In the August issue of Africa’s Blaque Magazine men express how wearing heels helps them better understand women
By Tamara El
Apparently dressing black men up in women’s clothing seems like the popular thing to do nowadays because African Men’s Magazine “Blaque” apparently hopped right on the black male emasculation train with their publication last August titled, “Men In Heels: Understanding A (Wo)man Better.” Not to mention, all three of these brothers appear to be very happy to be dressed in a two-piece suit and 4-inch heels because each of them look very content and comfortable as hell. Seriously?!
The main excuse to justify this type of behavior by media outlets and some of the magazines readers is “self expression.” That can’t be the case though, because not every black man secretly has a need to get in touch with his femininity; much less want to see images of other black men doing so on magazine covers. The media’s images that are being portrayed to the masses of people in regards to black men fall nothing short of being effeminate. When will some of the male actors/models/entertainers demand that they be portrayed nothing less than what they are, divine? Pretty sure no one forced these men into heels, however, money talks.
The question that one has to ask themselves is, what image does this not only send to other races of people about black men, but more importantly, what message can a image like this send to young black men? Have black people become so numb to the outright display of mockery, that we accept and want to be willing participants of the debauchery? The men on the cover of this magazine have degraded themselves to a new low. There is nothing funny, cute, or acceptable about this shot.
It is another obvious case of the intentional level of disrespect consistently shown to the black man. Its not like the media doesn’t have the power to monitor how black men are being represented by the media, they simply don’t care. How many times can people say that they turned on their television or opened up a magazine and saw a man from another race being poorly represented? It just doesn’t happen that frequently like it does to the black man. In a society were sex sells and cash is king, morals tend to take a back seat every time.
-Tamara El(@MwiliHakalu)
