Misogynoir & The Lack of Forgiveness of Black Women
I remember the first time I fell in love with soulful talent Chrisette Michelle. I was in college, just learning about the concept of love singing along to a CD of “If I had My Way”, brush in hand, grooving in my PJs in my dorm room. We loved Chrisette…until that unfortunate night where she shared her gift before a very undeserving audience at the 2016 Trump Inauguration. Whew chile! Three years later, and sis has come forward with her bouts with depression, a miscarriage and debt due to being dropped by her label. Meanwhile child molesting ass R. Kelly been out here ruining the lives of young, black girls for damn near 3 decades before he FINALLY was held accountable, but the black community at-large had still been “Bumpin & Grindin’” (and some still do). This is what misogynoir looks like. When we refuse to listen and love black women and girls.
Let’s travel to Memphis, TN where mayoral hopeful Tami Sawyer could very well become the first black woman (and woman in general) to serve as mayor. Let’s pause to celebrate how dope this is, mane! She currently is a powerhouse as she ran an amazingly successful race for Shelby County Commissioner in 2018. Unfortunately, society refuses to let black women be great, misogynoir presented in the most horrific ways with this particular mayoral election.
*Misogynoir: the specific hatred, dislike, distrust, and prejudice directed toward black women (often used attributively): misogynoir attitudes and comments. Coined by queer black feminist Moya Bailey.
Racist Caricatures
Memphis Magazine, a majority white, local publication, published one of the most despicable portrayals of Tami with a racist caricature resembling the painful drawings we saw during Jim Crow and during slavery. Luckily, we had a few black organizations like Black Millennials 4 Flint, Black Millennial Convention, Memphis Urban League Young Professionals, The Equity Alliance, Our Grass, Our Roots, The Official Black Lives Matter Memphis Chapter and The Dividend that called for a formal apology, which was received and Memphis Magazine assumed full ownership for the racist illustration. While these organizations were here for our sis Tami, many local black leaders were silent af.
The Infamous Tweets
Millennials in particular literally grew up or were coming of age with social media. Hell, Zuckerberg is millennial! Literally, who didn’t post some ridiculous and downright embarrassing shit on social media…yeah…I’ll wait. Misogynoir reared its ugly head again where a “plant” spent their miserable, troll ass life scouring Commissioner Sawyer’s historical tweets and found some pretty unfavorable and in a few posts, homophobic tweets. Let’s be clear, I’m a proud ally and homophobia is not tolerated AT ALL! But I want to play devil’s advocate, how many of ya’ll have aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, parents, church members and even your friends and significant others that have some really toxic, homophobic & transphobic beliefs…again, I’ll wait. Even in Tami’s complete vulnerability, 100’s and 100’s of personalized phone calls to those that may have been hurt or offended by the old tweets and countless other efforts, misogynoir still prevented many people from forgiving her. Meanwhile, the current mayor of Memphis literally illegally surveilled activists and barred them from entering city buildings and “the other candidate" l walked away from his mayoral position… like legit embodied the Spongebob meme:
So these men are worthy of forgiveness but Tami is not? Oh…ok, big fella.
#WeCantWait to Love Black Women
Humans make mistakes…we grow…we heal and we live to be better. Black women are included in that narrative as well. We, black folk in particular, have to clearly identify the real culprit in our demise--white supremacy. White supremacy uses all sorts of warlike tactics to disenfranchise, humiliate and straight up bamboozle people into thinking WHITE PATRIARCHY (key word WHITE here...my brothas, ya’ll ain’t invited)is what is best for the masses. Saying that we have to love black women isn’t just a cute little Instagram post or a lil graphic tee design (which LDA Designs will be dropping soon)--loving black women literally will help ALL people to survive…black women have ALWAYS kept us all alive. Never forget. #WeCantWait
MESSAGE: SEPTEMBER 28, 2019 IS THE LAST DAY FOR EARLY VOTING IN MEMPHIS.
