Men, Women, Amnesia and Jimmy Carter

Posted on January 1, 2025 by Leslye Joy Allen (Ayọ)

My last few blogs have largely been laments about illiteracy, sexism, and an assortment of problems we are facing with the incoming administration of Felon 47.

This particular blog is not really about men and women who have amnesia, but rather about those among us who conveniently try to forget uncomfortable truths. I am thinking about the now late Jimmy Carter as I write this. He was one of the few American men to write boldly about sexism and misogyny as a worldwide crisis.

So, let’s consider this. Felon 47 is not a new phenomenon in American history. I hear all this bluster from people about his abuse of women, his racism, his rape charges, and etcetera, but…

Back in the late 1700s Thomas Jefferson was having illicit sex (rape) with his 14-year-old slave Sally Hemmings. You notice how folks never bring up her age? Jefferson also knew that little Sally Hemmings was his wife’s half sister because his father-in-law was—like many slaveholders—taking advantage of their “white male privileges” to do whatever the hell they wanted to do to women, particularly Black women.

Now, before any of my Black brothers and sisters get too comfortable, let’s acknowledge that Elijah Muhammad who founded the Nation of Islam did damned near the same thing when he was screwing around with and impregnating his teenage secretaries.

Whenever I hear someone say that Malcolm X left the Nation of Islam, I want to scream because Malcolm X did not leave. He, along with Wallace Muhammad, was put out of the Nation for daring to raise questions about Elijah Muhammad’s behavior.

In spite of some of the sheer depravity we all have heard about in recent months, you would have known so much more IF most people actually listened to women in general, and Black women in particular.

The same Black women that most men and too many women never pay any attention to could have told you that there is not a nickel’s worth of difference between Harvey Weinstein, R. Kelly, Sean “P. Diddy” Combs, Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein. All of these men had different illicit methods of making money and illicit methods of chasing underage tail.

For the next 4 years every American will learn that the very high price of sexism and misogyny exacts far more than most are willing to pay. And the very high price of not fighting against these ills will ultimately cost you your soul.

Goddess Bless Jimmy Carter for not blinking, for owning his missteps and for speaking out when others were too cowardly to do so.

©️Leslye Joy Allen

All blogs written by Leslye Joy Allen are protected by U. S. Copyright Law and licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. Any partial or total reference to any blog authored by Leslye Joy Allen, or any total or partial excerpt of any blog authored by Leslye Joy Allen must contain a direct reference to this hyperlink: https://leslyejoyallen.com with Leslye Joy Allen clearly stated as the author. Postings or blogs placed here by other writers should clearly reference those writers. All Rights Reserved.

Something That Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò Made Me Think About By Default

Posted on December 16, 2024 by Leslye Joy Allen (Ayọ)

by ©️Leslye Joy Allen

I read Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò’s book Elite Capture in a day. And even though I highly recommend it, this blog is not a review of his book. You can read a great review of it right here by Hunter Hilinski. It is what this book made me think about much later that I’m addressing here.

I thought a lot about Táíwò’s ideas after this 2024 United States presidential election. Published in 2022, I was intrigued by Táíwò’s observation that during the Covid-19 pandemic, police violence went on unabated not only in the United States but in various countries across the continent of Africa and in Latin America.

While most of the police violence against primarily Black victims in the United States was racially motivated, that was not always the case across countries in Africa and Latin America. So, here’s why that particular piece of information popped back into my head after the election.

I had the extreme misfortune to speak with a few young men (both Black and White) who voted for Trump because they “liked the way he pushes people around.” They also did not think a woman could run anything as well as a man.

To the 78% of Black men who voted for Kamala Harris, I thank you, but that percentage of you was much too low. You now have another dilemma where Black women can no longer help you.

Black women cannot correct or fix the sexists and misogynists among us as a people. Those kinds of men do not listen to women or engage in any meaningful dialogue with us. I have learned my lesson. I have wasted my time with them.

When we got hit with a wave of police violence during the pandemic in the USA, Africa, and Latin America as Elite Capture points out, I wondered out loud if men on police forces enjoyed the abuse they heaped on citizens. Was that their definition of manhood, of power? Is pushing someone around attractive?

I cannot speak to anyone else’s experience except my own—The men I grew up around were not violent. A violent man, an abusive man, and a thug were anomalies in my childhood. The boys I attended elementary and high school with were not saints, but the majority of them were respectful and none of them ever wanted to be a “thug.” I was never once called out of my name by any man, at least not to my face.

The ironies for me are endless. All of my mentees—I have about eight of them—are young men in their 20s and 30s. All but two of them were born outside of the United States. Well-educated and feminist, they hail from Ghana, The Gambia, Nigeria, Pakistan, and India. I did not go looking for them. They came and found me. I am grateful to them because they prevent me from being insular and American-centric.

While increases in thuggery and sexism seem to be a worldwide phenomenon now that is either praised as a path to follow or justified by bullshit theories about Black and Brown boys not having enough role models and being unjustly incarcerated, I wonder how Black men will address these problems in the aftermath of this election. I wonder where my mentees will fit in.

Will conversations at barbershops and lodge meetings and board meetings and conferences and church council meetings ever focus on and address the core issues of sexism and misogyny and how you might approach and speak to these disaffected and misinformed young Black men? Black women cannot do it anymore. We are not going anywhere near these types of young men anymore.

©️Leslye Joy Allen

Woman Boycott

Posted on November 21, 2017 by Leslye Joy Allen (Ayọ)

Rosa Parks Being Fingerprinted 1955

by Leslye Joy Allen

What if every male member of clergy in this nation arrived at his church on a Sunday or Saturday morning and not a single woman or girl was seated in the pews, or in the choir loft. Let’s say there were no women who ushered, and importantly no women putting money in his collection plate. And let’s say that every woman church goer decided to hold her own prayer meetings at a home or some other large venue with all of the other women that had stopped attending and working for these churches.

Now, let’s pretend that all of these women did this for over a year, just like the overwhelmingly Black female majority of bus riders did in Montgomery, Alabama during the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955-1956, the one sparked by Rosa Parks. And what if women stopped worrying about whether they fell out of favor with their pastors, even if many of their pastors were good men? What if they set up their own soup kitchens and their own counseling centers and homeless shelters and never asked Reverend So-and-So for his opinion, his input or his permission?

If women did all of the above in response to the weak and pathetic way too many male ministers have responded to the problem of women’s and children’s sexual abuse and harassment, I bet a lot of male ministers would rethink being apathetic or silent about this issue. I bet a lot of male ministers would rethink ignoring or condoning this kind of behavior. I bet a lot of male ministers would also do this out of the fear that without his female church members, he might end up at the unemployment office or in the soup line. Just a thought. Àṣẹ!

I’m still not blogging as much for a while…So, you are welcome to read my older blogs until I return later (trust, there is some good stuff in my archives at my blog)…I have to get my dissertation finished, and blogging and responding to every little detail is not on the agenda…In the meantime, stay focused, and stay woke, and for God’s sake don’t fall for the easy answers because the news media is full of “easy answers.” Do your research. Think for yourself. Peace and Blessings. I will see you when I see you. — Leslye Joy Allen

This blog was written by Leslye Joy Allen and is protected by U. S. Copyright Law and licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. Any partial or total reference to this or any blog authored by Leslye Joy Allen, or any total or partial excerpt of this or any blog by Leslye Joy Allen must contain a direct reference to this hyperlink: https://leslyejoyallen.com with Leslye Joy Allen clearly stated as the author. All Rights Reserved.

A Schoolteacher’s Story

Posted on September 16, 2014 by Leslye Joy Allen (Ayọ)

by Leslye Joy Allen

I have been blessed. My late Dad was a full-time, hands-on Dad that believed that females had the right to do whatever their skills, talent, and intellect allowed them to do. I do not remember ever being told by my father that I should not do or try something because I was “a girl.” And it was Daddy who introduced me to great Jazz and Popular song. Manhood for me was defined by him as a love of Billy Eckstine, Nat “King” Cole, and Johnny Mathis (my favorite), but that is a story for another blog. I should add that in addition to his trying to be genteel or dapper as his musical heroes were, Daddy was also quick to intervene in situations when he thought a woman was in physical trouble. I thought of him and my Mama after a recent encounter with one of my Mama’s oldest and dearest friends.

I recently ran into one of my late Mama’s former co-workers and good friends. Like my late Mama, she was also an elementary school teacher. This particular schoolteacher remains one of my favorite people on the planet. She and I hit it off when I was about three-years-old, when I literally wandered in this woman’s classroom, a classroom adjacent to my Mama’s classroom via their shared cloakroom. She was also was one of the people who wrote one of my recommendation letters to college. Now in her eighties, she is still so much fun and packs a lot of spirit in one tiny mocha-colored frame.

This same schoolteacher told me that she had once been a battered wife. I never met or knew her first husband. I only knew her second husband that she married much later in life. He was a tall, handsome man with golden-colored skin and wavy-curly white hair. He was also funny and quite gentle, and thankfully nothing like her first husband. She and husband number two had a good time together for over thirty years before he passed away. Yet, she still remembered her tragic first marriage.

After more than a few beatings from her first husband, she told me she left him when their children were quite small and filed for divorce. One day, however, her soon-to-be ex-husband showed up unannounced at her new home waving a gun at her, angry that she had left him.

“Out of the corner of my eye,” she said, “I saw our five-year-old son walking toward us. All I could think about was what if this fool pulls the trigger or what if the gun goes off and kills my child.”

Therefore, this schoolteacher—who is barely five feet tall and who has never weighed more than a 115 pounds—wrestled with her six-foot-tall first husband for that gun.

“I was terrified that my child would get killed,” she said. “I finally got my hands on the handle of the gun, the barrel aimed at his chest; and I pulled the trigger and it only clicked. He brought an UNLOADED gun to scare me, but I ended up scaring him and I scared myself.”

“He was shaking like a leaf and he said, ‘You really would’ve killed me, wouldn’t you?!’ I looked down and saw that he had urinated in his pants because I pulled that trigger. It still bothers me that I pulled that trigger, but my child, all I could think of was my child. He left and never came back.”

For most of us, we remember at least one female schoolteacher that we liked or even loved. While I have plenty of male teachers to thank, like most of us, our female teachers were typically the majority when we were in grade school. There was always one teacher who sparked our desire to learn or who did something or said something that we fondly remember or that changed our lives for the better. At least I hope we all have that memory.

Now, I have nothing profound to say about domestic abuse or gun violence. I only ask that you remember your favorite female schoolteacher and try imagining her being beaten or having to face the same ugly scenario as my Mom’s friend faced over fifty years ago.

Coda: A couple of years ago the United Nations Secretary General initiated a campaign to end violence against women. U. N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon named it “Orange Day” and designated the 25^th day of each month as Orange Day in recognition of the ongoing fight to end violence against women.

The irony for me is that my mother, who was darker complexioned than I, had beautiful copper undertones in her skin and wore the color Orange better than anybody I know. And while my Dad never abused my mom or any woman, one of the last things my Mama told me before she passed on to the ancestors was that before she ever knew or married my Dad, was that she had an early boyfriend who did not hesitate to give her a black eye! So this blog is as much for her as it is for her good friend, and men like Dad.

You can read more about the United Nations “Orange Day” campaign here: http://endviolence.un.org/orangeday.shtml

Learn more about the law and the abuse of women at:

Can a United States Federal Judge Keep His Job is He is Criminally Charged with Domestic Abuse? YES!

FREE MARISSA NOW.COM which covers information and updates about the Florida woman facing 60 years in prison for firing a warning shot at an abusive husband.

This Blog was written by Leslye Joy Allen and is protected by U. S. Copyright Law and licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. Any partial or total reference to this blog, or any total or partial excerpt of this blog must contain a direct reference to this hyperlink: http://leslyejoyallen.com with Leslye Joy Allen clearly and visibly stated as the author. All Rights Reserved.

Leslye Joy Allen

Social Commentary, History, Theatre, Jazz, and the Environment

Category Archives: domestic abuse