In Defence of Black Husbands and NFL Football Players

http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/10/10/w...gets-paid/

Quote:[size=14pt]When Black Guys Mess Up, Everybody Gets Paid[/size]

Quote:Just as the first reports of the Kennedy’s assassination falsely accused black men of committing the assassination, the media ran with a report that the perpetrator of the Boston Marathon bombing was a dark skinned individual.

I was driving home from my job at the California College of the Arts when Randy Rhodes announced that black people could relax because the perpetrators were white.I relaxed. The two passengers, my daughter Tennessee, a poet and poet Vernon Keeve, winner of a Zora Neale Hurston prize, relaxed. We had every reason to become anxious.The actions of a few individuals have caused white mobs to lynch, terrorize and expel blacks from their property.An estimated three hundred blacks were killed in Tulsa ,Oklahoma because of a rumor that a black man, Dick Rowland, had raped a white female elevator operator, Sarah Page.As usual the media became the lynch mob leader.After he had been released from jail, Rowland and Page met for coffee in Kansas City.

A black man called into the show and said that if a black man had bombed the Boston Marathon, “ we would have all been rounded up.” Black men weren’t rounded up physically, because of Ray Rice’s actions, but they were caught in a media net, figuratively. This was nothing new, in a country where a minority is treated as members of an enemy nation within a nation, the actions, often alleged, of one or two individuals are used to indict the many. Such collectiving of blame isn’t new in history. The actions of one Jew, Herschel Grynzspan, gave the Nazis an excuse to launch Kristallnacht.So a few days after the Ray Rice footage was exposed by cable television, desperate for eyeballs, the actions of one or two individuals jumped to an indictment of the black male population. Not satisfied with indicitng the brothers during the week ending Sept.14, Hispanic males were corralled on an MSNBC show devoted to feminist issues.

Quote:On Tuesday, Sept.16.William Rhoden of the Times, appearing on an MSNBC show, said that black and brown women were the ones most affected by domestic violence. He’s wrong. The typical domestic violence perpetrator is a white male. For example, if one in five college women are raped, the rapist is most likely to be a white male since college enrollment for black men is low. Yet, when a black football player was alleged to have committed a rape, an “investigative report” about the rape began on page one of the Times and jumped to fill two pages.

Some of the most enthusiastic commentary about the violent actions of some black football players came from media white women, who work at networks that have had problems with sexism since the beginning of the medium. This case of a black male abuser shows that some black males acting stupid can really get the bourgeois sisterhood riled up, with such cases beginning a “national discussion” about domestic violence. If the middle class corporate sisterhood, those who, according to Harriet Fraad, co- opted a working class integrated feminism, had been as riled up about Proposition 209, or Welfare Reform these legislation would never have passed. I’ve rarely seen the National Organization so pumped. Well, maybe when a black male, Clarence Thomas ignited a “ national discussion” about sexual harassment in the workplace, or when a black fictional character “Mr.” in Steven Spielberg’s version of “The Color Purple” began an international discussion about domestic violence and incest.

When I posted a comment about the National Organization for Women on Facebook, some criticism of the organization from black women began to appear in the replies. Such criticism has been muffled by the media, owned by wealthy white men, who chose feminist leaders just as they choose black leaders, Hispanic, and Asian American leaders. Activist Jolynn Brooks wrote:” Why doesn’t anyone speak to that fact that American feminists in large part are not egalitarian but too often anti-male as well as anti-black? I found this fact to be evident in the membership of the National Organization for Women. I was in attendance when they voted down the candidacy of a black woman, Efia Nwangaza, for a leadership position with the thinnest of reasons. These bourgeois feminists are not revolutionary in their political orientation but rather totalitarian. They don’t want to replace the present political system with one that is just, principled, or guided by the dictates of each according to her/his ability; each according to her/his need. Instead, they are bald and bold in their need to replace white male patriarchy with a female version complete with its own bigotry and white-skin. “

Quote:Ray Rice’s knocking his spouse unconscious has led to a festival of hypocrisy among the chattering classes. Dr. Louis Moore an assistant professor in the history department at Grand Valley State University commented about how the offenses of a few black men are projected upon the many. “Part of the privilege of whiteness, is that Whites are allowed to be individuals,” said Moore. “So when Tony Stewart killed that man on the racetrack, it was an indictment on Tony Stewart, not White men. When Wes Welker got suspended for drugs, we did not have a national conversation about Whites’ use of drugs even though we know that Whites use more drugs than Blacks.”

While I was invited by Canadian radio to air my views about the NFL, one of those media, which has published my Op-eds since the nineteen seventies, said that they had enough comments on the case. Their commentary was controlled by white men of the kind who’ve appointed themselves the explainers of black Americans to the audience to whom cable wants to sell their products. Like anthropologists explaining the behavior of Indian. At least Irving Berlin applied black face so you’d know that he had no experience at being one.

Also, why is it a surprise that men. who are trained to be weapons and even encouraged by some unscrupulous coaches to maim their opponents, can’t shed these feelings when away from the game.

But do these men represent all black men? To the cable networks, who have been searching for an O.J., who would boost their ratings, they do. The O.J. trial saved CNN. Black men not only were assets for the cotton industry but are assets for the football and the cable industries as well.When black men mess up; everybody gets paid. What Bill Withers said in his song “Use Me” must apply to them. “You just keep on using me / Until you use me up”

And so Ray Rice’s brutal decking of his spouse followed a familiar pattern. First the shocking footage went viral. Then, to boost ratings, the virus spread to include other black men who’d perpetrated domestic violence, the old black bogeyman trope that has earned hundreds of millions of dollars and created political careers. Every time I see Senator Corker on television, I’m reminded that he got to the senate by pairing his opponent, Harold Ford, with a white woman. The Anne Card. In the course of the week Chris Brown, Mike Tyson, Floyd Mayweather were shamed and of course O.J. And by the middle of the week a guest on Joy Reid’s show indicted all black men.

I knew this fact years ago. In my country of America, racism is embedded in its foundation and culture. It's disgusting but it's apart of the American landscape. When a black male public figure screws up, the press has a field day. Suddenly, the moral police come aboard and you have multiple organizations fighting for television time just to bring more attention to themselves and not the actual issue of whatever the black male celebrity did. I rarely see this kind of vilification toward white public figures. It may last for a week and go away. With black males or black celebrities period, it will last for years. Simply look at the situation with Chris Brown. I'm not a fan of Chris at all, but mainstream white press do not miss a moment to constantly refer to his assault on Rihanna from 2009. Now with Adrian Peterson and others, it's really a field day for reporters, bloggers and others to pick at the person like vultures.