The #BlackLivesMatter movement is well celebrated and supported amongst black men and women. However, I am started to question whether #blackwomen are being celebrated and supported enough by their male counterparts.
According to an article by Zara Zakrzewski in Greater Good Magazine (May 13, 2016), one of the great misfortunes of our world is that issues of racism, prejudice, power, and privilege still exist—and are quite rampant, as situations such as the U.S. primaries and the refugee crisis in Europe glaringly reveal.
Racism involves imposing control over someone less powerful, often by communicating to the victim that he or she is unworthy, lazy, or deserving of harsh treatment.
Considering the way African American music artists, black men in power, and black male partners in heterosexual relationships convey the value of the black woman, it is hard to believe that black life - or black women- matter to black men overall.
Delving into the words and actions that many African American musicians, athletes, and men with professional power convey, it seems as though black women- and oftentimes their children, their bodies, their aspirations, their intellect, their businesses- nor their their love, matters at all. The way black men refer to women in their lyrics, their diction, and messaging; black women are not receiving respect and loyalty they deserve. Men are cheating, lying, and betraying the women that bear life, love, and loyalty. They are not fighting to establish homes and families among them. They are succumbing to worldly temptations, abandoning their homes, devaluing their mind and bodies, and destroying the family unit.
With this treatment from our "own kind", it's no wonder we stand against this united nation chanting "black lives matter". Apparently, saying it is a lot easier than actually showing it.
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Consider that every day many of our youth (and adults) face a world that tells them, “You are not worthy and valuable,” which, according to Dr. Kenneth Hardy, expert in working with traumatized and oppressed populations, “makes it hard for youth to know who they really are—and easy to believe they are what others say.” In turn, this internalized messaging, “impairs the ability to advocate for oneself.”
Women and men of African American descent argue that this message or worthlessness and defeat is being received from others outside of the black race. But in order to truly recognize where these negative ideologies are most prominently stated, we must rid ourselves of the voices in our heads. Once we stop placing negative connotations on ourselves and our counterparts, we will truly be able to grasp our own self worth which cannot be easily overturned by the opinions of others.
