We even see the AIDS epidemic contributing to the deforestation of significant areas-because of coffin construction. So this is really a violence issue-not the same violence we deal with in Boston, where teenagers stab and shoot each other, but the violence of African men who are killing themselves, and killing African women and children, with pathological promiscuity. For us there were theological, cultural, and political connections between the various catastrophic consequences of certain forms of male sexual behavior. Many of the church leaders were ambivalent-even after we raised questions about the responsibility of churches and the faith community in general. There was something politically sensitive about criticizing Africans for their sexual behavior because of the concerns that some had that one might be starting down the slippery slope of racial stereotyping.
Patriarchs are fathers.
Fathers don't kill women and children. But the real point is not about where the norms come from. The real point is that they are no longer defensible-if they ever were. They are seriously dysfunctional. The cultural norms about sexual behavior are now producing untold suffering by spreading a lethal disease among women, resulting in premature, horrible death for those infected.