Transcription
What's good people? Welcome back to the Onyx Report. Black masculine news for the day. Hope everybody's well.
Like, share, subscribe, join, donate, hit the like button, support the show so we can continue to bring you this independent blackmail thought. Also, somebody reported in the comments section that YouTube was not allowing them to hit the hype button. So, let me know when that kind of thing happens. Um, and I uh, you know, appreciate the support across the board. So, yeah, thank you.
All right. So, today wanted to have a little conversation about um uh black men's uh sexual vulnerability and vulnerability across the board really um and how black men uh been forced to deal with that, right? Um but we're going to start with the sexual vulnerability for reasons you'll see in a second. And I want to first shout out Angry Man, uh, Valdez, who I haven't, uh, I haven't run into in a minute, but, uh, I've been, you know, checking his channel out for years. A good brother. So, check this out.
You know what? Now that I think about it, when it comes to the movie Baby Boy, the fact that y'all were focused on Jod not having a job and slapping Evet more than the fact that Evet was 25, Jod was 20, and their son was five is diabolical. You know what?
>> Real talk.
>> Now that I >> Real talk, appreciate that, Valdez. Valdez is hitting exactly on something that piqued my interest very recently and that's not only black male sexual vulnerability in the real world, but the extent to which we've been it's been normalized that uh they be sexually violated that their their their sexual vulnerability is up for grabs and um it's just part for the course for most of us. This is just day-to-day reality, right?
Even when you look at Tommy Curry's work um you know writing about black male sexual vulnerability in the piece with Ebony Utley entitled she touched me. One of the things he talks about in that is that black males have the youngest uh sexual debut, right? Uh in in in course language, they lose their virginity at the youngest ages, somewhere around 10, if I'm not mistaken, and often to older girls and grown women, often friends of the family. And and in the black community, this is seen as kind of a right of passage. So, it's not considered a violation.
Now, let's be clear. 40-year-old man and a 13-year-old girl or a 10 year old girl for that matter is not seen as a right of passage. That's seen as a violation. But if a 30 or 40 50 year old woman decides that she wants to violate a young boy, it's acceptable in too many contexts. Now, it's not acceptable to the parents in the equation, especially the mothers. That's the only time you hear outrage. Short of that, as far as the culture is concerned, it's acceptable. And it's easy to see why when you can actually tell not only in the culture but in the media how acceptable it is. How many of us have watched Baby Boy over the years and ever thought twice about the age of the characters, right? That's an interesting component. Not the age of the actors, which can be deceptive, but the age of the characters and what those messages convey.
You know, if you watch Juice, you saw a similar equation, right? We saw a young um black male character who's the lead have a side girlfriend who's a nurse who was much older than she and nobody raised these questions. I mean, even as a teenager, I was probably the same age as the main character when the film came out. You know, I thought it was cool. You got an older woman. She had her own place even though he lives with his parents and is still in high school. I thought it was all kinds of interesting, but I never considered the the sexual ramifications of that. And I also never considered the gender ones, right? How would a movie like this uh be perceived if you had a 16, 17 year old girl going to her 30-year-old boyfriend's house on a regular a regular basis to have sex? How many would how many would take that, you know, take that seriously? How many would appreciate that? That'd be seen as a violation across the board. There's no way they'd let a movie like that come out. Not in the 80s, not in the '9s, and not now, but it's acceptable as long as we allow that to take place, right? So, you know, those are the kind of things that that kind of catch my imagination. And he's not uh his observation is not the only one. Uh let's check out another way we've been desensitized to this.
>> The two of you had a baby when you were 16 and you were 30. How does a 30-year-old get interested in a 15year-old?
>> Not purposely, but it happened.
>> I've had a lot of 15year-old boys through my I have a lot of sons. They weren't interesting at 15. What did you find interesting about him?
>> He was very mature. He was educated and he was really funny.
>> When you say he was educated, wasn't he still in high school?
>> He was.
>> He was. But >> tell me how much of this defense would work for a man trying to describe why he's dealing with an underage girl.
>> He could keep a good conversation. It wasn't like >> talking to a little kid where you can't stay focused.
>> How long were you with him before you discovered his age?
>> Maybe a few months.
>> Did you lie to her about your age?
>> No, I didn't.
>> You didn't?
>> No, I didn't. I never lied about my age. Never have.
>> Did you ever had conversations about what he did in life and all this kind of stuff? I mean, didn't algebra come up?
>> No, ma'am. And we didn't have a discussion about ages.
>> But did you have a discussion about life? Like what a 15-year-old does on a daily is go from one class to another, goes home to mom, gets fussed at cuz his room isn't clean. What did you talk about?
>> We talked about mostly me cuz I was on a rebound from a bad relationship. And so we talked about that.
>> Most of you know me and I've never shied away from confront.
>> All right. All right. So, this is the kind of thing that bothers me about this, right? It's funny. Everybody in court is laughing. You know, she makes herself out to be a victim. I had a bad breakup. You know, it was I I was I was I was confused. He never said his age. You know, all these kinds of excuses, but you know, damn well none of this would be acceptable if it was a a man who had violated a girl. Nobody would be laughing. It wouldn't be a joke. You know, even the whole conversation about the age and and whether or not she lied. There are documented cases where girls who looked like young women falsified ID, lied about their ages, and there is no pity for a man who was with a young woman. Even if he thought he checked her age, he's going to jail. That is what it is. They expect for you to figure this [ __ ] out. But when it comes to conversations about grown women and young men, it's a joke. It's something to be laughed at, something to not be taken seriously, and I take issue with that. But this is what's considered acceptable.
So, let me see here. Uh, let me transition. So, let's check this out. So, here you have the case of a young man who's experienced a violation that we are focusing on trying to get taken seriously. This is coming from Fox 2 Detroit. Layers of absolute awful conduct, sexual abuse allegations from Wayne County juvenile jail spark suit. Right. And let's go to it.
So, this is the male information uh male grape information sheet. Uh contrasting dominant stereotypes, right? Uh and the and much of this was documented in terms of the Bureau of Justice Statistics, uh Time.com, all of this is documented material about um you know, as it pertains to male grape, right? So, as of 1998, there were 2.78 million men in the US that had been considered victims of sexual assault or grape. Right? From 1930 to 2012, the FB FBI defined forcible rape for data collection purposes as the carnal knowledge of a female forcibly and against her will. Eventually, localities began to rebel against that limited gender-bound definition. In 2010, Chicago reported 86,767 cases of grape, but used its own broader definition, so the FBI left out the Chicago statistics. Finally, in 2012, the FBI revised its definition and focused on penetration with no mention of female or force. Right? Although helpful, this definition still ignores made to penetrate situations for males. You'll see later.
So, the point here is prior to 2012, the FBI defined rape by the violation of a woman or a violation of a female, I should say, because this happens across age. So, she doesn't necessarily have to be grown for that to happen. Hence the term female, right? So if it's if the very concept of rape is defined by the violation of a female, then when it comes to male vulnerability, it's obvious there'll be no place for it in the by by definition, right? Once they shifted the definition to focus on penetration or violation without mention of female, the numbers exploded because there were all kinds of undocumented cases that had no formal classification. Right? So then you get points like this. Now there's this particular sheet I do have online and if you're interested in that I can put the link in the the the description box so let me know. There's about 11 points technically about 12 on this but you know on screen you can only see about six. Um but you know I'll just read the the six. You know a recent analysis of Bureau of Justice Statistics data for example turned up that 46% of male victims reported a female perpetrator. Right. One out of uh every four black men and black women have experienced great physical violence and stalking by an intimate partner in the lifetime by 2010. In a survey by Stimple and Meyer, women are more likely to be abused by fellow female inmates and men by guards. And many of those guards were female. Right? But here's the one I wanted to bring up in relation to this uh article I'm about to go through with you. For example, a juveniles reporting staff sexual misconduct, right? of juveniles reporting staff sexual misconduct, 89% were boys reporting abuse by a female staff member. In total, inmates reported an astronomical 900,000 incidents of sexual abuse. Now, when have you last heard that this is these these are black juvenile uh young men and boys. 900,000 incidents of sexual abuse, many of which by female staff members. Right.
So, it's interesting to see this article even though this this particular uh sheet is documenting some uh you know materials from back in 2010 going back even to the 1990s. This article here is dated May 18th, 2026. Right? So, it says a civil rights lawsuit was filed against Wayne County and the Michigan Health Department after a teenager was sexually assaulted by a staff member of a juvenile detention center 2 years ago. While the staff member has since been convicted of sexual assault, family of the 16-year-old victim are demanding accountability from what they see as a larger failure by the county and state. The backstory. Rashard Calhoun was sexually assaulted by a former staff member while staying at the William Dickerson Juvenile Detention Center in 2024. That staffer was convicted by a jury trial and remains incarcerated. A federal lawsuit was filed on Monday against current and former jail staff, supervisors, administrators, as well as Wayne County and the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services. The defendant in this case, Svetana Kiranova, uh left Calhoun traumatized by the incident, right? Um what they're saying, Rashard Calhoun declined to talk about the case while at the press conference. However, his dad spoke up about the feeling he had not been able to help his son. I couldn't be there for my son. It hurt real bad. I don't wish that on nobody. Nobody called me. Nobody told me anything, said Jared Calhoun. I deal with a lot with my son cuz he went through a lot. He was also hospitalized. It's a lot going through with him. You know, uh lawyers who spoke at Monday's gathering included attorney Joseph, who cares? Um that's important to know. There are cameras, closed circuit TVs that captured over 40 minutes of inappropriate conduct being done by and to Rashard by his defendant, by this defendant, Courier Nova, and it was uh being watched by other detention officers. Not only was the assault occurring, but no one was protecting the child. Right. Bernstein equated the case to an absolute failure of the system. There are so many layers of absolute awful conduct in this case and it's going to require this type of lawsuit to address that because we're now politicians or I guess that means we're not politicians. We're not regulators. We're not licensing agents, said Bernstein. We're lawyers representing this family to try and make a difference and send a message that this is absolutely unacceptable. Right. the other side. Both the county and MDHHS declined to comment on the pending litigation only to release a statement. We understand that a press conference was held today at the Bernstein Law Firm regarding their client's complaint. The county has not been served with any such lawsuit and thus is unable to comment on any pending litigation. So there you go.
So this is the case we're talking about here. So whether it's in fiction, whether it's on uh TV or in uh juvenile detention centers, the vulnerability, the sexual vulner vulnerability of young black boys and men is up for grabs, right? And one might ask, how do we grapple with that? You know, what do black men do about this kind of vulnerability that's largely ignored by the larger society and by the black community for that matter?
Well, check this out. But with a lot of black men, they'll come into the office and they'll say something like, "Yeah, I I had this problem. I was feeling really down. Um, I just isolated myself for a little bit. Put my head down and just got to work." It's like, "Okay, well, who did you tell about your problems?" Nah, nobody. Well, why didn't you tell anybody about your problems? I didn't want to be a burden. And then we we'll continue and we'll just keep reframing those thoughts so I can get an idea of what he means by being a burden. And it kind of distills down into this idea that I don't want to have to depend on anybody for anything because if I do, then I somehow less than a man. And that doesn't work with a lot of black men. The the the problem I have with that is I think it's a go-to, you know, kind of dismissive way of putting it back on black men. And it's not so much that I disagree with this individual person. It's that I've heard that excuse for years. People are comfortable with putting the onus back on black men, not in a constructive, healthy way, but in a dismissive way where we don't actually have to pay attention to what's going on with them because they basically do it to themselves. And I take issue with that.
Much of the time you have people who don't have somebody they believe they can trust with their vulnerability, especially when it's ignored in the family, in the community, and in the society as it relates to black men. We also don't have enough, you know, so I'll get to that in a minute, but you know, I think that's a critical part of this dynamic. Now, some of us have, you know, friends that we're real tight with and we can share that kind of information with, but there are many that don't have anyone to share it with. It's not just a matter of, you know, being around all these people who love you and just not saying anything. It's often a matter of either not having people or having people that you've already discovered do not have the capacity to be trustworthy with your vulnerability. Especially if you have people who will who will weaponize your vulnerability and another moment and you only have to learn that lesson once to withdraw from sharing such information. And I don't care if it's a girlfriend, a wife, a mother, a sister, you know, um or your boys who may, you know, laugh at you if you have the wrong kind of friends, um you know, over something that you really need help with. These kinds of moments, right, where weaponizing someone's vulnerability can have a critical impact on black men. And many of them can go into the cave and isolate and do it themselves. I know I've done it plenty of times and I know the kind of brothers that listen to my show can tell you story after story about grinding it out. And although that's, you know, not always a negative thing to do, it is one method that men go to. It is what it is. You know, it can be unhealthy, but it also can be strengthening. And some black men find strength in uh solving their own problems. Now, I am the first to say that it's great if you have resources and use those resources if they're available and you trust them. But let's not pretend like black men men have a a large number of allies out there. Many don't and don't trust the people around us to solve those kinds of problems.
So, in regard to this question, so you guys know uh the the title of the show is conditioned to endure, why black men ignore their own vulnerability. Well, one of the ways, one of the reasons that you have black men that will trod ahead regardless, walk on broken legs as it were in regard to their own vulnerability is because one, many of us are not familiar with or used to having trustworthy support. When you've been objectified as a resource, almost a pack mule for others, nobody's asking you how you are. They're asking you about what you do for them and to what extent you're going to continue to do so. When you've been objectified in that way, there's not a lot of resource there for you to lean on when you need it. So, those relationships aren't always trustworthy. Also, there are many instances, and I've seen this with uh thousands of brothers who've commented on this on my show, um that nobody even bothered to ask how they were, you know, and the stronger the brother in question, the fewer ask how he's doing. When people are used to you being the center point, being the the the control factor, the one that steps in when things go ary, the one that solves problems for other people, nobody asks if you're okay cuz they're used to you appearing okay. And when you actually need help, there are a lot of people that don't even know how to read the signs of what it looks like for you to need help. It doesn't cross their mind. And I've had multiple stories over the years where I've seen that where I've in in my own family, in my own relationships, when when you are strong enough to be a resource for others and you quietly take that pain and march with it, move forward. Y'all know I just did my show on John Henryism. So, this is something that black men are known for. This is documented, right? It can be it can be something that that doesn't cross people's mind when it comes to asking if you're okay and serving as a resource for you. Right?
Also, now here's another piece. When you start to talk about media and what I was referring to earlier is the normalization of black male vulnerability in media, one of the reasons that that takes place is that we're not considered a profitable demographic. You know, you know, healing in regard to black men doesn't generate revenue. Black male dysfunction generates revenue, especially when black males are witnessed to, you know, in media, especially in fiction and drama, uh, uh, victimizing other people, right? this this sets up other people's stories and that's what generates revenue especially when you're talking about women cuz again women are the uh the primary demographic to consume more media and to purchase more goods through consuming media that said media is going to cater to them. That's really the bottom line especially across race and in the black community you know black women. So, it's not going to be black male healing that's going to generate revenue. It's going to be black women enduring un, you know, undue pain from black men, surviving it and healing from it through sisterhood. How many stories have we seen where that same narrative plays out, right? Mister who beats a woman, she goes and finds her power, especially in in in relation to the other sisters, the sisterhood. They hold hands. They generate a power like the, you know, like uh like the Carebears or some [ __ ] And and and he has to be done away with. His redemption and healing is irrelevant. It's he's only relevant to the extent that he brings pain to someone else to set up the story of her redemption and healing. That's, you know, so that said, you're going to have, uh, you know, many black men who are not going to be able to find resources in media that support in a healthy manner their growth and their and their development cuz it's not financially, it's not fiscally useful for that to be the case. So, we often don't see it. This is why when I read in my last show, all of the negative portrayals of black men as fathers in media, TV, and film, that's the reason there there are so many of them. Right? Cuz black men being positive, being constructive, being useful, being supportive, and being supported and healing is not it doesn't excite profit margins. Right.
Another reason that black men are taught to uh or socialized to ignore their own vulnerability is um you know the way we're also depicted is that we're you know hyper incarcerated, we're hyperviolent, we're hypersexual, we're drug identified, you know, we're dysfunctional these portrayals in and of themselves. So, you know, I just mentioned how it's not profitable for us to be seen in a positive light, but we need to double down on the fact that it is profitable for us to play out certain stereotypes that both white society and black women have of black men. And I call them stereotypes because we can also point to positive examples that usually don't get pointed out. And we can point to negative examples of black women that don't get pointed out either in popular media.
Now the next one deals with uh the with politics, right? Why we don't seek our own uh why don't we we why do we how have we been socialized to ignore our own vulnerability. When you look at it through uh through a political lens, we've only been considered useful at key moments, right? During the civil rights movement, so on and so forth, when we were politically useful, we had attention. The moment we weren't, we were invisible. And one and one argument you could say since the civil rights movement, you know, black men have been considered irrelevant in politics. If anything, we saw the rise of of the left's attention and focus on black women. We only became useful to the extent that we werele reflection of black women's political interest. And many of us were not prepared for black women to articulate an agenda separate from us. So when black women said something was pro black, we often supported the idea completely unprepared until the last five or 6 years for how separate black men and women are politically. And many still don't, especially your political insiders, they still consider us one, you know, one demographic, the black community. Uh and and we aren't. We're moving in separate in separate directions politically. But this is what's been happening. This is why the last national election was such a big deal. Even though for black men who voted, the majority voted in line with what many black women said they needed to do. But there were many who decided to vote for the couch and this caused a problem. And then there were some who voted for Trump and this caused a problem. But the reason the numbers are growing in terms of black male political disinterest, you know, particularly with the Democratic party is because the party has not entertained black men's interest. They assumed that by dealing with black women that that was enough. And I would say that dealing with black women is very superficial. I don't think it was anything substantive. It's more symbolic than anything. But even that is something that many black women are happy about. But symbolically or structurally, black men's interests have been ignored. And I think that's another reason that black men have been trained to ignore their own vulnerability. They haven't seen their interests or themselves reflected in the political reality. Yes, there are black male politicians, but how many black political interests are being addressed? Black male political interests, very few. What what lived reality for black men has substantively changed in a manner that would excite them to participate politically? And I support that. I think if anything, a certain timely and strategic withdrawal might actually prove a point that you need to take black male votes seriously and not under the umbrella of black women's political interests. Not under the umbrella that the black community has one agenda. It no longer does, if it ever did. There's always been a separation by class. There's no question about that. But we often underestimated gender and sexual orientation and so on and so forth. And I make the argument that heterosexual black males who are not elite have been ignored, downplayed even with, you know, uh, symbolic representation in terms of particular candidates. When you can ask black men in whether you're talking about black men who are elected officials or black men who are not. When you can ask either what what a list of 10 black male political interests are and they can't answer you specific to black males, not just general ideas. That speaks to a problem. Hell, five. Can you name five? Right.
The last thing I'll say as far as ignoring our own uh being trained to ignore our own sexual vulnerability or vulnerability at all is that, you know, I think for many black men, there's a lack of trust as it relates to therapist. And I've said this before. I think if anything, therapy is becoming the the the new um litmus test for whether or not you're a good quote unquote gyocentric black man. I think being gyocentric is the measure. And I think it's become the, you know, the transformational space where you're supposed to undergo this process of becoming more um attentive to women's interests, worldviews, so on and so forth. So you have black men who are avoiding it because they're seeing it for what it is. And you have too few non- gyocentric therapists who can actually talk to black men without browbeating them uh into um emulating women who actually take manhood seriously enough to regard it as not something inherently toxic or problematic, especially in regard to black manhood. and talk to black men on real grounds rather than talking to them as um you know um somebody that needs to learn how to operate like women to be socially acceptable. So I think we actually learn to uh dismiss our own vulnerability. We learn to ignore it the way society does when you don't actually have therapists on the ground who take it seriously and acknowledge your humanity.
So that's just a few of the things, right? No one bothered to ask, right? They're not seen. They're not prioritized by media because they generate no revenue. They're limited by stereotypes, right? They're politically ignored unless there's specific moments where they're of interest, right? There's too few uh uh non- gyocentric therapists in regard to that. And if anything, the whole I don't want to be a burden makes that much more sense when you think about all those dimensions to it. So be it sexual vulnerability or vulnerability altogether, whether it's, you know, young boys, whether it's juvenile uh teenage men or uh teenage young men or grown men, there's a reason for black male withdrawal. And contrary to popular opinion, it's not just because these men um are, you know, ignorant, incapable, whatever else you want to call it. It's not because of those reasons at all. These are this is a learned survivalbased behavioral response to being considered invisible in society, irrelevant until needed, and then quickly dismissed when not needed anymore.
But as usual, I want to hear your thoughts. I want to hear your experiences. I want you to let me know what you have experienced in this regard, what you've seen, and talk to me about it. I hope everybody's well. Holl at y'all later. Peace.