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This started as a Facebook post, but I figured it has a place here too, so here it goes.
I gotta say something about something.
I am NOT interested in any leadership or administration that espouses or promotes respectability bullshit. If you want youth to listen to you, to get involved, you gotta speak to them in THEIR language instead of chastising them about what YOU don't, and haven't even begun to try to, understand about them.
That being said:
Men, stop letting culture tell you that your manhood is defined by your inability, or refusal perhaps, to control your sexual impulses and desires. And moreover, stop making women accountable for your refusal to do so. The volume of women you sleep with, holla at, bag, does not make you more of a man, no matter how much popular culture will beg you to believe it. In fact, the real strength and masculinity is in your ability to be vulnerable enough to allow yourself to access emotions that will help you defy that cultural norm and see far beyond the physical, enabling you to exercise self-control, respect, and discretion. To say you're a man and "can't help it" is not only both disgusting and disdainful, but also, fundamentally untrue. You can help it, you just CHOOSE not to.
Ladies, you are NOT responsible for men's ability or inability to control their sexual desires. Ever. Under any circumstances. No matter what you wear or don't wear. Weak men will blame you for wearing clothes that are too tight, too revealing, as a justification for treating you disrespectfully and/or violating you. But this is THEIR shortcoming, not yours. A real man, a man who stands firmly in his masculinity, could watch a woman walk in a room ass naked and be fine, as my dear friend Lukata Mjumbe pointed out. Because that man takes responsibility for himself and his actions, and does not scapegoat the woman for his refusal to do so.
There was a point in time when we lived relatively unclothed at all times. Women's breasts and behinds were exposed regularly in daily life. I am forced to believe that if men could "control" their sexual impulses then, they can now.
We are each responsible for our own actions and non-actions. We do not have control over the behavior or presentation of others, all we have control over is our own reactions. Blaming someone else for your failures, your misbehavior, your poor decisions, is irresponsible and immature. For a man to say that a woman's attire is responsible for his own actions is irresponsible. For a law enforcement official to say that your attitude determines the reaction you will get from a police officer is irresponsible. When you work for a system that consistently oppresses and displays violence against a group of people, you cannot be surprised when you are met with a certain degree of reproach or disdain. That does not give you license to respond with the same. As a law enforcement officer, you should be more responsible than to do this.
The idea that a youth is not deserving of life and liberty, or respect, or that they are to blame for their own arrests and murders, by virtue of what they wear or how they speak is respectability. Sagging pants is not probable cause. The idea that woman can or should be help accountable for a man's actions, by virtue of what she wears, says, or does, is not only respectability, it's rape culture. To espouse or promote this kind of rhetoric is not only irresponsible, it is DANGEROUS.
Some of us really need to take a LONG, HARD look at our personal doctrine, and explore where it comes from. We are not doing anyone any favors when we preach messages that we don't thoroughly vet all the implications of.
I gotta say something about something.
I am NOT interested in any leadership or administration that espouses or promotes respectability bullshit. If you want youth to listen to you, to get involved, you gotta speak to them in THEIR language instead of chastising them about what YOU don't, and haven't even begun to try to, understand about them.
That being said:
Men, stop letting culture tell you that your manhood is defined by your inability, or refusal perhaps, to control your sexual impulses and desires. And moreover, stop making women accountable for your refusal to do so. The volume of women you sleep with, holla at, bag, does not make you more of a man, no matter how much popular culture will beg you to believe it. In fact, the real strength and masculinity is in your ability to be vulnerable enough to allow yourself to access emotions that will help you defy that cultural norm and see far beyond the physical, enabling you to exercise self-control, respect, and discretion. To say you're a man and "can't help it" is not only both disgusting and disdainful, but also, fundamentally untrue. You can help it, you just CHOOSE not to.
Ladies, you are NOT responsible for men's ability or inability to control their sexual desires. Ever. Under any circumstances. No matter what you wear or don't wear. Weak men will blame you for wearing clothes that are too tight, too revealing, as a justification for treating you disrespectfully and/or violating you. But this is THEIR shortcoming, not yours. A real man, a man who stands firmly in his masculinity, could watch a woman walk in a room ass naked and be fine, as my dear friend Lukata Mjumbe pointed out. Because that man takes responsibility for himself and his actions, and does not scapegoat the woman for his refusal to do so.
There was a point in time when we lived relatively unclothed at all times. Women's breasts and behinds were exposed regularly in daily life. I am forced to believe that if men could "control" their sexual impulses then, they can now.
We are each responsible for our own actions and non-actions. We do not have control over the behavior or presentation of others, all we have control over is our own reactions. Blaming someone else for your failures, your misbehavior, your poor decisions, is irresponsible and immature. For a man to say that a woman's attire is responsible for his own actions is irresponsible. For a law enforcement official to say that your attitude determines the reaction you will get from a police officer is irresponsible. When you work for a system that consistently oppresses and displays violence against a group of people, you cannot be surprised when you are met with a certain degree of reproach or disdain. That does not give you license to respond with the same. As a law enforcement officer, you should be more responsible than to do this.
The idea that a youth is not deserving of life and liberty, or respect, or that they are to blame for their own arrests and murders, by virtue of what they wear or how they speak is respectability. Sagging pants is not probable cause. The idea that woman can or should be help accountable for a man's actions, by virtue of what she wears, says, or does, is not only respectability, it's rape culture. To espouse or promote this kind of rhetoric is not only irresponsible, it is DANGEROUS.
Some of us really need to take a LONG, HARD look at our personal doctrine, and explore where it comes from. We are not doing anyone any favors when we preach messages that we don't thoroughly vet all the implications of.
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