It’s Sad That Some Black Women Lie About Their Self-Esteem

Your circle is a reflection of you

One of my friends is in a toxic relationship.

She just doesn’t know it yet.

My friend is an amazing black woman who stands up for equality and social justice any day she can. She’s always been an advocate of black women speaking up for themselves and taking control.

She always exuded high self-esteem to me.

She carries herself as if she’d never let a man hurt her.

The man she’s with now is a cheater to me. He’s the type to put his exes on blast via social media to get clout.

That’s why I need to have a serious conversation with my fellow black women right now.

Why do we preach high self-esteem, but we don’t practice it?

I’m not saying I’m perfect at all.

I just know a trash man when I see one. The toxicity is clear in his movements, facial expressions, his weird past, and his overall behavior.

Sure, he’s done nice things for my friend, which is why I’ll give her some grace on this. But you can’t jump into a relationship blind to the bullshit surrounding you and not smell it.

I care about my friend. I don’t want her heart to get broken over a relationship like this.

But then again, how many fucks can I give if she’s preached high self-esteem all these years to turn around and do this?

I’m saddened by this more than anything.

There’s so much low self-esteem floating around black women. It’s not our fault. We’ve been conditioned like this by society.

We’ve been taught to take a bullet for a man who wouldn’t take a bullet for us. We’ve been taught to be the caregiver and emotional support systems of everyone around us. We’ve been taught to not speak up when anything violent happens to us.

I love that black women are feeling more empowered today to own who they are.

There are more positive images of black women out there we can look at as guidance. But I can’t shake this confusion I have when we speak out about empowerment, yet our actions don’t match our words.

Is this what we’ll always be?

Mules for people who don’t deserve to be muled for?

I refuse to do it.

You can say I’m overreacting, but I wouldn’t be a true advocate for my fellow black women if I didn’t say something about this.

Why do we always allow people to walk all over us?!

I’m frustrated because we’re too beautiful, talented, sexy, intelligent, and hardworking for this. Our intuition is clouded by our societal conditioning.

I think we’ll heal from this with time, but it starts with our inner circles first.

I have a very supportive inner circle. Everyone around me genuinely wants to see me succeed and they’re not afraid to tell me if I do anything fucked up.

Black women, it’s time for us to make some changes in our circles.

How do we do that?

Court them. Ask as many questions as possible.

If the relationship/friendship doesn’t feel natural, avoid them like the plague.

Don’t put so much energy into every single person you meet. I’ve met my inner circle through genuine and fun moments. I didn’t expect those friendships to happen. But we had a lot and common and that was the basis of our friendship.

I don’t want to ramble any further because I don’t want this post to come off as some “do better” speech.

I want us to find our holy mecca, but I want us to be cautious about who we allow in our inner circles.

We’re AMAZING and we shouldn’t bow to anyone.

I hope more black women understand that and practice it in the future.

Get my free writing guide that can teach you how to build a writing habit in 90 days or less here.