Black Feminists Made You: Responding to Negative Responses about Black Feminists Responding to Taye Diggs

When I heard the rumors about Taye Diggs claiming he believed the stereotypes about Black women and preferred being with his White wife, I was not too phased. This is not the first time, nor will it be the last, that I have experienced a Black man claiming to only date White women because he believes Black women are “so unbearable".

The reason behind my thinking was that I have become accustomed to hearing Black men claim they prefer White women over Black women because Black women are loud, ghetto, unappreciative, etc....but I will save my thoughts about Black men and interracial dating for another post. Promise.

The reason I am writing this post is not because of Taye Diggs. For the record, Taye Diggs tweeted the rumors were not true.

The reason I am writing this post is because dumb broads want to tweet stuff like this.

Once again, the Black woman's perspective is not taken into consideration. First off, if it was not for Black feminists, you would not be literate enough to post stupid tweets like this because Black feminists were the ones who advocated to legalize the education of Negroes/Black people. Secondly, you probably came from a long lineage of Black feminists, aunties, mamas, grandmamas, etc. Third, you probably are a Black feminist your damn self, just too ignorant to notice. If you are not, I blame you for perpetuating the oppression of Black women.  

In conclusion, SUCK A BIG DICK *Nicki Minaj voice*

With all seriousness, can you honestly blame Black feminists for being upset about the Taye Diggs' rumors though?

As Black women, we live in a world where we are compared to and punished for not being White women. We are told we are ugly, implicitly and explicitly, because of the brownness of our skin, the coils in our hair aka nappy central, and the fullness of our lips and hips. I kid you not, this man, who was familiar with the sex industry, told me White prostitutes make more profit than Black prostitutes. With this statement, it affirms that White beauty is valued more than Black beauty.

The few times Black beauty is appreciated, our ebony is eroticized. We are stereotyped as jungle bunnies, meaning that we are perceived as hypersexual, having wild and animalistic sex, deeming us phenomenal sex partners, in comparison to White women. One man told me that he liked having sex with Black women because he liked how we show our "excitement". Another man told me he liked having "big Black booty bouncing on his dick." (The circle of men I associate with is slowly improving.) The problem with this is that it makes Black women only befitting for sexual relations. When it comes to serious relationships and legitimacy of womanhood, this is mainly reserved for White women.

I am offended by this woman's tweet because she portrayed Black feminism as something negative. Black feminism teaches us to recognize the oppression Black women experience due to their race and gender and to create ways to call out this oppression, whether it be through art, speech, writing, music, etc. The problem is that people do not want to hear that. Whenever Black feminists speak out, we are interpreted as, angry, aggressive, and bitter. To attack Black feminists for resisting sexism, racism, White supremacy, and other forms of oppression, is similar to blaming a child for being bullied in school and finally fighting back after being beat up so many times. Wouldn’t you be angry if someone only associated you with being unloving, a bad mother, or a loud, unintelligent, ghetto hoe?  Wouldn’t you be angry if your body and your children’s bodies were sexually violated, sold, and abused for capital gain?  Wouldn’t you be angry if your history was wiped out of books, allowing people to assume you are nonexistent?  

As Black feminists, we are silenced or made to feel guilty for expressing our feelings about something offending us, while others perceive us as "too sensitive" or "not being able to take a joke".

I do not approve of the Black feminists accusing Taye Diggs of making the comment without researching the source, but I do validate their feelings and understand why they would be upset.

Simplistically stating, Black feminists are people tired of being bullied by their oppressors and want to do something about it.

SH

For those of you who are interested in learning about Black feminism. I have provided a list of some dope readings by some dope Black feminists:

"The Combahee River Collective Statement" by The Combahee River Collective

When and Where I Enter: The Impact of Black Women on Race and Sex in America  by Paula Giddings

Words of Fire: An Anthology of African-American Feminist Thought edited by Beverly Guy-Sheftall  

"Black Women: Shaping Black Feminist Theory" by bell hooks