The Disposable Black Male: How Black Female Idealization Is Breaking the Next Generation of Boys

What's good people? Welcome back to the Onyx Report. Black masculine news for the day. Hope everybody's well.

Y'all know the deal. Like, share, subscribe, join, donate, hit the like button, support the show so we can continue to bring you this independent black male thought. Today, I wanted to have a conversation about leadership, gendered leadership, and the discussion around it. And in as much as I'm talking about its impact on black boys, I'm not actually going to be talking about black boys. I'm actually going to be talking more about the leadership. The de facto impact on black boys is, um, I'm saying it's already evident and it will continue to get worse as long as we characterize boys and men in the way I'm about to describe to you.

Now, in regard to leadership, years ago here at Fresno State, I created an organization for black males called the Onyx Network, I believe, was, um, I'm blanking on the, uh, other aspects of the title cuz it is, you know, it's been a very long day. Um, anyway, I think, no, it was the Onyx Black Male Collective. My, my bad. So when I created this, one of the things we started to do over the years is we started to delve into how black men could effectively, effectively communicate. And even though I didn't plan it, it ended up happening in a very interesting way, right? Because they had the BSU and then they had the Onyx Black Male Collective. Now, the black male members of Onyx were members of the BSU as well. And what they started to talk about was what we've been seeing in society as a whole. They started to talk about feminization. And they started to talk about how more and more female students were starting to enter the BSU over the years. And their numbers were dropping, not only in the organization, but as students at Fresno State. There have always been more female students than male, which is the case, uh, in higher education for black folk in general, unless you're at an all-male school, you know.

So that said, they started to talk about women taking over leadership positions. And for the most part, they had had them the whole time those young men were there anyway. But what they noticed is that in those meetings, nothing ever got done. Everything was a discussion. Everything was a back and forth. Everything was about how people felt. And when it came to voting, everything came down to unanimous decisions. Anything voted upon had to be unanimous or they kept discussing it. Now, I've seen this, uh, amongst professionals as well. I've seen this, uh, on a statewide level with the, uh, Cal State University faculty union. I went to a couple of their conferences and what I noticed was they were overwhelmingly run by women and the decision-making was very similar to what these young men were describing in the predominantly female Black Student Union. And that was everything, you know, really came down to empathy, feelings, unanimous decision-making, and endless discussion that resulted in very little action.

What these young men used to come to the Onyx meetings complaining about was that very thing. And so I started to show them how effective they could be just engaging in, um, what we might call masculine leadership styles. And I'll go into more detail on that in a minute. Decision-making logic, logical arguments, debate, but not debate for the sake of conflict. Not debate that would elevate into something beyond a mere debate, debate and turn into something potentially, uh, violent, but debate on the point based on the decision we're trying to make. Setting goals, setting priorities, setting plans together, strategically moving through steps toward a goal.

Now, I bring this up because one of the things these young men started to tell me was that after a couple of months, they were elated at how quickly and well organized they got. And the one time I let them really test it out, they were, they, I, I forget what they were trying to put together, but they had a 10-minute meeting where they broke down 25 things that needed to be done, who needed to do it, when they needed to do it by, and how it needed to be reported. They had a 10-minute meeting, came in, and I was sitting in there. I, I didn't say a word. I just watched them handle it. And the next meeting we had, I called them together and I pointed out how effective it was, how productive it was, especially compared to other organizations that they were a part of that could not function that way. And so one of the things I shared with them is that this is a, a, a tactic and a, a style of operating that you can use, uh, in, you know, in professional spaces if need be, but at the end of the day, I just wanted you to know you could do it. And they were elated at this. They got to be extremely productive without a whole lot of meeting, right?

And this is one of the reasons that this subject kind of fell into my lap and I've been contemplating it back and forth because I actually saw, uh, a clip that kind of dealt with this question but dealt with it from an angle that I'm not necessarily, uh, in agreement with in its totality, but the spirit of it has some accuracy that, uh, needs to be kind of dealt with. So, uh, why don't I show that to you?

So, this is Adam Corolla. Um, if I'm not mistaken, uh, comedian, um, but he's also been labeled a misogynist and whatnot. And some of the things he says in this are a little crude, you know, or whatnot. But he says something that I think is important. Uh, he points out some of the things that, uh, my young men observed in their own organization. Check it out.

>> Uh, gyno fascism. >> I figured you'd make that look. It's something I've been thinking about a lot over the last like 20 years. Like we need more women in positions of power. We need more women making the calls and calling the shots. We need a woman president. We need a woman prime minister. We need more feminine presence like everywhere. And and LA is like mostly women, uh, city council. We have a female mayor. And we don't get anything done. And I started to really think about like what there's a difference between the male brain and the female brain. And the male brain wants to do stuff like go, go, go. Like if you want to know the difference between the male brain and the female brain, Karen Bass and Donald Trump got together three days after the fires and Donald Trump was like, "Let's get going. Move. Clean up those lots. Let's get building." And she was like, "Slow it down. Slow it down." She is a process person. And women are more likely to be process people. They talk. They want to talk it out. They want to work. They want to have a meeting and they want to break off and have another meeting and then put together a blue ribbon panel. And so in LA, we have a homeless problem. And the homeless problem keeps getting worse every year. But we keep having more conversations and more panels and more groups, but it's mostly women and nothing ever gets enacted. And we are heading toward a society that used to be men, men, men, testosterone, testosterone. And by the way, I'm not making this up. There's you're going to see more articles and stuff coming out that the feminine mind is different. And the feminine mind is also satiated by actually discussing the thing. So if we're sitting here and you know, you're going, we should take this and move this wall and do a thing. The feminine mind actually feels like we did something. Whereas the male mind is like we haven't done anything. We just keep talking about this thing that we're not doing. And it's frustrating versus satiate. So the feminization is causing a huge shift in our culture. We just got crushed by COVID, especially in Los Angeles, because we had a female health director. And by the way, men can be stricken with this. Gavin Newsom's a, and Eric Garcetti, our, our former mayor. Justin Trudeau thinks like a chick. You can tell. Watch them cross their legs. Watch Obama and Trudeau and Newsom when they cross their legs. It's a full chick. And and they're signaling. They're presenting. They're going, I, I have chick. So it's a thing. It's happening. It's going to happen and it will up our society because if something like COVID comes around, their plan is nobody leaves their house, shut all the schools. I'm done here. That's not how do we work? How do we deal with the danger? Dealing with the danger is shut is shut down. Barbara Ferrer, the health whatever crazy witch who ran this town. Her plan was just shut it down. Uh, Michelle Winsky, CDC, just no, no, nothing. Just, just shut it all down. And by the way, lie if you have to to keep it shut down. So there is a gynofascism that's sort of coming and it was a lot of years of like, well, if we just had women in charge, we wouldn't have wars. We wouldn't have crime. We'd have a better society. People would, no, it is not. Los Angeles is basically run by women and it's run to the ground. And there's a problem. There's going to continue to be a problem. And we'll see it growing. You'll see more articles on it. There'll be more tests on it. And it'll be less, oh, Adam is just spouting off cuz he's a misogynist. No, it's a mindset. It's a female mindset, a male mindset, and it's skewing toward the female, and our society is going to suck. >> So, there was a lady who wrote a viral article about this called Helen Andrew. I take it you read it. >> I did because everyone sent it to me because I went, "This is what you've been saying for 20 years, and we're here. We're going here." And you go, "Oh, Adam, you're such a douche." You know, nail-knuckled dragon misogynist. No, women are writing articles on this. There is a difference between men and women. And there's a balance, and it's a good balance. It's a husband and a wife and a child in a home. When you skew it too far the other direction, the feminine direction, there's going to be consequences. That's going to be our future. >>

All right. So, in that, you kind of heard how he broke that down. A little crude. Uh, there's some name-calling in there. You know, it's not really my get down, but his fundamental point is what I was saying that me and my students kind of experienced a number of years ago, right? The difference between the, you know, getting things done and this process approach. But what you'll find when you actually start to look at the research behind, uh, leadership styles as in regard to gender is very interesting. Now, this comes from the Oxford, uh, Oxfordreview.com, asked the question, does gender make a difference in terms of leadership? A new study, and this is a 2020 study. Uh, basically, it's a review of current research by researchers from the, uh, Schulich School of Business at York University in Canada, Department of Management at the University of Central Florida, looked at whether gender makes a difference in terms of leadership. Primary findings, as can be expected, the relationship between gender and leadership is a complex one and requires the consideration of a wide range of factors. Firstly, the review found that there are four primary leadership outcomes which need to be considered when looking at the impact of any factor, including gender, on leadership. And the four are basically, uh, leadership leader emergence, which refers to the extent to which an individual tends to be seen as being leader-like. That's number one. Number two is leader effectiveness. Measuring and understanding overall leadership effectiveness includes a range of measures, and then they go into performance, number of other factors, right? Number three, group performance, productivity measured by a range of factors including goal achievement, financial performance, etc. And number four, group longevity and survival, right? Which refers to how long a leader's team or organization remains viable, relevant, and competitive.

Now, let me skip down and we'll get to the conclusions, right? The impact of gender on leadership outcomes. The researchers found that across all research, there was no significant difference between the genders in terms of leadership effectiveness on any measure, right? Whilst the research is largely in agreement that there is no significant difference between genders and their use and capability with leadership behaviors, studies have found that particularly in stressful situations, female leaders are significantly more likely to use a democratic style of leadership. Male leaders are significantly more likely to use a more autocratic leadership style, right? And they point out the, you know, sexism involved with people seeing women as leaders, right? Um, but here's where I think it gets interesting. It says there are two primary reasons why women are significantly less likely to emerge as a leader, particularly in terms of putting themselves forward for leadership positions. Number one, risk tolerance. There's good evidence to show that female leaders tend to be more cautious than their male counterparts in displaying leadership behaviors and decision-making. Also, female leaders hold less accurate and often more negative views of how others perceive their leadership behaviors compared to their male counterparts. Uh, translation, you know, women have to be more cautious because men are and don't really care what people think about them and they have to be more conscious of their position because of the legacy of sexism, right? Number two, anticipated negative consequences. It has been found that female leaders tend to worry about negative reactions, backlash to their decisions and leadership behaviors more than men and tend to engage in significantly fewer self-promotion behaviors than men, right? However, it has been found that women tend to be rated more highly than men on social leadership. And in situations that require high levels of interpersonal skill, here women tend to be rated, women, uh, tend to be rated as better leaders.

Now, this is, this is a very small, innocuous study, but the reason I'm, I read this to you is I wanted to point out to you a couple of things. When you start to delve into this question of leadership differences in regard to gender, some of the things you, you, you start to find, right, is that the way it's characterized, they'll tell you that ultimately, uh, there are stereotypical differences between men's and women's leadership styles. And then they'll fundamentally tell you that there are really no differences when you water it down. And then beyond that, they'll either, um, tell you that in, in some form or fashion, right, men are autocratic, men are hierarchical, men are conflict-oriented. This is basically a subtle compliment to women, right? De facto compliment to women by criticizing men. And then somewhere in the framework, they'll suggest that not only are women oppressed due to the legacy of sexism, but they're better. They're, they tend to be more empathic and thus are better leaders. This is the, this, this kind of tone of multiple studies that I looked across when it came to this question of gendered leadership. And it's, there's, there's a kind of pattern, right? So again, the pattern is that there are stereotypical differences, but really when you get into the weeds, men and women are the same, except that men are, you know, basically knuckle-dragging misogynists who want to control and come out of this legacy of dominance and patriarchy. And women are these ethereal creatures that are inherently better leaders because they're more empa, empathetic and and they're concerned about everybody's well-being. And thus, you know, they're better leaders. This is what you'll find a lot of the time. And if they mention men at all, they'll never, they're rarely complimentary of men's leadership styles. Rarely, and this is mainly when you start to talk about, uh, studies that are written mostly by feminists, women, you know, uh, or feminist men for that matter in the era of feminization.

Now, one of the qualities of feminization that I would add to Helen Andrews as she breaks down the idea and how impactful it's been in certain fields is that feminization, and actually she did kind of talk about this, feminization is very concerned about protecting women from criticism, right? Promoting a culture of advancing women, suggesting that women are inherently better and protecting them from criticism. This is what a lot of these studies do when comparing men's and women's leadership styles. They try to break down the, what they consider the stereotypical differences between men and men, men and women. They suggest that they don't really exist, but women are still better, you know? This is the idea. And I find it problematic, but it is what they tend to do, right? It's how they tend to function. So that's the trend. And over the last 30 years, you know, we can see that despite the differences in the leadership styles that many of us actually experience on the ground, those differences are often minimized and basically made almost irrelevant. You know, everybody's everybody. Everybody can do everything. There are no real differences. And it sounds reflective of the discussions they've been having about gender and sexuality for the last 30 years as well. There really are no differences. We just need to let go of these categories. But under the table, women are better, you know? That's kind of how they kind of do things, right? And there's very little criticism.

So, even the, this is one of the reasons that the Adam Corolla piece that I played for you, uh, is not coming from a PhD. It's not coming from somebody who's trained in, in a specific field. It's coming from a comedian who's who's also considered very controversial because you're not allowed to criticize women's gendered leadership styles from any professional stance, right? This is why it comes from this, this other space. But I think, and this is the reason I did today's video. The reason that this is an issue is it adversely affects men and boys. Because as long as we have this kind of feminized idea about female superiority, especially in the context of leadership, we are, we are still telling boys and men, and especially for this conversation, boys, that they are ineffective, they're incapable, and not worthy of contributing to society in any kind of capacity, especially in regard to leadership. This is a transformation, a societal transformation where they're literally replacing boys who will be men with girls who will be women. And they've been doing this for years. I mean, hell, when I was in school in elementary school, I remember that's when I started to really see, and I think it really started in the 1970s, but this shift toward emphasizing women and girls and to the point where even when we saw boys failing and dropping out in extremely high numbers across race, there was no plan on shifting any of this paradigm to actually account for those boys' well-being. And there still isn't, by and large. But a lot of it comes back to refusing to actually criticize women.

So, we're going to talk about three examples of how women's leadership in some form or capacity is a problem and can be a problem. In other words, it's not to say that women inherently are a problem when it comes to being leaders, but it is to say that there's not very much discussion about when women are a problem in leadership. And that's part of the issue. Not only have we told boys that they're irrelevant, we don't talk about when women are a problem, which downplays the idea that they can be, and effectively, that they're human, right? So, the examples of negative qualities of female leadership are often downplayed. They're ignored. They're seldom theorized about. It's generally only men's leadership that's criticized. And and and that criticism extends not only to their leadership, but to men as a whole, you know, it's, it's considered a faulty characteristic of all men, whereas women's leadership issues are individualized and downplayed as if, and ignored altogether, right? But we have to be able to talk about when they are a problem because that, that fundamentally, you know, ties us into the conversation on how human beings actually function on gendered terms.

So, this was a, a post you can find, uh, and this is something that Pinkbook Lessons, this is someone that Pinkbook Lessons talks about a great deal. This is Coach Stormy Wellington, and she, she's known to be some kind of millionaire creator. She's always selling to particularly black women the idea that they can be millionaires and whatnot. And so recently she was placed on probation for 20 years following FTC allegations for making false financial claims of creating millionaires. And I wouldn't, I wouldn't deign to suggest I know more about Stormy Wellington than Pinkbook Lessons. So, and I think she just did something on her like a week or two ago. So I would highly recommend you go to Pinkbook Lessons and look up her. And she's had, she's got several videos over the last year or two dealing with Stormy Wellington. So, she's more in the know, right? But basically, this is a form of fraud. And this, this woman has been selling this fraud for years, but we accept it, or people accept it because she projects the image of a woman who's successful and is a leader and so on and so forth. So downplaying the actual reality of fraud behavior, right, has been a problem and people have not wanted to acknowledge it, right?

Here's another. So this is coming out of the California Post. This is, uh, let's see, dated May 14th, 2026. It's entitled, "Female Prison Warden Charged with Raping Inmate in Men's Lockup." And I'll show you the picture right there. I get this. I hate these little screens. That's her. Yeah, that's her. So, uh, let me read a little bit about this. All right. It says, "A female prison warden has been charged with raping an inmate. Hold up. Inside a men's jail. Janisha Rucker, 28, was nabbed at her home Monday by a Tennessee fugitive apprehension team over the alleged, uh, sexual assault first reported in February. Um, says cops received a tip-off on February 9th that she allegedly raped an inmate at the men's jail in downtown Memphis. Rucker resigned from her role as a corrections deputy, which she had since, uh, November 2023, before being indicted on rape, misconduct, and forgery charges. She faces up to 30 years in prison if convicted, right? Says Shelby County Sheriff Floyd Bonner Jr. said his office would not tolerate the misconduct of any employee and will continue to hold our employees accountable to the highest ethical standards to ensure our public's trust. Rucker is being held in the city's female prison on a $100,000 bond." Well, you guys let me know. Did you hear this? Did you hear about this, right? This is a woman in a leadership position working in a prison, right? And I'm not saying that this is, uh, you know, something that's not discussed at all. I mean, we've been talking about female prison guards and whatnot for years. The data shows they could be just as capable of assault and abuse and exploitation as anybody else. But I will say on the national mainstream stage, there's very little discussion about this. Very little. Very little articulation about it. And there's very little reflection on whether or not this is an, this is a reflection on women as a whole. You don't really get that. When women do something wrong, it's downplayed as an individual thing. And if that, it's often swept under the rug and ignored. Sometimes their names don't even show up. Sometimes their pictures don't even show up in the news. When it's a man, it's reflective of men as a category. And black men in particular have suffered from this because much of the time they'll be talking about white men historically. And in the black community, we'll see that those kind of characteristics are applied to black men. So, I'll give you an example. I used to have these, you know, discussions with the elder women in my family, and we'd be talking about sexism and whatnot, and they would always bring up the example of how they, you know, as women were never allowed to own credit cards or or buy property as women. And I would have to point out to them that the same applied to black men. And the policies that were created to give women the right to do that also applied to black men because we couldn't either. But they took what was happening with white women and white men and applied it to black men. And the ire and the rage at black men was reflective of white women's concerns and frustrations at white men, right?

Here's the last one. Now, this is, um, this is a testimony of sorts dealing with a young man who was actually being raised, I think, by a foster mother. And the foster mother, you know, obviously in a position of authority, abused that authority in the most egregious way possible. Check this out.

>> The that really made me coldhearted was this lady named Adah Munford. She, um, she used to abuse me, beat me like crazy, and she killed my foster brother. She chopped him up and put him in the freezer. Her name, Adah Munford. Adah Munford. She chopped him up and put him in the freezer, but she calls the police and tells the police he never came home. So we ride around in the cop car. I know he never went to school. She's telling them he never came home, as if he left. You feel me? So we ride around for hours, hours looking for somebody that I already know dead in the freezer. >> How old were you when this happened? >> Three. It's 3 years old. All right. There you go.

How many of y'all saw that and had it discussed again? You see it came out in the newspaper at some point. This man is talking about it in the media, you know, in social media in particular. But has there been a national conversation about this? Are there, are there think pieces that are examining womanhood or black womanhood in regard to this? No. Right? Just like we saw in the last few months with the Justin Fairfaxes and whatnot, when it's something a man does, particularly a black man, it's a reflection on black men. When it's something a woman does, it's a reflection of that individual woman and it's still swept under the table and ignored, right?

So this issue of leadership to me, this, this idea of gendered leadership and more importantly, the discourse around it, as as insincere as it is and reflecting any kind of realism, is problematic because of its long-term impact on boys and men, right? By depicting women as essentially perfect, it directly and indirectly lets boys and men know that they are inherently less capable, insufficient, and toxic. This socializes the next few generations of men into believing they are incapable of making contributions to society worthy of acknowledgment. Overall, this dramatically downplays and damages society's potential by preemptively disposing of boys, future men, and their potentialities, right? We have to shift this culture where the men themselves have to join the conversations with fervor. They have to join the conversations and demand to be heard and demand to be treated equitably. And we have to do this in particular for our boys, black boys in particular, because they're told that they have no future and they have no contribution worthy of acknowledgment. And they need to step out the way, right, for women and girls, most particularly women, uh, to lead the way. But we're not going to discuss what women actually do on the ground. Sometimes that's not going to be part of the discourse. It's just going to be what men do. And I think this is a problem and it needs to be challenged.

So, I'm curious to know anything you guys have experienced along these lines, any reflections you have on women's leaderships, gendered leadership styles, and I'm hoping you'll give me examples from things you've actually experienced. But also if this conversation where this disingenuous conversation about when women make mistakes or do things intentionally that are problematic and doesn't get talked about, and the inverse when it comes to men. Curious to hear if you have any of those experiences. Other than that, I'll holl at y'all later. Peace.