The Male Privilege Checklist

Why I Am a Black Male Feminist When I was a little boy, my mother and father used to argue a lot. Some mornings, I would wake up to the alarming sound of my parents arguing loudly. The disagreement would continue until my father would yell with finality, "That is it! I'm not talking about this anymore!" My dad's yelling made me shrink in fear; I wanted to do something to make him stop raging against my mother. My father didn't always mistreat my mother, but when he did, I identified with her pain, not his bullying. One morning, after my father yelled at my mom during an argument, she and I stood in the bathroom together, alone, getting ready for the day ahead of us. I so badly wanted my mother to stand up for herself. I grew to resent my father's dominance in the household, even though I loved him as dearly as I loved my mother. One day, as we sat at the kitchen table after another of their many spats, my mother told me, "Byron, don't ever treat a woman the way your father treats me." Feminists did not hate men.