Manhood in the Black community is at a crossroads. Some would say it always has been. And as we become more and more removed from the days of “the man trying to keep me down,” Black men in America have to start asking the question – who are we?
A Black man is not born. A Black man is who he becomes. We are fathers, husbands, uncles, and friends. We are hardworking, honest and full of integrity. We are also lazy, shiftless, primed for jail and afraid of responsibility.
In the midst of a new economy and a progressive society, a new form of masculinity has been born, which has forced Black men to struggle with a new identity. More and more women are achieving, and raising young Black men on their own – with 72 percent of Black children being raised in single parent households. It has and will continue to affect manhood as we know it.
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You see, traditional masculinity was learned, it was constructed around traditional authority – landlord over peasant, boss over worker, husband over wife, and old over young. Needless to say, this form of authority has been disrupted, therefore producing a new form of cultural patterns. Black men are plainly living through another phase of change now, and its shape is not well understood. Modern masculinity, in a variety of shapes and sizes and attitudes, has absolutely changed as I knew it.
The Black male is categorically going through a form of transformation. As I watch young men wear their pants below their waist, disrespect their elders; keep their hats on their heads at the dinner table, disregard and refuse to open doors for women, I have come to the conclusion that we have a crisis of masculinity in America. We are way off on what constitutes manhood.
Young Black men are failing to reach mature adulthood in massive numbers, mostly for lack of role models and reasonable paths toward success. Some of them are so lost that they create bloody sideshows to express their pain – but the real issue lies in manhood itself.
Which leads me back to – what about Black men? What have we been doing to analyze our role and how it is changing? Ask that question in any social setting and prepare for quizzical silence. With the way things have been going do we just cede our unfair advantages over to our women and…what? Keep just doing whatever we have been doing and concede our manhood, right?
Actually the sand has been slipping out from beneath the feet of Black men for a very long time – not because of feminism, mind you – but because of the economic and cultural institutions in society. This is not an excuse, because we have refused to empower ourselves as a whole.
Black men are crying for help – and we have not yet evolved to the point where we have an ability to listen to this cry of distress and do anything about it.
Nevertheless, in the past few decades, progress amongst our women has blossomed in ways I’m sure our ancestors would never have dared dream. They are doctors, lawyers, judges, writers, CEOs, engineers, and national security advisers – as well as holding their original societal roles as mothers, wives and family matriarchs. This is not without conflict – witness the recurrent struggle over women “having it all” – but the dialogue is vital. Our Black women are a rousing success.
But what about us? Where have we been during this decades-long transition? Many of us have cheered our women along on their path toward self-development and societal recognition. Still, too many of us have also been on the defensive, arguing against these changes as deadly to our culture as a whole.
Ultimately, a plethora of Black men, including myself, are raising daughters in this new environment, and I am doubtful that we will return to the dynamic of 1955. Consequently, the Black male in America has to find a way to be masculine, strong, educated and thoughtfully forceful in today’s society. We have to change the dialogue about who we are and what we are and find a way to evolve toward who we can be.
Zack Burgess is an award winning journalist, who is the Director/Owner of OFF WOODWARD MEDIA, LLC, where he works as a Writer, Editor and Communications Specialist. Twitter: @zackburgess1
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