Why Black Women Can’t Love Black Men

     "Why is it so hard for Black women to love us [Black men]? Because we love them the way Amerikkka loves us" (Essex Hemphill). This statement, unpacked, reveals the intra and inter racial dynamics that continue to make Black women appear unloveable; however, the key word in this sentence is appear. In Mules and Men, Zora Neale Hurston (1935) describes the Black female experiences through imagery of mules of the earth. This means that Black women carry a plethora of burdens and wear a multitude of hats in society. We nursed white babies while feeding our own. We were/are simultaneously mammies, jezebels, sapphires, welfare queens, and bitches when convenient. Our looks make us "exotic" and "hypersexual," while our race makes us readily accessible. Whoever told you first wave feminism, a term and categorization I hate to use, was during the nineteenth and early twentieth century didn't know the heart, soul, and determination of Black, female slave women. While white women reinforced and reproduced White, male, patriarchy supremacy (props to bell hooks) to protect their own sanctity, Black women fought for control over their own bodies and families. Black women knew herbal concoctions to induce miscarriages, to prevent their children from a life in shackles. Black women led slave revolts in the United States, Brazil, and Haiti. Let's not forget Harriet Tubman successfully executing the first female led guerrilla movement along the Combahee River. This is not about which feminism was better and which was first, these examples illustrate how Black women continue to be the mules of the earth. With this positionality comes strength, resilience, resistance, and beauty but there is a flip side.

    The flip side of Black women's strength are the myths of the "black superwoman," "the black matriarch," and "the black female emasculator." These concepts did not appear out of thin air, institutional factors such as welfare reform and the Moynihan reports aided in the production and reproduction of these concepts. Regardless of their historical trajectory, one of the unfortunate outcomes was divisions in the Black community. I am sure I will get a great deal of criticism from Black men for this blog, but I don't agree in using silence as a way to hide "dirty laundry." What silence does is marginalize and oppress certain voices within a community. I am so sick and tired of Black men silencing Black women's issues on gender inequality, which is inextricably linked with classism and racism, because they think racism is the main issue. Until we combat racism, let's ignore the other issues in the Black community, including intraracial sexism. But when Black slave women were raped by the white slave owner, they were also being raped by their Black significant others and/or fellow slaves, an issue that is under researched and considered taboo. What we need to realize is rape is not simply a sexual act; rape is an act of power, oppression, and dominance. Rape is used as a weapon, oftentimes by the "powerless", to regain power and control in a way that usually do not directly affect the oppressor. In the case of intraracial rape in slave communities, male slaves used rape in an attempt to regain the power completely stripped from them during the inhuman institution of chattel slavery. This isn't Texas so I can call it what it is. The scope of intraracial rape are unknown and I am not discussing this to dismiss interracial rape and/or to excuse the actions of the rapists. I bring up intraracial and interracial rape in the slave community to provide context to the perception of Black women's bodies and their sexual availability. The case of Saartjie "Sarah" Baartman also illustrates this point. Black women are the scapegoats because of their intersectionalities of oppressions. Instead of privileging the discourses, or as Donna Harraway would call "situated knowledges," because of their unique lived experience, Black women were and continue to be silenced by white men, Black men, and white women… But some of us are brave.

    So how does the history of slavery and oppression fit into why Black women can't love Black men, after all that is the title of this blog? Hurston (1965) explains that, although Black women are the mules of the earth, they aren't passive victims. Mules are animals used to carry things, yet they are also stubborn and strong minded and willed. These are survival mechanisms that can easily be used in an alliance with Black men; unfortunately, instead it is oftentimes misread as a threat to Black men. According to Daniel Patrick Moynihan (1965) in The Negro Family: The Case for National Action, he declared that the reason for the "demise" of the Black community (according to white standards) were Black female headed households. Moynihan's report gained national attention to the Black and white communities; academic, mainstream, and political. Instead of fighting for equality, a term that means something very different for white feminist and feminist of color, many Black power movements focused their attention of recreating Black men as people of power, this usually meant power over Black women. Elaine Brown, former chair person of the Black Panther Party for Self Defense (BPP) came to speak at the University of Illinois in 2006 and explained how several meeting of the BPP dedicated its agenda to discussing issues such as, how many steps behind the men the female members should walk. Brown also expressed, in No! The Rape Documentary, how when she became chairperson she had to enforce a new rule that stated that the men in the BPP could no longer call women bitches. Eldridge Cleaver, another member of the BPP, equated women's power in the organization to their anatomy, claiming that they had "pussy power." These facts are not to say that organizations such as the BPP were simply spheres of gender oppression. The very fact that Elaine Brown was chair person shows that while these organizations could be very sexist and misguided, they were also a space for social change.

    The backlash of Black women having to step up and be strong, serving as mules, but lifting as they climbed, is beautiful. No one can argue that. However, I had a friend say to me that he usually doesn't date Black women from America. He dates "foreign" women because "Black women are fucked up because of all their baggage." My friend added that "Black men are also fucked up," but I guess he wasn't as concerned with that since he doesn't date men. I am not throwing him under the bus because there is some truth to what he is saying, Black women do have baggage. Erykah Badu wasn't lying when she made the song "Bag Lady."





In fact, I oftentimes think she made that song specifically for me and I am still trying to lighten my load. But the fact of the matter is, sentiments such as my friend's, to abandon Black women romantically and/or socially because of the oppressions we went through and continue to bravely face, much of the time because we were trying to support and defend Black men, is straight up bullshit. Is it inevitable that "when they see us coming, niggas take off running…one day he gon say, you crowdin my space?" (Badu 2000). Black women must suffer in silence because when we complain about legitimate issues it is characterized and stigmatized as baggage? When did Black men and Black women become enemies, when we would make perfect allies? Instead of comparing our oppressions to decided which single oppression to combat, we need to work together and realize that our "oppressions intersect, but are not interchangeable" (Phil Williams, 2010). 
     
     If we want to start ranking oppression then Black men need to realize that it actually does them a disservice. Black women are victimized by multiple oppressions based on race, class, gender, and sexuality, so if we are going by numbers, we trump black men so maybe Black men should shut up and listen to us for once. I don't believe in that though. I am often criticized for my lack of competitiveness; but I remain in favor of building alliances and communion. Until Black men stop over compensating for their oppressions and realize Black women are multiply-oppressed by institutional power and sexism in both Black, white, and other communities, and are not the enemies, Black women cannot productively love Black men. Notice, I said "productively love". Until this happens, Black men will continue to love Black women the way Amerikkka loves them, and I just ain't havin that.