FOR THE BROTHAS: AN INTRODUCTION

It must have been about 20 years ago when I first began thinking about creating a "Cultural Salon" as a reaction to the mundane social circles In Washington D.C. The richness of intellectual and artistic interchange had died, college friends had moved, the internet had not yet become the phenomenon it now is... I romanticised about the Salons of the mid to late 1800's in Paris, London and Berlin and the cultural dynamo of the Harlem Rennaisance. I was fortunate enough to meet a gentleman, an artist who lived and traveled with James Baldwin... Jimmy he affectionately called him, and he spoke often of their small cottage in southern France and of the many Artists, Poets and Luminaries that dropped in to chat and relax. Well, the impressionists, cubists, modernists, etc. all hung out together famously in those days and shared their ideas with one another creating a creative greenhouse in a world that was rapidly changing. I longed to have lived in those times, to have met Cassat, Rodin, Ellington, Fitzgerald, Baker, Balwin, well I did finally meet Baldwin and others purely for the joy of intellection upon the arts. This was in the late 1980's and by the mid 2000's I happened to run into a friend of mine from Hampton University who had been living in New York since he graduated in the early 90s. Well, I was surprised to hear him comment that in all of the wonder that is New York he never met anyone who ever really had anything interesting to say about art, literature, architecture, science, fashion or anything... I was so surprised to hear this since it had also been my experience. Well here I am in 2011 attempting the Virtual Salon...

Monday, September 9, 2013

HOW “BISEXUALITY” AND “DL CULTURE” MIGHT PLAY OUT IN THE BIG-PICTURE OF HUMAN SEXUAL EVOLUTION?




HOW “BISEXUALITY” AND “DL CULTURE” MIGHT PLAY OUT
IN THE BIG-PICTURE
OF HUMAN SEXUAL EVOLUTION?



There is a difference between being “DL” and “Bisexual”, actually there are many, many differences between these two types of men.  All DL men are not bisexual and all bisexual men are not DL. 

It is my opinion that each category must be examined separately which is itself a very broad topic.  It is not the purpose of this article to go into that level of detail to fully explicate the phenomenon of either bisexuality or the Down Low Lifestyle.  the purpose of this article is to draw some conclusions about the cultural relevance of each both individually and in relation to each other and to predict how, given the current trend of social awareness at this phase of the sexual revolution, whether they represent long or short-term trends in human sexual development.  At the first quarter of the Twentieth Century this lifestyle has come to a point where it poses a dangerous threat to potentially endanger the mental and physical health in the lives of those men and women who become emotionally and sexually entangled with them unaware of their hidden lifestyle.  Socially and culturally the Down-Low lifestyle has virtually outlived its usefulness in the community of humanity, it has become obsolete.   But due to its cryptic nature, hiding out deep in the hidden subconscious of human sexuality, it has become a difficult target for social reform and cultural evolution. 
 We are at the middle of a very long road toward what has been termed “The Sexual Revolution” and the closer we peer into the realm of human sexuality we find there are more questions than answers…  I have opined that what has been coined the “DL” lifestyle is not itself inherently evil being representative of the free choice we all enjoy to choose the nature of our own sexuality.  However, within this Down-Low culture I find clearly characterized specific perverse social and psychological deficiencies with respect to the ethical standards of mainstream culture.   Compounded by the health issues of the late 20
Likened to homosexuality before it became mainstream Down-Low culture is constantly in hiding and on the run it lives a desperate and fearful life always on the brink of utter disaster.  Ironically, this is all the more reason why mainstream culture, which has come to accept homosexuality, is so perplexed by its tenacity. But there are even murkier issues continuing to drive the need for homosexual men to hide in fear and shame in a climate of openness and acceptance. One thing is certain, as homosexuality becomes increasingly mainstream DL culture will no longer have a reason for existence.  Where it leaks over into bisexuality it will merely be considered another form of cheating.  Bisexuality on the other hand is just coming into its own as a viable alternative to established heterosexual and homosexual notions of sexuality and including notions on what constitutes a human relationship.  Bisexuality will become an ever growing phenomenon as taboos of sexual orientation disappear succumbing to mainstream concepts of universal sexuality.  Before the tale is told bisexuality will bring monogamy to its knees revising the very foundations of how human beings think about love and relationships, marriage sexuality…



DL men, whether they are strictly homosexual or bisexual share in common the fact that they are not open about their homosexuality.  Some, not all, DL men often feign a heterosexual persona as a cover for their more dominant homosexual orientation so it can be further argued that some DL-Bisexual men are not truly bisexual, rather they are what might be called, “DL/Faux-heterosexual” or even “Quasi-heterosexual”, Faux-heterosexual, etc., etc., etc.  The main point is that a man who only pretends to be heterosexual but is actually homosexual is actually homosexual! 



We must always leave some room for those men who are actually bisexual but choose to suppress their homosexuality publicly for some personal reason known only to them.  This category may include men who are actually openly bisexual to their female partners but not publicly.  Notwithstanding, these men easily fall into the same category as DL men but perhaps not with the full cache of psychoses that typify the DL psyche in general. 



There are some bisexual men who are genuinely DL because they have unresolved issues with their homosexuality ranging from a host of reasons such as having already established a heterosexual relationship, adult peer pressure from church, work or other social realms, etc.  Once, again, there is no issue with their freedom of sexual expression but it is the perverse social, emotional and health dynamics they set into motion through their actions which bring their sexual practices under examination as potentially pathological.  It is the not the homosexuality that I have issue with it is the artificial realm of deception required to screen and support their homosexuality that is ultimately the problem.



To clarify my argument, I have opined that men who choose to hide their homosexuality in a social climate that is open to it are operating outside of mainstream culture.  Such men have chosen to create a condition that does not exist anymore transforming DL behavior into a type of modern phobia not dissimilar and actually a manifestation of homophobia. These men may need psychological assistance to manage their fear and to at least establish a strategy to manage their lifestyle in a manner that is responsible on an ethical level.



Indeed, in this current social climate where homosexuality is mainstream we must closely analyze the behavioral patterns of men who operate as homosexuals but suppress self-actualization of their homosexuality.   We must attempt to understand what drives their tendency to exponentially exacerbate this dysfunction through the conscious physical and psychological falsification/manipulation of reality purposed to suppress a firmly established practice of same sex encounters.   Why do these men desire to substitute their homosexual lifestyle with a patently manufactured heterosexual lifestyle? This behavioral pattern must be considered to be aberrant not because these men do not have the right to freely choose the nature of their sexuality without being judged but because the way they have chosen to express their sexuality has placed those who are sexually and emotionally involved with them in physical and mental peril!



By David Vollin

FOR THE BROTHAS: www.forthebrothas.blogspot.com  


Friday, September 6, 2013

"PAY ATTENTION TO TERMINALS" ANOTHER LESSON IN HUMAN NATURE...

A Holocaust Memorial at Minsk





THE DEATH OF HITLER’S BODYGUARD LEAVES A HAUNTING MEMOIR IN CONTRAST WITH THE SOULFUL TESTAMENT OF INNOCENT JEWS WHO NARROWLY ESCAPED HITLERS MURDEROUS GRASP!





I won’t take time to read articles about Hitler anymore; I figure that by now any intelligent person fully understands the blemish on human rights he represents. As a Black American man I feel an intimate kinship with the struggle of the Jewish people and I have no problem saying that I consider then to be my brothers in struggle…

Millions of Jews were buried in mass graves after being murdered at Nazi concentration camps.

U.S. and Allied forces uncovered mass graves after the war.
 

Yet I was deeply troubled, yes… and alarmed when I happened upon this article as it popped up on my browser, the very first internet experience of my day. The article documented what they referred to as, “The death of Hitler’s devoted bodyguard” and I paused to imagine how this man, who died today at age 94, had come to peace with himself.



As I read further the article mentioned the man named Misch had published his memoirs in 2008. I shuddered to imagine what those pages might contain but resolved that perhaps they might hold, if nothing else, some historical value if they were not the twisted invention of a disillusioned, Nazi aesthete inventing reality in the absence of credible witnesses. My heart wept as it pondered the question or circumstance allowing such a man to live to a ripe old age whilst innocent infants, children, mothers and fathers were cruelly executed no doubt in the presence of this man…



Recovering I read on to this point which I shall quote, not paraphrase so that whoever reads this article will get the full dose as I did:


“In a 2005 interview with The AP, Misch recalled Hitler as "a very normal man" and gave a riveting account of the German dictator's last days before he and his wife Eva Braun killed themselves as the Soviet Red Army closed in around their bunker in Berlin.

"He was no brute. He was no monster. He was no superman," Misch said.”



I could not read any further than this, this was all my spirit could take. I recalled a room in The National Holocaust Museum I visited with a Jewish friend. That room contained photographs of an entire village of Jews who were murdered in a German Concentration Camp located in Poland, (this correction was made to clarify that the Polish people were not administering the concentration camp). I wept while standing in that room and when I walked further to a room containing one of the actual railroad cars used to transport Jewish families to their doom I froze in absolute horror and despair!



So then I had got my answer. I knew how a man of 94 could have found peacefulness with himself by forcing himself to believe Hitler was not a brute, a monster or a superman… I concurred with the latter, Hitler was certainly no superman but as far as being a brute and a monster I decided it was best to let history determine and preserve those verdicts for all humanity. I knew now that deceased man now affectionately known by history as Hitler’s “devoted” bodyguard certainly shared his master’s zeal for murder justified by racist notions used to dehumanize the Jews. His memoirs will stand as a singular feather weighed against the bones of millions of Jews cast into mass graves. The thousands of videotaped accounts of surviving Jews will outnumber his, the choir of them will drown his printed words and in the fields of the dead their torches will outshine his. Their collective stories will be preserved by history many thousands of years from now and his shall have been forgotten… I asked myself if I could mourn this man’s death in a different way that I mourned his life. Looking to his memoirs I mourned that he may have died without comprehending the great evil of which he was a part that he might have perished not being able to separate men from their deeds and put them together again. I mourned that he might have died fighting truth, clinging to pride, failing to acknowledge the unifying, expiating grace of humility…



As a lesson in human nature, I learned that very moment how important the truth is as measured against the brevity of a single life. It is inevitable that we will die so it is of utmost importance how we die. Our truth, our final truth and our final peace are the keystones of both our life in this world and our death to it. There is no road more personal, more exclusive than that of life leading to death. And as one of the greatest architects of all time, Frank Lloyd Wright said, “Pay attention to the terminals”!




Written by David Vollin

Administrator: FOR THE BROTHAS: VIRTUAL, INTELLECTUAL SALON



WWW.FORTHEBROTHAS.BLOGSPOT.COM

GALLERY OF RELATED IMAGES:

Bodies recovered from concentration camps.



Nazis burned Jewish copses in these crematoriums and many Jews were reported to have been cremated alive.



Jewish men in Nazi Concentration Camps.




Imagine the indignity of women old and young being forced to stand nude with strangers before being executed.









Add caption





A mass grave






Thursday, September 5, 2013



NOTES ON CONFLICTS WITH THE “PASSIVE-AGGRESSIVE” TRAIT IN INTIMATE HUMAN RELATIONSHIPS

**These notes were expanded upon from my original response to an online post and discussion of passive-aggression in The Male Mind Media.




Gentlemen, it appears we need to define the term, "Passive-Aggressive". I always like to begin a discussion with a clear explanation of just what I am talking about so that the reader does not confuse my opinions with their own or with other preconceived notions. In my opinion the passive-aggressive behavioral trait is expressed when a person refuses to provide any tangible input at all, remaining silent, insensitive or "Passive" as a reaction to very intense and specific stimuli. To do so, that is, to remain antiseptically cool in the face of a social occurrence which seems to elicit the opposite reaction, a reaction that is hot, delivers a powerful nonverbal response which may or may not be interpreted as aggressive depending on the situation. For example: someone calls me an MF and expresses other audible and physical language that they are angry. It becomes clear that the person is indeed angry and even perhaps violently so and having made the first heated attempt at communication it is now quite clear that the ball in my court to provide a human response. At that point I could intervene and attempt to calm them down or remain emotionless leaving them to consider whether I am afraid, indifferent or silently and deceptively prepared for a positive strike. In order to qualify as passive-aggressive I would have to convey with nonverbal language that I was tolerating them with a hidden intent to strike at any moment; Right? The correct answer is "Wrong"? Passive aggression can utilize meekness and even cowardice or indifference to deliver a substantially powerful punch in the nose! The key is to understand if a person is truly employing classic passive-aggressive tactics or if they are genuinely intimidated or indifferent! Depending on whether a person is passive-aggressive themselves and depending upon their skill in detecting and analyzing patterns in human behavior they might completely overlook the obvious because it is simply not obvious to them.  A person who is passive-aggressive typically knows they are such and they are constantly at work perfecting their craft but there are always exceptions to every rule…



Allow me then to add to my definition of the term, "Passive-Aggressive” a hypothetical spin on the dynamics involved when the application of that communications management technique/characteristic is applied within the context of a relationship. Let me simulate, if you will a "Worse Case Scenario" for that behavioral phenomenon I call passive-aggression syndrome.








Example-#1: One partner, (the passive-aggressive case), has been accused of being selfish when it comes to deciding what activities the couple will participate in. The accused agrees to accompany their partner on an excursion chosen by the other partner and on said excursion the first major activity decision arises. The accused remains cool allowing the other partner to make the choice and the accused remains cool showing little interest or enthusiasm, allowing themselves to become noticeably distracted by trivial phenomena within the immediate environment but not expressed as an outright protest, rather veiled as a mist of undefined discontent. Since the excursion is intended to be a mutually enjoyed event intended to bring them together the other partner, noticing the accused is not focused or engaged succumbs and Segway’s into an activity which they already know will be enjoyable to the accused. The accused has utilized a nonverbal, passive-aggressive technique to control the flow of activities playing upon the sympathies of their partner. If the partner were to continue on s if there were no issues whilst the accused was noticeably disengaged the accused would continue to employ their guilt-trip and mindfuck on their partner intending to cause them to feel guilty for being assertive and demanding that they share activities that did not respond exclusively to the likes of the accused.


The passive-aggressive tool is a very effective and powerful one if executed successfully and it is often a choking device that when unraveled may result in intense resentment and breakup. In this case, every time a decision must be made, small or large, it becomes a tryst, a debacle, a fight for dominion. It is easy to see, given the variables, why two people estranged because of a passive-aggressive conflict might determine themselves to be incompatible...


By David Vollin


** For more information on The Male Mind Media go see the site at: www.themailemindmedia.com  















Monday, September 2, 2013

THE SPIRIT OF AMERICANISM AS IT CELEBRATES AND CONTEMPLATES LABOR DAY…




THE SPIRIT OF AMERICANISM AS IT CELEBRATES AND CONTEMPLATES LABOR DAY…



Since the great American labor force has been betrayed by Corporate America leaving thousands of American workers jobless perhaps this American tradition we call “Labor Day” is more appropriately celebrated overseas in Canada, Mexico, China or Japan from which over $514 billion worth of goods and services are annually imported. 



Back in the early 1970’s we witnessed the beginning of the mass exodus of labor from America as American corporations discovered cheaper sources of labor abroad.  Nationalism meant nothing to these companies; their interest was solely in profit.  These American companies established their name and reputation on the diligent skills of American men and women and upon the loyalty of the generations of proud American families who also worked for them and who lived within the shadows of their factories.   Nearly every American could boast that someone in their family had worked for some American manufacturing company, but no more…



The Sherman Antitrust and other pro-labor legislation that galvanized Labor Unions around the turn of the century from the 1890’s into the twentieth century forged a powerful but unstable respect from American companies who bided their time until they could find a way to escape labor laws which they felt depleted their profit.  The 1980’s saw the birth of a new concept called “Globalism” a philosophy American corporations whose history could be traced over 100 years used to finally remove what they felt was the shroud of American identity.  American corporations no longer wanted to be seen as American, they owed no loyalty to Americans.  But these corporations that grew to preeminence from the hard labor of American workers and the wages of American peoples still expected the American people to have loyalty to their products, products which began to increase in price as never before even though they were being made in sweatshops and with cheap foreign labor. 



Something else had changed; American products no longer manufactured in America became less desirable at home and abroad.  In the true spirit of globalism the American people no longer felt any loyalty to the products manufactured abroad by American based companies as if in a tit-for tat!  Besides, many foreign manufactured products were now superior to American ones.  With the loyalty of American consumers now exhausted, the 1980’s 1990’s and the first quarter of the Twenty-First Century saw the crash and burn of  American corporations who had enjoyed over a century and a half of American patronage.  The endless mélange of buy-outs, mergers and etc., etc., etc. of these American companies has been a testament to the loss of loyalty by American consumers.  By the close of the first quarter of the Twenty-First Century there will be few corporations that dare to call themselves, “American”! 



Well the American labor force is comprised of more than factory workers; it consists of all manner of white collar workers as well including civil servants.  The meditation that Americans should devote themselves to on this Labor Day Celebration of 2013 would want to be a rethinking of how to consume.  Americans have the power to spend their dollars with companies who are still proud to call themselves American and evince this claim in practice by manufacturing primarily on U.S. soil employing American citizens.  Americans can organise to change government policy heavily taxing imports and creating a greater incentive for Americans to buy American made products and services.  The burning question is will this form of economic isolationism serve to hurt or help us in the long run.  Bottom line, American companies need to produce a better product, one that, by virtue of its quality will attract domestic and foreign monies.  If one thing holds true it is that whilst most people will purchase the bottom line when necessity requires, they will also always go for the premium version whenever economically possible.  The company who makes that premium will always get the dollar whether American or otherwise.  America must strive to be that country and the corporations which have deep roots in America but which have betrayed it’s people must strive to be that company holding quality and humanity before profit!  Such companies must make a choice between making great profit with a mediocre product and making greater profit with a superior one… Just a thought on the nature of Americanism as it relates to the celebration of Labor Day…




By David Vollin