SWIMMIN AGAINST THE CURRENT

I was mailed a video of a little boy about 7-8 dancing and pantomiming a Beyonce video. It was not amusing. It was disheartening to watch a young male imitating a female sex symbol. Even one of the people that had circulated the video questioned whether or not a male child should be doing that sort of thing. And apparently the parent or relative that encouraged and taped the spectacle thought it was “cute’.

From a cultural perspective it was an abomination. Americans, particularly black Americans have moved so far away from their cultural identity that we no longer understand the abominations that we commit on a day by day basis. We fail to understand why people in other countries fight and die to prevent intrusion by others upon their lands and more importantly their way of life.

Hunt A Tiger, Become A Man              

There was a time when one had to prove their manhood to be declared a man. In fact, some form of rites of passage occur in most well defined cultures. Even among the cultural matrix of American cultures. Hebrews declare their children men and women, after a specific line of demarcation. Once upon a time, so did black Americans.

I grew up with my father at home, right up to the point that I was declared a man. Me, my father and my older brother were in the kitchen, one Friday night. My mother and younger brother were out of the house. My father noted that my thirteenth birthday was coming up. My father told my 18-year-old brother because I would be 12 soon, that it was time to get me some “pussy“.

I walked out of the kitchen and came back with my coat on. I could tell by the looks on their faces that they expected me to be afraid or intimidated at the prospect of having sex with a grown woman. Even at twelve, I knew that most prostitutes were grown women. In any event, that was my rite of passage and I convinced the men that mattered most in my life that I was ready to become a man. It wasn't long after that that I had to prove that I was a man (see Tryin To Do The Right Thing) by getting between my mother and father another fateful Friday night and thereafter earning money to support myself and my family.

By the time I was seventeen, I was fully grown. I have not changed much, since age 17 because I transitioned into my manhood, in a culturally defined way.  I had defined roles, duties and responsibilities that shaped what I knew about manhood.  I grew up at a time when a middleclass upbringing also sheltered a child from the harsh realities of the “real world” until we children were old enough to make our own decisions about who we had sex with absent any overt media influence.

The queers that ran Hollywood were still pretending to be real men and the uninitiated bought into the hype.

The Tie That Binds                             

When I was forced into the working world, at age 13, I was immediately thrust into the “real world” that included deviants of all shapes, sizes and sexual persuasions. My familial orientation was what grounded me and helped me to navigate my course.

I worked at a liquor store owned by two Arab American brothers, Jerry and John. Jerry was a gregarious big fella that laughed and talked shit with the customers, as he rang them up. John, the older brother, never had much to say. The look on his face said that his only desire was to get that money and get out of that hood every night.

Back in the day, before plexiglass, 4-5 men stood behind the counter. All of them were packing heat.  At closing, we all walked out together, like a gang of killers.  If someone was foolish enough to try and rob the place, they would have caught a hail of bullets from one of the counter guys.

Two black men that also worked there.  Lee was a fiftysomething deliveryman that worked enough to keep himself a good supply of wine and cigarettes.  Scotty was a queen from the post office that worked part time.  I think it was more of a way for her to subsidize her ethanol fueled lifestyle than anything else.

To Lee, I was just a man-child.  To Scotty, I was one to watch.  Back in the day, even queens deferred from being too flamboyant.  You typically did not know what they were about until they opened their mouths to speak.  Sugar would drip from the sides of their mouths.  If you did not attempt to dab at a queen’s cheeks they would not try and push up on you but they were always watching for signs of flipability.

Then there was Albert.  Albert was fresh off the boat.  Albert was a relative of the owners of the store, John and Jerry and spoke little or no English.  Arab merchants created a system that guarantees that family members will participate in their business enterprises.  Albert stood behind the counter and bagged all the sold merchandise.  His other job was to stare at me.

The first time Albert and I were alone, he reached over and pinch me on the nipple of my left man boob.  The first time he did it, I remember him watching my face, to gage my reaction.  After the nanosecond it took me to get over the shock of being touched that way, the rage I felt made me want to murder him in cold blood.  His expression never changed and he did not speak.  I told no one about it, not Jerry, not Lee, not my older brother, not my mother, when I got home.  At 13, I knew by the look on his face that Albert had a very unwholesome interest in me.  He caught me off guard and touched me once more but I didn’t give him the opportunity to do it a third time.  I was too young for jail and I stayed away from him.

My relationships with my father and older brother had provided me with enough guidance to understand that men did not touch other men that way, at least not in our house in Detroit, Michigan.  I also knew that men did not touch women that way because of my mother and father’s conduct at home, in front of me and my brothers and my exposure to women and children at school.

Society, before the incursion of mass media, provided a degree of instruction as to how a person was to conduct him or herself, at home, at school and amongst the general populous.

Am I My Brother’s Keeper?            

Freedom of speech has a downside in the hands of the irresponsible. Social responsibility appears to rarely be factored into most folks desire to express themselves in an uninhibited fashion.  We rely instead on parental guidance and social reinforcers that have not been in place for almost forty years.

Adults my age and younger simply don’t attempt to regulate their children’s activities like my parents did.  I did not have cable, the internet or porn on video tape available to me as a child. When I finally discovered pornography at 15, I tried to wear the skin off my poor dick.  I can’t imagine what I would have done, at an earlier age, if I had had access to a porn on a computer or dvds!  At 12, I was actively trying to have sex with women and girls. The only thing that stopped me was the scarcity of available partners as eager and willing as I.  And my daddy’s shock when I came back into the kitchen that night before my birthday with my coat on.

The proliferation of sexual information by the media has placed sexual issues potentially in the face of every child that uses a computer or knows how to operate the remote of a cable box or satellite dish.  It’s not surprising that a young boy thinks it’s appropriate to emulate Beyonce or that his mother thinks it’s ok to videotape him and post it on the web.

See for yourself. Here’s the link:

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1fkzx_too-much-beyonce

WOE THE NU METROPOLIS!!!