Surviving Misogyny

The past two weeks have been rough for 2019. With only 16 days in, we have learned:

• Pretty much all our faves have been trash/are trash

• People STILL ain’t listening to nor giving a fuck about black girls and women

• People would rather advocate for a rapist cuz he makes great music... and the WHOLE city of Chicago knew it

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Regardless of his proven history, it is grown ass women out here still willing to buss it open for this man because... he’s still sexy to them????

Whew chile. We are truly living in some dark and ghetto times.

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Y’all President has shut the government down due to a wall he can’t get built.

More or less tho, this post isn’t about Rapist Kelly. In fact, I never watched the documentary. I don’t need to and I don’t want to. However, I will say this:

Furthermore:

• Just because you’ve been abused, doesn’t give you the right to abuse others.

• I can’t be friends with those who have no empathy for the sexually abused. So many people are deleted off my social media and I could not be happier. 

• While yes, the outrage should have been in place 30 years ago, it simply wasn’t. Or maybe it was but again... y’all do NOT give a fuck about black women anyway cus anytime we try and speak up, y’all try to silence us! So it's like you're damned if you do, damned if you don't.

• This shit isn’t an attack on Black men. Everybody should be held accountable regardless of race. Just say y’all wanna be white men and get away with everything... even if it’s sexual abuse. 🙃

• I was told that there were women in that doc who know of Rapist Kelly’s history, saw that child porn, etc but still consented to go with him... while they are indeed BIRDS, they still did NOT deserve what happened to them. Hopefully moving forward they will have better discernment but yeah. That nigga is bat shit crazy.

• Also... for you people who keep bringing up age differences between say.. your own parents etc please understand that there was likely no manipulation taking place AND they were able to CONSENT. Not coerced, preyed on, manipulated, kidnapped etc BUT enthusiastically consented.

• Finally, to you niggas who keep bringing up girls who got picked up in high school by grown niggas or who were messing around with security guards... you make a moot point because a) Girls wouldn’t be getting into cars with grown niggas if the niggas wouldn’t of been pulling up in the first place. And b) Can’t mess with a security guard if he wasn’t trying to mess with you in the first place. Adults should always be held accountable, so stop trying to dissolve people of it.

Anyways, I say all this to say: Fuck Rapist Kelly. *cues Boondocks episode*

Again though, this isn’t about him. I just got one question: how are we gonna survive misogyny? Cuz truthfully y’all, misogyny and patriarchy have done a number on us all. It’s something we ALL have to unlearn.

Misogyny is the reason why we believe 50 men calling one girl a hoe but if 50 women say that she has been assaulted by that man, we question it or say she’s lying.

Misogyny is the reason why it was deemed acceptable for young boys as young as 9, 10, 11 years old getting sucked and fucked on by grown ass women as if that’s not sexual abuse too.

Misogyny is the reason why girls have strict dress codes in school, and get penalized for showing something as simple as a shoulder.

Misogyny is the reason why we only allow boys and men to show anger and rage because to show any other emotion makes him a bitch.

Misogyny is the reason why women are deemed the weaker between the sexes, and we know that ain’t true.

Misogyny is the reason why niggas feel entitled to our time, space, numbers, bodies, etc and if we DON’T give it to them, then we gotta fear if they’ll react violently 🙃.

Misogyny is the reason why women get pressured into taking back their emotionally and maybe even physically abusive partners back, but if she cheats you gotta drop her like a bad habit..

Misogyny is the reason why trans women are getting killed at alarming rates.

Misogyny is the reason y’all don’t respect sex workers of any kind.

Misogyny is the reason why politicians can debate when and how we can get pregnant, get access to birth control, and how much we get paid.

Misogyny is the reason why Rapist Kelly and other people like him were allowed to roam free for so long.

Y’all get the gist now, or should I keep going?

While that’s not an exhaustive list, bitch I am exhausted. But imagine how exhausting it is trying to survive all this shit on a day to day.

Then it’s like... with all this news coming out about your faves and people just refusing to be silent anymore, it leaves me to question: Where do we go from here? How do we start the process of unlearning? Is there exactly one answer? Do we just cancel people left and right but leave our own internal misogyny unchecked?

Feminism ain’t always the answer (because #WhiteWomen and their shenanigans will literally throw the rest of us under a bus.) but I will say this:

I think people hate feminism or simply women feeling empowered enough to speak up about things that they once kept buried and locked away because it puts a mirror on them.

It forces themselves to be held accountable.

To ask and answer those hard questions: Am I creepy?

Have I done some creep shit?

Have my guys done some creep shit and I sat back and said/did nothing?

And you know what G? Most of us have.

Like Chance said in his interview with Jameliah Lemieux, regardless of your proximity to black women, we tend to dismiss the trauma and pain of our day to day interactions with misogyny.

Unfortunately, some of us have had to parade our own trauma just for niggas to not only humanize women, but to fucking get it.

It sucks. Truly. Because we should respect women just off GP but unfortunately, that’s not how this world is set up... until we started speaking up.

Demanding respect.

Amplifying our voices and educating not only ourselves, but those that are willing to learn too.

And unlearning our own internalized misogyny, because that’s the hardest part.

Unlearning is not an overnight process, nor is it easy. You basically gotta ask yourself the hard questions and analyze what messages about certain people were communicated to you and then based off those messages, how did you interact with those certain groups of people?

Truth be told we are all socialized in some type of way. Are your thoughts truly your own or are you simply a product of your environment?

As of late, I have vowed to stop arguing on the internet with people about sensitive topics because tone is everything and Chile... you just can’t talk to people who ain’t willing to listen or learn. Plus, healing is more effective when it’s done off the internet in my opinion.

So what I’ve personally done is I started having conversations with my male friends and while we don’t always agree, I WILL say that they leave conversations with me with a new perspective and I’m hoping a willingness to just do better.

So where do we go from here?

⁃ Create a space (preferably offline) with a community of folks who really want to learn and do better..

Even if it’s just 1 person that’s a start.

⁃ Never stop speaking up.

I commend everybody I’ve seen over the past couple weeks use their platforms to amplify the voices of survivors. People try to silence black women ALL THE TIME but per usual, we ain’t going.

⁃ Nip shit in the bud as soon as it happens.

You don’t have to live in fear anymore. There’s no reason why celebrities and non-celebrities are allowed to roam this earth so freely after knowing about the atrocities committed against women and children. We gotta do better and it starts by being non-complacent.

⁃ Go volunteer somewhere.

I came across this list of places in Chicago that provide services and help those who have experienced sexual assault. If you’re not in Chicago, well.... Google IS your friend. Use it and take action.

Surviving misogyny isn’t easy and I’m ready to live in a world without it. But we can’t do that until we unlearn, heal, and create a better tomorrow.

Are you up for the challenge? Is that something you want to commit yourself to?

Or do you wanna stay complacent, because misogyny is so deeply embedded in us that we really can't imagine/ don't want to have a world without it?

Thanks for reading my story.

Love,

Kia