I'm Sorry, Black Women

I’m sorry, Sisters:  We’ve failed you once again.

It can be said that the American justice system is working the way it is intended (Just Us, Not You) and it has been the case for the entire 401 years we have been here, and as the husband to the greatest woman on this side of eternity as well as the father to the best five-year-old girl around, it fucking sucks. How is it that for so long, Black women end up toting the water from one end of the valley to the top of the hill without spilling a single drop and yet simultaneously be perpetually underappreciated and disrespected yet show openly all of the grace they were endowed with is beyond my feeble understanding.

If I were you, I’d be ready to throw hands or something. This is too much.

But this goes beyond Breonna or Sandra or anyone else whose names we have had to mention as in death, they have taken on larger roles in our version of Reconstruction 2.0 or the Civil Rights Movement Part II or how Black Lives Matter – the movement – will be remembered. I say the movement because there are too many basic-ass, racist-ass white people who slander our clarion call the exact same way their parents and grandparents did Brother Martin during the 1960s only to find that they haven’t changed a bit over the past fifty years or so. Sure, we live in the same subdivisions, work alongside each other, shop in the same grocery stores, and even cheer on the same teams (I won’t call the Hogs, but you already know that – my Reddies will be back in the spring), but the failure to acknowledge basic humanity spells a hypocrisy that they and sadly, some Black men may willingly never come to grips with.

Good use of your platform @theestallion on @nbcsnl #ProtectBlackWomen #savage pic.twitter.com/RzX9yQ6dka

— mizzkbofficial (@mizzkb100) October 4, 2020

Is it our proximity to that deadly drug called whiteness too strong to resist as you have been consistently failed repeatedly?

Is it the fact that white America has deemed you angry when you show righteous furor, and some of us brothers have been too meek, misogynistic, or pussy to defend your honor?

Is it the literal interpretation of the King James Bible followed by many of our churches that limit the roles of women to being seen and not heard?

Do we manage to prove that Brother Malcolm may have been right when he told us that the most disrespected person in America is the Black woman based solely on how we treat you?

I mean, damn, Black women have literally been the backbone to this country that clearly does not love you back in return – and the shit is really cradle to grave. At best, it is fucked up, and at its worst, Monday. Over the course of these 401 years, you have done more than your fair share of the grind from having to nurse and care for white babies over your own during both slavery and Jim Crow as the powers-that-be in this unequal society have opened a chasm between themselves and everyone else; introduced the world to seasoned food;  marched in lockstep in the women’s suffrage movement until the white women in charge told them to kick rocks like one certain major political party prior to 2020 has done for years; received patents (see Phillis Wheatley and Dr. Shirley Jackson, among others) to improve all of our lives; to the numerous ways of expressing a creativity that finds itself within the lexicon of American culture; unlocked a perspective of American history some historians and politicians would prefer ignored – or worse, forgotten; and fought for the rights of fellow women of all stripes to make their own medical choices regarding their bodies as death threats rained upon them. I am also facing my inadequacy as a Black man for not always being able to fully understand the struggle – as I wrote in Hi! I’m Token, I reflected upon my own past failures for sitting down when it was time to stand up, using inappropriate language, and otherwise being a twit as I unwittingly defended the status quo to maintain the aforementioned proximity to the fog that asphyxiates freedom, obscures vision, and even extinguishes taste. In that context, it refers to being that “pet”, “favorite happy Negro”, or whatever the hell slight they made to prop me up as someone to emulate.

Where would we be without you?

I am tired of failing you, beautiful Black women.

You deserve a LOT better than this damning fate of being a second-class or tertiary citizen in this land, and honestly, I am standing with you to build our own Wakanda apart from the mess we live with hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, and annually as we try to leave this rock a better place for our chocolate children to grow up safely and mature into the next generation of heroes, the ones our ancestors can truly be proud of. Know that you are not alone in the struggle, and as I apologize this time for not speaking up sooner, this Black man has your back.

I ❤🖤💚 all y'all. #BlackWomenMatter

— A. Cedric Armstrong (@cedteaches) October 5, 2020

Forgive us, Sisters.