Destroyimg Black Males

By Donald H. Matthews

The book examines the Destruction of Black Males in American Society. Using a reader friendly narrative style of story telling and poetry, the author reflects on his personal experiences, family life and the major issues faced by Black males in the United States. The author challenges the reader to understand the oppression of Black Males as a form of gender discrimination that is often overlooked by social commentators, policy makers and scholars. This has resulted in the continuing destruction of the lives of Black Males which has had a devastating effect on Black families. The mass incarceration, higher death rates, lower educational achievement and extremely high unemployment of Black Males speaks to the urgency of this issue. The continued police violence in which the society either condones or ignores the devastating effects of racial, gender and economic oppression of Black Males is testimony to the seriousness of this issue.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dr. Donald H. Matthews, PhD
• Release date: May 9, 2017
• ISBN: 9780154646132

Book preview

BY

DONALD H. MATTHEWS, PhD

DEDICATION

For The Brothers.

And The Sisters, Brothers and Friends who have nourished our dreams in a Strange Land.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

To Faith Matthews for the cover design. To the thirty years of students who allowed me to share and sharpen my thoughts. My homies; Don, Jeff, Stephen, Thabiti, Doug, Lee, Tkufu, Matthew, Ted, Chris, Vance and Doug C.  To my Father; William Buzz C. Matthews, RIP; My brothers: Chuckie (William) and Alvin. My children: Jonathan, William, Joanna, Faith and Jon Farmer. Their mothers: Carolyn and Joanna. My sistuhs Joyce, Carole, and Deb. My long lost cousins, Lisa, Lakeisha, Margie and Cleveland. To the Black Studies Department at The University of Puget Sound, Tacoma, WA, where I completed the manuscript. Dean Martin Jackson, Margaret Birmingham and Dexter Gordon made my stay comfortable and productive. Most of all, to my grandchildren: Janessa, Juliana, Jasmine and Jaylen and their loving parents, John Paun and Joanna Matthews.

May your future be brighter than the Sun.

Donald H. Matthews, Ph.D.

aka, The Homeless Professor

Tacoma, Wa

May, 2017

THE SITUATION

Black men have the highest mortality rate of any racial group.

Black men with a BACHELOR’S DEGREE ARE paid 30% less than White men with a bachelor's degree.

Only 50% of Black males graduate from high school.

Over one million out of 19 Black million Black men are incarcerated.

Black males experience homelessness MORE than any racial group.

Black male unemployment is double the rate at every educational level.

BLACK MALES ARE THREE TIMES MORE IN NEED OF sUBSTANCE ABUSE TREATMENT

And the Beat Goes On

INTRODUCTION

The underlying theory for this book came out of an intense conversation with my homies as we sat in the C Shop at the University of Chicago. We were aspiring Doctoral students in theology, philosophy, sociology, business, law, economics, and social work, to name a few. We had formed The Black Graduate Forum which was meant to foster a sense of community for Black graduate students. In forming this student group we had been warned by university officials that we would have their support as long as we didn't become political. The University of Chicago is known for its lack of empathy for student sponsored political demonstrations. During the 1960’s they were less tolerant of students who had missed classes in protest of the Vietnam War and many of those students found themselves under suspension or the recipients of other punishments. Of course we ignored that advice and immediately sponsored talks by social scientists, John and Jean Comaroff, and William Julius Wilson (now at Harvard) concerning some of the important political issues facing the Black Diaspora communities. We were also full participants in the movement to have the university divest from South African companies as a part of the anti-apartheid movement.

As we engaged in one of our heated discussions about the causes for the social and psychological oppression of Black people the discussion reached a fevered pitch. I was suddenly moved to stand up and say, "It's Rapetalism! My colleagues looked at me with shock and curiosity. I began to explain that it meant that the suffering of Blacks was a combination of racial, sexual and economic oppression, and that an analysis that only looks at the situation of Blacks through a single lens was shortsighted to say the least. This was before the use of the term intersectionality" by critical race theorists. Also scholars from middle and upper middle class backgrounds were often blinded to some of the deeper ways in which Rapetalistic oppression of Black males.

They may have applied a triple analysis, to the plight of Black women of color but Black men were often left out of this analysis. Our more progressive scholars and society may express mild to strong empathy for the oppression of women, queer and the poor, but Black men, if they were seen as victims of oppression it was seen as due to their race and economic status, but not because of their gender. Yet, this book will argue that they suffer extreme forms of oppression exactly because they are males. Black males to be more precise. They too suffer from GENDERED Oppression just as do their sisters of color. The mass incarceration of Black males. The frequent police killings of Black males. The lower economic and health status of Black males has received little social acknowledgement or specific programs due to the erasure of a gendered analysis as a vital means of understanding the nature of Black Male gendered oppression.

DESTROYING BLACK MALES

DESTROYING

The title of this book is purposely ambiguous in that it can be read in two ways. DESTROYING can mean those who are the subject of destruction, or the perpetrators of destruction. They are being destroyed and destroy in return. Both connotations are correct in that they are two parts of a dialectical dance between the White social and psychological destruction of Black men, and the ways that Black men have responded destructively against others by just or unjustified means. As a scholar of Religion and the Social Sciences I am concerned about this process of destruction as it exists in the modern world in which religion and society is integrally woven in the construction of Black oppression. As a Black man I have lived on both sides of this complex dance of destruction and am constantly seeking ways of understanding this way of being in the world. This text will employ a personal narrative means of expressing the destruction of Black males. I will use data from my own life, the lives of Black men I have known and my vision of what Black males endure in their struggle to live good and productive lives.

BLACK

Let us continue by deconstructing the word BLACK in the title. The popular academic notion that Blackness is the result of Whiteness is, I assert, a mistaken notion. Though it is a view championed by progressive scholars of all races and genders, it is in fact a position that erases the historical record of Blackness before the existence of White oppression. The truth is that Ancient Black People proudly and matter of factly were aware of and proud of their dark skin color. Yet, unlike the modern development of Whiteness this did not result in a negative dichotomous disdain of people of other colors. There was pride in the Black color of their skin without demonizing people who were of different and lighter complexions. Their Dark Brown and ebony skin was simply a fact that was linked to a positive recognition that their Creator had made them so and given them gifts of wisdom that they shared with other cultures.

They lived, moved and had their being as Black People in the original Cultures of The Nile Valley, The Two River Valley (Tigris and Euphrates), and The Indus Valley. The Black Fertile Crescent extended from Egypt and Nubia in the West and South to the Mesopotamian Valley to the Indus Valley to the North and East. These Black People were the founders of all we hold dear, and some of what we don't, in the development of what we call Civilization. To reduce Black identity and culture as the result of Whiteness erases this proud history. (See the debate between Malcolm X and James Baldwin on utube) As long as scholars of history and theology ignore this and pretend or actively engage in deception in erasing this history the foundation of modern racism is strengthened. One need not develop an Afrocentric methodology to come to this conclusion. The historical facts are enough to convince any reasonable person of the Black foundations of Western and Eastern cultures.

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MALES

We must also examine the word MALES in the title. We live in a world that understands the reality of gendered oppression, but Black males are seldom discussed as being victims of this form of oppression. This is not to say that Black men experience more oppression than Black women. However, it does assert that the reason and ways in which Black men are oppressed are directly related to their male gender. This not so subtle form of oppression was recently displayed in the creation of the Black Lives Matters movement: BLM. Even though the movement was sparked due to the violence experienced by Black males, the Black Maleness of the movement was quickly erased. Despite the good intentions of a modern day kind of anti-lynching campaigns headed by Black women such as Ida B. Wells, the BLM seldom focused on providing solutions that would deter the murder of Black men who were the overwhelming victims of police violence.

As difficult as it was for White Americans to accept the idea that BLACK lives matter, it is even more impossible for a BMLM (Black Male Lives Matter) movement to occur. I suggest that the unconscious fear of Black males contributed to the need for even White liberals to chant All Lives Matter. It is the equivalent of having an anti-rape campaign with the sexual violence against males as the main subject under protest. Also, one does not find courses in the GENDERED Oppression of BLACK MALES on college campuses. This thought is still unthinkable and certainly undoable in the halls, hearts and minds of a Patriarchal/Matriarchal Liberal White Social order.

The following text will employ many different forms of narrative to make the case: the use of stories, prose, poetry and historical research will tell the ways in which Black males experience Rapetalistic Oppression (racial, sexual/gender and economic oppression) in America.

Black Male Oppression begins in the womb and ends in the tomb.

THERE WAS A BLACK BOY

There was a Black boy who was killed because he looked at a White woman

There was a Black boy who had his first sexual experience when he was six years old.

There was a Black boy whose mother disciplined him with an iron skillet.

There was a Black boy who committed suicide because he was queer.

There was a Black boy who was killed by police because he fit the description.

There was a Black boy who was almost kidnapped when he was eight years old.

There was a Black boy who was murdered because he was slinging dope.

There was a Black boy who lost his childhood because he was sexualized.

There was a Black boy who was constantly beaten by gangbangers in his hood.

There was a Black boy who was profiled by police because he was in a White area.

There was a Black boy who did time even though he didn't do the crime.

There was a Black boy who was killed by White vigilantes for walking down the street.

There was a Black boy who left his home because there was not enough room.

There was a Black boy who was attacked by White gangbangers in the street.

There was a Black boy who was sodomized by his older sister.

There was a Black boy who was homeless because his parents were out of work.

There was a Black boy who was assaulted by his White gym teacher

There was a Black boy who turned to crime because he could not read.

There was a Black boy who was lynched because he wanted to be free.

There was a Black boy who couldn't concentrate because he was hungry.

There was a Black boy who was shy because he only had one pair of pants.

There was a Black boy who was molested by his babysitter.

There was a Black boy who committed suicide because his foster life was too painful

There was a Black boy who turned to crime because his father was in jail.

There was a Black boy who was kicked by his White coach.

There was a Black boy who became depressed because his peers called him a fag.

There was a Black boy who was too girly so he ruined his life by being manly.

There was a Black boy whose mother neglected him.

There was a Black boy who saw his father beat his mother.

There was a Black boy who ran his tricycle off a landing and died.

There was a Black boy who drowned while his White friends watched.

There was a Black boy who tried to be a daddy when he was still a son.

There was a Black boy who came to school dirty because his mama was