I first heard about a “pop star suicide attempt” in passing while TMZ was playing on the television during a visit to my mother-in-law in Fort Greene. Then, while scrolling through Facebook later that evening, I saw a Blavity post about Nick Cannon visiting Kehlani in the hospital. I may not know the singer personally, but anytime a life is saved, I consider that a beautiful thing. I recognized her name, and although I'm not very familiar with her music, I have been a fan of her style for a while.

Upon checking out some of her music, it dawned on me that baby girl might be super bad and tatted up, but she's going through the same things every other 20 year old woman goes through.
I found a particularly disrespectful round up of tweets in one article that suggested that not only is Kehlani a “hoe,” but that any woman “defending her” was a hoe as well. This infuriated me.

While back tracking through news stories and blogs online, it became clear that a variety of societal ills and people were to blame for this life almost being lost. We could place all the blame on toxic masculinity and cyber bullying, but there is a particular group of people involved in the situation that were not only silent, but also complicit in creating the misogynistic framing of the entire episode—Black men.

It is high time that our brothers realize the impact of their words, attitudes and behavior, in seriousness or jest, when it comes to Black women, and it is imperative that they take a stand in our defense when we are attacked on any basis, but especially when it is because we were
“theirs” at some point and moved on.

Party Next Door, Kehlani's self-professed first love, posted a photo on his Instagram of the two holding hands in bed with the caption “After all her shenanigans, I got the r&b singer back in my bed.”

Let's examine that.

I can tell you plainly that I don't know Kehlani, Kyrie Irving or Party Next Door personally. I will never be privy to the ins, outs and intricacies of their relationship. For all I know, Party Next Door is as deeply in love with Kehlani as she is with him. That is my hope, and I have no reason to believe otherwise. This post may very well have been his expression of that love, passion and excitement about getting back together with the one that got away.

But we need to look at the language here.

Party Next Door could have announced to the world in a multitude of ways that he and Kehlani were back together and he chose the most sexual, possessive, minimizing language humanly possible to describe his reunion with a woman he supposedly loves. The post starts out insinuating that Kehlani was the reason for their break up. It was her “shenanigans” that caused her to wind up with someone else. But in spite of that, she was back in bed with her ex. Not in his arms. Not in his life. In his bed. They may not have even done anything intimate during the time the photo was taken but with this phrasing, he sends a message of blame and ownership. It suggests they had sex. As if he was trying to say “she was fucking up but she's still mine and I hit that- ha ha.”

That is a dangerous way to present your reunion with a black woman in the public eye to the world. Kehlani was in another high profile relationship, and Party Next Door’s words promote violent, dehumanizing language in the name of subtly shaming a woman, giving outsiders permission to be outright disrespectful because we have now collectively decided she is a “thot.”

Men and women in relationships are partners, and the moment you engage in shaming a woman for exercising her freedom as a result of your perceived lack of allegiance to her counterpart, past or present, you are actively engaging in misogyny. In the case of Black women there is a particularly violent and disrespectful way they are shamed as a direct result of prevalent notions suggesting we are simultaneously undesirable and hyper sexual. “How dare this b*tch. She's lucky he even looked her way! But you know how ‘they are.’”

Party Next Door set her up for this.

He may love her, but we need to acknowledge the tendency of men, even when they are in love or a relationship, to act and speak about the women in their lives as though they are property- and/or disposable. Party Next Door, and all men who claim to be in love with black women, need to be accountable for how their language perpetuates and reinforces misogyny, intentionally or unintentionally.
We see it all the time. Black man loves black woman. Black woman loves black man. Black man and black woman are no longer in love/break up. Black man all of a sudden never thought she was shit anyway. Black woman moves on. Black man suddenly recalls how much of a bitch/ho/lame Black woman is and actually always was. Black community comes to defense of black man and shames black woman for being “loose” and a “hoe” and moving on “too fast.” Meanwhile black man is on his third girlfriend and 9th hooker since the break up.

Party Next Door is out of line not only for making that post, but also for offering no public apology for such a blatant act of machismo at the expense of his lady. He deleted the post that started the fire storm without addressing what he said and how he said it. That is a problem. Language matters. Public reaction to their getting back together might not have been any less brutal if he captioned the photo with “So good to have my baby back.” But how even the men we love frame their relationships with us during and after them reflects their disrespect for black women.

As for Kyrie, he may be hurt, but I cannot give him a pass for staying silent while the Internet tore her apart. If he ever loved that girl, regardless of how he feels in this moment, he should have come to her defense.

Even if they did not break up amicably. Even if he feels like she moved on too quickly. Even if the girl is lying and she did cheat, I would really love to see the same grace bestowed upon Black women that is bestowed on Black men when relationships end.

Folks are still calling Amber Rose a slut and acting like she destroyed her family when it was Wiz Khalifa who cheated on her. People still treat Karrueche as though she is at fault for the deterioration of her relationship with Chris Brown. Meanwhile he was singing about disloyal hoes while getting other women pregnant. Ciara is expected to wait for Future to bring his simple ass to the future and step up to the plate as a daddy, making it impossible for another man to do so, instead of be happy with her current fiancé in a functional, healthy, committed relationship.

This is the pattern we will continue to see if Black men don't step up. Until loving a Black woman is about more than having her in your bed and laying claim to her body, we can expect more of the same. Until Black women are allowed to be sexy for themselves and not the man they're with at the moment, we will continue to be harassed for existing in our truths. Until Black men stop forgetting their entire journey with Black women the moment it ends because they cannot get out of their feelings long enough to show the kind of love that doesn't involve sex, every Black woman who ever loves more than one person in her lifetime will be subject to what Ciara, Kehlani, and so many others have been victim to.

Black men should to react to the words “hoe,” “slut,” “thot,” and “trick” the same way you would if you heard a woman call a man a “dog.” I want Black men to realize your sisters, mamas, cousins, and, yes—one day your daughters—will make use of their vaginas and like it. This will occur with multiple men (and perhaps some women.) This is the natural order of things. You are all products of some form of Black love no matter how long it lasted. Black women are tired of having to bring up mothers, sisters, aunties and female cousins in order to appeal to Black men’s love for Black women you know personally as though we are not all the daughters, sisters, lovers, cousins, mothers and grandmas of Black people. Kehlani's experience with being judged after moving on is the story of every black woman who has ever dated or dared to love more than one person in her lifetime. It's about time we acknowledged the second class citizen status of black women and started loving them longer than it takes for them to realize a relationship is not working out.

Author Note 4/20/18: While my identification of Kehlani as a Black woman was woefully misguided, I stand by the points made in this piece and hope they resonate despite my misstep. 

Photograph by WireImage

by Anna Gibson

I’ve always considered myself “woke.” I’m an avid reader of history and because of this, I became aware of the forces that oppress black and brown people at a very young age. My parents introduced me to books like Introduction to African Civilization by John J. Jackson and From Babylon to Timbuktu by Rudolph R. Windsor when I was just ten years old. I thrived on the information I found in these books. However, at some point, I lost my way, and I can’t say that life in my teens and early 20’s was a reflection of the ideas I learned back then.


I decided to dive back into what it truly means to be conscious in the past six months. I’ve devoured books like When the World Was Black by Dr. Supreme Understanding and Maat: Guided Principles to Moral Living by KMT University Press. It’s like I’m a kid again. I can’t stop reading about my history and speaking to people of like minds who are interested in eradicating racism and all its subsequent effects on our people and our communities.

However, I was hurt by what I found in many of the major texts of the conscious community. Much of the community didn’t seem to accept me as a lesbian woman and would regulate my black womanhood to a secondary role within the movement. Many men in the “conscious” BLM community are masterful at hiding deep-seated homophobia and misogyny behind their “concern for the state of the black family,” avoidance of the “effeminization of the black man,” and protecting their “Queens” at all costs.

On the contrary, what I’ve found is that men in the BLM movement only define me as a queen when I fit into their narrow idea of femininity. They only find me respectable if I maintain a standard they can control. I’ve found myself in a number of perplexing situations. One brother practiced polygamy, but the moment one of his wives decided to get another lover she was a whore, simply for doing the same thing he did. I’ve been told I needed “correction,” as though I were a child who is disgraceful and completely out of line because I’m attracted to women. I’ve been dismissed, disregarded, and held in contempt. I’ve been judged and told I need to repent by the same individuals who claim that black and brown people need to throw off the religion of their slave masters and embrace who they truly are.

As this clip from Umar Johnson demonstrates, many of the foremost leaders of the black community would attempt to prove that we (women and the LGBTQIA community) hate the opposite sex for being who we are. Johnson often speaks about “treating” people in the LGBTQIA community as if we have a disease. He also makes hateful comments toward single black mothers, saying that they “castrate black boys and wonder why they grow into gay men.”

However, despite his rampant homophobia and misogyny he claims to love all African American people. This fear lies in the inability to understand the contributions that LGBTQIA people and black women have made to the civil rights and black power movements.

An interesting dynamic reveals the origins of misogyny and homophobia in the community. It illuminates a deep-seated fear of black men in the “conscious” community. I think Dr. Umar’s comments against single mothers and lesbians reflect a question that seems to be implied in black male anger against black women: What about me?

You see this question in many forms in the black conscious community, whether you hear about black men disparaging trans women, black men condemning lesbians, or black men hating gay men. A man is hated if he “behaves like a woman,” on one hand, but if a woman isn’t “his” it also becomes a serious problem. This is an issue of ownership and contempt, both of which serve as the foundation for misogyny, and the rejection of the LGBTQIA conscious community. This hatred is what’s REALLY meant in some of this discourse when we hear “Black women NEED black men,” and why men feel rejected enough to feel castrated when they aren’t involved.

If you need an example of this misogyny all you need to do check out articles on For Harriet’s comment threads, specifically the ones about LGBTQIA issues and love. You’ll see that while many men are completely silent about articles on the deaths of black women, they will come up at arms when conversations around LGBTQIA love and identity are centered and the discussion isn’t about them.

Dr. Umar Johnson’s misogyny and homophobia isn’t an isolated case. The issue is much bigger than him. The truth is, you can’t be concerned with the freedom of our people from oppression while excluding a large portion of our people. Black Lives Matter explicitly means that ALL black lives matter. If you throw out any portion of our people based on fear and ignorance, YOU don’t belong in the movement. For years LGBTQIA people have fought for have our freedom from the labyrinth of structural racism, and we will continue to do so because people of the Black diaspora need us.

Because of the ignorance outlined above, it’s understandable that many LGBTQIA people and women (God forbid if you’re both) may enter the Black Lives Matter movement and feel attacked on all sides. This is incredibly damaging, because quite frankly, we love our people and want to make sure they know who they are and how much of a powerful impact they can have on the world. I know how easy it is to become discouraged. You shouldn’t internalize misogyny or homophobia. Instead we should take time out to understand the common arguments against women and LGBTQIA community as well as further outline the origins of homophobia and misogyny within the movement.

People in BLM claim that the LGBTQIA conscious community are a “danger to BLM” and promote “black genocide.” On the contrary, I would posit that our unity can only be a danger the very establishment that oppresses us. The civil rights and black power movements didn’t collapse just because they gave LGBTQIA people a platform. LGBTQIA inclusion actually strengthened us. This can be proven by taking a look at some of the elders that helped place black liberation at the forefront of America’s consciousness.

Bayard Rustin was a prominent organizer that helped organize many of the events that made Dr. King’s platform possible. He was the mind behind the March on Washington and many of the sit-ins that occurred in the 1960’s civil rights movement. He wasn’t in the closet either. In an era that openly criminalized the LGBTQIA community and shunned women, he openly advocated for the rights of both. That level of fearlessness and tenacity in the face of adversity is exactly what we need in the BLM movement.

Alice Walker is another prominent writer. Her seminal work the Color Purple centered on such issues as bisexuality, domestic violence and revolution. Walker was also known for participating in the March on Washington and makes it a point to put out the inequities experienced by black community in her poetry and public speeches. Should her work be thrown away because of who she loves?

Some would claim that others would have come along and done the same thing if these powerful men and women didn’t, but this is a logical fallacy. We can’t deal with what could have been, since it didn’t happen. It can’t be denied that the elders I just mentioned—and many others—made extensive contributions to the movement, and we wouldn’t be where we are without their influence. If we’d rejected them on the basis of sexual orientation, identity, or gender, we would be missing out on a huge aspect of the liberation of our people.


Our ancestor Huey Newton, co-founder of the Black Panther Party, offers us insight into the primary insecurities that drive most “conscious men”. In his speech, “A Letter to the Revolutionary Brothers and Sisters About The Women’s Liberation and Gay Liberation Movements,” he states:

We should try to unite with them in a revolutionary fashion, whatever your insecurities are. I say ‘whatever your insecurities are’ because as we very well know, sometimes our first instinct is to want to hit a homosexual in the mouth, and want a woman to be quiet. We want to hit a homosexual in the mouth because we are afraid that we might be homosexual; and we want to hit the woman or shut her up because we are afraid that she might castrate us, or take the nuts that we might not have to start with. 

We must gain security in ourselves and therefore have respect and feelings for all oppressed people. We must not use the racist attitude that the White racists use against our people because they are Black and poor.

Newton was one of the few people in the Black Power Movement that openly reflected on its homophobia and misogyny. He even went as far as recognizing his own bias in the same speech and recognizing that rejecting us will do more harm than good.

In short, I would urge many members of the BLM movement to take an honest appraisal as to why they feel so threatened by the LGBTQIA and feminist communities, as Newton did. You aren’t protecting the conscious community. Instead, you’re wasting valuable time and energy rejecting a part of our people who contribute gems to black liberation and perpetuating the same cycles of oppression that holds us back as a people.

To my LGBTQIA brothers and sisters, let the track records of our elders speak for themselves and empower you to further action. You have a place in the BLM movement, even if you’re ridiculed for being who you are and loving who you love. Continue to lead our people to liberation and serve as an example to our brothers and sisters in the movement. Let it be known that unity is the key to success, and division will only lead to failure in the struggle against white supremacy.

Photo: Shutterstock

Anna Gibson is a student at Wayne State University who’s currently immersed in African Studies. You can catch up with her on Twitter @TheRealSankofa or on Facebook where she’s hiding in plain sight.

by Crystal Irby

Within the past year, more attention has been paid to Black men who abuse and victimize women. Bill Cosby, Ray Rice, and Floyd Mayweather have all been taken to task if not by the law, then by the public for their violence. However, there is one man who has, for decades, evaded being held accountable for his violence against Black women: hip-hop mogul and producer, Dr. Dre. As we near the release of Straight Out of Compton—one the most anticipated movies to document hip-hop culture—we must question, why are we still largely overlooking that Dr. Dre is also a known abuser of Black women?

by Jenn M. Jackson

“You do realize that I am capable of complex human emotion, right?”

I have said this more times than I should ever have to. I have said it to men of all races and ethnicities. I have said it to White women. I have said it to multi-racial coworkers. Usually, it is in reaction to the idea that, as a Black woman, I need to focus my attention and energy on what is “really” important. And, that other people somehow determine exactly what “important” should mean to me.

by Saaraa Bailey

While many see Father’s Day as just another token commercialized holiday, perhaps it’s true fault is that it lasts for only one day. So, in honor of this Father’s Day, I opt to celebrate the everyday influence of the men that made me.

by Arielle Newton

I’m not writing about Rachel Dolezal. There’s no need for her—and her lies, cultural theft, violence, and overall fuckery—to take up any more space.

by Jenn M. Jackson

by Anna Gibson


David Banner recently came under fire for his comments regarding women on Twitter. In a short series of tweets, he stated, “If you want a man that respects the way you think then show more mind than ass. If you cater to the savage qualities of a man why are you surprised that he continues to be savage? That is how you got him.”

by Ifie Natasha Brandon


I’ve always loved black men. The way they walk, their style, the culture they represent, and the beauty reflected through their different hues of brown. I’ve always believed in them. I believe they are more intellectual and creative than society wants to portray them as. I believe their potential for success far outweighs the presumption that they are "dangerous" or "deadbeats."

Last year, I was asked to be featured in a documentary about catcalling. I had no idea that within moments of responding to the question, "When was the first time you were catcalled?" I would completely break down in tears. I was overwhelmed by the shame, guilt, and anger that accompanied the memories. Recalling them was very difficult for me, especially on camera. Still, I detailed an encounter with a group of Black men in their 30’s and 40’s, as an 11-year-old girl.

Disclaimer: I have long identified as a Black Feminist and a Womanist. These are two separate schools of thought. In this essay, I use these labels interchangeably, because I happen to identify as both. Not everyone does. (It’s always best to ask a woman how she identifies before you label her.)

I was sitting at a happy hour last summer. In the midst of good drinks and good food, someone asked a bad question, followed by an equally bad statement: “Don’t you think feminists are destroying the Black family? We need to go back to the days when women weren’t bitter and worked for Black empowerment.”

Dear Phylicia Rashad,

I am disappointed in you.

Any Black woman can tell you that her womanhood and her Blackness are inextricably linked. If you’ve been paying attention, you’ll notice that many of the people leading #BlackLivesMatter actions are Black women. We know that our communities are subject to racist justice systems. And so we also know it can be hard to accept the truth that some Black men—like your beloved Bill—are capable of horrible acts, especially when it comes to violence against women.

by Inda Lauryn

by Leah C.K. Lewis


It seems every skeleton in the closets of notable African American men is coming out. Historically, there have been claims of domestic violence against men like Miles Davis, James Brown, Ike Turner, and Bill Withers (who will be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2015).

by Candace Simpson



Myriad thoughtful articles have been published about the invisibility of black women and girls in the context of police brutality. We now have sufficient resources to correct anyone who forgets black women are also killed by police. We’ve also learned that black women have led and organized solidarity actions across the country. Yet, if you read most signs at any protest or scroll through most Facebook timelines, you get the impression that black men are the only ones in the community who’ve been persecuted.

by Marissa A. L. Jackson

Since we're telling truths about our community "heroes" lately...

by Sevetri M. Wilson

“Why aren’t you married?”

“Why aren’t you dating?”

“Do you even like men?”

These are all questions that arise when people glance down at my bare wedding ring finger. I shoot off answers such as, “Have you seen any good (black) men lately for me to date?” Or my favorite go-to: “I work far too much and I don’t have time to date.”

by Diana Veiga for Clutch Magazine
Earlier this week I wrote about Snoop Dogg and his “beef” with white female rapper Iggy Azalea. To quote Drake, things went from zero to a hundred real quick to the point where Snoop was making a video where he called Azalea a b*tch and a c*nt. I predicted that he would have to apologize because basically nobody, well let me rephrase a Black man especially, cannot taunt a white woman and get away with it.

I was right.