This Week in Blackistan: Dark Skinned Women Edition

This will probably be the first and last installment of of this “series” but this week in the media brought on a particular onslaught of chatter on the subject of dark-skinned women. More specifically, what(who) we’ve been doing and what we’ve been saying; Particularly our criticisms of the community. Loni Love’s rightful criticism of the black male collective, Gabourey Sidibe and her new white man, and Ari Lennox being called insecure for speaking about the disrespect of the black woman’s image has the black internet-sphere in a tizzy.

Y'all ain't slick. I see EXACTLY what you’re doing. People are mad that dark-skinned women are winning a little too much right now and airing out a little too much dirty laundry and y’all are triggered. I get it, y’all are used to us suffering in silence and being the lone survivor for the community but it’s a new day so get with the winning team, or shut the hell up.

Most recently, the spokesperson for the Sharpie marker beard brigade, Joe Budden had the niggadacity to go on about how Ari Lennox was insecure for rightfully calling black men and the community to task for their blatant and rampant disrespect of our image. Last week I got some criticism for saying that Ari and the rest of dark-skinned black women need to stop essentially begging for the community to respect us...And this is why. Joe is literally proof that anytime you show any sort of vulnerability, or speak on what is really going on as a black woman, they give us their asses to kiss.

We are told to get over it, it’s all in our heads, we’re “insecure” as he said, so how about we just don’t give them ANY of our energy because they don’t deserve it and will not respect it. He didn’t even bother saying that the dude who made the original comment was wrong, his response boiled down to the old gas-lighting tool of the “ugly girl argument” and saying it shouldn’t matter what is said about black women if you think black women are beautiful that should be all that matters. He and the rest of the community understand our criticism but again, they just don’t care.

Now this Gabourey Sidibe situation has me HEATED. I was there in middle school when Precious came out, I heard with my own ears the way the entire community(and myself) raked her through the coals and made her the butt of every joke because she had the nerve to be both fat and dark-skinned. Now y’all got the unmitigated gaul to have something to say about her dating a white man?

Now, my argument isn’t that she didn’t date down because I think she did; and I feel that it is possible it could be a financially advantageous move for him but that’s not what y’all are mad about. Y’all who talked about this girl’s looks from rap songs to comedy specials, y’all who clowned each other and made women who looked like Gabby into a running joke, y’all who constantly say they would never want a woman like Gabby, are mad that she is being loved on by a white dude when y’all ain’t want her anyway.

Finally, Miss Loni love. Another dark-skinned black woman who is considered by many in the community to be undesirable, recently found love in a white man who is her financial equal. If that alone didn’t land her in enough hot water, her recent (true) statements about the dysfunctional behavior of the community, more specifically black men definitely took it up a notch.

My opinion is simple and mostly has to do with how people responded because no one commenting on what she said could rebuke it; Only give the weak response of “other communities do it too.” My take-away is our unwillingness as a collective to take responsibility for our behaviors as a community is why we will be a permanent underclass and why dark-skinned black women will never be valued, or respected by those who look exactly like us.

The TL;DR is: This community is almost pathetic in it’s predictability, intellectual dishonesty, double talking, and response to dark-skinned black women leveling up, dating out and speaking on our truths. And this week was a blaring signal that everything pro-black women have been saying is true and coming to pass and please pay attention to how people are reacting now that we are no longer tolerating scraps.