Black Women Fix It

The habit of expecting black women to fix messes, to come into extremely difficult or unbalanced situations and bear the trauma of fixing it while denying them a voice in the matter.

I’ve come to notice that there is an unspoken tendency within the American society to seek black people, and particularly black women, to fix messes, to come into extremely difficult or unbalanced situations and bear the trauma of fixing it while denying them a voice in the matter.  In fact, black women are chosen particularly because society has a negative impression of them, thus it is very easy to gaslight them or convince others to question and doubt their recollection of events.  This phenomenon is a result of slavery and the cognitive dissonance that colonizers engaged in to justify their actions, which continued post slavery.  Black people were dehumanized as justification for the mistreatment imposed upon them, and that mindset prevailed as an unspoken social contract; black people were stolen and enslaved through violence, terror, and narcissistic manipulation and surviving it often means accepting that contract and not speaking to the traumas that are inflicted.  It also means understanding that this system is sustained by appearances.  Power resides where men believe it resides, thus image maintenance, both good and bad, becomes tantamount.  Thus, the powerful must influence most people to believe that they are good and just, and only show the bad side to those that they can control, particularly with negative propaganda.  This role has largely been filed by black people in America.  America is a hierarchal system that resembles a pyramid, with the elite at the top and a labor/slave class at the bottom; and that class largely remains the same as it has been.  Africans were brought to the Americas as slaves and were naturally perceived as second class citizens, and nothing has been done to truly change this perception and role for the American populace in mass.  Granted attempts have been made to change the perceptions of black people, however it is a long, slow process which requires addressing the greatest obstacle to change; you cannot fix or change what you do not acknowledge, and it is hard to admit that you have participated in and perhaps benefited from something as horrible as systemic racism.  That acknowledgement is so pivotal that the entire structure of American society would have to change.  Mass counseling would be needed and everyone would have to learn a new method of interaction, with frequent corrections and accountability checks to even begin to chip away at the ghastly beast that is racism.