My New Black Magazine - NYU Black Renaissance Noire BRN-FALL-206 ISSUE RELEASE | Page 72

PBS Master’s portrait of Alice Walker
was called “Beauty and Truth.”
The portrait, filmed by two Indian
filmmakers, Pratibha Parmar and
Shaheen Haq, was of the genre that
Steven Spielberg’s The Color Purple
launched; a saintly black woman
besieged by cruel black men. In one
scene, black moviegoers are chastised
for boycotting The Color Purple.
What they leave out is that Ms. Walker
had problems with the film as well.
By bonding with the black bogeyman
craze these women are excused from
criticizing men in the Indian and
Pakistani communities whose attitude
toward women makes the misogyny of
black men seem Farm team. D league.

Some white men, silent about how
white men treat white women, have
deputized themselves as honorary black
feminists while recent studies suggest
that 90% of white women claim that
they have seen their mothers, sisters or
daughters battered.15 One of those men,
Maurice Berger, writing in the Village
Voice, December 1, 1998 said;
While a number of African
American women in the race
movement have accused their
male counterparts of sexism in
recent years, few have done so as
authoritatively as Hazel Carby…
Critiquing the role of masculinity
in the work of such progressive
historical figures as W.E.B. Du
Bois, Paul Robeson, Miles Davis,
Leadbelly, and the biographer
C.L.R. James, Carby constructs a
semiological and historical
context for understanding both
the inherent “male centeredness”
of black race leaders in the 20th
century and the ways in which
such repressive methods of
thinking and acting continue
to underm ine the cause of
black liberation.
BLACK RENAISSANCE NOIRE

So will there be an end to black male
writer bashing in the Times and
elsewhere? I doubt it. For one, it
provides an opportunity for feminists
from other ethnic groups to avoid
revealing the secrets of their communities
by dumping all of the crimes against
women on black male misogyny.
For example, The Tablet, a Jewish
publication, invited me to comment
about Alice Walker’s generalizations
about Israel, which led to disturbances
during her appearance at the ymha.
Instead, I took the opportunity to
encourage filmmakers like Steven
Spielberg, David Simon, and David
Mamet, who’ve volunteered to
referee conflicts between black men
and women for profit, to make films
about the historic conflicts between
Jewish men and women and to shed
light on the treatment of Jewish
women in the United States and Israel,
a problem that feminists, writing in
the Jewish feminist magazine, Lilith,
claim, has been covered up. Maybe
the producer of Precious, Sarah Siegel
would finance it. I even quoted a Tablet
article that criticized Jewish producers
for awarding Gentile actresses roles that
were meant for Jewish women. If they
did do a Jewish Color Purple, would the
producers choose one of those blonde
Rhine maidens in Woody Allen’s films
over a Jewish actress? Steven Spielberg
has given us two black bogeymen,
Mr. in The Color Purple, and Leroy in
The Help, and an insulting portrayal
of captured Muslims in Amistad.14

Their first response was enthusiastic,
which I took to mean that the women
on the staff were grateful that a writer
had arrived to rescue them like Steven
Spielberg rescued Celie. I was shocked
when I received the following note
from the editor; “Sadly, I’m writing
to say that we have decided not to go
forward with the piece. We are deeply
sorry about putting you… through the
wringer, but here at Tablet this turned
into a girls versus boys thing — and
as you know, girls have the power.” I
thought that these women would greet
me as a liberator but then I thought
why should these feminists criticize the
men in their community when they
can relieve themselves on the brothers?
They’re not the only feminists who
cover up the abuses against women in
their communities and use the black
male as an all-purpose piñata.

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However, Barry Scheck, co-author of
Actual Innocence, (2000) found that dna
analysis proves that at least 50% of black
men accused of raping white women
are innocent, “regardless of what
Eldridge Cleaver said,” Scheck adds.