Black Women Are The Most Unprotected And Disrespected People In Society
By: Petiri Ira
Tags: Emotions, BlackLivesMatter, Society, Women, Respect

Black Women Are The Most Unprotected And Disrespected People In Society

Society has a bad habit of turning our pain and suffering into a comedy.

The most disrespected person in America is the black woman. The most unprotected person in America is the black woman. The most neglected person in America is the black woman — Malcolm X

This powerful quote by Malcolm X can still be applied to modern-day society.

Black women are the most unprotected and disrespected people in society because our pain and sorrows are made into jokes and memes by society. Our pain isn’t seen as equal in comparison to women of other races.

Its the truth and it hurts.

As black women, we have to endure endless amounts of pain due to comments made by from, we often subject to this pain without us provoking anyone, this pain is caused by the texturist, colourist and featurist comments that are made by society on an everyday basis.

Just imagine, someone you don’t even know, attacking you over your physique; immediately masculinising you because of your natural stature, or undermining your beauty just because of the texture of your hair and natural face features. This is what we have had to put up with, for years. Now take the pain caused by these comments being turned into a meme, it is quite disheartening to see people finding joy in our pain. It is unjust and immoral.

Over the past week, I’ve noticed people on social media turn MeganTheeStallion’s situation into an endless joke; seeing people turn her getting shot in her feet into a source of their amusement. This dehumanises us as black women, this allows such behaviour to be normalised, it disregards us as people that have emotions. If the same unfortunate situation that Megan had to go through happened to a woman that wasn’t black, the narrative would be completely different and fully flipped, people would instead sympathise and defend them. However, this attitude was not kept to Megan and us as black women.

We will not be respected and protected until the day we are recognised as people with feelings, we will not be respected until the day people stop turning our struggle into a comedy, we will not be protected until the day people stand up for us and call out the wrong in our favour when the situation clearly demonstrates the wrong.

Black women are also the most unprotected and disrespected people in society because we do not receive the same amount of support as our counterparts. Breonna Taylor was murdered 136 days ago and her killers are still free. We are still demanding justice for Breonna Taylor after several months have passed without any action being taken against her killers. The same energy is not given to the SayHerName movement, it does not receive as much attention as it deserves, not letting our voices to be amplified in such important moments. Black women deserve the same level of protection and respect as everyone else.

In order to see change when it comes to black women being unprotected and disrespected, society needs to remove this habit of immediately turning our pain into humour, because we deserve the same treatment and sympathy as everyone else. What makes us different? What makes our suffering subject to laughter? Instead, it’s time to start seeing us as human beings, human beings that have emotions just like everyone else. It is time to break the routine of society viewing us as indestructible, we are people too.