LOVE ONE ANOTHER
The Many Ways Black Women’s Love Manifests
“Love one another” is the ethos of Black womanhood
I didn’t have a lot of Black friends growing up. For most of my youth, I was in predominantly white classrooms and social environments. I lived in the suburbs with white neighbors. I went to school in predominantly white classrooms. My cousins, who I love dearly, did not live anywhere close to me, and I only saw them on occasions. Perhaps worst of all, I grew up without knowing the magic of Living Single or Girlfriends.
All of which to say I was sorely lacking Black female friendships. Yet even before I had the chance to begin building them, it seemed like a lot of portrayals of female friendships, among Black women particularly, were pushing me away from that pursuit.
The media loves to tell us that women are catty, bitchy, and jealous. When a veneer of racism is thrown over those sexist epithets, it paints Black women as particularly aggressive and prone to fighting on the physical as well as the emotional level. The Sapphire stereotype is a perfect example of this insistence on portraying Black women as discordant — the antithesis to peace, love, and harmony.
Media paints Black women as particularly aggressive and prone to…
