by Danielle Wright
“Instagram makes it hard for me to be in a relationship.” – A Black Man.
It’s interesting, isn’t it, that out of all the demographics of men, it is Black men who feel the need to generate a podcast, Instagram page, and website focused on being faithful to their partners. Faithful! The Black man feels so targeted and behind in society that the only thing he can cling to for his voice to be heard is conversations around loyalty and women, while simultaneously struggling to maintain either.
Black men are not often the sought-after demographic when it comes to topics on finance, fashion, or even sports in some instances. It’s becoming all too common for these men to sit around microphones bashing women or making light of their infidelity, all while trying to portray themselves as these superior individuals who contribute something of substance to the world.
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Nothing we do for Black men ever seems to be enough as Black women. A Black woman can pay all the bills and love a Black man while he’s at his lowest, only for him to build himself up off her back and then go off to satisfy his sexual urges with some fantasy he saw online. Black men don’t need an organization on how to be faithful because that should be a default action when entering a committed relationship. But the stigma around Black men being the poster demographic for creating broken homes is so pervasive that a group of men felt this was the best direction to go. Why?
Black men are not holding one another accountable outside of the internet, and that’s where the real problem starts—the internet is not a real place, so we don’t need an organization telling men not to cheat or trying to save men from this stigma when the behavior is happening in real life, not online. Men need to go into churches, attend little league games, mentor young boys in their neighborhoods, and focus conversations not on finding a woman or staying faithful, but on generating wealth, building emotional awareness, understanding masculinity, and what it means to be a man in today’s world.
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Black men are often stuck feeling sorry for themselves to the point that they create an Instagram page to stroke their ego in hopes of undoing the years of damage their peers have already inflicted on the women in the community. If Black men held each other accountable for the mistreatment of their partners in real time, in real life, they would change their behavior. We are all social creatures and need a community to thrive, and men are no different—they can’t thrive in isolation, and the fear of losing a friend is often greater than the fear of losing a partner.
If they confront each other, they risk being shunned and treated like a pariah in their friend group, which isn’t a favorable outcome. If a woman cheats on him and his friends no longer find him “cool,” he’s alone, and that’s not a risk he’s willing to take. So, instead, the solution is to berate women and tell them to “choose better” while upholding the deplorable behavior of their peers, ensuring that there is no better choice.