I was perusing random blogs the other day and I ran across a young lady’s blog who had reposted an article written by a Black man telling Black women why they were to blame for the downfall of the African-American community.  The article was nothing less than misogynist crap.  I won’t even quote what it said because it was so offensive it doesn’t even deserve mention.  The young lady who reposted the article defended her highlight of it by saying that it “had validity and truth to it,” and that it made people think.   The article did NOTHING to make people think.  Its sole purpose was to spew sexist rhetoric, displace blame for any wrongdoings men do and place it unfairly on the shoulders of women, and to get women to jump through chauvinistic hoops in order to degrade other women. 

My main concern is not the individual who wrote the article.  My primary main concern is the generation of young women who can’t articulate, or even recognize and identify, men who are obviously sexist.  It’s not just this one particular young lady, it seems to be scores of Black women.  These women, who, by all measures, should be reasonably intelligent, seem to be blissfully unaware when it comes to defending the honor of Black women or even articulating an argument that seems reasonably cogent when such flimsy attacks on us are made.  Not only do they not take offense, they celebrate these men. 

It’s what I like to call the “Michael Baisden Fan Complex”.  No matter how sexist his comments, no matter how disrespectful he is to Black women, women callers are waiting on the line to say, “Yeah, Michael, you are right.”  Just this past week, he had a relationship expert on his show in order to tell men how to choose better women as partners.  Not only were there no female callers who countered by suggesting that a better avenue for men to pursue might be in them working on being better partners themselves, but the number of women calling in to degrade other Black women for not being good enough to deserve these so called “good men” was so staggering, I almost drove off the road.

There’s a new breed of Black in town women who defend, coddle, agree with, support, and otherwise glorify the divisive, vitriolic filth that emotionally immature men spew and they sign on for it, lock stock and barrel.  We’ve raised several generations of Black women to be enslaved to their own oppression.  We, as a society, have taught women to conform to men’s impossible demands and to never question, speak out, or confront men.  We’ve let them believe that being called a feminist is a far worse thing than being called a b---- . 

There is something tragic about a man who feels the need to malign Black women but the sickness is even greater when Black women don’t scream out in outrage.  What does it say about us, about our mental health, when Black women pat men on the back for their odious beliefs?    What have we done to our young Black women?  We teach them that their beauty is in the length of their hair, the roundness of their behinds, and the price of their high heeled shoes.  We cripple them by never making them question the status quo and telling them to conform to an ideal of beauty that doesn’t look like them.  We celebrate them when they fall in line with the narrow definition of femininity and we try to silence and denounce them when they stand up and say, “No, I won’t be your black Barbie Doll, I’m far more than that.” 

We are in peril as a people as long as we let men define us and we as women follow along like hypnotized drones.  Black men keep making the box smaller and smaller for what is acceptable for Black women and Black women keep redefining themselves to fit into that tiny box.  As long as our value and worth is placed in appeasing the distorted perceptions of men, in feeding their grandiose egos, then we will perish as a people.  If Black women can’t start taking a more radical approach in redefining ourselves outside of misogynistic definitions, we are doomed as a mentally enslaved race and gender. 

Scottie Lowe