RAP IS SOMETHING YOU DO...

...AND HIP HOP IS SOMETHING YOU LIVE

I do wish I was more clear in what I have been trying to say about the culture change from a hierarchy to where women are in roles of power and how I can envision a time in the not so distant future where we have a woman president and there are women CEO's in charge of large multinational corporations. This was always inevitable, and with Obama's presidency, I think it looms like a tidal wave over a small island.

Going back to the civil rights movement and the sweeping changes of the Equal Rights Amendment, the group that benefitted from those laws and policies the most were white women. That is just a fact and I do think that was a portend of things to come. The reason that the people who the changes were ostensibly meant to help the most, African Americans, have not benefitted more from them is that as a group, they have not taken advantage of the opportunities that legislation opened up and provided for a discriminated group (yeah, I think I may have opened up a can of worms... markonit@aol.com is the address and if you wanna REALLY get squirrely, I will call you and we can talk over the phone!!). So I have always had a quiet laugh whenever I see brainwashed white women upset about civil rights and what not, because so much of the EEO helps them out, were they to take advantage EEO's rules.

Now the use of 'white' is hopefully to provide context. I think that women in general, have slipped in under the radar and are simply 'doing work'. Unlike other groups, women, save for the sufferage movement in the early part of last century and then again with ERA in the 70's have simply gone about their business and 'done work'. I think that is due to the entrenched white male power structure that exists and women, simply do their work with the tools in hand, much like the unamed cat in the Kipling poem. Women have since the dawn of time worked with what they had and dealt with the system, no matter how unfair it was, and thrived.

BUT THIS IS THE STYLE, YO...(a link just in case you want to 'hear' the difference between 'Hip Hop and Rap')

Women have been patient for their opportunity to be given a full share of influnece at the seat of power ever since goofy ol' Adam fell for the sucker move and ate the apple. Wiley, in one of his longer Sunday comics, ran a weekly segment explaining an alternate interpretation of the Garden of Eden scene, with Adam being an infantile simpleton and Eve being curiously cunning... and of course it was an exaggeration, but like with stereotypes, there is a grain of truth to them.

I think, with my limited means, that men have benefitted from a society that valued what did not demand as much thinking as it once did. Now that intelligence, communication and understand means more, men are finding themselves ill-equipped to deal with the evoluntionary changes. Not only that, it stretches across all class and economic lines. Could be a slow burn of those who are not willing to adapt and Charles Darwin has pretty much proven what happens to those who can not cope with changes in their environment.

BASING MY APPROACH ON MY EXPERIENCE AND OBSERVATION

Not only was I hoping to have been more patient as I learned about myself and began to build the infrastructure to my life, but also on the 'inevitability' of a woman's rise in society. I had estimated that by the time I would have graduated college and started my career, that the women I date would at least be intellectually my equal and have the same earning potential as I had hoped to have.

In the African American social diaspora the concern is that few 'combine invitees' (as in the NFL scouting combine where potential top picks are tested and measured and judged for their league prospects) are being swept up by non-black women and leaving the scraps for them and even then, there is always the fear that a freaky 'She Devil' can swoop in with their blond hair or oriental submissiveness or whatever worry that a sister could have, because they were not about to be ANY of those things if that was what 'Mr. Man' was looking for(which contradicted, in my mind, the purpose of their worrying) in his woman. Hell, that is a WHOLE 'nother thread, so getting back on point...

While I am not discriminatory, I think I have a limited appeal to women outside of my ethnic group. Simply one of those things and I work with what I have. The non-black total of people I have been with represent less than 3 percent of my total (and even where someone to make guess at 'my number', I would never acknowledge a correct answer) and very few times have I ever 'felt' someone that was not black. Que sera...

A major factor in what made Tee Jay stick in my heart so was what she said early in our dating, before we became a couple. I have never held back much about me and since I was seeing more of my girls, between going to Carolina to see KT and hosting Lexxie from Georgia as well as hanging out with Skye, whoever was going to be a part of my life would simply have to deal... and not only with that... I gave as honest an accounting of my history as well. Thatk, I filed under 'pretty is as pretty does', but that I was not trying to be that any longer.

NEXT: WHAT AM I TRYING TO BE!!

WELCOME TO MARK'S MINDHOUSE

BUT FATE SEEMS TO PULL ME BACK IN

Many times I find myself drawn to a certain topic and I will start it off here and not finish the discussion, because I do use this as the same kind of journal that you hide underneath your mattress or lock and stuff in a closet. To me, that means that I am getting thoughts worked through my mind and once I have done that, the goal is to not recirculate the thought(s) any more.

One of the reasons that certain subjects get the 'air time' that they do owe to my being still 'here', still in Detroit. I am not good with being 'connected' with people however indirectly, that did me harm and did not wish me well in my life. So, admitting to a smidgen of bitterness, I find that some topics come back around for discussion in my mind.

Now the article that I have been referencing in the Atlantic (sorry, can't find the link for the 'End of Men' story) hit me in the mental breadbasket. Not that it 'hurt' but because it caught my attention and once again reminded me of an area that I knew I had to work on, but neglected.

THE FEMININE MYSTIQUE

I have never read the book in its entirety and prolly am no more familiar with the work of Betty Friedan than I am with the work of Tom Brady. As a steady observer of her writing and television appearances from afar, I think that she is where the first seed of the power of women was planted in my mind.

Sexism, as understood by a child, was an awareness of why people ostracize other groups of people is out of a lack of understanding and fear. Women, for example, are seen as this incredibly mysterious and unfathomably complex creature, while men are simpletons. But if that is how it is, the why is it that men are supposedly the superior sex??

Like with most prejudices, it is the fear aspect that captured my attention the most. Men hated the feminity that biologically is a part of everyone. Not that you have to celebrate it, but the emotions that are associated with the feminine that occur in men, will get a cat beat into a pulp but the 'brute' that identify the masculine in men.

Well, after I started to wonder about that, I begin to think about this: in nature, the least impactful participant in the actual reproduction is the male. Spritz, and that is it. For however long it takes, it is between the female and creation, the men are not even invited in the birth. That made me think that the roles are all wrong and it was made so by design.

HONESTLY, I WAS READY TO LET THIS DROP

And move back into the things that concern me directly, like why certain people can't show me any 'Facebook love' but want me to hump for them (I got my measurements for the tux I am wearing in November... it is WHITE!! What the --! You SO don't want me to go there on that!!) but at the Subway today, I saw something that struck me as so out of order that it put this thread of thought back into my stream of consciousness.

There were two teenage girls and a boy in line ahead of me. The conversation they had with each other wasn't explict or anything. It just was not one I even could have IMAGINED at that age. See, the girls had money and the boy did not. But they could 'buy him' some cookies and he would walk with them.

It seemed to me that they walked around together with the upshot of one of them buying him some food. Then one of the girls left and the one still in the shop and the boy had a conversation that in short, spoke to his motivation for being in their company and what really was glaring was the econmics of the situation.

The girls had money. The boy did not. I could have never imagined a conversation like the ones they had in my youth. I could not imagine going somewhere with a woman and not being ready to at least cover my share and having it understood prior to going out, that it was 'dutch' (which is a reality in itself a result of the empowerment of women in the workplace) before we left for the date.

Thinking back to the Erin-Michelle conversation I used in a recent post, I was going to say that the dynamic is slower to change on the low end of the class scale, where it is still hoped for that the male would not only be the primary wage earner, but that like the 'traditional' roles in a family, the female would be the caregiver and handle the domestic function of a household (and as ill prepared as men are, women nowadays SAY that is what they want but how MANY are ready for the task? I have a particular bone to pick with women who have that ideal). The resentment and bitterness of the broken dream that were first visited upon the Mother, resurfaces in the daughter, who does not alter her demand and expectation of primary wage earning husband. But that does not mesh with the economic realities and the growing power of women in society.

Using Erin and Michelle to contrast how Mookie Dee and her unrealistic hopes, is that in the former, the new social contract is understood. They accept that as driven, highly motivated women, that in piecing together a workable future that there is an understanding that their best shot at attaining certain goals may be with a 'beta' male. In lower socio-econmic classes, still labouring with outdated ideals about what a marriage is about, women still long for that 'Fred Flintstone/Ralph Kramden husband. A little on the doltish side, essentially harmless and whose simplicity is limited to his comprehension of how to do his job and not tripping up too badly when following his wifes' instruction.

ARE WOMEN THE DOMINANT SEX?

The main reason that women lag behind men in certain fields has more to do with social conditioning than any lack of innate ability. Going back to 'fearing what you don't understand', it isn't that women don't understand men as it is that men cannot comprehend women. Since men have controlled how culture is intergrated into practical applications, I wonder if that is the reason that women don't fear men on levels outside of physical, and even there, compete with a tenacity that outstrips males?

I am starting to wind down with the obtuse part of my observation and will be moving into a 'theory and practice' implementation, or should I have said 'what was to have been a hoped for' launch in my own life. Maybe there are some things about me that are clearer and maybe there are things that only make a reader shake their head. But I will start tightening up and personalizing things shortly.

Eventually. Might do some short stories or something in between time and in the mean time, to keep my mind light and agile. Later toots!

MORE TALKING POINTS

I'D SUGGEST YOU WOULD READ THE ARTICLE...


... but it acknowledges so much of what by now we already know about the dynamics between men and women and how they have changed, it borders on redundant. My own personal flaggelation nonwithstanding, the frustration of my gender is where I am going with and by default, the exasperation at many of women as well.


As a young man in my adolescence, I would talk with my fellow nerdlings about getting dates and what would it be like to get married. One cat, the Yalie who is now married and the father of two beautiful girls out in Novi, would PMS about it the most. Me? I never worried about not being able to get a date at 13... my eye was always on 18,19, and beyond. I always figured that the herd of guys would have 'thinned' and because the trend of more girls going to college did not start yesterday, I figured they would need someone to date! While I went to the service first (and man, that is a 'boots on the ground' conversation, lest you want the SFC to happen to peek in and read an entry just when I'm talking about THAT stuff!!), the numbers did not change and if anything, the pendulum swung even further in that more girls are on campus than boys. In fact, the July/August issue of the Atlantic with 'The End of Men' on the cover mentions how in the elite and exclusive colleges for the well to do actually have policies to admit more males (which is supposedly under EEO investigation) and create a balance of men and women on campus.


But the canary in the social coal mine is being played out most obviously in the single-mother helmed households of the lower class and the shockingly divorced middle class. The resiliency of women really are in sharp contrast to their male equivalents, who are finding that they lack the skills to compete for the well paying jobs that once defined them as a breadwinner and financial provider for a family. Not only are the jobs disappearing, men are not competing for the jobs that are emerging in the new economy, many that women have not been allowed to fill but are now the leading candidates for these positions.


Stereotypes can work for you and they can work against you. Women who have been characterized as not as intellectual capable of balancing the high demands of pressure filled jobs and being able to delegate and find a consensus to accomplishing goals, find that their skill set actually translates into success when applied at achieving in academics and in the workplace. Men, on the other hand, are finding that their stereotype of being dreaming adventurers, work against them when it is time to focus in on 'what they want to be'. To illustrate the latter part of that statement, I am going to take from the article a conversation between two sorors, Erin and Michelle. A third woman, Victoria, is a biology major who is going to be a surgeon. She is putting of having a family, aware that her career early on will be spent 'working 100 hours a week', and she expects that as she is being a hot shot surgeon, her partner will be 'at home playing with the kiddies'. Michelle, a self-described 'perfectionist' and psychology major also has her life mapped out. But in discussing her unnamed fiancee with Erin, you can see where the spectre of potential trouble looms.


Michelle: He's changed majors, like, 16 times. Last week he wanted to be a dentist. This week it's environmental science.

Erin: Did he switch again this week? When you guys have kids, he'll definitely stay home. Seriously, what does he want to do?

Michelle: It depends on the day of the week. Remember last year? It was bio. It really is a joke. But it's not. It's funny, but it's not. - excerpted verbatim from 'The Atlantic Magazine


THE CANARY


I put that story about what happens at society's 'mid-level exemption' (the young women mentioned attend UMKC) as an example of what does NOT happen in many low mid-to lower class homes for a variety of reasons. Some of it is due to the 'wiring', the socialization that created the differences between men and women that were perhaps necessary in a pre-technology world. Perhaps when men could earn wages that allowed them to support a family doing drone work, the differences were not as great between the genders as they are now.


Yet in the scuffling low-mid and lower classes, women have know for years, if not generations, that they have to find a way to care and provide for their home, husband or no. African-Americans have long given lip service to the African-American woman as being the 'backbone of our people'. But now that they are achieve in spite of the hardships they have been left with and raising daughters that are determined not to allow the same pitfalls of the Mother to be repeated, a couple or three things are happening.

Gender differences aside, brothers are simply not competitive. They were not when I was in junior high and they are even less so now. How many generations of African American men are going to cry 'it's 'the Man' ' and 'white privilege' keeping someone from finding a decent job, when the answer in my view always goes back to one of my favourite troupes that I use DEFINITELY applies here. You wanted a better life, to be able to earn more money and take care of a family? Then you 'should have done better in high school'... junior high and elementary while you are at it. The Public School system has its troubles, but I still think that sending in unprepared, undernourished and undisciplined children to school is where the breakdowns begin. But that is another subject that would take me away from where I am going (or think that I am, at least).

And I think that I am going to unravel for you (cause I already know, but I am going go over it because of where I am going) the 'original sin' that I think that I committed in my life and why it is relevant once again.

THE END OF MEN??

Redman was another cat whose rhymes and styles I was slow to warm to and even today, think he is overrated. But this particular song was gold for me trompin' around the Greater Greensboro area in the mid 90's! When Redman goes, " I don't have a car but I have a pair of Reebok's... they get me where I'm goin' until my damn feet stops!", I had to be with the brother for this song!

In fact the flavor of his entire flow would have me juiced! And just like Reggie Noble, I am still feelin' kind of so-so...

... but that is not this entry. Almost, but not quite.

IN THE JULY/AUGUST ISSUE OF THE ATLANTIC

A little background first. I have not made a big deal about my lack of connection to other people of color in the blogosphere, but I am aware of it. One of the few readers of color called me to task about saying some harsh things about African-Americans recently, particularly since 'my audience' as it were, tends to be more White.

Eh, I have no real response to that. Some of it is 'dirty laundry' and the only thing I would worry about is that someone took away the impression that I was in some sort of denial about my self-loathing or whatever. If they do, then I have done all I can, but now, I can't do nothin' for you, man!!

One of the things that does really make me angry with myself, is that I have 'fallen off the table' so to speak, of being economically viable as a partner. There were plenty of 'left turns I should have taken', but oh well. One of the things that has been a constant refrain cried out in the African American community has been for our young men to take initiative and to see themselves as more than the next LeBron/Jay-Z and to be more interested in academics. For whatever reason, there is no appeal in walking that path and after reading the article, I no longer think that it is one simply of culture, but sex.

See, I have always thought that now that white folks can rap, dance and play basketball (Eminem, Justin Timberlake, Dirk Nowitski), our days were numbered. Judging by the incarceration and recidivsim rates, it is difficult to argue that point. But there is another elephant in the room that never really gets talked about but is happening whether or not we are conscioulsy aware of it.

It is not an 'ethinic' problem that is keeping a brother down but a GENDER problem that is making all men fall into an 'at risk' category.

As society has changed, the things that were traditionally male and part of the benefit of hierarchy, has shifted. The article makes a point of talking about how once it became possible to choose the sex of the child that gets fertilized, it was feared that it would come at the expense of girls for boys. The reality is that more parents want little girls, because it is easier to envision Princess moving into society and benefitting more than it is Prince. In fact, the book 'The Bachelors' Ball' explains how the once powerful position of the man has come to actually work against the men in a French village, and is in many ways connected to the fail of men everywhere. The traits of being a man no longer benefits men and those once unique qualities women are eager and able to posess and add to the array of talents and skills.

Women are dual threats, whether it is due to a misconception of biological imparetative or maybe a misunderstanding of roles (maybe it IS meant for 'Amazonia' to come to pass?), it is not simply about an ethnic group being held down as much as it is a gender making itself obsolete.

I am sure that I mentioned that I have never considered myself 'a player' as much as I saw myself as a beneficiary of a number's game. My 20's were mostly spent not being in jail, unemployed, without vision, and without potential. Not only that, most of my goals were very realistic and I was going about fulfilling them. As to what happened, that is my personal gordian know of issues and some of them have already been spilled out, so sorry about it, no review is forthcoming. But what this meant was that I was moving into a different atmosphere when it came to dating. There were just fewer brothers around than there were sisters and for an African-American woman who wanted a partner that they could dream with, the field was as watered down as the college football bowl participants, with mediocre 6-6 and 7-5 teams going to bowl games, getting the chance to say that they have had a 'great season'. Bowl games at one time meant that you really DID have a great season and it was a reward. With the discrepancy between men and women getting BA's and PHD's, with women recieving their degrees at rates higher than men, a quote from the article about 'men being the new ball and chain', is a trend that is going to continue.

Computer engieer and janitor? I think that those were the only two fields of employment in the top 15 that were surveyed that more men work in than women? Not only that but the jobs that have opening and room for advancement, child care, nursing, and education, men not only traditionally shy away from, even in this job climate, continue to shun these fields. And I think that this is part of the reason that women now outnumber men in the American workforce.

Growing up, I thought that 'girl power' was only a matter of time. I think that the reason men have wars and go to such lengths to aquire power and money is to impress Cleopatra. Otherwise, we are too easily distract to focus on much else and that is a truism that has given us the ADD, because society is quick to find a compensation for males to occupy a place in society. Things that affect females are of secondary interest. I think that is going to change, eventually. As soon as things anti-women role models like Michelle Bachman and Sarah Palin fade away.

There are more talking points from this article but I am not of a mind to think much more about them right now. Either I am PMS'ing or I am winding through the Rocky Mountains blindfolded. Or something. This is feeling is not good.