"Why Do We Hate Our Sistas?"

"I wonder why we take from our women? Why we rape our women, do we hate our women? I think it's time to kill for our women, time to heal our women, be real to our women" -Tupac Shakur; Rapper, Actor, Revolutionary


Define visionary. Define prophecy. Both words are synonymous with Tupac Shakur. Let me connect the dots for you, follow me. The above quote is from a song called, "Keep Ya Head Up" by Tupac, released in 1993. The next line is "And if we don't we'll have a race of babies, that'll hate the ladies, that make the babies". Again, this song was released in 1993.

Fast forward to 2016. Black women, do you constantly feel like black men hate black women? I'm sure a good bit of you do. I hear it all the time and see it all the time... sometimes I even think it for you. So if nothing else, Tupac's words proved to be prophetic in the way that this is even a conversation. Social media is an eery place. It has developed into what has commonly been coined as a 24 hour news cycle. But the news is not only the news that the government sees fit to share with us. It's constant links and opinions and gossip from everyone in the world. Those paid and unpaid alike have almost an equal voice. Which is dangerous. So let's use twitter for example. More specifically, #BlackTwitter. If you have a substantial amount of people you follow and said people have a substantial number of followers, you probably are privy to the same "news" cycle as everybody else in #BlackTwitter. It's a numbers game. So I think more so than anything else, this is the root of black women 35 and under feeling like black men hate them. It's definitely not the genesis. Black stereotypes have long been perpetuated inside and outside of the black community but now there's really and endless platform for the rhetoric. The frustration. The complaining. The timeline!!

I pride myself on being a logical thinker. Which is a gift and a curse. But for this conversation I can't just use logic. Because logic tells me that there's clear agendas here. Logic tells me that if you're a woman you're going to be more susceptible to the complaints about women than you are about men. Which would lead you to believe that the complaints about women are more. I'm not here to defend that claim. I actually believe that in 2016, from my experience and what I've seen it could actually be true. And that's partially because I feel, now more than ever, it's more accepted for men to complain publicly. Which is alarming to me. I was taught, for better or for worse, that a man's first job is to protect. More emphasis was placed on that during my upbringing because I'm black and black women in America face oppression and attack like no other. With that being said, BLACK women feeling like black men hate them, hurts me. It annoys me. It angers me. And it's very frustrating to me. Unless you're new here, you know I write blogs that mostly cater to black women. Giving them somewhat of a spokesmen to my male contemporaries that can't understand what they're saying. Because it's emotion vs logic and most men weren't raise to embrace understanding and analyzing emotion. So when women speak from an emotional place, most men weren't typically trained to properly listen to that. I've wrote many blogs that give what I hope is clarity. I'm not a woman, more specifically a black woman, at all but I always wish to understand. Wish to learn. So that's what I want to focus on here. I don't want to discuss who complains the most. I want to discuss why our women feel like we hate them.

Throughout our history as black Americans we have strategically been taught to hate to ourselves. To hate each other. Divide and conquer. It worked. Unfortunately, it worked. But again, a man's first job is to protect. And black men, we have failed our women. So many of society's ills show this but I think the reason our women feel we hate them is because most men fail to understand that despite the stereotypical flaws, even on the occasion that they apply to particular women, men rarely take into account why they're that way. Because from their perspectives, if you really understood how painful it was for the woman you're complaining about to raise her two kids alone you wouldn't be complaining about her trust issues. If you knew how painful it was for Ashley to see her mom get beat by her boyfriend growing up you every two days but never leaving him you wouldn't be complaining about why Ashley doesn't like being submissive. If you understood how Ebony was always treated worse than her light skin sister you wouldn't complain about why she take offense to dark skin women jokes. If you understood that all Brittney's life she was told she was too fat, then when she got smaller she was told her butt wasn't big enough then you wouldn't be complaining about her body insecurities. Why don't you understand? Furthermore, why don't you care to understand? Why do you think this is funny? Why do you, a grown  BLACK man feel the need to say so much negative about black women when you know they have been told they have to be perfect or they're worthless directly or indirectly their whole lives? "An oppressed people will always feel under attack, similar to a war veteran that will always feel like loud noises could be gunshots." Because oppression isn't a sprint. It's a marathon. It's something that's done over a substantial amount of time and the dominoes fall in line. Logic says, I, a black man, shouldn't have to deal with your attitude because you had to raise your two kids alone. I wasn't the father that abandoned your kids. Logic says, I, a black man, am not Ashley's mom's boyfriend. I didn't throw a punch so why do I have to get attitude from Ashley every time I ask her to do something. Logic says, I, a black man, shouldn't have to not prefer light skinned women because Ebony is dark skin and was treated inferior her whole life. I could just like light skinned women. That doesn't mean dark skin women aren't beautiful. Or that I have to discredit a light skin woman's beauty because I want to uplift dark skinned women. Logic says that, I, a black man, can't help it if I love thick thighs or if I'm into slim girls. It's not wrong for me to have my own PERSONAL preference. That's what logic says. But hate is an emotion. Black women feeling like we hate them, no matter the specific reason, is emotion. A very hurtful emotion. And black men are supposed to protect. I can't protect you from your past. Someone has already failed you, beautiful black woman. Whether the failure was intentional or unintentional. Your father may have never left the family, but he missed the signs of you feeling like you weren't pretty enough. I can't blame him if he was the best father he knew how to be but somewhere he failed.

However, beautiful black woman, of all shapes, sizes, and shades I love you. What I'm attracted to physical doesn't negate who I love internally. But I understand that it feels like you're constantly under attack. That doesn't mean I can't voice my frustrations from time to time, that doesn't mean I can't recognize an emotional setback in the behavior of another black woman, but because I know occasionally I do both, I want you to know I still love you, black women. I understand in this constant 24 news cycle it could feel like all you hear/see is black men talking negatively about you. Negativity travels at the speed of light. But, still, we failed you. Our fathers and our grandfathers, failed you. Because as the protectors of the households, we didn't protect you. We allowed you to raise kids by yourselves and for those scars to develop. We allowed division to cause resentment. We allowed outsiders to degrade and abuse you. We allowed even our counterparts to neglect their families with no recourse. But I love you. I have a group of friends, who while we all love differently, we all love black women. Does that mean all of my friends have never dated outside the race? No. Does that mean all black men that date or marry outside the race don't love black women? No. Because no matter who I choose to marry, or date, no matter what her pigment or race may be, I love black women. I will protect my mother, my sisters, and my other "sistas" no matter who I choose as my personal companion. That, even though I understand how some women may feel this way also, is not an indictment against black women. Love is love. So in conclusion, I know these scars are present and there's a thin line between jokes and insults, but black women I will love you as long as my lungs have oxygen in them. I'll love you as long as my mind works. I'll love you as long as my heart beats. Because without a black woman, I don't have lungs, I don't have a mind, and I don't have a heart!


Just My Thoughts