It’s not exactly a secret that the Manosphere, stuffed to overflowing with he-man women haters, is also full of racists. Some of them quite open with, and even proud of, their racism, repeating literal neo-Nazi talking points and comparing blacks to apes. Others, especially amongst the Men’s Rights Activsts, pretend to be above race, often portraying themselves as champions for black men while reserving their most virulent racism for black women.
Enter JudgyBitch, the slur-spewing A Voice for Men “social media director” — and white lady. A recent post on her blog asks the question “Black men are failing catastrophically – are Black mothers to blame?”
Can you guess what her answer is? Yes, that’s correct.
According to JB, the only women who know how to raise black boys properly are … white women. Her evidence? A study that found
there are no significant differences in outcomes between black and white males with white mothers. [But] large differences persist between these groups and black males with black mothers.
So why might this be? JB, drawing on one of the explanations proposed by the paper, notes that
Black boys raised by white mothers tend to have distinctively white, rather than Black speech patterns. Barack Obama anybody? He sure is articulate for a Black guy /snark/. Those speech patterns allow Black boys to avoid a wage penalty as men.
JB apparently sees this as evidence of the parenting genius of white mothers. It’s not. If a black boy or man with “white speech patterns” is judged to be smarter than a similarly intelligent black boy or man who “talks black,” that’s proof, not of superior white parenting skills, but of the racism of the person doing the judging.
This is not actually complicated stuff, folks.
JB comes close, a couple of times, to acknowledging the racism at play, noting at one point that “[w]hite mothers … are treated differently by the school system [than black mothers], no matter what race their children are.”
But instead of exploring the possible roots of this “different” treatment — HINT: IT’S RACISM — JB decides to go after the central target of her deeply ignorant piece, those much-demonized black mothers:
I want to flip the question over and ask, rather than ‘what are white women doing right and what advantages do they have’, to ‘what are Black women doing wrong and why are they doing it wrong’?
This formulation is as revealing as her comments about schools: after momentarily acknowledging the advantages white women have, JB declares that she won’t be examining this question because she’d much rather be slinging shit at black women instead.
And sling it she does, declaring flat-out that “Black women do a shit job with their sons.”
And how did this happen? As JB sees it, back “when the recession hit in the 70s,” cruel government policies that denied
welfare for families with men in the home … effectively destroyed the Black nuclear family, and by extension, Black prosperity and community.
But the rest is all the fault of black women:
How easy would it be to take the resentment that ought to be directed against the policy and aim it instead at the man who is not allowed by law to support you? How easy would it be to turn that resentment into fury and outright hate? How easy would it be to decide “I don’t need no man anyways they can all go straight to hell”?
Pretty easy, apparently.
Then along comes feminism, making things even worse — by encouraging women, black women in particular, to think of themselves as heroes of their own lives.
Feminists are engaged in an all-out war against families, including Black families. Feminists convince Black women that struggling to raise children without the love and support and companionship of a man is a badge of honor: it is a sign of strength, courage, bravery, valor – it’s all rah rah rah you go girrrrl – if something in your life sucks, blame the man and that includes Black men.
Is it any wonder Black women resent and hate their sons? Is it any wonder they raise thugs and gangsters? Give those exact same boys to white women, who have been taught to a much, much lesser extent that they don’t need no man, and those boys become accountants and neurosurgeons and teachers and HVAC technicians and entrepreneurs.
But as much as JB wants to paint feminism as the big villain here, she can’t quite restrain herself from lecturing black women on what she’s decided are their failings:
White women raise Black boys better than you do, Black women. That should make you want to puke. It should make you crazy angry. It should make you want to scream and punch something and cry. You can’t blame all of it on racism and feminism, although those things play a huge role.
It starts with you and your relationship to your sons and their fathers.
Stop hating them. Start loving them. Understand that you have years and years and years of hate, egged on by feminists, to overcome. Black men need to trust you again.
Of the long list of things that JB — a Canadian white lady and stay-at-home mom — doesn’t know shit about, the lives of black women is probably pretty close to the top. But that doesn’t stop her from, well, judging black women and finding them wanting.
But what JB is indulging herself in here isn’t just racism; it’s that potent blend of intersectional hate, of racism and misogyny, that black feminist Moya Bailey calls “misogynoir.”
Like a lot of white people who enjoy pontificating about black people, JB’s attempts to educate herself on the subject are halfassed, laughably slipshod.
The notion that welfare has destroyed the black family is an ancient right-wing trope. JB’s “support” for this argument comes largely from a post on Discovering The Networks, a site run by right-wing gadfly and professional leftist-hater David Horowitz, devoted to exposing what he calls the “networks and agendas of the political Left.”
Fun fact: it is literally the first site that pops up when you do a Google search for “welfare ‘black families.'”
If you dig even a teensy bit deeper in the Google results, you’ll discover that JB’s “understanding” of welfare is what’s technically known as “wrong.” As Cynthia Gordy notes in a post on The Root, the rise of single motherhood in the black community was largely the fault of, well, the economy, stupid. (Well, the economy in a deeply racist society, that is.)
“What happened in the mid-1950s were technological changes that abolished unskilled jobs that most black men could do and created high-tech jobs that they couldn’t,” [sociologist Andrew] Billingsley told The Root, explaining that the advent of efficient, goods-producing machines drove millions of black men out of the stable blue-collar work force. “That’s what kept black families from getting and staying married, not the welfare system. To say otherwise is a misunderstanding of the data, and it’s a misreading of history.” …
[T]here is no public-housing eligibility requirement that excludes couples. Some states used to apply such regulations, but the Supreme Court struck those down in 1968.
For those unfamiliar with the concept of time, 1968 comes before “the recession [that] hit in the 70s.”
But who needs facts when you have prejudices?
That might as well be the slogan of the Men’s Rights movement.
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@RV
Wut?
Tell that to all the people murdered by police for the crime of Walking While Black…
But seriously. Any apparent difference in parenting isn’t due to “Behaviour” (black people don’t “Behave” differently to white people, they’re not a separate species), it’s due to economic disadvantage. Which, in turn, is due to racism.
@RV,
Uhh… skin colour *certainly* affects outcomes. As the first example to come to mind, black people are pulled over much, much more frequently by the police than white people (In the USA).
“Is it any wonder Black women resent and hate their sons? Is it any wonder they raise thugs and gangsters? Give those exact same boys to white women, who have been taught to a much, much lesser extent that they don’t need no man, and those boys become accountants and neurosurgeons and teachers and HVAC technicians and entrepreneurs.”
—Did I read this shit right? Talk about sweeping generalizations. No wonder there are no citations of studies or actual facts.
Didn’t her former colleague Shortpants Esmay say FEMINISM was racist?
I mean, lots of feminists ARE racist but lots aren’t and it sure isn’t an inherent characteristic of feminism. If it’s something you’re going to use to bludgeon those you hate though, maybe don’t exhibit it or work for an org that espouses it?
I dunno. Just spitballing.
I think historically feminists have been racists, in the sense they were products of their time and were progressive in some respects but not in others.
I’ve read about kickass women like Ida B Wells and how she was dismissed by her feminist peers.
The only contemporary feminists that I would consider racist are the Femen, who are openly islamophobic, but I think they’re lost popularity because of that.
On the hand there appears to be a thick vein of racism running through anti-feminists, in that people who oppose women’s rights usually oppose everyone else’s rights too.
Hi Sn0rkmaiden
I’m curious as to why you’d consider Femen racist.
I know there are some racists who just use ‘muslim’ as a codeword for brown people generally, but to say criticism of Islam is necessarily racist seems to be falling into that trap itself.
Islam isn’t a religion that’s particularly associated with one particular ethnicity. Nor are there any ethnicities that have a particular association with Islam.
Femen just seem to protest against certain patriarchal aspects of Islam and the words and actions of some individual muslims. Isn’t that legitimate?
I’m sure not every member of the Russian Orthodox Church is an avid follower of Putin nor do they all think the patriarchal aspects of that religion are its key features (notwithstanding it actually has ‘patriarch’ as a job title!) but that doesn’t negate Pussy Riot.
There are lots of muslims who are feminist, support equal marriage etc. but that doesn’t, to me, mean that Islam can’t be criticised as an ideology any more than we shouldn’t call out the more patriarchal aspects of Christianity just because lots of Christians are progressive.
Religion, like any belief, is ultimately a matter of choice and therefore open to criticism.
“what advantages do they have”
White skin.
They have less of a chance of “death by pig.”
Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t notice the “We will only accept racist and/or misogynist answers,” disclaimer.
@Alan Robertshaw,
I guess you’re right, islamophobia shouldn’t be conflated with racism, I guess I have a tendency to conflate bigotries.
I have a bit of hate on for the Femen as a friend of mine had dealings with them which rapidly turned sour, they aren’t very nice people. I know that one of their prominent members the Tunisian woman Amina Tyler left the movement accusing them of islamophobia.
While I think it’s valid to criticize the misogynistic elements present in many muslim societies, the provocative actions of the Femen, like when they enter mosques and take their clothes off is counter productive as well as disrespectful to all muslims. Few muslim feminists have time for western feminists telling them about their own oppression.
Protest is a complex issue.
Sometimes I think it’s good to be deliberately provocative. I don’t for instance think that there’s necessarily a lot of lesbians thinking “Oh, must pop down to the supermarket for a snog” or women who have a particular desire to breastfeed in Claridges, but it seemed appropriate to have the kiss-ins and breastfeed-ins(?) when people said they shouldn’t.
I don’t have any particular view about the Femen/Mosque thing. I can see that it will have upset a lot of people but then again so would the Pussy Riot thing.
Religious sensibilities are a problematic area. I don’t believe in causing offence just for the sake of it. Sometimes though causing offence is not only justified but also the best response.
It is a tricky area though and I certainly won’t pretend to have any definitive answers.
Every time Femen stages some sort of protest against Islam, I see misogynist/racist assholes who otherwise hate feminists suddenly come out of their lairs to shout “this is what REAL feminists do” – followed by a rant about spoiled, slutty western women. You know, the kind of people who only care about women when they can be used as a weapon against brown people.
Not sure if I can blame Femen for that (maybe a little bit?), but it does make me associate that group with hateful people.
@Alan Robertshaw
Being naked in public doesn’t specifically provoke only muslims. It’s generally seen as unusual behavior. So, specifically going to a mosque to get naked is a bit of a non sequitur. Sure, they’ll be outraged, but so what? Surely many Christians would also be outraged if people came to their church just to undress and deliberately piss them off, so that specific sort of protest really fails making whatever point they were trying to make.
No way. What have all those poor snakes done to deserve THEM?
@ Dhag85
Yeah, the stripping thing is a bit weird; but it is their USP I suppose. Ironically it probably makes more sense in a mosque (as a comment on things like burkas) than when they just do it generally.
@Alan
If they’re protesting the burka, all they need to do is stand outside the mosque without a burka. Going naked or topless makes zero sense.
Clarification of my previous comment: This is not meant as a comment on being naked or semi-naked in general, neither did I mean to comment on anyone’s right to do whatever they want with their own body. I was strictly commenting on the non sequitur of protesting people wearing a particular piece of clothing by not wearing anything at all. It’s just a big wtf to me.
@ dhag85
Well I can see the argument that if what you find objectionable about the burka is the implication that (a) women’s bodies are inherently shameful and should therefore be covered and/or (b) it’s a woman’s duty to cover up so as not to provoke men into lustful thoughts, then it makes sense to strip off.
Otherwise there’s the counter argument that everyone thinks that and it’s only a matter of degree (if shirts obligatory why not burkas etc?)
But stripping off is their standard protest regardless, so who knows?
@Alan
I just don’t think it makes any sense as a protest against specifically Islam. Like I said previously, clothes are kinda customary pretty much everywhere. It pisses me off that they do this stupid “look at the weird moooslems being offended by nudity” when you could say the same for society as a whole. That’s why it comes off as islamophobic/racist (to me).
@dhag85,
I don’t think it’s even their business to protest the burka, especially when their group is based in France where women wearing full hijab has been outlawed. Western women aren’t obliged to wear burkas in western countries, so it’s not our business to protest them. To me telling a women she shouldn’t wear a burka is the same as telling a woman she shouldn’t wear a miniskirt.
As for going around topless, yup that’s the Femen’s USP. They also encourage only their youngest, most conventionally attractive members to strip off, sure it attracts attention but also a lot of derision as you’ve pointed out above. I also wonder if these young women fully understand that their image will be permanently available on the internet, some might regret that in decades to come.
I think stripping off in a mosque, or in any space considered sacred by any faith (that doesn’t endorse public nudity) is disrespectful and pointless. Why go around deliberately upsetting people without even a clear goal in mind? It’s basically just creative trolling.
@ dhag85
Yeah, the clothing thing is an issue. Remember that ‘conservative clothing’ thread a while back? I suppose most societies have at least some minimum standards of covering up these days. It’s just where to draw the line.
We were a lot more enlightened in many ways ages ago. Doesn’t ‘gymnasium’ mean something like ‘in the nude’?
Like I say, I can see why nudity is a particularly appropriate form of protest against Islam but it’s just their schtick anyway; still it gets them the publicity.
@sevenofmine: I’m just discovering ,in my forties, that logic and reasoning is not an innate ability in a lot of people. When I was in elementary school we used to have something called T.H.I.N.K. class. The purpose wasn’t to tell us what to think, but how to do it. How to use use/create logic threads, analogy, simile, metaphors. Then of course, it must have been working becasue the program was stopped. Even still, some kids really struggled with the class. I loved that class and still practice many of the things I was taught in it, without even thinking about it. That’s how effective that class was.
I also want to point out, that Ms. Judgybitch is wrong about the absentee fathers. Studies have shown ( I don’t have the link here) that Black men are much more invested in their children’s lives then White men, even if they’re not attached to the mothers. In other words black men make a committed effort to be involved in their kids lives. They’re just not married to their moms.
And really, she’s just trotting out that grand old stereotype of the Black Saffire.
The sharp tongued, emasculating, angry black woman.
I think we can say, most emphatically, that racists are not original thinkers. I would argue that’s their definition.Once they invent a stereotype they don’t deviate from it much. Everything nasty that comes out of their mouths is usually only a derivation from the original.
At any rate you can sort of tell, she was being pulled in two different directions by her racism and misogyny, she was a bit wobbly because she couldn’t really seem to decide which vileness to choose, then landed squarely on racism for her dismount.
@ Sn0rkmaiden and Dhag85
I think Femen is as much a performance art group as a protest movement. Of course there can be (should be?) a cross over between art and politics. If one of the functions of art is “to discomfort the comfortable” then the more powerful proselytising religions may well be a legitimate target; but like I say, what do I know?
Close…it means “place to get naked”, because the ancient Greeks did all their exercises in the starkers. And all their sports. The idea being that without clothing to hamper them, they could move freely. Admiration of the male physique was sort of a byproduct, but it sure did give the world a lot of lovely statuary.
(1) Roosh V, who is apparently seeing his income stream from his PUA con dry up, has moved into racism/anti-semitism.neo-Nazi territory.
(2) JB, who is apparently seeing the income stream to AVfM dry up, now seems to be dabbling in racism at least.
A trend, anyone?
@RV: “If outcome correlates with behaviour this is something that can be changed, unlike skin colour, so instead of whining about a type of discrimination that does not affect outcomes, why not modify behaviour and get the outcomes other groups achieve.”
Yeah, why aren’t all those black boys with black mothers modifying their behavior and improving their outcomes by getting themselves raised by white mothers instead?
Instead of just lying there whining about discrimination and crying and pooping their diapers, those black male infants should be proactively taking responsibility for their own behavior in choosing appropriate parents to get the outcomes other groups achieve!
Why don’t they? Well, as everybody knows (or at any rate I bet @RV does), black male infants are just naturally lazy. (But only the ones with black mothers, not the ones with white mothers.)
That explanation is MUCH more satisfying and sensible than any alternative explanation that would require white people to actually examine our own behavior in helping perpetuate systemic racism, don’t you agree?