The assault against Black women in which Black men participate is only a testament to the influence of racism within this nation that we begin to believe that we are truly inferior. That we are somehow more inclined to be culturally deviant. We believe that the oppression against Black women is justifiable, we believe that Black women experience shame because of their own deficiencies. We refuse to acknowledge the influence of a racially stratified society that constructed the image of Black manhood and womanhood in direct opposition to White manhood and womanhood, placing Black men and women in inferior positions, intellectually, culturally, and aesthetically. Within this societal construction it was the Black man and the Black woman’s cultural inferiority that contributed to their inferior status and position in society. We then began to find reason for our oppression. We rationalized it. The argument from the oppressor became, “If Black people cannot love themselves, why should we love them,” people became focused upon Black on Black crime as if White on White crime did not exist. Under this same rhetoric, Black women became the blame for their own victimization. “If Black women cannot love themselves, why she would love them? If they cannot respect themselves why should we respect them?” Even if a Black woman or man does not love or respect his or herself you should still love and respect them because NOT loving and respecting them speaks to your lower self, it representative of that has accepted the false rhetoric and fallacies of the oppressor, who did so in a attempt to explain and justify the oppression that had once been done to you and that continues. In the assault against Black men by Black women, and the assault against Black women by Black men, we separate ourselves. Separation is the action of the oppressor. The oppressor does not see himself as one with he or she that is oppressed. The action of separation immediately places you into a position of opposition in which one becomes higher and thus superior to the other, who becomes lesser than. You cannot begin to see yourself as separate. Black men you cannot begin to see yourself or your struggle as being separate from that of Black women and Black women you cannot begin to see yourself our your struggle as separate of that which belongs to Black men. We are all in the Struggle. We must love each-other into loving ourselves. Because the world has told us that we are unlovable. Black men must LOVE black women into loving themselves because the world has told them that they are less than, they are inferior, they are undesirable, and unwanted. Black women must love black men for the same. We cannot begin to love ourselves without first seeing what it feels like to be loved!
We exist in the struggle together, because the Black women has always served in the struggle alongside Black men, we have stood as the backbone in your organizations, and behind your movements. We have loved you more than any man on this Earth, and we an intensity far greater than that of any race of women. We have labored beside you within in fields of sugar cane, rice, and cotton. We have bored the lash, and have hung upon trees. It was we, who were forced into pregnancies, and cared for and nurtured you despite of it, in effort to bring forth a generation of men, who would one day assists us in our liberation. Black women have served as your partners, lovers, and mothers, not as your enemy. Support us. Help us find the love that we have been told that we don’t deserve!
