It takes extraordinary arrogance to approach grown women as if we are strangers to our own existence.Something has been bothering me about the way
It takes extraordinary arrogance to approach grown women as if we are strangers to our own existence.
Something has been bothering me about the way some of our leaders discuss race and sex. And the more I think about it, the stranger it gets. Remember when people were questioning Shaun King’s racial background? Remember the controversy surrounding Rachel Dolezal?
Black people had questions. Plenty of them.
People wanted to know about ancestry, family history, lived experience, and what it meant for someone to claim a racial identity while holding a leadership position in a Black organization or movement.
And you know what? Those questions were discussed openly. For a long time.
Some Black leaders defended these individuals. Some defended their work without necessarily agreeing with their identity claims. Others disagreed with them altogether.
But there was no broad institutional demand that Black Americans surrender their understanding of Blackness to accommodate somebody else’s declaration.
Nobody had to prove they were a decent person by pretending they didn’t have questions.
And that brings me to something I would really like our leaders to explain.
1. We Know How to Recognize the Importance of Black Identity
There is something deeply disrespectful about treating women’s self-knowledge as “ignorance” while treating someone else’s self-description as “unquestionable wisdom.”
Black Americans know that race is not simply a matter of putting on certain clothes, adopting particular hairstyles, or announcing that we feel connected to a community.
We understand that Blackness has a history. We understand why people have questions about ancestry, experience, and belonging.
We also understand that somebody can stand beside us, support our causes, contribute to our communities, and do meaningful work without being Black.
Nobody has to become Black to stand against racism. That is not a difficult concept for us to understand.
2. So Why Does the Conversation Change When It Comes to Women?
There is no genuine respect in a relationship where one person’s beliefs are protected and the other person’s questions are forbidden.
Here is where I start having questions.
When women raise concerns about sex, female boundaries, privacy, or the definition of womanhood, some of the very leadership circles that understand the importance of racial identity suddenly approach identity very differently.
Now we hear arguments that a person’s personal and independent declaration should determine how institutions classify them.
And depending on the policy, women may be expected to accept that classification in places where sex has practical consequences.
I’m talking about shelters, prisons, changing rooms, sports, and other circumstances where women’s privacy, safety, and opportunities deserve serious consideration.
Why is questioning identity understood in one conversation but treated as unacceptable in another?
I would like an explanation that goes beyond telling women to “be kind.” Women already know how to be kind. We also know how to think.
3. Respect Does Not Require Me to Stop Thinking
I can respect another human being without agreeing with everything that person believes about themselves. I can support someone’s right to live free from violence, harassment, and discrimination without agreeing that every institution must organize itself around that person’s identity.
And Black Americans demonstrated that distinction during the racial identity controversies I mentioned earlier.
People could acknowledge someone’s work without accepting every claim about their background.
Why should women be denied that same room for independent judgment? There is something insulting about approaching adult women as though our questions must be corrected before they can even be considered.
We are grown women. We are capable of examining claims, recognizing differences, and making decisions about our own boundaries. Hell, infants and animals do that.
4. Black Women Are Not Black on Monday and Female on Tuesday
This is another part I need our leaders to think about. Black women do not leave our sex at the door when we enter conversations about racial justice.
We have histories as Black people. We also have histories as women. Both have shaped our lives.
Our mothers and grandmothers fought against people who believed they had the authority to decide what Black women should accept, endure, and remain silent about. We know what it looks like when institutions dismiss women’s concerns while claiming to act in everybody’s best interest.
So when a Black woman raises a question about female privacy, sex-based protections, or the meaning of womanhood, why would her own community’s leaders treat her reasoning as less worthy of consideration?
Why should she have to prove her “goodness” before anyone will discuss her concerns?
5. Leadership Owes Women More Than Instructions to Agree
Women are not confused children who need to be guided toward the correct understanding of ourselves. Women are not strangers to ourselves.
And I am not asking leaders to mistreat anybody. I am asking them to explain their reasoning. Minus the insults or assertions that women are forsaking kindness.
If you believe racial identity and sex should be treated differently, explain why. If you support a policy that changes who can enter a female space, explain how women’s safety, privacy, and consent have been considered.
If your vision of “progress” requires women to distrust their own judgment, you have some explaining to do.
And if some women disagree with your conclusions, understand that disagreement is not automatically evidence of hatred. We have serious questions. We deserve serious answers. Because there is a difference between asking people to respect someone’s humanity and asking them to accept a particular understanding of reality.
And there is certainly a difference between welcoming someone into a community’s work and requiring everyone else to recognize that person as a member of a particular group. Black Americans have demonstrated that we can understand those distinctions.
I can understand what you believe without believing it myself. That is not cruelty. That is the ordinary freedom of having a mind.
Women can understand them, too. Respecting another person’s perspective does not require me to surrender my own. There is a difference between asking me to understand your perspective and demanding that I make it my reality
6. Women Do Not Need Permission to Think
A leader who cannot tolerate women’s independent judgment is asking for obedience, not offering leadership.
What troubles me most is the expectation that women should somehow ‘know better than to question what we are being told.’ As though the thoughtful, compassionate, mature response is to set aside our own observations and concerns.
I don’t find that respectful. I find it patronizing. Black women have spent far too much of our history being told what we must tolerate for somebody else’s benefit. And I am not interested in watching that expectation receive a fresh coat of paint and return under the alleged language of “progress.” It is not progressive to treat grown women as though our observations require supervision and approval.
If our leaders can recognize the importance of Black people having a voice in conversations about Black identity, they ought to be willing to recognize the importance of women having a voice in decisions about womanhood and female protections.
We can disagree about policies. We can examine competing rights. We can have difficult conversations without denying anyone’s humanity.
But women are not children waiting for someone to tell us what we are allowed to believe. We are human beings with minds of our own.
And I would hope that leaders who understand the history of Black Americans appreciate exactly why that freedom deserves respect.
Women Are Human Beings Outside of Their Relationships With Males – WE Survive Abuse