- It's a pop quiz.
So I pose a question to black men.
I ask what do black men hear
when black women say protect us?
What do black men feel they have done
to protect black women?
And for a long while don't none of them say nothing.
I grew up in a country where white people
can literally get away with anything,
where women work hard and got more degrees
and a value less, trust me I know patience.
A black woman waiting is just another day ending and why?
But I'm trying to learn something.
Of course, I know what it's like
to bear the weight of my choices,
to hope as a way to divide suffering for all that love
and trauma brings and defending what's mine,
it came from me, my Nigger I do it for you all the time.
I interpret the silence as another interpersonal violence
of the way that we experience each other.
This is how we've come to know each other,
either I give you the answer,
I can't tell the truth about black men
without exposing myself,
a growing soft spot for a lover I'm loyal to
trauma bonded and know that you claim to love
and then kill something as resilient
and beautiful and fragile as me
but who needs a heart when there's subjugation?
Who listens to black women
without first having us do our own emotional labor?
Everything I do be magic but I can't conjure a response
from Nigger a who ain't having his own pissing contest,
trying to impress me with excuses,
and somehow that becomes my fault too.
Let me be careful not to over-generalize,
I know some men think they doing it right
so they already offended,
and some men don't want to admit I'm talking about them.
Be sensitive, either way I don't think it's my fault
when I can't tell whether black men's response
to black women in our protection is performative,
you know, black men get to choose their conscience.
Get to say what they should do as a way
to passively pass a fine look past what they don't
get to invite us to sit next to them, included, mistreated
but don't expect us to say much
while they fist up, get locked up, taken from us,
leave us to protect ourselves.
You can know the definition of a word
and still use it wrong.
You can use the word protection in a sentence,
define it beautifully and still fail to make meaning
of how you see me.
You can't be pro-black woman without being proactive
in your actions and I'm not saying I'm not aware
of what this country has done to our black men.
But I also haven't read a Bible
or walked into too many rooms where a man's name
wasn't mentioned, felt first, took up space.
He who finds a woman, finds a good thing
so we should be grateful for these chains,
don't get me wrong.
I loved many men who can't help,
but think like a slave holder.
It's in the ways we've associated our work to each other.
The eye cannot say to the head
and the head can I say to the feet, I don't need you.
Every day I wake up a black girl gets her wings
and a man had the gut to ask if she was saved
as she ain't had to cultivate her own safe spaces
and act as her own savior, but go off king.
One black man told me he learned to value black women
once he saw his give birth.
And I thought of all the black women who can't have,
don't want to or die during and steal.
Am I to understand that black men only value
what they can make use of?
Or is this the part of the narrative
where I have to interpret what you meant from what you said?
Another man said he got a preference since she ain't black
and then spouted something silly saying
most black girls don't even wanna get their hair wet
or can't swim and even after a Nigger said something,
I held my mule, gave him grace.
Let's just say, that's true it ain't never stopped me
from trying to keep my head above water
or kept a man from trying to drown me,
or mute my screens and watch from the sidelines
when they got too loud, cause God Damn!
Black girls be loud and angry.
Here I am only necessary when I'm not disposable.
Still gotta be that bitch and walk all these dogs to heaven.
(audience cheering and clapping)
Still gotta be that and walk all these dogs to heaven.
Another man said, speak louder for the people in the back
as if sissy and gay and non-binary don't benefit
from the image and mockery of black women.
He do you better than you do sis, Let us laugh,
at how brave and strong and witty black women are,
but aren't allowed to be.
Let us be amazed, at how much time
and energy black women give
without any assistance from you I'm still here,
rock and pillar through plight
and all of my methods of survival I still choose black men.
But some black men only protect black women they know
or want something from,
may You learn to love more than just your mama.
May you learn how to care for black girls
that are not born of curses.
And in every ear that couldn't hear me,
or haven't been paying attention,
the question means, I need you.
And then after I'm gone know that I loved you anyway.
(audience clapping and cheering)