I Don't Want The "Love" That Is Really Violence
I have been coming to terms with some of the ways that Black men use the word “love” and how utterly terrifying and triggering it is for me as a Black woman. I shared some thoughts about this on Twitter recently (now in a tweet collection, Love As Praxis) because it has been bothering me for…well my entire life…but specifically in the last couple of years on Twitter/Tumblr etc. and the last couple of years in my personal life. I don’t want to be told by any Black men how much they "loooove Black women." I don’t really care. Again, I said I don’t want to be told this; I did not state what they can or cannot say to someone else. I can dictate what I want around me.
Perhaps this sounds confusing. But what I have assessed is that the very same violence and abuse that I experience because of Black men who will admit that they hate me or hate Black women in general, is the very same or similar violence and abuse that I experience at the hands of Black men who regularly proffer their “love” for me or for Black women in general. To be clear, when I speak of “love” in this context, it is not just about the cishet Black male gaze and their sexual desire or “romantic love” for Black women. (I identify as an ace and I don’t really date; the notion that this violence only exists in romantic space [though of course in this space is incredibly serious and important to recognize] is simply untrue. Being single and ace [and these two things aren’t the same, by the way] does not make me “safe” from misogynoir.) This is about “love” being referred to in the context of justice, yet so little proof exists of this reality, in an intersectional way (as in, yeah Black men will show up for Blackness when cishet Black men are centered; I’m speaking of Black women experiencing violence, however). It’s not just in the context of sexuality do these declarations of “love” surface but regularly as a rebuttal to silence Black women speaking up about the reality of violence in our lives. As I alluded to in my tweets that night:
Love? I am so disinterested in “love” in the context of patriarchy. I have no use for it. It is honestly fucking stupid to me. Period. When “love” for Black women means fetishizing sexually, disregarding regularly, street harassing, assaulting, raping, murdering? It is of no use to me. When “love” for Black women is juxtaposed to the amount of service—emotional, intellectual and physical labor—that Black men consume haphazardly? Bye. When “love” means “follow these rules and maybe I won’t harm you…today” at best and “well Black women deserve harm, duh” at worse? Goodbye.
A lot of time is spent discussing “love” and “hate” towards Black women as if these differ in the context of patriarchy and in the context of misogynoir. I am not interested in “I looooove Black women” as a statement from Black men and not as an interpersonal and structural praxis. I DO NOT CARE. AT ALL. In fact, I find it highly fucking triggering for Black men on or offline to even suggest they “love Black women” when their actions do not confer it.
I genuinely do not care what someone’s opinion is on whether they “love” or “hate” Black women, as actions of these words are interchangeable. Until the way violence happens—as rationalized, as even cheered when the victim is a Black woman—changes, Black men’s declarations of “love” for Black women still isn’t praxis. For me, these Black men’s useless declarations of “love” for Black women that requires no decolonization, no receipts, no praxis? Not of interest.
The Black men who hate me have street harassed me for 23 years. The Black men who “love” me defend the former men’s street harassment, gaslight me, or announce how much they “love” Black women and don’t engage in street harassment, so I should shut up about the ones who do. The Black men who hate me troll my Twitter/Gradient Lair with vile insults and threats. The Black men who “love” me don’t want to hear about these attacks because they are more concerned with Black men not “looking bad” for the White Gaze than they are concerned about my safety; they’ll gladly victim blame instead with statements that amount to "oh just ignore that misogynoiristic violence that you experience by the minute, which male privilege protects me from." The Black men who hate me cape for racist White women and center non-Black women over Black women in every way possible, whether in the smallest disagreement, to beauty standards to sexual and social politics. The Black men who “love” me stand silently by as the former ones do what they do.
The Black men who hate me suggest that any mention of violence that Black women experience and any rejection of oppression is really “hatred” of Black men because ”love” requires silence, accepting abuse and dog-like loyalty. The Black men who “love” me expect to be placed on a pedestal and centered in my womanism if they spend maybe 1-2 tweets replying to the former. The Black men who hate me inflict emotional abuse on the regular. The Black men who “love” me aren’t interested in listening to that experience and instead expect a mammy for their problems in a one-way street relationship for which if I ever say “no” I can expect the wrath of their violence for days/months/years since they’re socialized to believe that Black women have no right to reject them or engage in self-care. The Black men who hate me engage in a plethora of forms of violence against me and always have. The Black men who “love” me, even some family, engage in emotional abandonment and leave solving issues and healing myself, to myself. A Black man who told me he “loved” me also sexually assaulted me when I was in college. I don’t want the “love” that is really violence. I mean…there’s Black men who will read this and then will reply that I should focus on racism instead and on State violence on Black women, not Black men’s violence on Black women. Then of course when I bring State violence up, I am told it doesn’t exist for Black women and Black men are the only victims of State violence. And in the same breath, they’ll suggest that they “love” Black women. How?
In my previous post on the hashtag #LoveMeLike—where Black women spoke of amazing, deserved, nuanced, political, justice-centric, all encompassing love—I mentioned what love looks like to me. Thus, I am not suggesting any of the fallacious rebuttals that I will receive such as "oh you like White men,” or "oh you think other men are better,” or "oh so you want to be hated and harmed since you said you don’t want "love" that actually manifests as violence!" Of course so much of the intraracial violence that Black women experience is because of the impact of White supremacy, anti-Blackness, racism and more on our lives; the devaluation of Black women is not Black men’s “arbitrary” intraracial “pathology” since it in fact mirrors the same interracial oppressive experiences that Black women endure.
I simply have no use for and am triggered by declarations of “love” shaped in violence. Black men regularly expect me to “debate” my humanity in a way similar to how Whites expect all Black people to “debate” ours, where rejecting that “debate" is deemed "hatred" of Whites (which I do not, though hating an oppressor doesn’t oppress an oppressor anyway). I am tired of being expected to endure the violence of this “love” in addition to the reality of hatred and oppression and then I am told no, it’s me who “really” “hates Black men” because I don’t repay their “love”—which regularly manifests as abandonment at best, as violence at worst—with adoration, loyalty and silence. This “love” harms me. It suffocates me daily. I am left in an emotionally non-breathing state that to them just looks like me “playing dead” since they also, just like Whites/non-Black people of colour, easily believe that Black women are incapable of experiencing pain, at best, or deserve harm, at worst. I don’t want “love” that requires me to hurt and requires me to pretend that I don’t hurt, at the same time.
Related Posts: 7 Conversations That I Am No Longer Having With Black Men, Black Men’s Abuse of Black Women and A Call For Radical Love (Or At Least A Truce), Can Black Men Understand Black Women’s Experiences With Sexism/Misogynoir Without An Immediate Parallel Made To Racism?
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