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Most of the discussions around Black men and patriarchy fail to account for the difference between patriarchy as a material reality and patriarchy as an ideology. As with poor Whites/Whiteness, a lot of us lay claim to who the ideology conditions and allows us to think we are....
...Patriarchy, like Whiteness pays what Du Bois called a “psychological wage,” for a group of people that is deprived, vulnerable and devalued, patriarchal ideology promises the illusion of abundance, safety and high value...
... Patriarchy, like Whiteness, teaches you that to perform it is to have abundance, safety, high value and power, or to have the potential to have them. It is intertwined with capitalism and its ideology...
... Patriarchy, like capitalist ideology, like Whiteness, is individualistic and socially darwinistic; those who have deserve, those who don’t have don’t deserve, and those who want to have must acknowledge the deservedness of those who have...
... Those symbolically elevated by these ideologies prove their membership by emulating the havers and defending their prerogatives...
... You prove you deserve to succeed under capitalism by supporting Donald Trump (and his like). You prove you deserve to succeed under White supremacy by supporting Donald Trump. You prove you deserve to succeed under patriarchy by supporting Donald Trump...
...Whiteness and maleness (as constructed by patriarchy) are identities that one is both born into and that one must show one deserves. Throughout colonialism and throughout the literature of racism, you see Whites exhorting each other to “act like White men,”...
...The last two stanzas of Kipling’s “The White Man’s Burden,” exemplify this:...
“Take up the White Man's burden--Ye dare not stoop to less--Nor call too loud on Freedom/To cloke your weariness; By all ye cry or whisper, By all ye leave or do, The silent, sullen peoples Shall weigh your gods and you”...
... “Take up the White Man's burden--
Have done with childish days--
The lightly proferred laurel,
The easy, ungrudged praise.
Comes now, to search your manhood
Through all the thankless years
Cold, edged with dear-bought wisdom,
The judgment of your peers!”...
Have done with childish days--
The lightly proferred laurel,
The easy, ungrudged praise.
Comes now, to search your manhood
Through all the thankless years
Cold, edged with dear-bought wisdom,
The judgment of your peers!”...
...Here we see Whiteness, patriarchy and even the specter capitalism lurking behind. We are destined to conquer because we and our gods are better than you and your gods, yet we must prove by bold, intrepid action and derring-do that our gods and we are better than you...
...And in the final line, there’s a preoccupation with the judgment of fellow travelers in whiteness and patriarchal maleness. If you can’t steal a square of ground in Zimbabwe, you can at least exemplify the spirit of those who do, an exemplification rewarded with belonging...
...Recall the Access Hollywood tape. Why was Trump so set on demonstrating to another man that he was a sexual predator? He was proving his worthiness to be a man as he understood it. By association, this makes supporting Trump an excellent way to demonstrate the same thing...
...Ironically, Trump’s activities over the last four years, his cavorting with White supremacists and their corresponding enthusiasm, makes wrapping yourself in the banners patriarchy and capitalism even more appealing to certain sons (and even som daughters) of Africa...
...50 Cent wants the assurance that his wealth will protect him under Trump, so he broadcasts his support under a screenshot of Biden’s tax rates. Ice Cube, similarly, wants to be assured that being a man whose masculinity helped make him rich buys him a seat at the table...
...For most of us, vulnerability is an objective reality that we fight by attacking and neutralizing the sources of it. For others vulnerability is itself the crime, so they lean into whatever they can to assure themselves the vulnerability isn’t really there...
...I know that in the world of Donald Trump, Stephen Miller and Richard Spencer, there is no room for Ice Cube, Killer Mike and 50 Cent; but they can’t bear to know that, so they throw up defenses against the obvious rooted in those areas from which they draw strength...
...It’s much more comfortable to pretend patriarchal maleness and capitalist wealth will allow you to survive anything White supremacy can throw at you, to pretend racism is just a stylistic choice and that what you have is more powerful than what you lack...
...I think a more sophisticated discussion around why some Black men support Trump would entail disentangling the myths that most Black Americans share in common...
...These things: White supremacy (which is not merely external, but also heavily internalized), patriarchal ideology, capitalist ideology enter our minds so intertwined that it is impossible to kill one without killing the others.
