it up, including ourselves. It can get to the point where we are standing up for blatant racism and this just breaks my heart. If we were liberated from this mentality, that what white people think of us is important, we'd be able to embrace our blackness fully and realize many of the things anti-black white folks say is only to further push white supremacy.
Bill Maher used the n-word on his live show recently. It was in the most uncalled for and forced manner (although it's always a no no for non blacks to use the word). This man has been a white supremacist and anti-black individual for his whole life. However, because of the idea dismissing bad white behavior and making excuses for them, this moment has been able to unfold. You would think this would be a light bulb moment for self hating black folks. But no! Still black people came out of the wood work to defend this racist. We are do blinded by white validation that we allow them to be hateful to us right in our face and still apologize for them. This behavior is quite frankly sickening and I'm over it.
There's even a podcast I thoroughly enjoy that engages in this behavior. There is one host particularly interjects "now let's not do that" every time another host challenges white people or speaks on a black oppression. Yet whenever that group is critiquing and generalizing things within the black community, everyone is ok with it. Why do we as black people work so hard to protect whiteness? What are these white people really loosing when we call them out? Would they even think to defend us? We have to break away from oppressive patterns on thinking.
It's time to focus on the way we think and speak about ourselves. If we can defend whiteness in our black corners imagine what is said in white spaces. Imagine the impression we leave on white people about how we feel about ourselves. We must love ourselves and stand up for ourselves, because if not us then who?
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