Professional Documents
Culture Documents
shed. The Woman of the home more and more grew self-willed and gender tensions r
ose. Shona men were even introduced to and started wearing skinny jeans! Yes, you
heard right; called in the local language mabhogadhi, tight jeans. Back in the villa
ges these were condemned as satanic, and they were right. In Zulu society, the sys
tematic diminishing of the patriarch in the home and in society resulted in a ho
st of social ills, including the new, alarming, widespread growth of sexual prom
iscuity among Zulu girls, where pre-colonial Zulu men and women had been renowne
d for their morality and sexual modesty.
The clearest illustration of White Supremacys conquering of Black MANHOOD after c
onquering the Black Man himself is in the very name Shona: this is not the indigen
ous name of that collection of peoples of (what is now called) Zimbabwe. It has
been suggested by Chenjerai Shire, himself a so-called Shona, that the name is the
feminine version of the Gaelic male name Sean. Thus, by self-identifying with thi
s name Shona peoples have internalized a masculinity designed to place them in emas
culated, subordinated relations with the colonial power (Men Dont Go to the Moon, 14
7). In other words, the Shona were covertly feminized and they internalized this f
eminization.
The exact same processes are operative against the Black Man and Woman in Americ
a. The Black Man has been conquered, his woman has been robbed of respect for hi
m (because he has been robbed of respect worthiness), and as the final step Blac
k MANHOOD is being reconstructed and reconstituted: that is why you have so much
talk about new Black masculinities, from Jada Smiths dress to Dr. Mark Anthony Nea
ls book, The New Black Man. In the home, in the church, and even in the mosque many
Black Women tend to reflect (mostly subconsciously) the ideas of the White Male
elite. And when there is a Black man present she reflects these ideas and ideal
s onto him. This is one reason why the proverbial Black Male/Female Relationships
are so acrimonious: because the Black Male and the White Man are locked in confl
ict, so there can be no real or lasting peace between the Black Male and the Bla
ck Female that reflects the ideology and sentiment of the White Man, unless that
Black Male accepts the emasculated, subordinated role that is approved for him.
As my Wife would say: "The Black Woman is the new White Man."