Professor Griff: The Metaphysical Goddesstry of Hip Hop

Sis. Ali will walk us down the road and reveal to us a very telling picture of what we have become in American society today. Trust the journey.... "I wrote the book because black women in America have been protected and insulated against certain kinds of criticism and examination," said Ali. "The black man has been critiqued, the white woman and white man have been critiqued. Everybody but us (black women). I decided that we needed a self-examination of ourselves to find out what is our share of the problems in the black community," Ali said. "Whenever there is a breakdown in a relationship, both parties are responsible. But we have always said it was the black man's fault. We have always said that he left us, abandoned the children, beat us and killed us and did a lot of other things to us. My book tries to examine what happens before we get to that point." Which, she contends, began during slavery. "It's entirely possible that hidden some place in the Blackwoman's psyche is a tremendous fury and loss of confidence in the Blackman because he was unable to protect her during slavery," Ali writes. "She doesn't know what he should have done to stop slavery, but she thinks he should have done something." Ali admits "The Blackman's Guide to Understanding the Blackwoman" is, like her, brutally honest. "We know that some of the traditions of the white-power structure are at the root of many of our problems. But those are external factors," Ali said. "Internally -- inside of the African-American community -- we have problems in our personal relationships that are simply a result of contributory neglect -- of black men and black women failing to deal truthfully with each other about what the problems are."