LOST ABSOLUTION: WHITE MEN AND THEIR HORRID HISTORY WITH BLACK WOMEN

I want to blow my trumpet about the process of moving through our history. I wrote a post two weeks ago, "Black Women Who Blew The Trumpet Before We Knew The Sound" and it included letters that were written by slaves. The voices of the slaves resonated deeply with me and I was not able to write about the emotions that washed over me.

As I blow my trumpet this time, I want to focus specifically on the white man's relationship with the black woman. There is still a great deal of simmering rage that many black women have towards white men. I believe that this rage was taught and voluntarily inherited from many generations.

In slavery, the white man was a terrorist of the black race. The white man was a rapist of black women. The white man was a murderer of the spirits of black men. The white man was an oppressor. The white man was a hatemonger of black people. The white man was an emasculator and castrator of black men.

For the most part, black women have never forgiven the white man and have never forgotten. Part of the reason why many black women have never forgiven the white man is because, for the most part, the white man has never attempted to take accountability for his historic and continued devastation of the entire black race.

Most white men whom I have been friends with have remarked about the emotional distance that most black women exhibit towards them. I usually reply, "just remember the history that white men have with black women." My reply is actually overly simplistic. There is a contempt and a hatred that some black women feel towards white men that is hidden beneath a veneer of indifference and detachment.

I believe that the memory of the torrid and horrid history of the white man and the black woman has created a gulf that, for some women, will never be emotionally closed. There are many black women who have elderly female relatives who have memories from childhood of hearing stories about white men who have raped and stolen and deceived. Little black girls in the 1920s, 1930, 1940s, 1950s heard whispering about rapes committed by white men that were "hushed". From slavery until the end of the Jim Crow era, white men declared "open season" on black women. Many white men did not believe that black women were human.

A Khoikhoi daughter, Saartjie Baartman, died at the age of 26, after an illness. She had been placed on display like a zoo attraction, while white men and white women stared at her nearly-naked body.

You remember Sarah.

She had been kidnapped from her home in 1810 and white men believed that she was part human and part ape. From the moment of her kidnap and for many years after her death, they treated her like a beast. At her death, her body was not treated with respect. It was cut in pieces and her sexual organ placed in a jar and put on display. Her remains were brought back to her homeland 187 years after she was kidnapped.

You remember Sarah.

There is a long history of the hatred of white men towards black women that is buried in the hearts of many black women. This history has never been reconciled and it has produced an unshakable amount of bitterness within the minds and the spirits of many black women.

Whenever the discussion of white men and dating arises in a conversation among black women, there is usually a climate of tension that immediately invades the lengthy pause. There is often alarm and denunciation expressed towards any black woman who freely admits to having been romantically involved with white men. Many black women have been taught to dismiss and disregard white men and therefore, there is a lot of surprise expressed whenever a black woman shares any information about an involvement with a white man. Sleeping with "the enemy" is abhorrent to many black women. The black woman who dares to give herself to a white man will often face suspicion, scorn and bewilderment.

When I have been involved with white men, I have not examined the feelings that other black women harbored when seeing a black woman with a white man. I have heard the speculations about why black women choose to be involved with white men. I have heard the erroneous stereotypes about the type of black women that white men typically prefer. I have heard the assumptions made about how white men would lower their standards of respect when being involved with black women. I hear a lot of speculations about what white men are like, usually from black women who have never been romantically involved with them.

For many black women, white men are a symbol of all that has been heaped upon black people in this country and throughout the world. Most white men whom I have befriended or have been involved with romantically are surprised when hearing that they are the symbol of terrorism against black people in the eyes of many black women. For the most part, they never see themselves in a sinister light. Learning how distrusted and disdained they are among black women has been shocking for most white men I have talked to. They usually make comments to me such as, "but the black women in the store are so friendly!" or "but the black women in the office are so friendly!" They can not comprehend being secretly despised.

I have not dismissed the history of white men in this country. I have not overlooked the wounds that still exist within the black race because of the legacy of disenfranchisement, destruction and demoralization that was wrought by the actions of white men. I am not unaware of the pain that many black women carry with the rape histories of their female relatives, who are now elderly women.

A few weeks ago, I was making my twice-a-year trip to the grocery store and a white man stopped me and made a comment to me that reflected a presumption of familiarity and accessibility. I gave him a "how dare you!" facial expression. He was stunned by my response. I suppose, in his unrecognized arrogance, he thought that he could approach a black woman, when and how he wanted to, and foolishly assumed that his presence would be accepted. There are many instances when I've noticed white men suffering from amnesia when approaching a black woman who has not invited him into her space. Unacknowledging a residual mental blockage inherited from the white slave master, many white men feel entitled to enter our space, socially and physically, without invitation. They are surprised when their presumption is rebuffed. I spoke to my friend about this incident later in the evening and she said, "but you are into white boys!" I rolled my eyes and huffed, "No I am NOT into white boys! I have dated white boys but I am not into them!" She looked at me quizzically. I had to explain: "I don't date white men! I have dated men who happened to be white!" She looked at me blankly, failing to see the distinction.

I think the distinction is important. I think the distinction reflects my movement through history and my decision that I would not make every man with white skin the symbol of the actions of the race that he didn't choose to belong to. I blow my trumpet today - not advocating for reconciliation with white men and not advocating for forgiveness - to tell my sistas that it is time to advance through history. Advancing through history does not mean forgetting our history. It means that we have to give a different place to our history. I notice that there are many black women who wear the history of black people around their necks that looks as though it is choking and suffocating them. They are immobilized by their attachment to history. So profound has the domination of history been within their hearts that it has produced emotional baggage and mental confinement.

Diana Ferrus wrote "A Poem for Saartjie Baartman".

"I've come to take you home -
home, remember the veld?
the lush green grass beneath the big oak trees
the air is cool there and the sun does not burn.
I have made your bed at the foot of the hill,
your blankets are covered in buchu and mint,
the proteas stand in yellow and white
and the water in the stream chuckle sing-songs
as it hobbles along over little stones.

I have come to wretch you away -
away from the poking eyes
of the man-made monster
who lives in the dark
with his clutches of imperialism
who dissects your body bit by bit
who likens your soul to that of Satan
and declares himself the ultimate god!

I have come to soothe your heavy heart
I offer my bosom to your weary soul
I will cover your face with the palms of my hands
I will run my lips over lines in your neck
I will feast my eyes on the beauty of you
and I will sing for you
for I have come to bring you peace.

I have come to take you home
where the ancient mountains shout your name.
I have made your bed at the foot of the hill,
your blankets are covered in buchu and mint,
the proteas stand in yellow and white -
I have come to take you home
where I will sing for you
for you have brought me peace."

How does the one so tormented deliver peace in death?

In order for Diana Ferrus to write this letter to Saarjtie, she had to move through the pain of Saarjtie's torment and the lingering hatred that existed after Saarjtie's death. She remembered the history but was not crippled by the history. Because she was able to move through the tunnel of all of Saarjtie's muffled screams and uncried tears, she was able to bring reconciliation to the torment that was experienced by her countrywoman, Saartjie.

How does resentment become a badge of honor? Can the inheritance of black rage ever become a hidden treasure with untold worth?

How does the road of the women from our bloodline call out to us and taint our hearts with rage?

Listen to the sound of the howls of rage that emanate from the grave and clutch our hearts. How will our hearts wrest free from hatred and rage?

Is there any valor in carrying unreconciled pain, handed like a baton from one generation to the next?

There is a tunnel through our history with white men that only a few black women have been able to walk through. How is it that some black women can look at a white man and not see a symbol staring back at them of destruction and dehumanization? How is it?

I believe that I know. Perhaps these women, like I, have stared into the hole of the tunnel and have dared to walk inside. Perhaps these black women, like I, have made it through the passage and have come out at the other end of the tunnel as free women - acknowledging the history of our torment as black women at the hands of white men, wading through dirt from graves that buried the secrets from our female ancestors and brushing dried blood from our faces that blows through the wind through the narrow, hollow passage.

The journey through the tunnel is without any light and without any protection from the horrors of memories that whisper from our grandmother's grandmother's grandmother.

We move through the bowels of pain from ancestors who can not speak to us but who weep from beneath the dark carpet that is covering the dust that was once human flesh.

We have come out from the other side of the tunnel.