We appreciate your concern, but black women don’t need your ‘humbling.’

10 min readDec 20, 2020

‘Y’all will try to humble black women for a small fry. It’s really sad.’

‘Stop trying to stomp out the light of black women. Let it illuminate you’ — Halimat

There is no denying that we live in a world that is afraid of black women. It is afraid of black women’s achievements and growth. It is afraid of our light and our celebrations. It is afraid of our progress towards self-love and triumph and whether this world knows it or not, it’s fear shows. It shows when people go out of their way to discredit a black woman who buys a Tesla.

“So you can’t buy a home?”
“It’s not actually hers.”

“Unlike Aaliyah Jay with her fake Birkin bag inspiring young black girls to go scam…to keep a fake life out of our means for social media”
“Aaliyah Jay man bought her a pre owned Birkin bag. I don’t like that…”

It shows when black women are applauded for their modesty (because getting an ’03 Honda is believable, but getting a Tesla isn’t). It shows when the world does everything in its power to undermine us and deny us our right to celebrate our victories. But this isn’t something that can be admitted, no. Recognizing this degradation for what it is would require introspection into your internalized misogynoir and that is too much work. So instead, fear is disguised as concern.

But I understand. You’re not jealous, you’re just concerned about the financial decisions of black female influencers. Getting a house seems much more reasonable than getting a car, doesn’t it?

You’re not hateful, you’re concerned about the ways in which influencers keep up an unrealistic lifestyle in front of impressionable youth.

But regardless of the fogs of smoke the world uses to hide its true feelings, black women have seen this too many times before to not know what it’s attempt at ‘humbling’ us looks like. We know that when the world seeks to humble us, it just seeks to remind us of our place.

Since the beginning, structures of whiteness and patriarchy have had black women serve as the wild, dirty Antichrist in comparison to the pure, docile white woman. But this archetype wasn’t just invented to justify the violence and injustice we were forced to endure but to also justify why we deserved it and why we are undeserving of better. This vilification of black women to uplift white women has helped to create a hierarchy that places us at the bottom. When we exist in a society that is taught through stereotypes and misrepresentation that the bottom is the place we deserve to be in, that society will work tirelessly to ensure that we stay there. To a point where, as one of my favorite Youtube commentators would say ‘y’all will try to humble black women for a small fry.’

The worst part is, is that most people are committed to this cause, even black people, and more particularly black men.

The resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement has come with a resurgence of black men who have made it clear to the world their intentions to dismantle or reform the white supremacist structures that lead to their deaths. But when those same men laugh at a black woman being shot in the feet, thrown in a dumpster, or call us ugly, we are forced to reckon with the fact that although many of these black men are vocal about dismantling white supremacy, by perpetuating misogynoir (the love child of patriarchy and white supremacy) they show they’re very comfortable wielding that same system against black women.

Maybe they do this because the black community has decided that an attack against straight, cisgender, black men is an attack on all, while an attack on anyone else, like black women in this instance, is unrelated to the rest of the community. But even that continues to call attention to the holes in their activism. These black men show that they are only invested in their own liberation; white supremacist structures that work to undermine ‘the black man’ (the het/cis black man) must go, but everything else is welcome to stay as long as it doesn’t impact my freedom. These men show us that they’re not community invested, they’re self-invested. When this is understood, black men who participate in the humbling of black women are men who see this as white supremacist thinking exercised against black women, not themselves. Their oppression isn’t our oppression and therefore isn’t cause for concern.

Black men, who’ve been framed as the most oppressed group in America, are often unwilling to recognize intersectional politics and take into consideration their privilege and the way they wield it in oppressive ways. They also refuse to recognize how their internalized racism compromises their desire to do away with white supremacy. Regardless of how they present themselves, they dream of reaping the privileges that white supremacy will never afford them. Deep down, they don’t want to do away with the white man, they want to be him. They want to move through the world with ease the way they do. Have access to the wealth and women (light, bright and white!) like they do. But they know they can’t do that, so they move to the next best thing: patriarchy.

I believe that those who are at the ‘major’ intersections (patriarchy, white supremacy the like) of oppressor and oppressed will always choose the system that allows them to be the oppressor, even if it means upholding the system that keeps them oppressed. Like, for example, how the white women who overwhelmingly voted for Trump prioritized their whiteness over their womanhood. Their whiteness allowed them certain privileges that their womanhood didn’t and they did what they thought was necessary to protect those privileges. I believe black men will always operate in the same way and prioritize their manhood over their blackness because patriarchy affords them the privilege and power that white supremacy doesn’t. Exercising this power and privilege gives them the opportunity to remain on top of a hierarchy, giving them a small taste of what being a rich, straight, cisgender, white man is like.

Participating in the social phenomena of ‘humbling’ black women allows them to exercise whatever power that patriarchy (and heterosexism, and cisnormativity etc.) affords them. This is probably why these men don’t realize they’re ‘humbling’ black women. To them, it’s not about humbling but about gaining a sort of control and power they don’t get to exercise in white spaces. It’s about getting a sense of solidarity and experiencing the highs that come with the approval of the white men they so hate and admire. The best part is that they get to do all of this and not feel one ounce of guilt, because to them ‘what wounds black women, won’t wound me.’

As if we’re not all fighting against the same systems.

Since the beginning, structures of whiteness and patriarchy have had black women serve as the wild, dirty Antichrist in comparison to the pure, docile white woman.

Despite my age, I don’t consider myself naive. I’m well aware of the fact that in this world you can’t have power without powerlessness. But the most frustrating part is that not only do black women live in a world where racist ideologies have convinced us that powerlessness-and worse- is what we deserve, but that we live in a world that is eager to keep us in a place of powerlessness. Regardless of how you present it, black women have been here before. We know what you’re doing when you slander us for getting a Tesla but applaud us for getting an ’03 Honda. You’re trying to remind us of our place and reprimand us when we dare act on the belief that we are worth more than what the world has told us. It’s about reinforcing the same systems you rail against and appealing to those who benefit from them.

But still we must ask the question of why, despite the progress for change, are we so determined to keep black women ‘humble’ or more so ‘in our place?’ Is it because of the fear that not doing so will destabilize the white supremacist patriarchy many of us are so invested in and have worked hard to maintain? Are you afraid of what black women could do if we divested from the belief that we are undeserving and worked hard to better ourselves? No, these fears no matter how scary, are nonsensical, for in the wise words of Audre Lorde “the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.” Black female success in white supremacist patriarchy will not get rid of white supremacist patriarchy.

So why? What is it about our success and our light and joy that scares you so? Why must you insist on making a group of such vibrant, beautiful women small? Why are we more afraid, more angry, at the thought of black women indulging themselves in luxury brands than the seeds sown by white supremacist patriarchy? Maybe it goes back to my last paragraph (or my entire article). Regardless of how nonsensical or irrational, fear is persuasive and given enough time, even poison can taste sweet. So allow me to remind you that despite what centuries of misrepresentation have told you, black women are not the undeserving b***hes you frame us to be. Your fear of our light and it’s capacity to illuminate says more about you than it ever will say about us. So stop trying to stomp out the light of Black women and just bask in it.

We appreciate your concern, but black women don’t need your ‘humbling.’

Written by Salwa Nina