Black Mens Studies. Serie McDougal III
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Males
Black Men as Enhancers of Black Male Health
Black Families as Enhancers of Black Male Health/Especially Black Women
Spirituality as a Source of Health Enhancement for Black Males
Conclusion
A Final Note
Glossary
References
Index
The initial idea for this research grew out of my attendance at several conference presentations dealing with topics on or related to Black men and/or boys. Although intriguing, so many of them painted remarkably similar pictures of Black males. So much appeared to be missing; historical context, social and cultural context, variation, diversity, and the voices of Black males themselves. This experience sent me searching through library databases for books and articles related to Black males. The available body of literature on Black males was like an exciting and provocative box of puzzle pieces. But alas, it was as if half the pieces were missing. Part of my existence I owe to my father, yet there are few reflections of men like my father in the vast body of literature on Black males. He was not alone—the fullness of most Black males’ lives is seldom reflected in most literature about Black males. What emerged was an awareness of the need for a systematic approach to studying the lives of Black men and boys.
The process of developing the systemic approach laid out in this text was aided by many conversations with my family, friends, colleagues, and students. First and foremost, I must thank my father Serie McDougal Jr. and my grandfathers, Serie McDougal Sr. and Will Ellis. This book is dedicated to these men. I would like to thank my editor, Sean Dennis. I owe a great deal of gratitude to my Black male mentors Molefi Asante, James Earl Davis, Daniel Johnson, Marc McConney, Wade Nobles, and Oba T’Shaka and others who have at critical times in my life seen potentialities in me that I was unable to see in myself. I also owe a great deal of thanks for the support of my brothers who repeatedly had critical conversations with me about this project, including John Adams, Eric Durnell, Paul Easterling, Justin Gammage, Clarence George, Le’Shaunte Le’Flore, Orron Marshall, and Michael Tillotson. This work benefited greatly from critical dialog with Tanisha Burke, Ifetayo Flannery, Crystal Guillory, Sureshi Jayawardene, Natalie Lewis, Patricia Nunley, Dorothy Tsuruta and my mother and sister Anne and Shannon McDougal. Lastly, throughout this process I have benefited from the love and support of my dear Precious Zamaswazi Dlamini.
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Trying to See Black Men and Boys
In Malidoma Somé’s book, Of Water in the Spirit, the second chapter is titled “Trying to See.” The author details his experience being led by elder men through a Dagara initiation process for young males. The Dagara are an ethnic group found in Ghana, Burkina Faso, and Cote d’Ivoire. One part of this initiation process is dedicated to the development of sight. Without sight, Somé and the other initiates could not go through the other trials and lessons in their route to manhood. On page 203, an elder addresses the young males:
“Tomorrow we will begin working with your sight,” the coach continued. “You must learn to see. Without good sight, you can’t continue with the other sessions. When you have learned to see well, you will journey one by one to your respective places in this world and find every piece of your self. For now, I want you to sleep. Put your weary bodies to rest for the night and put your spirits in a state of awareness. There will be no further pause in this instruction until it is all over.” (Somé, 1994, p. 203)
The elders leading the initiation explained it is not possible to have knowledge without sight. For the Dagara, seeing goes beyond visual acuity, which is the narrowest level of perception (Somé, 1998). It is the development of spiritual sight that expands a person’s vision, making more of the world knowable. In Somé’s (1998) words, “We perceive the world based on our expectations, which are heavily determined by our context” (p. 65). The historical and contemporary social context in which Black males live, interacting with themselves and others, includes certain expectations. How do expectations of Black males shape the way people perceive and interact with them? How do they shape how people casually think about Black males? How do these expectations shape the way professional researchers study and write about Black males?
As thinkers, our choices of what we think about are, in part, shaped by what we already know plus our presumptions, beliefs, frustrations, passions, curiosities, and fascinations, etc. These drivers are important because they motivate us to learn—but they can stand in our way, too. In Of Water in the Spirit, young Malidoma Somé struggles to learn to see (based on the Dagara meaning of sight) because ←xiii | xiv→he was limited by what he already knew or thought he knew. He and the other initiates were given a task requiring them to tap into their sight, as Somé explains:
When we arrived back at the initiation camp, it was almost deserted. Those present were being given the assignment of the day: tree knowledge. I had expected a general meeting of the type we had the night before, but nothing like what happened. Instead, we were placed in groups of five to fifteen and asked to walk a distance away. Each initiate should select a sizeable tree. We were to sit, stand, or kneel about twenty meters from the tree and look hard at it. We were supposed to see something but were not told what. Each elder was assigned a certain number of students. Apparently, his task was to supervise this boring training and to make sure that we saw what we were supposed to see. (Somé, 1994, p. 206)
Somé found the process frustrating and boring because he believed he knew all he could possibly know about trees. After all, trees are physical objects that are everywhere and can be seen every day. What more could there be to know about them? Somé grew frustrated and wanted to say he had seen something. His fellow initiates begin to see something in the tree, and he could not. The elders began to discuss him as he began to fall behind the group:
Another elder joined my supervisor and they began to discuss me. I listened carefully. “How is he doing?” the newcomer asked. “In his belly, he is a full-bred White. He can’t see,” my supervisor replied. “The White man’s medicine must have damaged vuur [spirit]. But his soul is still in him. That’s why I said a year ago that for his own sake he should not be involved in initiation. But Kyéré silenced me as if I were speaking nonsense. Now, if this boy cannot wipe his eyes, how do you think he is going to clean his body? We are barely a day into Baor and he is trailing behind … Whatever he learned in the school of the White man must be hurting his ability to push through the veil. Something they did to him is telling him not to see this tree. But why would they do that? You cannot teach a child to conspire against himself. What kind of teacher would teach something like that? Surely the White man didn’t do that to him. Can it be that the White man’s power can be experienced only if he first buries the truth? How can a person have knowledge if he can’t see?” (Somé, 1994, pp. 208–209)
Something that set Somé apart was his attendance at a Jesuit mission school, where he was taught to view traditional Dagara culture as backward and inferior. Clearly, this damaged his vision. During the tree exercise, he even tried to lie, and say that he had seen an antelope. The elders knew he was lying and laughed. The next day he approached his task with a new determination. He began to feel a part of his mind that he had not used before. Still frustrated, he began to cry, yet keeping his focus on the tree, began speaking honestly to it, explaining his frustration and sadness at his failure. He once again focused and felt what seemed like lightning going through his body and into the ground. He felt weightless, the trees began to glow, and he lost all sense of time. Where there once was a tree he now saw a woman standing before him with a radiating energy. He embraced the woman and felt immeasurable love from her as she spoke to him. When he opened his eyes, he was embracing the tree. He heard the elders speaking: