There has never been a time in my life where I felt more confident about myself in the world than now. That may be puzzling to fathom, considering the constant berating and belittling of Black women that goes unchecked in every aspect our various cultures and western society. The time of protesting and activism has shifted to other vulnerable and sometimes marginalized Brown and other people of color.
That still doesn’t hide the lack of unity that we don’t acknowledge within the black community for women. Younger Black women openly speak negatively to the vulnerabilities of other more mature women as if they don’t expect those experiences to be a part of their story. They compete it seems for everything. To have the best house, car, degrees, job, husband, kids, breast and butt implants, even weave. You name it! I’m not knocking any of these examples. Just highlighting how they have made us toxic within and towards one another. It’s even disappointing to see many Black men glorifying this behavior.
I have known what it is to be vulnerable when it was all I could see. I have known strength when it was my anchor through all my difficulties. I have even criticized black women for not accepting their own flaws and fragility. Weaponizing their pain for their own purpose. Still, I looked up to black women that wore there peace as a valuable asset to their very identity. We are in an age of overstimulation that our senses are numb to the historical depth of our own black femininity.
We wander the sea of social acceptance, I mean social media to garner favor for our sometimes superficial victories. I’ve done that too. But nothing about our current collective experience makes me more disturbed than this war within the women. It is literally a war With-in the women. We are still healing from the shackles of our shared traumatic past. All the things that our ancestral mothers faced, overcame and even succumbed to no longer being. I see it as cycles to learn and grow through. Granted, we are all at different stages in this journey of life. Just for a few moments , I would love to feel the essence of Black woman that was not marred by White supremacy. Dare I say it, even Black supremacy, patriarchal and even matriarchal obligations. We are not our mothers, grandmothers and even greater mothers that came before. But we embody the essence of transformation that they birth through their lifetimes.
Let’s continue to build from that seat of power. I see our power in that regard and in that space I choose to stay. This seat of power to transform, rise above, empower, ignite and even annihilate what we see as unjust. This remains for me the greatest gift of being a Black woman. It will never look the same for each of us. We all are not scholars, doctors, lawyers, actors. We don’t all hold seats of power in governmental spaces. But even those that don’t have the world renowned status can create the changes through their own experiences transforming their lives and the lives of those around them.
Seasons change, but this division is driven even more now with the social media machines telling us what we need to be or belong to for acceptance in their eyes. Maybe this is just the ramblings of an almost 50 years young Black woman who is just fed up with the passive aggressive sentiment that I get from women I’ve been meeting. It could also be the truth of my experience that I refuse to let change me from loving all that Black women and Black femininity means to me. We are dynamic, intellectual, sexy, powerful, soft, vulnerable, truth tellers, enigmatic and still transparent all at the same damn time!
