Note from BW of Brazil: This is a conversation that has been long overdue. In recent years, black Brazilian women have stepped to the plate and expressed their innermost feelings on such sensitive topics as coming to accept their natural hair texture, coming to assume a black identity, what it feels like to not be recognized as beautiful in a society whose beauty standards are European, how it feels to be consistently passed over for white women for long-term relationships and the loneliness this leads to and a host of other topics. But there is another side to such to these personal stories that also need to be heard.
As black women and black men exist in a racist a society, these scars also leave their indelible imprints of the psyches of black men, and these men are increasingly baring their souls on what it means to be a black man in Brazilian society. Afro-Brazilian men, like other African descendant men in the Diaspora, also suffer from a myriad of stereotypes about their very existence that is generally accepted by the society at large. These stereotypes have a way of dehumanizing these men, even those who don’t necessarily know or understand these stereotypes. But nowadays, the discussion is getting deeper, and with the internet, this is a good thing. Because the reach of the internet means that others may discover themselves through the words of people who look like them and thus change the way they think. May the monologues, dialogues, and conversations continue…
The tireless and ever active big dick and the affection of the black man
By Kauê Vieira
A feeling rarely discussed or visited, affectivity has always been present in the life of a black man. However, over the centuries it has been set aside as if it were a secondary need of in the lives of afrodescendentes (African descendants).
Denial and even the fear of expressing the feelings nurtured by black men lies in two points: racism and machismo, which in different ways regulate and limit the space of action of black men.
With its ruthless cruelty, prejudice makes many or all of the men of the black skin be reduced to the imaginary that the only things they have to offer are virility, muscle and of course, the tireless and ever-active pau grande (big dick). Supposedly with such characteristics, the passport for pleasure is guaranteed.
Since black slave ships were brought in with men, children, women, and corpses from the African continent, black bodies were treated as merchandise. Exposed in the squares of cities such as Salvador, Ouro Preto and Porto Alegre, blacks, according to the senhores brancos (white masters), served only for reproduction and work.
Even with the abolition of slavery a little more than 120 years ago, the concept has transformed, but it remains alive in the mind of sociedade caucasiana do Brasil (Caucasian society of Brazil). Today the black man’s body is sold as a commodity in exchange of photographs by cell phone and at Carnival, where many of them are seen in the arms of mulheres brancas de classe média alta (white women of the upper middle class), who enjoy pretitude (blackness), but at the end of the day present their namorado branco (white boyfriend) to the family.
The thinking of a racism-literate society is based on the logic that the afrodescendente occupies the place of subaltern, a kind of escape for brancocentrados (white-centered) relationships. It is more or less so, the homem branco (white man) is the guarantee of longevity, stability and a happy family; the man of pele preta (black skin) places himself like a space of pleasure, of party and seduction. O corpo do homem negro é o carnaval da branquitude (The black man’s body is the carnival of whiteness).
In more than 300 years of slavery, the black woman and the black man did not have the right to express their affections and the concept of happy family passed and still passes far away from the target of Afro-Brazilians. In the case of men the territory is even more irregular due to machismo, created and fed by us, but administered by the white man.
As such, even being a reproducer of racist and oppressive practices against women, especially negras (black women), a black man also feels the effects of machismo, which contributes to his concealment of his feelings and is limited to sexuality and work. With the white man, who occupies a position of domination and oppresses even black men, machismo does not prevent him from expressing feelings and forming a family.
In this sense, black women are more advanced in the discussions about affectivity and corporeality than men, who have not yet been attentive to the need to open and exchange experiences and doubts about love, affection, and sensitivity.
All life, raised mostly in suburban neighborhoods, afrodescendentes are, paraphrasing the Racionais MCs, a São Paulo rap group, programmed to die. The biggest victims of unprecedented police violence of which the only goal is extermination, black men are always running. From the bullets or after an opportunity that keeps them away from the statistics.
Affection is part of the life of black men, who have the right and the duty to give vent to the feelings that populate their hearts. Slavery tried to take away many things from us, descendants of black Africans, yet it failed to believe that it could carry the right to be happy.
There are a bunch of happy black families and black males expressing themselves and expressing their feelings. In this line, the relacionamentos afrocentrados (African centered relationships) contribute a lot to this exchange of experiences and mutual growth. Let’s walk, let’s walk together!
Kauê Vieira is a journalist who graduated from Anhembi Morumbi University, a collaborator of the SoteroPreta portal. He was a content producer for Projeto Afreaka for four years, creating texts about contemporary Africa and also about its past.
Source: Sotero Preta
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