Why Are Negative Stereotypes About Black Relationships So Ingrained?
Recently, a documentary made its way into my Gmail inbox. Frustrated: Black American Men in Brazil expounds on a piece published a few years ago in Essence about Black men finding in Brazil what they “can’t” in North America: love, or a more easily manageable version of it.
It’s the same story about black men taking issue with black women, who are:
a) too feisty for their own good
b) too fixated on income
c) not catering enough
Most notably, this doc carries a presumption that educated Black men who don’t like Black women is normal. Uh-uh.
I’m black with two degrees. Many in my circle are highly educated. My friends who aren’t “educated” have businesses and nice incomes. All regularly dating, some married to, melanated women.
None of us have an issue with dating outside, per se, but there aren’t any discussions of the “black women are a pain, I need to see what they’re talmbout” variety. So why is this bill of goods sold to the world?
The crave for a docile, sexually fulfilling woman is a common sticking point for men in a world where entitlement runs rampant. This extends down into the lens of many black men who haven’t learned to stop ratifying the ideals of Western patriarchy.
(When I say patriarchy, I’m specifically referring to the notion of men being entitled to certain treatment. Men are leaders, hunters, gatherers. We’re the gods of the land. Get behind us and serve.)
Don’t have to be a Mensa candidate to poke holes at that logic, yet that’s a pervasive sentiment.
Women seek security? And that’s a problem? Good for them. A woman wanting to be taken care of is no less superficial than a man wanting his sexual needs fulfilled. According to Abraham Maslow, both needs are physiological and on the same level.
Wah-wah. Black women don’t treat us right…so we gotta go to Brazil because they play nicer.
This evinces more about black men than anything it could about black women. Brazilian women aren’t the problem or the solution. To many American men, they serve as a band-aid to a deeper ill. The cultural war continues to play out through the media, as if this issue rests only within black relationships. Men from all races in the U.S. go to Brazil or other countries for the pleasurable company of women. Not just black men.
Of course, women can be shallow in their preferences as well. But I also know plenty of high-powered women who treat their men — who earn less than them — like royalty. It’s a dangerous game to take one narrative and apply it as the default. There are many relationships where women are breadwinners and the relationships are smooth. These aren’t the stories that appear in the dominant media narrative.
Stories like those are essentially un-American. There are Founding Fathers. Founding Mothers are nowhere to be found. In the macro sense, the successful family unit of the woman as primary guap collector is counter-cultural, an anachronism of a distant ideal that has no place in contemporary life. The Matriarch is lauded as much as the man next to her is emasculated.
The documentary rehashes much of the same dichotomous Black women vs. Black men clash, but it also talks about the familial values of Americans. Some may see it as an invitation to explore Brazil or keep their men from going to Brazil. Others may see it as yet another chink in the Black male armor.
The bellyaching from both sides isn’t necessary…if the goal is to seek answers. Stereotypes get so much play because of its ease of assimilation. They are devoid of nuance, leading to knee-deep reasoning and a perpetuation of the same fatigued debates. Every stereotype contains a glimmer of truth; that doesn’t mean every stereotype is the truth.
Comment boards across the Interwebs are replete with us bickering and finger pointing and chest thumping. I don’t find nearly as much intra-racial relationship quibbling from other ethnicities in the digital space. That, to me, speaks the loudest of volumes.
It’s just the ones who are angry with not so good luck are the loudest ones. While those who are happy are silent particularly notice this among men. Even men who are in good, quality relationships nod in little agreement with their bitter buddies and don’t share the happiness of their relationships. Also, I don’t think it’s abw stopping brothers for going to Brazil that’s a whole other agenda lol come on please.
I see too many documentaries about black hurt and not enough about black love.
and who is it that controls what we will get to see?
Black women need to just stop. Stop giving a hoot and paying attention to these morons. These idiot guys can do whatever they want. My issue is: Why do women have to internalize everyone else’s issues? Why do we have to care?
What the heck do I care if some random ass dudes I don’t even know like to frequent south american prostitutes? Why is the onus on us to care, identify our role in some dude’s pathology, and try to “fix” ourselves to be worthy of him? Is that plum ridiculous to anyone else?
I vote for no more articles about the nonsensical whining of some anonymous Internet dude bitching about black women this, or black women that. Would you feel compelled to respond if someone posted a video called, I shoot up heroin because of the black boogeywoman…..blah blah blah….? Please stop caring, black women. It isn’t worth the time or the effort to respond to this kind of stupidity. Keep on steppin’. Please, for the love of all that is Holy, stop giving this kind of stuff energy. You’ll be amazed at how quickly it stops when they find out that noone’s listening.
Glad this was the first comment I read. I sooo agree with you. Why should we HAVE to INTERNALIZE ALL the BS hurled @ us???
And when you don’t…you free yourself up to a whole new world of opportunity cause you too busy learning and growing.
If the issued needs to be explored…show it to black men…cause I surely don’t give 2 chits.
This right here> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^!
@Guest1234
“Please stop caring, black women. It isn’t worth the time or the effort to respond to this kind of stupidity. Keep on steppin’. Please, for the love of all that is Holy, stop giving this kind of stuff energy” — I love, love this statement!
Yes Lawd! If they want to go to Brazil and look like a bunch of idiots when Doc tells them they have the Herps, so be it. Good luck to ya bruh and I hope all that works out!
Not bashing the PEOPLE of Brazil….just the whores that these men go to Brazil to have sex with and claim they are better women than Black women from America with real jobs and education. That’s all.
@Treece – I agree. South America contains the most blacks in the world 2nd only to the African continent.
They have endured the same racism and struggles we have here.
I encourage everyone to get out of this country and hit the reset button on your thinking.
There are plenty of prostitutes there just like there are here, but many of these women are black women struggling for equality and a voice just like many here.
I would hate to see them preyed upon by some misguided male.
@ Chilly
I understand what you are saying. I am aware of the plight Brazilians face and that their society is full of those who are desperate and feel like making themselves exponentially available to American men to do…whatever…is a way out. American whores/gold-diggers do the same thing. That still doesn’t change the fact that the men who go there think that they are getting a taste of the “good life” by having sex with these women while wining and dining them (and spending lots of American cash on them for anything), but they are really just opening themselves up to a myriad of STDs. But it’s okay, because like the brother in the documentary said, they’ll get a woman who doesn’t mind being grabbed and fondled by strange men on the beach, she will then bring him his drink, open the straw, and place it in the glass for him. If that’s what you want, fine. Just accept all that comes with the territory, even the Brazilian women that just want your American dollars and a trip back to the states, all while spreading their herpes….
@Treece, it is hilarious that these idiots go to Brazil to get away from black women but there are millions more black women down there than up here. Of course, most idiots, white or black, think Brazilian is a race and if they see a black woman down there she’ll be transformed into an exotic seductress in their tiny brains…
People in general are really ignorant about the fact that black people live below the border in this hemisphere.
@Nic – it’s true! …and not mulattos or mestizos as they are known there. Sao Paulo, Salvador Bahia (esp.), Rio, – Black people live in the shadows of what the media wants to promote about Brazil. Even though Brazil is Portuguese (not Spanish) – the same phenomenon that we see here in North America is exactly the same there. There is a hierarchy that is promoted out to the world – a face – but you go there and you see the faces of the masses of the people are not mestizos – although they have a larger mix-race population than North America – most faces are black faces. I see the same phenomenon in my husband’s country of Panama, in Cuba, Puerto Rico, El Salvador, Belize, Mexico, Honduras – these places have large numbers of blacks – but if you don’t travel outside this country you will never really know – just like most of the people in the South Pacific – Fiji, Tahiti, Vanuatu are black people too – yet what the media promotes is not that face -
Brazil – just like Latin America – just like every other place suffers from the white is better syndrome – so the face they will export from their country will be a white/light face –
Anyway, about this article and about the documentary – I don’t believe there is as much negativity between BM and BW as the media wants us to believe….if so, then it would be mostly an American BW/BM “thing” – cause that is not how the world looks outside this country …. and you HAVE TO fly 5,000 miles to find a woman something is wrong with you – plain and simple.
Also, some men like their women educated and having standards for herself. No man wants a woman they can’t respect for long. ,A good male friend of mine said:
“Show me a pretty woman and I’ll show you a man tired of fucking her.”
He meant this to say – that beauty only casts is spell for a time – you need to have something to back that beauty/booty up with.