When Our Women Don’t Feel Safe: A Sister’s Letter to Black Men

Black people in America are still dealing with trauma that has traveled through generations. From slavery to Jim Crow, segregation, racial violence, the disruption of Black families, economic hardship, and the continued struggles facing our communities, there were generations of Black people who experienced tremendous pain without ever having access to therapy, counseling, or even the opportunity to properly process what had happened to them.

Pain that is never addressed does not necessarily disappear. Sometimes it gets passed down.

That does not excuse violence, abuse, or destructive behavior. But if we are serious about breaking unhealthy cycles within our community, we have to be willing to discuss where some of these behaviors come from—and, more importantly, what we are going to do about them.

One of those conversations must involve the responsibility of men.

Across cultures and throughout history, men have traditionally carried a responsibility to protect their families, their women, their children, and their communities.

Within the Black community, that responsibility carries particular significance because Black women and children have historically faced threats both outside and, unfortunately, sometimes inside our own communities.

A Black woman should be able to feel safe among Black men.

And before anyone misunderstands that statement, we recognize the countless Black men who honor that responsibility every single day. They are fathers raising their children, husbands protecting their households, brothers looking after their sisters, mentors guiding young people, coaches, teachers, neighbors, community leaders, and ordinary men who would never tolerate seeing a woman or child harmed.

Those brothers deserve recognition.

But recognizing the good men cannot prevent us from confronting the behavior of those who are causing harm.

Protection cannot simply mean protecting the women we personally know. If we call ourselves a village, then the safety of the women and children within that village must become a collective concern.

That brings us to the reason for this discussion.

One of our sisters, Sister Lakisha, reached out to BLXCR wanting to express something that has been weighing heavily on her heart. Her words come from love for Black men, but they also come from hurt, disappointment, personal experience, and what she continues to witness happening to women and children.

We believe her voice deserves to be heard.

Read her letter from a place of understanding rather than defensiveness. Perhaps her words can become a conversation between fathers and sons, husbands and wives, brothers and sisters—and inside our barbershops, homes, community organizations, and places of worship.

The question is not simply, Who is to blame?

The more important question is:

How do we become better protectors of one another and finally begin breaking cycles of pain that should never have been inherited in the first place?

Photo: blxproductions.com

A Letter From Sister Lakisha

Dear Brothers, My Kings,

Let me first start by saying that I love you and respect you. However, there are times when I cannot respect seeing your pain spill out onto other people, even when I understand that some of that pain was placed upon you.

I call it childhood trauma.

Women experience childhood trauma as well, but I also understand your position as a man. I understand what I believe is your purpose—to provide, to protect, and to look after those around you.

I was raised by a single father, Mr. Rudolph Norman. He loved me, and he was an example of what the village could be. He loved our community, and he proved that through how he treated me and how he treated our neighbors.

That is why I become so disappointed when I see our women—the mothers who give birth to humanity—being disrespected and harmed because someone else has unresolved pain.

It makes my skin crawl and my stomach weak.

I have seen too many videos on social media of men beating women. Sometimes I hate scrolling through my feed because of what I might see next.

I believe our ancestors would be disgusted if they could walk among us in the flesh and witness some of the pain we are putting on one another. Some of this is learned behavior, but learned behavior still has to be unlearned.

We are witnessing women being brutally beaten, stomped, and seriously injured. We hear stories of babies and children being abused or killed out of frustration. We continue hearing about women and children being sexually assaulted.

Too often, vulnerable people become the targets of those who believe they can bully, control, or manipulate them.

So, my Kings, protect us. Protect all of us.

This foolishness has to stop.

I believe our Creator is tired of seeing all this domestic violence and seeing what we continue doing to one another.

I also understand that every day we are faced with choices between good and evil. I think about that old childhood depiction of having an angel on one shoulder and the devil on the other. Every day, we decide which voice we are going to follow.

And if I am going to ask my brothers to be transparent, then I have to be transparent myself.

I would say I give about 80 percent of myself to my angel. That other 20 percent can appear when something triggers pain inside me and causes me to respond in ways that I know are not always good.

I am still working on myself too.

I simply want my brothers to remember that we have to get back to love.

Just like some of you, I am a motherless child who has missed the presence of a mother’s love. That type of pain is something many men and women have had to endure. When that pain remains unresolved, sometimes it can cause our behavior to become unpredictable, angry, or destructive.

But we cannot allow our pain to become somebody else’s trauma.

We have to take that pain and turn it into a driving force for something greater.

Let our success show that something beautiful can still grow from difficult circumstances.

Like a rose growing from concrete.

With love,

Sister Lakisha

BLXCR Closing Statement: From Conversation to Action

Let us take Sister Lakisha’s letter as more than something thought-provoking.

Let it be a call to action.

A call to have the difficult conversations—not for the purpose of arguing, blaming, or tearing one another down, but with the intention of organizing, healing, and doing better within our communities.

These conversations belong in our homes, our barbershops, our places of worship, our community organizations, and wherever Black men gather.

We must ask ourselves:

What can we collectively do to make sure our women and children know they are protected, valued, respected, and safe among us?

Talking about the problem is only the beginning. The next step is organizing around solutions—mentoring our boys, holding one another accountable as men, addressing unresolved trauma, intervening when we witness abuse, strengthening our families, and rebuilding the village mentality that reminds us that the wellbeing of our women and children is a responsibility we all share.

We cannot change what previous generations endured, but we can decide what we pass to the generations coming behind us.

Let the pain stop becoming an inheritance.

Let the healing become the inheritance.

And let us, as men, continue striving to become what God designed us to be: protectors of our families, protectors of our women and children, and protectors of our communities.

Sister Lakisha has opened the door for the conversation.

Now, what are we going to do with it?

— BLXCR

One Village. One Fight.