Discussion of Power Structures
The two power structures that automatically came to my mind when thinking of my topic is the role of the black church and the entertainment industry. Growing up in the African American community can expose you to a lot of things at a young age. I know there aren’t too many people who regularly attend church now but when I was growing up my family & I was at church every Sunday. It didn’t matter how bad of a week you had, whether you had a car or not, had to go by yourself, church was always the place to be on Sunday mornings. Therefore, church has had a lot to do with the ways in which we were raised, our family values, ethics, and morals. So when you’re constantly in a very gendered environment, the things that are discussed and the things you see really shapes the person you become. The idea of sex and sexuality is something that has been avoided by both the black church and community. So when you’re a child growing up with thoughts of engaging in certain activities with the same sex that you know people wouldn’t approve of, it discourages you. The elders in your church whom you respect the most are the people you want to make proud and you may even look up to. As a child, you often hear the things they talk about because they don’t necessarily thing children understand things going on in life yet. So when you know you can’t confide in them about your feelings unless they’re geared towards someone of the opposite sex, you begin to internalize those feelings and find other ways to get around. I think that is a big reason for why black men growing up in the black church prefer to stay on the down low. Its not about their feelings anymore, its about their reputation and what other people will think; what their family will think, what people will think of their family, what their friends will think, etc. So my concern with the black church is that their “Christian” views cause them to be very simple-minded and hypocritical people. Usually when I think of the black church, I think of the older people in the church who have been there since they were teenagers. That’s the only way I can get myself to understand where they’re coming from. A lot of them are so stuck in their ways that you can’t convince them anything other than what they believe in and they think that the world should still be the way it was 60 years ago.
The other power structure that came to mind was the entertainment industry. Instead of just talking about the hip-hop industry, I want to touch bases on the entertainment industry as a whole. The main parts of the entertainment industry where we see this resistance of discussing sexuality is within the music and sports outlets. Both of these groups have symbolized masculinity in our society. Within music, we know that there is a need to claim your masculinity, especially within the hip-hop music industry. The African American community has socially constructed this idea of black males being associated with hierarchical systems. Therefore, we think that the hardships our race has faced throughout the years means we have no space or need to show feminine characteristics because we have to appear to be strong, fearful, aggressive, non-tolerant. This goes back to the “Performing Gender…” source I already talked about. These values are so engrained in our mindset that it has shaped everything we do and associate with ourselves. In addition to that, sports outlets make sure we understand that sports are seen as a male-created homosocial cultural sphere. Therefore, sports empower the idea of masculinity in ways that promote violence, and even self-hate. In one of my Sociology classes, we read a Messner reading called “When Bodies Are Weapons: Masculinity & Violence in Sport”. The reading basically states that we’re able to construct this idea of hegemonic masculinity through sports violence. So if we think about, we never give men or women a chance to choose what they want. We throw these ideas in their faces from birth in order to believe what we want them to believe. Thus far these structures has succeeded in doing that because things such as sports outlets makes it clear that if you’re a man and you’re not into sports or play a sport then something is wrong with you. At the same time, the only thing you hear about male athletes off of the court, field, or rink, it’s either about a scuffle he got into at a club or how many women he’s involved with. Then there was Michael Sam, a professional football player, who came out as gay when he graduated college. But, his sexuality was made into such a spectacle that it severely damaged his hopes of an NFL career given that the only thing people wanted to talk about was his sexuality. There are many examples we see in mainstream media where masculinity has been socially constructed for us so you don’t have to question what a man “should” look like.
I thought your point about black men not being allowed to show feminine characteristics of being “gay” because it goes against the struggles people of color have gone through with them being “strong” and “aggressive.” So essentially black men are oppressing themselves by needing to protect their “masculinity” just as they’ve been oppressed by white people. I also found it interesting that sexuality wasnt talked about much in the black church community and I agree with the fear children have with coming out having to do with disappointing their elders and teachers. It’s a shame that people have to be afraid to be themselves.
@thehross: The idea of “down low” black men in general can be a hard concept to understand if you didn’t grow up within the African American community. There are many people who are afraid to come out and be themselves based on their own specific struggles no matter their race. But, I wanted to make sure people understood the importance of sexuality within the African American community and where it all stems from.
