"Being a Black Man in America is like being the Fuckin' Boogeyman... and frankly, I'm tired of being the GOD DAMN Boogeyman" - Paul Mooney

I am writing this in response to this article...

I'll start by saying this... I AM A BLACK MAN! Black Men need to do a whole lot better. Black Men have got to take a long hard look at Who we are, Where we come from, and What we're doing with our lives so that we can figure out how we can uplift and truly honor our role within the Black Community. The change we seek is not the responsibility of our Women, our Elders, or our youth, and we most certainly will not attain it by pleading to the moral compass of our oppressors. The solutions we are searching for will be found by obtaining knowledge of self and combining that with undying compassion for ourselves, our families, and our people. I am in no way diminishing anything the article is saying in regards to acknowledging, uplifting, and being committed to the struggle of the Black Community, specifically by affirming that the struggles of Black Women, Black Youth, Black Elders, and Black LGTBQ is not only theirs, but our struggle as well.

Now... Since the article and subsequent responses decided to specifically address Straight Black Men and their comparison to White People... THIS is what we are gonna talk about.

My issue is not with the points brought up in the article, but more with the title and the way that it was used to ATTACK Black Manhood. While the article does bring up some very valid points in regards to the relationship that cis Black Men have with the Black Community (which includes Black women, Black children, Black elders, Black LGTBQ, and other cis Black Men), it does so by insinuating a comparison between the privilege of cis Black Men in the Black Community to the privilege of White People. In the title of the article, it specifically states "Straight Black Men are the White People of the Black Community". While I agree with the overall point the article is trying to make, that Black Men need to acknowledge and repent some of our behaviors in relation to our community, especially the treatment of our Women, our Children, our Elders, and the Black LGTBQ community... comparing anyone or anything to White People and the mental, physical, and spiritual atrocities that THEY have historically inflicted on this earth is asinine, ignorant, and blasphemous... yes BLASPHEMOUS!

And if I may speak on the question of perceived privilege among Black Men… Any perceived privilege that the Black Man has received in this Europeanized White Supremacist Society is not a privilege that was earned by him, it was given to him by his oppressor as an object to further his oppressors agenda. Therefore, that perceived privilege is in essence not a privilege at all.

I don't really feel like going down a long road explaining RACISM, but I feel that a lot of you may be ignorant to what RACISM is or where it comes from. So let's start here...

In case you are oblivious to the facts of HIStory, let's compare the history and behavior of White People and how they relate to Black Men. White People created RACISM/White Supremacy. White Supremacy was created to not only uplift White People above all other races, but keep those other races in constant competition to become as White as they can be. They will fight amongst each other for the opportunity to challenge the dominant White Race by showing just how White they can be. Operating from a position of power and privilege, White Supremacy also seeks to continuously create sustainable systems that reinforce White Supremacy. One of the main tenets of White Supremacy is the control of societal systems such as economics, education (or lack thereof), entertainment, labor, law, politics, standards of beauty/physical attraction, war, and RELIGION (more on that in a second)... Basically almost every aspect of our lives is under White Supremacy. I would argue that this description of White Supremacy is a working definition of SLAVERY for Black People. If we are completely unable to act independently within own culture across major societal systems, we are ENSLAVED!

WE ARE UNDER THE CONTROL OF WHITE SUPREMACY... PERIOD!

There is very little that we do as Black People that operates outside of the goals and aspirations of White Supremacy. Hopefully, you now have some understanding of this and we can move forward with the discussion.

Everybody has their issues that they are facing... And everyone wants their issues to be addressed. One gripe that I have with modern society and the way that we approach these issues (especially on social media) is that rarely does anyone THINK to acknowledge WHY? these issues occur or WHERE? these issues come from. If I am going to solve a problem, I must do an assessment of the situation before I proceed with creating a solution. In that assessment, I perform what is called a Root Cause Analysis to determine what is the catalyst for the incident being examined. The Root Cause of the behavior of Straight Black Men in regards to their relationship within the Black Community is... White Supremacy.

WE ARE UNDER THE CONTROL OF WHITE SUPREMACY!!!

Especially if you subscribe to any of the tenets of White Supremacy that were passed down through our enslavement.

Back to Religion for a brief moment...

Any nation of people (not to be confused with national boundaries that determine countries) has their own culture that helps to determine what they believe about themselves. Before our enslavement at the hands of White Supremacy, Afrikan/Indigenous people all around the world had control over their own culture and in essence, their own Religion (what they believed about themselves). While promoting White Supremacy, one of the first things that White People did was to remove the culture of the people they conquered, as well as their Religion (what the people believed about themselves). Now you can say that institutions like Judaism, Islam, and Christianity were around at that time and many Afrikan and Indigenous people were already practicing some form of these faith systems before they encountered White People. What you CAN'T say is that White People didn't take control of these belief systems to manipulate them to fit their own narrative for the explicit purpose of reinforcing White Supremacy.

We were held from our original belief systems which historically uplifted the Black Family (Man, Woman, and Child) as the foundation of the Black Nation. Our belief systems incorporated the Divine Woman in Every Aspect of Creation. Our belief systems prevented us from neglecting our elders and our children. Our belief systems operated alongside nature and held reverence for the plants, the animals, the waters, and the lands that we all benefit from. During our enslavement, these belief systems were abolished and replaced with bastardized versions of OUR ancient stories. They removed the Black Woman from her place as the most critical part of Creation/Life and a White Man replaced her as the all-powerful, omnipotent creator of the Universe. What this psychologically did to our ancestors was implant the belief that White People, more specifically White Men, were the Gods on Earth and everyone else was inferior to them (Hello Misogyny).* This was a very important tactic that was used to spark the enslavement of Black People around the world, and we rarely ever acknowledge this. We had to accept White People's Religion (Their belief about themselves as well as their belief about ourselves) in order to survive. Now hold on to this point as we progress through the treatment of Black Men and Black Women as Prisoners of White Supremacy (POWS).**

*That is WHY we still practice these Europeanized belief systems... That is WHY there is no woman in the Christian Holy Trinity even though every person born on this Earth is Born out of a Woman's WOMB... That is WHY whenever you think about an image of God or Jesus Christ, you think of a WHITE MAN.

**We gotta get off that SLAVE Mentality… while we were enslaved, we were never Slaves. We, Black Men and Black Women, are Gods on Earth and we’ve lost that perspective of ourselves.

The horrors of being POWS are equally devastating for Black Men and Black Women. They get passed down through the generations no matter what our gender is today, we are the culmination of all our ancestor's experiences. Our oppressors went to extreme lengths to maintain the status quo and their position as the dominant figure in modern society. They used different tactics to instill fear and inferiority into the mentality of our ancestors, and THAT has also been passed down to us TODAY. WHITE PEOPLE physically beat and abused us, stripped us of OURStory, OUR Culture, tore our families apart on the auction block, sexually violated Black Women as well as Black Men, and when that didn't work, they just killed us for no reason with no repercussions... often times publicly.

Through the illness of their own minds, our oppressors CONSTANTLY over-sexualized our Black Bodies. The threat of Rape on the plantation for Black Women was perpetual. When White Men weren't FORCING Black Men to sexually abuse Black Women, they would do it themselves. In opposition to the supposed purity of white women, White People created the narrative that the Black Woman was a "hyper-sexual" being, as evidence by her larger breast and buttocks. Most White Men would publicly chastise the "savagery" of Black Women while privately making them targets of their lustful desires. White Men raped Black Women regardless of whether they were single or married, and because POWS were property, their marital status wasn’t legally recognized by them anyway. If a Black Man made trouble about a White Man’s interactions with any Black Woman and was lucky enough to survive the encounter, they were often separated from the woman/family and shipped to far off plantations never to see them again.

I believe this is when Black Women began to feel more neglected by Black Men. Their inherent nature as a divine creator made them more responsive to their role as mothers. In spite of wanting to escape their horrendous conditions to obtain freedom for themselves, they often felt the need to stay on the plantation to protect their children. If a Black Man was lucky enough not to be sold from his family, the responsibility of Fatherhood and PROTECTING the mother of his children often came secondary to his own freedom… which only furthered the feeling of neglect for the Black Woman. THIS needs to be remembered, THIS needs to be acknowledged… and THIS needs to be corrected.

As Black Children were raised in this environment, they couldn’t help but internalize the images they saw of their mothers falling victim to sexually predatory behavior. They witnessed their fathers either removed from the family or emasculated through public, physical abuse. Unfortunately, Black Men in these situations would probably lash out against this abuse from the oppressor by taking it out on the Black Woman and Black Children. All this did was to further reinforce the dominance of White Supremacy and the cycle of physical abuse for the Black Family… We didn’t know this back then and that is no excuse for us not to know this NOW! Black Men and Black Women would beat their children in hopes of getting them to learn how to survive in this system of White Supremacy. Black Children grew up believing that the only way to correct someone’s behavior or deal with personal feelings of inferiority, was to engage in physical abuse. This White Supremacist inheritance has been passed down in the Black Family from generation to generation so much so that now, even today, we still respond to these same triggers by engaging in physical abuse.

Now let’s progress to the way White People have behaved more recently, after the so called emancipation of Black People. If you didn’t know, it was once considered illegal for the Black Race to obtain any knowledge outside of the agreed upon curriculum of White Supremacy... So much so that a Black person in certain places could be killed for learning or knowing how to READ. We were robbed of the knowledge of our historical past while at the same time blocked from achieving any sort of intellectual progression while being POWS. We didn’t understand that while we were technically emancipated, we would then be confined to the captivity of sharecropping which is nothing more than slavery’s cheap ass cousin. We had to endure Jim Crow Segregation, unjust education and labor conditions, and The Original Terrorist Organization. White People would lynch our ancestors publicly and then put their severed body parts on display for their amusement. Anytime we would build ourselves up out of this oppression to obtain any semblance of success, they made sure to regulate our progress. Whenever one of our Black Leaders rallied us around our common struggle and provided us with a vision that was alternative to the White Supremacist way of life, they were exterminated. They have instilled so much fear inside of us that we force ourselves to be oblivious to the actions of White Supremacy. We degrade ourselves with our music, we eat the same poison we were forced to eat in captivity, and we still worship the same false idols that were given to us at our initiation into White Supremacy.

It’s very easy to visualize the Cis Black Man as the most immediate threat to Black People's progress in this White Supremacist Structure… We’re the first line of defense against White Supremacy! MEN are responsible for defending the NATION that WOMEN CREATE! That is our role… That is where Black Men fall short. Of course any REAL BLACK MAN would get defensive being compared to White People in any way, shape, or form. We defend BLACK MANHOOD! Black Manhood is one of the only weapons that we have to fight White Supremacy… and we barely have that! If you don’t know, White People are afraid of Black Men recognizing their TRUE identity and the power that they have to end White Supremacy. That is why they continuously attack Black Manhood. The narrative that they have painted of the Black Man as a violent, uncontrollable barbarian falls right in line with the atrocious title of that article! If we were honest with ourselves, we would understand that White People are the biggest THREAT to BLACK PEOPLE'S aspirations to end White Supremacy. We would know that the reason they paint the Black Man as the biggest Threat… is because that is THEIR biggest THREAT! The Black Man is their BOOGEYMAN! If you understood that it is a scientific fact that ONE cis Black Man biologically has the potential to wipe out the entire race of White People, you would understand their FEAR. Their fear of genetic annihilation psychologically validates their behavior.

They are RECESSIVE!

You would understand Why? THEY created White Supremacy!

You would understand Why? THEY did things like THIS…

and THIS…

and THIS…

and THIS…

and THIS…

(I'm just getting started)

and THIS…

and THIS…

and THIS…

and THIS…

and THIS…

and THIS…

(I don't think ya'll understand)

and THIS...

and THIS...

and THIS...

and THIS...

and THIS...

Hopefully ya'll get the picture... That being said...

If you truly believe that Straight Black Men are the White People of the Black Community… You will ALWAYS be a victim of White Supremacy!

Knowing HIStory and how it has affected OURStory, it becomes very apparent that the solution... our liberation... starts with uplifting the Black Family within the Black Community. I personally believe that White Supremacy was never meant to be sustainable and the era of the Black Mother is fast approaching. In preparation for this change in consciousness, Black Men SHOULD be prepared to defend OUR NATION!

Black Men SHOULD be proud to be Black Men and SHOULD be eternally grateful for the privilege to protect and live fruitfully among Black Women and Black Children.

Black Children SHOULD be reared in a wholistic environment where they are able to develop positive relationships within their families as well as with other Black Men, Black Women, and Black Children within the Black Community.

Black Women SHOULD know that Black Men are always there for them. That they will never abuse the power that has been granted to them by Black Women.

Black Women SHOULD feel confident that they are the Divine Woman, the Creator of Gods on Earth... The very Black Men that are there to Love, Honor, and Protect them... and the very Black Women that will follow in their footsteps and lead us to Our Revolution! There is a reason why Unity is the First Principle of Kwanzaa… We must stay United if we are ever going to Liberate ourselves. Let’s not ever lose sight of the fact that we need each other now more than ever.

What it is, what it is, what it is… What it is

What it is, what it is, what it is... What it is

See me, want me, give me, touch me... Feed me, fuck me, love me, trust me

This whole world is cold and ugly... What we are is low and lovely

I am the most beautiful BOOGEYMAN... The most beautiful BOOGEYMAN

Let me be your favorite nightmare... Close your eyes and I'll be right there

Wide open... All over... Again

See me, touch me, give me, want me... Feed me, fuck me, trust me, love me

This whole world is cold and ugly... What we are is low and lovely

I am the most beautiful BOOGEYMAN... The most beautiful BOOGEYMAN

Let me be your favorite nightmare... Close your eyes and I'll be right there

Wide open... All over... Again, again - Yasiin Bey

Listen to my BoogeyMan Playlist on TiDal... Let me know what you think.