Chapter 3
Unwritten Social
Rules For Black Male Survival.
How do Black men survive in a world that sees
them as an enemy? By having a protocol for navigating hostile territory.
During slavery and Jim Crow, Black men
understood there was a target on their backs from overseers and slave masters.
And in order to survive the oppression and terrorism they encountered, they developed
a set of rules to follow so they could live to see the next day.
Because many of the emancipated slaves couldn’t
read or write they weren’t able to write down this protocol. Instead they
taught these rules to their sons orally. And with the oppression they faced
daily, many Black men realized it was better to keep their rules for engaging
and interacting with Whites and nonblacks oral so that White racists and their
supporters couldn’t find out their code and make plans to thwart it.
These Unwritten social rules for Black male
survival were passed on from father to son from generation to generation. And
as the generations passed from slavery to Jim Crow To the Civil Rights Era Black
men added more unwritten social rules to this code to so they could adapt to
the times and avoid the pitfalls and traps racists set up to destroy their
lives.
However, as Black men transitioned from the
Civil Rights Era to today they weren’t able to pass these unwritten social
rules for survival to their sons. As Black women got involved with the feminist
movement and the welfare state they prevented their sons from having
relationships with their fathers. And because those boys didn’t have that
relationship with their fathers they weren’t able to learn these unwritten
rules regarding how they were supposed to carry and conduct themselves in the White
Supremacist world.
Most Black single mothers in the late 1960s
and 1970s thought they could raise a boy to be a man on their own. However,
without a Black father there to teach their sons the unwritten social rules of
engagement in America many young Black boys wound up getting caught up in
situations where they were harassed by police officers, racially profiled by
store owners, and threatened and attacked by neighborhood racists just for
walking in the wrong neighborhood or looking at the wrong woman.
Without a father and men in the community to
teach Black boys and Black men the unwritten social rules to they aren’t able
to identify the racist predators in and out of the Black community and avoid dangerous
situations with racist Whites and nonblacks who hate Black men. Nor are they
able to develop the critical thinking and problem solving skills to diffuse
situations with racists and other enemies from the state when they run into
confrontations with them.
A Black man who doesn’t know what the
unwritten social rules for living in a White Supremacist world is a sitting
duck. And the reason why he’s vulnerable is because he has absolutely no
understanding of how to carry and conduct himself when he goes out in a world
that’s against him. So any reaction he takes can lead to racists taking actions
that could cost him his life.
Only a Black father can teach his son the
unwritten social rules of engagement of White Supremacist America because he
has to live by that code every day. Unfortunately, since two three generations
of Black men and Black boys who have grown up without fathers and men in the
community to show them the protocol for interacting with the White Supremacist world
this is why so many young black boys and young black men are becoming easy
targets for imprisonment or extermination.
Interesting read, and, very true.
ReplyDelete