This weekend I went to see Tyler Perry’s, movie remake of “For Colored Girls (FCG): Who Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf,” joined by my adoring younger twin cousins and their girlfriend. I was intrigued by the buzz stirring on Oprah, BET, the blogosphere and among friends about the premiere of Ntozake Shange’s 1975 acclaimed play. Of particular interest was the dis(approval) it received from a group of dissenting good black men. To my surprise, Tyler Perry’s version adeptly brought to life the characters and themes of Shange’s authentically, compelling masterpiece script.
After seeing the movie I couldn’t help but become incensed by the backlash from the good black men contingency. Their backlash stems from a harsh critique of the movie written by Washington Post columnist Courtland Milloy entitled, “For black men who have considered homicide after watching another Tyler Perry movie.” Are you serious? Judging by the title, one doesn’t have to read his op-ed piece (although I did) to know that Milloy’s mockery of FCG (not a Perry original) primarily rests according to him with Perry’s continual “portray[al] [of] black men as Satan’s gift to black women.”
The debate that ensued among Milloy’s new-found followers (many whom are my acquaintances) spawned a counter-dissent written by a dear friend, Christopher Tyson, entitled, “Real Men Don’t Attack Colored Girls.” Tyson argues that criticisms of FCG are “narcissistic and cowardly.” He continues, “to pretend that ‘For Colored Girls’ is somehow disconnected from black women’s freedom struggles is like pretending that America’s current political divides are somehow unrelated to our nation’s racial past.”
A disheartening response to the Tyson article was posted on my Facebook page by a dissenting good black man who stated: “The black women victims’ mantra was interesting in 1970, but in 2010 Black America, it is completely outdated.” This myopic and fallacious thinking insinuates that in 2010 a good black man is one who does not resemble the character degenerates found in FCG or Perry movies such as: the rapist, wife-beater, womanizer, dead-beat dad, or down low brother. Perhaps. However, the same misogynistic traits found in those men (ie. disrespect, dishonesty, contempt, sexist, paternalistic, selfishness, etc.) are exhibited in a good black man whenever he calls a woman a bitch, patronizes gentlemen clubs, pornography sites, escort services and most rap artists. Better yet, whenever the good black man cajoles a woman into a no-strings-attached, dead-end relationship. No wonder a 2006 Census report revealed that roughly 41 percent of black people get married the lowest rate among any racial group in the United States.
It is foolish to think that the victimization of (black) women is outdated like afro puffs and bell-bottoms because America elected a colored President in 2008. It took the enactment of the 1994 Violence Against Women Act to outlaw domestic violence and in 2000 it expressly outlawed sexual assault, stalking and dating violence. Yet, post-1970, at least 1:4 women are victims of domestic violence; 1:6 women are victims of sexual assault, of which 73 percent of victims were assaulted by someone they knew; and young women between ages 16-24 are twice as likely than any other age group to be rape victims. And not to leave black men out, they represent 56 percent of newly reported HIV cases.
The take away from films like FCG should not be: ‘there are no good black men’ and that ‘black women are victims by choice.’ Rather, it should incite a call to action uniting all black people: good and bad, male and female. For a black person to watch any version of Shange’s “For Colored Girls” or read reviews like mine, Milloy or Tyson ‘s and remain on the sidelines finger pointing; that person is insensitive and in denial. This type of inaction or apathy only creates a cadre of black dissenters with dis-associative identity disorder. The end result produces a generational tsunami of self-loathing black men and women who don’t know how to love one another as themselves.
Barring divine intervention, we (black people) must take full responsibility for our own actions by finding the root of the pain and plucking it out, “(Shange, FCG). We owe it to our children and the generations that follow to discontinue the self-perpetuation of oppression (both defacto and dejure) we inflict upon ourselves. Enough already! Until we band together to reverse our painful generational curses, black women could learn a lot from “The Frog Prince” fairy tale. That is: a black woman desiring a healthy, stable relationship with a good black man has got to skillfully kiss a hell of a lot of frogs before she finds her prince. And pray she escapes unscathed!
For Colored Girls is an intensely, powerful movie with an amazing cast, featuring Whoopi Goldberg, Janet Jackson, Phylicia Rashad, Loretta Devine, Hill Harper and Michael Ealy (among others). Caution: The content is for mature audiences. I highly recommend that people attend this movie, bring a friend for a shoulder to cry on.
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Tralonne R. Shorter is a freelance healthy relationship writer for KerygmaWord and is the author and creator of Dearly B. Loved blog.
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