I Hate That B*tch

“I’ve seen women hate other women simply for being happy”

My father was a high school principal for the better part of 20 years.

He said he’d rather break up ten fights between boys than ever get involved in a fight between two girls.

And I agree.

When women go to war there is a level of emotional violence so vitriolic I can assure you right now….

You don’t want none of that.

Years ago my dad and I sat at the kitchen table. Basically he said that boys come to hot and fast blows but girls….girls try to destroy each other.

And life has shown me he’s not wrong…at all.

I watched one of those Empressive gossip videos on Youtube recently. I know……why Hollie?

Well anyway…. Empressive was talking about Azealia Banks coming for Cardi B and how Cardi B responded and blah to the blah to the whoomp, whoomp, whoomp.

But something really stuck with me.

Azelia posted a picture of Cardi B at her worst, or just a morning after a “Moms Night Out” for me…beat up looking. She tore down her whole appearance as if she was not even a real person with real feelings.

It had NOTHING to do with her music.

It started out with the usual bullshit respectability politics. Banks claims that Cardi B is illiterate, that she’s ghetto. That she can’t speak or write or…good Lord AREN’T WE IN THE MIDDLE OF A BLAZING PERIOD OF RACISM AND MISOGYNY TRYING TO DESTROY US ALL?????

And you’re talking about…another woman?…..another Black woman?

Why are you doing the devil’s work Miss Banks? Haven’t Black women been through enough? Why are you so invested in ripping her apart?

Why are you spending your time as an artist with a RECORD DEAL tearing down a Black girl trying to get ahead JUST LIKE YOU?

OK I got that out.

But seriously, whenever women, unprovoked, go in on another woman’s appearance I know I am witnessing a damaged person.

How damaged do you have to be, to dissect like that?

Who dissected you? Who taught you other Black women were so low you could just say and do anything?

Do you NOT see our female ancestors 500 years ago, standing naked on the auction block with grimey, white slave owners going through their mouths and other body parts?

Do you not see you have adopted the ways of the Oppressor?

“I Hate that B*tch”. I heard that growing up all the time.

I’ve had girlfriends endure men treating them like utter dogsh*t, but another girl that um…thinks she’s cute?….yeah THAT’S who they reserve their hate for.

I had a bully in the 3rd grade. She was ruthless in how she got every girl in class to bar me from Recess Double Dutch.

I was branded double-handed. It was the mark of death.

I don’t know how long this went on but one day I exploded. A few girls had finally let me turn and Bully grabbed the rope from me.

Bully — Naw, not Hollie!! She can’t turn

And she pushed me down on the ground and laughed.

I lost it. I grabbed the rope back and WHIPPED HER WITH IT.

I honestly think I blacked out because all I could remember was a teacher’s aide pulling me off her and I was still screaming.

I was 8.

Bully left me alone after that, along with everyone else, because I was now “Crazy Hollie” for the remainder of the year. But that experience stayed with me.

I’ve had a pretty nice life but like every other woman in the world I’ve had a bully or two. And it sucks.

Your heart speeds up when you see them and you wish you could just disappear…. or that they would disappear. But most likely, the bully has learned that THIS is how to get what they want.

Often there’s something you have that the bully wants. And they wanna fight you for it.

Oftentimes it’s just Happiness. Yup….I’ve seen women hate other women simply for being happy. For living a great life. For having a measure of success the bully THINKS they don’t deserve.

So then the Tear Down happens.

I once had a friend that told me she was jumped by 6 girls in high school. It horrified me but it’s not foreign. It does happen.

Seven years ago I was on my way home from braiding a friend’s hair, walking down Classon Ave in Brooklyn, and a young girl across the street caught my eye.

She was Black, about 14, with a ripped uniform, a tear-streaked face and her hair in wild disarray. Her face was desperate with fear.

She kept looking behind her and then speed up. So I looked down the street behind her. A pack of 5 girls were following her, taunting her.

Now I’m freaked out.

I scrambled to think of some way to help her but a group of men at an auto-body shop saw what was happening too.

They stopped her and offered to help. She immediately started sobbing and the girls actually tried to run up on her with the men surrounding her.

The men were not having it. They yelled at the girls. The girls yelled back. Then one of the men said “Lil bitches, we’ll BEAT yo ass right here!”

Now a little crowd was forming.

The girls, pissed off that they might actually get their asses whooped, backed off. I motioned to one of the men across the street. He gave me a thumbs up but I swear…. I swear I was so angry, my chest sunk like lead.

5 on 1????? Really?

The friend I had, the friend that was jumped years ago in high school, turned out to be a bully herself.

She wanted something from me I didn’t want to give and so she acted like a whole entire ass until I was finally able to distance myself from her. I saw the anger in her and realized she had no way to deal with it but to bully the person she was up against.

It was painful for me to deal with but the more I spoke to close friends, the more I realized this person burns bridges EVERY DAMN WHERE.

And that, basically …. is her style.

I hate to see another Black woman burn bridges so easily because she honestly IS quite talented….just full of unchecked anger. Maybe one day she’ll see.

Black women deal with a lot.

We deal with misogyny and racism. Sometimes we deal with homophobia and ableism too. But we definitely deal with the first two ills on a regular basis.

We live in a society where Black woman are constantly shit on. By racist whites, by men…by each other. So we gotta be tough.

But at what cost?

When can we be soft?

When can we cry?

When can we say “That really hurt me” and NOT be mocked for being weak?

Being Black and weak is a crime.

One of my most painful parenting moments was a day when Luna cried after-school in front of her friend that bullied her.

I swept her away because I was NOT gonna let these little mean girls see her cry and I became angry.

Me — DON’T EVER LET THESE LITTLE BITCHES SEE YOU CRY!! EVER!!!!

And I instantly felt horrible.

She explained that she cried because she felt safe…with me….and I yelled at her.

I fucked up.

I felt sick to my stomach because my moment in the playground with Bully came rushing back to me. I wanted to PROTECT Luna from pain of being tormented…for sport.

But I made her feel unsafe.

I apologized and vowed to do better.

But where does it end with women? Specifically Black women.

When do we turn our epic “Reads” on the people that truly deserve them?

Like the administration trying to marginalize us every damn minute of the day.

When will the Reckoning be brought down on THEM??

THEM that make us feel so low with their hands up our wombs and boots on our neck.

When can we be Black and occupy the same space without being “Othered”? Where they treat us like the Boogey Man, lash out and then play the VICTIM.

It breeds an anger. It stitches a prickly thread of vitriol into the fabric of our soul. And the bitter acidic part of us knows this….

It’s so insurmountable to shoot the arrow at the right target….. so impossible to stab the belly of America’s Great Hate on Black female bodies….

That we turn it on each other.

We teach our daughters it’s OK to hate other women through example.

It’s every time we talk mad shit about our closest black women friends the moment after we hang up the phone with them.

Running her down

Way, way down

Just to end with a sneery smile that fixes our mouth to say…

“I Hate That Bitch”.

#TheStraightTruth

#YesIAmThatMom