Black Women’s Lives Matter: America Has A Femicide Problem & We Need To Talk About It [Op-Ed]
Misogynoir, lack of accountability, and cultural forces like patriarchy fuel this crisis, which must be directly confronted. The post Black Women’s Lives Matter: America Has A Femicide Problem & We Need To Talk About It [Op-Ed] appeared first on MadameNoire.
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Black women deserve safety, protection, and the fundamental right to live. Yet for far too long, the national conversation around violence in the Black community has ignored that painful truth. We rally, we protest, we organize around the systemic dangers facing our men and the heartbreak of losing our sons—but we rarely address or name the violence that lives much closer.
Whether at work, the gym, or at home, Black women face a high level of danger. From sexual violence to murder, we are the most vulnerable when it comes to being unprotected by our men and the system, but if we’re being real, this isn’t new.
Look at the response to the 2020 shooting of Megan Thee Stallion by Tory Lanez and the harassment she has continued to endure from him and his fans for speaking out.
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You will see why the blatant disregard for the life of Dr. Cerlina Wanzer Fairfax, DDS while Black men rushed to hoist up her killer, because he was “a good man” and a member of their fraternity, is no different—same story, different names.
It’s time to get loud and serious about the problem.
Before we dive into this, I want to be clear about why this subject is personal for me. Not only am I a Black woman, but I survived more than two years of domestic violence at only 15 while pregnant by an adult. I was told then that it was love, but it wasn’t—it was control and jealousy at the hands of a predator.
Also, this is not to bash Black men; I understand that there are extenuating circumstances that can lead to someone causing irreparable harm or acts of violence. My stepfather, who only ever received a seatbelt ticket while I was growing up, is currently incarcerated after snapping and contributing to the death of his then-wife after more than a year of unreported emotional abuse at her hands. The reason this is important is that this incident made me confront my own bias. Truthfully, in my mind, for years I felt it was a twisted form of justified karma for her destruction of my parents’ marriage— she was the side chick and also white. The earth-shattering event forced me to confront uncomfortable truths about my own bias and highlighted how easily we can dismiss harm depending on who the victim and perpetrator are—and that distortion sits at the heart of this crisis.
The post Black Women’s Lives Matter: America Has A Femicide Problem & We Need To Talk About It [Op-Ed] appeared first on MadameNoire.
