We Hate Black Women: Understanding the Vitriol Attacks When Black Women Err According to Black Respectability Politics and Norms
We hate Black women. We, as in all of us, hate Black women. Our first inclination is not to love them. We have to be intentional about learning how to do that. Some of us have been. Some of us continuously put in the work required to shed society’s indoctrination to think less of Black Girls and women, but hatred towards Black women is embedded in our culture. It’s a difficult cloak to shed for all of us.
Even Black women hate Black women. We have to unlearn that first. Black women are easy targets for our hatred too, because we all hate ourselves in part, and Black women are our reflections. We dare not admit that. But,they are, we are, the reflections of humanity. They are the reminders of how great we could be, but often aren’t. Everything sprung from us.
It’s also easy to hate Black women because there is no recourse for spewing our hatred towards Black women. Black women have no protectors. Some are fortunate enough to have them as individuals, but Black women are not protected as a whole. When a Black woman does something that angers us, it incites the hatred we feel towards ourselves and each other.
We are angered at the audacity of a Black woman to think and act freely. How dare she diverge from the status quo. We cannot simply disagree. We must offend them to defend ourselves, even when their actions are not aimed towards us at all. Their errors are unforgivable. Their features become fodder. Their intellect, abilities, and preparedness questioned.
If a Black woman’s actions make us uncomfortable, we are angry. If they force us to wrestle with our own thoughts, we are angry. If they challenge us in any way, we are angry. If they differ from us, we are angry. If they are the same, we are angry. We do not fear them like we do White men. We do not envy or desire them like we do White women. We do not deify and adore them like we do Black men. We are not mystified by them from a distance like we are every other race or ethnic group. We do not stuff our feelings in the width of throats to work alongside them like we do everyone else. We despise them.
We are angry when Black women feel they have the right to be human; to know and demand their worth; to SPEAK when silence has been demanded; to rock the boat; to be different; to defy respectability politics; to stand alone; to show our definition of disloyalty. How dare one we think so little of feel so empowered when we don’t?
#40Lessonsin40Years