Yesterday on a long drive I used streaming Internet on my phone to listen to three Black themed talk shows on Atlanta's "Fight The Power" radio station. In their post-Father's Day show they all just happened to talk about the crisis with Black males WITHIN the Black community:
- Fathers are not raising their children
- Dead-beat dads are forcing the burden of developing our young Black males upon others
- Out of 54 Black males in one prison - 50 of them did not have a relationship in life with their father
- Government policies are moving the Black male out of the house
The key issue in the governance within the Black Community - the basic ability to achieve certain "Favorable Outcomes" is that in the effort to be "non-discriminatory" AND in the spirit of shifting certain obligations that need to be managed WITHIN - outward to the society (in the name of "Social Justice") the effective outcomes are scuttled due to indecisiveness and the consideration of what promotes itself as (civil) rights but which up-ends a certain order.
In a parallel note - there were frequent references to "pants on the ground" made on the radio yesterday. What was once defended as a non sequitur regarding the identification of a "thug" or poor student as this disturbing fad too root has now gotten a critical balance of otherwise liberal Black people to note that it is a secondary index to a more significant problem in the lives of these Black males.
Nothing changed in this fact (the presence of a core problem). The only change that is now taking place is the acceptance of the fact that there is a problem among a large quantity of Black people who had been previously protective of this expression of "micro-rebellion" as the observer made a parallel to their rebellious acts as a youth.
Further, the argument used by women to defend against misogynistic criticism which says "a woman's clothing does not promote (or justify) her being raped", those who considered these young Black males with their underwear showing were forced to look past how this display could be construed as "sexual aggression" among a specimen that has suffered greatly over time from this assumption. They demanded that SOCIETY relent from its BIGOTRY and not look at the boxer shorts, and in some cases "butt crack" on display in public as a sign of sexual aggression. The hand on the crotch as he walked down the street was not him "holding his nuts".....he is holding his pants up.
For anyone seeking to molest my argument - I did not equate "gay marriage" with "pants on the ground". If you notice - the subject of the last passage was about THE SOCIETY which is asked to ACCEPT certain practices as the defenders attempt to throw in their agenda points. As frequently is the case - the "reservoir temperature" of society is asked to be accepting to any and all elements which propose to alter the "salient temperature" of the body of water. The present "global warming" of the societal reservoir is not analyzed by the "man made activities" that are bearing upon it.
To hear Black people grieve about the macro-dysfunction regarding the male-female/father-son/father-daughter relationships within the Black community and the cries of "DO SOMETHING!!!!" should not be mistaken for "community governance". Our community does an excellent job of:
- Defining a problem
- Enumerating the cost upon us
- Detailing who the oppressor is
- Who we will protest against to correct the problem
Gay Marriage As A "Right"
From The Grio.com article
What is often lost on those black Americans who oppose gay marriage is a two-fold conundrum; first, the significant decline in marriage rates among heterosexuals in the black community, and secondly, the inherent hypocrisy of denying other minorities equal rights.Ironically Eric Wyckoff Williams makes reference to the problem state of Black heterosexual marriage as a justification for his promotion of homosexual marriage. Logic tells me that a REFORM MOVEMENT is necessary to correct this issue. Of course any reform movement in which the society begins to more closely regulate the relationships between the male and the female - making them more formal and deliberate - would also negatively impact Mr Williams' agenda of retiring the traditional definition of marriage and turning it into a RIGHT.
Next Mr Williams makes the case that "BIGOTS were opposed to interracial heterosexual marriage back in the day - do you want to be a bigot on the 'wrong side of history' on the subject of same sex marriage rights?"
Note the absence of JUSTIFICATION but the presence of the negative inference in the attempt to compel those who are out of line to not be like their historical oppressors. What Mr Williams cannot defend is the fact that societies that do not have the "Black/White divide" as ours have ordered their formal relationships between male and female. The racial inference is merely a diversionary attempt.
Ultimately this argument is not a matter of "RIGHTS". The polygamist or those seeking to lower the age of emancipation one year to address the presence of mature 15 year olds will be next in line. This is an issue of the REQUIREMENT that a society be responsible for managing the outcomes within its four walls. In doing so it has the requirement to PRIORITIZE, focusing on the issue that is proving most damning to them.
Unfortunately some people who's claim to fame is the track record of that which they have loosened in the society are looking for 'base hits' that they can point to their graciousness - all the while they have no intention of addressing the "grand dysfunction" that goes unmanaged. This "benign neglect" proving to be the wound through which the greater part of its life sustaining fluid is leaking to the ground.
I AM NOT ARGUING "let us fix heterosexual marriage and then we'll get around to the gays".
I AM ARGUING that the state of a solid, governed condition of heterosexual marriage is MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE to the promotion of same sex marriage. It can only come as the primary franchise is at its weakest point.
Another "We Won But We Lost" scenario is in the making.
No comments:
Post a Comment