Elements Of Capitalism Racism And Sexism In

Today’s Society Essay, Research Paper

According to Karenga the elements of capitalism, racism, and sexism in our society has a put a damper of negativity on the male-female relations. More specifically the black working/ lower class relationships. He continues to defend his theory by explaining the four connections. Four connections he feels strongly contributes to the down fall of black-male and female relationships. The first connection is the cash connection; this is the ideal that everyone and everything is for sale. The second is the flesh connection. This connection is the ideal that sex sells and individuals overlook the importance of the flesh as an important part of a personal relationship between two people. The third connection is the connection of force. This is the ideal that this produces a character of violence and sexist violence towards both sexes. The last connection is the connection of dependency. This ideal feeds off the three previous connections. On a deeper level it leads us to believe that once a “women (or man) has been transformed into a commodity, reduced to parts of her (his) body, and physically, sexually, ideologically and economically whipped into compliance, she (he) will her (his) deformation and degradation, having accepted her (his) master’s (mistress’) definition of her (him) (Karenga, p 40). Even though he expresses his ideals of possible downfalls with the black male and female relationships there are some authors who present a view that is slightly on the other side of the coin.

The authors Franklin and Pillow present this ideal of the black male accepting the role of Prince Charming and the black women accepting the role as Cinderella.The black male and female social interaction is at a stand still. The Prince Charming ideal “is just a pervasive in the fantasies of Black men and Black women as it is in the fantasies their White counterparts” (Pillow and Franklin p88). If a black man was to stay true to the ideals of what Prince Charming actually meant he would have to have a high economical status. Realistically speaking, black men either act or fail to act in accordance of this ideal. Concerning the status of the African American family, the association of economic and educational factors is truthfully different from their White counter parts. In these families, the structure set up is different because of the socio-economic and the levels of education. More often then not there is one parent in the household. This parent is usually the female. The female is usually the one, who makes the money, goes to school, cook the food and becomes the male role model. This produces amounts of animosity between the black man and the black female. This makes it difficult for the woman to remain dependent on a man especially a black man.Personally speaking, this ideal has no place in my life because of the way I was raised. I was taught never to depend on any man regardless of their color.