You Are Not Welcome Here Anymore

As a Black woman who loves other Black women, who sees herself in other Black women, I hold deep regard and appreciation for us. I value what we bring to the table in our support, our work ethic, our perseverance, and our tenacity. I see our academic and financial achievements, our drive to build legacy, to uplift our families, and our determination for upward financial mobility. I see our willingness to extend ourselves not only for our own growth but also for the benefit of others. I see our grit, our transformative abilities, our dynamism, versatility, multifaceted nature, and all the qualities that make us so extraordinary.

We are breaking ground in almost every field and sector, becoming some of the most educated and resilient creators in the West, building businesses and legacies.

And it’s because of all these factors that every time I hear a low vibrational, low quality, uninspiring, unintelligent man crawl from the belly of the underworld to spew some generic, uninformed nonsense about Black women, it makes my blood boil.

And let us be honest. It is usually of the same ilk. Men who do not have access to the women they truly desire. Men who can only reach women on their low vibrational, low academic, low social, and altogether constrained level. Men who will never stand alongside the brilliant, extraordinary women who rise, who shine, who break barriers every single day. And so, from the underbelly of the universe, they crawl up to spew their nonsense.

Being on social media, on platforms like TikTok, and seeing the sheer number of spaces dedicated to berating and “humbling” Black women is absolutely terrifying. Why would anyone want to humble people who are on a trajectory to better themselves if not out of fear?If not out of an internal sense of inadequacy? If not because of the fear that this demographic, of which many of them are a part, and I am speaking here to a subset of Black men, will be left in the shadows of women who are excelling academically, economically, financially, and in so many other aspects of life? Why else would you want to humble them?

It is sickening to see how these platforms give these men the freedom to spew venom, to taint and tarnish not only the image of Black women but of Black people as a whole. Even their own mothers, sisters, and aunties are not truly exempt, although these men often hold them up as rare exceptions to the rule. Every other Black woman is treated as if she is nothing, as if she is somehow less than when compared to her white or Asian counterparts.

It speaks to a deep psychosis, not just self-hatred, but fear. A fear that because Black women see you, because they do not fear you, because they can engage with you, challenge you, and hold you accountable in ways that perhaps women of other races cannot or will not, you feel threatened, emasculated. And so you create false narratives, painting us as something we are not. You push the idea that these women are somehow exceptional in their inferiority, as you label them as loud, aggressive, or undesirable.

And because we live in a world that is deeply anti-Black, this rhetoric spreads with ease. People of all races and cultures pick it up, run with it, believe it, rehearse it, repackage it, and regurgitate it to different types of Black women again and again. Are we not exhausted by this vile, recycled narrative?

I am exhausted. Exhausted for myself. Exhausted for my friends and my family. Exhausted for all of us. Exhausted for centuries of Black women in the West, whether it is white supremacists or Black people who align themselves with white supremacy, repeating its tropes, parroting its lies, and perpetuating its violence. I am exhausted.

I want to tell my nieces and goddaughters to be strong, to hold their heads high, to ignore the rhetoric they may hear online or in real life. But part of me isn’t inclined to do that at all. You do not have to be strong in the face of constant adversity. Feel your emotions. Feel your anger. Feel your disappointment. Feel your pain. Strength sometimes paints a false picture, that we are okay, that we can carry it all without breaking. I am not okay with this, and I do not want the young women in my life to be okay with this either.

I want them to stay far, far away from anyone who parrots this kind of nonsense. I want them to never protect, defend, or give cover or ear to people who do this type of harm. I want them to never waste time or energy on those who align themselves with white supremacy, who repeat words and narratives that harm Black people collectively or individually. These people do not deserve our empathy, our sympathy, or our discourse. I want to bury them in the deepest pits of hell and leave them there. Forgotten.

It has been surprising to see support from a number of Black men across social media, those who came to the defence of Black women in the wake of the latest wave of vitriol on that warped platform, BK Chat. But for me, it felt too late. Too much time has passed in which this rhetoric has been allowed to fester and spread in the West. So while the rebuttal was surprising, it felt empty. This should have been challenged years ago, perhaps even in our mothers’ generations. It should have been taught to them by their fathers, how to love, respect, and protect Black women, whether they deemed them worthy or not. But that is the problem. Their fathers were never there. So who receives the full brunt and force of the anger they carry towards their fathers? Their mother, of course. And all the women in their lives who stayed and did what their fathers could not.

And then there is the question of being worthy. Because too often, that is the game, is it not? Who is worthy of protection, and why. The constant demand for Black women to prove our worth. You cannot be a B-I-T-C-H. You cannot be this. You cannot be that. Conform to this standard. Shrink yourself to fit into that standard. This relentless desire to beat down Black women, to make us small enough to fit into a box they can open and close at will, that is what it is.

For me, these men get no more allowance. No more grace. And that is what I will teach the young people in my life. For a long time, I held sympathy because I believed these men had suffered deep trauma, and that trauma had shaped the way they projected their emotions in destructive ways. A part of me was hopeful that as more of us became aware of the systemic forces we all face, the challenges we endure, the ways we are consciously and subconsciously made to see each other through the media, and the subliminal messages we ingest, they might reconcile with themselves and recognise the harm they cause. I believed that with maturity and self-awareness, they could somehow see the error of their ways.

But that hope has gone. Seeing a grown man, who may well have endured deep trauma, refuse to seek healing or therapy, and instead choose to vomit his pain onto Black women, projecting it without filter or thought, makes it impossible to offer more grace. To watch him speak without a moment’s pause to consider how his words harm Black women across every demographic, without recognising that what he is doing is dangerous, is enough for me to say they deserve no further compassion from us.

So I say again: give them no ear, no time, no grace, no justification. They do not belong anywhere near us. And for those who choose to date exclusively outside and parade it as a badge of honour, using it to fuel the “Black women are this and that” narrative, please stay outside. Never come back in. You are not welcome here anymore.