TW: Anti-Blackness
I’ve touched upon some of these topics in my “Why be moral in an immoral world” post but there are a few moments when you realise how much Black Women/people have been brainwashed with a slave mentality where at all times we must be the bottom / the underdog while every other community thinks/behaves strategically. The last time for me was during COVID when I saw a Black couple urging people to visit their local Chinese restaurant to support them while back in China, some saw it fit to blame a virus that they created on Africans who had entered the country. Now we’ve reached another clear sign of how many of us are brainwashed as we see this P/I war unfolding in the Middle East.
Firstly, we have to acknowledge that it is good to have empathy. I believe that this makes you a human. We should be upset that women/children are harmed throughout the world and we should pray for these people but as Black people – especially women, we need to acknowledge that throughout our time on this Earth, there is not a community that has not engaged in anti-Blackness and therefore harmed us directly or indirectly.
P is an Arab country and I can’t even begin to document the harm that this ethnicity has caused the Black people of the world. Being the first enslavers of Africans to bringing colorism/ fgm to the region because they wanted lighter skinned/virginal East African women to r*pe in their harems. This is why Afro-Arabs exist and these people are not treated well so this kind of ‘There are Black ________ so let’s support them” does not make sense if such people are treated as second-class citizens and called slurs. There are active slave trades in Africa, most notably in Mauritania with Arab masters and Black slaves and in Sudan where the Arab population is literally committing a genocide against the Black population. There is so much that could be highlighted and this isn’t about supporting I but my question is why would you use your energy and time on people who en masse have done so much damage to people who look like you? I don’t know who has told Black Women that such behaviour will be rewarded, this makes you a fool. This is not the mindset of a queen or someone who will elevate their community. There are people suffering everywhere so you can’t help everyone & as a BW what has someone shown you that you’d rather focus on Arab men or Chinese women, whoever than your own sisters. Also, these regions are breeding terrorists/terrorism which is a danger to us all in the West. Actually, think about what you publicly support and speak on.
From Beats of the Antonov [2013] – a film about Sudan’s fight to keep its culture against forced arabisation :
Even worse, those who Black ppl are triggering in support of this Arab nation are a powerful group of people. Black Women already have no line of support and to then align yourself with a poor nation while publicly denouncing a wealthier powerful one is silly on our end and highlights BW’s inability to be strategic. BW and strategy seem to be on opposite ends because, in anything we do, we can never think strategically or ask “will this benefit us?”. Am I really as a BW going to be on the internet ‘picking sides’ with something that is so polarising? There are too many Jewish men married to BW (way more than Arab) – do your digging about those WM you see with BW, Jewish directors hiring BW, Jewish executives working with BW etc. for you to be silly enough to publicly “pick sides”. Do you see any East Asians holding flags up on social media? Yet they are 100% more respected by most of society because they have behaved strategically throughout history. They know when to close their mouths & rarely pick sides. A Black person will make a whole video on the P/I conflict and your average Arab will still never respect you as he would an East Asian who would rarely touch the topic. I’ve been told this directly however the person was alluding to respecting White ppl. This is not about being pro-I , it’s about being pro-Black. You really don’t owe the world a thing, see your own position in the world and focus on changing that, not these anti-black communities.
As highlighted by one of my readers:
We as BW and other POC are seen as a monolith. You’re damaging our brand as BW when you align yourself with certain things publicly. This issue is so much bigger than a war. You will find BW doing this with very polarising topics which has engendered misogynoir and it’s so horrific when such topics don’t even enhance the lives of Black people. Making yourself public enemy #1 and for who? It’s just like damn, can you just close your mouth and sit down. At least keep your views off the internet.
I’ve noticed that Black people as a whole seem to stay in a perpetual state of anger and despair. Maybe because they submerge themselves in so much negativity that they subconsciously seek out something to be angry about and such individuals on social media need to be ignored by you. Yes, pray for the safety of innocent women/children everywhere but this is not something that you need to be in such deep sorrow about, keeping you in a low frequency and if you are somebody who likes to stay sad and depressed there are millions of things going on in the black diaspora that you can think about.
You will not get anywhere in this world caring about those who don’t care about you. There are no rewards for this. Think about the bigger picture and move strategically. Please stop getting distracted & allowing others to use your emotions for their own gain. Treat others with respect and see their humanity but beyond that as a Black Woman, you do not owe this world anything else.
OTN
3 thoughts on “The Most Empathetic yet The Least Protected | Making yourself public enemy #1 for WHO? | War in the Middle East”
TW: Mentions of murder and femicide
Big rant incoming.
Completely agree. Arabs are undoubtedly some of the most racist towards black people. They’re usually more upfront and unapologetic about their racism too. On YouTube I’ll see them putting the monkey emoji or making comments about skin tone on videos of black women just doing their makeup. So the last group that should be supporting Arabs are black women.
In fact, I’d go as far to say that black women shouldn’t be offering support to ANY group. Black women being so vocal for other people always ends with us being left hanging and our problems being ignored, while everyone else gets their support handed to them, no questions asked.
At the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic, I saw a lot of black women advocating for the Asian Hate Crime Bill to be passed in the US. I’m not saying it shouldn’t have been passed, but black women’s support wasn’t entirely necessary. We have bigger things happening to us that we need to focus on like Black femicide. The bill was passed within a few months of them asking for it. Yet black women are being murdered in the US every 4.5 hours and the fact that this has been going on for years is given very little media coverage. At first it was every 24 hours, then once the pandemic started it dropped to 16, then 8, then 6, and now we’re at 4.5. Why isn’t this national news?
Many black women and girls lives are in danger hourly across the county with nobody to protect them. As you said, black women don’t have a support system we can fall back on. Who is gonna fight for the justice for these women and girls if other black women are busy concerning ourselves with everyone else’s problems but our own? This isn’t exclusive to the US either.
>There are no rewards for this.
A lot of black women seem to carry this religious sentiment with them, that if they sacrifice and mule for others they will be rewarded. Even in secular spaces with abstract political constructs. I grew up in a religious muslim household, so I have been aware of the horrors of Gaza my whole life. It’s seen as a test from God for the Gazans. I do feel empathy for the innocents, but there nothing I can do, so my words mean little.
And you are right about BW not being seen as individuals. It’s a reason and consequence of BW muling. We are so uniquely despised, we think we can compensate by being super helpful, either in a physical sense, or with theory as an intellectual figurehead. I’ve been quiet but I’m worried for the future.
I agree anti-blackness is a rampant part of Arab community. Moreover, Arabs themselves have turned there back on their own in support of Israel.
However, as an African American with European Jewish ancestry, I want to make it CLEAR Zionism/Israeli identity is not synonymous with being Jewish.
The genocide is an American issue, and Black American women have every right to protest their tax dollars being used for carpet-bombing civilians.
There is a fine line to being the image of the movement versus removing your financial & political support for genocide.