Up until this point, my pieces have worked to address misogynoir perpetrated by black men, the larger society, and the black community. In a recent article “An Open Letter To Black Men: You’re Proximity To Us Isn’t Enough” I discuss a viral video of a black male Youtuber who used his platform to condemn a black woman to the fate of dying alone due to her ‘average’ looks, single mother status, and hesitancy to ‘submit.’ Here, I observed how despite the many black men who were eager to host sermon’s telling black women that we were too defective and broken to be worthy of anything and any man (even them), there were too many black women who were lining up ready to hear it. Even the woman who was subject to verbal abuse stated that she liked the show of the man who was currently telling her she was undeserving. This incident drew attention to the fact that although black men have definitely helped fan the flames of misogynoir, black women have sold ourselves and our daughters short. By supporting men who actively work against our own interests as black women, laying down our lives for those who would never do the same for us, and protecting and coddling the bodies and the egos of those who routinely disparage us, we shoot ourselves in the foot. In doing so, black women have helped feed a monster to our own detriment and we’ve been doing so for far too long.
Black patriarchy is that monster and it’s a monster whose conception as we know it today starts with slavery. In Arah Iloabugichukwu’s article “Black Women, Pain is not a Pathway to Love” she explains how slavery instilled a sense of authority within black men over black women (assuming that didn’t exist before which I doubt). Black men, robbed of their ability to exercise the privileges and power that patriarchy should have afforded them, sought to rebuild their patriarchy at the expense of black women. Slavery helped to create an air of entitlement to the benefit of black women’s labor and that was something that had every intention of exploiting. Black women found their ability to slave away for someone else’s benefit as an expectation and we were expected to do this with a smile.
This was especially important during the civil rights movement when black women played an important role in advancing the cause alongside black men. As the issue of the effects of white oppression on the black community, black men were smack dab in the middle of the spotlight and black women were told to channel their energies into racial justice, all while enduring sexism and blatant erasure in a movement they were instrumental in. But did black women put their foot down and demand a spotlight? Did we refuse our labor and demand the taming of black patriarchy? For the most part no.
Black women have been socialized to take pride in martyrdom, pain, and self-sacrifice. What else would black women be praised for? Not our beauty, not our softness which we’ve been left behind, not our femininity which we’ve been denied. Because black patriarchy positions black men as the head of the house, an attack on them is an attack on us. Black women then operate as the first and last line of defense for the community and the country, constantly being called to arms when we’re attacked and during election season when white people will vote for their own white supremacist demise.
Because black men were the victims of death and oppression that left black women as the last ones standing. So no, it didn’t matter that black women were being erased and omitted. Our sons and brothers and nephews were being killed and blocked out of society. If we cared about the future of the community it was in our best interest to prioritize their lives. But then the civil rights movement ended. The protests died down and the number of police arrests went up. Despite the fact that black women were also victims of the new war, we set aside our plight once again to fight in the name of someone else.
Black patriarchy constantly tells black women that their survival depends on black men’s survival and that it’s in our best interest to continue to fight. Even though racism has a a lot more than nine lives, we can’t afford to give up. So we groom our daughters to be the next strong black woman and the next ride or dies. We teach them to see themselves through the eyes of their brothers. We teach them to martyr themselves, to self-sacrifice and to put themselves last. As a result I think we forgot about how our womanhood affects the way we move through the world and that we had our own battles to fight.
Because we can’t stand the idea of our brothers facing jail time or punishment from the larger society, we sacrifice ourselves and our daughters for their protection. Nowadays, you don’t call the police on a black man, even if he’s a threat to your safety. Nowadays, you don’t dare condemn a black man to prison, even though he’s spent decades of his life raping and assaulting the girls and women who look like your daughter. Nowadays, you allow a black man to call a black woman out of her name because she asked questions about the history of another black man’s sexual assault. Nowadays you don’t question or condemn the actions of a black man, even if he shot an innocent black woman for fear of ‘taking a black man down.’ Then when you turn a blind eye to their crimes and wrongdoings, you go out and do what you’ve been taught. You set aside your own plight and fight for a cause that continuously refuses to acknowledge yours.
Although advocacy for one’s community is noble, in the black community it’s become black women’s poison. We are flocking to support the channels and endeavors of black men who make a living off of disparaging us. We are rushing to the front line to fight for a group of men that for the most part is silent about the misogynoir that plagues us. We financially support men, who for the most part don’t invest in us the way we invest in them.
The fact of the matter is that despite the ‘you go girl!’ and ‘we love you black women’ black men and society gives us, black women are being exploited. The black community and the world at large have taken advantage of our penchant for martyrdom, self-sacrifice, and dissociation and used it to fuel their own interests.
But they have done so because we’ve let them.
Despite how we complain about being mules, there is still a part of us that likes the attention we receive because of it. We have fed the beast and we have prepared our daughters for the slaughter for generations in the name of fighting the good fight against racism. We need to stop, but every time we find someone or something that questions our desire to sacrifice ourselves for someone else the first thing we do is ponder the consequences of what could happen if we stop fighting for other people.
“What about my son?”
“What about my nephew?”
“What about my brother?”
“What about my father?”
“What about my uncle?”
What about you? What about your daughters? What about your nieces? Black women are dying of police brutality, domestic violence, pregnancy complications, STD’s, and cancer. We are being raped, assaulted, and abused. Our reproductive health is deteriorating, our minds are deteriorating, our bodies are deteriorating. When we go out to fight on the front lines we do so without the benefit of collective protection from anyone. But because black women’s issues are nonexistent in the conversation around racial justice and because we are brainwashed into thinking that black men’s oppression and black women’s oppression are synonymous (they’re not) we ignore all of this to fight for black men under the impression that we are fighting for ourselves. We are so hellbent on ensuring their survival we neglect our own.
When statistics come out that reveal that most crime against black women is intraracial-meaning that it comes at the hands of black men- we close our ears and sing ‘la la la’ or accuse them of being anti-black man. When we are brought to task about the black men who abandon their children, we blame the mother for not choosing better instead of asking ourselves why those men refuse to do better for their children. When our daughters are assaulted and raped, we roll our eyes and call them fast instead of calling out the predators in our communities. We are so indoctrinated with the message of ‘protect black men’ we are willing to uphold black patriarchy at our own expense, dragging black women who won’t do the same.
In our blindness to defend and protect black men we have become them, seeing the world through their eyes. But if we really want to be protected, we need to untangle ourselves from them and black patriarchy. So instead begging them to love us, instead of fighting for their care, we need to withdraw and redirect our course. Our power as women comes from leaning back not leaning in. Stop teaching your daughters to be male-identified. Stop teaching them to dissociate themselves from their womanhood. Stop teaching them to take pride in the amount of abuse they are able to endure. If we want anything to change, if we want to stop being erased, we need to stop feeding the monster that is black patriarchy. We need to develop our self-esteem and the self-esteem of our future daughters. We need to stop investing our resources and time in people who hate us or are apathetic towards our plight. We need to stop serving as martyrs for people that aren’t interested in serving as martyrs for us. We need to do our research on issues that affect black women. We need to stop putting ourselves last. We need to stop self-sacrificing. We need to stop advertising our pain to the world and calling it activism. We need to learn the art of self-care and reconnect with our divine feminine. Go on retreats. Journal. Go to therapy. Develop your self-worth and self-confidence. Invest in your black daughters, they are the future. Teach her to put herself first because no one else will. Don’t condemn them to the fate of being a mule for a world that could care less.
As for black men? If you want to advocate for both black men and black women then fine. But black men are oppressed, not helpless, and black patriarchy is a powerful thing. You set out to advocate for both the sexes until you realize you’re only advocating for one of them. I can’t continue to fight for a group of men who have used their power in the marriage market to abuse black women and wield black patriarchy to oppress us. The fact of the matter is that black men are not invested in the continuation of black women the way we are with them. Black men are still on the warpath to achieve the patriarchal power and privileges that white supremacy refuses them. They will not protect and provide for us in the way that we need to and they will not center our plight. Black patriarchy will not allow them to. Black women are going to have to do that work for ourselves.
The reason why I say ‘our daughters’ a lot in this article is because we tend to neglect them in this community. Especially if the are darker skinned. As soon as these girls become teenagers, we check out and leave them for dead, citing difficult teenage behavior for doing so while we coddle and protect our sons for better or for worse. The truth is that many of us are walking around with wounds on our hearts because our mothers were our first bullies and the first ones to give up on us. Then these women have daughters and the cycle continues. Black patriarchy has taught us that black women are a bad investment. But by emphasizing that black women are inherently precious not just activists and organizers, I hope to help people realize that investing in your children- in your daughters- is never wrong.
References
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