Out Of Love Analysis

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Love is a sacred emotion that people from all cultures covet and is the pinnacle of human existence for many. From young ages, people are taught to look forward to finding their soulmate whom they can love and find eternal happiness. However, this is not the realities of love in most cases. Although love is depicted as something pure and perfect, the media portrays Black love as a gimmick that lacks foundation and is unstable. Numerous shows and movies depict Black couples in promiscuous relationships, where either party is left manic and/or heartbroken. Particularly, TWENTY88’s short film for their album Out of Love demonstrates the infidelity, distrust, and instability that underlie modern Black love, set in a futuristic period. In conjunction with …show more content…
In How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America by Kiese Laymon he speaks on how Black culture perpetuates cheating and doing Black women wrong because Black men don’t want to knock each other’s “hustle”. This realization occurs in the chapter “Echo: Mychal, Darnell, Kiese, Kai, and Marlon” where he and his friends reflect on their voyage into manhood, the position they find themselves in as Blacks in America, and love. Kiese stated, “No matter what another black man I cared for did to a woman or a group of women or his male partner, I was never to call him out or tell other people about his game” (Laymon 77). As he laments on the errors of his ways, Kiese realizes that holding each other accountable for our actions is a crucial way to spread love throughout the Black community. In fact, this would result in Blacks having healthier relationships by demonstrating love for themselves and their brethren through holding each other to a certain standard. Charleston’s “Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Patriarch: Black Masculine Identity Formation Within the Context of Romantic Relationships” strengthens this argument by