Transcription
What's good, y'all? Welcome back to the Onyx Report. Black masculinist 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 blackmail thought.
Now, before we get into it, there's something I used to do on my live shows that, um, I've always done at random. I'll continue to do at random, and I refer to it as #sacredblackmasculine. And the sacred black masculine are just examples of black men doing what black men have always done, despite how we're characterized. And we're going to talk a little bit about that right now. So, let's go ahead and check this out.
This is from, uh, KCTV Live, um, kctv5.com. "Teen suffers third-degree burns while saving family from housefire." I'm going to play this short clip. They don't interview the young man, but it's still informative. Check it out.
>> Is coming together right now in Topeka to help raise money for a student athlete at Highland Park High School who was injured earlier this month following a fire that left him seriously injured. 13's Dea Gear caught up with a woman behind the fundraiser that aims to lessen the financial burden for this teen's family. David Jervon King is 15 years old. He remains in the hospital where he's being treated for third-degree burns. The evening of April 16th changed the life of 15-year-old Jirevon King and his family.
>> It's just an accident at the house, you know, like he was just doing his normal life. And he actually had played a game earlier that evening.
>> A pot containing oil caught fire in the kitchen. His mother says she and her daughters were asleep when Jirevon noticed the house filling with smoke. He sprang into action, grabbing the burning pot in an attempt to put out the fire, but he slipped in the process.
>> Got 25% burns on the right side of his body on his bicep, forearm, um, all the way from his hip down to his toes. So, he's got some significant third-degree burns. Jirevon has undergone multiple surgeries. While he recovers in the hospital, the Highland Park community has come together to raise money for the teen's medical expenses.
>> As a parent group, we call it the Mom Squad for baseball, 'cause that's the current season that they're in. Um, said, "Hey, like, we have to do something for this, this family." Um, his mom is, I think, 30 weeks pregnant. So, she's in that, and then, you know, having to allocate her time to being at the hospital with him, that's, that's a huge impact on a family.
>> Nikki's son, Joshua, plays football with Davon. He says the news has devastated him and other players from the school's baseball and football teams.
>> It really resonates with these kids. You don't think that they're paying attention or, you know, that they're, um, seeing what's going on around them, but when they go, "Gosh, that could have been me." Um, that's impactful.
Nikki is thankful for the community's support.
>> His outlook on things is always very positive, and his catchphrase is, "The comeback is always stronger than the setback." So, we're just, we just keep pushing that out and keep pushing it out to his teammates that, like, "You're playing for him right now," and, and they've been, they've been holding down the fort for him.
If you would like to donate to Jirevon's recovery, we'll have a link to do so on this story at wibbw.com. We wish him all the best.
All right, shout out to the good brother, you know, did some beautiful work there. Um, and again, something that black men are usually not acknowledged for, whether young or old, but, uh, this is an example of the sacred black masculine, the kind of protective, sacrificial things that men have always done to very little, uh, fanfare. So, shout out to the young brother.
Now, getting on to the subject itself. One of the things that I wanted to talk about was, was twofold. We're going to get into how the gynocracy kind of functions, and now what we're seeing black men's response to that, um, what it seems to be, uh, coming to, right? I'm going to articulate that. So, I'm going to give you three examples of how the gynocracy functions and just, you know, in terms of of what it's doing now. Three examples are very separate, very random, very different, um, but in at least two of them, uh, you can see one of them, most particularly, the misuse of feminist ideology, or at least, I guess I should say, the actual use of feminist ideology. That might be a better way to put it. Because at the end of the day, when I talk about the gynocracy, I'm talking not only about black feminism and those who adhere to that philosophy, that ideology, right? I, I'm also talking about gyocentrism, and multiple groups fall in line with that. So, you know, it tends to not only be, uh, stated black feminists, but also black feminists who are LGBT, uh, and that sometimes often includes gay men of the time who have, um, specifically the, the segment of gay men that have a severe issue with, uh, black men, black heterosexual men in particular. So, we're going to look at a couple of random examples of gynocratic thinking, of, and, and, and the kind of exploitive, hostile, uh, even dehumanizing methods used to frame and talk about black men. Here we go.
All right. Come on. Wake up. Ladies and gentlemen, it has now come to the time that we have a conversation. I have been saying for years on this show that black men need to have a conversation. Black men alone. We have got to figure out what is going on with us. This is now. That's about the most I can say I agree with him about. But I don't think my method would go where he wants it to go. But I do fully agree that black men have to have a conversation amongst themselves and make some decisions. And I'm going to point out some examples where we're doing just that. But again, not along the lines he wants. All right, here we go.
It's >> not something that black women can help us with. This conversation does not include black women. Black women stand down and stand to the side. Black men need to have a kumbaya amongst their self. And I'mma niche this out a little more. And it's heterosexual black men. I'm going catch a lot of flack for this, but I'm going to say it out loud with my whole chest. Straight black men are the cancer of the black community. That's where it starts and that's where it stops. Ladies, I'm here to tell y'all something. All this [ __ ] that y'all got going on, some of y'all, not all of y'all, with the gays and with the trans, let it go. Your issue is not a trans woman. Yo,
>> Now, what he's responding to is there have been ruptures. There have been ruptures since, especially since the 1970s and '80s, but in the last decade, they've, uh, kind of come back up again. Ruptures between heterosexual black women, LGBTs, so on. And, and most particularly, we saw this, uh, after the rise of BLM, and those ruptures have caused, uh, divisiveness amongst them as a group. So, he's trying to use this moment of, of rampant hostility toward heterosexual black men to repair the rupture, right? By, by demonstrating his worship of black women and, uh, black feminist ideology.
>> Issue is not a punk or not a [ __ ]. Your issue is all of our issue. Straight black men. Straight black men are the enemy to the gays. Straight black men are the enemy to the trans. Straight black men are who are causing harm to the girls and the women. That's where it's at. Now, y'all can shoot the messenger. Y'all can call me all type of
>> Notice the messenger uses no data. You ever notice that? They don't point to any studies. They don't point to any data. Definitely not anything that might actually be called under scrutiny. This is just all emotional rhetoric designed to ramp people up and, uh, you know, further engender hostility. So, here we go.
>> for [ __ ] on the Shade Room and all the other blog sites that's going to pick this up, and I'll eat it. But you'll never see a situation where girls and women walking around saying they scared of the gay boys. They scared of their life for the gay boys. They don't want to be around the gay boys. It ain't us going around with these fragile ass egos. Can't take rejection. We've got to ask ourselves, and I don't even know if the black straight male collective can even answer this question because their egos tend to be so fragile. How is it we are raising boys with these fragile ass egos that feel it is okay to slam girls on their head for saying no? Why is
>> No, this is, this is, uh, dog whistling. Dog whistle right here. This is not anyway. Um, nobody's going to stand up and advocate for slamming girls on their head. That's stupid. Nobody's arguing for that. But to the extent that you've seen young men engage in that behavior, has anybody checked the rates of intimate partner violence? Has anybody checked the, those we've, I've talked about this at length in previous shows, and, and, you know, the research has shown this for the last 10 to 15 years, if not longer. Well, actually, going back to the 1970s, depending on when you want to start the conversation. But, you know, in the black community, abuse is bidirectional. This is not a one-way thing. But the feminist idea of abuse is one way. So, as long as they can propagate that stereotype or that myth, then this conversation sounds relevant, more relevant than it is. But once you realize almost the entirety, on almost equal numbers from black men to women and black women to men, the rates of abuse are not equal on a bidirectional level, you understand how much this rhetoric here is problematic and it isn't rooted in anything beyond, um, his own interest.
>> Is it that we have to make the females of the community make all the adjustments? It's not fair. Straight black men are the cancer of the black community. Argue with your mammy.
All right, there you go. High-level intellectualism, right? No data, just emotionalism and, you know, a desire to, you know, stir up frustration and, and get clicks. But I'm just trying to show you some examples of how exactly the gynocracy has been treating and perceiving black men. And none of this is accidental. So, let's check out the next one.
All right, you guys are familiar with Miss, uh, Jada Smith. Jada Pinkett Smith. Let's see what she has to say this time around.
>> My kings out there that have been cheated on by their women, stop making it your fault. Yes, women cheat, too. Now, here's the other thing. Sex is one of the strongest forces in the universe that we have to deal with. This is about self-mastery. It's not even about what's going on in a relationship. This is about self-mastery. Okay? So, if you think just because somebody says they love you, or you think just because they want to be in a relationship with you, that that means that that's going to dissolve all their traumas that they come with. You know what I'm saying? And that they're going to know how to deal with their traumas. Ah, people gonna mess up. So, here's the thing. Make sure you're with someone that is interested in mastering themselves and everything that they come with. And I know that there's a lot of pain that comes with infidelity, but relationships is a spiritual endeavor.
Now, why do I play this one? Well, part of the reason I play this one is to show you an example of when people are playing in your face, right? Nothing she said is actually wrong. What she said was actually right. But this is the woman that did everything she's talking about. She did everything she's talking about to the detriment of her husband's public image. And that's been the case for years. So, she's going to play in your face. She's going to give you life advice, deep wisdom on the nature of people and how they move, while having done everything she's talking about. Loki justifying her own behavior and trying to present herself as wise. This is what you call [ __ ]. But at the same time, if it garners her attention, maybe a few more book sales, maybe a few more clicks, then it's worth it. All at the expense of Will's image. Right. So, we got hostility from gay black men, and we have, um, false wisdom and performance from somebody trying to stay relevant along the lines of, you know, advocating for black women at the same time, uh, and actually treating her celebrity husband like an idiot and really being questionably accountable for her own actions. But she's going to tell you what to do and present it as wisdom.
Let's check the last one. Yo.
>> So, check this video out.
>> What's, what's wrong with you?
>> What are you talking about?
>> What you mean, what I'm talking about? You know what I'm
>> talking about. Why you quit your job?
>> Because I wasn't going to pay bills anymore. I don't want to do any of this anymore.
>> What do you mean by that? What you mean you're not going to pay bills no more?
>> I'm not paying any bills anymore. Like, are you hard of hearing?
>> Wool up. Wool up. Wool up. Just wool up.
>> Like, I'm not doing it anymore.
>> So, you're not going to help me out?
>> Oh,
>> why? BECAUSE THAT'S YOUR JOB. YOU SUPPOSED TO BE PAYING ALL THE BILLS IN THE FIRST PLACE. WHY I GOT TO GO WORK? WHY I GOT TO GET UP AT 8:00?
>> IT'S OUR HOUSE. BUT YOU GOING TO PAY ALL THESE BILLS. I'M NOT DOING IT BY MYSELF.
>> I'm saying. So what's wrong with you working and helping?
>> There's a lot WRONG WITH IT. WHY I GOT TO DO IT? WHY I GOT TO DO IT? YOU SIT UP HERE AND ACT LIKE YOU'RE THE MAN OF THE HOUSE. OKAY, be the man of the house and pay all the bills. I'm not doing it.
>> It's pay by time.
>> I am the man of the house.
>> No, you're not. NO, YOU'RE NOT. NOT FOR SOMEBODY LIKE THAT.
>> NO, I'M THE MAN OF THE house and the man of the house telling you you need to.
Now, understand something. This is what I call selective traditionalism, right? This is where non-traditional women who know that they're non-traditional women will jump up and call you the man of the house when it's convenient. And when is it convenient? When they're actually trying to get out of doing something and trying to manipulate you into taking responsibility for everything. But notice when she says that he's the man of the house, at no point does she say what she's actually going to do on a regular basis to compensate for that, to make up for that. Because the traditional idea was an exchange of resources between men and women. And as much as it was expected that he work more out of the house, she compensated and counterbalanced that by working more in the house. But for the black community, it wasn't quite as stark as that either, because at no point in time did we have the capacity for on a mass level to operate off of one check. So black women have worked since Reconstruction. And black men, being the most progressive men, have contributed in a variety of ways to the household, whether it was the outside lawn, taking out trash, fixing and repairing things, so on and so forth. But in this context, you have a modern woman trying to manipulate the traditional idea to manipulate her man or husband, I don't know what he is, into doing what she wants him to do while she takes on no responsibility at all, while lacing all of that with hostility and disrespect. Here we go. Come on. There we go.
>> Now, I'm not going to go do anything. I'm going continue to do what I'm doing right here on my computer and you go to work.
>> What you doing on you kids? Be a man. Step up and do what you need to do.
>> I always been a man.
>> No, you're not. No, you're not. You know, haven't been late.
>> Always been a man.
>> You sure haven't.
She's actually telling him he's not a man because he's not doing what she wants him to do.
>> Don't ever fall for this right here. This is, this is [ __ ]. This is about as, as manipulative as, uh, the first video with the gay cat. This is all manipulation in an attempt to exploit you for their own purposes. Right. The first video's purposes were a little, uh, more widespread in terms of advocating for feminist ideology. This one is, is, uh, personal in terms of her own, uh, selfishness, but it's still the same manipulation.
>> And lately,
>> SO WHAT YOU BRING THIS CAMERA IN MY FACE TO DO WHAT?
>> WHAT POINT ARE YOU TRYING TO PROVE?
>> TO SHOW PEOPLE HOW SORRY YOU
>> I'M NOT SORRY. What I'm going TO DO IS BE THE LADY IN THE HOUSE AND MAKE SURE THE house is taken care of and you GO OUT AND WORK.
>> HOW COME I DON'T? DIDN'T YOU JUST EAT LAST NIGHT?
>> WHAT THE
>> DIDN'T YOU JUST EAT LAST NIGHT? THE POINT IS,
>> TELL ME WHAT YOU COOK.
>> THE POINT IS, I'M NOT GOING TO GO AND WORK FOR NOBODY ANYMORE. NOW YOU CAN GO WORK AT YOUR LITTLE WAREHOUSE JOB AND BRING BACK THAT MONEY SO WE CAN PAY THESE BILLS.
>> Cooking rotail ain't no, bro.
>> What you TALKING ABOUT? WE NOT EVEN TALKING ABOUT ME COOKING. WHAT WE TALKING ABOUT IS YOU GOING TO WORK SO YOU CAN COME BACK HOME AND MAKE SURE THAT WE GOOD.
>> NO, what we talking about is you need to go get a job so you can
>> No, I'M NOT GOING TO GO do anything. I'm not about to do anything. If you not satisfied,
>> we need to help make sure each OTHER GOOD. SO LIKE
>> NO, I'M GOOD. I'M GOOD. YOU NEED TO MAKE SURE THAT THIS WHOLE HOUSE IS
>> YOU GOOD?
>> YEAH, I'm good.
>> How you good if you just QUIT YOUR JOB?
>> BECAUSE YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT I GOT TO PUT UP. BUT AT THE END OF THE DAY, LIKE I SAID, I'M NOT PAYING BILLS.
>> OH, SO THAT'S WHAT WE DOING.
>> LIKE I SAID, I'M NOT PAYING ANYTHING ELSE.
>> And you, and you GOING TO BE RESPONSIBLE FOR EVERYTHING ELSE. I'M TIRED OF PAYING BILLS. SIMPLE AS THAT. SO WHAT YOU WANT TO DO,
>> BRO? THAT little portion you PUT IN ON
>> PORTION THAT LITTLE PORTION.
>> OKAY. SO, MY LITTLE PORTION ABOUT NOTHING CUZ I'M NOT PAYING ANYTHING ELSE.
>> AND THAT'S THE PROBLEM. I'M NOT UNDERSTANDING THAT. I DON'T
>> UNDERSTAND WHY YOU DON'T THINK THAT'S A PROBLEM.
>> IT ISN'T A PROBLEM. I'M YOUR WIFE. I'M YOUR WIFE. SO, WHY DO YOU WANT YOUR WIFE TO GO OUT AND WORK? I'M NOT UNDERSTANDING THAT.
>> PLENTY PEOPLE WISE WORK.
>> OKAY. I'M NOT GOING TO BE ONE OF THEM ANYMORE. SIMPLE.
You know, uh, I heard Marcus say this on Facebook, and I got to give him credit for it. He said when he was talking to women, and he said, "When y'all go to work, you see all kinds of women across race at work." So, let's kill this idea that somehow every group of women get to be stay-at-home wives except for black women. And I think she's invoking some of that idea right here, right? That you're supposed to take care of me. I'm supposed to do this, this, and this is unrealistic, especially in this economy. That makes no sense whatsoever. But she's not trying to make sense. She's trying to advocate for her own selfishness.
>> WAS THAT
>> YOU NEED TO STEP YOUR GAME UP? GO GET YOU ANOTHER JOB. GO GET TWO, THREE, FOUR, FIVE, SIX MORE.
>> Okay, that's where it cuts off. I didn't end it there, but that's a perfect example of how black men can find themselves objectified and treated as walking ATM machines. She didn't discuss this with them beforehand. They didn't strategize this sometimes for months to prepare. There wasn't an idea about what was going to happen if she were to spend time at home. They didn't, there was no mention of children, right? Because the stay-at-home idea was usually pretty much tied to taking care of children, making sure you could raise them along your particular philosophy rather than whomever you could pay to babysit them, right? But she's not talking about children. She's not talking about none of that. She just decided she doesn't want to work anymore because she doesn't feel like paying bills. I argue that this is a form of objectification. This is where black men, and men across race, experience this as well, get treated like ATMs. You're just supposed to, you know, while, but on top of that, while being disrespectful, talking about your little job, you know, you need to go get a second one. You all of that. And I've been hearing this most of my life from black women, not necessarily to me, but just in general, to men, period. I've heard it across class. I've heard it across educational groups. I've heard it from people that got, you know, uh, uh, their high school diplomas all the way to people who, you know, are white-collar, six-figure earners. I've heard this rhetoric back and forth, and it's, it's disingenuous. It's disingenuous.
But here's the thing. One of the things I talked about in my book was the notion of black masculinism. And the way I define that is twofold. I talk about black masculinism, one, as an academic endeavor. It's a conceptual lens that you can use in the academy to study something, right? So, you can look at it from, you can look at a given issue from a, you know, a male perspective, a black male perspective, meaning you invoke that particular historical narrative to bring to bear on how one perceives something or phenomenon. And I talk about this in the book about how that works. So, that's it's an, it's twofold. The first part of it is, is as a conceptual lens in an academic context, and as a generic term for a movement that I've observed developing over the last 10 to 15 years, mostly online, but also in the academy, right, with black male studies, with the black manosphere, and a number of other groups that splintered up and came up in all kinds of varied contexts. They themselves don't define themselves as black masculinists, but I talk about it as such because they are men focusing on men's issues in a variety of contexts. Whether it's in the academy, whether it's in sports, whether it's in, you know, um, back to school or after-school programs, it doesn't matter where it comes up. As long as it's men dealing with men's issues and actually appreciating the humanity of men, starting with black men as human beings, that's the starting point, right? I, I regard those as a variety of overlapping movements. They may, they may not, you know, be in alignment on their specific agendas, but as long as they engage black men from the starting point that black men are human and are not walking stereotypes, while at the same time advocating for improving the quality of life of black men and boys and focusing on black men and boys' issues, that's what I regard as the second definition of black masculinism.
Well, I didn't, I, they're not in any particular order. There's one, not one more valuable than the other, whether it's the conceptual lens or the movements of men, but I just started observing how men began to really move and use social media and began to organize, have dialogue, but not organize along the lines that we've seen other groups do. So, it's very organic, and it's, it's been, you know, really creating itself in two different, in a variety of different contexts. So, I'm going to give you two different examples that I think are actually more similar than they may sound, right? One dealing with this whole Klay Thompson issue, and another dealing with black men more from a macrocosmic perspective, right?
So, the first one, um, and I want to shout out Ed Lover. Um, oh crap, bear with me one second. H, it's always technical issues, as you know, but this was a statement by Ed Lover. Now, Ed Lover, I've been listening to, uh, since the 1980s, right? MTV, Yo! MTV Raps. Not somebody I thought I'd be quoting from, but believe it or not, Ed Lover is already in the black male political agenda. He's dropped some ideas about, uh, black men that I had to put in there, you know? So, shout out to to Ed Lover. But he drops a statement about the Klay Thompson issue, and he moves it beyond Klay and talks about it from a black male perspective. Check him out.
>> Ladies, you might not like this what I'm about to say, but it's a real question that I'd like for you to answer in the comments. Why is it okay for only women and gay men to live in their truth? If a man faked being heterosexual his whole life, even if he had a wife and even if he had children with that wife, if later on in life he came out and said, "I'm gay. I've been gay. I've been in the closet. Now I want to live my life as a gay man." He's living in his truth. Y'all get behind him 100%. If a woman is a professional athlete or whatever, not a professional athlete, a lawyer, attorney, whatever, and she's been with men and she loves men, and then all of a sudden she decides that she don't want to be with men anymore and she wants to be with another woman, y'all back her 100%. 'Cause she's living in her truth, right? But if Klay Thompson tells Megan the Stallion, "I don't know if I could be monogamous." He's not allowed to live in his truth. If Ne-Yo decides that he doesn't want just one woman, he wants three or four women. That's his lifestyle choice. Isn't he living in his truth? So, ask yourself that question. Why aren't we as men allowed to live in our truth? Why do you say you want the truth, and then when a man tells you the truth, you don't want to hear the truth? If a man tells you, "I'm not sure if I can be monogamous." Isn't that him living in his truth? Isn't it? Why is it like that? Why is there a double standard between men and women and who can live in their truth? That's one thing that I will never understand. You will always back a man that comes out is gay and says he's living in his truth. One of the saddest things about the Luther Vandross documentary is his friends saying that Luther can never come out and live in his truth. Right? But when a man wants to have multiple women and says, "I'm not trying to be monogamous. I don't know if I could be monogamous. I can't be monogamous." Oh, he greedy. Maybe that's his truth.
You know what's interesting though, is when a woman chooses to have multiple men, all of a sudden that's somehow empowering. But when a man does it, it's inherently a problem. Right? But here we go.
>> Truth. Maybe it's his truth. Why can't men live in their truth the way we want to live in our truth? Why do we always have to live in our truth the way you want us to live in our truth? But it's okay for you to live in your truth. Any way you see fit, anyway. You can be gay for a little while, then come back to men and be straight for a little while, and then go back to women again. But that's you living in your truth, right? But if we decide to live in our truth by saying we can't be monogamous or we don't know if we can be monogamous, we're not allowed to live in our truth. Come on, son. Yeah, I would go so far as to say some men are quite clear that that's not something they want, and they, they can be very upfront about it. I'm not looking to do that. I'm looking for this type of relationship, and they can be very upfront, and still, and this is the interesting part, women can get with them, have relationships, and if they, if those women can't successfully change his mind, he's a misogynist. He's all kinds of a problem.
The reason I play this is not because of Klay Thompson. I really don't give a [ __ ] about Klay Thompson or Megan the Stallion. I don't, I don't really care. And I'm not even here advocating for monogamy versus multiple. I'm not, that's not even why I played this. I played this because what I was, uh, impressed by was that Ed Lover was actually basically posing, uh, a double standard that related to men and thought it important enough to say it out loud that when black men want to do something, in particular, it's a problem. Even if he's honest and upfront about it, something that if a woman does, it's celebrated amongst women, but if a man does it, it's considered toxic. Right? But he raised a very straightforward question. What's up with the double standard? Why can't you take us at our word? When a man says he wants to live his truth, how come it's invalid? And he, he says it kind of straight up. If it isn't a woman or an LGBT situation, it's automatically considered a problem. I appreciate the stance and I appreciate the question because what he's advocating for is the freedom of men to live how they want to live, especially if they're not manipulating anybody, they're not lying to anybody, and they've been straightforward. But this is often still presented as, as a problem, as long as it doesn't come to the conclusions that women want it to come to. And that's fundamentally what needs to be challenged. The value of an idea or a decision should not solely be measured by what women like to hear, want to hear, and decide should be. Because what he's also talking about is control. And that's really what he's pointing out here when he points out the double standard. What he's really pointing out is how women have decided that they should be the sole decision-makers about what men should do. And if they, if men propose something that they don't like, it's, it should be considered problematic. But women can do whatever they want, right? He pointed out she can be straight, she can have multiple women, she can go back to being straight, she can be bi, she can be all kinds of things. And I would add to that, she can do whatever she wants in a relationship. She could have children, she could not have children, she could work full-time, part-time, not at all, non-a-profit, you know, the, what women allow themselves to do is anything. But unless a man is, you know, um, bringing home the bacon, as it were, you know, his money is our money, my money is my money, if he's doing anything that breaks that dynamic, it's a problem. Even when it comes to this whole question of monogamy versus other. And I say other because there are a number of different ideas on the table, and yet any of them that don't conform to what women want is considered a problem.
Now, that's, that's the first one. The second one I'm going to play are some selected clips, um, from an interview that was done today that I was incredibly impressed by. And if you haven't checked this series, you need to. These are the Black Male Study Sessions featuring, uh, Torren Walker. Torren is the Onyx Report's favorite journalist. He's been on the show several times. And of course, uh, good friend of the show, good friend of myself, Dr. Tommy Curry, writer of "The Man-Not." Um, founder of the only black male studies department in the world, and that is in Edinburgh, you know. Um, mine is, uh, I have an online institute. His is, you know, a brick-and-mortar department at a university, but you got to go to Edinburgh to engage it outside of reading his book. So, definitely pick up "The Man-Not," anything else Tommy's written. But I chose some select portions of, um, the interview that they just did. And as you can see, this is episode 11. So, if you're not familiar with the other 10, you can go to Torren Walker's channel on YouTube, and you can actually check out all of them. I've also mirrored them at the Institute for Black Male Studies. Uh, if you go into the Patreon website, you'll see, uh, the interviews there as well, if you can't find them. But Torren Walker's name is spelled on the screen, so you should be able to find it pretty easily on YouTube. And they also conduct these live on X. So, if you find Torren Walker's, you know, um, page on X, you can look for when the next conversation will be had, and they conduct them live. So, I took out some select portions of Tommy speaking, and also, um, some of the Q&A that took place. Now, I play everything on one and a half speed. So, um, you know, if you want to hear the whole thing at regular speed, you know, definitely go check out the full interview. I've only taken out a few minutes, uh, but it was a good couple hours. Most of them are, they're really in-depth. I highly advocate for them. Let's go ahead and check out some of the portions from episode 11, "The Return of the Black Boogeyman."
>> All right. Um, let's go to Dr. Mario Gilmore. How you doing, brother? Um, you're wrong with Dr. Curry. What's your question for the doctor? Welcome.
>> Thanks. Thanks. Uh, my question is around like, uh, you know, just some of the digital cliquetry and especially about big names like Jamila Lemieux. Like, I'm really interested to hear what your thoughts are about the role of these people and and their endurance over time. So, you can find Jamila Lemieux, for instance, talking at HBCUs, uh, 10 years ago. And even despite the lack of fruits from the Black Lives Matter movement and the intersectional feminist ideology that it drew on, they still, a person like this can still not only have a huge influence, but go viral last week calling for, you know, hunting squads on black men to avenge for the killing of black women. Like, uh, what do you think explains the enduring relevance of of a figure like that?
Well, I mean, look, we've had, I mean, it's the same way that Alice Walker was a figure, you know, 20 years ago, right? She could do no wrong. She had the same, she circulated the same idea with "The Color Purple." This just an evil black man, you know? Um, that's a new spill, right? I mean, I remember reading her introduction to Michelle Wallace's book about why the Black Man was still relevant after Michelle Wallace wrote, "Intro saying, 'I don't believe in it anymore and I made it up.'" Right? I mean, I, I don't. These people have a manufactured audience. So, think of it like this. Think of it like this. The same way that Trump has an audience, the same way that Rush Limbaugh had an audience, these people are already fundamentally attached to this message, right? You have groups of people in America, groups of black women and white feminists and white people generally, because they're racism, that hate black men. So, Lemieux exists and persists because soon as she says that rhetoric, that audience activates. It's already, they're made for it. What, what, what black people are dealing with now is trying to find an audience, right, for people who care about other black people and who love black people, right? I remember, I remember, you know, watching this thing with, uh, with Tank, and he was like, "Look, you know, if you talk about, you know, make songs about black people loving each other, it never sells, right?" So, so why do we think that that would be any different than the academy? Why do we think that'd be any different than social media? Was always hated black men. I remember when, I remember 10 years ago when they were pushing that stuff around BLM, etc., you know, they were still trying to push, um, you know, that, that, that false statistic that black, that domestic, intimate partner homicide or domestic violence is a larger killer of black women. And, you know, Holder went on TV, I think this was like 2009 or something when it said it, and then the CDC, no, the DOJ had to go in and amend what he said, right? 'Cause I remember I wrote about it in my book. So, you know, these people were always having, Attorney General Eric Holder.
>> Yeah. Yeah. Eric Holder. Yeah. 'Cause he said, "Oh, you know, the largest black, the number one killer of black women through intimate part," then the DOJ had to go back and amend his statement because that's not even what their data showed. Like, you're always going to have these people. So, I think, I think the issue is not so much why they persist. The issue is how do you defeat their ideas? Because they can't support them. It's just that a lot of people believe them. So, we have to get better at at at dismissing and fighting against dog, which used to be,
And this is why we talk a lot about anti-black misandry, because that's fundamentally what he's talking about in this segment. And he's talking about people who advocate for anti-black misandry to the degree where they're actually subsidizing other demographics to do so, i.e., liberal white women, liberal feminists, subsidizing black feminists and the denigration of black men. But I'll let it continue.
>> be the job of journalists and academics. But I guess, I guess the payrolls have expanded. All right, we got Dr. Tony Gask in the building. Tony, can you hear me?
>> Still there?
>> I sure can. How are you?
>> Yes, sir. How are you? Good to have you on today.
>> I'm doing well. Tommy, how are you? Hey, Tommy, can you hear me?
>> Yes. Yeah, I got you.
>> Okay. Hey, listen. I'm going to make it quick. You know, without a doubt, uh, the academy, specifically, black feminism is, uh, has been detrimental to say the very least to the, uh, black American men and boys' body, spirit, and mind. Uh, I just really want to talk about solutions. Now, we, we both sort of know that, uh, you know, at the end of World War II, uh, during, uh, the French liberation, they dealt with females who were conspirators with Nazis in a very harsh way, almost a public humiliation. At the end of this, are we simply just spinning our wheels? What do we, how do we deal with this level of vitriol, hatred, and almost intellectual dishonesty towards characterizing black males as the monster and the beast?
Now, what they're also kind of invoking here is the kind of wars we've been seeing on social media for the last couple weeks, um, especially starting around the point where, um, you had, uh, Justin Fairfax, the murder-suicide, you had, uh, the, uh, tragic incident in Shreveport. You know, now we can, now Tommy and I have been talking about anti-black misandry for years, but he's, in this instance, he and others are really focusing on the last couple weeks and addressing the hostility and vitriol that has arisen again in the last couple weeks with all the fervor that it's had in the past.
>> And we all know what the data says the culmination of what that does. So, how do we deal with the black feminism at the end of this journey? Uh, Tommy,
>> I mean, at the, at the end of the journey where we, where black people are free, or at the end of the journey where we have to start making hard decisions about who's for black people, who's not?
>> We have to start making hard decisions.
>> Yeah. Listen, I think, I think that we have to start understanding the role that propaganda plays in our own decimation. And if we get to that point, I don't believe we're going to get to that point because everything, I mean, especially around this generation, right? There's no, people don't read data. They don't read books. They're not, they're not trying to educate themselves as a population because most information comes from social media. That's one of the reasons that people like Leu become so effective, right? But I think that if we're making hard decisions, then black feminism, at least in respect to how it was talked about black men and families, is no longer a thing because it would become, it would be understood both as propaganda and kind of self-hate. And, you know what's funny about that, Tony? I was having a conversation with a colleague, uh, here in the UK. And, you know, they have much, much stricter hate speech laws here. And I really do believe feminists, but black feminists here are not fundamentally antagonist to black men. Like, I've had conversations with black women where we've respectfully disagreed about something, but nobody's hating the other group. We just disagree, right? There's no idea that black men are trash or that black men are bullet bags. So, the, it's part, it's circulated because of American culture that that's what I think is empowering this kind of vitriol and these kind of characters of black men. But if we're talking about in America, then it does, it, it does not become a vehicle for black liberation. And even more so, it becomes what we know Cointelpro was. It becomes what we know subcultural violence theory was. It's a mechanism by which people are being socialized to accept their either inferiority complex or to work alongside a rationalization to lock up and kill black men. So, at no point, at no point do I think that the variant, and I'm being very specific here, the variant of black feminism that continues to tell us that black men are trash, bullet bags, weak links, violent, rapists, etc., I do not think that coexists with any optimal or or normal racial psychology that's healthy for black people. It, it, it has, it breeds nothing but animosity, antagonism. It has to be dealt with as kind of a forinary disease. Given those realities, black feminism then becomes one of the modes or vehicles by which the black middle class sustains itself to the detriment of the rest of black people. That's no different than black liberals or progressives who ignore the structural and the systemic nature of anti-blackness. But if we are serious about solutions, there needs to be a break and overturning of the groups of black people who speak and rule over us for the sake of others. And I don't know if that's going to be a civil war. I don't know if that's going to be a change in the intellectual tides. I don't know if that's going to be young people saying that we're not taking this anymore and to hell with all the previous ideas, but we, under the conditions that have been set forth, we cannot continue to move forward as one people. We, we are not unified. And I honestly don't believe we should be unified if there is a sect of people that fundamentally believe that we should exploit white supremacist myths for the betterment of their pockets. And until we have that conversation, until academics become courageous enough to tell the truth and how they lied to black people about the ideas that would motivate change, I think, I think conflict is inevitable, if not the only star problem.
All right. So, here we had two different responses to the kind of vitriol that's run rampant in the black community for years, right? Various levels of vitriol presenting in a myriad of different forms, right? But two different responses. You have Ed Lover, who's coming in with the, with the, you know, very straightforward questioning why black men's interests and concerns have to be sidelined and made toxic as long as they don't make women happy. And then you got Tommy Curry and a number of others in that discussion coming in questioning on the larger macro scale the impact of this type of exploitive, vitriolic black feminism rooted in the, um, objectification and dehumanization of black men and subsidized by white elites for profit. Right? Both, I think, at the crux, are advocating for the humanity of black men, but raising questions that in the past, we weren't able to raise. We may not have thought to raise. We may have hoped that things would self-correct, but we may have also underestimated to what extent this split has been financed. And those who have participated in profiting from it have only grown and expanded in their interests and their greed.
So, that said, what I'm noticing, as you saw in the title of this show, they broke the pact first. Black men are separating from the blacky. You have black men deciding for themselves which way to go, even if it means that black men redefine community in ways that work in their interest. That's what we're starting to see. And I'm showing it on two different levels. I'm showing it on the casual conversational level, and I'm showing it on the high academic intellectual level, because you have black men across the spectrum who are reaching similar conclusions, coming at it from different vantage points. And I, in essence, argue that many of these black men are redefining community for themselves, in and out of conversation. And they're not waiting for permission to do it. They've already started, even if they don't know they're doing it.
So, as usual, I want to hear your thoughts. I want to hear your opinions. I want to know what you believe, and most particularly, what you've experienced along the lines of the things presented here. Give us your thoughts. Let us know. Highlight y'all later. Peace.