Manhood Part I By Otto Burston

For years we have heard women bemoaning the issues that they have with their men. Be it that there man is cheating on them, using them, emotionally or physically abusing them, or just flat out isn’t worth a damn.
Whether it is a vast number of Terri McMillan-like men hate novels, poems or just about any Destiny Child inspired song, we are hearing it everywhere. The plethora of these “complaints” has caused many of our ears to grow dull of hearing their cries. The truth is that many of us want sisters to just stop complaining and shut up.

I myself have been one that has been extremely critical of sisters who I felt would have better fortunes in their relationships if they just simply made better choices of their men. And while there is much truth to that statement, it is time to address the larger issue… too many of us brothers really aren’t worth a three dollar bill. If you think I’m lying ask yourself, “Which one of my boys would I feel comfortable dating my sister?” I am willing to bet that you don’t have one. Be it his immaturity, player ways/mindset, lack of basic relationship or life skills, you know that while he may be cool as one of the fellas, he is not a fit mate for someone that you care about.

I am sure that each of us has a close friend that is a certified player, physically abusing his woman, or cheating on his girlfriend or even worse his wife. Unfortunately instead of confronting the behavior that we know is deplorable we either applaud him for his “game” or we remain silent. Perhaps the reason that we are a reluctant to hold each other accountable is because it forces us to confront the same behaviors in ourselves. After all it’s hard to keep a straight face when you are telling your boy that he needs to stop cheating on his woman when you are hiding phone numbers from your lady yourself.

Unfortunately if we don’t hold each other accountable then no one else can or will. We all know that men are the only ones who can truly invoke the change in other men. Our egos are way too big to be able to honestly take criticism from women seriously or without being defensive. Much in the same way that boys respond differently to our fathers than they do their mothers, men respond to men differently than they do to women. We need to challenge each other to become better men in a way that is uncompromising and does not allow us to dance around issues or make excuses for our shortcomings but pushes us toward positive change.

Please understand that the lack of manhood present in our adult males reaches far beyond being able to be suitable mates for women. Our community is suffering from a litany of issues that are caused by the lack of strong character and spiritual male leadership. If we had more men of strong character we would then have the proper foundation for a strong family unit. And that strong family unit becomes the building block for the rest of the community.

Look at the ratio of men to women in the majority of churches in the nation and you see that we are absent in our houses of worship. Look at the number of children who don’t have their fathers in their home and you see that we are absent in our families. Look at the number of single sisters who can’t find eligible brothers so they are forced to date outside of the race, remain single or stray to another women and you see that we are absent in our relationships.

The bible states that the man will be the head of the household, this biblical command carries over to everyday life. We have women acting like hoes, children out in the world without direction, these issues can point directly to the man. Women follow the leads of a promiscuous man. Our children lack direction because our community is undereducated, underemployed and politically under-represented. Our community is following our lead.

We must take this fact seriously as well as the responsibility that comes with it. Our women, children and communities are the mirrors that show the truest reflection of who we are as men. When and only when we get in line, will the rest of our communities get in line. Therefore it is on us as men to raise the bar for ourselves and for each other. We cannot take the passive attitude that “what he does is none of my business”. We are our brothers’ keeper.

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While am I critical of the condition of manhood in our community I am also aware that there are many reasons for our present condition. We are a generation that in large part grew up without healthy father-son relationships. Some fathers became absent due to divorce from our mothers when the relationship became irreconcilable. Some of us are the products of casual sex in which our father was never in a relationship with our mother in any committed way from the beginning and therefore he was never committed to you. Others of us had fathers technically in the home but were preoccupied with business or other affairs outside of the home and consequently were not emotionally connected to his son and didn’t spend the time and attention to truly raise us.

Regardless of the particulars of the situation the result is the same; a son left to be raised with the unbalanced influence of a woman, or by the influence of street culture or society at large. Another often overlooked but extremely significant contribution to our situation is the lack of a formalized rite of passage from boyhood into manhood in our community. The Jewish culture is one that is very effective at holding its tradition of bar mitzvahs which signifies a young boy’s entrance into manhood. This allows the young man to know the specific point in life that he became a man, and what is expected him from that point on. The lack of this tradition in our community makes the boy to man transition more ambiguous. The lessons that we should have learned from our fathers or through a formal rite of passage would have taught us what childish things we needed put away as well has clearly laid out and prepared us to carry out our expectations as we transitioned into men. The result would be men who are now better equipped to lead our families and communities. Despite these factors we must move beyond what did not happen for us, and what we did not get, and move toward our present day responsibilities. Shortcomings in the past are not allowances for present day failures. The rules of game don’t change in our favor, if anything they change to work against us. Therefore we must recognize our challenges and “man up” to meet and overcome them.

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As with any movement towards change we must first begin with ourselves. Our own individual and personal transformation is the first building block for transforming our brothers and our community. We need to ask ourselves: “Am I living up to the spiritual standards that I have set for myself?”, “Do I treat all women in a manner that I would want someone to treat my daughter?”, “Am I someone that another young brother could look to as a positive role model?” “Am I investing my time, energy and resources to the development of my community”? An honest look at ourselves in relation to these questions will be a good beginning to understanding areas of ourselves that we need to grow and develop. Let take a clear inventory of ourselves and really work to come up where we need to. We owe it to ourselves, each other and our community.