It may not be wise for me to step into the conversation
involving “Lemonade”, the video album that has people wondering about Becky
with the good hair. The album is one of those special contributions that leaves
you thinking “well damn”.
Watching it reminded me of how I felt after my first viewing
of Ntozake Shange’s “Colored Girls Who Considered Suicide/ When the Rainbow Is
Enuf”. It happened in 1977 when I was coming to grips with what it means to
walk around with a black man’s body. In that moment, I knew there is a part of
me that symbolizes the brokenness of black women.
My very presence conjures an ache that can’t be resolved by
the holy dance on Sunday morning. Shange helped me contend with the limits of
the faith I preach like a medicine man peddling hope in a bottle. There’s something black men have done that
makes it hard for black women climb up after we beat them down, again, with our
words and false assumptions.
“The most disrespected person in America is the black woman,”
Malcolm X said in Queen B’s video. The images of brokenness are a reminder that
I share in the pain they carry. Look at them. Look at them lined up to
challenge us to see them for the best they represent. Look at the worst caused
by our inability to see beyond our desire to use them more.
Look at their beauty. All of it. More than the brilliance of
hue packed on bodies with curvatures envied by others, look at their will to
love us. Look at their desire to lift us. And what do we do with it? We abuse
the gifts they bring in hope that we will be better because of their yearning
to help us see.
I don’t know if Jay-Z cheated. The truth is it doesn’t
matter. It doesn’t because of the games black men play with love. The ways we
cheat transcend the minor technically of the insertion of a sexual organ. We
cheat with our lack of love and support, and do damage to black women by
refusing to acknowledge their strength.
I admire the black women who stand in formation with the
promise not to take no more. How do they do it? How do they continue to fight
for our right to live when we rob them of their will to breathe? Watch them as
they hold arms high while screaming “hands up, don’t shoot”. Watch them as they
march because another black man dies too soon. How do they do it? Why do they
care so much for us when we fail to give back the love they extend like roses
seeking the sunlight?
I twinge at the image of Beyonce’ swinging a bat to acknowledge
the rage that can’t take no more. My heart is pounding because she walks alone.
No black man there to hold her hand while see seeks answers to the misery that
causes her to find a place to beat the angst until there reason to believe
again.
Why do we do this to our women?
And, why do they believe in us when we lack the will to say
thank you. How can we blame them for how they feel? Why is it so hard for us to
part lips while screaming I need you? Why no apologizes after we cheat love
with an obsession to fill our voids with something other than what they freely
give.
“Lemonade” may not be Beyonce’s personal story. My sense is
this is the journey black women take in search for more than the alone that
keeps them searching for more. Maybe I’m wrong. I’m in no position to speak to
what black women carry.
I am a black man. I do know the pain I carry after watching
my Queens suffer because of what we have done to them. I do wish I could help
soothe the pain. I can’t. I’m limited by my own need for change coupled with
being linked to a long history of bondage.
Some of this is mess rooted in generations of self-hate. Most of it
remains due to an unwillingness to tell the truth.
We need change.
So, I’m sorry for what I have created. My prayer is to do
better. In doing so, I hope that other black men will understand their place in
Beyonce’s story. As much as they don’t want to admit it, we play a role in
dismantling the hope of black women.
The good news is they carry a strength like no other. They
are bound by the power of sisterhood and a faith grounded in the universe.
I love all of you.
Raising my glass of lemonade to you
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