In recent years, social media has become a platform where Black Women and girls candidly share aspects of their lives, thoughts and strategies for navigating society. However, this openness has sometimes led to problematic narratives.
Recently there have been discussions around Black Women openly attending a tech event primarily to seek romantic partners and although other races of women have done this for decades, they would rarely publicize it.
Only through digging very deep in certain spaces would you find something like this:
But this Asian girl imo appeared to be a s*x worker and although such behaviour is SOOOO common amongst them, you would never see them make videos about an upcoming tech conference to plot on Rich White Men. What is so unfortunate is that I don’t know if Black Women think they live in a silo but so many groups have eyes on them and they are giving away their recipe and blueprint. Calls online from many American women and even some non-Nigerian African women to go to such events to “find rich Nigerian men” is also now why White Women are doing the same, even flying to Lagos and plotting on Nigerian men. I’ve said this many times; Black Women’s constant airing out of their dirty laundry has literally exacerbated narratives around us being undesirable because we actively sell Black Men to other races and I’ve written about this extensively. How pathetic to see a video of a dark-skinned woman with a white man and tweet “Black Men don’t see value in our skin but others do” as opposed to “beautiful couple”. Every conversation around Black Men not valuing you is a signpost for non-Black women to pursue them and it’s interesting that other communities are just as colorist but the women will not vocalize their struggles in this way.
Such behaviour such as conversations around the tech event is very embarrassing and ruining the optics of Black Women and undermine our professional ambitions and contributions in such spaces but I’ve realized that this is more of a bigger issue surrounding our need to overshare. There are so many videos of Black Women showing what’s under their wigs and most videos I see on feminine hygiene (such a personal thing) are from Black female content creators which almost makes it seem like Black Women require “extra” attention for basic hygiene. Maybe some BW want to educate others with what they know but that’s the job of our mothers. I also think that BW are raised in environments that emphasize being candid and ‘keeping it real’ (which in a sense is an antithesis to femininity which is more about a polished controlled image-curation and attention) and this translates to oversharing and not understanding the boundaries that should exist between public and private.
Back to publicizing your quest for rich men, I just don’t think we understand how damaging this is. I’ve said this time and time again that when you publicly put forth the idea that you are looking for a wealthy man when the world knows that you do not come from communities of wealth, this makes you PREY. You are a target for exploitation, it reinforces negative stereotypes (which Black Men are intent in spreading despite you dating down the most) and it invites ridicule (which will always be more heightened for Black women).
TW:
Recently there was a story of a hyp*rgamy Youtuber who had found out that her wealthy husband had been molesting their toddlers and this was a woman who herself was a victim of child SA, allowed her husband to r*pe her and still married him…. Why? Because she wanted a ‘rich black man’ so desperately and although this diabolical act is carried out by all colors and creeds, rich and poor we have to acknowledge the element of men knowing now how desperate certain women are for money and using that to do terrible things. Another thing that crosses my mind is about a Nigerian man based in the UK who was butchering young girls and luring them in with his car and clothes which some suggested was part of a ritual. I hate to exacerbate negative stereotypes about my continent because some Nigerian men are extremely educated and successful and a great catch, superior to all races BUT I’m telling you as a West African woman, this kind of ‘lets get rich Nigerian men’ childish mindset without doing the work to establish yourself or understand foreign cultures and how they view a non-Nigerian woman could put you in a situation that you never knew you could be in & let me just say this because Black Women love sweeping statements and don’t understand nuance, ALL MEN – African, Caribbean, Asian, European, South American, w/e will take advantage of desperate women. STOP ADVERTISING YOUR DESPERATION FOR RICH MEN (through posting about it, through commenting on videos about it etc., YOU ARE BEGGING TO BE EXPLOITED.
Especially with how the political climate will be in the coming months (I wouldn’t even have an X account unless it was making you money) let’s do our best to remove our lives and our opinions and our strategies from public online spaces: VID. Let’s take on anonymity wherever we can through our social media avis, through our account names and let’s stop sharing certain things about our experiences as Black Women online because it’s no one’s business. Let’s bring back mystery to the Black female experience because there are too many eyes online who do not wish you well and will use what you share against you.
OTN
4 thoughts on “Unfiltered and Exposed: The Cost of Oversharing for Black Women”
Every single thing I hear about us makes me wish I wasn’t born into this position of bad optics and ridicule. I fear social media was our worst enemy, driven by a desire to seek others similar to ourselves. That’s why I see the 90s and 00s as the last “good” era for us. I want to delete everything and just disappear.
When I write content, the purpose is to open the eyes of BW who’s eyes are closed & if it evokes a change in even 1 BW , it is a win for me. You have to learn that I write for BW as a whole because I want us to win and I’m able to see things from a Birds Eye view BUT at the end of the day, I am myself and live for myself. I’m not going to live my life thinking about the collective of BW everyday & I’m sure you can see in other Black women how they’ve managed to create beautiful lives for themselves despite the mistakes some BW make. The beauty of life is that you can in a sense delete everything and disappear if that would do you well. I always say don’t be mistaken to think that the world is sitting there at all times thinking of BW’s flaws, these articles are just to remind BW that some of OUR choices have contributed to some of the negativity we face and we can play our part by only embracing positive imagery of BW and reporting/ disregarding anything else. Live for yourself because that’s how you show up in the world not just as a “Black woman”!
Good points. Wpuld you consider delving into other areas that are TMI such as income, age, physical attraction etc and where it is best not to discuss these things?
For example, maybe a post about how BW should avoid speaking about their income at the family bbq but should speak on it when talking to recruiters.
I noticed that Black women do the same thing as well when it comes to our natural hair. Despite every single race of women modifying their hair in some way, only Black women feel the need to come online a talk about how much they hate or make self-deprecating jokes their 4C hair. I do not think Black women understand how that reflects on all Black women as a whole. We get treated like a monolith. This opens the door for other people to mock our natural hair. Now whenever a Black woman post a positive TikTok doing her hair, you will see nonBlack people commenting “Wow this must’ve been really hard to do!” I never used to see these types of comments until Black women started being very loud about their hatred for their 4C hair on tiktok. It’s not just that Black women overshare, it is that they are extremely loud with their oversharing. It’s like they cannot wait to tell the world their business.