by
Lisa Jean Francois
Misogyny is a casual and common affair in black culture. At least once a week, a black woman’s image is turned into a meme whereby she and all black women are shamed for one reason or another. Our images are co-opted to make the central point many black men seem bent on making — we ain’t shit, whether because we’re too dark, or too kinky-haired, or too hood, or too bougie, or too educated, or not educated enough. This week, rapper Big Boi jumped into the fray by tweeting this image:
The implication being that Esther Rolle’s fictional character, Florida Evans from the 70s sitcom, Good Times, represents the good ol’ days of mothering, while the unidentified woman in a thong represents the kind of mothering happening today. No doubt if we all covered up and taught our daughters how to cook and clean all would be right in the world. Fathers, of course, have no responsibility in the rearing of children.
Thankfully, our Feminista Jones, who we have dubbed this week’s Queen of the Clapback was primed and ready with these examples to refute Big Boi’s assertions. And it is worth noting that the stories and images she shared are common among black women, although the same black men thirsty to tweet out a black-woman-shaming meme choose to ignore them.
https://twitter.com/FeministaJones/status/737291734846181376
https://twitter.com/FeministaJones/status/737296833324683265
https://twitter.com/BridgetMarie/status/737296466964664320
https://twitter.com/FeministaJones/status/737297305250975744
https://twitter.com/FeministaJones/status/737297869472960516
https://twitter.com/LikeAir_iRise/status/737303143738789889
And then she broke down the INTENSE hypocrisy of black men blaming black women for endangering black children.
https://twitter.com/FeministaJones/status/737304108735074305
Aren’t we all just sick of the same old tired rhetoric being thrown around about black women? We are fierce and fabulous beings, and black men need to ask themselves why they choose to ignore that in favor of pushing a black-woman-hating and, ultimately, self-hating narrative.
57 Responses
Black males just barely take care of their children, then expect a standing ovation when they do. They’d be the first person to make a baby with the woman in the right picture, then call her a trifling thot when she took them to court for child support. Perhaps degrading us makes them imagine they are more of a “man”, which they haven’t been since they bent over for white men during slavery.
He is the last one to judge Anyone. He is a habitual Cheater. He had a baby and who knows how many abortions while married. He needs viagra to function sexually and and is bipolar. He instigates fights between ppl on his team for amusement. He is immature and irrelevant! And I believe he did have make pics of 3000 in His phone. A lot of ppl in the music industry are gay. I know 1st hand unfortunately…smdh
Your response to me is a generalized stereotype which goes against everything my brother is dealing with in court: a deceptive mother who got assistance to rip-off assistance programs and now my brother is paying for it, her own daughter is crying and telling her grandmother they don’t have enough food in the house but the courts still side with her for full custody and child support, she’s pregnant now BY ANOTHER MAN and my brother, according to another female friend who worked in Child support and her experience, may have to pay extra to help his baby mama support her pregnancy so she can be “safe.” No, but black men are the only ones who whine and moan about it and all other races don’t. Which is uninformed because other races of men also complain about similar things when it comes to Western Society’s catering to radical feminism and victim culture/victimology.
My brother is not perfect but he gave this woman money prior to all this. He would give her half of his tax refund, thousands of dollars, pay for his child’s clothes, spend time with her, albeit, I would critique him on a lot. So it’s not like he was absentee and complaining about financially supporting his child. And notice how many times I indicated he is not perfect, but for her and the system to penalize him and not even acknowledge what he’s done up to that point once she goes whining to the system although he was already helping her is a travesty. No, but she wanted more money or whatever she thought she was doing…doesn’t matter, they cater to her because her mother’s a social worker and the lawyer, the guardian ad litem, was a friend of her mothers and only took their side. Never talked to my brother, hid in her office when he came by and knocked on the door and he could hear her. Only sent him paperwork when he reported her to the court. So don’t come at me with some unrealistic warped “all black men are the only ones who cry about taking care of their children.” Maybe the black men that you know who are little boys and that’s a reason you have a warped view of men. Maybe the black men that you know that are a product of Western culture telling them it’s wrong to be men because that’s offensive to women and that’s why you have a warped view of men, etc. Maybe you need to reevaluate the type of men you have in YOUR life.
Lastly, my daughters, hopefully with their mother and I in their life, and we’re not perfect, will realize what type of man to seek rather than listen to the culture and society. It’s difficult, but we try. So I wouldn’t have to explain the behavior of little boys who should be men to them. They should already understand from seeing a father who goes to work, provides for them, etc.
So thanks for trying, have a nice life. You didn’t do so well “telling me off” if that’s what you were trying to do.
Just like to say my brother has been threw it as well, however never has it skewed his view of all black….because to do so would be ridiculous
I did not say it skewed the view of all black (not sure what your dots indicate, but I will assume women), but many of the women replying to this article did so in a superficial generalized way. When men are generalized and stereotyped, seems to be okay, but when the ills women do are exposed, oh now that’s somehow wrong?
Elitist America as you know never liked blacks around after they were slaves. So, how to get rid of you? Divide and conquer. Encourage you to mix into other races and then eventually disappear. Make sure the male and female of the race despise each other so much they do this most willingly. Looks like the plan is working, eh?
Why is anyone giving that big-fat-no-more-hits-without-Andre 3000-fool the time of day? He is clearly now at the point where he will post, say, do anything to make a comeback! Ignore and move on folks!
Awesome feminista
James and Florida were married and had a family. But where are half the fathers in today’s situations? They bear no responsibility for how the kids turn out at all, huh? Meanwhile, how’s he handling co-parenting the outside child he had on his wife? I mean, he REALLY needs to sweep around his own front door.
Okay!!!! Preach the truth! Didn’t know Big Boi had an outside child??!!! So sad! HIV rate in Atlanta is sky high and dudes still tempting fate!
People are dismissing Big Boi because he is regarded as unqualified to take such a position. I don’t mean to dismiss Feminista Jones. Some people make it – in spite of some incredibly unfair odds – because they have what it takes to succeed. In Donny Hathaway’s song, Someday We’ll All Be Free, he tells the listener to never lose their self-respect. What I see going on, and Big Boi noticed it too, social media encourages some people to lose their self-respect and their dignity. Yes, there are those that don’t need to appease others. Those are the ones that will make it. Twitter, Facebook, et. al., are taking some people’s drive and ambition away. I don’t write this to be critical of anyone. I write this to warn people of the dangers of social media.
If Big Boi had describe his lifestyle and they say he has an outside child on his wife…. how would he describe his cheating ways?
a bunch of bitter black women. Why do you attract the kind of men that you do? What makes you so appealing to the kind of black men that you hate so much? This is for all of you bitter women
So you missed the entire point of this post.
Those same black men would fuck them “bitches” get her pregnant and leave. SMFH
Funny thing. I happened to see this site up, because my wife checks it out for the natural hair topics and occasionally other things. I’m a father of four, married, and I fell asleep doing some graduate studies, wake up and happen to click on this link to see what all the fuss was about. First of all, Big Boi didn’t really create this meme…I’ve seen it posted on Facebook many times without so much as a peep from females when another female does it nor a male. It’s interesting how this somehow starts a war because Big Boi is “trying to shame black mothers” rather than a topic about how in some aspects he has a point about some mothers regardless of the generalization one may see in it and regardless of the other obvious reality of poor black fathers. Nope, let’s just redirect that real topic by claiming Big Boi is somehow misogynistic for pointing to a real problem, ignore the little girl in the left hand corner of the picture with the woman in the shower with the bathing suit on and her but sticking out (maybe some did see her because they still try to argue against the point of the meme) and understanding that’s the point of the meme when juxtaposed with the Florida Evans image and she’s standing there with her grown daughter having a conversation, cooking, and both fully clothed. Nope, instead of paying attention to that obvious point, you ladies redirect the question to “What about the no-good black men having children with these no-good black women?” well….what about them? Does the fact there are no-good black men having children with no-good black women somehow indicate that poor black mothers don’t exist?
Miss Feminista Jones’ whole post is called a straw man in argumentation standards. That means you build an argument against an argument your opponent isn’t making. Big Boi nor the meme, despite my irritation with people using memes to make points, never really make the statement that she’s arguing against, nor what everyone here seems to be arguing against. Again, the statement Big Boi is making is about a problem that does exist. It exists ladies, but if you choose to stick your head in the sand or redirect the problem back to men or somehow claim that every time bad motherhood is acknowledged bad fatherhood has to be equally acknowledged then your argumentation comes off as juvenile and incapable of dealing with problems in reality. Furthermore, Feminista and everyone here goes on a war against Big Boi, to some extent I agree since he is part of an industry that objectifies and teaches this image to young women and yet here he is, probably in his older age, trying to stake a point against it. Still, that doesn’t disqualify the validity of the point and this is my problem with all the posts here and Feminista Jones’ response. It’s like “Let’s pretend bad mothers don’t exist and that’s exactly what this meme is talking about.” That’s the problem. Nobody who would support this meme would start to argue that bad black fathers don’t exist today.
But here’s the general problem with what I see here from some of you ladies. My brother, whom I would testify is not the best father nor man, is caught up in a custody battle with a woman who is getting away with murder in the courts with outright deception. My brother, despite what people want to say about him, has always given this woman money to help support their daughter, has always been equally sharing in the general responsibility of taking care of his child. Suddenly this woman decides to up and file a custody and “I need more money” suits in court which she gets away with making baseless claims and the court even comes after my brother for her fraud when she went on the system to get more money and claims he has to pay it back despite the system acknowledging he gave her money. This woman, like many young mothers I know in my life IN REALITY will pay lip service to motherhood, but if you really know her you will know it’s all about how she looks, where she can go without her child and what man she can end up with. She’s not the only young black woman I know who thinks and acts like this. Sadly, I know a few very close to me who are like this and they were not raised like this. Does she post badly planned pictures of herself on social media with her daughter present? No, but that’s not the point, in reality, in real life, in her activities, in her deception, everything I categorize her as a bad mother because right now for all of what she’s doing her child is suffering the most. I could tell a whole lot more in this situation, but I’m sure plenty here will jump on the male bashing bandwagon with a whole lot of “what about somehow your brother has to be at fault with this or that” ignoring the fact that I started off with my brother is not the best father, he’s not the father of the year, or in no way giving him glorious reviews. But does his failure absolve his daughter’s mother of her failure? Nope. Both issues need to be addressed co-equally and individually regardless. Claiming one can’t be addressed without addressing the other, again, comes off as juvenile and ostrich style stick your head in the sand let alone strawman arguing.
So sure Feminista, post positive images of black women. I’m all for it. That’s fine, I agree. Does this same Feminista post positive images of black men? I dunno, I don’t know her. Nor do I know Big Boi’s post history and whether or not he posts positive images of black women. I wonder how many railing against him for this one meme know his post history and whether or not, within the context of that post history if he has posted positive images of black women? Still tho, and I hate to beat this dead horse…whether he does or doesn’t, the point still stands that there are some poor black mothers who make poor choices regardless of what black males do at times. We cannot try to shame black fathers for the action of poor black mothers nor can we try to shame black mothers for the actions of poor black fathers. We can ask the question, did you know about his person when you went to bed with them, laid down with them and made a child with them? That altogether is another moral dialogue as well. Related, but does nothing to help the discussion after the fact. A father being in a child’s life does not always necessitate that the mother will be of good character nor does it the other way around.
Does the success of some teenage mothers somehow indicate we should advocate teen motherhood, Femnista and other ladies? I mean seriously, does it? I’m all for ladies who made a mistake and then correct that mistake and go on into secular success. I’m all for it. Kudos to them, but does this absolve the real issue that there are plenty more teenage mothers who do not do this and go on into making worse mistakes that affect their children?
To be fair, maybe the woman on the right in the meme was just having fun, maybe this was a picture taken out of context that was put on the interwebs. Hence, my issue with internet memes…a picture can be made to say something it was never intended to say. Still, tho, it brings up a relevant subject that has to be discussed and not deflected. Which is what Feminista did and what so many of the responses did here.
Merci you just typed a whole bunch of nothing. Men of all races pay child support but black men are the ones who bitch and moan the most about it, like taking care of your kids is too much.
Bye and focus on your four children. If you have daughters, know that they’ll encounter the men whose behavior you try to explain.
i’m confused. y would he even post stuff like this?
he knows he is up in the club throwing money at those strippers. he should have several seats.
was thinking the same thing, some hypocrite.
Black men stay posting memes shaming us like the wind blows. I’m just so sick of them projecting their minority complex, self-hate issues onto us and *trying* to make us feel like we’re less-than and not worthy of love. They can stay aboard that sinking ship themselves. I’ll be over here chilling. #BlackGirlMagic
SN: does Big Boi not have like 3 children with a Black women he dated for years. She was good enough to birth his children, but not good enough to marry, huh? Does he not know that by posting this, he’s including her? What does that say about him? I swear they don’t think about that.*sips tea*
him AND his children….a damn fool
I think he married her but then went on to have a whole a$$ baby with another woman……while he was still married.
but where are the pictures of the black men having kids with these so-called irresponsible black moms tho??? Is Big Boi going to post the pics of these men or…
What’s funny and unsurprising, is the many black men who promote respectability among black women, but see no issue in laying down with the woman on the right.. He sees no issue with his rapper brethren having 5-10 children out of wedlock while rapping about disrespecting black women.. It’s okay for black men to raise themselves up from previously selling drugs that poison a community. But if a woman even takes her clothes off, even to provide she can never redeem themselves. EVER.
THIS. It’s like the hoteps who try to preach about black people sticking together, but they’re the same ones that only date white/mixed girls. So hypocritical.
Women need to keep ignoring this foolishness and keep making moves. No one is going to save us, we need to save ourselves. They will stay bitter lonely and ignorant.
Where did he reference teenage moms in his post??? Where did he say anything about black moms not being able to achieve success? He made a post about the image, the lack of maternal responsibility, the lack of of discretion (that woman is CLEARLY behaving inappropriately in front of her child and her actions are clearly not suitable for children). It seems to me that noone could reasonably defend the fuckery and foolishness in the post, so instead that was ignored all together and the discussion turned into something else. People are responding to a post about black teenage moms and how black men hate black women. A post that was never made. Seriously ladies, look at it again. It”s about appropriate, responsible mothering versus whatever the hell that lady was doing in that photo. If that were a post about dads and the inappropriate photo was of a father posing with his penis out, in front of his child everyone would get what was wrong with the pic. I’m all for black girl magic and I know that we black woman get it rough but I don’t suggest ignoring the bullshit, all for the sake of solidarity. And as a side note, black women as well as other women of color have been shackled with the stereotype of hypersexuality for what seems like forever. That behavior in the photo nicely plays into that stereotype and all of the dangers that come with it.
The problem with the image is that he does not know if that was the child’s mother. It’s just a random women and a child. The same with Florida Evans–a TV sitcom mom, which doesn’t represent real day to day life. And we already know about the issues of bad parenting plaguing the black community, so he’s beating a dead horse. This is the equivalent of fat shaming. People who do these memes are not doing if for altruistic purposes, they are doing it for bombastic purposes to boost their own ego–“It’s the see I’m not like these people, I’m better than that.”
These types memes do nothing to aleviate the problem–offer no solution, no recourse, no alternative–NOTHING! They are simply self-serving. It’s irrelevant that he didn’t specify teenage moms, or black moms, because trust if he (Big Boi a rapper, who have their own issues with their image) had used an image of a white woman, or a hispanic woman and etc., those groups would have been up in arms too. There’s a reason why he used a black woman’s image in that meme, so let’s not act obtuse about why black woman are the ones reacting to it.
The problem lies in the fact that he made a blanket
statement about “mothers today.” Every one who is or knows a responsible mother should be offended.
Did “he” make a blanket statement about mothers today or did he tweet a preexisting meme that he thought was “funny”?
What about the men who these women had kids with? When is he going to post their pictures???? -sips-
Unfortunately, people will see what they have been told see by someone else. Too many people are like sheep.
Thank you for sharing the accomplishments of these inspirational women.
Feminista and this article completely missed the point. He wasn’t saying you had to be and dress like Florida Evans, he was saying you DO have to put teaching children above everything and everyone else and extremely few do that. He was right
Can he tell men to be in the lives of his children first?
The meme was self-serving. Most people with a modecum of sense already know this. Offer solutions, recourses, alternatives for the ones that don’t. If he’s not offering anything along that line when it comes to this already well known issue, these memes become nothing more than self-serving.
You and him are both wrong. The statistics doesn’t even collaborate your statement. Irresponsible mothers are not the majority. If that is your reality then state that then upgrade your circle.
“extremely few do that”?? Really?? Seriously?! Remind me not go anywhere near where you live/work/play, clearly it’s a garbage neighborhood with garbage parents if EXTREMELY FEW mothers wear clothing and refrain from taking weird selfies.
Happy to see that someone put him in his place. Black men are always concerned with the behavior of Black women. They should first concern themselves with their own behavior. Soon Black women in America will be the largest educated demographic. We have been holding it together.
“They should first concern themselves with their own behavior. “–Because a lot of black men are afraid to look at themselves. This is why most of these meme attack black women, but rarely black men. There’s a whole demographic of black men on youtube who make money doing this. Black men who do this are using black women as a scapgoat for their demographics failures. Black women do not have that option, which in a way fuels black women. This might explain the gap with attaining an education in the black community. When you’re on the bottom, there’s no where else to go but up.
Black men continue to point fingers at black women but ignore their own problems. How can we keep ignoring that Black men are at the top of the list for being the worst dead beat fathers.Walk around and ask as a many black kids today if their father lives with them and is apart of their lives. The answers shouldnt surprise you.
but that list doesn’t exist? black men are statistically among the most involved fathers.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/08/opinion/charles-blow-black-dads-are-doing-the-best-of-all.html?_r=0
this stereotype is internalized racism, and it’s also perpetuated on black women, when we’re the most educated race in America.
http://www.salon.com/2016/06/02/black_women_are_now_the_most_educated_group_in_the_united_states/
“black men are statistically among the most involved fathers. “–The most involved is different than living within the household. I agree that these stats only skim the surface and do not give a full picture for the circumstances for the conditions in the black community, but we can’t ignore the fact that too many BM are dead beat dads, and too many black household are single mom households.
See, my thing with the whole “black men are statistically the most involved fathers . . .” is, well, if that’s truly the case, then that makes it a lot harder to blame the ills of the black family and child rearing on single mothers. How can the problems of the black community be mainly the fault of single motherhood, if “black fathers are the most involved”?
Lies.
Early last year I saw this old man ( look like he was in his 80’s with the saggy pants, you know where the men don’t’ wear belts and you can see their underwear. Needless to say. I couldn’t believe it, and he could hardly walk, he was just shuffling along. My mother is in her 70’s and he was older than her. I am not lying. We both didn’t know what to say for we had never seen anything like it before.
Maaaan…I wish I would waste my time responding to any Black man about anything……Who are these negros that Black women have to show their credentials, so to speak…..SUCKS TEETH! The nerve!….With their reps and place in this world…..YOU ALL BETTER LOOK UP BRUEKLEN BLEU ON YOUTUBE AND GET YOUR LIVES.
I love her! She’s like my dark wisdom godmother! Her and Chrytelyn have motivated me to not even bother with these degenerates.
Is anyone surprised? Black men have been spewing hate for black women and making millions off of it. It is called rap music. They are ignorant and let them stay in the dark, while the rest of us are shinning.
I put this in the “if it don’t apply to you why you mad?” category. Not for nothing, today’s society does tend to put a premium on rachetness way moreso than it did back in Florida Evans’ day–and some mothers follow suit, just like some fathers do. But any sensible person knows that not all fall into that category (nor did I get from Big Boi’s post that he was implying all). So I don’t pay this one no mind.
The reason why black men do this to black women is the same reason they kill each other en mass in Chicago. Black men project their self-hatred –Killing each other, Selling drugs, Leaving Baby mama in and outside of the BC and ect, while Black women internaiized it–European weaves down our backs, Skin bleaching and surgery–ie. Lil’ Kim, and letting our body be used by our men–OOW birth rate and rampant STD.
We are a damaged people. A group of people that value themselves do not engage in these tactics–BM bashing BW and vice versa. The reason why BM do it more, is because they have a scapegoat (BW-mysoginoir) to project their failures on, BW do not have that luxury.
I see what you’re trying to say, but you are still engaged in respectability politics. There also, is no need to mention Lil’ Kim. Also, if women want to wear hair weaves what’s the problem. Plenty of people have surgery, and much of it has nothing to do with imitating another race. Birth rates for our community is actually on the decline.
We are not damaged, we are resilient.
I wasn’t trying to state that all black women that wear weaves do it for the same reason, but we can’t ignore that there’s a demographic in our community that hate their natural hair, skin, and features and idolize anything that’s the opposite. That to me this is a form of self-hate. Maybe I should have been more clearer about that, but we know these black women in our community exist. I used Lil’ Kim as an example–even with her fame, money, success, she still destroyed herself due to this self-hatred. There’s no way you can ignore that this might have played a big part of her dramatic change, looking at how she looks now, versus back then.
And I wasn’t talking about birth rates, but about OOW–out of wed lock birth rates. It’s still very high, because poor family planning plagues our community still as well as rampant STDS. The latest report from the CDC highlights this.
But you are right, we are indeed resilient, but we also must admit that we are damaged too–mental slavery is real. I use to hear my father talk about it all the time when I was growing up and did not understand what he was talking about, but as an adult, I realize he was absolutely right. Too many, or the vast majority of us are still in mental slavery, and to be honest a lot of other marganilized groups are as well. A group of people that love themselves do not engage in the self-destructive behavior that’s plaguing our community. We know the problem, we just need to start focusing, coming up with a solution.
You’re definitely right! And even when BW value ourselves and each other, BM always feel the need to be lurking around the corner to bring us down by promoting colourism and nonsense like this. Then still expect BW to stand up for them.
And that is why outside of the men in my family and my best friend, I pay them dust.
Exactly. And this is completely off topic, but I’m also Dominican too and I got so excited when I saw your pic lol. DA stand up!
This is a really insightful comment – the different ways self-hate impacts men and women in the Black community, I never thought of it that way before, but it rings true. I’ve been thinking about this ever since I read it. Thanks.