A couple walked into my business-place, I had seen the man before, a guy probably in his 30’s, he had come to purchase video games before, the woman seem to be close if not his age. She told me she wanted to pay her phone bill, as I attended to her the guy picked up a video game priced at $39.00, he asked if I could sell him the game for $30. 00 I told him I could do $35.00 he agreed .
What happened next awoke me to what I had always thought was a burgeoning phenomenon. He asked her for the money to pay for the video game. She gruffly told him he could have the money for the game but the money would be coming from the money to pay for his boots.
She made no attempt to avoid being heard, if anything she wanted to out him, to embarrass him, he cosied up to her, she paid for the game and they walked out to the car, he got into the passenger’s seat she took the wheel and drove off.
I jokingly asked my nephew who was standing nearby,” will that be you in the future”, he vehemently shook his head absolutely not. A few minutes later another man entered the store , he spent some time looking at movies, on his way to the door I asked him if he had found what he was looking for ?
He responded that he was looking for movies, he however would have to go home to see if his girlfriend would give him the money for the movies.
Movies are priced at $3.00 .
I know times are hard,I know I may be perceived to be overly sensitive to this subject, times are hard on men, they are hard on women too, so I think that is a lame argument to make.
I guess my question is this.
What the hell is wrong with men nowadays ?
Does the uplifting of women have to come at the expense of our men?
As women march toward what they characterize as greater equality , it seem that men in general are quite happy with being relegated to second-class citizenship in their own homes.
Women are enrolling in larger numbers in Colleges and Universities than their male counterparts, in ever burgeoning numbers, women are heading up households. In what seem to be a steady march away from traditional norms, more and more households does not even have a male .
No one denies women the right to earn a fair days pay for a fair day’s work, as a small business owner myself , I couldn’t give two hoots who does the job , male or female, what I care about is how well the job gets done.
Some of this is due to the fact that many of what we knew as societal norms, as it relates to “family” have been up-ended, many are now the object of ridicule and scorn.
The traditional idea of family, man ‚woman child/children, is now viewed as old-fashioned and not representative of present day realities in this new world order.
“I have two mommies /two daddies” is now acceptable part of our everyday vernacular.
Whether television or on the big screen, be it movies, sitcoms, reality shows, or 30 second commercials, men are depicted as bumbling idiots ‚who necessarily has to be shown the correct way to do everything by their wives significant other or even their professional colleagues.
It seem that straight men have been caught in a Tsunami cross-current, between the coming of age of the Feminist Movement and the Lesbian Gay Bi-Sexual and Transgender Communities.
This is not to blame our diminished importance on either of the two aforementioned groups, on the contrary it does seem that men have had it their way for too long, the playing field has been slanted in our favor for too long, now there is competition in the way the game is played, is it that men are simply retreating from the playground refusing to participate?
I’m absolutely sure that there are a plethora of Scientific studies which will do a better job than I ever could explain that men are indeed in crisis.
Over the last several yes there have been significant change, not just in the way we view Feminism, or LGBT issues but Legislatively there as been changes as well. The Obama Administration has ended “Don’t ask don’t tell in the Military”, Just recently the Military announced that women will be allowed to serve in combat roles for the first time in US history.
As we speak the boys scouts of America are seriously considering allowing Gays to be scout leaders. In many States of the Union, same-sex couples are allowed to marry and live their lives like heterosexual couples.
Women have been elevated to some of the most senior positions in Business and Government, with the Presidency of the United States being the only glass ceiling yet unbroken by women.
This is not uniquely an American phenomenon, in more and more countries women are getting college degrees and thereby positioning themselves for good paying jobs and positions of leadership, far in excess of their male counterparts.
In Jamaica, the University of the West Indies the Premier Institution of higher learning is no stranger to this imbalance. both in enrollment and its general student body.
UWI Mona Campus Jamaica WI.
2009−−−−−−−−−2010 Male 29% — — — -Female 71%
2010−−−−−−−−−2011 Male 30% — — — -Female 70%
2012−−−−−−−−−−2012 Male 30.5% — — -Female 69.5%
The Mona Campus is cognizant of the gender imbalance at the University. A number of new
programmes in the Sciences, Cultural Studies, and Management Studies have been introduced in an
effort to attract more male applicants to the UWI. Modest gains have been made in the percentage of
male students at the Mona Campus. The percentage of males now stands at 30.5%, an increase of 1.5
percentage points over 2009-10. (source UWI Website)
In Jamaica the Island Nation, as young women seek higher learning, young men stand on the corners crushing marijuana in the center of their palms, their pants hanging off their asses.
These developments make 90’s group TLC’s lyrics ” scrub” even more resonant now more so than it did then. As we watch these trends develop more closer to home in the black community there is a crisis of epic proportion, and it seem that all are oblivious to it including those whose mission it ought to be to address these issues.
The Church ought to be the guardian of our morality, yet there is an increasing rush within the church to defend and legitimize the very vices which are destroying our society. Either the church is cheer-leading or has remained silent out of fear of being condemned.
In the African-American community the crisis is even more grave, as is every negative characteristic is to our community ‚71% of all babies born in the African-American community are born to single unmarried females.
These numbers are alarming by themselves, but when viewed in a parallel prism against the percentage of African-Americans who populate America’s prisons, it seem that these young mothers are simple baby factories for the Prison Industrial complex.
While all of this is going on the black Church is largely preaching feel-good ‚prosperity doctrine. The correlation between children born out-of-wedlock and raised in single family household and their problems with law enforcement, makes researchers seem like modern-day Einsteins.
As our community continue to deteriorate and denigrate, many who position themselves as leaders of sorts, ask the question if college is worth it? This while they have cushy jobs made possible by multiple degrees no one prevented them from earning.
Rick Santorum former Presidential Candidate from Pennsylvania, labeled President Obama a “snob” for daring to suggest that all young Americans get an education.
Rick Santorum himself holds a Bachelor of Arts with honors in political science.He then completed a one-year Master of Business Administration program at the University of Pittsburgh’s,In 1986, Santorum received a Juris Doctor with honors from the Dickinson School of Law.
Yet Santorum a Presidential wannabe, believes that ordinary Americans should not have college degrees, and merely suggesting higher learning makes the President a snob, while he benefits from having three. Ironically the President never stated that all Americans should have degrees, not that there would have been anything wrong if he did, he merely suggested that in an ever-changing world, everyone should be trained so that they may earn a livable wage.
Though Santorum’s posturing was repugnant, that kind of Elitism is certainly not confined to the Republican Right, there are more than enough people of influence within the black community who will vehemently argue for the despicable sagging pants hanging below the underwear, and will move heaven and earth to tell you that there is absolutely nothing wrong with the high incidences of out-of-wedlock births.
Thankfully, despite the noise of those pronouncements, there are more than enough research which shows that kids raised in single family households are far more likely to have problems or drop out of school, and are significantly more likely to end up in trouble with the law.
There is a lot more to say on this subject, I however will do so at another time.