QUESTION MYTHS

Blacks Americans have a good reason to question myths, since we have so often been the victim of them, but we give Christian myths a pass.

MYTH BUSTER

I’m not gone allow any myth to assert itself over humanity. Now, we can respect them all day, but when they go past that? Oh no! White racists running around claiming their myths about Blackness are “the truth” and “real.” I’m not here for that. Patriarchs running around claiming their myths about gender are “the truth” and “real.” I’m not here for that. “Believers” running around claiming their myths about god are “the truth” and “real.” I’m not here for that. I’ll put up with a lot, but I’m not allowing any myth to run my life. I’ll respect them, acknowledge their creativity, but that’s it.

FEMINISM =/= STEREOTYPES

Feminism doesn’t promote that all men are rotten, but it does promote that patriarchy is a problem.

VISIONARY PARENTING

This is parenting!

WHY SINGLE OUT CHRISTIANITY?

I critique Christianity more than other religions because Christianity is the religion that impacts on my life most often. Does this mean that other religions aren’t oppressive? No, but I have a need to address the institutions that specifically impact my life. If I lived in the Middle East, I would likely critique Islam more than Christianity. No one questions why Blacks have critiqued Whites more than Asians or Native Americans. All *can* oppress, but one does specifically. I critique all religions, but I must also specifically address that which impacts me the most.

BLACK WOMEN & STRENGTH

I am of the belief that 99% of humanity wouldn’t know how to describe Black women without the adjective “strong.” All the adjectives and descriptors at our disposal, and all we insist on is her strength?

HUGO SCHWYZER ON “MALE BASHING”

“Seemingly innocuous words often have a profound charge depending on how and by whom they’re used.  Tom knows, surely, how problematic it is to use the word “boy” to refer to an African-American.   It’s not a curse word in most contexts, but when used by a white person to refer to an adult black male, it’s steeped in the long and painful history of racism in America.  What many men fail to understand is that accusing a woman of being insane or of engaging in reprisals merely because she’s expressing forceful disagreement has an equivalent ugliness.  If that seems hyperbolic, google the word “hysteria.”

All of this behavior reflects two things: men’s genuine fear of being challenged and confronted, and the persistence of the stereotype of feminists as being aggressive, wrathful,  “man-bashers.”  The painful thing about all this, of course, is that no man is in any real physical danger on the internet— or even in real life — from feminists.  Women are regularly beaten and raped — even on college campuses — but I know of no instance where a man found himself a victim of violence for making a sexist remark in a feminist setting!  “Male-bashing” doesn’t literally happen, in other words, at least not as a result of arguments over feminism. But that doesn’t stop men from using (in jest or no) their own exaggerated fear of physical violence to make a subtle point about feminists.” – Hugo Schwyzer

LOVE

1930-1965

“There is always something left to love. And if you ain’t learned that, you ain’t learned nothing.” – Lorraine Hansberry

BLACK LIFE

I am unafraid of the diversity in Black life.

RAISING CHILDREN

Teach wholeness, not genders.