It is not normal for people to know little to nothing about you—and still demand your allegiance. Your loyalty. Your sacrifice. Your fighting spir
It is not normal for people to know little to nothing about you—and still demand your allegiance. 
Your loyalty.
Your sacrifice.
Your fighting spirit.
That is not solidarity.
That is extraction.
They don’t care about the origin of your scars—
only that the scars prove you can fight.
They look at what life carved into you and decide it makes you useful.
They call it resilience.
They call it strength.
They call it being “built for this.”
But abuse Survivors learn the truth early:
when someone values your endurance more than your humanity,
you are being dehumanized.
You are being objectified.
They want your shield, but not the years it took to forge your armor.
They want your courage in the moment of crisis, but not the truth of what shaped it.
They do not ask why you cry.
They do not ask what hurts.
They do not ask what names still echo in your body when you try to rest.
And when people say,
“I didn’t know about the MOVE bombing.”
“I didn’t know about Black Wall Street.”
“I didn’t know about the Black town massacres.”
“I didn’t know about Sonya Massey.”
“I didn’t know about little Aiyana Jones.”
—but still demand your sacrifice before PEOPLE stop being killed in their homes—
pay attention. (damn…they really said “people” like I ain’t people.)
Words mean things.
Ignorance that keeps demanding your labor is not neutral.
It is weaponized ignorance—a choice to remain unknowing while still feeling entitled to what your knowing cost you.
This is not about new technology.
There have always been libraries.
There has always been proximity to some degree at least.
In this country, people encounter Black people daily—at work, in neighborhoods, in classrooms, in relationships, in networks, in culture. Or you have the opportunity to.
So the question is not “Why didn’t I know?”
The question is: Why wasn’t knowing required before asking for your blood, your silence, your forgiveness, your strength?
Where was the support for the arts that tell Black stories with depth and care?
Where was the demand for programming that taught people about their actual neighbors?
Where was the protection when those stories were given one season, one chance, before their wings were clipped?
Too often, Black history is dismissed as “extra,”
even while Black pain is treated as endlessly available.
Many abuse Survivors recognize this pattern immediately.
In toxic relationships, your pain becomes a credential.
Your survival becomes an expectation.
Your scars are read as consent—
as if what hurt you somehow obligated you to keep absorbing harm for others.
This is how coercive control works.
Loyalty is demanded without intimacy.
Sacrifice is expected without care.
And when you finally name what’s happening, you are accused of being divisive.
Black Americans have been placed in that position again and again.
Asked to protect a system that will not protect them.
Asked to be patient while violence continues.
Asked to educate people who have not shown up to learn.
At some point, people are not asking for charity.
They are asking for mutual appreciation.
For engagement.
For connection that runs both ways.
The people worthy of you are not satisfied with your output.
They are curious about you.
They want to know your stories—not to extract lessons, but to understand your shape.
They want to know your history—not to debate it, but to hold it with care.
They want to know what makes you YOU, beyond what you can endure.
Because you were uniquely created.
And then you arrived here—
and life added layers.
Family added layers.
Love added layers.
Loss added layers.
History added layers.
You are not a flat symbol.
You are not a role to be filled.
You are not a programmable machine.
They have those now.
Human beings are different.
Human beings require relationship, reciprocity, reverence.
Human beings cannot be reduced to shields without something sacred being destroyed.
Women—especially Black women—are allowed to step out of patterns that mirror abuse.
Allowed to refuse narratives that frame harm as “rescue,” control as “protection,” or perpetual one-sided sacrifice as duty.
Allowed to insist that care precede commitment, and knowledge precede demand.
Clarity is not cruelty.
Boundaries are not betrayal.
And exhaustion does not cancel your authority.
You do not need permission to see manipulation.
You do not need approval to protect girls, to guard your body, your spirit, your history.
And you do not weaken humanity by refusing exploitation.
You strengthen it—
by reminding the world that survival is not the same as consent,
and that honoring women’s humanity is how life is preserved.