#myblackisproject

[myblackisproject]

...Tired of the Nonsense

            I don’t want to be a Black woman anymore.  Let me clarify, I love being a Black woman… I don’t want the unnecessary bullshit nonsense that comes with it anymore.  It’s getting a bit redundant and frustrating.  As I’m getting older, I’m starting to appreciate my existence as a Black woman more and more.  The rest of the world – not so much.  Hearing the rest of the world’s criticism of Black women – particularly from Black men – makes me feel so limited in my existence, when all I want to do is explore every facet of myself. 

            There was a specific event that sparked this frustration.  Don’t laugh please.  It was the release of Beyonce’s latest album.  I recently tweeted that this album along with others like the Saint Heron compilation or Jhene Aiko’s “Sail Out” resonate with me and the countless other Black women gushing over them on social media because they remind us how dynamic and versatile we are.  This music applauds the ability to be strong, vulnerable, outspoken, hurt, sexual, loving, nurturing, fun, innovative, and a million more things at once.  It’s a beautiful thing to acknowledge in anyone, especially people who look like you and can understand some of the things you experience.  What’s not beautiful is the hate that comes always follows something intended to uplift and celebrate a marginalized group. 

            First, there were the feminist groups discrediting Beyonce’s status as a feminist. Bye girl, call the cops.  Just because some of the things (like a successful marriage and maintaining a stable home for your family) that can be a source of empowerment for Black women are lost on white feminists, doesn’t eliminate any Black woman relishing in her solid relationship from donning the title of feminist.  Hate if you want to, but I’ll continue to claim the values of the Third Wave even after I find a husband willing to love me unconditionally flaws and all.  I just filed these criticisms in the “Reasons Why Minority Groups Will Never Prosper Without Unity” folder and carried on with life.

            But then I noticed a trending topic on Twitter that really rubbed me the wrong way - #MeninistTwitter. At first there were a few tweets here and there on my timeline with this hashtag.  Next thing I know, it’s taking over my twitterfeed as a number of Black males that I follow used the hashtag and retweeted other users, who were mostly other Black males.  Some of these tweets were intended to be lighthearted jokes, poking fun at trends women often tweet about.  However, some of them minimalized serious problems that women – particularly Black women – deal with, from body issues to fidelity to education.  To be honest, it hurt to see Black men putting down the concept of feminism and the needs of Black women. 

            Are we no longer allowed to want equality? Are we expected not to fight for love from our male contemporaries? Must we squelch any expression of self-love? More importantly, are you still expecting us to support you when you need it even though there seems to be a lack of reciprocity? 

[myblackisproject]

...Learning to Love and be Loved.

This post will be redundant. It will repeat so many sentiments we've already heard and said. But it will still be necessary, simply because we haven't changed our behavior yet. So here we go... Let's talk about Black love for a few minutes. As a young Black woman growing into the independent woman my mother (and Destiny's Child) taught me to be, I'm having some issues with the tensions in my life. Let me explain... I’ve recently graduated, started graduate school, and work part time to make ends meet. I’m not as rare as society would have you think. A majority of my Black female friends are college educated, working, and prepping for lives filled with success in whatever field they’re pursuing. How is this army of intelligent, attractive, hardworking, independent women supposed to have a relationship with anyone? Especially a Black man, likely comfortable with the patriarchal systems we grew up with in the Black community?

  I grew up watching my mother bust her ass to provide for my sister and me. I watched my aunts do the same for my cousins, and the mother’s of many of my friends do the same in their households.  How many times did we grow hearing mantras about brothers not being shit, seeing women we idolized broken down then build themselves back up, and being taught (explicitly and implicitly) to make a way out of no way without relying on the support of a man? Certainly enough times for the independent, I don’t need a man, I can do bad all by myself notions to stick. 

  But here’s the thing – even the strongest, baddest, most independent woman needs companionship and love (man or woman, pick your poison). I personally believe that no one really wants to be alone. We’ll always find something to fill the void of loneliness, whether it’s physical objects, money, meaningless sex, or embarking on the hunt for your ideal partner. We’ve watched too many movies from “Love and Basketball” to “Diary of a Mad Black Woman” capitalizing on our desires for the storybook ending in Black love. I want my exciting and satisfying career that puts stacks in my bank account and allows me to jet-set all over the world, and I want my equally satisfying romantic relationship with my sexy chocolate. Is being the Beyonce to someone’s Jay-Z too much to ask??? Where’s my Barack Obama??? And let’s not front like I’m the only Black girl in America with these aspirations.

  Recently, one of my closest friends hit me up saying she was watching “The Cosby Show” and noted how different the boys and men of previous generations were in comparison to our “dating” pool of young Black males.  I had to stop and really think about what accounted for this change, not just in Black men but also in Black women.  My conclusion: these changes in the way we see love and relationships in the Black community are a result of broken homes. Before you label me Donna Lemon or some shit, hear me out.

  To the Black women reading, how much insight do you have into the life of a Black man? None, unless you used to be one (no judgment). Imagine how hard it is to be a Black woman, who has probably been scorned by at least one Black man, to raise her son into the strong and supportive Black man she wants him to be. Next time you see a woman in that predicament, give her props cuz that shit can’t be easy.  So now we have numerous young men who may or may not have had an adequate father figure to teach him about manhood, love, sex, responsibility, etc.

  What about all the young Black women growing up without a father at all, or one who comes around sparingly? What issues will she harbor towards Black men? How did her father treat her mother? How did the men after her father treat her mother? Does she know how to accept love from a man? Does she know how to accept help from a man? Will she know how and when to take off her independent woman stilettos and power suit off to be delicate and vulnerable around her man? 

  So now let’s say these two people meet and start dating. (Hypothetically of course because this never happens in real life right? Right.)  These two could be perfect for each other, soul mates if you will.  But does that matter if neither have seen enough realistic portrayals of a healthy and successful relationship between two Black people. Sure we know Dre and Sydney live in hip-hop love land at the end of “Brown Sugar” but did our parents, aunts and uncles, grandparents, mentors, church members, etc.? And if they did, were they faithful and supportive? Or did they have marriages and relationships filled with deception, adultery, or abuse?

  There are so many factors that lead to broken homes in our community, that’s not what I’m here to talk about – at least not today. But the ways we cope with that reality has a serious impact on us and the children raised in these households. My mother never bashed my father or tried to influence my opinions on him as a parent or man; he caused that damage on his own. I’m grateful that my mom took that route instead of expressing all that anger to me. I think that’s one reason why I don’t have a permanent “Black men ain’t shit” stance like many other Black women my age.  However, I do have other issues stemming from all this that continuously influence the way I handle relationship.  It’s my responsibility to gain an understanding of what those issues are, how they manifest themselves, and how to prevent them from negatively impacting my relationships.

  It’s our responsibility to break this cycle within our community. We have to look deep inside to tap into the self-love we need to be comfortable enough in our skin, because really that’s the first step to being able to adequately love someone else. We have to let go of our parent’s mistakes so that they aren’t to blame for our own.

[myblackisproject]

... is Slowly Processing Reality and History

            Processing is an interesting and complicated process. I can’t say whether there is a right or wrong way to do it, or whether there’s a timeframe for it. Some things from this trip are easier to process than others, and some things I can already tell will take months or maybe even years to comprehend. Then there are some things that inhabit an odd place on this processing spectrum – they take both a short and long time. The emotions associated with those events hit you hard while they’re happening, you might even have to shut down or numb yourself just to resist breaking down instantaneously. And once time and space separates you from those happenings, you can’t seem to wrap your mind around it all. You don’t understand, it just doesn’t make sense yet. It’s almost like you’re processing and not processing at the same time.

            Going to the slave castles in Elmina and Cape Coast are like that last ambiguous type of processing for me. Particularly the visit I had to Cape Coast Castle yesterday afternoon. The first problem was that it was a bad day to go to the castle. Unbeknownst to me, yesterday was Republic Day and the usually peaceful and calm Cape Coast turned into Spring Break. People were out drinking and partying to commemorate the day in which Ghana became a republic. The beach resort next to the castle was having an all day beach party. Schools and extracurricular programs flocked to the castle for field trips and the tourists were feeding off the energy of the crowd. The area around the castle was even more packed and hectic than my mind was bogged down with thoughts. The second problem was that the days leading up to my visit to the castle were filled with a series of frustrating, anger-inducing events surrounding issues of race and privilege. Being that I was already on edge, I shouldn’t have pushed myself into such an emotionally draining task as visiting the castle.

            During the tour of the castle, the carefree comments and jokes of other people in the tour group with me ignited my anger. It was clear that to them this wasn’t a place of memorialization or significance; it was just another tourist attraction on their vacation. Just as bad as the tourists were the Ghanaian students that treated the castle as if it was an amusement park, yelling, running around, and posing for profile pictures. And from the windows and top of the castle I looked out to see and hear the people partying on the beach beside the structure. It was like a dagger in my heart to see that this history that has continued to shape my life and the world I live in be blatantly disregarded.

            I haven’t really processed what all this means yet. Right now I’m just sitting with the emotions I felt in the castle. It doesn’t make sense to me how something seems like a shared reality to me, but not to those that I feel I share it with. It’s almost like having the realization that you’ve been lonely your whole life but never knew. It hits you hard and you want to fix it, but the solution is unconceivable. Better yet, it’s like coming home only to find you don’t have one. Where do you go from there?