WTF Are We Doing to Our Men? - 031617

Take a look at the inside cover art for “A Tribe Called Quest’s” (ATCQ)  most recent album titled “We’ve Got it from Here, Thank you for your Service”.  Fabulous album, destined to become a classic, imho.

"We've Got it from Here, Thank You for your Service" - ATCQ - 2016

Take a good, long look at this imagery – what sort of feelings, stories, emotions does this imagery evoke, for you?  For me…  all kinds of things pop up, not the least of which feels like my uncanny resemblance to the naked woman in bottom right-hand side of the image.  Except my waist doesn’t go in like that.

If you take a closer look, the woman is taking a selfie.  She is taking a selfie, as the hastily-drawn cartoon-ish MALE version of the original artwork on ATCQ’s 1991 alum “The Low End Theory” (see image below - note this image is FEMALE) as HE looks on…in delight? In horror? Fascination? Disdain?!? 

"The Low End Theory" - ATCQ - 1991

 He appears to mocking her, and mocking the larger social context of what our self-absorbed-selfie-culture has created out of our females: a woman who's upmost concern is getting the perfect selfie (just ask any middle school female if this is their main goal in life), while her male counterpart watches her display of self-absorbtion, he looking - let’s face it, "not good" (he’s been through the ringer, even if we don't care  to acknowledge this), perhaps ready to lose his shit at any moment, as he waits for her to get HER shit together, STOP taking selfies, and START working on WHAT REALLY MATTERS in life – which, obviously, is NOT getting the perfect selfie. 

I mean, how is she just gonna continue to ignore his precarious state of mind (shown vividly in the bugged-out eyes, crooked smile), in favor of the perfect SELFIE?!? The culture of the selfie, which puts, above ALL else, a version of self that is not only ever-changing, but is also easily manipulated.  In a cruel twist of irony, the SELFIE is not a true picture of the real SELF - at all.

On the outside, we can *pretend* to be anybody we want to be (within reason, ppl, I understand it’s tricky for a white woman to live as a black women (although this has been done), and next to impossible the other way around, but you understand my point.  The OUTSIDE version of us is TRULY just a shell, our casing, subject to aging, illness, deterioration and eventually, death.  Whereas the inside…who truly knows, but some think it’s the more (ever) lasting version of self.

So what is going on with the OUTSIDE version of our men, as the women continue to feed voraciously on the me-me-me culture sweeping our sick nation with a sheer force and voracity that boggles the minds of those of us who took on the task of ushering in the next generation, ushering them into a potential future that looks downright Apocolyptic, if you look at it from certain angles?  Well, he doesn’t look well.  To me, he looks like a person who has been used, abused, heaped with all kinds of expectations about who he should be, what he should be doing, how he should be doing it and why what he is doing is ALL WRONG, ALL THE TIME (ladies, we can be a bit harsh with our criticism).  At least this is what I see, when I look at that image.  

ATCQ - "Midnight Maurauders" - 1993

Am I am looking to deeply into all of this?  I admit, I can tend towards the minutiae at times, but this morning, when THIS image flashed across my FB feed, I couldn't help but be reminded what this imagery USED TO mean to me: how they, (black men…or at least a sub-section of black men, as represented by ATCQ), saw us as black woman: powerful AND sexy…or perhaps the other way around.

Ladies: what have we done to our precious men?

Men: I’m sorry.  I love you.  I need you.  I want to be an ally.  I am seriously working on how to truly embody my feminine, and support you in what it means to truly embody your masculine. 

I SUPPORT THE EMERGENCE OF THE DIVINE MASCULINE AND WELCOME ANY CONVERSATIONS WITH MEN (AND WOMEN) THAT HONESTLY FACILITATES THIS EFFORT.