Monday, November 1, 2010

SISTERS AND BROTHERS TRYING TO LOVE ONE ANOTHER IS A LOT LIKE...

CATS AND DOGS LIVING TOGETHER, WHAT A WORLD, WHAT A WORLD!

It seems to me that every ten years or so beginning for me at the age of three (when I first started to have ‘memories’ and felt my consciousness and identity begin to develop and establish their roots) that I take a personal inventory and start the process of inventorying everything within myself and how I view and see the world. The things about me I sweep out and pack away; others, I look at and try to put in its best light. Also, I try to accessorize the traits that I like and look forward to adding to my character. Relationships are a primary focus not because I am so love struck, but because of all the things in life that a person has the most control of after self, is the relationships and how they deal with the people that they encounter throughout there life.


Before I continue any further, I would like to say a few words. Occasionally, I will get a little involved in a comment that I may leave on a blog, because what they are talking about have personal significance to me. Some people whose journals that I may seem to get extra-involved in, are the people who have a direct connection to something in me, and if any of those people wonder if it is ‘them’, they need to read MY blog, and eventually, something will spin out and they would be able to say to themselves, ‘Oh, THAT’S why he went on like he did in my journal.’ If it seems that I am ‘living vicariously through others’, I can openly admit to doing so. Again, for me, it is one of the clearest signs of my own sense of self. I should not be complicated to myself, and I do expect to sail essentially on a kind of cruise control. That allows me to be able to think through what I read out here and find my own common ground and speak from there.


Recently, a blog post by Miz Represent had an exchange that I caught between her and another brother, essentially about the state of love in America, particularly between our Afro-American brothers and sisters. It seems to be the same dynamic occurring in that segment of our society perpetually, generation after generation since the era of the Civil Rights Movement.


One side points at the other and point at the other and wonder what the other can do to do to make them happy. Apparently a lot of people are only paying lip service to the idea of being happy with self, first. Then comes the worn observations about how black women are ‘this’ and black men are ‘that’ and none of the finger pointing takes either party near resolution.


Before he turned into a B-list movie ‘star’, Dewayne Johnson, A.K.A ‘The Rock’, when in his wrestling character as the most egotistical member of the ‘Nation of Domination’, one of his character’s signature lines was ‘Know Your Role’. Hearing those words would drive the audience into apoplexy, because it was a matter of ‘who does The Rock think he is, telling people to ‘know their role?’’


That is one of the things that I first noticed as a problem between black men and women. Neither of them was able and content at fulfilling their classic roles as men and women in a relationship. A case could be made, and a very compelling one at that, for the inequities imposed upon AA’s in this country have crippled the way that relationships are formed, the identities with which should act as models. Black men and women in America were never allowed to create those models as head of intact, households that the rules of the nuclear family, a family lead with a stable Father and Mother, to base subsequent relationships between the sexes in our community upon. Growing up with parenting as a rumor, with little of the essential and most basic items provided for, it is amazing that brothers and sisters still have any affinity for each other at all!

A pillar belief in the AA community is that our strength lies with our women… and that is one of the concepts that I think was part of the conversation in Miz Represents comment section. I decided to save any long form reply for my own journal. I think that it is a part of why aversion from concurring with the notion of the black women as a source of our greatest strength. If you look at the history of humankind, it has NOT been shaped by a society that saw women as such a resource. That observation I think is unmistakably accurate, because Amazonia and the tales of a noble female led society ranks with tales of Atlantis as other fables of oppression or dissatisfaction with how the world is actually working out. Make believe utopias where the world was nothing more than gingerbread houses and popcorn clouds with sweet lemon drops falling from the sky.

The same thing exists for AA’s who long for the magical days of pre-enslavement Africa, where we all got along and respected each other and view our roles with proper deference. I question that past, believing that native peoples were initial complicit with colonial powers regarding the enslavement of peoples, which did not, I repeat, did not, begin with the white man. So you go back to that time and I will move along with the future-present.

But the thing that slavery’s impact is strongest is how the constant oppression and mistreatment of our people has resulted in the lack of understand of how primary relationships are supposed to operate. Brothers can’t communicate with sisters, sisters relate poorly upon their children, often acting out of their resentment from the maltreatment at the hands of the man (men) they are to love. The men, for their part, are removed from anything remotely resembling their role in the social dynamic. Whether it is one of leading and providing for their family as a lion does his pride or nurturing and keeping warm the egg as a penguin does for his, he does not have a clue on how to behave.


Now, I have been now to be hard, maybe on occasion excoriating, of women as a general subject, bur other than my ex-wife, I tend to save most of my actual vitriol for myself. Why is that? It is because of what I read in the conversation that was had in the comment section, one that spoke about what sister-girls can do for the brothers caught in the mixing bowl of society. Of all the questions I have with women and relationships, the one that I have rarely, if ever, vocalized, is what black women in general can ‘do’ to help out the black men.

CAP AND TRADE


Steve Harvey advises women to make ‘hiding the cookie’ as a cornerstone of a woman’s philosophy for finding love in a relationship in his too-light to be taken as a component of an actual dating frame work for how a woman should go into a relationship.


I grew up seeing the black woman as the ‘paper tigreress’ of the dating scene. Talking all the smack about how they provide so much for the community in their ‘do it all’ roles, that if they could find someone willing to do some of what they expect in a partner, they could picture a future with them. Okay, guess what kind of man do they normally find themselves with? An incomplete and fatally flaw person, who is going to render their heart and mind in tatters. But remember, sister-girls are soo strong and resilient…

TANGENT STOP

Because ‘resilient’ is a word like ‘potential’ that I find a lot of fault with. Since I can talk about whether or not I am going to either be celibate or get into a relationship that allows for the more experimental side of my sexuality to be expressed for a week, I can dwell on this… and that is because all of this IS related!!

6 comments:

Toon said...

As soon as you try to figure out relationships and motivations in general terms, you lose. I just shrug my shoulders and move on.

Unknown said...

I cannot comment on this - I don't know enough about it. I just wanted you to know I was here.

Anonymous said...

When I had a blog, I was fine with someone going on & on in a comment, UNLESS 1)they just wanted to whine about how damn wrong I was...like seemed obsessed with it. Then, as far as I was concerned THAT belonged on their own blog or 2) if they wrested meaning that I did not out of my experiences & wanted to "enlighten" me....otherwise I was ok with it.


I could say a bunch of platitudinous stuff about relationships, but it wouldn't help one bit. I have learned that many people infer much intimacy that isn't there in the very beginning of a relationship...YOU MUST RUN FROM THOSE PEOPLE ;0. They are lonely & they will suffocate you.
~Mary

Ken Riches said...

Lot's of info, and some heady thoughts, I must digest.

BigmacInPittsburgh said...

I understand where you are coming from.
Getting the right two people in the relationship is the beginning for me.
I believe they must be of like minds,understanding first who they are as a person.
Understanding our own history is necessary to begin the process for me.
If these two elements are not on the front burner for the two people seeking a relationship,failure is almost guaranteed.

Mizrepresent said...

Wow, there was so much here to digest that i feel i must reread to able to really add anything, if anything. I couldn't understand the "strong woman" reference and what it had to do with the conversation via blog comments or even the post itself. Perhaps this just came from your take on things. Like you referenced i didn't witness any of the fingerpointing here, but some effort to understand...i'm much too old for fingerpointing and i've have been in relationships, and at least one marriage for 20+ years, so smh...i really don't understand that, but i'm so over it now. BTW my post was completely personal, dealt only with my experiences in relationships.