Last fall, I taught a unit on narrative social critiques. My goal was to have students understand the writer’s duty of observation and of retelling individual and collective stories. One submission from a quiet, moon faced Black girl leaves me breathless a year later. Her essay spoke of sexual assault and the delicate and precarious nature of the relationship between Black men, women, and the police, she wrote, “Black women have been conditioned to be their brother’s keeper and it has kept them in a perpetual state of victimhood.” 

Whew! 

This observation of the Black woman’s “perpetual victimhood” shows how quickly young Black girls learn the role they must play in the ancient dynamics of love and regard between Black men and Black women; the thin line between protector and victim; support and self - neglect.  I think often of how many men I’ve protected while neglecting myself. We are currently living in a dystopian tribal war - the lived future of imperialism and enslavement. As we decolonize ourselves, the manner in which we regard self and one another can and must change.

I perhaps have not completed enough reading to be considered a womanist; but I believe deeply in the importance and survival of Black girls and women. I sometimes fall into the arms of misandry; a hint of disappointment tinged with a very deep love for Black men. I love them. And I have also been hurt by them in transformational ways. After my father passed away, I began consistently seeing my therapist to understand and reconcile my relationship with Black men. My father, though he tried, was the standard emotionally detached African father; never too hands on, often distant. He did not provide a good prototype of what a loving relationship between man and woman should be. Through reconciling how my father / masculine wounds have perpetuated themselves in my relationships, I have resolved to change the manner in which I regard myself as a woman. What does it mean to be a Black woman who loves and wants a life with a Black man? How can I survive this life without betraying myself in the myriad of ways I’ve done so before? I am not the only Black woman doing this introspection. 

This introspection makes me think of Fela Kuti’s 1972 single “Lady” - a beautifully horned filled arrangement and misogynistically laced lyrics that observe the colonized African woman’s perception of self, “If you call am woman, African woman no gree. She go say I be lady o” (Kuti, 1972).  Fela’s critique of this new age of Black feminism - the fight for a sovereign space highlights the important question of, what does the decolonization of Black womanhood look like? 

The decolonization of Black womanhood looks like the rejection of the kinds of relationships with men our foremothers endured. Which is to say a rejection of relationships that leave us wanting and quiet; with the inability to embrace and realize our destinies. It looks like embracing a life centered around ourselves. There is a rise in Black feminine selfishness - of rejecting the victimhood my student wrote of. Are we victims for loving Black men? Are we traitors for loving ourselves more? 

I think of my romantic and platonic relationships, the ways in which I have seen Black men in my life love me because of the things I do for them, the ways in which I quiet myself so that they can emote. They do not love me for who I am, but for what I do. I think of how often that has not been reciprocated and the ways in which I have had to retract my energy so that I can give the same nurturing spirit to myself. And I think, in these conversational gender wars, in the anti - Black feminist rhetoric, this is where the discord lies; the absence of Black feminine nurture feels like treason; feels like betrayal. Fela all but scoffs at the woman who takes the largest piece of meat for herself, who waits for men to open the door for her, to treat her like a lady. The fine dichotomous line of equality and reverence.  

I am interested in this forward movement of Black womanhood, but do not mean this introspection as a rally cry of anti - Black man. I do believe that we need complete unity as a people to reach our goals; however the bounds of colonialism have left us a fragmented people. There is deep internal work that needs to be completed before holistic and pure and mutually beneficial relationships become the foundation of who we know we are. 

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