Protecting Black Women: Addressing Colorism Issues And Abuse

By: Kwana Adams

Sometimes the only people black women have to take care of them are other black women. The hashtag #sayhername was born from black women because of black women being neglected, and put to the side when it comes to social issues such as police brutality, domestic violence and anti-black acts of violence.

The hashtag was a movement created to shed a light on the fact that black women’s issues are often sidelined. Some notable names from this hashtag are Sandra Bland, Rekia Boyd, and Breonna Taylor. However, there are countless stories that are not being told or are not given enough recognition and care as other stories. 

A rapper by the name of Talib Kweli has been harassing a black woman online and has not stopped for almost a year. Even being banned from Twitter did not stop that man from his continued harassment which he simply continued on Instagram. He has also talked about her on shows and in interviews continuing to make himself the victim.

The woman he has been harassing goes by @Moneyymaya on Twitter and a harmless tweet caused almost a whole year of targeted harassment from a black man who took the tweet personally. Talib was only one of many other black rappers named but was the only one to take it to this extreme. The tweet was a brief mention of colorism and how black rappers perpetuate and uphold it in the black community. It was a very valid opinion and something that could have possibly been addressed in a more respectable matter had Talib not instead decided to target Maya relentlessly.

Colorism is alive and well in our community and it does deserve a spotlight. However, the potential conversation was overshadowed by a man who got his feelings hurt. As a community, we should be addressing this a lot more and holding black men accountable for the abuse they inflict onto black women. 

Followers and supporters of Talib Kweli have also been harassing Maya, threatening her family, sending threats of rape and death, and even doxxing her family members. Kweli and his supporters have even gone as far as to harass people who have spoken up in support of Maya. He took to Instagram that rapper Noname compared him to Tory Lanez, a rapper who allegedly shot another black woman, Megan Thee Stallion in both feet.

Maya has endured threats to not only her livelihood but her family’s the same way Megan has become a topic of ridicule and speculation on social media. Noname has also been slandered in the process of trying to protect black women.  None of these women deserve what they’re going through. They deserve to be protected and they deserve to be heard. 

Since Maya was told by lawyers that there’s not much of anything that can be done of the harassment, she’s been documeting the whole ordeal in Twitter threads amd letting everyone know tha if something happens to her, it’s because of this incident and the poor way it’s been handled. Other black women have been targets as well for sticking up for her. My question is, why is it that the majority of people coming to her defense are black women? Will everyone hear us only when it’s too late, and even then, will anyone protect us? How has this man been able to get away with openly harassing women for almost a year nonstop?

Please follow this story for your own research because there are still so many things that I did not mention in this article. Black women don’t always have to be “strong” and it’s that that kind of responsibility put on us that makes it hard for us to get justice in situations such as this. Talib Kweli, Tory Lanez, and other harmful men need to be stopped. They need to be held accountable for the harm they cause black women and it shouldn’t only be up to black women to do it. Say our names and tell our stories.

---

YOU MAY ALSO BE INTERESTED IN:

SHARE TO SOCIAL MEDIA

Stop Asian Hate: Support a Cause Without Degrading Another

By: Kwana Adams

There has been a lot of Anti-Asian hate crimes happening all over the world. It’s been a thing since the pandemic started over a year ago, but it has gotten significantly worse over the recent months.

Recently, there was a mass shooting in Georgia that took the life of six out of 8 women of Asian descent. Although the gunman himself claimed the crime was not racially motivated, it’s hard to believe, seeing as though all the victims were of Asian descent and mostly women.

Older people of Asian descent have been the biggest victims of Anti-Asian hate crimes lately too, and it’s hard to ignore or deny the fact that Asian people are being targeted. This is a topic that deserves a lot more attention than it’s getting and people are trying to raise awareness.

However, I’ve noticed something off about the way some people are bringing awareness to this issue…Why is it that people are degrading the Black Lives Matter movement to uplift the Anti-Asian hate crime movement? You know these two issues can co-exist right? And each movement is equally as important. There have been numerous Tik Toks and tweets saying things along the lines of, “Y’all were loud for BLM so why aren’t you being loud for this?” or when a black person commits a crime against an Asian person, here come the “But BLM right?” comments. 

I want to see how passionately people (incl other POC) will stand up for Asians. Those of you who were so vocal w BLM, where are you on the 1900% increase in Asian-directed hate crimes? The violence that has taken many lives (yet we rarely see those stories covered in the media)

— Laura Huang (@LauraHuangLA) February 11, 2021

My question is, why does BLM need to be brought up at all? Why can’t one issue be brought up without trying to degrade another? If people did their research, they would know that the movement didn’t happen overnight.

Black Lives Matter was created in 2012 by three black queer women, Alicia Garza, Opal Tometi, and Patrisse Cullors. Regardless of what it’s become today, it originally began as a response to Trayvon Martin’s death and the injustice that followed it. It’s grown tremendously since 2012 and that is mostly due to the backlash that it’s received from people who don’t understand what it is.

It started off as a response to police brutality and how the police treat our black bodies. From there, it just grew and grew. Black people have been abused and ignored for so long, that no one could have anticipated this growing as big as it did. Making comments like “But BLM right,” is just anti-black and has no place in these conversations. 

Right girlie. pic.twitter.com/oY28QvrR7F

— Johnny (@garontherun) March 18, 2021

The point I’m trying to make is, it can take time for people to catch wind of important issues. It has nothing to do with people thinking one issue is more important than other. You don’t need to degrade and disrespect one movement to uplift another. And if you’re only bringing up the Anti-Asian hate crime movement, only to bring down the BLM movement, do you even care about that movement, or are you just trying to spew hate?

The other reason the BLM movement was so popular was because black people not only created it, but they refused to let it die. Every single time an injustice was done to a black person, the community rose up. They were in the streets protesting, they were boycotting, they were on social media spreading awareness. All of that contributed to the popularity of BLM.

Creating a movement and making so much noise that people can’t even pretend not to hear you, is why BLM is not going anywhere. Michael Brown, Sandra Bland, Tamir Rice, George Floyd, Breonna Taylor… and hundreds more names. There’s a pattern here. There’s a reason we all know their names and it’s because we made sure no one would forget them.

Activists for the Black Lives Matter movement have been jailed, gone missing, or been killed for this movement. It’s so much bigger than people think it is. So when people try to downgrade it, they’re not only disrespecting the movement, but they’re also disrespecting the people who lost their lives behind it. A lot of pain, injustice, and loss went into making BLM as big as it is. 

This may be a hard pill to swallow but the black community is not in charge of making all issues go viral. Stop trying to guilt people into joining a movement when you could be sharing information and raising awareness instead. Black Lives Matter or BLM is not some punchline or retort you can use when there is an issue that’s not getting enough media attention. The Anti-Asian hate crime movement deserves a lot more than that. It is an important issue that deserves a platform that’s not tied to someone else’s movement. Talk about it more.

Let people in your communities know about the hate crimes against the Asian population that’s been happening. Speak to your elected officials. Go out into the streets and protest to get their attention and the attention of the media. Most importantly, make your own movements.  

“Y’all were loud for BLM, but quiet for this,” is not the way to get people involved. Please do better.

---

YOU MAY ALSO BE INTERESTED IN:

SHARE TO SOCIAL MEDIA

2020, The Year Of Awakening And Re-Adjusting: Racial Tension, Protests, And A Pandemic

Nick Cannon Speaking Out at a Protest For George Floyd - STAR TRIBUNE VIA GETTY IMAGES

By: James Teague

Everything that’s been happening so far isn’t a coincidence. When the new year started, everybody proclaimed that 2020 was going to be the year of clear vision as we closed a chapter of the last decade. But ever since the year started, it has been a chain of bizarre events that have occurred.

I know for me, everything started when we lost our NBA childhood hero Kobe “Bean” Bryant. It still doesn’t sit right with me that physically Black Mamba is no longer here with us. Next up, was the introduction of COVID-19, an unknown virus that suddenly spread worldwide causing a global pandemic. At first America didn't think too much about Coronavirus for it to really be a threat and took things lightly. But suddenly the number of people that came into contact with COVID increased, which then caused all of America to shut down and quarantine. 

Everybody transitioned from working in their offices to working from home while other workers who still had to stay outside in the public due to their place of employment were deemed essential. These turn of events caused jobs to either place their employees on furlough or make major budget cuts by letting go of their employees. The unemployment rate was said to have been at 13.3 percent, but recently it was discovered that an error was made with the May numbers of unemployment and that it should be higher.

We sat back and witnessed the government give big corporations unchecked billions of dollars for bailout meanwhile Americans experiencing unemployment only received a one time $1200 stimulus check payment to cover for four months of quarantine. Not only was the stimulus check not enough to cover for all of the months of quarantine but some households still have yet to receive their money. Then as the curve for COVID-19 started to slowly flatten, Trump and his cronies all decided they wanted to prematurely open America back up while unemployment was still high and citizens were still in need of financial assistance. The government showed that they failed to act by not putting enough effort in assisting American in our time of need.

Tension is rising between Americans and the government. Citizens were getting frustrated watching the government lose focus on assisting those heavily impacted by COVID-19. The political parties were all too focused on saving their own asses by pointing fingers at each other while either have provided very little updates on a vaccine to battle against coronavirus. I started watching this thinking to myself like ”I really can’t believe that I'm watching this unveil in front of our eyes. It feels like this is nothing but a sick joke.”  At first I thought to myself that “things just couldn't get any worse. But then I learned that death comes in 3’s.

It first started off with the death of Ahmad Arbery, who was killed by a racist father and son duo while he was jogging midway through a neighborhood in Brunswick, Georgia. Then next up, was Breonna Taylor who was murdered in her own home while in her sleep by the Louisville Metro Police Department. The final straw was the death of George Floyd as footage was released of Police officer Derek Chauvin with his hands in pockets acting nonchalant while his knees were to the back of George Floyd’s neck for 8 minutes and 46 seconds.

To be Black in America and know that racism and police brutality can still happen to us even while in a Global Pandemic is just egregious. To get reminded that we’re not safe by either the coronavirus, the police department, and the government is insane. We’re really experiencing two pandemics and one of them has been continuous for the last 400 years even with the quote on quote “minor changes” in America. 

So here we are again having to repeat again and go back outside to protest our right except this time this is occurring in the middle of a pandemic. But as I watched through social media how the protests around America started one by one, I started noticing how different the energy was this time around. When the protest first started, I saw how everybody was letting their frustrations out through the looting and destruction of Target and some of the high end stores in Phipps Plaza. But then afterwards, the protest started to become more focused and executed with a purpose.

Each protest was bigger than the last and we started gaining more allies. I started seeing more people who weren’t black were finally waking up and understanding what we’ve been trying to tell people for decades now about what we experience. And all it took was a Global Pandemic to shut down work, sports, entertainment, and vacations in order for people to sit down and really see what we were trying to tell them. And to top it off, we were starting to see some progress actually being made through the protests and riots such as the killers of Ahmaud Arbery finally getting arrested and charged for his murder. 

Jamie Foxx Speaking At A Protest For George Floyd

Throughout my 29 years here living here I don’t think I’ve even seen anything like what’s been going with all of these events. Even comparing how the protests were this year compared to when Mike Brown died in Ferguson, there'’s been so much that’s been unveiled to us during this time. I don't know if this is just me but with everything that’s been revealed around us, it feels like we’re experiencing a reckoning. Police brutaliy, murder, civil unrest, protest, violence, racists, rapists, mysogynists all being exposed, old systems and beliefs dying out, and the plight of black women and black men is sums up 2020.. And all it took was for a global pandemic to shut life activities down and force those to sit down and watch.

This is the end of the “normal” life that we once used to know and now we’re being forced to re-adjust into this “new normal.” This awakening is not only happening in the world but it is also happening in our own personal lives. By the unveiling of these ugly truths about what’s going on in the world, the universe is really giving us a chance to look deep within ourselves to re-evaluate who we are, where we stand (mentally, spiritually, & morally), our goals, dreams, and decide where we want our lives to be during this decade.

We really have an opportunity to make necessary changes to improve the trajectory of our lives. We have a chance to get our spirits right and move with more purpose and urgency. I don't know about you but I'm seeing more people move more intentionally and with purpose on how to get the poor leadership in america to really pay attention to what we’re telling them. 

Everybody has a story. We all have all been placed here in this world for a specific purpose and right now is the appropriate time to self reflect in order to figure out where to start your walk. Now even though there’s change going on around us we also need to keep in mind there's distractions all around us and they can  come in many different forms. One form of a distraction can come from media propaganda like how they’ve either portrayed the protestors or how they’ve pushed the topic of COVID-19. Another form of distraction is paying attention to how the government is pushing to prematurely open all of America back up  for the sake of the economy and putting out mixed information to deceive the viewer on what the numbers are for COVID 19.

Another source of distractions can be through social media if not used properly. With google around and people telling others to just “google,” there is a mass amount of false information on the internet that one can read and attempt to spread in an attempt to educate and its dangerous how quickly that information gets around. Add that in and mic it with certain trending topics and some may lose our focus and its ok.  We’re humans and we’re going to get sidetracked from time to time. But we must stay tapped in before we’re able to become our higher selves.

I don’t know about y’all but I don’t want to go back to how life used to be especially now since we are living in the new revolution. We’re all starting to find our voices and  speaking out for the voiceless. We have to constantly remember that this is a marathon and not a sprint. Change doesn't happen overnight and we have long ways to go. Truth be told, we’re probably not going to really see true progress until decades later when our children's grandchildren are in our shoes as young adults. But until then, we have a responsibility to find our roles in this revolution and dedicate ourselves to making the changes that we love to see not only in the world but in ourselves.

We can not only create a social reform in society but we can also get back focused on those life dreams we have and create the dream lives we want. So many of us got back refocused because of this pandemic and have been making progress in our goals, dreams, etc. We truly have the power in our hands to become the change we see in our vision. So make it count.

---

YOU MAY ALSO BE INTERESTED IN:

SHARE TO SOCIAL MEDIA