Guest Blog by Nova Reid

Think about the ways you regularly treat Black women…

I saw this image by the brilliant Kazvare ♥ and asked to share it. It encapsulates so much about how I feel and witness Black women being treated- as vessels to be in service to other people.

This image depicts the ‘wet nursing’ of white babies that many enslaved Black women on plantations were forced to do, while their own babies were malnourished.

Think about the ways you regularly treat us like vending machines

Taking without replenishing
Consuming without giving back
Coming when you have a need

Transactional
No thought for our well-being
Trauma dumping

We are not a site to projectile vomit your woes onto, for you to move on when you feel better, while we’re covered in your bile & left to clean up.

We do not exist to carry yours or the worlds issues on our backs.

We do not exist for you to blow your misdirected rage & trauma through.

We do not exist for you to use us as pawns & human shields to hide from accountability or absolve you of your racism

How often you over familiarise your relationships with us without doing the work to build intimacy.

How often you have transactional exchanges - not even engaging with our humanity.

How often you have the urge to crack your metaphorical whip in an attempt to have YOUR way. Like a puppet on your master string, you still have the entitled tacit expectation to control us. From how we should behave, to tone, to what we should say & when.

You do not own Black women.

🛑 Folks - the way most of you treat Black women is diabolical.

I’m talking to ALL of you, but I see this play out more so from white women. AND Black men, Arab women, Asian folks, non-black Jewish women, mixed/biracial women and even other Black women. Not nearly enough of you are unpacking your anti-blackness and how you’ve been socialised to see and treat Black women as your Mamie. Even today.

We do not exist to be in servitude to you

We are not your mammies

We are human beings.

Come correct, or respectfully, please leave us alone - because this behaviour is diabolical.

🖤 When was the last time you poured into Black women instead of taking, abusing, or dumping?

🖤 When was the last time you treated us with love & tenderness?

We have a violent history of abusing & extracting from Black women. That continues in new ways to this very day. It has to stop.
By Nova Reid