Musings on the state of “black love” or dissertation reflections

… the simple, sad truth is that Afro-Americans are today the loneliest of all Americans … lonely as households headed by women sick and tired of being “the strong black woman”; lonely as single men fearful of commitment; lonely as single women wary of a “love and trouble” tradition that has always been more trouble than love. ~ Orlando Patterson, Rituals of Blood

Since we live historically (as individuals who change and are changed by events and circumstances), we have the power to transform reality, if we choose to act. Simply naming and identifying a problem does not solve it; [to] name is only one stage in the process of transformation ~ bell hooks

There is, we all agree, a problem … dreadful. But if we, on both sides of the equation see, without guise, that there are problems, holes in our relationships, places where we feel silenced or ignored, unseen and unloved – why then the fear of speech? If it is through our relationships with one another that we find the strength, and sometimes the will to cope and survive, why are we so resistant and defensive of the discerning eye of criticism? Why are we so committed to continuing our complicity in this conspiracy of silence?

For a long while, I believed that the reason we – black folk – would always shrink back from this most needed of conversations was steeped in the fact that in our daily walk we are so rarely affirmed, sometimes under attack, and often devalued, that critical commentary threatens to shatters us. To hear that we are also failing in how we love, this most human(e) of actions, is an accusation that feels unbearable – more reasons that we are still not enough, one more testament to our failure. Still, we know all too well that we cannot afford to let instance in which light is shed on our problems outside an ethos of love, prevent us from acknowledging that fractures and fissures DO exist. If we succumb to this delusion, the outcome is clear: we perpetuate the current state of affairs and ensure that the better day we so desperately desire, and need, we will remain always beyond our grasp ... and there are so many wounds to be healed.

Lately, 'though, I’ve been thinking that at least part of the problem lies in the fact that naming the problem is seldom seen as the first step of an opportunity. Our willingness to say, hey, there IS an issue is tempered because we fear that our words will be thought disparaging, be taken as a put down. This fear is particularly acute in exchanges between black men and women. Emasculating. Castrating. These are the words, once launched at us that we all too often take up in arms – hurling them at one another as if the hearts we defend can only be protected by a pre-emptive strike.

But – if there is ever to be forward movement, we must provide space and relationships where critical attention is offered not to destroy, but to transform and rebuild. For that is the essence of love – offering unflinching acknowledgment of who we are today, while being equally committed to standing in the fire as we are refined and perfected into who we are capable of becoming. It is only in these spaces where the recognition of flaws, faults, and inconsistencies is hailed as the first step in a journey to transformation, that real radical (r)evolution can take place. This is where love begins.

What does this mean practically? Just as it is insufficient to name a problem without acting towards its solution, it is also inadequate to witness a truth (or have it revealed) and never speak. The power of a revelation is murdered by nothing so much as silence. And it is this, silence, which plagues our relationships in every facet of the black experience – between parent and child, lovers and friends – silence.

It has been said often that patriarchy has done a number on women, but I think it has had equally devastating effects on men. While these effects may not be greater, per se, their impact may prove more challenging to solve for men. For unlike women, who are expected to speak even when our words are depicted as hollow, invalid or otherwise unworthy - the expectation of speech and space we have set aside for words, presents a possibility for being heard – even if only rarely or only by other women. And this hearing and being heard is essential to being healed. While our progress may be stop and go, sometime haphazard and often fragmented, we are moving; our journey is underway.

I wonder, however, if the same can be said of men. Listening from shadowed doorways of the few the relationships I’ve had with men, I hear a song that says that real affirming communication is not only rare, but, at times, relentlessly avoided among men. To speak and be open, to share or even to have anything that requires sharing, has been deemed almost intrinsically, un-masculine. And yet I cannot, for an instant, believe that speech is a feminine characteristic; not I who has always been so painfully prone to silence. In the rare (and oh so cherished) relationships I’ve had with men - I have been the one chided for failing to communicate and share, pleaded with to reveal and unmask. Perhaps such relationships, marked by male speech and female silence, are anomalies reflecting the particularities of a woman brought up in a home shrouded with silence and guided by the kind of allusions of beyond-human-grandeur typically limited to men. Perhaps, but I don’t think so.

I remain convinced that communication, speech, is an intrinsically human quality; connection is deeply rooted need. Rather, it is our silence that is learned. We have been taught and trained to take up these particular roles in the drama of relationships – and too many of us have learned our lessons well.

For black men, this silencing may be even more acute because the very ideal of what a man is has been defined, primarily by the dominant majority – in opposition to them, and so many remain caught in a seemingly unending battle to realize some measure of this ‘manhood’ – by any means necessary. While I think the battle is futile and energies would be better used constructing a new image of masculinity that transcends any constraints of race or class - what is certain is that the dominant framework is the only one that most men have, structuring their today and constraining their tomorrow. Within these bounds, speech – no, real communication – is of even greater consequence in our communities, to articulate the vision necessary for a future. Yet, there remain so many obstacles to it being realized.

In 1972, James Baldwin and Nikki Giovanni engaged in a critical revolutionary act: a black man, a black woman, they sat and had a conversation. If this is the revolution – perhaps I am ready to get on board.

2006-2009