Here’s the problem with this piece: If you were speaking about solutions, I could understand, but what you are advocating for is Black women to accept less for themselves in order to lift up Black men.

I think you have forgotten that we are Black AND women. You think Black men are being emasculated. Have you ever considered the flip side of this that goes back to slavery with Black women being masculated and not considered “feminine” despite the fact that we are- to have our looks scrutinized on a daily basis by white people then to have to come into our own communities and be scrutinized, too.

You quoted Malcom X correctly, but you also omitted him saying that the most discriminated people in the world are Black women. That matters, too.

It seems there is a section of Black men that demand that our fight for the issues that are hurtful to them as Black men be obligatory. However, this obligation comes at the cost of them treating our issues as Black women as an option. No one ever asks what Black men are doing to stop the sexual harassment we face, having our feminity questioned as a group whether we are hyperfeminine or not. We have the highest incarnation rates of women of any color. We, too, are given longer sentences for the same offenses. We are suspended from school at higher rates compared to our counterparts. We suffer from climate injustices, too. We are often paid less than Black men, and we are getting killed by police as well.

Do you ever think that what you’re feeling is hurtful to us? Are we supposed to put ourselves last -.which we always do — and focus on the esmasculation of Black men? We carry our community. We are the ones who vote and change elections to save America from itself. We ran the civil rights movement when men were concerned with being figureheads. We raise the children that some men just walk away from. We have to worry about how to stretch the $5-10k less that we make compared to you. And we are tired.

Ask for our help, don’t demand it and remember, just because we are women, we are Black women and our womanhood has NEVER protected us from the same racism that you also face. The problem is that you never looked at our experiences with the same vigor as you did with this.