By Drew
My mother is a very small woman. One would meet me and assume that I have this behemoth of a mother that cursed a lot, was toxic and was a steak, bacon, and cheese sandwich away from morbid obesity. Not the case. But whatever she lacks in size she makes up in attitude.
The last time my mother beat me with a belt I was towering over her and twice her size at 17. I knew I could take her. Her small arms couldn’t do the damage they once did. She was older, she didn’t have the stamina to make it hurt. And in her heart she knew this was the last beating with a belt.
Yes, yes I know a lot of you frown at beatings and I’m not here to argue whether it made me a better man or not. I just knew that, in that moment of realizing my mother’s frailty, this, in my eyes, was a woman I now had to protect.
Not sure if everyone has been alive this week but something significant happened at the Oscars that has been a LONG fucking time coming….
Sigh, yes….I know: Will Smith “defended” Jada Pinckett’s Honor and slapped Chris Rock clear into August…
Oh y’all went nuts with the think pieces about how you don’t care and , by-and-large, WE should not care because the Bahamas has “bigger fish to fry” while then dissecting the very fish you said did not need frying.
Y’all wild…
Bruh….y’all know the brain is a miraculous tool and you can care about Ukraine, think William and Kate’s visit was retarded AND enjoy the drama of violent millionaires all at the same time right? Like….y’all know that’s ok for that to be a thing?
Know who cared a fuck-ton about this whole slap shit?
ME….ME, nigga.
Bey, I cared SOOO much. I couldn’t look away. Every meme, every joke….I was refreshing twitter like it was my bank account and I was tryna figure out if the direct deposit hit yet.
Y’all waaayyyyy too adult on these social media apps. The slap was hilarious.
My take on it?
Everyone dumb.
Chris was wrong for the bald joke. Will was dumb for the way he handled it. And Jada need to not tell everyone ALL their business on this road. Biggest slap in the face to me was Wesley Snipes outfit more than anything…
The think pieces were all over the place. Some people were team Will Smith, some were team Chris Rock….then the woke crew got in there with the, “Finally a black man defending a black woman!” And then….very strangely enough…there was a whisper of black women asking the opposite…
…“why didn’t Jada protect Will?”
It’s time we faced facts, people: The black woman is the most vulnerable woman on this planet. This is just a fact. They are ignored in every facet of this world. In American hospitals their complaints are disregarded. They are dying at alarming rates because western medicine has taught white doctors that our black skin is denser and we have a higher threshold for pain which is simply not true….
Did y’all see how Kentanji Brown Jackson had to endure those fucktard Republican senators asking her the dumbest questions? Have y’all seen what Michelle Obama had to endure? And she’s smarter than her husband and still got run through the mud. We see it in sports, careers, in public….in every aspect of civilization the black woman is NOT safe.
Well, maybe not all…
The consensus is that black men don’t protect you and, at times, we put you in harms way.
I agree….some of us don’t protect you. ESPECIALLY on this island.
I’ve already written an article on rape, sexual assault and pedophilia in The Bahamas. It’s RAMPANT. Just Tuesday a report came out of a 40yr old impregnating a 14yr old. These men are predators and should be killed.
Oh, that’s not hyperbole…..I genuinely think convicted pedophiles should be hung. Thank God I don’t legislate shit cause there would be a fucking BOOM in the funeral home business.
I can concede these facts and all I say to that is this: We, as men, must do a better job of protecting our women, speaking up for our women, LISTENING to our women and defending ALL black women….
….ok maybe not ALL….and this is where this gets tricky.
Should ALL black women REALLY be defended?
Even Candace Owens?
If you’re not in the know and have no idea who she is then, beloved, congrats….your life is amazing!
Behold!
…and for my feminists, for good measure…
When did we get to a place that women were beyond reproach or above correction? If a black woman is obese and you don’t wanna date her then…
If we, God forbid, have a preference of size, complexion or shape its…
And, let me be clear, I’m not defending those fuckboys that INSULT black women and bring them down while pursuing their preference.
Fuck them niggas forever.
But I’ve seen social media/blog threads where there is no nuance. There’s no air around these issues.
All of you are not perfect.
Some of you are extremely problematic, emotionally abusive and downright at times can even be cruel. I’m sorry but that’s just a fucking fact. Jada is not perfect and was not perfect in this. That HAS to be acknowledged. NEITHER was Will and NEITHER was Chris Rock. But some of y’all posts are terrifying to men because it begs the question: At what point did she protect Will and why is her lack of protection being ignored?
This queen posted this….
There has been an overcorrection.
Reciprocity and nuance seem to be dead.
We have to protect EACH OTHER, it can’t be just black women and it can’t be just black men. We have to be in this together and do our utmost to protect and LOVE each other.
I’ve never seen us so divided. This Will Smith/Jada shit has brought out some demons. How are we co-signing a man slapping another man in front of millions over a joke? Yes, protect your wife but like this? I woulda smack the shit out of Chris Rock BACKSTAGE….TMZ woulda caught it. But in public at a live, televised event? And for all you mothers out there with sons who co-sign him “standing up for his queen” keep this same energy when lil “Supposed to be just a backrub” gets arrested for doing what you encouraged live….on Facebook……. for thousands to see….to prove the point you applauded.
This isn’t and wasn’t about protecting black women: Beloved….that’s just assault with a touch of battery. That’s it. Now if I get married and someone insults my wife in public ABSOLUTELY he’s getting hands and feet put on him….but not in front of a crowd of millions of fucking people. There are places and times to handle these things, beloved.
Some shit you handle behind closed doors and as men. THAT used to be code. The same women that applaud black men slapping the shit out of each other on live tv, would have denounced 2 black women arguing on a reality tv show. Make it make sense.
Why didn’t Jada protect him?
I didn’t see that woman reach for him or scream , “William, NO!!”….nothing.
Not a fucking thing.
She co-signed that shit with her silence. Watched Will risk it all…..and for what ? What if Chris Rock had filed charges and the police came for Will? What if the academy revokes his Oscar ? The accolade he’s been chasing his entire career. What about the Williams sisters and the message they were trying to convey with their movie about their dad being an amazing black father? What now? Do y’all know what the police do to not small niggas when they get called?
And then what were y’all gonna say? What does THAT funeral look like after the applause from the crowd?
She chose to entangle herself with a mentally unstable man dealing with documented intense untreated daddy issues and exposed their family to, well …. this …
….and y’all laughed.
His pain was HILARIOUS to y’all.
All type memes.
Kanye has been fighting for his kids, not in the best of ways mind you, but y’all BEEN laughing at him. Tyrese got on live crying about his financial situation and not seeing his kids and y’all made a meme out that nigga. Men are committing suicide in record numbers. Black men are disproportionately being killed by police in America.
Y’all are raising sons that may have to go to school in the states and this is the lesson? They don’t deserve protection?
When was the last time you did a mental health check-in with your husband, boyfriend or male acquaintance? Yes, we’re closed mouthed and try to conceal our feelings BECAUSE we were conditioned to. Men are suffering quietly and no one is talking about it. NO ONE is protecting US. No one except this queen….
Do y’all deserve MORE protection than us?
Abso-fucking-lutely.
I said it earlier, the black woman is the least protected and most vulnerable woman on the planet. But, beloved, we need some protection too. We need emotional safety too. We need a safe space too. But we don’t get the applause. We don’t get the hashtags and rarely do we have droves of women coming to our defense. A lot of times it’s quite the opposite regardless of circumstance…
One time a pretty big guy in Walmart called my mother a bitch because he thought she had jumped the line in front of him. I was the biggest I had ever been….probably about 310lbs at the time.
I approached the man and was lifting my arm to choke him because NO ONE talks to my mother like that in front of me.
I saw red.
But my mother, as frail and as small as she’s always been, protected me. She knew I could take him. She hugged me. Her arms couldn’t do the damage they once did but her touch was enough to make me hesitate. She was older, she didn’t have the stamina or strength to fight him herself but she knew I could so she wouldn’t let me. And, in her heart, she knew that if she allowed me to choke that man it could be the last time she would see me and the punishment for my chokehold would be a little more than a belt. She had the maturity and emotional dexterity to realize that protecting me was more important than gaining retribution for any slight or offense she may have felt.
Because a little ways away were some policemen watching the whole thing go down and waiting for me to make my last mistake.
But with her small arms, and love in her heart, she protected me.
Black women deserve our love, our protection, our ears, our voices and our arms….we just ask for the same.
#ProtectBlackWomen
#HugABlackMan
#LoveEachOther
#Repeat
Be Safe tho
