Enough already! Stop the male-bashing and infighting

Ebony, Feb, 1993 by Alvin Francis Poussaint

Black men and Black women must learn to respect each other in order to save the endangered Black family

I RECENTLY attended a campus meeting on Black male-female relations triggered by Terry McMillan's Waiting to Exhale, which some readers felt was yet another example of a Black female author engaging in "Black-male bashing." Others disagreed. This session of Black college students quickly degenerated into bitter, defensive name-calling and mutual put-downs. Rather than conducting a productive give-and-take dialogue, the participants indulged in angry and confrontational exchanges, leveling the usual charges--"Black men think they have to be macho and dominate women!"--and counter-charges--"Black women are too domineering and controlling!"

When, inevitably, the question of interracial dating surfaced, many of the females hotly denounced Black men who date and marry White women. The meeting resulted in a standoff. Little philosophical movement was generated, and no constructive outcome was suggested. I had a sense of deja vu, that Black men and women have, for the past several decades, been mired in a never-ending battle, each generation rehashing the same old issues.

Since the 1970s, Black people have been made aware of the serious strains in Black male-female relationships by Black female writers who examined issues of racism and sexism from their own racial and gender perspective. One popular drama made a stinging indictment of the brutal sexist behavior of some Black males, and ended with a strong suggestion that because many Black men are abusive, Black women must for the most part seek solace with each other. Other Black female authors wrote biting accounts of the mistreatment and subjugation of Black females by a macho-dominated civil rights and Black power movement.

The tensions between the sexes simmered until they reached a wrenching peak a decade ago with the publication of Alice Walker's prize-winning The Color Purple. This work powerfully chronicled Black male chauvinism and the mistreatment of Black women in one Southern Black family. The sparks flew, for many Black men felt that they were being attacked by their own Black women's lending credence to White stereotypes of African-American men. Some men counterattacked, accusing these women of supporting the White racist enemies of the Black man. When the epic movie version of the book was released, Black men picketed theaters where it was being shown. Naturally, Black women who believed that they should be more supportive defended these protesters.

As a result of this outcry, many Black men decided to organize, to raise not only their own, but young Black males' consciousness of their dilemma in America and their deteriorating relations with Black women, the family and the community. The data they collected pointed to the slippage in the position of Black males in society and the racism targeted against them in school, employment and the criminal justice system. Books and articles appeared outlining the serious social ills plaguing Black males. Prominent among these were low life expectancy, high death rates from homicide, and increased rates of failure in schools as compared with those of Black women. An alarm was sounded.

The debate and conflict continued, as did attempts to heal Black male-female divisions. Some writers explored the special nature of Black male vulnerability; some argued that Black men in dualcareer marriages felt threatened when their wives' achievements over-shadowed their own; many such marriages ended in divorce. Many felt that Black men's feelings of general vulnerability hindered positive Black male-female relations. But a good number of Black men complained that they were being portrayed too negatively as victimizers rather than as the victims of racism and the battles between the sexes they considered themselves to be.

Black men themselves began to recognize that statistics indicated that Black males were in serious trouble. The Black community now recognized that Black males were "an endangered species" in America. Black men rallied as never before, joining such organizations as 100 Black Men and Concerned Black Men to help vulnerable young Black males and to serve as role models and mentors. Civil rights organizations developed various "Black-male responsibility" projects, and some school districts considered the merits of organizing all-Black male schools to address their needs. Indeed, many Black women leaders, including Dorothy Height, Eleanor Holmes Norton and Marian Wright Edelman, encouraged African-American men to unite and work together. Yet there were clear indications that Black men and women were still at odds as the number of single-parent households headed by women rose to over 45 percent of Black families, and the figures for acts of violence against Black women reached all-time highs.

Many Black women were outraged when some writers suggested that they brought mistreatment on themselves and argued that Black women should subjugate themselves in order to improve relationships with Black men. These suggestions seemed out of sync with the times. As the general media became aware of these tensions in Black male-female relationships, it promoted provocative talk shows that pitted Black men and women against one another in antagonistic debates that emphasized the negative. Spike Lee's 1990 movie, Jungle Fever, reiterated the theme of antipathy between Black men and women and raised anew the question of the validity of Black male-White female courtship. It included one widely discussed scene in which a group of Black women demeaned the worth of Black men. Black men who felt that they were again under siege and on the defensive wondered just how many Black women regarded them as ne'er-do-wells.