Black Women Warned You: The Overturning of Roe vs. Wade
Black Women Warned You: The Overturning of Roe vs. Wade
“If they come for me in the morning, they will come for you in the night” — Angela Davis
There is understandable devastation at the overturning of Roe vs. Wade today. Yet, where the shock lies is not with Black women.
Black women have been telling you.
We came to this country with no body autonomy — — bred like cattle to serve a system that never viewed us as human and that has spent centuries establishing systems and legislation to continue to keep us from being viewed as such
We did not need The Handmaid’s Tale to caution us about what this world was capable of.
We, and our ancestors have lived through it.
Throughout history, Black women have fought this battle for gender-based justice and overall human rights, knowing full well that we would often find ourselves fighting for those who would happily put their own privileges above our basic right to exist
Black women tried to show you
Through overwhelmingly voting in elections for those who we knew still did not prioritize us, but would at least do us the least amount of harm
As we sat and watched you vote in large numbers for those who promised you that your proximity to white, cisgendered maleness would somehow save you
Black women attempted to educate you
Expending countless hours of emotional and intellectual labor as we provided your information on how the mistreatment of marginalized refugees, the attempted criminalization of the lived experience of LGTBQ folks, and the state-sanctioned murders of Black people was “your fight”
Black women led you
Starting movements that you attempted to co-opt, de-centering our voices
But we still made our presence known
Because we knew this
We saw this coming
We are not new to this
So, we sit in this moment
Our rage palatable
Our disgust suffocating us
Knowing that you will turn to us and ask us “how could this happen?”
And we will breathe deeply and simply state
“How could it not?”
Dr. Tyffani is a licensed psychologist who centers the needs of Black Women and Girls in her work. She is proudly pro-choice and continues to fight for the right for those who give birth to make their own decisions about when and if they choose to do so. She is the co-founder of Centering Sisters and co-hosts its podcast. Subscribe to the Centering Sisters podcast on Youtube. Like both the Centering Sisters and the Dr. Tyffani Facebook pages
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