So, he’s left you for his preference. Good. He’s done us all a favor.
With every Black man that leaves an opportunity presents itself: One in which you can exist as a Black woman without his ethnophobic scrutiny dictating how much you’re worth. Non-Black men who’ve been admiring you from afar can now marvel at you up close. Let someone else love you and keep moving.
The Tyranny of Eurocentric Beauty Standards
Black men are the last people on the planet for whom forcing another culture’s expectations onto their own should be first nature. And yet, here we are.
Black men denigrate you for the features and traits that make you look black yet accuse you of hating yourself if you date non-Black men who find those traits and features attractive. They spend their entire lives attacking the way you look, and somehow, it’s you who hates yourself when you are simply trying to lay your edges.
In a world dominated by Eurocentric beauty standards, and with Black men so vocal in their disdain for our blackness, Black women must embrace our self-worth. No longer must we settle for men who prefer us to be anything but ourselves, or who prefer not to be around.
Rejecting Black men’s Eurocentric beauty standards en masse has been working to our advantage, Black women. Still, learning that our race and skin color actually matters most to Black men than to anyone else has taken us far too long.
Right now, we’re more in touch with ourselves than we’ve ever been. And we are still of the race, though maybe not of the culture. Because they’re so dastardly, Black men’s hypocritical expectations continue to get under our skin.
When they embrace another culture’s practices or standards, Black men never do so for altruistic reasons, but always with self-serving or self-aggrandizing intent. They don’t hold themselves accountable to other people’s expectations of manhood the same way they demand Black women adhere to outside standards of womanhood and beauty. Black women spend hefty sums of money to maintain our appearances, especially if our goal is to look more exotic. Meanwhile, Black men are only competing with other Black men. They are not out here breaking their necks to look less black and more white, more Asian or more Hispanic. Black men are only competing against other Black men to look Black. We don’t expect their hair to blow in the wind.
Transforming Cultural Narratives
Black women bear this pressure from black men and the media, and in our professional and personal lives every. single. day. We’re subjected to a relentless barrage of messages implying that our skin, hair, and personalities are less than desirable.
I’ve often asked myself if this bombardment is all there is? Is this the best Black woman can expect from Black men?
By choosing to celebrate our natural beauty, Black women chip away at the regurgitated Eurocentric ideals Black men use to justify their criticize and disrespect.
We’ve loved these men by ignoring our needs and conforming to their expectations, none of which normalize nor celebrate the richness of our love or Black aesthetics. But you don’t have to tolerate this. Nor do you have to shoulder their cultural abandonment or disrespect.
Our choice to divest from the community challenges our Black identity and forces Black men to account for what has long suppressed our people: their perpetual lack of accountability, their lack of service to their communities, and their endless projection of blame.
Black women, we’ve done enough. We’ve done enough for this culture. And for Black men. It’s time to do more than enough for us.
Black Women Divesting 
Leave a comment