In Order To Love A Black Man, I Had To First Forgive My Father
I can't lie. Black love feels different since Korryne.
Since Trayvon.
Since Philando.
Since Rodney f--cking King.
It feels more profound and more important.
I haven't been able to write lately because I've been reflecting on what it means to be loved and Black.
When I was 13, my father abandoned us. He abandoned me. The reasons didn't even matter. Ultimately, he was needed and did not show up. He was the first man to ever teach me that love could be temporary. Retracted. That it could dissolve into thin air. It left me wondering why I was so damn insignificant. Wondering what about me could be so easily dismissed.
He was the first man to ever teach me that love could be temporary.
And yet, I couldn't love a Black man until I forgave my father for every wrong thing he ever did.
And I couldn't forgive my father until I forgave myself.
If you're Black, there are two things I know for sure. That you are beautiful and that you are damaged.
I know your parents are likely more damaged than you. And their parents before them, even more so. You don't have to come from degradation or poverty for this to be true. You don't have to come from hell for this to be true. This is true because the condition of the world in which we live is such that we have been conditioned as slaves. Our men have been taken and beaten, our women have been forced to take on things too heavy for their backs. We bent and twisted like tree roots through sidewalks. Unforgivably determined and yet — confined.
It's OK to accept this.
Because it won't change until we accept this.
I can't blame the condition of Black love on the industrial prison complex. I can't blame it on crooked cops. I can't blame it on slave masters who sailed boats filled with Black bodies. There's no place for blame. But understand those things are the reason.
I know that if you're a Black woman it is more likely than not that you have been raped or violently assaulted.
That you have walked out of or into your home feeling unsafe. That you have been told precisely who you are by people who miscalculate your worth. That you have overcompensated for the assumptions on the other side of tables and across rooms. That you may not know your father or feel inconsequential in his eyes. That you keep your chin up because you have to despite a weary neck.
That when people praise you, they are actually praising the generations of women who came before you as well. That you step lightly for no one because you can't afford to be passive. That even though your tongue is sharp and your gaze is fixed, you want to be held and loved and comforted and told everything is alright.
I know that if you're a Black man there has been a narrative written in your name. You may have been raped, beaten, neglected, assaulted and forced to shake it off. That you may have been raised by a tired single mother who didn't have the time or was not taught to think about your emotional development. Who may have leaned on you too hard, too soon and taught you to feel burdened by the opposite sex. That you exist in an alternate reality in which Black men are taken for granted by passers-by — who can't possibly acknowledge that they are walking past kings.
I know these things. We all know these things. And yet we pretend that we don't.
And then there's Black love.
We're thrust into the gravity of each other. Maybe for a night or a summer or possibly a decade or a lifetime.
The Black man and the Black woman who have been given skewed versions of love lessons.
Standing in rooms we didn't choose to be in.
Trying to run from and understand each other at the same time. The tug-of-war is poetic and heartbreaking and life-giving. We write love letters with missing syllables and still dance to its rhythm in pure imagination. But that shit doesn't last.
How do you love someone who may be systematically broken? And who, throughout their life, may break again and again?
I don't pretend to be an expert in the art of Black forgiveness but I do know it begins with forgiving yourself. To stand in front of a mirror, or at a bus stop or before an ocean or on line at the supermarket or at the wake of a new lover's touch and say or think, “I forgive myself."
I FORGIVE MYSELF.
To accept that every painful thing you've experienced was in fact abuse — no matter how insignificant you've been told it was. That you should have been treated better but was not. That you shouldn't have been discarded or ignored or profiled — but you were. To forgive the cracks and missing pieces that exist within yourself and understand those marks are things of beauty. Because we are not what has been done to us. We are walking manifestations of our ancestors' dreams. Every one of us.
If you can forgive yourself a thousand times a day — know that you will have to forgive your lover just the same. You will have to accept that they will hurt you, pull away from you, lie to you, and perhaps leave you. That they may do those things because those things have been done to them by others. Or by you.
And then you have to accept how important this process is. The static in the air right now is solidifying.
We are at war.
We do have to fight back.
We do have to be aggressive.
We do have to be relentless.
But if Black people are standing on a battlefield, make no mistake — our greatest weapon is the ability to be loving.
To ourselves, to our lovers, to our children.
To our oppressors who are cowardly waiting for us to retreat.
Ashley Simpo is a writer, mother and advocate for self-care and healthy relationships. She lives in Brooklyn, NY. Follow her on Instagram and Twitter @ashleysimpo. Check out her work and her musings on ashleysimpocreative.com.
ItGirl 100 Honors Black Women Who Create Culture & Put On For Their Cities
As they say, create the change you want to see in this world, besties. That’s why xoNecole linked up with Hyundai for the inaugural ItGirl 100 List, a celebration of 100 Genzennial women who aren’t afraid to pull up their own seats to the table. Across regions and industries, these women embody the essence of discovering self-value through purpose, honey! They're fierce, they’re ultra-creative, and we know they make their cities proud.
VIEW THE FULL ITGIRL 100 LIST HERE.
Don’t forget to also check out the ItGirl Directory, featuring 50 Black-woman-owned marketing and branding agencies, photographers and videographers, publicists, and more.
THE ITGIRL MEMO
I. An ItGirl puts on for her city and masters her self-worth through purpose.
II. An ItGirl celebrates all the things that make her unique.
III. An ItGirl empowers others to become the best versions of themselves.
IV. An ItGirl leads by example, inspiring others through her actions and integrity.
V. An ItGirl paves the way for authenticity and diversity in all aspects of life.
VI. An ItGirl uses the power of her voice to advocate for positive change in the world.
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You've Never Seen Luke James In A Role Quite Like This
Over the years, we've watched Luke James play countless characters we'd deem sex symbols, movie stars, and even his complicated character in Lena Waithe's The Chi. For the first time in his career, the New Orleans-born actor has taken on a role where his signature good looks take a backseat as he transforms into Edmund in Them: The Scare—a mentally deranged character in the second installment of the horror anthology series that you won't be able to take your eyes off.
Trust us, Edmund will literally make you do a double take.
xoNecole sat down with Luke James to talk about his latest series and all the complexity surrounding it—from the challenges taking on this out-of-the-box role to the show's depiction of the perplexing history of the relationship between Black Americans and police. When describing the opportunity to bring Edmund's character to life, Luke was overjoyed to show the audience yet another level of his masterful acting talents.
"It was like bathing in the sun," he said. "I was like, thank you! Another opportunity for me to be great—for me to expand my territory. I'm just elated to be a part of it and to see myself in a different light, something I didn't think I could do." He continued, "There are parts of you that says, 'Go for it because this is what you do.' But then also that's why it's a challenge because you're like, 'um, I don't know if I'm as free as I need to be to be able to do this.' Little Marvin just created such a safe space for me to be able to do this, and I'm grateful for everything I've been able to do to lead to this."
Courtesy
Them: The Scare, like the first season, shines a light on the plight of Black Americans in the United States. This time, the story is taking place in the 1990s, at the height of the Rodney King riots in Los Angeles. While the series presents many underlying themes, one that stands out is Black people and the complicated relationship with the police. "For the audience, I think it sets the tone for the era that we're in and the amount of chaos that's in the air in Los Angeles and around the country from this heinous incident. And I say it just sets the tone of the anxiety and anxiousness that everybody is feeling in their own households."
James has been a longtime advocate against police brutality himself. He has even featured Elijah McClain, the 23-year-old Colorado man who died after being forcibly detained by officers, as his Instagram avatar for the past five years. So, as you can imagine, this script was close to his heart. "Elijah was a soft-loving oddball. Different than anyone but loving and a musical genius. He was just open and wanted to be loved and seen."
Getty Images
Luke continued, "His life was taken from him. I resonate with his spirit and his words...through all the struggle and the pain he still found it in him to say, 'I love you and I forgive you.' And that's who we are as people—to our own detriment sometimes. He's someone I don't want people to forget. I have yet to remove his face from my world because I have yet to let go of his voice, let go of that being [because] there's so many people we have lost in our history that so often get forgotten."
He concluded, "I think that's the importance of such artwork that moves us to think and talk about it. Yes, it's entertaining. We get to come together and be spooked together. But then we come together and we think, 'Damn, Edmund needed someone to talk to. Edmund needed help... a lot [of] things could have been different. Edmund could have been saved.'
Check out the full interview below.
Luke James Talks Ditching Sex Symbol Status For "Them: The Scare", Elijah McClain, & Morewww.youtube.com
Featured image by Getty Images