Myth of Manhood: Chapter Four, Name dropping is unecessary

As a young kid I wanted a "starter" jacket. These jackets were popular back in the late eighties and early nineties. The jackets featured NFL teams and were high status symbols with the youth. If I remember correctly, they were priced in the $100 — $150 range. I remember kids were getting killed for these jackets back in the day, which is really insane when one gives serious thought to this subject.

Well, I eventually got one of those jackets. Looking back on it now, the person who bought me that jacket wasted their money. I say that because as I remember it, the jacket did not keep me particularly warm. I'd had better insulated jackets over the years and I'm willing to bet their price was below $150. But my young impressionable mind was displaying an American value that our culture permeates: materialism.

There are situations when buying a name brand merchandise makes sense. When the product is associated with quality, you pay more because it's going to last longer. Thus, saving you money in the long term.

Yet, our culture promotes the idea of buying items not for quality but to symbolize prestige. Individuals in our culture purchase jewelry, name brand clothes and cars to show people that they're affluent. The only problem is the majority of the time they're not affluent, just fronting like they are.

In fact many people go into debt trying to show they're wealthy! This "name dropping" is related to "Prices others have paid." These myths fuel one another and are similar to a domino effect. Many of us are busy looking at our neighbor's, co-workers, relatives and trying to keep up/compete with them. We want they have because we're just as important as them or maybe even better than them. If they can have it, why can't I?

The answer to the question is simply, because we usually can't afford it. Although, this does not stop people from either spending their hard earned cash, borrowing money they don't have or putting their life at risk for items (cars, clothes etc) that quickly depreciate in value.

I remember watching a comedian joke about mid-to late 90's rappers. He stated these rappers were bad PR for black men. They had the nice cars, pretty girls but were still unhappy in their videos. This astute observation made by the jokester sheds light on what statistics show us about materialistic people: they are generally unhappy. On average, materialistic people tend to be more depressed than regular folk in the population. They usually drink too much and use illicit substances. Even for folk who just yearn to have more money suffer worse mental health.

The reason is it's hard to stay in front for long when it comes to materialism. Think of how fast trends change in this society. Now imagine how much it would cost to always have the new hot item. The only way an individual can keep up is to be extremely wealthy. Statistics show the majority of Americans are no where near extremely wealthy.

For many black men who believe in the ideal of materialism, it is believed vacant esteem is the cause. Dr. Joy Degruy Leary, author of Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome defines vacant esteem as: "the state of believing oneself to have little or no worth, exacerbated by the group and societal pronouncement of inferiority." Dr. Leary went on to say, "People who believe themselves to have little worth, little power, little self efficacy, will often do whatever they can do to don the trappings of power, even if it means acting out the demeaning roles society considers appropriate for them."

Whether the case be vacant esteem, narcissism or whatever, we as group of men must take in honest look in the mirror. We need to ask and answer the difficult questions: Are we builders or destroyers? Do we make our communities stronger or weaker? Can we be counted on to do as we say? Are people better off for knowing us or not? The answers to these questions are better indicators of value or self worth than material possessions.

People can change. African Americans fight for equality since our arrival in North America is proof of our ability to change circumstances through will and perseverance. The catch is the agent of change always resides within each individual.

The question for us men is do we want to change or continue "name-dropping" till we die? Our survival as a group of men may be determined by our answer.