Dear black men giving into weak lure of misogynoir,

We watch.

For the record, being black and a woman is already hard enough — being thrown into the Lion's Den by our brothers, fathers, husbands, uncles, nephews, friends; the people who should be our men, well that is a different kind of betrayal.

We watch.

I am called the strong black woman, it is a label that you honour like it's a crown sitting on my curls but more often it feels like a noose around my neck.

It is the title that describes how I am still alive even after surviving things that most would say would a break a girl: the sexual abuse at the hands of either my loved ones, strangers or for some both; being forced into the role of the mother for my siblings even when I was just a child myself; the burden of having to be independent and self sacrificing even when human nature says otherwise.

It's 2019 and yet I'm still suffering the stereotypes of the "mammy" black woman, a stereotype deriving from pre- Civil War America to describe the black woman in a plantation household who would serve as the baby nurse, cook and general domestic worker — her job was to smile and persevere, to get hurt without showing  her hurt. Now it's post-slavery and this poisonous thinking has seeped the borders of America, worldwide black women are ignored, degraded, abused, murdered...but we're meant to smile and persevere? We're expected to carry this burden whilst we take care of everyone else?

We watch.

In the midst of this, I am also the "Jezebel". I am the hyper-sexual black woman. I've been fetishised by the media through the excessive promotion of the sexual black woman. In music, my name is Lil Kim to the likes of Nicki Minaj. On reality TV, I am Tiffany Pollard flashing my breasts for love. On daytime television, I am Olivia Pope consistently spreading my legs for the President no matter how many times I try to end the relationship. With the name Jezebel branded on my forehead, I have no room but to be judged as over sexualised regardless of my circumstances. As a child, I'm labelled "fast" or "grown" because God forbid, any of the adults (or should I say rapists?) around me take any responsibility for their perverse and inappropriate actions.

We watch.

I am undesirable: the kinks of my hair; my soft, two/ toned full lips; my nose that stretches over my face with total disregard for any other features; my velvety skin a shade of brown which society has deemed not beautiful. The thing is, social media says I'm full of "melanin" and that I'm a queen, the finest of the specimen, however in reality everyone throws away this belief and black men run away from my features with adrenaline so how am I expected to believe that this "black is beautiful" idea that you present is genuine?

The crown that I bear is called nappy and when people think of black women and say good hair; they're not talking about mine and no disrespect to my sisters on the lighter spectrum of blackness (they face their own struggles that we can't invalidate) but I'm tired of you being the poster child of what it means to be a black woman. Why am I the model of all negative tropes: 'ghetto-ness', unreasonable anger, unattractiveness, etc?

Why are we still giving a platform for black men such as Chris Brown, Kodak Whack, the casting crew of Straight Outta Compton, Kanye West, Lil Wayne, etc to publicly disrespect a certain type of black women *cough cough the "unwanted" black woman* with little to no repercussions?

Since we've talked about all this then let's get it straight just so that I don't get confused.

I'm only attractive when I'm social media oiled up like fast food chicken wings and half naked.

What people fail to acknowledge is that I am beautiful when I have acne too, I'm beautiful when I am fat, I am beautiful when my stretch marks make golden tiger stripes on my skin. I am beautiful period.

And that's on that.

And just so you know, we see you black men condemning other black women who look the exact same as your mother back home who you claim to "love" but you know what, it's okay.

We watch.

Anyway, another black man has been discriminated against, the video is racing through social media. Another black man has been killed, shot by a man in a blue uniform but are we surprised? Another black man has been murdered, his death stifled and hidden by a racist community and suspicious events were deemed an "accident" or "suicide".

A large population of the women that black men fight for and tear black women down for are silent. They leave nothing but perhaps a quiet sotto voce remark.

But black women?

We march.

and that's the irony of misogynoir.

signed,
a black woman

A/N: so I don't really do wattpad anymore because no ones on it (they've honestly destroyed what used to be such a good platform) but I had some free time and inspiration so I just want to leave this here because that way even if it gets two view (literally) I'll always have it saved here to come back to.

- Zara

edit: I feel like I get a lot of private messages with people going on like "oh you victimise yourself too much" or "xyz isn't racism and you're reading too much into it". Like I just want you guys to just deep for a second that I've had this account for over 4 years...race, gender and the intersection of them both are two recurring themes in them because that's something that I'm personally interested in. That will forever be the main theme of this rant book because those are two things that I live with everyday. One day I'll probably write more on mental health, sexual assault, imposter syndrome, etc but for now if you don't like the content there is no problem with leaving.

Lastly, once again I've had this account for a WHILE, a lot of my chapters were written when I was 13 and whewwwwww IT SHOWS like I said a lot without backing it up with facts, let my emotions get ahead of me when replying to ignorant comments (and let's be real some of y'all left the wildest comments) and mostly I was reaching a lot. The principle behind my chapters still stand but....the delivery... I probably could've said it better.