The Isis Papers: The Keys to the Colors

The Isis Papers
and staying with them steadily decline, and Black male/female alienation
increases.
Recent statistics reveal that today (1974), 34% of Black families are
headed by females as compared to 10% of white families, and this figure
is increasing each year. In the metropolitan area of Washington, D.C.,
there are 61,000 Black male children growing up in homes without their
fathers or other father surrogates, while 90% of their teachers in the public
schools are also females. This produces a massive deficiency in adult
males for role modeling and imprinting. Such role modeling and imprinting
are essential for Black male children to understand adult male role
functioning.·
As Black males and females become more and more alienated, as our
current rates of separation and divorce indicate, and as Black females are
bei~g .left to rear Black male children alone, the alienation, hate and
disgust felt towards adult males are visited upon their sons subtly. A
female alienated from males is hard-pressed to reinforce patterns of
conduct in a male child that remind her of unhappiness and pain. She is
much more inclined to say, "There you go looking and acting like that no
good nigger father of yours." The Black female teacher ~t sch~l ~ho
also may be experiencing alienation from her Black man, tf not mclmed
to make the same statement in such a direct manner, only says it more
subtly, says nothing, or simply acts out her hate, disgust and distrust of
Black males, achieving the same end result.
It is little wonder that 98% of all of the Black male children I talk with,
who have reached the junior high school level, hate school. Schools and
their personnel, like all other aspects of the racist system, do their share
to alienate Black males from maximal functioning and thus further the
ultimate alienation of Black males from themselves and their manhood.
As a result of this pattern of socialization, Black males soon learQ that it
is easier to be a female child than a male child, and more promising to be
an adult Black female than an adult Black male.
In childhood, male children learn- whether at home or at school- that
~Y can make mothers and female teachers happy (and they will shower
Black Male Passivity
you with smiles and affection) when they act like "females" rather than
like boys.
The dearth of adult Black males in the homes, schools and neighborhoods
leaves Black male children no alternative models. Blindly they seek
out one another as models, and in their blindness end up in trouble _ in
ju~e~ile h~mes or prisons. But fate and the dynamics of racism again play
a Vlctous trick because the young males only become more alienated from
their manhood and more feminized in such settings. They are given orders
by men to whom they must submit; they wait passively to be fed three
meals a day by men; and fmally, they have sexual intercourse with men.
It is no wonder that they are unable to play the role of Black men when
they leave.
One ex-prisoner patient told me, "It is easier to endure the life on the
inside than to try to put up with the pressures of being a man, a husband
and a father in the street." The intent of mcist programming had been
achieved: "Give np trying to be a Black man. Why not be a woman?"
Many Black males have answered unconsciously, "Why not!" The
b~aided ~d curled hair, the earrings and bracelets, the midriff tops, the
cmch wrusted pants, the flowered underwear, the high-heeled shoes with
platforms and the pocketbooks are all behavioml answers to the above.
They say in loud and clear language, "White man, I will never come after
you. I cannot run in my high-heels- you know that. And I may mess up
my hair." The white-run clothing industry is all too pleased to provide
the costumes of feminine disguise for Black male escape. However, they
never would provide uniforms or combat gear if customers were willing
to pay $1000 per outfit.
Television, which has become an important programmer of behavior
in this social system and its culture, plays a further major role in alienating
B.lack mal~s (especially children) from Black manhood. Flip Wilson, the
htghest pmd Black male on television maintains his high ratings by
dressing in great detail as a tough and coarse Black female. One of my
seven-year-old Black male patients told me, "My Mommy likes Geraldine,
and I think Geraldine is cute." "Good Times," the latest media fare
for indoctrinating the Black oppressed, shows a pitiful adult Black male
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