Jack Kammer argues that anti-male sexism combined with racism creates a "one-two punch" that explains why Black men face worse outcomes than other groups, yet media and scholars ignore the gender dimension. Black men are 23 times more likely than Black women to be incarcerated, but analyses focus only on racism. A 1981 Oprah appearance shows how male concerns get dismissed in mainstream discourse.
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Previously on The Community of Four Crosses. We viewed the four corners of race and gender. We observed the common thinking about each of the four streets: advantages on Caucasian Street and Male Street, disadvantages on African American Street and Female Street. But then we looked again at the corner of African American and Male and questioned whether living on Male Street is always a huge unmitigated blessing. Here's the mystery: why are Black men, on so many important measures, doing so much worse than the other people who live on African American Street? So our purpose in this video is not so much to identify the disadvantages that might be lurking on Male Street, but to demonstrate that we have trouble seeing them even when they're staring us in the face. I'm going to show you 10 pieces of evidence to support that claim. Before we start, I want to emphasize several important points. I'm not denying that racism is a huge problem for Black men. I'm not denying that we need to continue working against racism for Black men and for Black women. I'm saying that sexism too is a huge problem for Black men, and that anti-Black racism combined with anti-male sexism make a terribly powerful one-two punch against Black men. Also, I'm not saying that all sexism against Black men comes from Black women. Much of it is baked into the culture. In current terminology, we would call it systemic. Okay, here we go. Number 1, in 2016, President Obama pointed out to the graduating class at Howard University that Black men are about 6 times likelier to be in prison right now than white men. He didn't mention that Black men are about 23 times likelier to be in prison right now than Black women. Number 2: A 2015 editorial in the New York Times noted that there are only 83 Black men living outside of jail for every 100 Black women. But it talked only about racism, not a word about the impact or relevance of Black men's gender. Number 3: This book published in 2000 talked about excessive punishment of Black boys in school, much worse than for girls. The cause the book identified? Racial bias. No mention of gender bias. Number 4: This 2004 article on urban education was quite sympathetic to young Black boys. About the treatment they received in schools, but it told the teachers, many of whom presumably were women, that they needed to recognize that they were products of a racist society. No mention at all of anti-male sexism in that society. Number 5: This is from a 2005 TV show in Rhode Island about helping ex-offenders find jobs when they leave prison. Note that the second speaker points out that there are differences in the ways Black men and Black women are treated and calls the difference racism.
You know, 98% of the population at the ACI happen to be men. And I wonder, is there any difference in dealing with this issue for men versus women? Is it easier? For men, easier for women? Is it easier to get women jobs reentering or is it tougher for guys?
Well, I think I'll take that one. This is a hard one. A lot of times we have to look at our institutions and how we do business in the state and sometimes there is an undercurrent of racism involved. Where black men don't usually get hired in the numbers that, say, black women would get. And so it's very difficult for black men to get them opportunities, specifically when they do have a record. It becomes a little bit more maddening sometimes.
Number 6: This social work article was very sympathetic to the problems of black men, and it noted that Black men's situation is distinct from the situation of Black women. But like the speaker in the TV show, the authors blamed the difference entirely on racism. Number 7: ProPublica, in a 2020 article about how COVID has been especially hard on Black men, blamed the problem on the need Black men feel to work till they drop. They made no mention of how and why women take better care of themselves, and they made no mention of how men of all races often feel the same pressure. Racism again, just racism. Number 8: This sign was in a library window in Baltimore in 2011. It suggested that we talk about race and only race as a barrier to Black boys' academic success. But the latest Maryland Department of Education statistics at that time showed girls, both Black and white, graduated high school at rates higher than boys, both Black and white. Number 9: This article looked into why Black men commit suicide at such alarming rates, much higher than Black women, and of course found that racism was depressing to Black men. But it made no effort to explain why females facing that same racism killed themselves so much less often. Number 10: Even Oprah Winfrey, when she was a rising star on a local Baltimore station, couldn't see the impact of gender on Black men, even when it was made undeniably clear.
Hi, my name is Fred Hayward. In 1976, I decided to create a new movement, a men's rights movement, but along the lines of equality and talking about the same issues that feminism talked about, but from the male perspective. The following year, I quit my job and started doing that, but it wasn't until 1981 that it got enough traction that I started getting booked on a lot of talk shows, and that's when I met Oprah Winfrey. I believe it was June of 1981. They didn't know much about men's issues, obviously. Nobody had heard of it or spoken about it to them. And so they assumed that if I was critical of feminism, that meant I was critical of equality. Therefore, I was a reactionary idiot and I'd be easy to make fun of. So the introduction was something like— I'm paraphrasing— "We all know men don't have any serious problems, but someone wants to talk about it anyway." Please welcome Fred Hayward. But I was not in the mood that day for that kind of dismissive introduction, which I had heard a lot of times before, but I just wasn't in the mood. And I said to her, Oprah, you know, um, the Black population in prison is 8 times as high proportionately as the rest of the population. Why do you think that is? So now she's thinking, not only am I a sexist, but I'm a racist. And she immediately gave all the liberal explanations for the high incarceration rate for Blacks, the social and economic discrimination, the social and economic problems, and so on. So I said, okay, Blacks are 8 times as likely to be incarcerated as the rest of the population. You're saying that's a symptom of serious problems. Men are 24 times as likely to be incarcerated as the rest of the population. Doesn't that mean that we really do have something serious to talk about today? And she kind of glared at me. They cut to a commercial, and the producer came up and said, I'm sorry, you're gonna have to leave. This is not going the way we planned. It was live TV. I couldn't sit there and negotiate, you know, so I left the stage, and they had a chef there who gave chicken recipes for the rest of the hour. But in fairness to Oprah, I was on her show 2 more times after that, and it went much, much better.
So male gender issues are easy not to see. Even when we're looking right at them. In our next episode of The Community of Four Crosses, we're going to start seeing them up close and personal in the lives of Black men.
