The Sassy Pandemic: Black Masculinity
In recent months, an array of Twitter topics (shudder) have infiltrated my everyday thoughts. It’s weird because I’ve always been able to filter the garbage out and just focus on being my silly goofy self. Yet lately, the topic of masculinity and safe spaces seems to be recurring themes on my timeline and they concern me quite a bit.
I’ve spent the majority of the last year in a bit of quiet introspection. Yeah, I’ve been up to my usual antics whenever I link up with my friends, but being single and living by myself for the first time ever lends itself to a lot of thinking. I’ve been struggling to read bell hooks’ We Real Cool: Black Men and Masculinity for the greater part of the last six months. Not because it’s dense or written in some other language, but because it’s calling me to be accountable to myself for what I define as the black masculine man, and I’ve barely gotten past the prologue.
Typically, the black masculine man is defined as the stoic, money making, woman conquering sex machine. He bears the brunt of the world and doesn’t flinch. He builds a home for his partner to inhabit and he provides anything she/they need(s) without any need for assistance. Pretty high bar to reach. Personally, I never really concerned myself with what makes a masculine man, just being the best man that I can be. Unfortunately, that isn’t the case for everyone.
The modern black man is living in an age where everyone has a voice, deserved or not. Those of us who grew up without strong male role models are left to figure out what masculinity means to them, so they cling to those who seem to have a strong sense of self identity. Kevin Samuels’ rise to prominence in black culture (like him or not) can be attributed to this phenomenon. Andrew Tate and his acolytes are pretty clear indicators of this issue as well. I don’t think I truly understood how deeply rooted this problem was until I got a random instagram follow from a “masculinity coach” a couple months ago. This “coach” had video tutorials for everything the “manly man” needs; from tutorials on how to talk to women to how to assert “dominance” in your friend group. Many of the videos are geared towards being an “alpha” and shaming “betas.” For those who feel like they aren’t bold enough to be alphas and are too cool to be betas, there’s always the “sigma” route. A bunch of greek lettering to spell out “identity crisis.”
The topic of defining and portraying masculinity has become so hot, that there are people paying other people to teach them how to be a man.
All of this noise to avoid the real issue. The hidden face behind masculinity is patriarchy. The idea that society has to be straight male led with women as backup but not really because what they say doesn’t matter is truly what’s at issue here. In her book, bell hooks attests that black patriarchy is just a pale imitation of white patriarchy, which doesn’t work for us anyway. It’s like trying to put on a sweater that’s way too small for you because you have a lot of added weight that other races don’t have to be concerned about. Since the patriarchy is created to uplift and support straight white males with generational wealth and second, third, and fourth chances when they mess up, it serves to the detriment of black men.
We are quick to say black people aren’t a monolith but at the same time attempt to conform to a patriarchy that tries to force us to be one. It forces us to identify with a code that almost none of us truly believe in but feel we have to conform to because “that’s just how it is.” This turns into a real weight and burden because some of us feel sworn to a code of silence by patriarchy because we won’t allow ourselves to express how we feel. Many of those that came before us were so pent up with rage and sadness that we put our hands to work until our hands bled and our hearts gave out from internal and external abuse.
Some people are quick to say things like “black men have no safe spaces” which just isn’t true. These people just want women to create these spaces for us, and that’s just laziness. If black men want safe spaces we need to create them for ourselves and set a hard boundary around them. Create friend groups where discussions can be had about what ails us when the time comes. These spaces must operate within the purpose of creating community to foster responsible dialogue. By responsible, I mean accountability. We’re safe to express ourselves but we need to hold ourselves and each other accountable for what we say and what we allow.
In our indoctrination to the patriarchy, we’ve also indoctrinated women to believe the same. Some outright reject it, while some become enforcers of it. I attribute all talk of “sassy men” to women that are ten toes down on patriarchy and believe that the masculine man comes in one cut with no alterations. The most alarming example of this was that one Jonathan Majors shoot (before we found out he’s an abuser) where he’s dressed like Doflamingo from One Piece with the pink feathers and pants. The response to the shoot was riddled with emasculation and homophobia, it was terrifying. Quite literally just him wearing pink was enough for women to say things like he’d been “sassified.”
As I said earlier, black men come in all genres. We are creatives, businessmen, nerds, introverts, extroverts, straight, bi, gay, trans, athletes, gamers, readers, writers, musicians, couch surfers, hikers, knitters, djs, and any combination of the aforementioned and much more. We are who so many want to be, so why let them dictate to us which lane we can inhabit?
I say all this to say, black men can be whoever the f*ck we want to be.
-E.