Black men seem to hate black women.
And black women seem to be able to forgive them almost anything.
In the black diaspora, apparently we are so starving for positive black male role models that we will go to any length to protect those we have, no matter what they have done. No matter the cost, no matter the damage we inflict on the women in our community. No. Matter. What.
And this is how I know.
If a white man were to rape up to 40 women, mostly white, there would be an outcry. His entire family (perhaps, excepting his mother) would disown him. His wife would leave him. His car would be torched. His children would consider changing their names. He would be vilified and ostracised, rightly so, from society
Bill Cosby’s wife Camille stands by him.
His children still stand by him.
Black politicians and power players proclaim his innocence and that it is a conspiracy because he was so powerful in the black community.
And despite the claims against him, of sexually assaulting up to 40 different women (most of them black), coming from mountain and sea, he has been able to hire a black female defense attorney to represent him.
Despite him confessing in a 2005 civil lawsuit deposition brought against him by Andrea Constand, his first publicly known victim, to drugging women, sleeping with girls who were underage when he first met them and having an agency who would send ‘four or five models a week’, all of which was made public record when the documents were unsealed in 2015.
The black populace is missing is a cold, hard dose of common sense.
The Internet is a-Twitter with conspiracy theories. Pun intended. It’s the Jewish Illuminati because he wanted to buy into NBC (yeah, in 1992). It’s Hollywood because they’re on a mission to erase the upstanding black man from America’s consciousness and subsequently that of the world (as Blackish and Empire become the most watched TV shows in prime time). It’s the government because they HATE black men and are enacting a new genocide to rid our country of them one at a time (as Mississippi, Alabama and Tennessee are electing ever higher numbers of black judges and law makers).
It would seem that what the black populace is missing is a cold, hard dose of common sense.
I’m not galled by the number of black men (famous and non) who have come to Cosby’s defence. I knew that would happen as sure as the sky is blue. What APPALLS me is the number of black women who have come to his defence. And I had hoped that this would be the breaking point. I had hoped that millions of women around the world would come forth along with their sisters/mothers/aunts/grandmothers/cousins/friends, and speak up and speak out about the wider issue of sexual violence and help to prevent it from being perpetuated.
If the only criteria we need as black people across the diaspora, to support someone is wholly based on the colour of their skin being black, and that they are a man…we need to have a team meeting and reevaluate.
Ms Banks managed to offend more categories of people in 140 characters than Donald Trump has in his entire presidential campaign.
Case study number one: Part time rapper, full-time bees-nest-poker Azealia Banks.
Ms Banks had a rather promising rap career some years back; she looked poised to take up the void left by Foxy Brown and Lil’ Kim as the brassy, flashy, unabashedly sexy, beautiful and fly female rapper du jour. That was until she got a Twitter account. Think of every racist, homophobic, self-hating, vile and ugly thing anyone could possibly say…sprinkle that with healthy doses of the N, C and B words and projectile vomit that onto half a million people. Daily.
Ms Banks managed to offend more categories of people in 140 characters than Donald Trump has in his entire presidential campaign. And that’s saying something. There were those who stood by her, die-hard fans and people with an apparent lack of scruples, but by and large the black community turned their back on her because she was making black women look bad. The lynchpin to her Tweet-tastic career came in early May 2016 when she unleashed her vitriol on Zayn Malik, the 20-year-old former One Direction star gone solo, of Pakistani origin. Black Twitter tied her to a pyre and struck the match.
Case study number two: Robert Sylvester Kelly.
I know two things about R Kelly – he’s a brilliant musician and he likes young girls. One does not negate the other. He married 15-year-old R’n’B sensation, Aaliyah, without her parents’ knowledge. He had known her since she was 12. He has been accused of sex with minors and exploitative behaviour on many different occasions.
R Kelly has been accused of child pornography – and far more disturbing things – and is still winning Grammys.
Yet, if you ask a black man about that they’ll probably laugh and repeat the Dave Chappelle joke about the pee incident. They might not know he married an underage girl or they’ll laugh about him “liking them young”. But please believe they can name at least five R Kelly songs going back to the early 90s.
I could go on. Bobby was misunderstood; Whitney was a crackhead. Ike was a great guitar player; Tina made too much of it. To be clear, and I’m not excusing her, but Azealia Banks Tweeted and we were ready to burn the witch. R Kelly has been accused of child pornography – and far more disturbing things – and is still winning Grammys. Is it me or…?
The criteria we use to gauge whose black card should be revoked and who gets a pass is very skewed depending on which side of the fence you are. I get the feeling that perhaps there are so few of us representing the rest, the positive and talented black men, that we fear speaking ill of black men in general… for fear it will confirm what the (white) world thinks of us. But in order for us to be a better people, should we not also, the world over, start weeding out the weak links in the chain?
Shouldn’t we be standing up for our doctors, lawyers, hedge fund managers, teachers, single fathers and (forgive me, Jesus) cops?!
Shouldn’t we be standing up for President Obama, if we need a strong black, family man? Shouldn’t we be standing up for our doctors, lawyers, hedge fund managers, teachers, single fathers and (forgive me, Jesus) cops?! Are they NOT upstanding black men who are making our community better? Who are giving our young black men a positive role model IRL?
Because I’m more afraid of being part and party to a diaspora who will defend to the death reprehensible human beings just because they’re black, rather than risking having white people think we’re base. A garbage human being is a garbage human being. No matter the colour. And no matter their gender.
And yes, that sound you hear is bitterness. And after 30+ years on this earth, under these conditions, can you blame me?
Follow Coco on Instagram @misscocomasloco