Patriarchy & This Man's Perspective on Controlling People's Bodies

Even if as a man I had no opinion about recent legislative efforts in Alabama, U.S. about prohibiting people's rights to choose whether they wish to have babies or not, science, objective logic, and a basic sense of human dignity would push me to be 100% opposed to these efforts.  The people pushing to curb abortion rights are the very same people who unquestionably support police terrorism, mass incarceration, anti-immigrant measures, Islamophobia, and homophobic policies, so there is never anything that I'm going to agree with these "people" on.

There's much more to this issue though.  These enemies of justice have an agenda of controlling everything and everyone who doesn't fall lock step in line with the dominant capitalist patriarchy of white supremacist ideologues and policy making.  To them, the decision to have a baby is based on their view of women and non-men as commodities which of course is tied to their view of African and other colonized people as commodities.  Non-humans.  People unworthy of respect and self-determination.  That's how these miserable beings view us and that's why they find absolutely no contradiction with them attempting to legally regulate their bodies.  

As Kwame Nkrumah told us, capitalism is ripe as a "plenum of forces in tension."  What he meant is this society is completely rotten with challenges against humanity, but humanity consistently finds ways to fight back against the oppression.  In other words, the conditions from Alabama, U.S. tell us that we must unite around these questions from a position of justice, period.  What this means is as a man, I have a responsibility to be in the forefront of challenging any efforts to eliminate justice from any segment of the populations.  I have this responsibility because to do so is the right thing to do as opposed to the forces of injustice who make their policy decisions based on efforts to continue to control the movements of all populations who pose any level of threat to their desires to maintain hegemony over the human and material resources of the planet.  

That's why the contradictions Nkrumah spoke of are everywhere.  These same people who claim they work to restrict people's rights to determine what happens with their bodies because their concern is for the "rights" of those yet unborn.  This is of course a complete lie.  If it were true. these people would not also be supporting U.S. imperialist aggression against countries around the world where millions of children are brutally murdered by U.S. supported tax dollars and trained mercenaries (U.S. military).  If people really cared about children they couldn't justify and ignore the immoral incarceration of thousands of Indigenous children seeking refuge from their originating countries that are being completely sabotaged by U.S. supported dictators and neo-colonial puppet leaders.  They could not have the capacity to ignore U.S. police terrorists murdering children like little Tamir Rice within seconds of coming upon him playing with a toy gun.  These same people laud the brutal murderers of Rice and all children as heroes so that would tell even an individual thinking on the most basic level imaginable that this level of scum could never have any concern about children.  Clearly, that's not it.  Instead, its a desire to control the bodies of the people capable to reproducing life because they know that by controlling this element, they move closer to being able to control everything that the masses of people do on Earth, which ultimately, is their objective.

More contradictions.  These criminals would never propose that men's bodies be controlled in any fashion.  In fact, you cannot name one way that a man's body is in any way legislated, anywhere on Earth.  If the objective was morality, as these crooks claim, than it would be equally as simple to require men to have vasectomies.  I've had one since 1997 because I decided then that with having my wonderful biological child, and helping/assisting in the raising of countless other people's biological children, I didn't have the need or desire to have more children.  And, its not that my life was ever a playboy's paradise.  It never has been anything close to that (if such a thing even exists).  My reasons for getting a vasectomy were the partner I had at that time had health issues that made birth control dangerous for them to use for a variety of reasons.  Since I knew I didn't want additional children, I offered the solution of me having a vasectomy and although that particular relationship didn't last, I've never once regretted my decision.

Women and non-men should be the only decision makers about what happens to their bodies.  If people really have a concern about the future of children, there a hundreds of thousands of children waiting on your caring soul to adopt them.  Or, at least mentor them.  Most of the people pushing for this control I assure you will do neither.  Nor do they have any intention of doing either because that's not their concern.  Controlling humanity is.  That's why its so important for men to step up and declare that we will not tolerate this nonsense.  If you are a man and you have a concern about populations being controlled by abortion than I have an easy solution for you.  Prepare yourself and then organize an organization of men who will have as many children as you want with the organizational responsibility that you will help raise them in this capitalist society.  Of course, no one is going to do anything like that because again, that's really not what you want is it? 

For the rest of us, its imperative that we make our voices loud in condemning this trend.  Those men who believe in this hegemony over people's bodies definitely don't speak for me.  And, any man worth his weight in morality will have to say the same.  This is an issue that is easily resolved.  Everyone can get what they want e.g. men can have as many children as they wish, but we refuse to play their stupid game that they don't want government except in areas where their government controls our lives.  If this isn't a signal to you that its time to get involved in this struggle for justice, on a practical level - not just a talking about it level - I don't know what will inspire you.

For African people in particular, its far past time that we spoke out against the hypocrisy in our communities.  This disgusting contradiction where we sit here and let a bunch of worthless chicken wing preachers tell us every Sunday that abortion is wrong while those same churches do absolutely nothing to help the millions of African children who suffer today.  These same gutless preachers who wouldn't lift a finger to support one African body except their own while they drain the limited resources of every African who comes through their doors.  This is disgraceful and its time we gain enough backbone to tell Reverend pigsfeet, or Imam porkchop, that until we start seeing these churches do something to challenge systemic oppression, instead of just being cowardly and focusing on controlling individual decisions that Jesus and Allah, etc., couldn't care less about.  No wonder church going is continuing to diminish.  I hope it diminishes to the point where these chitlin pastors are out on the streets collecting cans for a living.  Its far past time where we as African men start standing up for the African women and non-men in our communities who are the backbone of everything good coming towards us.  We should respect them enough to understand they have proven quite capable of making nothing except the best decisions for the future of our families and our people.  

The same is true for all women, non-men, everywhere.  Our love and support should be unconditional and without cowardice and ego.  We owe that to humanity.

And for women and non-men.  I get the logic argument that people are going to have abortions whether they are legal and safe or not.  That's an effective talking point for people who are just confused about the issue and need more information, analysis, and perspective.  Its not a useful argument for the people pushing against your rights.  As Kwame Ture told us 50 years ago, appealing to a person's consciousness is only effective if said person has a conscience.  In the case of this country and these anti-human people we are talking about, there is no conscience.  Only a desire for control and power and the continued dominance of the capitalist system.  Appealing to their morality is a waste of time.  Until all of us are ready to bring this system to a standstill, things are only going to get worse. And, by standstill we mean just that.  Not just lobbying for another stop gap bill like Roe V Wade that can be overturned the minute the right reactionaries are in control.  Nkrumah's statement applies even to childbirth.  That process itself is a contradiction of forces struggling against one another until the dominant solution is the baby being born.  Our struggle to maintain our dignity and protect people's rights on any level is no different.  If we aren't going to be ready to fight for a better system then we should just stop complaining about how oppressive this one is.