Silent No More

It used to be taboo for black men to complain about anything (women included), now social media has given them a tool to voice their issues.

— Florida Made (@RichardMIATL) January 21, 2015

In the past, black men didn't have a voice. Black men were expected to remain silent while black women threw them under the bus. The reason is that men complaining about anything was considered a feminine trait. What do you do when you try to complain, but don't want to be seen as weak? You remain silent. The issue is that being silent can be deadly because all that frustration is building up to a dangerous level. When you let loose, everyone feels it. Because many black men didn't want to be seen as weak, they had no choice but to keep calm and say nothing. This allowed black women to run reckless with their mouths because they weren't going to be accountable for their reckless mouths. When you have free reign, you're going to milk it. Here's one problem: Times have changed. Since social media was introduced, this gave brothers a voice they never had, and as a result, black men are standing up to these reckless black women with a fury they've never seen. Because some black women aren't used to an equally vocal black man, they resort to shaming tactics such as: Men don't argue with women. Last time I checked, there's no universal law that states that men aren't to argue with women. If a man wants to argue with a woman, he has that right. Anytime a woman resorts to shaming tactics, she's already lost the argument. She has no ammunition so she resorts to what she knows: shaming tactics. Even those are starting to wear thin among black men because every black man's heard it all: He's gay, he hates women, men don't argue with women, this, that and the other. Social media has been a blessing for many black men because they aren't afraid to let black women know what they think. Those shaming tactics are no longer silencing black men because they're used to hearing the same ones repeatedly. It's a new day, and some black women are no longer able to silence the voices of many black men. My suggestion is they (black women) get used to it because their time is up. Black men are no longer silenced by many black women's shaming tactics.