I Still Want Us: An Open Letter to the Black Community
For Black women who are tired of holding it all and Black men who feel like they can’t be enough.
To my beloved community,
I’m tired. Bone-deep tired. Every day, it feels like we’re at war with each other—Black men and Black women—tearing each other down in ways that leave lasting scars. I scroll through TikTok and Instagram, and the comments are a battlefield: Black men telling us we don’t deserve love, respect, or even basic decency. Black women pushing back, tired of carrying the weight, tired of being expected to be everything to everyone. And honestly? I can’t help but ask: How did we get here? And more importantly, how do we find our way back?
I’ve seen enough. Within 24 hours, I saw two videos that shook me. In one, a Black man punched a Black woman square in the face. In another, a white woman named Breanna Nicole in Birmingham spat in her Black partner’s face, called him a “nigger bitch,” and he just stood there—calm, even trying to protect her from getting hit by a car. She looked like she was in the process of trying to weaponize the police against him, but he made it clear that she was in her own car, not abandoned as she claimed (TikTok link). And all I could think was: “What the hell is happening here?” Two sides of the same betrayal. Black men harming Black women, and Black men standing there letting themselves be degraded. Neither of these is healthy, and neither looks like love. I need more Black love—more of us loving each other out loud, without shame, and without all this dysfunction. Because what I’m seeing now? It’s draining my hope.
I get it—both Black men and Black women are under attack. We always have been. Mass incarceration, racism, economic barriers—the system is built to destroy us, to make sure we can’t thrive. But even with all that stacked against us, one thing is clear: Black women have held it down. For ourselves, for our kids, and yes, even for Black men. We’ve been left to raise children alone, to keep food on the table, to make something out of nothing in a system designed for us to fail. And we’re still here—holding it down, fighting, surviving, and keeping our heads above water.
64% of Black children live in single-parent households led mostly by mothers, and that says a lot about who’s been holding up this community (Annie E. Casey Foundation). We’ve been doing all this without help, but then we’re told we’re too strong, too independent—like our strength is some kind of flaw that makes us unlovable. But as Maya Angelou once said, “I sustain myself with the love of family.” It’s that love—the kind that holds us together despite everything—that has kept us here, still fighting.
And the thing is, 85% of married Black men are married to Black women (BlackDemographics.com), but only 33% of Black men in the United States are married at all. So, while the married Black men are largely partnering with Black women, the reality is that most Black men simply aren’t marrying. We’re out here on our own. That’s a fact. The majority of Black women are navigating life without the stability and partnership that marriage can provide, yet we’re constantly told that our demands are too high. We want love, support, and a true partner—yet the numbers show we’re not getting it.
I don’t think people realize the burden Black women carry. We are the most educated demographic in this country, and yet we earn less. Black women's median earnings were only 91% of Black men's earnings in 2022, but let’s be real: neither of us makes nearly as much as white men. The average Black man earns only about 74 cents for every dollar earned by a white man, and Black women earn just 64 cents to a white man’s dollar (bls.gov). And while we’re out here getting degrees—64.1% of bachelor's degrees among Black students are earned by women (thoughtco.com)—we’re still getting paid less and expected to carry the financial burden at home, too. Just because we can carry it all doesn’t mean we want to or that we should have to. And carrying it all is killing us.
The weight Black women bear comes at a heavy cost to our health. Nearly 58% of Black women aged 20 and older have high blood pressure, a rate much higher than that of white women (American Heart Association). We’re also experiencing higher rates of depression, and while Black women are twice as likely to experience depressive symptoms compared to white women, we are less likely to receive mental health care (CDC, Mental Health America). Add to this the fact that Black women are three to four times more likely to die from pregnancy-related causes compared to white women (CDC), and the picture is clear: the stress, the loneliness, and the endless expectations to be strong are literally taking our lives. Just because we can carry it all doesn’t mean we should have to.
And then there’s Kevin Samuels. While some of his advice was needed—challenging people to have realistic standards and encouraging growth—his approach also left behind a whole lot of damage. The idea of "High Value Men and Women" has turned into a toxic debate that leaves space for devaluing each other and refusing to invest in one another as a community. We’ve gotten stuck in these rigid ideas of what "value" means—often materialistic and individualistic—while ignoring the necessity of collective uplift. If we aren’t willing to help each other, to hold space for those still caught in the throes of this system, then who will? If our love is only transactional, based on perceived value, what happens to those of us struggling because the system was designed to see us fail?
I also want to be completely honest: I preach self-care as a revolutionary practice, especially as the owner of a holistic skincare brand. Everything I do is about caring for Black people and our community. But as Audre Lorde said, “Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.” Yet, even in that, self-care doesn’t replace romantic love; it doesn’t replace partnership. It doesn’t fix loneliness. Friends and family can only do so much. At some point, we need to acknowledge that we have got to work on our relationships with one another as Black men and Black women. We need each other. We can’t just keep pretending that individual self-care is enough when the reality is, so many of us are craving connection, support, and love from a partner.
I read a piece by Lovekamoryy recently, and it hit me hard. She talked about how, despite knowing better, sometimes we settle—because finding real, unconditional love feels damn near impossible out here. I get it. I’ve been there. I’ve wanted to be loved so bad that I put up with things I knew I shouldn’t have. Because the truth is, we all want to be seen, to be valued, to feel like we matter to somebody (Lovekamoryy - I Do Want to Be Picked By a Man).
I also hear Shera Seven in her videos when she talks about Black men not stepping up—how they aren’t providing the kind of life that so many of us want, the “soft life” where we aren’t burdened with the weight of the world. I feel that. We’re tired of being strong all the time. We want someone who can hold us down for once. And it’s not just about money—it’s about emotional support, about being with someone who can shoulder the load so we don’t always have to.
Then there’s the violence. 45% of Black women experience physical violence, sexual violence, or stalking by an intimate partner in their lifetime—higher than women of any other race (National Domestic Violence Hotline). The scars are real, and they run deep. We carry this trauma, and then we’re asked to keep giving, to keep loving, to keep showing up.
As James Baldwin said, “Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within.” We need to be willing to be vulnerable, to put down the masks and let each other in if we are ever going to heal.
I remember when Stephon Clark was killed by the police in Sacramento in 2018. We were ready to fight for him—protesting, demanding justice, doing what we do. And then his posts came out: “I don’t want nothing black but an Xbox.” “Dark bitches bring dark days.” He was filled with anti-Blackness and self-hate, using his platform to counter Black love with disdain for his own people. And that hurt. I felt betrayed, stupid even, for being ready to fight for someone who couldn’t even respect me as a Black woman. Almost immediately, the calls for justice died down, and Black women stepped back. Because, honestly, why are we always expected to show up for people who can’t be bothered to show up for us? (CNN)
And yet, every day, I look at social media, and all I see is more division—Black men calling us gold diggers for wanting a man who can provide, Black women calling them out for not stepping up. Pew Research Center found that Black women are more likely than Black men to provide financial support to family members (Pew Research Center). We’re exhausted from being the providers, from carrying the load without anyone to lighten it. But instead of empathy, we get criticism, disdain, and insults.
Look, I know this isn’t the whole story. I know there are Black men out here who are doing the work—loving, protecting, and creating safe spaces for Black women. And I see you. We see you. But it’s not enough to just be good in your own relationship. We need you to speak up. We need you to call out your brothers, your cousins, your friends—the ones who aren’t showing up. The ones who think it’s cool to degrade us, who think “providing” is somehow outdated. Because until we all get it, we’ll keep failing each other. And the truth is, Black women are tired of carrying it all alone.
To the Black women who are exhausted, who feel like they have nothing left to give—I see you too. It’s not wrong to want love, to want support, to want someone who’ll hold you down for once. It’s not wrong to be tired of being strong all the time. We shouldn’t have to keep proving our resilience just to be seen as worthy of love. And even though we’re tired, even though we’re hurt, I know that most of us still have hope—that one day, Black men will see us the way we’ve always seen them. That one day, we’ll be able to be each other’s safe space again.
As bell hooks once said, “When we love, we can let our hearts speak.” We need more Black love—more of us loving each other out loud, without shame, and without all this dysfunction. It’s time we allowed ourselves to love like that.
The truth is, this isn’t just about men refusing to invest or women rejecting them. It’s deeper than that—it’s about generations of pain, about systemic oppression, and about a culture that taught us to see each other as enemies. So many Black men feel devalued by this world—told they’re nothing if they can’t provide financially, if they can’t be the “man.” And instead of rejecting that narrative, some of them turn that pain on us, trying to regain control by breaking us down. And Black women—we’re tired of it. We’re tired of being undervalued, of being told we’re too much, of being asked to carry the weight alone. And so we guard our hearts, we push back, we refuse to settle—because that’s how we survive.
The cycle of hurt is real, and it’s powerful. But it doesn’t have to define us.
To my community: While white conservatives and racists are galvanizing around a call for nostalgia—a longing for a past that was oppressive for us—we need to galvanize around our own call. We need Black is Beautiful. We need Black love, Black empowerment, and Black community to be popular again. We need these things to be the values we fight for, in the face of everything else, because one thing this world has shown us—regardless of the continent we are on or the decade we are in—is that we only have each other. We’ve got to remember that, and we’ve got to fight for it.
Black women have always carried this community, but it’s time for Black men to meet us halfway. It’s time for us to heal—not just individually, but together. Because we deserve that. We deserve each other.
If you’re reading this and feeling this exhaustion—do something. Speak up. Show love, protect, and uplift each other. Call out the bullshit when you see it. It’s time for us to be each other’s safe space again. It’s time for us to love each other like we’re meant to.
If this resonates with you, I’d love to hear your thoughts. Share your experiences, your hopes for Black love, or how you’ve navigated these struggles. Let’s have this conversation openly, without shame or fear—because our voices matter, and our stories matter.
In my opinion, I honestly believe it’s a combination of all of them.