Blog #6 - Black men, women, and the LBGT community

If only 2% of psychologists are African American, it suggests that black people will be less likely to come to counselors for their problems because they would probably most prefer someone who looks like them. Areas of concern for black men are that it suggests that black men will be much less likely to go into getting counseled compared to men of other races, employment issues, increased anger from oppression and anger, feeling invisible, and being associated with a role strain

The components of self-esteem for Black women were social support and self-reliance. These were both suggested strongly in the focus group used for the study

Both black heterosexual and homosexual couples are exactly the same besides sexual orientation. Both make less money than their white counterparts, they both are affected by the same stereotypes related to color, they both are generally discriminated against, they both raise more children. However, black homosexual couples are hit by oppression stronger than heterosexual couples.

Being gay is not a choice. That idea is an old myth. Watson is talking about people who have strong beliefs in the church but do not sympathize to the fact that being homosexual is as strong of a sin as all others and that is talked down upon more

I feel like it is difficult to address homophobia in the black community because there are so many different opinions. Personally, informing people that are not educated about homosexuals may be difficult because of ideas that have been rooted within black families. On college campuses I feel like it may be discussed but it will still be hard to address in my opinion.

The "At least I'm not gay" abstract shows AA gay and lesbian teens will conform to what is considered “normal” and attempt to assimilate into the mainstream by physical appearance. In quadrant 4, coming out would be extremely difficult because there are even more influences that will marginalize opportunities for the youth to find ways to receive support and learn how to deal with their homosexuality because of their environment.

Blog #5: Challenges Between Black Men and Women

Chapman Article

I feel like one solution to address challenges would be to get rid of the negative stereotypes as much as possible in the media and promote positive helalthy relationships between black men and women. I feel like people are already attempting to do this. Another solution would be to increase support for success among black males within the family. If parents strongly encourage their children, providing them support and guidance to get college degrees (specifically men), many more black men will be more successful. I believe that this requires strong support from mentors, teachers, and would require an environment that promotes success as well. I think it is very interesting that black men are actually doing better economically. I hate to complain but there are some women who fit the stereotype of being mad black and independent as women. But I feel like they are in that situation because of bitterness from the past, and that they need to look past that one or two situations and try a new, different type of guy. I feel like many times black women attempt to compete with each other to find that perfect black man, who ends up being a dog. At the same time while I say all this, there are many positive, beautiful and ambitious women who do not go for these men as well. I

-I also highly agree with the New York Times article, seeing the statistic that only 13% of black women over 55 are single may suggest that black women are getting married, but we must remember that this is not representative of the current young generation but of the older baby boomer generation. Regardless, I think there are a decent amount of educated black men for black women.

If you have time, look at this on the "Denzel Principle". I think it is pretty funny and some of it is pretty accurate.

A Counseling Perspective

Stereotypes about black men and women have negatively affected the black family. The 3 areas of Issues and Approaches are processing grief and loss, enhancing effective communication, and confronting negative stereotypes.

2 Anti-Intimacy Beliefs

1)I’m not good enough to be loved.

This one relates because slave owners attempted to devalue blacks by making them feel like they can go without love and psychologically held them back.

2) No matter what I do, it won’t make a difference.

            By making slaves believe that they had no purpose but to do physical labor, it made them think that they had no control of their situation and that that was their place, as slaves.

Hammond Article

The four ways that men defined manhood were Responsibility, Autonomy, Providing, and Spirituality. The two emerging themes in the article were manhood and responsibility.

Blog #4: Five Questions

Part 1

In the way that blacks operate. I feel like since African Americans are so used to American lifestyles based on an autonomist and independent ideas, most elite Blacks do not feel a reason to want to “help a brotha out” or help lower income blacks. Growing up in the middle class, even my own parents I feel do not give back directly to lower income families to an extent I feel is needed. If blacks could take ideas from Asian Americans who have learned to immerse their people in cultural practices so that they do not stray from their culture and help each other out to a greater extent, there would not be as many problems as there are today.

Part 2

I feel like the root of the disparity of black men and women begins at the simple gender level. Changes in gender roles are what has led to women advancing at a higher rate. As more black men have trouble in school leading to them ending up in jail usually, women left behind must take the role of being the bread winner. I feel like black men are targeted more than black women, and once they are put in jail it is much harder to recover in many ways. The U.S. is the world’s leading jailer, which does not help. Stereotypes that blacks use drugs and alcohol more than whites are stereotypes used to make it harder for blacks to get out of the cycle.

This article goes more into drug and alcohol rates.

http://blackagendareport.com/content/white-kids-abuse-drugs-and-alcohol-twice-rate-blacks

     

Part 3

Only 29% of AA women aged 28-55 earning over $55,000 are married. The ratio of black men to black women college students was 1-1, now the ratio is 9:1 (female-to-male). Compared to the Franklin article, where 75% of black families included husband and wife proves that something deeper is going on leading to destruction of the black family.

Part 4

The plight has deepened from the increased numbers of young black males in prison and dropping out of schools. Information shows that statistics for black men are much higher than other races. Two facters keeping black employment rates down are bad schools and absent parents.

Part 5

Annihilation through integration basically refers to the fact that blacks who marry outside of their race are going outside of the culture, which doesn’t usually benefit other African Americans. In relation to the marriageability index it makes the rates even lower because those people will not marry other blacks. The Evans article suggested that we should embrace our ethnocentric ideas and want to be with people who share our values, religion, and culture. I think that is very true because although marrying outside the race is integrating our nation, it also usually results in less expression of cultural ideas.

#foodforthought

Blog #3:

Part 1 & 2

Before I start, I think that the majority of these events, if not all of them had an impact on the dynamics of Black Family Life in some way. The ones that stood out to me were:

1739 – Stono Rebellion

Comment: I never even heard about this revolt and I feel like if we know about major revolts, why don’t we know about the first? Rebellions and revolts were crucial in leading to slavery being abolished and civil rights being established.

Nguzo Saba:

Ujima (Collecetive Work and Responsibility) – “To build and maintain our community together and make our sister’s and brother’s problems our problems and to solve them together.”

Umoja (Unity) – “To strive for and maintain unity in the family, community, nation and race.”

1831-1861 – Underground Railroad

Comment: Although there are so many crucial events to the history of the African American Family, this is important because it was a very unique event unlike many others. Rewards were set for slaves like they were property, abolitionists took an attempt to make change in what was going on, and I just learned that many slaves escaped to Canada, which I had no clue of.

Nguzo Saba:

Ujima (Collecetive Work and Responsibility) – “To build and maintain our community together and make our sister’s and brother’s problems our problems and to solve them together.”

Umoja (Unity) – “To strive for and maintain unity in the family, community, nation and race.”

1867 – Five all-black colleges (HBCUs) founded

Comment: I feel like this is extremely crucial. HBCUs were created to help minority students, specifically blacks and now latinos, to continue in school and become professionals or leaders. --Surprisingly (in my eyes), Bush attempted to increase funding for HBCUs by 30% during his term.

http://diverseeducation.com/article/3525/ 

Nguzo Saba:

Nia (Purpose) – “To make our collective vocation the building and developing of our community in order to restore our people to their traditional greatness.”

Ujima (Collective Work and Responsibility) – “To build and maintain our community together and make our sister’s and brother’s problems our problems and to solve them together.”

1947 – Jackie Robinson breaks the color barrier

Comment: Maybe I am biased being a guy, but I think this was a very significant event because it definitely had an affect on the way many black men think today. Aspirations of being a major league player in sports have become common among black men because they see other black men succeeding and dominating over sports.

Nguzo Saba:

Kujichagulia (Self-Determination) – “To define ourselves, name ourselves, create for ourselves and speak for ourselves.”

Imani (Faith) – “To believe with all our heart in our people, our parents, our teachers, our leaders and the righteousness and victory of our struggle.

1963 – “I have a Dream” Speech

Comment: I think this is self-explanatory. This speech still continues to be used in classrooms every day.

Nguzo Saba:

Nia (Purpose) – “To make our collective vocation the building and developing of our community in order to restore our people to their traditional greatness.”

Imani (Faith) – “To believe with all our heart in our people, our parents, our teachers, our leaders and the righteousness and victory of our struggle.

1971 -  Congressional Black Caucus formed

Comment: I feel like this is important because African Americans should be preent in the justice system. I had never previously heard of this.

Nguzo Saba:

Umoja (Unity) – “To strive for and maintain unity in the family, community, nation and race.”

Kujichagulia (Self-Determination) – “To define ourselves, name ourselves, create for ourselves and speak for ourselves.”

1990 – U.S. Census says 50% AAs still in southern states

Comment: Interesting to me, I figured that things would be more spread out. I believe this shows how important nuclear family values are though.

Nguzo Saba:

Umoja (Unity) – “To strive for and maintain unity in the family, community, nation and race.”

Ujamaa (Cooperative Economics) – “To build and maintain our own stores, shops, and other businesses and to profit from them together.”

1991 – Black Entertainment Television (BET) founded

I had no clue that it was the first AA company on the NY Stock Exchange. I am puzzled because this only happened 21 years ago. But I feel like it is important for blacks to be expressed in the media.

Nguzo Saba:

Kuumba (Creativity) – “To do always as much as we can, in the way we can, in order to leave our community more beautiful and beneficial than we inherited it.”

Ujamaa (Cooperative Economics) – “To build and maintain our own stores, shops, and other businesses and to profit from them together.”

#Sidenote

When I do these assignments for class, even though it is not required sometimes I can spend hours simply going over this information because there is so much that I still do not know and want to learn. Does this happen to anyone else?

Part 3

The Nguzo Saba principles evident in the Harvey article include all of them Umoja, Kujichagulia, Ujima, Ujamaa, Nia, Kuumba, and Imani. They are all mentioned in the article.

In the Dynamic Duo article, principles evident are Umoja, Ujima, Kujichagulia, Ujamaa, Nia, and Imani.