The crux of the "Straight Black men are the White people of Black people" argument is based primarily on one factor: Harm.

Because White supremacy is perpetual harm by White men. They think that Black men, being perpetrators of harm who are also men, can be called White men.

The only pushback you'll get for rebutting the comparison is that Black men are responsible for the harm of other Black people in the community. From a purely analytical standpoint, this being the only factor which the argument hinges on makes It a very weak comparison.

Reality is Black men are by no means the most privileged group in the community and occupy no real intra-community power over other groups. The Black community is more of an internal, segregated & resource strained colony, not a self-governing autonomous state led by Black men.

All violence in the black community is disproportionate relative to Whites In bidirectional ways, Mothers on children, same-sex partners on another, women on men, and men on men most commonly. If the degree of harm dictates the comparison to White men, what does this really mean?

The notion that violence is only enacted by straight Black men in monopoly is pathological and categorically false to be clear. Eldrige Cleaver bragged about raping a White woman, he was bisexual. Audre Lord was abusive to her White male partners, she was also not heterosexual.

The issue with the harm comparison is it presumes that the qualitative nature of the harm is inherently the same. Black gang violence, for example, is not the same as White male school shootings. Black mother's neglect of children Is not the same as White mother's.

The dishonesty of the comparison between Hetero BM & WM is not even the conflation of hetero-Black men w/ALL White men, but in it's disingenuous & deliberate erasure of the historical & contemporary ways that White supremacy continues to shape Black life.

Most would not argue that enslaved Black men were the White men of Black people. And we can all identify how the conditions of Black people during the period following emancipation were reformed into Jim Crow segregation, the carceral state & other forms of discrimination.

So how can we acknowledge the continued marginalization and enslavement of both Black men & women while ALSO making the claim that the existence of Black men can be likened to the suffering, displacement, and oppression caused by 400 years of White male dominance?

The only way the comparison to White men could stand up to critical scrutiny would be if you could locate the ways in which Black men hold power & shape relations among all Black people in ways that are independent of colonial influence and reproduce a Black male hierarchy.

Spoiler: You can't because in the U.S. such a phenomenon does. not. and. has. not. ever. existed.

I should also add that I'm concerned with how pushback against the comparison to White men is repositioned as the dismissal of harms caused by Black men to individuals. I have to say, it's unfair to say this of Black men simply asking to be seen through a humane lens.

People should consider that there is a pathology inherent in this group-based claim that suggests in the Black community there is Black male violence, and then violence from everyone else. It implies self-created and self-sustained violence, not one which Is ecological.

While some violence enacted by Black men may very well be linked to internalization of hegemonic norms, or a reaction to the inability to access them, we must be clear that these acts are not unique to Black men and are linked to structures affecting ALL Black people.

The consistent narrative that BM violence must be interpreted through the lens of White maleness imagines a world where BM's can be purged and purified of "toxic behavior" Independent of broader colonial structures that are most powerful for the most marginalized of BM & boys.

If we cannot give humanity to the 14-year-old corner boys, then how can we expect any true healing among Black ppl, by Black ppl based on internal forms of self-determined community healing?