Courttia Newland: ‘I had to submit to being exoticised by white women. If I didn’t, I was punished
Social media is a slippery ally, on
occasion doing as much to hinder as help the cause of social justice, but it
has been exemplary at charting the numerous cases of white women caught in
“acts of oppression”. The Memphis property manager’s insistence that a black man shouldn’t wear socks in a swimming pool (she
called the police when he refused to leave), for instance. Or the woman who
rang 911 after seeing a group of black people barbecuing in a park in Oakland,
California. Or the employees who called the police on black men “loitering” in a Philadelphia Starbucks while
waiting for a friend. And the woman who threatened to report an eight-year-old black girl selling
water in San Francisco – and even a black woman sheltering from the rain in New York.
..... So, I fully support any movement that seeks to address the rampant misogyny and patriarchy driving our society, which of course includes men of colour on too many occasions, I wonder if it’s possible to have a conversation about the role white women play in the continual oppression of black men; to speak about this in a historical context, tracing the direct line from enslavement and colonisation to the present day. To have an honest discussion about the fact that white women, who obviously face a cis, white patriarchal system of oppression, also use that patriarchal system to oppress those perceived as lower on the racial and social hierarchy? I believe we must.
Of course, I’m not writing to generalise a whole race and gender. Many white women do not use their privilege adversely. Many are allies, instrumental in standing beside us, even speaking on subjects such as this. They exist. We see them and acknowledge their presence. That much should be obvious, although I feel it must be stated here to avoid the very real chance of being misconstrued. Still, the fact remains that black men’s relationship with white women is fraught with complexity and rarely addressed, except, sometimes, as an examination into the lengths some men go to mine sexual otherness, or exoticism: black men’s appreciation sex clubs almost exclusively visited by white women, mock plantation orgies, “beach boy” holidays in Africa and the Caribbean.
These examinations are usually from a feminine perspective. What’s missing is any deep analysis of black male psychology. The mental displacement needed to attend those parties and become a “bull” for the night, or be paraded on the arm of a white woman in Hastings, Barbados. Is sex work less morally demeaning if a man is the sex worker and a woman the client? Why is this seen as less mentally destructive, or nuanced?.. read more:
