Side Step: Angela Davis: Truth

Angela Davis (Photo credit: Free Pages) History has proven that no one is going to protect, nurture, or advocate for Black women and girls but us— Not the Democratic Party to which we are more loyal than any other voting bloc. Not the school systems that suspend Black girls at alarming numbers. Not white feminists who often forget that we are women too. Not the patriarchal Black church that prospers on the backs of faithful sisters. Not the Black community that is still making excuses for one Mr. Robert Kelly and too many men just like him. Still-my-President Barack Obama said, “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.” And, particularly in the case of Black women, he “ain’t never lied.” But the reality of this truth frightens me. I am not scared because I don’t trust in the strength of Black women. I do. We’ve been getting shit done for centuries. Harriet Tubman. Fannie Lou Hamer. Senator Maxine motherfucking Waters. I am not scared because I don’t believe in the healing power of sisterhood. There are women in my life to whom I will never have to explain myself. They recognize how the hair curls tightly at the nape of my neck. They know my code-switched voice and my relaxed one. They know my recent history and the one encoded in my DNA. I can speak to them in the shorthand of familiarity. There is something cathartic and validating about the support of someone who knows you. And no one knows the Black female experience like a Black girl or woman. Black women have loved on each other and supported each other throughout our history in America. We have watched babies; held hands in hospital rooms; cried together; prayed for each other and laughed about the “good good” over good wine. I trust that sort of love power to manifest the impossible.