"We Shall Have Our Manhood": Black Macho, Black Nationalism, and the Million Man March

NIKOL G. ALEXANDER-FLOYD "We Shall Have Our Manhood" Black Macho, Black Nationalism, and the Million Man March Introduction Michele Wallace's Black Macho and the Myth ofthe Supenuoman was released in 1979 amidst a storm ofcontroversy. Itwas criticized by academics, political commentators, feminists and non-feminists, and even Faith Ringold, the author's mother (Wallace 1996). Darryl E. Pinckney's review in the Village Voice is suggestive ofthe tenor ofmost commentators on the book. While Pinckney credited Wallace with bringing sexism to light in the Black community in the broadest sense, he nevertheless dubbed Black Macho "an elusive work...[whose] pages offer autobiography, historical information, sociology, and mere opinion dressed up to resemble analysis . It is a polemic, seriously felt, sometimes scathing, often repetitious" (Pinckney 1979, 85). Itwas criticized, not only in the Voice, but also in the pages ofthe New YorkTimes, Freedomurays, The Black Scholar, and other leading public forums (Wallace 1996, 35). In 1979, in fact, The Black Scholar dedicated an entire issue to a discussion ofBlack Macho and Ntozake Shange's choreopoem,/or colored airls who have considered suicide when the rainbou) u>as enuf(1975), that featured over twenty prominent African American scholars, political commentators, and activists, including Robert Staples (who wrote an essay in a prior issue to which everyone responded) (1979a), Alvin Poussaint (1979), Julianne Malveaux (1979), [Meridians:/eminism, race, transnationalism 2003, vol. 3, no. 2, pp. 171-203)©2003 by Wesleyan University Press. All rights reserved. 171 June Jordan (1979), Audre Lorde (1979), Maulauna Karenga (1979), and Kalamu ya Salaam (1979). Heralded as the book that would "shape the 1980s" by then Ms. editor Gloria Steinern (Giddings 1979, 50), Michele Wallace's book exposed sexism in the Black community generally, and presented a formidable critique ofthe gender politics ofBlack Power ideology. The book dealt with twin stereotypes ofthe African American man and woman: Black macho, the image ofthe hypersexualized Black man that was, according to Wallace, appropriated by Black power advocates and transfigured into the ideal Black freedom fighter who reads the quest for black liberation as a search for manhood, and the superu>oman, or stereotype ofthe strong black woman who is embattled, but ultimately impervious to the onslaught ofwhite racism. Although the book's main focus is a critique ofthe sexual politics ofBlack nationalism during the late 1960s, most critics avoided a direct attack or close reading ofher argument. Ironically (and, I think, instructively), although her critique ofsuch a popular ideological commitment like Black Power is what made this such a controversial book in the Black community, most opted to destroy the credibility ofthe book through attacking Wallace's character, scholarly ability, and priorities and/or by raising questions about the severity of sexism in Black communities and the priority it should receive in considerations ofBlack liberation strategies. Many ofthe book's opponents questioned Wallace's basic assumption throughout the text that sexism was a very real form ofoppression in the lives ofBlackwomen. Robert Staples, for instance, argued that we could have a serious talk about sexism in the Black community, ifwe could ever figure outwhat it is (1979a). According to Staples, most ofwhat people identified as sexism was merely the way men had been socialized (1979a, 27). Others emphasized that, whether or not sexism was at play in Black communities, racism was a more serious and immediate problem (Jones 1979; Karenga 1979; Poussaint 1979). Two related corollaries to this argumentwere that Black men were "the number one object ofracism" (Poussaint 1979, 55) and that racism was affecting Black men to a greater depth and magnitude , as evidenced by the supposed greater success ofBlackwomen in educational attainment and employment (Staples 1979a, 25; 1979b, 65). Given the popularity ofMarxist thought during this period, scholars naturally argued that both racism and sexism were superstructural issues, 172 NIKOL G. ALEXANDER-FLOYD minor contradictions thatwere derivatives ofthe "larger contradiction between capital and labor" (Staples 1979a, 31). Although the arguments were varied, they all conveyed the basic idea that sexism need not be given urgent consideration in BlackAmerica. Others attacked Wallace's feminism directly, maintaining that itwas a dangerous ideology alien to the Black community. Arguments ranged from claims that the Black woman was liberated...