It’s Wednesday. So far:
1) a Black woman was murdered by a Black man after tweeting about sexual assault.
2) a Black male rapper processed, with grace and love, what he said to racist White male pastor but immediately clapped back at the Black women who checked him on it.
1) a Black woman was murdered by a Black man after tweeting about sexual assault.
2) a Black male rapper processed, with grace and love, what he said to racist White male pastor but immediately clapped back at the Black women who checked him on it.
3) a group of Black men threw a Black woman in a dumpster while others laughed, filmed and uploaded it to social media.
4) a Black man knocked a Black woman unconscious with a skateboard because she rejected him while others laughed, filmed and uploaded it to social media.
4) a Black man knocked a Black woman unconscious with a skateboard because she rejected him while others laughed, filmed and uploaded it to social media.
5) a Black male rapper released a song criticizing a Black woman’s tone and not treating Black men with more care and patience when it comes to the push for Black liberation.
This doesn’t even take into account the micro aggressions, personal attacks, gaslighting and other forms of harm sisters are experiencing in their personal lives and online that we don’t know about.
When we talk about toxic masculinity, when we talk about deadly ideologies that center Black men, when we are talking about the pain Black women endure every single day that gets ignored— this is what we’re talking about. But y’all know that.
Black men, young and old, play dumb when it comes to holding each other accountable. These things keep happening but, somehow, they don’t know any of the men doing it. Now, all of a sudden, niggas are just as amazed as we are.
Somehow, no Black man knows another Black man who is physically, emotionally, verbally, spiritually, financially violent. All this emotional terrorism Black women are experiencing, in public and private, at the hands of Black men and nobody knows the agents.
Y’all got in your feelings when it was said a few years ago but cishet Black men *are* the White people of the Black community.
They are centered. They are privileged. They do not care. In Black communities, cishet Black men can say/do anything and get away with it.
They are centered. They are privileged. They do not care. In Black communities, cishet Black men can say/do anything and get away with it.
And you “good/godly” Black men are the worst. You hide behind the allure of being different when you are just as harmful as the rest of them.
Your sneakiness and benevolent misogynoir has left its own trail of bodies.
Your sneakiness and benevolent misogynoir has left its own trail of bodies.
Black men want racists to stop killing them. For the past month, they’ve been saying they want White people to take their White knees off their Black necks and the entire world has stopped to listen. And that matters.
Black women want some shit, too, tho.
Black women want some shit, too, tho.
It goes without saying we want a world free of racism.
What matters more is being respected and valued by the men we’re in community with—from our familial relationships to intimate relationships to friendships to business partnerships to strangers walking past us.
What matters more is being respected and valued by the men we’re in community with—from our familial relationships to intimate relationships to friendships to business partnerships to strangers walking past us.
We want Black men to be honest and deal with their own shit, seek help and accountability, be accountable to each other, read more and act like fully formed human beings. That ain’t too much to ask.
It’s fucking Wednesday.
It’s fucking Wednesday.
