Out to Lunch. Be Back Whenever Y'all Can Handle Your Own Shit
By the time you read this, it will already be too late. (This honestly should be another slogan for black women across the world, but whatever.) This past weekend in Charlottesville, Va., a huge group of white people took to the streets to show their entire ass.
Home training? Lacking. Human decency? Absent. Common sense? About as much as a damn door knob. Hatred filled folks with Tiki Torches purchased from Home Depot and probably made in China walked all across a town in “protest” of their civil liberties being threatened. “You will not replace us!”
If you were a living and breathing human then you saw what happened at that riot. That shit was bad. So bad that Don Lemon (DON. LEMON.) had to put his foot down, and Cornell West dragged somebody so bad on Anderson Cooper that I would put it as a strong contention for best televised read. (Third only to Whitney’s infamous “Crack is whack…I wanna see the receipts” interview with Diane Sawyer, and Phaedra Parks’ epic “All you know is your baby daddy needed $10 for a medium pizza” read of Kenya Moore.)
That’s all the time that I’m giving to those assholes, but I do want to briefly mention the true heroes of the weekend: the anti-protesters who took to the streets to stand up against a sea of salty over-privileged, hot air-filled trash bags. I’m so proud of the students at the University of Virginia (UVA) who weren’t here for the bullshit on the very first night and literally stood toe-to-toe with the Devil, Beelzebub, and all of his orange flavored minions on their campus. Most importantly, I would like to honor Heather Heyer who was tragically murdered after someone drove a car into a crowd of protesters.
As the events were unfolding, I hopped on Twitter to see what some of my fellow “friends” were thinking. Overwhelmingly, most people were shocked and dismayed about the events. But, black and brown people were unbothered, because for us, this is nothing new. It’s business as usual.
However, I did notice something very interesting among black women. Some blamed themselves. Maybe they had not done enough to prevent things like this from happening. Maybe they should have organized more, spoke out more, wrote more, advocated more. MORE, MORE, MORE. THEY SHOULD HAVE DONE MORE. It’s the life of a Black woman honestly. After all, Black women have been trying to save y’all’s asses from yourselves since Adam and Eve in the garden and somehow, you never learn.
“MORE, MORE, MORE. THEY SHOULD HAVE DONE MORE. It’s the life of a Black woman honestly. ”
But I noticed a turn in the tide halfway through the day. Black women stopped blaming themselves. Instead, they decided to love themselves by not taking on more than they could bear. The women on my timeline stated that they had done their part. Been vocal when opportunities arose, voted for Hillary in the election, and done a laundry list of other things. This was not on them so they weren’t going to blame themselves for it.
They started tweeting positive messages to each other. Encouraging messages reminding them that you can’t save folks that don’t want to be saved in the first place. Sending gifs or memes meant to bring smiles to their faces. Words of tough love to demand that they turn off the television and seek goodness in the world elsewhere. Old school phrases like “a hard head makes a soft behind” caused giggles to spill from our lips because we knew this day would come and they just didn’t want to listen.
Harsh realities accompanied by black girl magic that told them “Don’t listen to these hoes. You don’t have to lead this damn fight.” Loving reminders that you can’t carry the entire world on your back if yours is broken were spread across my TL. Questions served with companionable side eye of “Oh, so now they want to listen to us?” Collectively, Black women put the “Out to Lunch” signs on their metaphorical office doors and went for all you can eat Shrimp fest at Red Lobster. They were done, and there’s no telling when they’ll come back.
And I know that sounds harsh given the situation, but it is what it is. Black women are tired, and they have a right to be. So, it is what it is. Deal with it. Black women saved the day, by saving them damn selves. By realizing and honoring the fact that they are not to blame for white supremacy and they are not obligated to save folks from it, they deserve a round of applause (No Waka). You go girls!
