My cousin has a word for y’all…
Firstly, I want to say that this post is about a black intracommunity issue, by which I mean it’s for black people, and aimed at black men particularly. If you’re nonblack you should not like, comment on, or share this post. You can read it, but no commentary.
I have issues with the movement toward black liberation as it stands, and that issue has nothing to do with how it is being carried out against the system. The police and judicial systems need to be abolished, black people are going to riot and loot and that is 100% fine because we have been oppressed for hundreds of years, and there isn’t a single white person who gets to have an opinion otherwise about any black issue.
My issue is that our movement toward black liberation is once again throwing black women to the wayside, and black people cannot be free until all black people are free. Let me be clear, every time black people have moved toward liberation black women have been left behind. To my fellow black men, throughout history, we have gotten more from black struggles than black women. Despite the impediments white people put in our way, we got the right to vote before black women. To this day black men are still on average paid more than black women. Even in our suffering we are heard while black women are silenced; the deaths of black men at the hands of police garner public outrage while the deaths of black women are hardly touched upon, especially if they are trans. The success of male-led black movements have always left black women with scraps, and we cannot allow that to happen again. To do so would be morally repugnant.
Black women need to be at the forefront of this movement. It is not enough to simply listen, black women must be allowed to lead, to make decisions regarding the future of black people in America and to get credit for those contributions. Just as white people are allowed the privilege of not being aware of black issues, we, as black men, are allowed the privilege of not being aware of black women’s issues. Many black people agree that the police need to be abolished. Yes. Wonderful. What systems are we going to put in place to make sure that young black girls are not going to be trafficked? What plans are we going to implement to protect black women from domestic abusers? How are we going to combat the adultification and sexualization of young black girls that happens in our own community? We, as black men, create and simultaneously ignore these issues now, so how can we possibly assume that we’ll have an answer for it later? The leadership of black women will allow them to put policies in place to protect themselves from us, because they have to PROTECT THEMSELVES FROM US. FROM. BLACK. MEN.
The leadership of a black male majority will leave black women as vulnerable as they are under the police state – and white America as a whole - right now. I don’t want to hear about how the white man keeps the black man from wealth when we have not talked about how to make sure black women will be as wealthy as we are. I don’t care what we, as black men, will do to a white person if they call us out our name, if we are not concerned about how to put policies in place to protect black women from sexual assault, and if they are assaulted, how to make sure they receive the justice they deserve. We haven’t looked at these issues for hundreds of years and we’re not going to magically start now. The only remedy is to purposefully uplift the voices of black women, purposefully educate ourselves on how we oppress them, purposefully work to undo the harm, suffering, and framework that has oppressed them, and purposefully follow their leadership so they can live in a world where they don’t have to fear white people or black men.
And uplifting the voices of black women, means ALL black women, it means standing for and defending ALL black women. That means black women with dark skin, fat black women, depressed black women, black women with PTSD, disabled black women, black women we’re not romantically attracted to, black women who aren’t romantically attracted to us, black women we’re not sexually attracted to, black women who aren’t sexually attracted to us, black women who don’t like us, single black mothers (regardless of the number of children or baby daddies), autistic black women, trans black women, black women who don’t want children, black women who have had abortions, black women with different religious views, black women in interracial relationships, black women in same-sex relationships, and the list continues on and on and on and on and on.
Additionally, we as black men cannot stand with and fight for black women solely because they have experienced more oppression, because they have suffered so much, or because we have been impediments on their road to freedom. Let me be clear, we cannot ignore these issues, to do so would be a disgusting erasure of the suffering black women have experienced by our hands. I am saying that we cannot base our support for black women off of the pain they have endured. We cannot make the value of black women congruent with their ability to survive suffering nor can we support them simply because they are our sisters, mothers, daughters, etc. Essentially, our support for black women cannot be contingent on their relationship to us or how we view them. We must support black women because they are people, their relationship to us is irrelevant. We must support black women because they are people who deserve happiness, who deserve freedom, who deserve to live their lives fearlessly and unabashedly. Because if we do not view and support black women as autonomous and separate from what we believe black women should be, we will put ourselves first as we have historically done, and that is unacceptable.
If you, as a black man, think you are exempt from oppressing black women you’re wrong. Think about when we were in school, if we made fun of girls with dark skin or let it happen then we are a part of the problem – and there’s no “I was a kid” because if we want white people to understand that white children must understand the weight of their racism then we as black men have to make sure little black boys understand the weight of their sexism, misogyny, and colorism which means owning up to what we did when we were younger. Look at our Instagram or Twitters, are the only black women we follow mixed or light skin black women with “good hair?” If so, we are perpetuating the oppression of black women who do not possess those traits, doubly so if we possess some unholy fetish for white women only. Do the YouTubers we watch make fun of dark skin black women? Do the social media comedians we watch base their videos off caricatures of “undesirable” black women? If we fall under any of these, we are part of the problem, and that’s only the tip of colorism which is only a piece of the oppression black women experience because of black men.
Again, we must support black women and allow them to lead, and I want to clarify the word “allow.” We are NOT granting black women permission like some overseer; we are going to stop blocking their way so they can do the work they’ve been attempting to do since the inception of black people’s fight for freedom and ensure that they are receiving everything they deserve.
Additionally, our support for black women cannot be limited to their inclusion in this movement. We have to support black women in all avenues of life. That means we have to ACKNOWLEDGE that we oppress black women and benefit from that oppression. EDUCATE ourselves on the existing framework that allows black men to oppress black women both passively and intentionally. SEEK the opinions, literature, and media of black women as to garner and even greater understanding of our role in their oppression and what steps they believe we need to take to end it. CONFRONT our own worldview and those of our fellow black men with the facts and knowledge we have gained to create a clear picture of who is for black women and who is not. ENGAGE constantly with material actions, not just theoretical rhetoric, that will benefit black women. CREATE safe spaces for black women in areas that lacked them before. SUPPORT the businesses and careers of black women. UPLIFT their voices and DEFEND their right to speak and lead. DESTROY the framework that exists and ASSIST in the creation of a new framework that allows black women to truly have equality.
Finally, I want to make sure this is understood by my fellow black men: Nothing, and I mean absolutely nothing I have said here is new; black women have been saying these things for years, and I am using my privilege as a black man to uplift their voices. This is the bare minimum for truly supporting black women!
Yes, racism is an abhorrent plague that has hung over black people in America since we were taken over here and enslaved and yes, we are all fighting for our freedom. But that freedom means nothing if black women are not as free as black men in every regard. It’s Black LIVES Matter. And even so black women STILL had to create the SayHerName movement because their suffering at the hands of the police went unnoticed, and even now that very movement has been coopted by black men, as Say His Name chants and signs appear at protests nationwide. Black liberation is for all black people, black men don’t get a head start.
Additionally: BLACK WOMEN WILL DISAGREE WITH ME AND CORRECT ME WHERE I AM WRONG. AS THAT HAPPENS, I MUST CORRECT MY FAULTS, AS MUST YOU. THE OPINIONS OF BLACK WOMEN WILL ALWAYS SUPERCEDE MY OWN!!!!!