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Yes, it’s over. The world is done with black men, unless we come up with a new role in society.
The idea that the man is the head of the family must be the biggest con we’ve ever been sold. For centuries, we addressed the world in borrowed clothes, and it is now clear even the pants were borrowed.
Society needed us for our brawn; everything else was secondary. We know from history that Cecil John Rhodes preferred black men to give him a bath, but he primarily wanted us for his mines. Everything else that he got from us was a bonus.
Aeons ago, we were hunters. We could bring a buffalo down. We could fight lions, kill them, skin them and offer the hide as a gift to our mothers. That required more brute force than brains, and because of our physical structure, we thought we were better suited for such dangerous work. Always cleverer, the women chose the easier work of gathering fruit and firewood, which, unlike a buffalo, never fights back.
Hunting was never a daily thing. Neither was gathering. So, there was ample free time; lots of sex and plenty of partners to choose from.
Apparently, back then, women didn’t complain about headaches at night, because they didn’t hear the same moaning song playing in their ears, day in and day out. Procreation was part of life – like working and eating, and not something to be done as a duty.
Society was egalitarian, and men were truly equal, at least in the eyes of women. Since the hunting happened far away, when the men brought back their kill, they were all heroes.
It’s said, back then, men were men, and not the chronic gossips they have become. What happened at the hunt, stayed at the hunt. Women were never privy to who ran away when the injured beast went berserk. They also never found out about the brave ones who grabbed the buffalo by the horns.
This was also before the era of unfettered competition, even the best never spoke about how good they were, and bragging was not a word in the vocabulary.
Then someone invented agriculture, which turned out to be man’s worst invention, and the peak of our usefulness. Agriculture led to the worst social injustice. It led to slavery so men could work the vast tracts of land. It messed up the order of things. For the first time, men had to work in proximity to women, so the women saw who was strong and who was weak. This made the fairer sex our judges, and they weren’t always fair.
Agriculture domesticated the cow, and enslaved the black man. The more cattle a man owned, the more powerful he became, because he could provide lots of milk and meat. We then invented war so we could acquire more grazing land for our cows. The man who had no cows was declared poor, and women didn’t want him.
Then white men arrived on these shores. They took away our cows, our traditions and our land. The missionaries took away our wives, telling them: “One man one wife.” To make things worse, they taught us the missionary position.
Once our land, our cows and our self-esteem were gone, we all had to come to Gauteng, the place of gold, to earn a living. Since no cows were allowed here, we all became equally ugly. Hard work became the differentiator. Men were forced to drop their traditional clothes at work and wear pants, and women were required to wear dresses or skirts in church – never pants. Because of this and the fact that we were on top, thanks to the missionary position, we were given the title “head of the family”, and we thought we were in charge.
The days of testicular fortitude are over. The world now needs brain power, and women have been exercising that since the beginning of time. Ask Eve of Garden of Eden fame; Queen Constance Modjadji, the Rain Queen; or Mkabayi kaJama, who got Shaka Zulu killed.
Female empowerment is making women richer than men. We forget that most black men were never empowered in the first place. They were also excluded. Political correctness has silenced black men. These days, when you tell a woman how beautiful she is, you run the risk of going to jail. Broke, silenced and their self-esteem taken away, our boys have become angry, and unleash violence on other men and women.
The future is rough, and so we must force the black men of the future to quickly find their niche in a new society. Our parenting methods must change, and so should our education system. Children must start school earlier because of cultural demands. Many families expect their sons to become breadwinners by the time they reach the age of 18, and to start their own families by the age of 25. Often, education is secondary.
The competitors of our sons are not their sisters or wives, but other children from Asia, the US and the rest of the world, who get their education in their mother tongue.
We must learn from our Afrikaans-speaking countrymen and give our children a chance to succeed by teaching them in their own languages. That will make my prediction very wrong, and that will truly please me.
Kuzwayo is the founder of Ignitive, an advertising agency
