I Pledge Allegiance...

So Sexual

One of the most interesting and subverted side notes of this presidential election process has been the interplay of race and gender. As a male who defines himself as a man, there is a certain gender bias and privilege that I must be actively aware of as I write this particular entry. A friend of mine, one of her friends and I were having a conversation on the yard under the Caribbean Tree as is par for the course between or after classes. One of the points the friend of the friend raised was the myth of the Howard Man and how he, for all intents and purposes, does not actually exist. Immediately taking offense, I rushed to defense of all Howard men but honestly more so myself. In this conversation, which in the end came out as a wash via my crafty political maneuvering around the topic via statistical loopholes and social theories and general relativism, I began to really ask myself, “Am I man? And if so, what makes me that?”

Most people often begin and end this discussion, or at least in the dozens of derivations I’ve heard, by claiming that a man is made a man by his ability to take care of his responsibilities and duties. And that’s great. But does that imply that women are not thusly obligated to do the same and that they are free to flitter about and do whatever they please “becuz the man is handling things. **crotch grab and scratch**” I believe that the ability to take care of one’s responsibilities and to be dutiful in such is a right of personhood and is not and legitimately cannot be assigned by gender. Having stated that, the next logical question, and in my opinion the most relevant to how we obtain these gender biases in the first place, is which responsibility falls to which gender? If we are looking to physiology for an answer, then the only differences are chromosomes, hormone proportion, predisposition to higher muscle density, and reproductive organs.

If men and women looked the same as they do now but reproductive processes were reversed. Would you still be able to call yourself a man? Would your manhood still exist? The answer is no because manhood and womanhood are predicated on maleness and femaleness respectively. The burden of our differences are vastly outweighed by our similarities; but the schism comes from the emphasis that we put on those differences. Here is where I believe that in a lot of situations, race comes into play. Race is a faux-unifying camouflage of gender issues. A man is simply a male person as a woman is simply a female person. Our personhood is hinges on our ability to claim it and to maximize the gifts that we have individually been given through responsibility, maturity and vision.

Women often decry the sexism that is pervasive throughout American culture without looking at their own role in it. Women advantage themselves off of double standards and then complain about how stifling they are. It is hard to complain about a system which has in many ways advantaged you. Like Black folks who complain about racism yet live off the culture of racism. I am not stating that racism and sexism don't exist but they are obstacles to be moved past not platforms to be propped up.

Victimhood should, at best, be a temporary state not a lifestyle. While, I, as a man, am privileged to be able to say this because of my manhood, my maleness, that doesn't diminish the veracity. Often when we establish a "pro-something" agenda, we automatically feel as though we have to be "anti-somethingelse" which isn't true most times. We have to be careful to not grow complacent with the social roles that have been handed to us via gender, race, sexual preference, disability, or any other thing we can't control.

Political Culture

As a “Black” man, “Colored” man, “Negro” man, “Nigger” man, “African-American” man, ”Afro-American” man, etc., my main form of political reference is the Civil Rights movement/Black Power Struggle, upon which I will now draw. If we were to merely look at the hierarchy of “Black” institutions and organizations put forth at that they time, they were pretty much across the board devoid of women across the board; yet, the platforms they put forth sought rights for all “Black” people, male and female. “Black” women have all too often been made to choose between their sex and the race. This election most notably presented three, really four different actual or potential firsts- currently oldest president, first “Black” president, and first female vice president and formerly first female president (it’s still in play if McCain dies or leaves office).

Many of my “Black” female friends were torn between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, and given their closeness on policy, mainly along the lines of race and gender loyalties and which one trumped the other, if at all, in making this decision. Interestingly, it seemed to be about split, with the slight edge to Obama among my friends. And if we take this small sample size as a microcosm of the dilemma that millions more Black women were faced with at the polls because they are the ones that truly keep the Black vote viable. According to the NY Times, “Black” women make up approximately two-thirds of the Black electorate and are expected to come out strong this year in the South especially. With the dimpled chad of Sarah Palin still dancing in women’s heads as the only one of them left alive, it seems as though “Black” women have firmly pushed through onto the Obama ticket; but, is it without some remorse for the inefficiency of Hillary or the idiocy of Sarah, I don’t think so.

If you are wondering why I have chosen to put all the denotations of race in quotation marks, it is simply because of the pervasive question which clouds my judgment and I think that of most of the world. That is the question of allegiance. Are you a man or woman who happens to be Black or are you a Black who happens to be a man or a woman? When forced to choose between that which benefits the artificial constructs of pigmented unity and the socio-political ramifications of that which has been genetically predetermined, where will we turn? Each of these debates has asked the candidates to do, what we the voters have long sense been asked to do since the outset of the presidential race- prioritize.

In Nas’ song Black President, he articulates just that in saying, “But on a positive side, I think Obama provides Hope - and challenges minds. Of all races and colors to erase the hate. And try and love one another.” Due to the military and economic catastrophes we are now living through, the bigoted electorate is forced to look outside of traditional racial values and really evaluate which president is best suited to get them out of the shithole that we are all currently mired in. An election that for many, not too long ago, would have been all too easy to decide has become muddled by exigent circumstances. Prejudice is a luxury afforded by domestic and international socio-economic security, which is what made slavery so powerful. Symbolically, Obama’s candidacy is monumental- a man who by the very Constitution he could be sworn in under would not have been able to achieve that post de jure (by law) a few hundred years because he was simply not a man and probably a decade ago de facto (by virtue of fact).

The War in Iraq, which many pundits thought at the beginning would be the undoing of Obama and the rise of McCain, has ceased to be a main issue and has become a side note of additional spending in the eroding American economy. This fact seems to be setting the stage for an Obama victory. Obama’s popularity with the young and urban has branched itself out into across the board national support because of his economic intelligence and strategy, which the media also constantly emphasizes and certifies, tacitly lending its support for Obama. If there’s one thing that the national electorate should learn particularly from this election, is that we set the political table for our representative hopefuls and that if we don’t clearly put forward the issues that matter most to us, they will most assuredly play only to their base and the special interests with the deepest coffers.

Ohh, and I would be remiss if I didn’t mention all of this Obama paraphernalia. I know you support the guy; but, we are dangerously close to trivializing the man by making him more of a fashion and racial statement than a political and social statement. If you’re going to go out and be an Obama supporter and wear all the damn Obama gear, please…PLEASE…be familiar with the man’s policy agenda. It takes me back to high school when everyone was wearing the Che Guevara shirts and had no clue who the man was. Don’t support Obama just because he is Black; don’t shut off to McCain because he is White. Vote for the best candidate! That’s it.

Final Thoughts

But, I have digressed. The key to this entire discussion is priority or allegiance. Generically, we all have the same basic needs, wants, and social agendas but it’s the priority and emphasis given to them which divides parties, groups, countries, genders, races, nationalities, ethnicities, religions and people. If we fall too far to the right or to the left politically, we ignore utilitarian policy. If we overinvest ourselves in our manhood or womanhood, we miss our personhood by trying to create internal reflection of external values which we may or may not ever achieve. An interesting aside here, is sexual preference, if a man is sexually and romantically interested in another man, he has socially divorced his manhood in the eyes of society, because “somebody’s got to be the woman.” If a woman behaves in a manner that is more than what society deems is acceptably masculine, she is automatically a lesbian without any regard to her actual preference. And if she is found to be a lesbian, “she just wanna have a dick man.”

Humans create their own social death by daring to be unashamedly who they feel they are naturally. We preach respect while we constantly disrespect others. We work our way up the established social ladder on the backs of those “who were too slow to get to the top” and “are just jealous of us” yet when we are outpaced by another up-and-comer we immediately claim victimhood, contempt and disgust as we are bumped down another rung by the same process that put us in the position we are in. That to me sounds like a social structure predicated on self-hatred and denial. The trailblazers are simply that- those who blazed their own trail instead of seeking the beaten path that will only lead you were you have been conditioned to think you ought to be. Society is changed only by those who stand up in full affirmation of the self and really impact the system in their own self-evincing way. Change cannot come from the sidelines- and that’s a status quo you can BELIEVE in!!!!