Never forget that a fair percentage of white people will defend the people that beat us and kill us for not being white
Never forget that a fair percentage of men, including black men, will defend the people that beat us and kill us for not being men.
"The law said he wasn't guilty, so he's not guilty"
I fully expect white people to say things like this when black people they don't really see as people, don't really see as having full humanity, are beaten and killed by police officers for things like not obeying massa fast enough or a car back firing some distance away.
But it takes unmitigated gaul and self-hatred for some black people, --black men and penis pandering pick-me-s that will follow them absolutely anywhere-- to use the same words that white racists use on us to defend men like Bill Cosby, Nate Parker, Chris Brown, Ray Rice.
Make no mistake, the sexism and misogyny in the black community is likely just as deadly to black women as white supremacy is to black people as a whole.
I've often started and stopped working on a comparison of white cop murder victims and black female domestic violence victims. I keep telling myself I've stopped before I've finished because of some small problem collecting accurate data here and there.
The real reason I keep stopping is because it'll break my heart to see more black women dead of domestic violence at the hands of black men trying to prove a false masculinity than there are black people dead at hands of white police.
Too many non-feminist black people think that sexism and misogyny is harmless -- as evidenced by the lack of outcry against things like Dave Chappelle and his joke about a Superhero Rapist that gets his power from raping women.
If this level of misogyny is simply called "tasteless" much like white audiences do/did when a white comic goes "racist" to get laughs, then what does this say about the status of black women in the black community?
To me, it says black women aren't seen anywhere near equal to black men and that black men need to be watched as hard as we watch white people when it comes to the images they create of us.
To me this says, it is not surprising that a lot of black history written by black men erases black women's contributions and erases the flaws and questionable behavior of black male heroes, like Frederick Douglass -- who appears to have moved a white woman into his black wife's house after that same black wife saved him from slavery.
Over the last decade, Shonda Rhimes' shattering glass ceilings in Hollywood have allowed Ava DuVernay, Viola Davis, Regina King, and Taraji P Henson to come through and produce and be leading ladies. Television shows like HOW TO GET AWAY WITH MURDER and QUEEN SUGAR have made me realize how very, very little black men in Hollywood have done for black women --especially if they aren't light-skinned women.
If non-feminist black men in Hollywood can very publicly refuse to stand for all black women instead of just the light-skinned ones they can sexually objectify, then what does that say about the rest of the black community?
I know what it says to me. It says to me that black women need to say to black men "ouch" and "stop" and "come correct or get away from me" a lot more often.
It says to me that black women need black history books written by black feminists and a specific book, that's yet to be written, called MIS-EDUCATION OF THE NEGRESS that addresses white supremacy in the country at large and male supremacy in the black community at the same time.
And we need to encourage black boys to read these black women's history books so that they'll look up women and also restrict their admiration to men like Kofi Siriboe ....instead of admiring and defending black men of questionable character simply because they got past the white gatekeepers and got rich in this industry or that one.
We, as the black community, have to do better.
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