When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost

by Joan Morgan

  Since daddy’s girls are susceptible to patterns, my childhood fear of abandonment became a self-fulfilling prophecy in my romantic relationships. As long as I held on to the anger I was feeling toward my father, the disgruntled daddy’s girl chose my men for me. And because I was a Lolita with a mad Electra complex, that meant ending up with men that were just like my father: incredibly fine, artistic, passionate, charming— souls with occasional hints of genius and serious problems with accountability. It took a few years and some serious emotional bruises before I realized that my adult needs would never be fulfilled until I let go of the anger. Instead of looking for my father in relationships, I had to learn to accept him for the humanly imperfect man he is.

  For some of us the patterns are even more lethal. VickiIII remembers saying that she would never tolerate what her mother took from a man. Yet she managed to choose partners who were violent and abusive almost every single time. The thirty-one-year-old bank clerk remembers her deceased father as a loving man. A Korean War veteran who was addicted to heroin, he often suffered from frightening flashbacks and a predilection for violent confrontations. The victim was usually her mother.

  It was only after Vicki narrowly escaped a lover who’d held her captive for hours and beaten her badly—occasionally forcing the muzzle of a loaded gun into her mouth—could she recognize her tendency to follow in her parents’ footsteps. She shied away from serious relationships for almost five years.

  With the help of a therapist, she came to understand that her parents’ relationship left her with no role models. “No one ever taught me what I should expect from a man. How men are supposed to treat women. How they should behave was a complete mystery to me.” She learned by constructing her own model of a “good man” from the few positive brothers she knew: a professor, her brother, and a few close friends.

  When it comes to the responsibilities black men have to their daughters, Vicki does not mince words. “You know, brothers spend so much time talking about teaching their sons about being righteous black men. I just wish they could see that they teach their daughters a helluva lot about black manhood, whether they’re around or not. A lot of women put up with unacceptable behavior from men because we’re raised to believe that’s just the way men are.”

  I know sometimes in my house (and occasionally on the streets) it must look as if I’m talking to myself. Mostly I’m talking to my unborn women children. Making surreptitious pacts with them helps to nullify the debilitating, infuriating potency of a simple little phrase like “just the way men are.” I promise that they (and I) will never settle for “just the way men are.” They will know what a good man should be. Then I say a prayer to whatever goddess will listen.

  Teach this frightened daddy’s girl to accept strong, loving black arms. Let the unborn women children learn—not from the pain of absence but through example.

  Our experience with men we love but do not respect is not limited to our fathers. In his various nineties manifestations we encounter the EBM at numerous junctures in our lives. In hip-hop and the ’hood he’s your slangin’, bangin’ brother—now a self-described “nigga with an attitude” or that weed- and alcohol-addicted cousin. The ones you pray won’t be dead or dangerous faces on the evening news—which they very well could be—since men convinced they’re not living to see twenty-one tend not to give a shit about their lives or yours.

  He’s that frustrating lover whose untapped potential will never be reached ’cuz he’s given up on his dreams, and taken to quoting statistics instead. His failure to hold a job, get an education, or take care of his kids is everybody’s fault—white people, the system, and even you ’Cuz, you know, black women got it easier because “The Man” don’t consider y’all threat.

  He’s that womanizing athlete, rapper, or Supreme Court judge who cries racism whenever he gets caught confusing sexual abuse with power.

  Fortunately, there are countless black men who do what they gotta do—thrive, take care of their families, contribute to their communities and the society at large —despite the odds. ENDANGEREDBLACKMEN, however, are crippled by a deeply entrenched fatalism for which black women must shoulder some of the blame.

  Our lovers are also our brothers. They are our mothers’ sons—and black women historically have been forced to raise their male children in a climate of fear. This conversation between author Marita Golden and Dr. Joyce Ladner—two black mothers—pretty much sums it up. “Every generation of black women has experienced tremendous anxiety about keeping their men alive. We as women always had to learn to protect our men from white society,” says Ladner, remembering growing up in the fifties when a black man, Mack Parker, was lynched in Mississippi after being accused of raping a white woman. Ladner was fourteen when Emmett Till was murdered.

  “When those men were killed, my fear was for my brothers, my uncles. I was a young girl scared for the men in my family. I remember having nightmares that someone would come and take all the men away. Today it’s not the Klan in white sheets that’s coming, it’s more likely to be another black male. Black women are still afraid for their men.”

  “Each generation of black mothers,” responds Golden, “has hoped our sons would indeed become and always be the ‘Strong Men’ poet Sterling Brown wrote of, who, undaunted and unbowed by racism, ‘keep coming, keep coming.’ And of our sons, we eternally ask how will they live, will they succeed.”3

  Faced with these daunting realities most black mothers rely heavily on their most abundant resource, unconditional love. And with the absence of so many fathers, more often than not it’s a blessing. When that love is tainted with unresolved sexism, however, it becomes toxic. Very often, what plagues EBM and our intimate relationships is a sexism that’s passed down through the umbilical chord.

  Check out the following example. I can’t even call it an unpleasant exchange. By the time you turn thirty, you just accept that mothers reserve the right to occasionally say the most off-the-wall shit to their grown daughters—and get away with it. It’s kind of “Come Out of Your Face for Free” card, I guess, for the time earned in the trenches. This is why I let my homegirl’s moms get away with a remark that I would’ve excoriated any dude for.

  “My daughter really has a wonderful life,” said Mrs. Charles.IV And she was right. Daphne Charles-Monroe * definitely does. Dee’s like the Claire Huxtable of the crew. Not only is she fly as all hell, girlfriend managed to marry a handsome, gainfully employed black man who basically, as they say in the colloquium, loves her dirty drawers. In three short years they’ve acquired a beautiful house, dog, great kid, and car—in that order. And because theirs is the closest thing to a long-term, working relationship most of Dee’s friends have ever seen, they’ve kinda become our role models.

  So it was all good until Mrs. Charles said to me (Dee’s very single and career-minded girlfriend), “I’m so glad that Daphne isn’t like so many of these young women today. They’re so selfish and absorbed in their careers they don’t even know how to treat a good man. No wonder they’re all single.” The air in Dee’s huge, airy brownstone suddenly got too thick to breathe. Grateful for the stack of dirty dishes in the sink, I quickly found something else to do. Silently I rehearsed what I woulda said if I hadn’t been so mad, hurt, and mindful of the fact that I’m supposed to respect my elders.

  Dang, Mrs. C., I’m a little tired of our mothers bashing us for nothing more than growing and becoming the women you raised us to be. Remember? Highly independent, powerful, and truly unafraid to be our best? I mean correct me if I’m wrong but lessons on “How to Treat a Man” were not (thank God) part of the carefully planned education you all provided when we attended those “fine private schools and elite universities.” In case you’ve forgotten, you and Mommy were all about: “You-all-better-not-be-concentrating-on-the-boys-or-majoring-in-MRS.-because-we’re-not-sending-you-to-school-for-that-you-hear-me-you-girls-better-make-sure-youget-good-educations-so-you-can-support-yourselves-and-notbe-waiting-aroun
d-for-some-man-to-do-it-for-you-I’m-serious.”

  This is what I remember: The endless mother/daughter theater parties and cultural events you all had us attend so we’d know we were “just as good as those white kids dammit, even better, because you girls are black and you had to work twice as hard to get to where you are—and don’t you ever forget it.”

  You telling us over and over again to treat each other like sistas and NEVER let “some man come between you girls because the men will come and go but the friendships you girls have will last forever.” The crew’s still intact almost two decades later because we never did and they never have.

  Pardon my French, Mrs. C., but I happen to think the way you guys raised us was the shit and I’m not going to let you or my single status make me feel bad about any of it. Loving my career as much as any ambitious dude loves his doesn’t make me inordinately selfish. I just don’t think it’s too much to ask any brother who wants to be in the mix to respect and support my hustle.

  Nothing personal, Mrs. C., but I kinda feel like before mothers start bashing their perpetually single career girls they might want to check themselves. After all, the brothers we date are the sons they raised. And I don’t know if you’ve peeped this or not but highly independent, well-educated, intelligent, driven sistas are not always on the top of their list. Evidently we’re a li’l more high maintenance than those oh-so-grateful chickenheads, who are basically grateful to sit up in the house, make babies, and go shopping.

  It’s like Gloria Steinem said. Our mothers did a great job raising their daughters to become the men they once wanted to marry. But how about raising their sons to become the men their daughters need?

  “You cannot have an irresponsible man if he was not allowed to be an irresponsible boy,” states Dr. Jawanza Kunjufu. “Some women raise their daughters and love their sons,” he explains, referring to the markedly different ways some black women raise boys and girls. “They require little of their sons in the areas of household duties: taking care of siblings, going to church, or doing well in school, while their daughters are expected to excel in these areas. These mothers are creating totally dependent men who will expect all women to do for them. Yet these boys are future husbands and fathers.”4

  These are the men sistas are talking about when they claim black men can’t deal with a strong-intelligent-independent-black-woman. It’s even graver than expecting women to do all for them. Their mothers’ failure to foster in them the same sense of responsibility and accountability that they demand of their daughters denies their sons the drive, determination, and overall stick-to-itiveness required to overcome obstacles. It also robs them of valuable self-esteem earned from meeting difficult challenges. Instead, these men learn to make excuses and wallow in a state of learned helplessness. In other words they succumb to being ENDANGERED.

  And EBM are wholly incompatible with daughters raised to be strong women.

  Further exacerbating the problem are those mothers whose perceptions of black manhood are not only informed by sexism but disappointment and low expectations. Women who maintain “all men are dogs” send dangerous messages to their sons. Whether it’s their intention or not, passively accepting the mistreatment of women as a function of gender—as opposed to sexism and a lack of good home training—invariably condones the behavior. And the outcome can be emotionally devastating for all involved.

  When AlexisV tells the tale of her boyfriend’s infidelity she is visibly shaken. After dating CarlVI for two years, they decided to live together. Alexis’s parents paid for their apartment while they both attended grad school. “They saw I was really in love and that Carl was determined to make something of himself, so they let us live together.

  “They’ve been there for him, for us, in every way. I mean, we both worked, but if we needed groceries or money they sent enough for both of us. They treated him like a son.”

  During the course of their relationship, Carl got another woman pregnant. He didn’t tell Alexis until after the baby was born. Although his mother was clearly upset and conflicted, in order to protect him, his family participated in a series of lies—of omission and otherwise—regarding everything from his relationship with the other woman to his general whereabouts.

  “What hurt me more than anything,” says Alexis, “was that as close as I supposedly was to his mother and his sisters, they didn’t tell me. I don’t understand how they could keep something like that from me. Three months maybe, but the whole nine?”

  Although Carl claims he’s in love and wants to continue the relationship, Alexis doubts she’ll ever trust him or his family. “Even if I could forgive him, I don’t know if I could ever forgive them. How could I believe anything they tell me?”

  Black women who turn a blind eye, laugh, or brag about their sons’ many girlfriends (unacceptable antics, mind you, from their daughters), or assume collusive roles in their sons’ doggish behavior have no right to complain about the lack of “good black men.” What they need is to develop a greater sense of responsibility in their sons and to other black women.

  Mothers play powerful roles in determining their sons’ ability to respect women. Good black men don’t just appear out of nowhere. They are nurtured, taught, and cultivated. There are many black women who raised their sons to be good, decent, responsible black men, who are in turn, good boyfriends, husbands, and fathers. However, when mothers allow their pain and lack of faith in black men to blind them to their own power the result is a vicious, unending cycle. Not only do they end up with ENDANGEREDBLACKMEN who lack the confidence and strength needed to withstand the daily assaults racism makes on black folks’ spirits, their sons also bear painful resemblance to the very men who broke their hearts. And these sons grow into men who are bound to break the hearts of other black women’s daughters.

  Ultimately, healing relationships between black men and women depend on our ability to forgive. One of the most toxic by-products of black folks’ history is an anger rooted in centuries of racism and human suffering. An anger black men and women, however unwittingly, are quick to turn on each other. It’s time to acknowledge it, and then let it go. If not for our own sakes, then for the sakes of our children.

  I’ll leave you with the following bit of Marita Golden’s sagacity: “The generations-old backlog of anger that African-American men and women hoard and revisit and unleash upon one another with a genius that is frightening becomes a script that our sons and daughters memorize, practicing its lethal intent and perfecting it in their own lives.”

  The only elixir she maintains, is forgiveness. “African-American women must forgive the real and imagined crimes of their sons’ fathers. We must resist the urge to visit upon all the men in our lives the bitterness and pain planted by incompetent fathers or disappointing lovers. . . .

  “And we must forgive black men for not protecting us against slavery, racism, white men, our confusion, or their doubts. And black men have to forgive black women for our own sometimes dubious choices, divided loyalties, and lack of belief in their possibilites.”

  Because “only when our sons and daughters know that forgiveness is real, existent, and that those who love them practice it, can they form bonds as men and women that really can save and change our community.”5

  Can I get an Amen?

  * * *

  I. Not her real name.

  II. Not his real name.

  III. Not her real name.

  IV. Not her real name.

  V. Not her real name.

  VI. Not his real name.

  lovenote

  I think you better call Tyrone

  And tell him come on and help you get your shit

  —Erykah Badu, “Tyrone”

  Happy Kwanzaa, Chica,

  Ms. Badu Live, for your listening pleasure, from one SBW in recovery to another. The first time I heard her perform “Tyrone” was at a benefit for The Tea Party (Brooklyn’s weekly black boho fete) and knew it was a must-have for the nineties bla
ck girl archives. Stick it next to your bootleg copies of Waiting to Exhale and Soul Food.

  As soon as Erykah got through the first verse, I knew I was about to have one of those “Damn, I wish my Dawg was here” moments. Talk about the universality of the EBM (aka “Trifling Nigga”) experience. When girlfriend started droppin’ the lyrics, sistas lost their minds. So did the brothers, for that matter. It was as if everybody had either been a Tyrone, that wack-ass friend of Tyrone’s, or a sista finally telling her EBM to “call Tyrone and tell him to come on and help you get your shit.”

  As I watched Ms. Badu—in her eminent badness—do her thing I caught myself wondering how some broke, cheap, all dreams and no plan gwanna (as in “Gwanna do this,” “Gwanna do that”) nigga managed to work his way into her fly-ass life. That was until I remembered the times somebody might’ve looked at my man (or yours) and wondered the same thing. One thing’s for sure, EBM manage to pull some of the baddest black women around.

  The funny thing, most of them aren’t even on some suave pimp shit. Most of the time, they’re just regla brothers—cute, nice, relatively well intentioned but altogether lacking in drive, direction, and gumption. And you know I got mad sympathy for the “Plight of the Black Man” but damn, racism (and sexism) kicks our asses too and we still manage to get up and do what we gotta. If EBM are pimping anything it’s that damn STRONGBLACKWOMAN conditioning of ours convincing us it’s our righteous sista duty to help a black man reach his potential.