As if white supremacy has nothing to do with this …
Black men’s apparent problem with Vice President Kamala Harris running for Commander in Chief and former President Barack Obama admonishing those men about their feelings show how white supremacy — no, not white people — has such a voodoo headlock on Black intimate partnerships where you can see the grip’s painful strains in the way Black men and women show resentment toward each other in broad HD1080 daylight.
Should we follow Solomon Jones’ advice and not talk about it — at least not in public?
The Obama incident also shows how the former President is clueless about how white supremacy works — I’ll cover that later.
I think our refusal to talk about the tension between Black men and women says plenty about the difficulty in discussing a problem that’s arguably as old as white supremacy.
I alluded to this problem in a previous post — and yeah, this is a problem positioned to become worse — but never got around to sharing details.
Or at least not enough details. Well, at least not on this channel …
I’ll try to explain more this time, and bring up some research to think about.
The still-viral “Pop the Balloon” dating show is evidence of this tension and features the clash of reactive African descendant social values, playing out in real life. The Ninja Turtle episode is one of many examples.
The show looks as if African descendants can’t seem to dismiss a potential soulmate without serving a dose of smoke.
Chuck Wombley’s vintage “Love Connection” TV dating series from the 1980s and 1990s displayed such intense Black intra-couple warfare that some of the show’s fans considered the clash one of the show’s selling features.
White supremacy’s destructive scope moves beyond biased killings, mass incarceration, the hagiography of whiteness, the biased death of Black babies, environmental racism, and people of color’s social and economic marginalization.
White supremacy also objectifies women, at minimum, or brands them as powerless little girls. The same system-of-systems makes Black men feel like powerless little boys.
The proof of destruction goes beyond the evidence and my thoughts. A growing body of research, like “Racial Discrimination and Relationship Functioning among African American Couples” from the University of Georgia’s Department of Psychology, shows that racial discrimination patterns are stressors to Black couples, and the feelings of intra-couple friction occur regardless of economic status.
This is an important point that’s worth delivering in a different way: the kinds of jobs these Black couples hold don’t seem to matter. Racial discrimination took its toll on these relationships anyway.
So, gainful employment is not a cure.
Damn, I’m skipping plenty of details but this is a blog post, okay?
Put these two emotionally eviscerated beings in the same dating show, a night club, a residence, or any setting where one of them needs the support of the other to make an achievement that’s normally denied by white supremacy, and the response is predictable.
One expects the other to make the first move to treat them like royalty — or like worthy lovers.
There’s resentment.
There are insults.
Domestic violence.
Love Connection.
Pop the Balloon.
“You will respect me in my house”.
No understanding of a shared struggle in this system-of-systems.
The two are treated like invisible infants in the broader society.
And they don’t even know where and how to start respecting each other.
White supremacy — along with the resulting economic and social marginalization — can have that kind of effect on people.
Additional research further strengthens this argument. “Racial Discrimination and Romantic Relationship Dynamics Among Black Americans: A Systematic Review” — an August 2023 meta-analysis of more than 30 studies completed by TeKisha M. Rice, August I. C. Jenkins, Shardé McNeil Smith, Chelsea Alexander, and Casey M. McGregor — shows racism’s destructive effects on Black life, including the way Black men and women interact with each other.
This is why President Obama’s comments about Black men stepping up to support Vice President Harris — while I guess are well-intentioned — show he’s clueless on several levels.
These studies suggest that white supremacy renders feelings of child-like powerlessness among Black men and makes them feel as if they’re in this struggle alone.
And this feeling of isolation may explain a Pew study that finds 26 percent of Black men believe women made gains in American society at the expense of men.
I think it’s important to over-communicate here: Black women also feel this sense of isolation, which makes the problem even more complex.
Through the lens of Communications 101, Obama could follow advice from Dale Carnegie’s “How to Win Friends and Influence People” — don’t kick over the beehive if you want to gather honey.
Obama’s community activism background would teach him the same thing Democrats should have learned when they were blaming the Russians and angry Black people for why Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton lost to Donald Trump in the 2016 election: If the revolution fails, don’t blame the people, blame the vanguard party.
It’ll be hard to activate the masses in Atlanta’s West End to fight for a specter they’ve never seen long enough to envision what it really looks like.
Discuss prosperity — in a system that has a centuries-old track record in shutting down opportunities — with a family who has seen generations of poverty before them?
Discuss education with mothers and fathers who never saw what a fully funded neighborhood school — with children who read and write at their grade level — can look like?
Discuss social mobility with a community with the most tangible idea of economic development is a local Amazon or WalMart job?
Discuss intergenerational wealth with a family who can lose their home because it’s falling apart?
Discuss democracy with people who already feel left behind and may not even have a dream of what freedom to become anything they want can look like?
But sure, Obama can keep discussing specters while sending Americans reminders of how clueless he is about how white supremacy works.
He’s not alone. To borrow and twist a Wu-Tang-ism, white supremacy rules everything around us …
song currently stuck in my head: “love is like a movie” – ashley henry feat. judi jackson
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