I hung out in the house yesterday while the NYC marathoners whizzed down my block as I held down some domestic duties and caught up on some blog talk radio shows that I'd recently missed . Blogger Deborrah Cooper's, "Ask Heartbeat" show is a favorite of mine and never disappoints with critical analysis and investigation of all dating matters with a mature and wise perspective. She has bite and is often controversial, but is a clear voice and unapologetic advocate for women. I enjoy that show a lot and she had Steven James Dixon, author of "Men Don't Heal, We HO...The Emotional Instability Of Men" on to talk about men and their emotional lives, or I should say the lack thereof.
Now I'm often a little skeptical of all these self-proclaimed "relationship experts". I mean what exactly qualifies someone to be an expert on relationships? There's no college degree or certification program or years of professional experience that I know of to make someone qualify. But this brother brought it and I was so glad to listen. He chatted for about an hour about his personal journey to become successful in relationships and marriage just as he was in his business life. He opened up about the emotional emptiness a lot of men have and how they don't allow themselves to feel or are even able to recognize emotions in their mate. What he also focused on, for once, was the responsibility of leadership that falls on men in relationships. There's a lot of talk about women submitting to their husbands, but not a lot of talk about what's required of men beyond "provide and protect". He went as far as to say that the success of the relationship falls on the leadership of the man. I liked that. It was a paradigm shift since so much of what's said in the black community about relationships is directed towards women about "how to keep a man" and it challenged me personally to think further about the role of men in relationships and marriage (in an emotional dimension).
He even ended the show by saying that men know what to do, they know how to treat a woman, they just choose not to. His honesty made him real and 3-dimensional, not just some brother with a bunch of slogans and half-macho cliches about manhood and marriage. Simply put, it was real talk. He wants to see more successful marriages and encourages men especially to speak positively about marriage. That has always bothered me, the way many men blast marriage and talk about it so negatively that I've often wondered about the message they send to younger brothers regarding married life. (Yet it's funny how married men outlive single men and enjoy better health.) It was especially refreshing and timely since I just blogged a few weeks ago about the very issue of men dealing with their own emotional issues and expectations in relationships and to get some of this focus off of what black women need to do. Now here's a book brothers can buy, read and think about with their own introspection in mind. We all mature at a different pace but I've always believed it's never too late to grow up so I plan to order this book for a few men I know as they get ready for a new year and hope they'll explore and discover some things about themselves as we all try to grow and be better.
Monday, November 8, 2010
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
The Mid-Term Elections
Alright today is the "referendum" on President Obama's job performance in the last 19 months. Is this really a referendum on his accomplishments or on how comfortable America is with a black man as their political leader? Because when we look at what he has accomplished in the last 19 months he got the hotly contested health care legislation through, stimulus money that saved jobs, stabilized the auto industry, put 2 women on The Supreme Court, legislated financial reform with a host of consumer protections and lowered our taxes. Now some things he didn't score high on like: Guantanamo Bay, the handling of the BP disaster, the increased military presence in Afghanistan and not abandoning the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy.
He took office with all the problems we're all painfully aware of and stopped our economy from dropping off the cliff. He has done an admirable and careful job and is a smart and judicious leader in my opinion. But let's examine the Tea Party and their ridiculousness. Their wanting to "take back America ". Take it back from whom? I can remember when the healthcare legislation was enacted many Tea Partiers said they didn't want any help from the government. By the looks of these people they needed as much help as they could get with their one tooth dangling in the wind. They should only hope that dental was included in our nationalized health care. But they seemed to express that the healthcare reform was all about a new kind of "welfare" for the minorities and immigrants to get free shit on the backs of hard working white Americans, the "true Americans". This rhetoric keeps coming up with their insistence that our president is a socialist and the constant insults and attacks on his legitimacy as our commander in chief. Now the right has gained real political momentum as they hide behind the fact that the unemployment rate is still high. Did people really think that job creation was gonna be a magic trick? Presto you're employed. No. They're using people's dissatisfication with the pace of the economic recovery to stir their basicly racist political agenda that never promotes any solid economic plans but to cut taxes. And I say racist political agenda because they don't want anyone who doesn't look like them to do well when all Americans want the same things: safe drug-free neighborhoods, financial security and good schools for their children.
There's the undeniable sense that these people view the ascendancy of a black man to the white house as white people losing control over "their" country and all these "others" taking over. The right screamed and hollered about the stimulus plan and now economists are saying that the problem was that it was probably too little. Reminds me of the little street adage that "it takes money to make money". Meanwhile the banks have stabilized and money is slowly circulating again. But he gets no credit for that all the while the media gave all its energy to Sarah Palin and the brewing anger. Yeah people should be angry and even a little at our president if they want, but get a grip. He didn't create this mess and he's done a hell of job managing all this crap left behind from "the incompetent one". And there's the overtly ignored record unemployment that African Americans are suffering with and the increasing ranks of the poor while all the attention goes to "saving the middle class". And what's the really crazy part is that the Republican party, over the last 30 years since Reagan, has been able to dupe poor and working class whites into believeing that they share anything with the wealthy elites. The only thing they share is skin color and we're seeing just how strong a unifier that can be. These Tea Partiers are complaining about social welfare when they should be complaing about "wealthfare" and all the tax breaks and protections the wealthy get.
It still confounds me that the President and his advisors didn't see that this would happen. I've always hoped that he has some old wise black man in his corner to school him about some things that he didn't learn at Columbia and Harvard. Things that Rahm Emanuel couldn't or wouldn't tell him. If these elections turn out to be a disaster for the Democrats in the House and Senate, then I hope he'll use a different kind of political and social wisdom to prepare for the next 2-year fight of his life. When you're black, it's not enough to be smart, talented and the best one for the job. You always need a strong dose of "mother's wit", courage, street smarts, fire and a "ride or die" approach to accomplish anything.
He took office with all the problems we're all painfully aware of and stopped our economy from dropping off the cliff. He has done an admirable and careful job and is a smart and judicious leader in my opinion. But let's examine the Tea Party and their ridiculousness. Their wanting to "take back America ". Take it back from whom? I can remember when the healthcare legislation was enacted many Tea Partiers said they didn't want any help from the government. By the looks of these people they needed as much help as they could get with their one tooth dangling in the wind. They should only hope that dental was included in our nationalized health care. But they seemed to express that the healthcare reform was all about a new kind of "welfare" for the minorities and immigrants to get free shit on the backs of hard working white Americans, the "true Americans". This rhetoric keeps coming up with their insistence that our president is a socialist and the constant insults and attacks on his legitimacy as our commander in chief. Now the right has gained real political momentum as they hide behind the fact that the unemployment rate is still high. Did people really think that job creation was gonna be a magic trick? Presto you're employed. No. They're using people's dissatisfication with the pace of the economic recovery to stir their basicly racist political agenda that never promotes any solid economic plans but to cut taxes. And I say racist political agenda because they don't want anyone who doesn't look like them to do well when all Americans want the same things: safe drug-free neighborhoods, financial security and good schools for their children.
There's the undeniable sense that these people view the ascendancy of a black man to the white house as white people losing control over "their" country and all these "others" taking over. The right screamed and hollered about the stimulus plan and now economists are saying that the problem was that it was probably too little. Reminds me of the little street adage that "it takes money to make money". Meanwhile the banks have stabilized and money is slowly circulating again. But he gets no credit for that all the while the media gave all its energy to Sarah Palin and the brewing anger. Yeah people should be angry and even a little at our president if they want, but get a grip. He didn't create this mess and he's done a hell of job managing all this crap left behind from "the incompetent one". And there's the overtly ignored record unemployment that African Americans are suffering with and the increasing ranks of the poor while all the attention goes to "saving the middle class". And what's the really crazy part is that the Republican party, over the last 30 years since Reagan, has been able to dupe poor and working class whites into believeing that they share anything with the wealthy elites. The only thing they share is skin color and we're seeing just how strong a unifier that can be. These Tea Partiers are complaining about social welfare when they should be complaing about "wealthfare" and all the tax breaks and protections the wealthy get.
It still confounds me that the President and his advisors didn't see that this would happen. I've always hoped that he has some old wise black man in his corner to school him about some things that he didn't learn at Columbia and Harvard. Things that Rahm Emanuel couldn't or wouldn't tell him. If these elections turn out to be a disaster for the Democrats in the House and Senate, then I hope he'll use a different kind of political and social wisdom to prepare for the next 2-year fight of his life. When you're black, it's not enough to be smart, talented and the best one for the job. You always need a strong dose of "mother's wit", courage, street smarts, fire and a "ride or die" approach to accomplish anything.
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