Friday, November 12, 2010

Even The President Has To Take The Fault

I have a lot of respect for First Lady Michelle Obama. She seems to be a woman of class and elegance, yet this statement shows that she is not unique in all of her perspectives and does subscribe to at least some of the idiosyncrasies common with women. In response to a question of who apologizes first when she and The President have an argument she says:


'I always wait for the president to say sorry because I am a woman,'

This statement goes a long way in showing the modern dynamic not only common with black relationships, but common with relationships in general. Women expect certain treatment for no legitimate reason so they resort to the “chivalry” card, even if “chivalry” does not even apply.

I am not familiar with a man apologizing first falling under the umbrella of chivalry. What this shows is the tendency to try and create an atmosphere of automatically giving in to the whims of women and in this case, using it as a way to facilitate the strong trend for black women to not take fault for anything.

Logically, one would conclude that the person who generally apologizes first is the person who is in the wrong. By saying that your husband always has to apologize says that you always have to be right. This mentality prevents black women from any sense of self-reflection. They often don’t see fault within themselves and when they do, they attribute those faults to outside forces. They blame their excess weight on their children, job schedule, etc. They blame their bad relationships on the men they choose to have relationships with. They blame their single status on the men around them. They blame their status as single mothers on the fathers of their children. They exclude any blame on that which they have the most control over and that is them themselves. Thus, nothing ever changes. They can’t change the behavior of the people around them to compliment their character, they can’t change normal functioning of society around them and they refuse to change or alter themselves.

When this happens, they resort to bitching. They verbally lash out at the world around them including the men they interact with, black men. They make anti-black male blogs, proclaim that there are no good black men, try to use white men and the notion of interracial dating as some type of means of payback, criticize white women, etc. This is why the IR bloggers are strict about moderation. They don’t want their faults thrown at them because doing so tosses a monkey wrench in their need to point the finger at everyone but themselves.

Then they resort to straw man arguments. When they are advised to take responsibility for themselves, they treat it as if folks are asking them to take all responsibility for the black community. Simply asking them to stop sexually rewarding thuggish behavior in men, not allow themselves to be impregnated outside of wedlock, not be so pugnacious, put some priority on keeping your man happy, etc. is treated as placing the burdens of society upon them. Studies have shown that black men participate in housework and childcare more than any other group of men whether the wife works or not, yet you have the IR bloggers declaring black women to be the mules of the black community. If they take the true informal definition of “mule” (somebody regarded as stubborn or intractable), they may have a point, but the definition that they apply to the word actually does not apply.