February 12, 2009: Have you noticed that black discussions seem to proceed in peculiar fashion when there is blame to be levelled. There appears to be an authorised and approved 'way'of discussing issues when some sort of blame will be apportioned, and lets lay it on the line here, when the blame is headed towards black men. Black women themselves appear very adept at applying the rules of acceptable 'discoursing', that it apears almost instinctive, and I sometimes wonder if they realise they are doing this. They seem so coached!

I often say that a commentary can highlight a lot more about what it is trying hard to avoid saying than what it actually is saying.

So what am I actually going on about here.

Well, I know I should keep off youtube but anyway I went on there a few days ago and I was watching a ‘tube’ message form a young black woman commenting on the relationship situation between black men and black women as usual. She gets to a point and says, ‘.. as the black men come in, I notice they all have white, and Latina girlfriends…’

Then she proceeded to say, ‘What is wrong with black people', 'Why don’t we love each other and why do we value whites more than ourselves, and love to be in the company of white etc etc’.

Notice anything about the above statement?

I do. I notice a sharp argument manouver. We go from being very specific; ‘Black men and other women’, to suddenly generalising when we reach the point of indicting the culprits i.e ‘What is wrong with black people' (that is everyone both male and female alike).

It is clear that this woman is talking about black men's choices (she specifically talks about no black man coming with a black woman), she never mentions black women coming with other men. Yet suddenly when it is time for some blame, the discussion *** to 'black people', rather than black men who she has clearly been referring to. hmmmm...

Let me say here that I have noticed this repeating pattern, in similar debates and discussions about black male culpability, I have noticed what is clearly the strong aversion to pinpointing black males as to blame for some situation. I notice how people meander round blaming black men, like a river would meander round a big bolder it cant/feels it dare not confront. So suddenly we are pulling punches, 'glancing' blows, and 'spreading' any blame so that it is shared by everybody rather than focussed on the culprits. Sometimes I hear people give such detailed analysis of a situation which shows that they have no confusion as to what is going on, but suddenly in conclussion you hear the summation: 'black people need to love each other'. Its such a let down and you just know they are trying hard to avoid blaming who they know they should be blaming. I see people title their discussions/articles 'black men and black women should support each other', when you and they know very well that the issue is not about black women supporting black men (because they go out of their way to do just that), but black men upholding their end of the bargain. They would rather hold a dishonest conversation than admit the truth about the situation. What cowards!

Another example:

In a recent Guardian Newspaper article about disapperance of 'black britons' due to high rates of interracial marriages, the playwright and actor Kwame Kwei-Armah, commented thus:

"An example would be, when we look at most of the Premier League footballers who are black, the overwhelming majority of them have white partners. The signals that it sends to my daughter is, 'When you're successful, you date outside your community, yet when you're not successful you date in.' You're only good for the bad end of it. What psychological effect is that having?"

Notice the broad manouver. He goes from speaking about footballers dating white (as far as I am aware, footballers are 100% male), to 'skirting' into saying something very general/ambigious; 'When you're successful, you date outside your community'!

If this was a vinyl record in rotation, the 'bump' would have everyone stopping in mid dance. We started out talking about a choice clearly being made by black males and we are ending up discussing the issue as a general trend. In fact the last bit of that comment does not tie in with the rest of it (read it again and see)which just shows someone falling all over the place in their attempts to obscure an issue. Indeed in that comment you dont know if he is talking about 'you ' as the black man, or 'you' as in his daughter or black person in general and then by the time he throws in the third 'you' re', I am just scratching my head in confusion! I mean 'who' is only good for the bad end of it is it his daughter or the black man who chooses a white person or someone else also identified as 'you'? Utter confusion, and the type you create while attempting to meander round and avoid comfronting the issue for what it is clearly about; the activities of black men.

But there is another thing, the confusion that he is sowing in his daughter as a result of this 'reluctance', to focus the issue on who is clearly the culprit in this situation. By pretending that black men and women pick up the same message from footballers dating choices and infering that they act on these messages in the same way, Mr Armah is silencing the whole black female narrative around interracial dating. He is silencing the discussion on how black women are made to feel unworthy of 'succesful' men, he is silencing the discussion on it quite often being a situation of black men discriminating against black women, and he is also silencing the acknowlegement that at a time and point when over fifty percent of partnered black british men are with non-black women, interracial dating for black women is not an issue of elevating white or 'rejecting black' but is clearly one of 'rejecting singleness'. This guy is being disengenious at best and manipulative at worst because the aim could very well be to 'guide' his daughter away from the interracial choice, regardless of what this might mean for her chances for a relationship.

It is indeed very disengenious of the actor to pretend that the motivations and actions around interracial dating are the same for both genders, almost every one in the black community is aware that when these issues are disccussed, black women and black men are positioned differently. This seems to me like Mr Kwei-Armah was hoping to suggest that 'black women do it to', to the newspaper. Now I am willing to consider the argument that his reasons might have had something to do with not wanting to potray black women as being left without prospects in the situation, I however think that if Mr Kwei-Armah is having such discussions with his daughter and framing them in this way, he will end up making her feel guilty and putting pressure on her to remain 'true' to race despite as I said, what it could mean for her dating prospects.

It is very clear, the subtext of this manouvering and *** that black people engage in in this regard is 'spare black men!'.

And black women obey this 'acceptable discourse' like if it is 'Microsoft programmed' into them.

Yes, thats the shape of acceptable black discourse, it obeys the key precept;‘Don’t you dare blame black men for anything, no matter how clearly the blame rests and even if your detailed and well reasoned analysis leaves you with no other conclusion'.