Words Will Hurt You

Niggas are black men.

Now before you start with black women are niggas too—and we all know some white people who are blacker than us—l am not talking about having nigga tendencies. I’m referring to a socially lived hidden stereotype placed on the black man as being the plague of the black community.

Watch an old movie, they call men niggers, or some variation, and women colored girls.

Fifty years later black leaders decide to bury the word “nigga.” No offense to the NAACP but black men have purposefully been buried for centuries.

They buried niggas by taking away their right to be fathers to their children during slavery, made their wives conduits to birth more slave babies. They buried them by lynching, burning their houses on fire and made them defenseless when protecting their women.

Today, they bury them under child support, unfair judicial practices, assumptions that jail will “rehabilitate them” when they’re 15 years old by placing them in a prison to be mentored by criminals.

In their community black leaders on television bury them, again. Tyler Perry makes some movie that he thinks helps but really demonizes the black man and paints black women as damsels waiting for the right nigga to save her.

To every black woman, we live in a society where everyone challenges the worth of the black man. If you don’t uplift him whether he’s your son, friend, man or brother, don’t ever expect someone else to.

They help us black women mourn their deaths. They herald the black woman as “superwoman.” She is strong enough to raise her kids all by herself and blah blah blah. Don’t you know that before a convicted murderer can be released on parole he has to apologize to the family of his victim?

Thanks for apologizing by plastering on new papers that 75percent of black babies are born to unwed mothers. Thank you for depriving nearly half of all black women from ever having a whole home because so many black men are locked up or out of jail and still imprisoned to what incarceration made them. What is your apology to the black children who will be raised by bitter mothers in fatherless homes? Is it a failing urban education system that places them in the same cycle as their parents? No, really…thanks.

In order for a black man to really be something he has to learn how to act white. But over time when a black man becomes too powerful, he has to be shut down.

When Fredrick Douglass began learning to read he became a threat to his slave master and so on the field he whipped Mr. Covey’s butt with pride in his blows.

Today they bury our fathers; tomorrow they will borrow our sons. Cycles are so harmful because they are natural, it takes hardly any effort to continue to a cycle.

Now to every defender of the NAACP. I do understand they have worth in our community. But burying the N-Word was nothing but a display of how we spend frivolous money.

I know a nigga they could have given 1/10th of the money to who would have kept his business a float that gives young black males a job, a role model, and teaches them work ethic and respect.

I know a nigga they could have given $2000 to help buy his first car so that he could go visit his son. When the pitter patter of feet came he didn’t run, he pulled his pants up, turned his hat frontwards and lived up to his responsibility.

They used stick and stones to break our bones and one word to tear our community apart.

Dear Lady At the Movies

Dear Lady At the Movies,

It was tough to enjoy Little Fockers because of your disgust with fictional characters. I understand that in your mid-40's you may have experienced some things I never have, nor will. But your anger perpetuated further than that scene.

"Bitter Black woman" was traced around the half smile you tried to give as you walked away. "I only know my worth when a man tells it to me" was plastered and rooted in the blemishes on your skin like it was necessary, like it was lotion.

I wondered if you ever matched your current persona to your past hurts. I get it, he never called you back. You raised three children alone and they learned everything they know from you.

Your daughter only smiles after validation from young thugs with sagging pants. Her idea of romance is attention. She'd call a man her soul mate and when he wanted to leave, she'll chase him, trying to keep her soul.

And your sons, well, you raised them. So they treat women like you allowed men to treat you. Only touting their worth after physical match ups that left you satisfied. They introduce themselves as "Uncle." They'd know there is no need to stay because every time they come back, you let them back in.

And none of them would ever really enjoy a movie. Because your son's would never take a woman and if your daughter really wanted to, she'd go my herself.

With real love,
The girl who sat in front of you...

Black fatherhood

A few weeks ago I realized how serious my passion for Black families is.

A woman came into my job, with her son, and I could tell they had come to meet up with his father. I counted how many times the young boy's mother told him his father probably wouldn't show up.

He probably won't come.

Your Daddy is no good.

Your Daddy is always saying he's gonna do something but he won't.

You had better hope you don't turn our like your Daddy.

I wrote them down on a napkin, while those words penetrated his mind. How many negative things can you tell a young boy about his father before it begins to affect him.

How many times do your hear fathers credit their love for wanting to be a father stemming from their absent father. Although I don't see this as a problem, it frustrates me because how many men will be good fathers because it's their reasonable service to their children.

I believe she was explaining to her son how to be a bad father at that moment. She made it okay. She was influencing what her grandchildren would experience without even recognizing it.

She never said anything to her son about how she met his father or even acknowledged the fact that she actually loved that man enough to lay down with him.

My frustration with her meant nothing to her son, unless I said something.

I did. I told her everything I felt.

She yelled at me. She got snappy.

But if any word that I said to her, it was worth every word she said to me.