perception...

I think that by now everyone knows that I hate Beyonce (even if we share a birthday). My problem with her isn't about her talent (she is blessed with a great voice). My problem with her is that for someone who looks like such a doormat, she represents everything that I find to be wrong with the African-American woman today.

Let me start by saying that I've never had an African-American female friend. That doesn't mean that I've never had black friends because those I've had plenty of but all of my black friends have come straight up from Africa. Ironically, my African friends didn't like the African-Americans around the place because of their attitude, which frankly isn't really my problem so I'm just going to get into the issue I came to discuss.

My friend Fadzai is from Zimbabwe. Born into a priviledged family, she was schooled in Switzerland, did her undergraduate work in Germany and is now pursuing her international law credentials in Australia. Fadzai used to say that the fundamental difference between African-American females and African females was that "they [african-americans] showed no respect to their men and castrated them from childhood so that by adulthood all they had left were 'statistics' (it was at around this time that the Justice Policy Institute said that a black man was more likely to be in jail than in college), whereas African females nurtured their males because they wanted leaders at the home and in the village that they could be proud of".

That makes all the sense in the world to me.

You see the portrayal of african americans in film, on TV, in music, etc. and you see that the dominant figure to the point of castration is the female. Sure, I think it's cool to have strong women as role models (regardless of whether they are black, white, yellow or purple with pink polka dots) and that women should be able to put their foot down in terms of what's important but how strong is too strong? I don't think it's cool to be in a relationship with someone to diminish them or treat them as a sex objects in the same way that I don't think it's cool to write a song like "Ring the Alarm" which is like the material anthem of the psychotic woman. You hear all these songs and watch all these movies that even if they have a twinge of love in them a good porcent of the time they are awful! They make their women sound like they are gold-digging (or money-driven) sluts who are ocassionally loved, the men are cheaters and if a woman is singing she is too good for the guy but if a guy is singing a good porcent of the time she is the "baby momma" (because apparently there is some pride in having women left and right spitting out kids).

So this may or may not be the truth behind their racial dynamics but the fact of the matter is that most of the time this is how they themselves portray it and it irks me because if the feminist movement tried to bring equality between the sexes regardless of the race, what's happening now? Women are no better than men. They are equal. Except that women as child bearers have the added advantage that they mold minds so the world is really theirs. Why would you raise a boy to be a cliche so that then he can treat his woman as another cliche?