Do We even have to wonder?

So, I recently watched a documentary entitled "The Diary of a Tired Black Man" and in this documentary a man was being filmed, as he went around asking women and men of a variety of different ethnicities and races what they thought the problem with black men was. Why is it the black man is so highly disregarded among women was one of the questions he asked.

This documentary was more than interesting to me, as I am a black man myself. Throughout the documentary the lives of a couple and their friends were documented as well, and it was amazing to see how women treat men, not just black men, but men as a species in general.

In the documentary they complained about how men are dogs, and they're insensitive, and they talk down to you, don't women do these things as well? The issue of single parent homes was brought up, and a lot of the people in the documentary said that in order for anyone to be raised properly, they need the guidance of both parents in the homes. A very salient point, this stood out to me very much, and I thought about this phenomena from a Bahamian perspective.

Let's bring it home for a minute. In the Bahamas there are a considerable amount of single parent homes, in which some of the children turn out just fine, and in some others, they're not as lucky. In my opinion however, it is not the fact that the child is raised in a single parent home that he or she has turned out "wrong" it is because of the parent.

Wait, wait, hear me out. I have personally witnessed women tell their sons, "you ga be just like ya pa, good fa nuttin" or, "you no good just like ya ole worthless daddy", then what about the households with the little girls in them. Some of them are exposed to mommy sleeping with Tom, Dick, Harry, Peter and Larry, and each one is responsible for a different bill, how is that little girl supposed to respect her mother, how else do you expect her to end up? She is going to do the very same things her mother did, and she won't be respected, as she won't know how to respect herself and her body.

We wonder why there is so much crime amongst our nation, and why the National Average can't move, we wonder why the AIDS count climbs every year, and why the church is no longer seen as a place of Holiness, stop wondering people, the answer is LUCIDLY clear. It's because of us. The way we do things. How are we expecting our children to lead or nation when we can't do it ourselves?

We have to change the way we speak to our babies, "you so dumb" "ya black ugly self" if you are CONSTANTLY exposed to this type of verbal abuse throughout your life, what do you expect the outcome to be?

I myself am a tired Black man, tired of people condemning the entire species because of a few bad experiences you may have had. If you're so pissed off at us, if you so badly want a "good man" realize one when you see him, rather than talking down to your sons and nephews and brothers, uplift them, encourage them, speak life into them. A good man isn't someone that beats the crap out of you "because he loves you", a good man isn't someone who cheats on you with your sister or best friend, on the same token though, a strong woman, as this was an argument presented in the film, they said that men can't handle strong black women. I have to say, there is a huge difference between strong and ignorant. Being a strong black woman does not mean cursing and carrying on every opporutnity you get, it does not mean having 6 different men to "handle your business" it does not mean insulting your sons because of the mistakes his father made, a man you laid with enough times to make 3 or 4 DIFFERENT babies, come on man, how silly can we be?

I am sick and tired of being typecasted a "dog" because of the way you've been treated, I am not him, and he is not me, what gives you the right to categorize me? In every situation in life, whenever things happen to us, and they don't go the way we planned, we need to sit back, analyze the situation, and see what went wrong, that doesn't mean cast blame, that means exactly what it says, analyze the situation and see what went wrong. Look at the situation objectively and figure out what both you and the other person did wrong, AVOID these same mistakes in the future, and move forward with a clean slate. Carrying your previous woes into a future relationship will only end in failure.

Lastly, we have to become an uplifting, enlightening people. Bob Marley said in a song, "Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery, none but us can free our minds". That is so true. The only person that bounds us is ourselves. We have to learn to forgive, become a more peaceful people, encourage our fallen brothers, how else do we expect answers? How else do we expect them to be our leaders? If we don't then do we even have to wonder why our people are the way they are?

This has been Collegeguy.