What Is It Actually Like To Be A ‘Black’ Man In The West?

With the popularity of racial issues growing by way of Black Lives Matter and Obama’s historical presidency, many ‘non-black’ individuals are beginning to wonder what these disadvantaged and victimised ‘black’ folk are dealing with. Of course, it is too complex for most to understand – so they quickly give up – but every little helps.

What is so different about ‘black’ people’s experience?

Well, for a start, there are different kinds of ‘black’ people. They are not all the same, obviously.

My mother recently apologised to me for being ‘black’. We are both intellectuals. Process that, if you even can.

Here, I focus on ‘black’ men. Some ‘black’ men are focused on freedom, others favour business, while others place priority on happiness.

A ‘black’ Caribbean man does not have a similar experience to a ‘black’ African man. Which may surprise some.

Keeping things focused, here are some ways that life differs for ‘black’ men of my sort – specifically in society, relationships and work. If you are ‘non-black’ I intend for you to question if specific events would ever plausibly happen to you. This should help intellectuals to understand the experience of ‘black’ males in the west a little bit more.

1. People see us as interesting – via momentary curiosity.

Strangers who seem like they have not been exposed very much (enough) to people similar to you ask about your personal life and work history at work.

Your colleague repeatedly greets you with sounds of disapproval, disappointment and fear.

People explicitly tell you that you are ‘interesting’ and ‘mysterious’. You are found as fascinating and then, once you have let them feel like they know you well, they act like they no longer have a reason to know more about you.

You feel like your existence is merely as higher-education for the ignorant.

Internal Translation: They are interested to see if I match up with their prejudicial stereotypes. How unusual am I is a fascinating question for them. I will only ever be entertainment, not something or someone that is due to be taken seriously. I bet they look at me as if I am an animal; less human than they are.

2. We are not allowed to be serious.

Not being jokey and submissive (acting unintelligent) means that everyone sees you as rude, aggressive, fearsome, unfriendly and/or disturbed – unless you are proven by position (job title) or precedent (recommendations).

You are afraid of being honest and righteous to your standard, in case it results in people being offended or having a dislike for you. You hide your cultural values and are typically acting in public, regularly disrespecting your ethics. Meanwhile, people offend you and your culture regularly without repercussion or any objection.

You learn that not being serious is the only way for you to expect to be accepted or liked. This is because you have practically always recieved comparitively higher resistance from people you have tried to be serious with.

Having a noticeable care about a project causes people to challenge you more, you notice them working less hard and caring less about the project outcomes for as long as you lead.

Speaking fast causes almost everyone to not understand you and ask you to repeat yourself or speak slower. Therefore this, along with the cultural motivation (Ebonics' root) to augment your native tongue, causes you to think more about what you are and ‘might be’ saying much more than seems ‘normal’. This near-constant second guessing your articulation and expression in the aim of acceptability causes you to typically sound unsure and debatably retarded.

You look at media (social and corporate) and percieve that this 'debatable retardation' is actually normal, as it is seen everywhere, and is something that you have reason to manifest in yourself.

If you are feeling confident, people are more likely to hate you. If you are focused, people will try to inconvenience and slow you down. If you are feeling sad, nobody cares and everyone behaves a little happier.

Internal Translation: People want you to fail, expecting so and working for it, because it will somehow help them and their communities + People are not eager to serve someone they believe themselves to be inherently superior to. I feel like my career progression is damaged by me not being allowed to be serious and have my colleagues work hard at my request. I feel like every relationship with a desirable member of the opposite sex is just a waste of time and soon to be discontinued unless I unfairly dominate her.

3. Our hair is an issue, until it is gone.

You had a haircut two weeks ago, so that your hair is really short (less than 3cm), and people are talking about how you should have a haircut.

Your hair is not allowed in professional contexts when it is sitting naturally – as in bumpy and not-uniform. So, your livelihood (job, partner, life) feels at risk when you have not restricted it. In many cases, to you, not having a haircut is practically like ‘not wearing trousers’ or ‘wearing your underwear on the outside’ in public.

‘Black’ hair is not like straight hair. If more than 2cm long, each strand does its own thing. This fundamental difference makes ‘black’ people feel that their hair is very different – and different, in society, is no good.

You are not really happy about doing something, which You know will damage You in the long run, (your hair) but You don’t feel like You have a choice and it makes You feel prouder and more comfortable when You do it.

You feel like cosmetics is an unfair minefield because you expect pharmaceutical companies to not focus research on ‘high melanin’ skin or hair. The term ‘Swiss engineering’ looks like a red flag, despite your recognition of its quality.

Internal Translation: ‘Black’ men limit their hair length because it is 'bad hair'. In society, I have bad hair and so - I feel led to believe - does everyone in my family. I am saddened by the thought and sight of myself and so many people from my claimed demographic consistently ruining their/our hair by overly altering it. Every time I go to the barber, they want to push my hairline backwards. It is expensive and I always get spots. I’m going bald faster because of this. Why can’t I just let my hair grow, have a messy fro and have a ‘good’ job? I see these ‘white’ dudes have like 30+ acceptable hairstyles to choose from – including five or so for ‘No Styling’. I only have ‘the Number 1’, ‘the fade’, ‘the plume’, ‘cornrows’ or ‘dreadlocks’ - and the last three are unacceptable.

4. We are distrusted by default and tested more often.

People often try to provoke you to retaliate at them, being angry at and fighting them. They generally play the victim afterwards and receiving no punishment, while considerations of your actions are without any compassion and result in your punishment.

As an IT staff member, a true dumbass postgraduate student tried to test your IT knowledge by saying ‘I’ll just download the RAM’.

When you are wearing smart clothes, perhaps a suit, an expensive watch and spectacles, people tell you that you look ‘suspicious’. This makes you feel like whatever you do, you will always have to do more to be equal.

If you look like a ‘ten’.. you cannot be trusted in a relationship. People treat you like a 5, despite you being practically perfect in appearance; i.e. being photogenic, not having any imperfections and looking fully healthy. If you are a 'five' people love you more. You perceive how the most logically beautiful 'black' people are suppressed in society and media, fizzling out, while 'less black' beauty is promoted and elevated.

You are typically unable to ask strangers for directions without scaring them or waving in their faces and blocking their paths.

A ‘white’ person with a disability is believed to have gifts, while you are believed to be moronic and unstable.

A ‘white’ person looking disheveled is believed to be tired, overworked or eccentric, while you are believed to be on drugs and or sloppy.

You always have either the lowest or highest expectations applied to you. Seldom fair expectations.

Supported by statistics whenever you look into them, people give you less support, in work, healthcare and academia. 

You are denied access to things that other people on your level have been granted access to... such as opportunities, training, concessions, trusts and benefits.

You notice other people directly being given various advantages (access and permissions) over yourself, seemingly to ensure that they do ‘better’ than you.

Opposite to your ‘white’ counterparts, even if you had a Billion dollars, you could not expect to be able to have relationships with women from all nationalities.

Internal Translation: I will always be disadvantaged by others’ unfavorable perceptions of me. It is so hard to prove myself without being granted the ability to. Therefore, I do some things in secret so that I can get the glory of completing them without being denied the opportunity to. People are more eager than general to see me unfulfilled and miserable. Me being in a good mood is risky business.

I hope none of this seems logical. It really shouldn’t be and that is the problem.

5. Generally, people are against us

People are more eager/compelled to report us for wrongdoing. Nothing happens when you report people. Minor complaints are treated as serious when you are the accused.

You see people make mistakes and be forgiven, while you are punished for the same actions.

As Carribean and/or mixed folk, you see how Africans are percieved differently to your demographic, with Africans not recieving some of the racism 'blacks' adopt in society. This promotes more division, causing Africans to not identify with you, befriend you or treat you 'special' - and forces you to be percieved as 'black' but not 'as good as an African'.

You have groups of people wage coordinated efforts to inconvenience you or report your actions.

You see people trying to provoke you into reacting negatively. From people trying to force you to walk in the road/grass (not pavement/walkways) to people ignoring your requests for assistance.

You have people ‘righteously’ lying about you, trying to damage your reputation and position - with claims not always able to be disproven by CCTV.

Women and Asian men automatically (without hesitation) call the police about seeing you doing something questionable like standing or running somewhere, without ever asking any questions, letting you talk or trusting your words.

You are aware of your society-enforced mandate for ‘multiple personality disorder’ but will never get treatment for it.

People shake their heads, show looks of disapproval and try to bump into you (or exert power over you in other ways) when they see you being happy, wearing expensive clothes and/or looking like you are making more money than them.

Internal Translation: So many people seem to want me to be disadvantaged and at loss. It feels like the better I am doing is the worse they feel. So, in turn, I am given the intention to appear docile and ordinary. In effect, every ‘black’ male that intends to integrate with wider society is forced to have multiple personality disorder.

6. We feel like bad guys.

A core part of the generalised ‘black’ identity is the almost constant suppression of anger. As such, when we are made angry, we quickly overflow and burst. As you would expect from a homeless person or a parent who has just lost a child. Few other cultures are able to understand and barely seem interested to. But it is simple, we are the aliens – yet are somehow born into the same house as the homelanders. We feel this way by how we are treated, in the same way that a woman in a bad relationship would not appreciate herself, so it is not our fault.

We are surrounded by evidence that people like us are supposed to be made disadvantaged by everyone else. These proofs come in the form of statistics, sentiments, precedence and perceptions of experiences. We can see things without even trying to, which makes us angry at the rest of our societies for not acknowledging the existence of things we cannot ignore.

You are confused as to why, in public, the only music that commonly results in an unorganised physical movement is ‘black’ music. You feel like your taste in music that must be moved to is detrimental to your community and public perception. Yet, you also perceive it as a magical gift; a way to be inebriated without material consumption. I may pose that a similar thing, that all might be able to grasp at, is religious worship. You see people listening to music that does not have enough frequency to invoke movement and are convinced to develop the perspective that the only reason these people deny themselves the experience of actual ‘vibrational inebriation and euphoria’ is because of racism and cultural incompatibility.

Your taste in music - although objectively supreme due to mechanics, variety and elemental popularity - makes you feel distasteful.

"I am supposed to end up in jail. It is only a matter of time. How long have I got?" are recurring thoughts in your head. You reject them with a strong sense of denial.

Our media representation of ‘black’ women causes it to be less marketable and successful. So, we as ‘black’ men must represent women of other races in order to have ‘maximal’ prosperity in western industry. This is why popular ‘black’ music videos have a propensity for featuring latinas.

We sometimes, typically subconsciously, ejaculate unprotected as deeply as possible into women in the hope that they will be forced to stay with us by having a baby. Either that or we just want to use them as much as we feel used.

You are saddened by the thought of how many babies that the women you have loved (or been infatuated with) have been killed for unverifiable reasons. All of which reasons you can undeniably attribute to your own wrongdoing.

People’s hatred, fear and distaste for us results in our anger and acts of retaliation. These retaliations (as results and responses) serve to confirm the negative stereotypes and ideas that people have about us. So, due to others’ regular mistreatment of us, we feel bad – and we also feel bad about our responses to the provocations. Logistically, an angry person was made angry – so the anger should be of at least equal importance as the cause. Yet, the cause is never of any importance.

In effect, it seems that we are only able to feel good in these events of provocation by either embracing the hatred as ‘fear of the naturally superior’ or making the provoker feel bad in ways that make us look like weaklings – fake crying as a response to being ignored, acting sad upon rejection, asking why someone is being ‘evil’ etc.

I hope this helps you to understand the huge difference we feel... 

But, as humans are basically egotistical monkeys with a fervour for convenience, you can be forgiven for not understanding - But still deserving of more hatred than the average ‘black’ person.