BLERD WITH A BOOK
What does it mean to be Black and a man in a culture increasingly uncertain about masculinity? TITLE: Patriarchy Blues: Reflections on Manhood AUTHOR: Frederick Joseph PUBLISHER & YEAR: Harper Perennial 2022 PAGES: 254 GENRE: Social Sciences/Essays SUMMARY: What does it mean to be a man today? How does the pervasive yet elusive idea of "toxic masculinity" actually reflect men's experiences -- particularly those of color -- and how they navigate the world? Author Frederick Joseph contemplates these questions in a provocative, thought-provoking collection of essays, poetry, short reflections, and cultural commentary pieces that explores the issue of masculinity and patriarchy from both a personal and cultural standpoint. STAND ALONE OR SERIES?: Stand alone HOW DID I GET THIS BOOK?: Purchased FORMAT: Paperback On March 28th, I woke up to the news that the telecast of the 94th Academy Awards (a.k.a. the Oscars) was trending -- but not for the reasons I thought. While on Do Not Disturb mode, my phone received a silent notification from my Apple News app. Upon opening it I was greeted with the following headline from The Washington Post: "Will Smith slaps Chris Rock after Jada Pinkett Smith joke at Oscars." My first thought after reading that headline: what in the actual fuck? From there, more questions immediately pushed their way to the front of my mind. What did Chris Rock say to make Will angry? What possessed Will to smack Chris? Is Jada okay? Was this a backstage incident? The following story that unfolded answers three out of the four questions. While on stage to announce the Best Documentary Feature Oscar, Chris Rock offered some comic asides to accompany his lead-up to announce the nominees. Because he's a comedian, it is expected that Rock would prod and poke at the nominees in an attempt to lighten up the festivities. Then, he turned his sights on Pinkett-Smith, someone who was not nominated for an award but rather was attending the ceremony in support of her husband, who was nominated (and, later, won) for his performance as Richard Williams in 2021's King Richard, the sports biopic about the father of tennis phenoms Venus and Serena Williams. Pinkett-Smith was sitting in front, sporting an elegant emerald green gown and a shaved head. "Jada, I love you." Rock said. "G.I. Jane 2, can't wait to see it, all right?" The cameras then cut to Will and Jada. Will appeared to be in good spirits, laughing along with the (mostly) white audience. Jada, on the other hand, rolled her eyes incredulously, seemingly over the joke and, more frankly, Rock's bullshit. Had things ended there maybe the moment would have been forgettable. I mean, G.I. Jane 2? Rock's joke is so dated that it makes expired milk look good. Like many a well-known comedian who dominated the mainstream throughout the 1990s and 2000s struggling to stay relevant in the 2020s, Rock's humor just doesn't hit the same. At best, it's tired. At worst, it's symbolic of comedians who blame the audience -- or, worse, the mythical boogeyman of "cancel culture" -- for not laughing instead of tweaking their material. But, it didn't end there. What happened next shocked many people, including me, and not much really shocks me these days. After Jada rolled her eyes at the joke, Will got up and made his way to the stage. All of a sudden, Will slapped Rock. At this point, the audio of the U.S. broadcast went out, but the audio for the telecast went on uncensored in other countries, including Japan and Australia. Had things ended there maybe the moment would have been chalked up to a bad bit. Maybe Will slapping Rock would have read as yet another grasp at relevancy from a tired, institutionalized awards show at a time where audiences have grown tired of having a bunch of traditionalist awards voters (many of whom are old, white, cishet, and male) dictate what movies are worth their time, as if to say audiences don't have the creative and critical savvy to determine what movies are worth the time and conversation. Maybe, all these months later, we'd be laughing at how these two agreed to such a dull bit in the first place. But, it didn't end there. "Wow! Wow!" exclaimed Rock. "Will Smith just smacked the shit out of me, everybody." While he attempted to regain composure, Rock swayed slightly while Smith walked back to his seat as if nothing had happened. Suddenly, Smith yelled from his seat in the crowd: "Keep my wife's name out your fucking mouth." "Wow, dude," said Rock. "It was a G.I. Jane joke." "Keep my wife's name out your fucking mouth!" Smith repeated, much to the shock of everyone in the room. (In addition to the uncensored video footage that went viral, a candid background shot of actress Lupita Nyong'o's shocked expression was also memed alongside the freeze frame image of Smith slapping Rock.) "I'm going to, okay?" said Rock, who's shock and distress was steadily becoming apparent on his face. He paused for a brief moment, did a double-take, and the audio in the U.S. broadcast cut back in to catch him say, "That was the greatest night in the history of television. Okay. Okay.” Then he went on with presenting the Oscar, which went to Summer of Soul, directed by The Roots' drummer-turned-filmmaker Questlove. After reading the story twice, I struggled to visualize an irate Smith, the typically spirited, good-humored Fresh Prince, reacting in such a way. But, it didn't take much for me to visualize Rock, the same man who produced and was featured in the 2008 documentary Good Hair, a movie about the complex relationship Black women and femmes have with their hair, humiliating a Black woman to get some laughs out of a predominantly white audience and, in turn, make white audiences at home laugh. Like many, I would later learn that -- contrary to comedian-actress Amanda Seales' fervent insistence on social media -- Pinkett Smith's bald head was more than a stylistic choice, and the folks siding with the Smith family weren't just, as Seales put it, "co-signing buffoonery." Pinkett Smith was diagnosed with alopecia, an autoimmune disease that results in hair loss. In a 2018 episode of her Facebook Watch series Red Table Talk, Pinkett Smith went public with her diagnosis, opening up about how terrifying it was to start losing her hair out of the blue: "I was in the shower one day and just handfuls of hair in my hands and I was just like, 'Oh my god, am I going bald?'" Naturally, "The Slap" went viral and the Internet immediately went to work on discerning who was right and who was wrong. Along with Seales, I saw a number of Black and non-Black PoC men and femmes working in comedy choosing to side with Rock but not because he was the victim of a shocking act of physical violence that left him visibly shocked and traumatized. (It must be noted that Rock has been open about his mental health journey, including discussing the emotional trauma of childhood bullying or doing extensive therapy amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.) Other comedians and fans of comedians sided with Rock more so because they felt that comedians should be allowed to antagonize people without consequence, as if comedian was a marginalized identity instead of what it actually is: an occupation. (Word of advice: if your occupation requires you to antagonize and traumatize people toiling within oppressive systems, then maybe consider a new occupation?) Although I despised Rock's unnecessary -- and repeated -- targeting of Pinkett Smith at the Oscars, I despised the Internet's deliberate neglect of Rock's mental health in that moment more. Normally, I side-eye Black cishet men and with their declarations to love and protect Black women and femmes at all costs, a component of their purported "allyship" with Black women and femmes in America. Largely because most of the time talk is cheap as their actions only contribute to further oppressing Black women and femmes instead of protecting them. Nevertheless, I was concerned about the mental health of not only Rock but Smith as well. As academic and Journalist Marc Lamont Hill observed on Instagram, Smith slapping Rock was about more than just a tired joke. In his memoir Will, Smith opened up about his difficult relationship with his father, a man who was abusive toward his mother, and the trauma that comes with being a witness to abuse at such a young age. As a result, that trauma was possibly, tragically, triggered live on-camera during an awards telecast by a dull joke directed at his wife. "You can understand why someone did something and not at all agree with why they did what they did," said author and television broadcaster Emmaunel Acho in a YouTube Short posted a few days after the Oscars confrontation went viral. "It's not a matter of victim blaming but a matter of making sure there are no more victims." In the months since the incident happened and went viral, I tend think back on it from time to time, especially since we're steadily approaching the end of 2022 and this story is set to return to the public eye once the end-of-year retrospectives start flooding our timelines. Three months have passed but my stance on the situation remains mostly the same:
Last month, Vox's podcast Vox Conversations invited comedian, actor, and writer Michael Ian Black to talk about the paperback edition of his 2020 book, A Better Man: A (Mostly Serious) Letter to My Son, and Black and Conversations host Sean Illing had a surprisingly poignant and passionate conversation about masculinity in a sociocultural climate that seems increasingly uncertain and frustrated about masculinity. Black and Illing's conversation took place a few days before the Uvalde, TX mass shooting that claimed the lives of 19 children and two children-- a mass shooting perpetrated by yet another young man. In fact, it was the 2018 Parkland mass shooting that pushed Black to write his book and ponder why boys -- and it's almost entirely boys -- are committing these acts of mass violence. "It is true that these acts are committed almost exclusively by boys and young men," said Black. "Off the top of my head, I can think of none that have been committed by women. There may be some examples of that, but I certainly can’t think of any." When the two delve into the sociological side of this continuous stream of mass violence, Illing makes this important point about how society defines masculinity: "What it often means to be a man, in our culture at least, is to bury our feelings, to not admit vulnerability. We live in such a hollow society, where so many of us don’t have real community. We live in our heads, we live in the virtual world, and there’s so much resentment that just build and builds and we have all these young men exploding in slow-motion and their inner turmoil is hidden and probably inexpressible for a lot of them and we just keep paying the price for it with the blood of children." To which Black responds with another important point: "So much of what it means to be a guy historically has been about never admitting weakness, never admitting fear, never admitting vulnerability. And not having the tools or the vocabulary to open up. Much of what Illing and Black touch on in their full-length conversation (which you can listen to here, if you're interested) is also touched upon in author-activist Frederick Joseph's new book Patriarchy Blues: Reflections on Manhood, which explores pertinent sociocultural issues surrounding the culture of masculinity and how it relates to patriarchy in America. However, what distinguishes Joseph's interest in the sociocultural conversation about masculinity and patriarchy from Illing and Black's interest is the lenses each party applies to the conversation. As is the case with most things in America, masculinity and patriarchy is often explored through a white, cisgender, and heterosexual lens. As white men, Illing and Black's conversation can only offer as much of an understanding of masculinity and patriarchy as their limited perspective as white men can offer them and, by extension, the listener. (It must be noted that this is in no way me dismissing their perspective because white men, women, and gender-expansive people need to start having more in-depth conversations about the way patriarchy affects everyone, even the folks who don't think they are upholding it. We are all upholding patriarchy and various other oppressive forces in our society.) In contrast, Joseph's Patriarchy Blues considers the fact that, for Black and non-Black women, men, and gender-expansive folks of color, patriarchy isn't the only force that seeks to oppress them. In "The Shore," the first essay of Patriarchy Blues, Joseph astutely observes that, when considered separately, white supremacy and patriarchy are "insidious" in their own ways, but, when you consider them together, both of them have the power to devastate and brutalize the most vulnerable members of our society. "Not only do [white supremacy and patriarchy] uphold and protect the other oppressive forces [i.e. transphobia, homophobia, classism, anti-fatness, ableism, and misogyny]," writes Joseph, "but they are also at the root of almost every facet of our society." Thus, Patriarchy Blues breaches a question that Illing and Black likely never considered -- or, perhaps, felt they couldn't -- as white men: What does it mean to be Black and a man in a culture that is growing increasingly uncertain about masculinity? Ideas like the patriarchy -- and how it manifests itself in our everyday lives, from the epidemic of patriarchal violence to the reinforcement of other types of oppression like classism and transphobia -- and concepts such as toxic masculinity still remain largely abstract subjects that can be difficult for your typical layperson to grasp in full. Sure, toxic masculinity, misogyny, sexism, and patriarchy have become common, handy-dandy buzzwords to have in your back pocket in case you end up in a Twitter debate with a right-winger who believes that feminism is responsible for mass shootings (no, really; this is a thing, sadly), but do we really know and understand what those words mean? And, if we do, are the definitions and understandings we have being filtered through a white, cisgender, heterosexual, able-bodied, male and or female lens? For Joseph, building what he calls an anti-patriarchal movement means making sure the conversations about sociocultural issues surrounding the culture of masculinity and the oppressive nature of the patriarchy are intersectional. Meaning we have to consider how patriarchy intertwines with other oppressive systems, institutions, and ideals that make, for example, Black trans women and femmes the most vulnerable population within the Black community at large or -- controversially but not really -- place white women and femmes in the position of victim and perpetrator. Truth be told, very rarely do I read books about gender and the patriarchy from cishet Black men. Partly because, in my experiences, I see cishet Black men and even cishet Black women go out of their way more often to uphold patriarchy by engaging in racism toward Asian and Latinx populations, spouting off transphobic nonsense online or in the media, or absorbing and applying the misogynoiristic ideas that have become a key feature of the Black manosphere. Had I not been familiar with Joseph's work as an activist, Patriarchy Blues would have likely passed me by. I've followed Joseph on Instagram for a year and a half now, and he always struck me as a genuine human being, a man who was very passionate about advocating for greater social change alongside other Black men, women, and gender-expansive people. Moreover, he's one of the few Black activists I've seen online who has the stamina to deal with the shenanigans of white people who like to play ignorant about how they benefit from white supremacy and patriarchy, especially when they engage in actions that keep Black folks oppressed, afraid, and exhausted. (Hell, I get tired just from dealing with loud, obnoxious, "fans" who like to jump into my DMs with the same tired arguments about Marvel movies and shows. I don't know how any Black activist has the energy to deal with ignorant white people on the daily.) As a result, Patriarchy Blues is a compelling and moving read largely because of Joseph's genuine humanity. In four sections that span 250 pages, Patriarchy Blues sees Joseph contemplate questions about how society defines patriarchy and masculinity and explore how those ideas can actively hurt not just Black boys and men, but also Black girls, women, femmes, and gender-expansive people. In addition to offering an applicable and accessible definition of patriarchy ("The emotional, physical, mental, metaphysical, political, social, and economic manifestation of the false belief and oppressive ideology that individuals and groups aligned with what is subjectively deemed to be femininity and/or womanhood are inferior or of lesser value than the subjective opposite, i.e., masculinity and/or manhood."), Joseph offers scorching, incisive critiques of complex and controversial topics, such as Christianity in America acting "as a pillar of capitalistic, patriarchal, and white supremacist oppression;" how outdated wisdom about gender roles and the gender binary creates "toxic constraints" for human beings by teaching "women and girls that their duty is to be caretakers and men and boys that their duty is to provide" while "limiting who and what our society is or may become" (It's worth noting that, in his attempt to defend himself for hitting Rock on the Oscars stage, Smith drew on the toxic idea that, as a man, being a protector of the family means using physical violence -- and that only made his situation worse. Yet, it's a belief that many Black men carry even though they likely shouldn't...); and how the most insidious aspect of the patriarchy and white supremacy is the ways in which Black Americans oppressed within it can uphold it consciously or unconsciously, as evidenced by the misogyny, homophobia, and transphobia of the hoteps and the classism and respectability politics of the Black bourgeoisie, two groups of Black Americans who "often fail to see how they themselves are not only upholding the systems they are trying to be liberated from, but are also plunging other Black people further into them." To get these points across, Joseph draws from a few pop culture artifacts to strengthen the arguments, and critiques he's sharing with readers. In "The Shore," the author uses the computer-generated, stylistic world of 1999's The Matrix to explain the racist and sexist power dynamics designed to oppress the most vulnerable in society. Patriarchy Blues also utilizes two 90s cult classic films -- 1999's The Wood and 1993's The Sandlot -- to critique the media's role in normalizing various facets of rape culture, including sexual harassment and abuse, victim blaming, and objectifying women and femmes. As strong as those examples are, Joseph's interrogating of the patriarchy is most effective when he reflects on his own relationship to patriarchy. "Realizing your life won't last forever sometimes has a way of reminding you to be free," writes the author about being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis at 24. As life-threatening illnesses tend to do, Joseph began taking stock of his life, realizing that he'd been navigating the world "through a misogynistic and toxic masculine lens," which resulted in him "destroying many of [his] relationships with others, especially women" and "completely failing to reciprocate any semblance of love or respect as I was receiving it." Disrupting patriarchy and creating an inclusive, anti-patriarchal movement starts with self-reflection: how are we upholding patriarchy? What can we do to rid ourselves of the patriarchal ideas and beliefs we've been socialized to deem important? According to Joseph, the answer is accountability, and Patriarchy Blues offers a few salient points about the importance of accountability at a time where everyone is afraid of getting "canceled" (even though -- spoilers! -- "cancel culture" is not a thing). "As a cisgender, heterosexual man, I belong to the group that has created and perpetrated these oppressive behaviors and systems," Joseph writes of his role in a patriarchal system. "Therefore, it is largely up to us to help destroy them. But it's not enough to simply pick up a weapon; we should be locking arms with our sisters on the front lines." Joseph's clear-eyed reckoning of his own place within interlocking systems of oppression is what tethers the soul of his book. Patriarchy Blues is an immensely personal exercise in individual growth; Joseph offers a complex and emotional look at deconstructing patriarchal beliefs in progress. Oftentimes, it's an ugly journey, complete with searing reflections on matters such as the emotional and spiritual impact of physical violence and the psychological toll living under anti-Black racism takes on the human mind within and outside of America. Not only is Joseph's vulnerability a reminder that no person ever stops learning and growing in their lives, it also underscores Joseph's belief that, instead of "canceling" people whenever they commit harm, we should be "asking each other to evolve," and that means addressing the ways in which we have been conditioned in normalizing different modes of oppression, from patriarchy and white supremacy to homophobia and transphobia. In this day and age, that level of radical humanity is practically unheard of, and we need more of it. In that regard, Patriarchy Blues is exemplary of Joseph's radical humanity and compassionate politics. For us to move into a society that does not limit us to what oppressive, patriarchal ideals and behaviors require of us to perform and sacrifice, we have to be willing to do the work necessary to reflect, grow, and evolve individually and collectively. Reckoning with our conscious and unconscious adherence to patriarchy and the various systems of oppression and hatred that allow it to flourish is not easy; it is ugly, painful, and complicated. It's a journey that cannot be accomplished in a month or a year; likely, it's a journey you'll be on for the rest of your life. Alas, such is the journey to intersectional liberation. As the great Famie Lou Hamer succinctly put it, "Nobody's free until everybody's free." Accomplishing that goal entails that you must free yourself because no one else is gonna do it for you. Other books to read by this author/about this subject or similar to it:
Have you read Patriarchy Blues yet; if so, what do you think? Are there any books out there I should add to my TBR list? Share your thoughts (and book recs) in the comments below and be sure to follow the blog on Instagram! This Blerd is Online
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