Big Sean Compared Black Women to Deities — And I Have No Problem With it

Not everything is meant as a jab towards black women.

Big Sean made headlines about two weeks ago after he said that “black women are the closest thing to god” in an interview. He spent about two minutes of the video talking about how black women are “creating life” and implied that black women “birthed the universe.”

Tons of people on Twitter had issues with his comments.

They said that this language feeds into the “strong black woman” stereotype that has dehumanized black women for centuries. It all dates back to slavery when Black women’s bodies were used and abused because they were treated like animals.

It also feeds into this myth that black people, especially black women, don’t feel pain. And that’s the very reason why black women are more than 3x more likely than white women to die from childbirth — doctors don’t think they need any medicine to help them fight through the pain.

So I understand the sentiments people had on Twitter regarding his comments.

But I also didn’t take strong offense to it like so many others did. To be honest, I thought it was a nice compliment. He said it in a loving demeanor.

We shouldn’t feed into the strong black woman stereotype, but I don’t want us to go down this path of being offended every single time someone compliments black women.

If we want to get technical, the earliest human ancestors on Earth was a black female named Lucy. Her remains were found in Ethiopia.

This reminds me of when some black people say, “We were kings and queens in Africa.” People are now saying that this dehumanizes black people as well. What’s wrong with gassing ourselves up? If black people, especially black women, want to call themselves goddesses or queens, I see no problem with that.

If we’re saying that to ourselves, why are we upset when a man says it too?

The only huge problem I see from this situation is the fact that this could’ve been received better if another man had said it. Big Sean was the wrong choice.

He has a clear history of dating racially ambiguous, light-skinned, and white women. He’s dated Ariana Grande (white), Jhene Aiko (1/4 black), and Nya Rivera (racially ambiguous). Everyone got into his ass on Twitter for that as well, which made the compliment seem more disingenuous, but I don’t think Big Sean held any malice towards black women when he said it.

There’s no denying that the “strong black woman” stereotype is harmful to black women. But that doesn’t mean we should be up in arms every single time someone wants to elevate us positively.

You could argue that it was corny and disingenuous when Big Sean said we’re the “closest thing to god” when he doesn’t date black women, but it’s kind of true. The first person on Earth was a black woman.

Both can be true.

We can acknowledge the dangers of the “strong black woman” stereotype while also recognizing that we’re pretty damn awesome. That’s all.

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