First and foremost I direct this letter to you Black Man, because Black is all I know and Black is what I experience on an on-going basis. This is my truth to you. It’s meant to tell you my truth.
Do you know the saying "once you go Black, you can't go back". Well, it's true. I as a Black Woman love you Black Man. Your peculiar ways, your presence, and the way you look after yourself - and oh my,
let’s not forget your scent, whether it’s your natural scent or cologne, there
is this special thing about you. Black Man you are beautiful
and I am not scared to tell you that. I find
you good looking, you
make my eyes smile. I really don't think there is anything wrong with
acknowledging your beauty. Politics have screwed up how we admire each other. When I say you are beautiful, I mean just that, you are beautiful. Please let's leave it at that. I do not want to sleep with you or become your wife when I declare how beautiful you are. 
I am a firm believer
in owning one’s life and taking responsibility for the life we live and not dwelling on blaming anyone for anything that happens in our lives, but I can't also not think about how violent masculinities are connected to our history. Because of this, I am almost compelled to understand your
ways even if at times I do not agree with your methods. Black Women have also been subjected to a violent past and look at us, we try our best. It is not a secret
that Africa at large has a fatherhood issue, that people in our generation have issues with their fathers. Rape is a huge crisis on our continent. Femicide in the hands of our beloveds is the dearth of women. This is sad Black Man. What is to be done?But I will say this. You Black man of this generation truly know how to love your seed despite the fact that maybe you have never heard the words "I love you" while growing up. Many say we cannot applaud a fish for swimming - but it is a big deal if the fish was deprogrammed to stop swimming and they learn how to swim despite the current narrative.
I look at what society has done to try and define what it means being a woman and a man respectively. Society and 'norms' have screwed us up big time. We are conditioned to believe that women can be weak and men can't. I am
allowed to be weak whenever I want to. I am allowed to fail in my career
because to a certain extend I get told I can always marry a rich man, not that
I agree with this but it’s the reality, whereas you Black man, the pressures
you deal with as a boy child are hectic - expected to be strong no matter what happens in
your life. Whether you were bullied or sexually abused you can’t tell anyone
because how will people respond? You were not allowed to cry out because tears
are a symbol of weakness. So how did you
deal with your issues? Did you bottle them up perhaps? Could this explain why
most of you have hidden anger and rage? You see the thing is, patriarchy was bad for both the woman and the man. You must do your best to bust these myths about masculinities. There is no behaviour that makes you less or more manly. We must bust those myths at all cost. Patriarchy is an evil system meant to come between the woman and the man.
Lets tell the truth shall we? Society favours the man. That is the truth. Women are conditioned to live up a man's expectation and authority. But... Isn't it time you stopped with the defence and listened to us women?
Yes we know that you hate being reminded of
your shortcomings and we know you say you hate it when we 'nag'. Maybe we need to understand
each other.
I am almost done, stay with me...
I personally don't believe that
you are a dog; I have met some of you who are just too awesome. You Black Man, you who is faithful and a
positive role model for society. I once
had you as a friend Black man and you told me that because of the fear of
falling for me, you cannot be my friend, this was in order to remain faithful in your
thoughts for the sake of your girlfriend then, who is now your wife. I truly respect that, that is why I am
adamant that you Black man are not as bad as they say you are. I know that you represent us well and some of
you are doing extraordinary things that Blacks were told could not do. Your ability to translate and use your skill
is mind blowing.
I am truly not trying to
undermine you or anything but in case you haven’t noticed the following, let me
bring them to your attention. If you
look around, the world is very concerned about women and the girl child; I
totally get that because of the past. To make things even, gender equality
calls for women and girl children to be empowered. But I want to know what
happens to the boy child while the girl child is being empowered? Doesn’t that
also cause a little of inequality all over again? Many of you argue that programs are geared to make
leaders out of the girl child and what about the boy child? My question back at you is "whose responsibility is that though?" - I hope you do not expect us women to mentor the boys. Take responsibility and do your bit.
Most of those who rape are men and if you talk to some of them, you realise that most of them suffered some form of abuse while growing up and they are merely manifesting what they didn’t deal with. This brings me to my stand when it comes to anti-rape campaigns. I feel that we need to condition the minds of the young boys not to rape or hurt anyone, help them deal with their issues while young. How does this get done? Through mentorship and boy child programs. I find that because I grew up with boys, I connect better with boys and find it easier to mentor boy teenagers then I do female teenagers, but I face a whole lot of challenges, the problem is that there are just some areas where I could never fulfill the male role in a boy teenager. One boy called me at 2am crying because he had just circumcised and he wanted me to come over to his house to check on him because he didn’t trust his mom enough. As weird as this sounds - I do understand it because to him, I had played the father figure role. Where am I going with this? I am crying out that more mentorship programs be put in place. More male orientated programs are needed. Can I challenge you Black man to commit to mentoring at least 20 boys, if that can happen, I feel a lot would have been won.
And lastly, the notion that
we ladies are moved by the type of car you drive and your material possession
is a short term one. At the end of the
day, we want to know what are you doing to dent the universe.*This has been edited to adapt to current feelings towards gender issues
As a black man myself, but not your type of black Malebo, ha ha ha(from the text of course), I would like to start by commending your efforts on this great article. You raise a lot of issues or rather challenges that most if not all of us "black men" face in some phase or another in our development. It is however sad that these challenges are never afforded a chance to ascend the stages and be discussed around tables like issues affecting women and girl children are often discussed. With that said, I think it's about time we as "black men" take our issues seriously and confront them with open minds. I also notice that it hasn't been easy for those who are trying their best, because of the patriarchal system that is entrenched in us. We grow up knowing that "every man for himself and God for us all", which drives most of us to try to achieve on our own. And that is more difficult because we are operating as silos instead of concentrating all our efforts in pursuit of developing each other. That stereotype taught us that a man should be able to stand for himself, fend for himself and survive without compromising his manhood. Asking for help from another man is seen as weakness, and it's even worse if help is asked from a woman. You continue to touch on issues that we as "black men" continue to fail dismally on, not because we cannot comprehend better, but simply because we do not know any better. Allow me to reassure you that we are also as eager to learn and understand your species as much as some of you are eager to teach us to understand the mystery called "a woman". Reading along I can't help but notice how apologetic you are and how you emphasise the fact that you do not mean to disrespect "us". It shows that the patriarchy affects us all and to some extent even makes it a bit unusual for a woman to address a man. I salute your strength; for lack of a better word; for highlight issues that are so hard hitting facts and yet a true reflection of the state of affairs. Again I would like to commend your efforts on the young minds that you are busy shaping to be better professionals, better entrepreneurs, better leaders, better partners and better parents of tomorrow. Do not loose hope and strength because you are the light to those young minds. I'm sure there's a lot of guys out there who would also like to do the same. I would however like to take you up on your challenge of availing ourselves to our communities and mentor the young ones, on one condition though. I do not a have a clue where to start and how to organise the whole thing. But I can promise you that if you can guide me through the process, I can also encourage my peers to do the same. Again I think mentors are available out there, it's only a question of how to start. With all that said, I would like to wish you well in your endeavours. Hoping to hear from you soon. Keep well!
ReplyDeleteThis is an amazing response, let me drive home, grab a cup of coffee and ponder on a few thoughts ok.....
ReplyDeleteSend me an email malebo(at)malebo.co.za and we can discuss
ReplyDeleteHi, I've been trying to send you a mail, but i'm struggling with your address. Do you perhaps have an alternative one??
Deleteuse @ and not (at) that's just done to prevent spam
DeleteWhat do you mean you are struggling? Try lebogololo(at)yahoo.co.uk
ReplyDelete