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9. “Every Goodbye Ain’t Gone”: Why the Feminist I Loved Left Me
- State University of New York Press
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Chapter 9 “Every Goodbye Ain’t Gone” Why the Feminist I Loved Left Me William Dotson You might call this chapter the “Diary of a Black Man’s Struggle to Attain Feminist Manhood.” While contemporary African American movies like Diary of a Mad Black Woman, Waiting to Exhale, and The Women of Brewster Place are popular at the box-office, films titled Diary of an Angry Black Man, Waiting to Leave Jail to Exhale, and The Men of That Hurting, Lonely Place have yet to be produced. Although the subtitle of this collection is African Americans Doing Feminism, feminism “did” more to me than I “did” to or with it. However, I have learned from it through the actions of my former, feminist lover, “Constance” (not her real name). Our very special relationship has ebbed and flowed for more than 20 years. It’s her choice to remain anonymous. However, my name, William (Bill), is stamped on the text in order to humbly admit and bear testimony about whom I was before my exposure to feminism and whom I have become and also hope to become after years of exposure to it. Quite frankly, I have fallen. I would like to get up as well as look up to the feminist visions of manhood that other Black feminist men have modeled.1 If there is hope for me (and I believe that there is), then perhaps some other brother can believe that there is hope for him—and maybe even some sisters can believe there is hope for some brothers.2 I have come to the realization that one of the biggest wars I fight is not against “the system” or Black women but against myself—my highest self versus my lowest self. The war with myself continues, but I am finally ready to write about it. Let me confess that I have never written about a relationship in my life. I consider myself a thinker and have worked in some capacities as a motivational 135 136 William Dotson speaker—yet I have never been motivated to think, speak, or write about any of my relationships with women. I feel embarrassed to admit this, but it is true. I am tempted to fall back on the excuse “It’s a male thang” to hold in feelings and thoughts and say, “It’s a woman thang” to express those same feelings and thoughts. Men are supposed to be from Mars, and women are supposed to be from Venus, right?3 Wrong. Men are human, women are human, we are both from Earth, and I am finally tired of the worn-out excuses—even the popular psychological ones—that give me permission to remain “a boy in denial.” A Black feminist male writer, Kalamu ya Salaam, assures me that my male chauvinist “impotence need not be permanent . . . and it can be cured.”4 Rather than calling some brothers to engage in an “intellectual male-bonding ritual of collective denial,” I am willing to admit that a significant part of my perceived “endangerment” as a Black man is due to my own behavior and its association with a narrow definition of manhood as meaning “the conqueror, the dominator.”5 Feminist researchers in masculinity studies have well established that most popular definitions of manhood are based on domination.6 I am reluctant to write about how wrong I have been—and sometimes continue to be—regarding my relationships with women. I must come face-toface with the serious shortcomings of “my own man-self”; there is no one else to blame. I must come to grips with the past that was, the present that is, and the future that will be if I do not change. My options currently are change or be alone. What follows are the revelations of a dishonest Black man and his difficulties fostering a loving, self-disclosing, willing-to-be-vulnerable partnership with a very special Black feminist woman. Today Constance and I have a somewhat distant, platonic, and respectful friendship. Although Constance eventually ended our romantic relationship, the end of a relationship with someone can be a beginning of a healing relationship with one’s self. Constance left me with words that describe my reality: “Patriarchy will not heal me, if that were so, I would be well.”7 Patriarchy is not good for women or men who strive to be whole. Each hello and goodbye with Constance made this truth painfully clear. The First Hello Twenty years...