Drugs, Murders, Crime and the
Special Problems of Males
by
Jack Kammer
© 2006
The most apparent fact about the
current plague of drug-related murders racking America's inner
cities is that the vast majority of the people involved are Black.
Since most of us are oblivious to the gender-based problems of men
and boys, we attach no significance to the fact that they are also
Male.
If hundreds of Black women were
slaughtering each other in a mad attempt to earn illicit money,
policy-makers most certainly would inquire into the gender basis of
their turmoil. We are accustomed to thinking of women as victims.
But we live in a society which
can stare directly at desperate, defiant men and fail to see beyond
the soothing sham that "it's a man's world." We are blind to the
fact that being male can be a problem, especially for poor Blacks.
We cannot fathom the frustration of being a man with nothing in a
society which tells men they have it all -- or are not worth having
at all. In a song that once hit the tops of the Black music charts,
a woman cooed, "You gotta have a J.O.B. if you wanna be with me."
But make no mistake. The problem
of evaluating men solely on their ability to perform economically is
not confined to the Black community, nor even to America. In
Germany, for instance, the same sexist tune is sung with different
lyrics: "Women are what they are. Men are what they do."
In other words, women are
valuable merely by virtue of their existence as women. Men are
worthless without performance. Denied, as they are, the reasonable
expectation of success, young Black men are especially vulnerable to
this form of sexism. Without money, they are consigned to the living
hell of feeling inferior to and unworthy of their female
counterparts.
In anguished, pathetic, violent
and illegal ways, they try to compensate. They have nothing;
therefore they are nothing. What can they lose?
We cause our cities to decay
from their cores when we tell our young urban men that intrinsically
they have no value. We rob Black men of their determination and
resiliency when we make them feel essentially worthless, and only
hope they seek and find productive work as a salve for their psychic
wound. We delude ourselves when we think that minimum wage jobs will
provide young men with the self-esteem they need to thrive in a
world in which men, especially Black men, are expendable.
The problem is not primarily a
lack of money. The problem is that contemporary society focuses too
much on the connection between men and money. We would do better to
affirm to ourselves and to our young men their inherent value as
people -- every bit as good and noble as women regardless of how
much they make -- and then to encourage them to build on that
foundation of strength and self-esteem. A solid self image will not
disappear as fast as a job might.
The cruelties perpetrated upon
Black men by White society hardly need to be recounted. But Black
society, too, has been unkind. Disturbingly, an ABC television
mini-series "The
Women of Brewster Place," a much-heralded story of seven
Black women in Harlem, carried the clear message that even in Black
society Black men are, at best, largely irrelevant. "I don't have a
husband," a young mother said timidly. "Well, I've had five," an
older and presumably wiser woman answered with the kind of disdain
that typified the program, "and you ain't missing much."
In his stump speech during the
1988 presidential campaign, Jesse Jackson railed against the fact
that women earn less than men. He pointed out the injustice of the
pay differential by saying, "But women can't buy bread for less than
men can. They can't buy milk and eggs for less than men can." True
enough, but regardless of their income women can gain access to
other invaluable commodities -- the love and affection of children,
for instance, and the interest of the opposite sex. But men, as we
have seen, are generally rewarded with these things in direct
proportion to their income.
Before she moved to Chicago and
national prominence, Oprah Winfrey was the co-host of a local talk
show in Baltimore. On one program she unwittingly helped prove with
crystal clarity that there is such a thing as sexism against men --
and that it bears down especially hard on Black men.
During an interview with Fred
Hayward, director of Men's Rights, Inc., an organization concerned
with sexism and men's problems, she tried to induce her guest to
concede that though Men's Issues might make interesting
conversation, they are insignificant compared to Women's Issues.
Hayward, one of the nation's most insightful commentators on
problems facing men as a result of their gender, was not about to
concede any such thing.
Oprah pressed her demand for the
ground rule. Hayward responded. "Oprah," he said, "proportional to
the population, there are eight times as many Blacks in jail as
Whites. What does that tell you?" As a Black woman proud of her
race, Oprah had a quick response. She said it told her that Blacks
live under more social and economic pressure than Whites. Hayward
agreed wholeheartedly, then moved in to close his case. "Oprah,
proportional to the population, there are twenty-four times as many
men in jail as women. What does that tell you?"
Perhaps it is not merely by
coincidence that Oprah co-produced and starred in the television
mini-series that so achingly empathized with Black women and gave
Black men such short shrift.
How many Black men, we
should ask ourselves as we ponder our escalating whirlwind of urban
crime, are in jail? How many Black men risk everything for
the self-esteem drug money can buy?
We should pay attention not only
to society's differential treatment of Blacks and Whites, but also
and especially to our differential treatment of Black men and Black
women. Racism knocks Black men down. Sexism, plodding heavily on the
premise that the value of men is equal to the money they make, comes
along to kick them.
Reprinted with
permission of the author.
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Copyright 2006 Jack Kammer all rights
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