Black Man Emerging

Facing the Past and Seizing a Future in America

Joseph L. White, James H. Cones III

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781135282714
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: African American Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

In the face of centuries of institutional and interpersonal racism, in light of the signals they receive from society, and given the choices they must make about what they want from life and how to go about getting it--how can Black men in America realize their full potential? In Black Man Emerging, psychologists Joseph L. White and James H. Cones III fashion a moving psychological and social portrait that reflects their personal views on the struggle of Black men against oppression and for self-determination. Using numerous case histories and biographical sketches of Black men who have failed and those who have prevailed, the authors describe strategies for responding to racism and entrenched power--underscoring the healing capacity of religion, family, Black consciousness movements, mentorships, educational programs, paid employment, and other positive forces. They also explore the concept of identity as it applies to being Black and male and ithe influence of Black men on American culture. Black Man Emerging is a poignant and personal discussion of the issues facing and felt by Black men in this country and an important commentary on the conflicts born of human diversity.

THE PRESENT AND THE PAST: CURRENT VOICES/HISTORICAL TRACES

Chapter 1

Introduction

The prevailing image of Black men in America is an overwhelmingly negative one. As two Black men who have been subjected over the course of our lifetimes to the negative image recorded in history and statistics, and reported by the various news media, it is our hope to cast a new, more positive light on African-American masculinity.

Our Voices

In the chorus of negative reports and opinions, the voice of Black men themselves is rarely heard. While we acknowledge and sympathize with the oppression felt by other minority groups, and by our Black Sisters in particular, they are not the focus of this book. In the past ten years, the intensely negative view of Black men has far surpassed the disfavor in which other oppressed peoples are held. Black men have been typecast as America’s villains. It is our desire to show their true measure. We were taught by the Black men in our lives to carve out a positive template of Black male identity; we hope that this book will serve, in turn, as a message of hope to other Black men—and as a lesson to society as a whole, so that people may not only better understand the individual Black man but also comprehend the challenges he faces in his life. It was this same spirit of hope, optimism, and rebirth that inspired the Million Man March.

For seven hours on a sunny fall day in October 1995, upwards of 800,000 Black men (some say at least a million) stepped out of the shadows of invisibility and negative stereotypes to gather on the Mall in our nation’s capital to remind America of their presence. They were peaceful and respectful. No incidents of violence marred the day and there was only one arrest for drunk and disorderly conduct. In what was billed as the Million Man March, there were Brothers (African-American men) as far as the eye could see. Wide-angle lenses couldn’t capture the whole crowd. Although White folks joked that most of the Black men were able to attend the march because they were welfare freeloaders, in actuality, the Brothers came from all walks of life. There were northerners and southerners; urbanites and Brothers from rural areas; doctors and blue-collar workers; policemen, attorneys, and exconvicts; young and old; students and school dropouts; poor and wealthy; employed, underemployed, and unemployed; and gang members and ex–gang members. They sang, prayed, hung out with each other, listened to the speeches, and shared brotherly love and fellowship. Using the Black call-response form of dialogue, the speakers and the audience signified, played the dozens, and put the bad mouth on White folks. But, more importantly, they affirmed each other and vowed to take responsibility for their actions. They were there to remind America that the business of race and equality will not be sidetracked, even at a time when there is a conservative backlash against programs designed to help Blacks win congressional seats, gain admission to universities and graduate schools, secure high-paying jobs, and attain lucrative business contracts with government agencies. Black men are a force to be reckoned with; they will not disappear or fade away quietly into obscurity.

Although the press concentrated on the controversy and drama surrounding the convener of the march, Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, and speculated on why retired General Colin Powell, the most popular Black man in America, wasn’t there, the real message of the Million Man March was bigger than either Minister Farrakhan or General Powell. The real message sent from the sea of Black men gathered on the Mall was a grassroots affirmation of spiritual strength, dignity, atonement, hope, responsibility, love, and forgiveness. Warring enemy gang members sought forgiveness for past killings and reached out to each other. Absent fathers pledged to reunite with their children and guide them away from the destruction of drugs and crime. Husbands and boyfriends promised to respect their wives and girlfriends. The marchers showed America that Black men were not an endangered species. They were willing to commit themselves to the virtues of self-reliance and take responsibility for improving their lives and the communities they live in. Isn’t personal responsibility and family values what politicians like President Bill Clinton and conservatives like former Vice President Dan Quayle are talking about? Some called it the largest family-values rally America has ever witnessed. Others said it was the greatest event in the history of African-American men.¹

The legions of men assembled at the Mall in Washington, D.C., were also there to protest the dismal sociological and economic conditions of life in America that many Black males encounter as they make the passage from cradle to grave. Some sections of inner cities where African-American men reside resemble bombed-out European cities after World War II. Black men are more likely than their White male counterparts to be homicide victims, high school dropouts, unemployed, incarcerated or on parole; and they are more likely to have a shorter life expectancy, debilitating medical problems, and poor occupational training. Statistically speaking, being born a male with White skin confers certain advantages with respect to education, employment, career advancement, political and economic power, health care, and neighborhood residence. Conversely, dark skin places an undue burden on Black men in their struggle for self-definition and identity, education, access to networks providing employment and career information, political and economic power, and decent neighborhoods in which to rear their children.

The Million Man March was a profound psychological vindication for Black men who have been cast in public debates and political discussions as representing the low end of the bell curve measuring mental ability, as Willie Hortons, and as unqualified affirmative action hires and welfare freeloaders. The Brothers showed America an indomitable spirit that will not be denied, and they reminded their fellow citizens that it is an error to stereotype all Black men as dangerous, drug-hustling criminals, gangsta rappers, and TV sitcom clowns. Just like everyone else, most Black men have jobs, pay taxes, raise kids, struggle to pay their bills, and work hard to achieve a better life for their families and their children.

After reciting a pledge to improve themselves and their communities mentally, spiritually, morally, economically, and politically, the marchers departed from Washington with fresh resolve. They promised to get their lives together and heal the broken homes, deteriorating schools, and violence-ravaged streets of their communities, while working to empower Black men with the tools and skills to transform their lives. In July 1996, organizers of the original march (October 16, 1995) held a two-day follow-up conference in Chicago, which drew participants from around the country. The conference was sponsored by Million Man March, Inc., and the National Leadership Summit. Speakers included Louis Farrakhan, who called for more Black political participation. The chair of the conference, the Reverend Benjamin Chavis, former director of the NAACP, told the news media that the purpose of the meeting was to draft an urban policy agenda and start the process of building a God-centered mass movement. Among the urban policy agenda items were combating drugs; obtaining quality education, more job training, and better medical care; preserving public housing; revitalizing affirmative action; reversing the expansion of the nation’s prison system; carving out a bigger role for Blacks in the nation’s economy; and challenging the news media to confront White racism on TV, in newspapers, and other instruments of mass communication. As part of an organizing effort geared toward expanding political participation, millions of people across the country were informed of the urban agenda drafted by the conference. A national political convention was planned for September 20, 1996, to be followed by a world day of atonement on October 16, 1996—the first anniversary of the Million Man March—at the United Nations in New York.²

Spike Lee’s October 1996 film Get on the Bus, released on the anniversary, is a docudrama that attempts to capture the spirit of a group of Black men who journey to Washington to participate in the march. Get on the Bus follows the group on a three-day trip via Spotted Owl Coach from the First African Methodist Episcopal Church in Los Angeles to the capital. The characters, portrayed by actors, represent a composite of male personality types in the Black community bound together by their desire to participate in the event. There is an old-timer, left over from the 1960s, who still addresses the Brothers with Black power salutes, a UCLA film student and student of African drums, a gay couple struggling to keep their relationship alive, a selfcentered actor who wants to outshine movie star Denzel Washington, a conservative entrepreneur, and a follower of the Nation of Islam. There are also an estranged father and son; the son is a gangbanger ordered chained to his father by the courts. (The men on the bus call the chained father and son “The Defiant Ones.”)³

The film focuses on the psychological and social challenges African-American men face as they struggle to define who they are, build and maintain relationships, cope with racism, and search for strengths in the African-American way of being. On their three-day journey, the men engage in what can be described as a combination of a nonstop talkathon and intensive group psychotherapy. They discuss, debate, and argue about such topics as gang violence, male-female relationships, sexual preference, politics, Black Nationalism, skin color, and Black-White conflicts. One of the major dilemmas confronting Black men in America is brought to the forefront when the Spotted Owl bus is arbitrarily stopped by Tennessee state troopers who think the men may be transporting drugs.

For the men on the bus trip, the ultimate essence of the march is not a cure-all for the ills facing Black men in America, nor is it a coronation of the march leader, Louis Farrakhan. What the men experience in the process is a journey into self-discovery, personal empowerment, and reconciliation. Looking inward, they discover the power to create a better vision of themselves.⁴

Two major conclusions can be drawn from the Million Man March. First, race is an inescapable complication in American life that must be resolved. Whether it be overt or covert, individual or institutional, social or economic, blatant or subtle, racism needs to end before Black males can start life on a level playing field of equal opportunity. The second conclusion to be drawn is that Black men are willing to take responsibility for initiating interventions that will transform themselves and the Black community. They are willing to provide constructive, responsible definitions of masculinity and to work to enhance the development of skills and abilities necessary to achieve an optimal level of masculine functioning. However, no amount of individual or group transformation will change the economic or social obstacles with which Black men are confronted in a racist society. Solving problems surrounding racism will require the joint efforts of Blacks and Whites.

The Black/White Perceptual Gap

A discernible difference between Blacks and Whites with respect to how race and race-related events are perceived and assessed interferes with the search for biracial solutions to the social and economic roadblocks Black American males encounter. The reactions to the not-guilty verdict handed down in the O. J. Simpson murder trial in the fall of 1995 not only confirmed that race is a major factor in American society but brought out into the open the vast perceptual gap between Blacks and Whites.

Several polls taken after the trial showed that two-thirds of Whites believed that O. J. was guilty of murdering his ex-wife and her friend Ron Goldman. Conversely, two-thirds of Blacks believed that he was innocent. While Blacks and Whites seemingly viewed the same trial on TV, they apparently focused on different events. Whites looked at the overwhelming evidence indicating that O. J. was at the scene of the crime and had a history of domestic violence, and concluded that the police would not have charged him if he were not guilty. Blacks, based on their long history of oppression and brutality by the police and the criminal justice system, had no problem believing that the evidence could have been tampered with and that the police picked on O. J. because he was a successful Black man married to a White woman.

Detective Mark Fuhrman’s use of the word “Nigger,” captured on audiotape during interviews with the screenwriter Laura Hart McKinney (after having denied he’d used it in the past ten years), convinced Blacks that racist police officers involved in the case could have been motivated to set O. J. up, or, at the very least, had tampered with the evidence. Aware of the fact that Blacks live in an experiential/psychological space that contains a long history of individual and collective racism and negative experience with the police, the lead attorney for Simpson, Johnnie Cochran, had no problem playing the race card. In addition to bringing up Fuhrman’s use of the N-word, Cochran appealed to the predominantly Black jury’s racial suspicions by tossing out a list of racial buzzwords and quotations from famous Black figures like Martin Luther King, Jr., and Frederick Douglass, who, Cochran implied, would have voted for acquittal. Not surprisingly, his strategy worked. In a press conference after the trial, Cochran admitted he had interjected the race card into the trial. He indicated that he would have been held liable for malpractice if he had passed by a perfect opportunity to appeal to a predominantly Black jury’s suspicions about fairness in the criminal justice system.

Bypassing lengthy deliberations on the mountain of evidence presented in the ten-month trial, pointing toward Simpson’s guilt, the jury handed down the not-guilty verdict in less than five hours. The quickness of the verdict surprised the attorneys, the presiding judge, the news media, and the American public. In TV pictures released as the verdict was being read, Whites appeared to be stunned, shocked, and angry. Blacks in colleges, beauty shops, barbershops, and restaurants were shown cheering and clapping. Ironically, Black women in a shelter for battered women cheered the not-guilty verdict despite strong evidence suggesting Simpson had a history of beating his wife.⁵

How can two groups of people watching the same widely publicized trial on TV and hearing it discussed on talk shows come to such different conclusions? Why the vast perceptual gap? The most straightforward explanation is that Blacks and Whites live in different experiential/psychological worlds, which ultimately leads to different perceptions and interpretations of race-related events. Based on a long history of abuse by law enforcement, Blacks did not find it hard to believe that the police could have manipulated the evidence against O. J. Whites, on the other hand, could not believe that the police would charge a prominent Black man with double murder if he were not guilty.

Public opinion polls consistently show that Blacks and Whites interpret racial events differently, view the meaning of racial progress differently, and assess racial spokesmen from a different perspective. In a poll conducted by the Los Angeles Times in 1991, 66 percent of Whites said they felt the civil rights movement had gone far enough or too far. This may explain why Whites are showing much greater opposition to special programs like affirmative action, designed to give Blacks and other minorities a boost. In the same poll, 86 percent of Blacks said the civil rights movement had not gone far enough. Blacks generally feel that while the nation has made major strides toward equality and opportunity, much remains to be done. More recent evidence that Blacks and Whites continue to view racial issues through different lenses comes from a 1997 survey by the Gallup Organization. In the poll, 58 percent of Whites thought that the quality of life for Black Americans had become better over the past decade, whereas only 33 percent of Blacks surveyed thought that the quality of life for Black Americans had improved. Looking at the current racial scene, which seems to be a mix of stalled progress and retrogression, many Blacks feel a sense of despair. Seventy-six percent of Black college graduates in the poll said that race relations would always be a troublesome problem in America.⁶

Compounding the Black/White perceptual split in viewing racial concerns is the fact that many Whites cling to racial stereotypes. A poll conducted in 1991 by the University of Chicago’s National Opinion Research Center found that 56 percent of Whites believed Blacks were likely to be less intelligent than Whites. In a...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgement
• Part I The Present and the Past: Current Voices1 Historical Traces
• Part II Contemporary Images and Expressive Styles
• Part III The African–American Male: Masculine Alternatives and Psycological Challenges
• Part IV Major Influences on African-American Masculine Development
• Part V Interventions, Recommendations, and Conclusions
• Notes
• Index