TW: Rape and sexual assault implied
I've been in my feelings a lot lately...
Usually when that happens, I sit inside and rant on twitter. I follow a number of black feminists as well as their blogs and they were having a very interesting conversation yesterday about black parents. As a black woman, I find I have a new intersection everyday and the issues that I've dealt with/am dealing with hardly ever come to the light but it's things I deal with literally everyday. Specifically the discussion was about how black parents raise their children to be individual and free thinkers, yet as soon as their thoughts don't conflate with that of the parents, they shame the child and make them feel guilty. I felt some type of way about reading that... So much so that I screenshot the tweet and sent it to my older sister who lives in Washington. It was 4:00 in the morning here so I'm sure she had just gone to bed with her wife. She needed to see that thought because mt mother is the biggest offender in making us feel guilty about not agreeing with or seeing thing her way.
Just recently I've been on winter break and went home to visit my mother who lives in Alabama since Katrina. I should first mention that my mother is a very interesting woman. She says that she doesn't care what we do and that she accepts us (my sister is a lesbian and I'm somewhere in the margins) no matter what we decide in life as long as we aren't hurting anyone or hurting ourselves. I've long come to the realization that my mother is not embracing but very tolerant.
But I digress. She's lived in Alabama sine I graduated from high school in 2006 and rarely visits home so I make it a chance to see her when I'm not buried in school work or just work in general. Needless to say when I'm in Alabama, I'm miserable. The people are fake, overly religious, judgmental (which can really just mean overly religious) and downright awful. Above me having to explain to my family how they perpetuate every single stereotype known to man, I have to constantly come out to them and explain why my sexuality isn't something I should have to pin point for them. Then I also have to explain to them my major and why I'm studying it whenever it comes up in conversation. And after all that's said and done, I still have to go home with my mother and deal with her opinions about the world. Usually it ends in a heated discussion, argument or me just throwing my hands up and drinking like I have no liver.
This most recent visit wasn't so bad. Due to prior events I won't get into here, my family isn't exactly speaking. So this awarded me the ability to sit quietly and not have to talk with anyone I didn't need to. However, that also meant I only had moms to chat it up with. Before we even got to the family gathering, she called me out for being too political about the way I discuss things. This came about after I tried to point out how the way we talk about sex with multiple partners is so stigmatized and demonized it makes me over emotional. I literally could not get two words out before she started telling me how "deep" it wasn't. I honestly was not trying to attack her, I was taking her side by benevolently telling her that having two boyfriends was not a bad thing. Here's the situation:
Mom just got a new boyfriend who needed to tell her something big. Not scary big but "this-may-change-your-opinion-of-me" big. She starts with saying "I thought to myself, I sure hope he doesn't have another woman!" to which I respond well mom...you have a boyfriend so why the judgement? She says "I'm not sleeping with the both of them so it's different". I explained that she can sleep with either of them and it could still be no different than what her situation is. And I said to her, "That's what prophylactics are for". She started negating it and saying that isn't the point. So I was like well mom I don't understand the stigma around having multiple sexual partners. Immediately she attacked me. "That's not my lifestyle! That's how you life your life and everything isn't a political debate! It isn't that deep Sherrill!" I was not trying to have any type of political debate or discussion with this woman. I was just trying to tell her you can't tell this man he can't be shared when you're sharing yourself. It's hypocritical. Which I wouldn't say my mother is not.
So I refused to talk with her about it any further. I started texting on my phone and listened with a dull ear, fortunately I learned the skill in college.
We went on to have another argument during my stay that further proved to me why I decided to struggle in my studio apartment instead of live it up with her under the same roof. She shrinks me until I bow to her unnecessarily just so she can wave her all mighty authority in mine and my sister's faces. Which we already have a great deal of respect and fear for her so she needn't do that. Yet, she does.
So the problem here is that she raised my sister and I to both be individuals. Individuals a part from her and from one another however when we express our views, specifically me because my sister gets too fed up too quick and deuces out on my mom, she goes on and on about insane we are. This has been the ebony flow since I was a teen and started to perceive the world the way she taught me.
Fast forward to why I'm writing this blog. Also while I was there, I was in her room using her scanner for some work I had taken with me there over break. While I was working, she started watching this video of this woman who just went in on all the women who cam forward in the Bill Cosby debacle. (**TRIGGER WARNING: HATE SPEECH TOWARDS RAPE SURVIVORS**) This woman was out of her fucking skull. She started going on about how we need to protect the credibility of black men and how the victims only are speaking now after decades because their money ran out so now they need to become relevant again and so on. She also went to say that these women were whores before the Bill Cosby situation and deserved it? I was disgusted. Even more so because my mother watched this whole video in its entity and did not blink. She even laughed with the woman and certain points I believe. I expressed my discomfort a few times as the video played and my mother did nothing. I kept quiet and finished my work because I knew that had I engaged her in debate it wouldn't have ended well for either of us and I wouldn't have gotten my work done. So I left the room.
Couple days ago my best friend pointed out that Phylicia Rashaad had come forward in defense of Bill Cosby. It was a sad day because she out right "misquoted" as she so puts it "Forget these women". My mother decided to repost the article of Phylicia Rashaad supporting Bill Cosby. I was done. There is no way in hell that I will let my mother stand behind this cause blindly and then tell me I'm wrong for whatever reason because the truth is my mother and I are the same. I took some time to explain to my mother the problem with supporting him and not having gotten her own facts and opinions about the case and why he's problematic in general. Whether he did it or not, you're purposely silencing the voices of women who deal with their abusers and try hard to defeat them but can't because they're told they deserve it.
My mother was sexually assaulted as a teen. Whether she admits to telling me or not, I remember asking her and she told me. And she never spoke of it again after she told me it happened. Our (black) culture teaches us black women that we mustn't "put out business out there" so then when we try to talk about our hurt and defeat we're met with shame and guilt on top of the shame and guilt we've already placed within ourselves. I don't understand how my mom could've raised me to formulate these opinions when she's walked a path I have also.
I understand if she wants to be tolerant of my life and that she doesn't want it to reflect on her, because let's be honest that's the only reason she flip flops. But why raise me up to tear me down?
I'm not asking her to take my side, I want her to look around and see what this society has made her into. How this society has molded her thoughts and opinions and put two and two together. I realize she grew up in a different environment than me and that 'in her day' she had to be a certain type of respectable black woman but, miss me with that old dogs can't learn new tricks bull shit. If my mother can grow up in the 70's and raise two black girls in the 90's, she can stand to realize that agreeing with the first post your best friend puts on Facebook is not being aware, relevant or awake.
This is why I haven't spoken with my mother about my experience because even though I was at my house, in my pajamas, completely sober, she's not going to understand that rape is still wrong no matter the situation. And that's what perpetuates this culture of silence in all communities of color. And the fact that my mother has been silent about so many things happening in the media and this is the ONE THING she decides she's going to be verbal about, kills me inside. There's been so many posts that I repost about black women who are missing, who are raped, who are abused, murdered, criminalized, and the first serious article she backs is to protect the legacy of a black man. Not saying my mother or any black woman shouldn't support black men. I just feel like my mother, a single parent who has been burned by so many black men in her life, should be a little leery of black men when it comes to things like this.
It's because we see our mothers jump on a cause behind black men that we think we're supposed to do it too and that somehow if we don't we're wrong but we're suppose to suppress the pain of ourselves and our sisters.
I'm sure I've veered away from my point, but mainly I'm curious to this phenomenon with black parents that do this. I certainly know it's a struggle with every independent strong willed black woman I know, so what's the commonalities? What is there to gain or lose from diminishing your child's star after gassing them up for years? I need this to be talked about more.
