I have written about this before but after seeing the picture below and reading the accompanying article I felt it was worth repeating.  By the way, pointing this out doesn’t mean I hate Black men. I don’t. I hate sexism, misogyny, intraracism and colorism that both knowingly and unknowingly benefits Black men and hurts Black women.

Screen shot via MSNBC

Screen shot via MSNBC

I am going to tell a truth few in the African-American population want to hear. This is absolutely shameful. I have to ask why are Black women fighting for Black men when they are not doing the same for us? No other community expects the women to protect men.  Then I ask what kind of man would want a woman to protect them? Don’t they feel ashamed? What was the result of Black women protesting on behalf of Black men? A Black woman was shot on the streets of Ferguson while marching and no one gave a damn.

I understand Black women’s draw to protect them. I have a family but the difference between me and these women is that I value my life and I expect reciprocity. If I do for you, you must do for me. We have Black women who have inherited the centuries old sacrificial slave mammy syndrome. These Black women expect to give without getting. They expect rewards in heaven for sacrifices made on earth. I do not.

The same men these women are fighting for are the same ones who call Black women hoes, thots, b’s and n’s without batting an eye. They are the ones who street harass Black women and girls and find nothing wrong with it. Hell, because we share skin color they believe they are entitled to harass us. They are the men who will never marry them and will dis us because our hair is too nappy. Our skin is too dark. Our noses and hips are too wide. Our names are too ghetto and our assess are too big. These men never have held the front lines for Black women and our issues which are Black community issues and they never will.

Here is another ugly and unspoken truth. Every single civil rights movement for the Black community was about Black men. These movements were never ever about Black women. From abolition to the current situation in Ferguson, it has never been about justice for all. It has always been about American Black men mimicking White men and their systems of sexual, sexist and economic oppression. That’s why in every movement while Black women did the work of organizing and marching, Black men reaped the rewards and their wives (i.e. Julian Bond, Harry Belafonte and others) and children stayed home. Malcolm X noticed the same thing. The biggest mistake Black women are making and have ever made was believing that Black social justice movements led by and for Black men were by extension were for them. They never were. That is why Black women’s issues are never a priority and regardless of how much marching Black women do, times Black women are shot or beat by the police and our issues never ever will be.

BW & girls

Have you ever remembered a time when the Black community en masse ever marched and protested like this for Black women? Was there a time when Black women’s needs were a priority even though Black women are the majority of the Black American population? No, it won’t happen because Black women’s lives in the Black community are not valued like Black men’s lives are. This isn’t divide and conquer. If you are Black man I suggest you read the Black Male Privilege Checklist. It is pointing out a simple disappointing truth. Those who deny it are doing what White Americans do when they deny the existence of racism. They pretend the problem doesn’t exist because they are purposely ignoring the issue. Why? Because deep down in the corners of their post racial dream they know racism inherently benefits them so  they secretly don’t want end it. It is the same thing for the Black community and Black women. Racism or in this case sexism and misogyny against Black women ensures less competition for resources (for the Black community it also means unlimited access to loyal Black uteri without responsibility), obtaining and retaining wealth, power and dominance over others. Who really doesn’t want to get and keep every advantage they can get even if it is at the expense of others? Well everyone but these Black women.

Aiyana Stanley-Jones, age 7, murder’s trial recently ended in a mistrial.

If people do march for Black women or girls she must have adhered to Black respectability politics. Ask Claudette Cloven and Renisha Mc Bride. A Black woman or girl must be the perfect victim and come from the right people, from the right home, have the right kind of education, have the right look and speak the right way. Black men do not. In fact, the some of the same people outraged by the fact that Zimmerman’s defense wanted to include Trayvon Martin’s toxicology report which showed he was high but didn’t warrant his murder were the same ones that told us Renisha McBride’s drinking prior to her murder was a reason not to warrant activism. I am glad people in the Great Lakes State disagreed. (Look for a post on activism, respectability politics and Black woman and girls victims later on this week.)

If it makes Black women feel better to march, get maimed, arrested or hurt for someone who feels like Black women’s lives aren’t of value fine. I want to let you know that there are people like me who value Black women’s lives including my own who won’t march, protest or heaven forbid fight until the centuries old debt owed to Black women from the Black community of one-sided activism is paid in full.