Black Love: When will the war between Black Men & women end?

3rd March 2019Afrowoman1Blog, Thrive & Strive, Videos1

Watch the video: Hearts, flowers, couples gazing into each other’s eyes. Romance, dinners, roses- yes it’s Valentine’s Day. The day for couples to celebrate being in love and for secret admirers to declare their feelings. So where does black love fit into all this?

St Valentine is supposed to be colour-blind but I wonder, what’s changed and improved between black men and women? Does black love, the love that was the glue of many of our families still exist? Why does it sometimes feel like black men and women have turned away from eachother?

A war on eachother

I sometimes feel like there is a war between black men and black women – a disrespect, lack of support, a war of trying to dominate and wear each other down. Sadly I have ‘bitter’ experience of this; I’ve dated the black men who be-litted my achievements to try to make me feel small.

It felt like they just didn’t like that I didn’t need them to pay my bills, or put a meal on my table. It felt like they needed to put me down and keep me in my place – stop me from rising above them.

When we’ve seen the black men killed in the streets by the police, us black women are vocal in our support for black men. While, in contrast when we’re being trashed on social media, in newspapers and other platforms,
we don’t see black men running to black womens defence.

Or the black men who treat us black women like we’re nothing, ugly, invisible, not good enough for them and make comments like – “that’s why I date only white women”.

Are we still fighting for Black Love?

Black Love is precious or is it?

But who told us that black love should be so revered? If you come from a family where your grandparents and parents celebrated long happy marriages and golden wedding anniversaries, it’s no surprise that black love was always seen as precious.

“When we’ve seen the black men killed in the streets by the police, us black women are vocal in our support for black men. While, in contrast when we’re being trashed on social media, in newspapers and other platforms, we don’t see black men running to black womens defence”.

It’s also no surprise that a lot of us black women still see black love as precious. A love that we wished for and above all else, we put on a pedestal.

Drama & resentment

We know the ‘accusations’ that fly between black men and women: “Black women are all about drama and getting someone to pay for their weave. While black men are unemployed with large amounts of children with multiple women and heading for prison“. The negative, devisive chatter continues….

This is where the war between black men and women’s relationships has festered with negativity and resentment.

Forgetting our legacy and rich culture.

Forgetting how much we need eachother and our communities to build better lives.

“Black women are all about drama and getting someone to pay for their weave. While black men are unemployed with large amounts of children with multiple women and heading for prison”.

Our Black Love heroes

This is why we pray Will & Jada, Michelle & Barak and Beyoncé & Jay-Z stay together; cause we still want to believe in black love. A lot of black women are still fighting to win this war; fighting to keep that precious vision of black love alive.

Despite everything that I’ve written here and talking about my bitter experiences, I remain hopeful for black love. We can find a way to recognise there is still a place for strong black love and relationships between us. A new way to be honest and supportive of eachother. We have to recognise that being divided and tearing eachother down does nothing to support our people for the future.