Byron Hurt is a black, male feminist. I could suggest that you take some time to try to wrap your mind around that, but I won’t. I assume your time is valuable and I don’t want you mad at me for making you waste it.
Besides, I already read his explanation for it and it made about as much sense as a Jewish, white nationalist railing about the evils of Zionism.
Hurt explains himself in an article he penned for The Root, titled “Why I am a Black Male Feminist.” Ultimately he explained a good bit more than he intended.
The Root, for those who don’t know, is what you might call a plantation publication. Similar to Jet and Ebony, it’s where black, male writers (known as Panda Bears) get to work as long as they don’t get uppity with the black, female feminists who actually run the farm.
A quick review of his work suggests he gets to work in the house, though.
His story is simple. When he was young his father used to yell at his mother. That scared him and clearly made him feel protective of his mom. Then he met Jackson Katz and listened to some women complain that they could not look men in the eye. Next he read enough black feminist theory to get his mind right. Well, at least right enough to turn Tom and sell out every bit of integrity and common sense he ever had.
As a student of human behavior, my interpretation of Hurt’s writing is that he had some family dysfunction issues that led him to collude with his mother into making his father the family’s identified problem. After all, I am sure she never gave dad a reason to be angry. I am sure she was all peaches and rosewater and he was just, well, patriarchal and domineering. It was all him. Like it is in every troubled relationship where men express anger, right?
I am guessing that all Hurt needed was a theory to confirm that and it launched a career. Too bad that career is based on the beliefs of a bunch of privileged and grotesquely self-indulgent white women. These are women, mind you, who would turn on his career faster than you can say Bill Cosby if given any excuse. And the sisters would be leading the charge.
Hurt appears to be acting this out to a much lesser degree in his family of origin. In his piece for The Root, he is still pointing the finger, albeit more gently, at his dad. He enjoyed getting his father to wear a baseball cap that says, “End Violence Against Women.”
Hurt made it a point to write about the black, female feminists who had influenced him. I’m thinking that he bought their wares out of the gullibility that sometimes afflicts those seeking to resolve some childhood issues. It certainly wasn’t motivated by a passion for civil rights. Black, female feminists sign on to white feminism for the same reason white girls do; because they can use it to control and shame black men even more effectively than they already did. Obviously, Byron grew up thinking his father was someone who needed to be controlled more than he need to be understood. And the control is apparently continuing. He has his father wearing a silly hat like a dunce cap and smile while doing it.
Is that a little ideological dance of victory Hurt is enjoying? You decide.
I know a thing or two about privilege myself. I know, for instance, that as a white, middle-aged guy with short hair and no visible tats, where it comes to cops I am freaking invisible (unless I cross the wrong woman). I have not been pulled over for anything in as long as I can remember. Merchants don’t eyeball me when I shop. I generally get treated with respect and without suspicion wherever I go. Other than a black neighborhood the only place I can go and be a minority is a prison. My experience is not the experience of most black men. That’s all on race, though, not gender.
I also know enough to know that a great deal of black, male anger and violence is about powerlessness, not power. Matter of fact, I will hop out on very sturdy a limb here and state that almost all interpersonal anger in all races is about powerlessness, not power. That is an inescapable fact and a source of potential wisdom that Hurt flushed down the toilet so he could swallow the notion that his father’s anger must be about privilege.
When it comes to civil rights, Hurt didn’t exactly rise up from the mean streets of Compton. And he isn’t from the Medgar Evers generation. He was born in 1969, went to Northeastern University where he studied film and went on to host an Emmy nominated TV show. By the time Byron reached adulthood, he could afford to focus on pleasing feminists and making money.
His job came with a mighty fine jacket.
Some may think I am being too hard on Hurt. Or that I am assuming too much. I don’t. Case in point his writing in BK Nation about black men and allegations of rape. He demonstrates knowledge of and even compassion for black, male victims of lynching at the behest of white women. Then he swiftly throws out any notion of due process when black men are accused of rape in modern times.
No, Byron, you don’t think “he may, in fact, be a rapist.” You think he is innocent until proven guilty, don’t you? That is how you prevent lynching, destroyed reputations, upended careers and the undying stigma of being accused. Let the law do its job (such as it does).
This is the problem with Panda Bear propagandists. There is a superficial acknowledgement of historical injustices that they will only give weight to till it might piss off a feminist sister, who they know will put gender before race every time. So they learn put gender before race every time, before they hit that line, because that is what it takes to stay in the house. In the simplest of terms, they learn their place. You have to be running on indoctrination autopilot to not know that is exactly what is happening.
That’s how you enjoy the authority to talk solemnly about Scottsboro, Emmett Till, and even decry the racism suffered by Brian Banks (even though that was actually sexism), but also speak, in the very next breath, about how ‘this guy might be a rapist,’ before a single shred of proof is offered.
Panda Bears have to constantly juggle sex and race, always knowing that sex comes first. Always. Ever forget that and you will be back in the field, after a trip to the whipping post.
Ask Stephen A Smith, who Hurt officiously and condescendingly “corrected” on the pages of Ebony for having the audacity (and the intelligence) to suggest that fewer women would be hurt if they did not provoke violence.
The article is straight down the line in lockstep with the infantilizing, hyper-privileged feminist narrative. There is never, ever, ever, ever, ever, a reason to hit a woman, even when the woman that got hit is also arrested for assault and admits she gave him a reason to hit her back.
There is never reason to hit a woman, not even in self-defense. If you ever say otherwise, you will be punished severely, right out in the open so everyone can learn from your pain.
Meet new massa, same as old massa.
Hurt, the scattering of other Panda Bears and indeed the bulk of “black journalism” culture has become a sellout culture. It is not so strange or unbelievable, though, when you think about it. There are few places where feminists have not used the power of gynocentrism to get their way.
The Great American Civil Rights Movement, which used to be about speaking truth to power for an entire people; even in the face of water cannons; in the face of police dogs and tear gas, has been co-opted. It is now about black men playing ideological step and fetch to a bunch of female, outrage-ready establishment bullies, wearing $800 designer shoes and still claiming to be oppressed. The fight for civil rights is over, and the feminists won rights for black women.
Black men have gone from the back of the bus to being thrown under it.
Gynocentrism, in all its shapes and colors is The Man; the walking boss hidden in a shroud of denial and fear so thick that few will even dare to whisper the truth. Why? Because now the gynocentrists have all the bullwhips.
Tell me I’m lying and I’ll tell you who you answer to.
