Recently there was a blog post which went viral titled “Straight Black men are the white people of Black people.” As a race, we should have MAJOR issues with the content in this blog. Reason being, though written by a Black man, it is nothing but white supremacist styled propaganda used to vilify the protectors of our race. Now, in no way am I suggesting straight Black men do not have issues and I am not about to apologize for the egregious behavior perpetrated by some Black man. I have a track record of calling Black men out and challenging them to do better. I wrote a book titled “The 6 A’s of Manhood for African American Men” in which I hold absolutely no punches when it comes to addressing these behaviors. With that said, I still have to condemn the idea put forth in that blog.

Whenever we deal with Black issues, we will always come to faulty logic and rationale if we do not study how things were done to us historically to make sure we aren’t spewing things that are in line with what our enemies have said about us. As I go forward, understand I am not attacking the brother who wrote the blog. I am not calling him a coon or a white supremacist tool. I am simply showing that his view point was shaped with an ahistorical lens.

The first issue with this blog is the specificity of “Straight Black Men.” From a historical lens, we know that the first person attacked physically and through negative propaganda was the Black man who in that day in age was synonymous with being straight. They killed the warriors who were fighting to protect the women and children. They lynched every strong man and left him hanging for all to see as a lesson of what happens to the strong straight man that stands up against white supremacy. Those they didn’t kill they put through a process of buck breaking where they sodomized the straight Black man in front of his wife, children and the community to keep the people from viewing these strong straight men as the strong protectors they were created to be. Once they got us in line, they used propaganda tools to destroy the image of Black man. i.e. savage movies, cooning movies, Blackploitation movies, posters, false scientific studies etc.

From this view, we see it is very white supremacist styled to attack straight Black men as a whole and make them analogous to white people. When we’re dealing with white supremacy, we must understand what they’re afraid of and what they aren’t threatened by. No matter your opinion on homosexuality, white supremacy is terrified of heterosexual hyper masculine men fighting for the liberation of African people and are not the least bit threatened by gay men fighting for LGBT rights. This is why caucasians hate Dr. Umar Johnson but give millions of dollars to Deray Mckesson’s movements. There is an agenda to demonize hyper masculine men solely because hyper masculine men are what our true enemies fear.

When we write blogs like this, continuing this demonization, we cause our own people to not support those who are the most equipped to go to war. This is not to say there are no homosexual men who are equipped for this fight. There are hyper masculine homosexual men who can fight with the best of heterosexual men BUT those gay men have the appearance of a straight Black man. So even though they may be homosexual, when the world sees them they see an image they perceive as a strong straight Black man and that image is what our enemies want to destroy and destroying the image is what this blog is helping them do.

The writer talks about the threats straight Black men pose but refuse to talk about the threats gay men pose. In my experience I have witnessed immensely more gay men disrespect Black women by calling them bitches and saying out loud in front of everyone “Bitch I will beat you the fuck up.” I’ve saw more gay men fighting women in the streets than straight men. On some of these reality shows we have women who applaud the gay characters who “Read” the female characters. No one ever brings these things up. Gay men might not pose a threat when it comes to rape but they definitely pose a threat of bodily harm as much if not more than straight men. The negligence of the writer ignoring this and pretending as if this isn’t an issue concerning the protection of our women is something we need to think about.

Secondly, the blog opens up admitting that Black men are at the bottom of everything and have absolutely NO POWER. How can a powerless group be likened to those who have the power to control the world? The first paragraph literally makes the title a contradiction. It is irresponsible and makes reconciliation between Black men and women almost irreversible because it puts us in a place where we have to defend ourselves and come off as if we’re not empathetic to the plights our women face when encountering some Black men.

White people sat in rooms and conspired to enslave us. They physically took us from our homeland. They erased our history, stripped us of our culture, wrote slave codes, had scientist put out studies to say we are inferior, they have institutions set up to destroy us, they’ve burned down towns, used police to keep us in check, forced us into ghettos and many more terrible things. Straight Black men have never done anything close to this to Black women, so when conversations arise about what some Black men do to Black women and it’s prefaced with us being like white men, before we can talk about abandonment, disrespect, lack of protection, domestic abuse, rape etc. we are forced to first fight the fact that we are viewed as a historical enemy.

This concept seriously downplays what caucasians have to done to us when they compare Black men to them. So instead of us addressing the actual issues our women face, we are in a frivolous argument about if Black men are like white people. The men are saying “Have you looked at everything they’ve done? We’re nothing like them. We have our issues but we aren’t a historical enemy.” And in response, Black women are saying “You are just like white people when it comes to us” and we are both distracted from talking about the true issues and causing reconciliation between Black men and women to be insurmountable. It is impossible for us to reconcile or have any meaningful dialogue if Black women view us as their enemy.

Lastly, the way he tries to explain how we are like white people sounds like we’re listening to CNN: extremely gross generalizations that paint all Black men as overly aggressive, women beating, women raping beings. He says we “pose the same existential and literal danger as whiteness.” Again downplaying what whiteness does. Whiteness is ALWAYS and in EVERY WAY a threat to Black people. In fact, the creation of white and Black was solely to oppress us. To say we pose the same threat means every Black man at every moment is out to oppress and destroy Black women and that notion is preposterous.

Will I deny that some Black women may fear us the way some Blacks fear caucasians? No I will not but I will tell you that fear is not because straight Black men are really a threat, it’s because propaganda like this blog, paints an image that our women should fear us. As Malcolm said in 1964, “The controlled press paints the Negroe community as a criminal element” and nobody is more criminalized than the straight Black man. When teaching on this imaging I always ask the Black men in my workshops, are they cautious when they see another Black man walking towards them late at night. 100% of the men always say yes. I then ask them, in your life’s experience, has that random Black man walking down the street ever tried to harm you? 100% of the men always say no. I then ask them, “If your experience says you have a 0% chance of being harmed by random Black men, why do you always get cautious when you see them?”

They never know and I use that as an opportunity to talk about how we’ve been programmed to view ourselves as deviants so whenever we see our people, we immediately think they are going to harm us. I brought that up to say, if Black men, who never had an experience with a random Black man trying to harm them still subconsciously feel every Black man at night poses a threat to them, of course Black women will feel that same fear and more. The thing is, the perception that creates the fear is not based on reality, it’s based on the demonization of Black men. This is not to say Black women aren’t abused, raped, disrespected or otherwise victimized by Black men, this is to say that Black men are not committing these atrocities against Black women the way it’s made out to seem and we shouldn’t be so feared.

The writer goes on to say Black men turn blind eyes to the victimization of Black women and we try to tell them what they experience isn’t real. That they’re making up things in their heads or their fear isn’t real or they’re not being raped etc. again another gross generalization. Black men as a whole are not telling Black women their experience isn’t real, what makes it appear that way is vehemently rejecting stereotypes, generalizations and the idea that we are our women’s enemy. We are not saying the fear isn’t real, we’re saying the fear is not because we are monsters, the fear is because blogs like this along with white supremacist propaganda have our women (and men) viewing straight Black men as such.

Black women, if you have been a victim of anything by the hands of Black men, I want you to know that I know your experiences are real. I want you to know that I stand with you and will fight Black men who mean you harm with all my might. I want you to know that I have and will continue to use my platforms rebuke the foolish Black men who may try to belittle your experiences and blame you for them as I am currently working with Monique Doran on her 1000 men against abuse campaign. But most of all Black women, I want you to know that Black men are NOT your enemy, we want to help eradicate any injustices you face but we cannot do so until you view us a partners.