MODERN FEMINIST SAYS "MANOSPHERE A PUBLIC HEALTH CRISIS": A FOUNDING FATHER OF THE BLACK MANOSPHERE RESPONDS

6:19 AM 10/12/2023 Thu

*NOTE: My post is in response to a video titled, "Kim vs. The Manosphere (Again)" and published on YouTube, Oct 11, 2023. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RyZbC1VbQO0

Last week while attending a Big Ten football game watch party down on Logan Square here in Philly, I was asked a pointed question by an attractive brown-skinned sista in attendance: "What was the Manosphere's problem with Feminism?". The lady in question, highly educated and accomplished by any reasonable standard, was enthralled by what has become known to be the "Manosphere" in more recent years of social media history. As is so often the case, she like many other levelheaded ladies have found themselves inexorably drawn to the Manosphere social media spaces and have spent quite a bit of time in consuming the content therein. Not surprisingly, she found that much of it revolve around what she saw as the Manosphere's "problems" with Feminism, and since she knew that I was a major figure in the space, wanted to get my take on the whole ball of wax.

In my response, I made clear that I was speaking for myself and myself alone - and - that I thought it would be better to make two very important distinctions: 1. I am representing for the BLACK Manosphere, something that I helped to create eight years ago along with The Angryman and Oshay Duke Jackson; and 2. I will confine my responses to what MY "problem" was with BLACK Feminism, which got its unofficial start with the Combahee River Collective in 1974.

My off the cuff response to the lady's question, is as follows: My principal "problem" with Black Feminism is that its fundamental premise, as promulgated by themselves and their lesser informed sisters in the decades since, is severely flawed. Black men have never been in control of governmental, commercial or military policy in this country, i.e., "The Patriarchy"; indeed, even the most casual of investigation reveals this fact, and the cold hard fact that when Black men tried to assert their own "patriarchy" in the form of business and commerce, it was ruthlessly destroyed by anger and threatened White males (to wit: The Tulsa, OK "Black Wall Street" race war of 1921. There are far too many other documented examples to list here). So what exactly are Black feminists or for that matter Black women more broadly, "liberating" themselves from? Surely it cannot be a Black "Patriarchy" because no such thing has ever existed on American shores, past or present.

My second principal "problem" with Black Feminism is that it has truly gone off the rails with the WHITE Feminist maxim: "That the personal, is political". For example, it has been my estimation that many of the founding mothers of modern Black Feminism have seemed to have made their personal insecurities, anxieties, issues and problems - largely if not totally surrounding and having to do with individual Black men - into a cause celebre' that somehow "everyone" has to have something to do with. For example, the "Colorism" argument is deeply flawed, largely because it fails to hold up to even the most casual of tests; there have been and continue to be numerous examples of dark(er) skinned Black women who have achieved the heights of American life in just about every endeavor - from media moguls, to Supreme Court justices, to Oscar-winning actresses, to former First Ladies of the United States. In the vast majority of the aforementioned cited cases, the Black women in question have Black husbands or longtime mates. Yet, the "colorism" argument - and its derivatives of varying stripe - persists. Which brings me to the third "problem" that I have with modern day Black Feminism:

That it has utterly failed to deliver the goods to Black women writ large in making their lives better. When you really sit down and think about it, if there have been any real gains for Black women since the CRC's formation, it came at the hands and sweat of WHITE women: Roe v. Wade, changing social mores surrounding women having education and careers, even moving the needle on the "MeToo" movement - ALL came from White women. Black feminists simply cannot give an accounting of the laws they have successfully lobbied and passed, cannot show how they've made Black women safer, cannot document how they've made Black women happier, and certainly cannot show and prove how they've made Black women healthier. On just about every index one can think of, Black women, taken together as a group, have gotten demonstrably worse since the CRC's inception: They've gotten heavier, more broken up and divorced, are lonelier, are the most evicted and have the highest incidence of STDs.

My Big Ten lady interlocutor had to admit that, after I laid out my argument and response over fried asparagus and hummus, I had a point. Actually several - and that while she absolutely knew quite a few fellow travelers among Black feminists over the years, she had to concede that none of them even tried to account for the things I cited in my response.

All of which is to set the stage for the YouTube video cited above. Several of my listeners were keen to get my response from this relatively well known internet modern feminist who happens to be Black and has seemed to have made a name for herself aping the same Black Feminist tripe that went out with bell bottomed pants. At first I was seriously considering responding in live show or video form; but, after reading an actual transcript of the video in question, I decided to respond in written form, to highlight just how nonsensical so many of these modern feminists actually are.

The video, which is just shy of ten minutes long, consists of course of lots of rambling about, discussing personal issues and opinions that by definition, don't form up a proper argument (and certainly aren't interesting to me and I strongly suspect, no one else). Towards the end of the stream of consciousness diatribe however, this modern feminist attempts to suggest that the Black Manosphere - that is who she is actually talking about - is a public health crisis. That she actually said this with a straight face only reinforces the deluded nature of this modern feminist's worldview. She goes on to suggest that Richard Reeves, a British-American academic who heads up the Brookings Institution and has recently published "Of Boys & Men", is what the doctor ordered as the appropriate counterweight to the Black Manosphere. That this modern feminist, who happens to be Black and makes it a frequent talking point of hers, suggests that a White, non-American man can address the Black Manosphere, only again highlights the delusion at work here.

First off, this modern feminist can make extraordinary claims, but they have to back it up with extraordinary evidence - and there is none to support her argument. The Black Manosphere isn't behind the spate of gun violence occurring in places like my native Philly where Sixer hall of famer Allen Iverson is trying in vain to be the voice of reason among the cities knuckleheads, and where the first Black female police commissioner - Danielle Outlaw - has quit and gotten out of Dodge in the face of the ever-rising homicide rate.

It's not the Black Manosphere who is responsible for the exorbitant spikes in STD infections impacting on Black women across the Black precincts of the country - most notably in Houston TX, where the Syphilis rate is literally off the charts, and where Black babies are being born with the disease at an alarming rate.

It's not the Black Manosphere who is the cause of Black women and their children, being evicted at all-time high rates coming out of the global pandemic; a high percentage of Black men in the space are happily married or otherwise mated, and their ladies aren't out here accusing other Black women with whom they disagree "Pickme's", or bleating on about "colorism", "featurism" or "body positivity".

All of the things I cited above, have been observed by noted scholars to be public health problems - and NONE of them have even casually linked to the Black Manosphere.

On the contrary, the Black Manosphere has proven itself to be a net positive for Black America at large - this is proofed by the third Annual Black Manosphere Conclave, which went down last month in Atlanta. Some 200 Black men turned out physically and virtually, for the expressed and sole purpose of becoming the best version of themselves. And we've been around only a fraction of the time modern feminists like the one I'm addressing in today's post have.

Oh, the irony.

Now, as I wrap up my post for today, consider this: I have made a solid, historically based and fundamentally sound argument as to how and why I, a founding father of the Black Manosphere, have a "problem" with modern day Black Feminism; I have made no personal attacks; I have "harassed" no one.

Instead, I have made an argument.

Let's see if the other side can do the same - IN WRITING, shall we?

We're done here.

Mumia Obsidian Ali
One of the "Three Kings" of the Black Manosphere,
Number One Bestselling Author,
Thought Leader,
One of the Four Horsemen of the Black Manosphere Conclave,
And Semi-Professional Pest