Black Women Keep Going, Because the Alternative Is…No

We write, speak, sing, dance because black women need black women

A few weeks ago, I reached out to Journal-isms editor Richard Prince for work he’d advertised. I didn’t get the job. What I did get was the incredible opportunity to sit in on a Roundtable with journalists of incredible talent, and accomplishment.

Nichelle Smith the Enterprise Editor, Racism and History at USA Today centred the discussion around the prevailing idea of black women being the backbone of this (US) democracy.

Smith’s panellists included, Errin Haines,the award winning journalist and the first to be granted an interview with VP Kamala Harris after she won the Democratic nomination. Haines is also the Founding Mother and Editor at large for The 19th; Yannick Rice Lamb, chair of the Department of Media, Journalism and Film at Howard University; Sonya Ross, previous Race & Ethnicity Editor for The Associated Press and Founder of Black Women Unmuted; and finally, dream hampton, executive producer of “Surviving R.Kelly.”

I listed hampton last among the panelists, not for any reason in particular. However, from her warmth, the intelligence and love for people she exuded, I don’t believe she would mind. hampton herself clearly earned the respect and approbation from all present. She was a genuinely lovely person.

Those listening in on the Zoom call were no less impressive. To give you a small sampling, Fergus Shiel, a member of the International Consortium of International Journalists (ICIJ) produced the front page news story of the Pandora Papers. The largest undertaking of a project by the ICIJ revealing the identities of thirty-six world leaders who stole and hid trillions of dollars of their country’s money.

Close associates of our Canadian Prime Minister were revealed in the investigation.

Mira Lowe the newly appointed Dean of Florida A&M (FAMU) University School of Journalism & Graphic Communication. Kathy Roberts Forde and acclaimed historian and Associate Dean at UMass edited the new book Journalism and Jim Crow: White Supremacy and the Black Struggle for a New America out at the end of November.

And me. That’s not to get down on myself, only to realistically asset that I’m nowhere near their calibre of accomplishment. However, I’m willing to do the work. Since, the discussion Richard Prince has reached out to me encouraging me to attend journalism school.

Prince is a journalist. He worked at the Washington Post, and was the Robert C. Maynard Institute for Journalism education. I’ll be keeping him apprised of my journalism school progress as he’s invited me back to the next roundtable.

Journalism School — Why didn’t I think of that??!!

This should have been a no brainer, but beyond giving it a cursory glance, I never honestly considered the possibility. Surely, if I’d had that talent, wouldn’t it have been recognized sooner?

Yet my focus was on reading what others put out. I was a voracious book nerd. Inhaling books as if they were oxygen, which growing up as a Black girl under white supremacy, they were. Their power to take me away from the daily violence of whiteness made me almost believe I could be anything. Except a writer.

I never considered myself a writer before Medium. A devourer of books, yes. Writer, no. Even now, writing on Medium, finding the time to write is nearly impossible, but I do it. Not as consistently as I’d like, but I’m about to change that. No, I’m not making some grand declaration that I K.Valley will publish stories everyday, because I’ve tried that and failed. Repeatedly. What I will do is do.

I’ll continue working to put aside my desperate need for perfection and do the best I can. I already know I’m determined. I already know I persevere regardless of the adversity. I already know I just keep going even when I’m going alone. I’ll do whatever I must to earn the dollars required to afford the journalism Masters. That means making the time to consistently publish on Medium.

I’ve realized since writing on Medium, I have a few things to say. The biggest realization is, money alone does not drive me. It lights no fire under me, regardless of how much I need it. I do believe that writing is important. I do believe that our words can create change. As for the size of that change, that’s not my business. My work, my passion, my joy, is to tell truth to the best of my ability so I can hopefully inspire and lift up others. Like your words do me.

I’ll say a little more about the Roundtable, but Prince has encouraged me to get my piece published in a magazine, so I’ll be brief.

Is this a watershed moment for Black women?

Two key questions were raised and answered during the discussion. This small snippet I’m including here, will not do justice to the raw emotion these questions produced. There was sadness. There was pain and there were tears.

Is this moment in time, with the guilty verdict for R.Kelly a victory for Black women? And where are the Black men who should be supporting Black women?

In answer to the first question, the panellists said no. No. Kelly’s guilty verdict will not salve the pain and disrespect Black women receive. Our pain will not be healed. We will not be believed the next time we tell our story. We will not be embraced, shielded, held, loved or supported. It’s knowledge that hurts. It fills the hole that lives inside each of us, with more grief and despair. You know the place — the home where Black women’s pain lives and rages eager to consume us in a fire so hot it should burn the world.

Somehow, nobody feels it, but us. And we know better than to gaze too long at it, much less talk about it out loud.

hampton said the women thought their stories [of what Kelly did to them] would lead to positive change. She told them no, “I could promise them they would get dragged, doxxed, they would be attacked, in the media in their own community and online.” We all know what happened on the day of Kelly’s guilty verdict, five million people downloaded his music. That hurt. Not as much as what she next said.

This was the knife twist that howled. We all knew about Kelly. We knew about Cosby. We know about Dre. How many of us, or our kids, still have a beats by dre in our homes. Maybe you wondered why I chose the picture of Kelly and Jay, probably not so much now.

Are you feeling it howling across your chest, into your back? Pricking at your eyes and holding your mouth shut? My teeth are pulling my mouth closed, tight, tight. Every time I write those words, it’s the same. I know what’s coming and not one time have I been able to brace.

Throughout Canada, the US, wherever you find white supremacy and an embrace of whitenesss, a culture that celebrates rapists, abusers, and murderers thrives.

The second question

Where are the Black men supporting Black women? There will always be some men. We know that. Some men were present, but the excuse for why there weren’t more? “There’s a game on.” That wasn’t good enough. An oh, how the the tension was made material when Hazel Trice Edney of The Trice Edney Wire rode that question home.

The unfortunate message women heard in that room and too often in our daily lives is, we are an afterthought for too many Black men. We did as Black women do, we absorbed the blow.

Message received.

Blows notwithstanding, Black women will continue doing what needs to be done. It’s exhausting, it seems impossible, the odds are against us and the road in this constant keeping on is treacherous. We’ll keep going. Because we know what the alternative is. It seethes in our blood.

Even so. We must take care of ourselves. Gentle ourselves. Speak kindly and with compassion to ourselves. Then we must stand together and provide space to care for each other. We who have the voices must continue speaking and writing.