Black Women

What do I know about Black Women? My mother was one. My grandmother was one. My sister is one. My nieces are. Every women in my family in the last 100 years was Black. Any further back and they were Native American and White as well as Black. Yes, the White mothers of the Slave Masters are hanging from my family tree like some other type of strange fruit. I'm sure they're wondering how they got up there, as much as I am. Their sons have placed them there for eternity.

I heard Alice Walker speaking on C-Span, Book TV from her home in Berkeley. It made me think about Black Women. My friend had talked to me about the importance of having a Black female voice involved prominently in what we were trying to do, and I had to agree. The only question I had is how we could ensure that her voice was strong and powerful and undaunted as well as fully respected without being co-opted, twisted or diminished. After all, we were Black men, and we have our own ideas.

I'm not sure that a real Black female voice can be safeguarded protected and fully respected by anyone other than another Black woman. The concept was, or seemed very foreign to me. I simply did not trust that a Black female voice, other than Maya Angelou, Rosa Parks, Oprah Winfrey, Coretta Scott King, Alice Walker and Toni Morrison could/would be fully respected.

While I was imminently confident in the ability of Black women and Black men to have a dialogue, I wasn't so sure that we could share a message that could plumb our depths as well as our truths. The messages are quite different.

My mother told me that a Black woman had to be able to support her family, raise her family and also, at a moments notice, be able to lead and take on both roles (male and female) in her family in the event that the Black man was fired, arrested, killed, or decided to move along.

My mother also said that Black women knew for a fact that their lot in life was completely unlike that of White women. No Black woman ever was told, or expected anyone to take care of them after marriage. They were expected to do the "taking care of". for the dozens of Black men that proposed marriage to my mother while I was growing up, it wasn't about their love and desire to turn her into their Queen. For them, it was like marrying a cow that could not only purchase more milk than they could ever drink, but also, take care of them, support them and fulfill all of their carnal desires, while they fucked off the rest of their lives and made everyone around them miserable.

What a heavy burden Black women carry. In essence, the hopes and dreams of the entire race, as well as the food, clothing and shelter as well as the possibility of acquiring such things.

Some of the things I associate with Black women, are wisdom, love, patience, dedication, consistency, support, protection, history, education, dreams, and magic. As well as martyrdom, sacrifice and unfathomable beauty.

Black women, and their role in the world is so complete, that It's never seemed to make sense to distinguish it, from any and everything that I've ever done or achieved. Black women were my world. There was no man, there was no one, or thing else that raised and guided and supported me.

Deep down, like many Black men, I know that all I am is a wise Black woman inside a Black man trying to operate and maintain and support (as they have always done) all of the extra things that make me a man. Like most Black men, I've had to define my masculinity through what I've been told, and what I've seen, and what I thought was available for me to be once again, because there was no Black man around.

But there are plenty of Black women. I hope that in this modern age, we don't completely strip them of their magic and power.