A Letter to Black Women on Juneteenth

By: Sloan Devereaux Cargill

This is a love letter to Black Women.

If it is not already obvious, I am a Black Woman. I am Black. I am a Woman. These identities are intertwined in the roots of my being. There is not one without the other. I am a Black Woman and I’m writing this love letter for my Black mothers, aunts, sisters, comrades, and friends. I am a Black Woman and I’m writing this love letter for the Black Women I may never meet, but whose souls I feel so intensely connected to that I can feel it in my bones. I am a Black Woman and I’m writing this love letter for myself. This is a celebration of the freedom—I pray we will all one day have—to be bold, beautiful, audacious, and whole Black Women.

There are so many things to love about Black Women.

I love the hands of our mothers that washed our hair in the sink, and wrapped us in a towel after the water ran down our backs. I love the thighs of our friends that we’ve sat between, as they’ve used a rattail comb to take down our protective box braids and weaves. I love the “Oooh, your hair smells great? Is that Cantu?” And I love the follow up comment with suggestions of all the other products we could be using. I love the knowing smile we receive when we walk into a meeting and realize that today we’re not the only one in the room. I love the meals our mothers and grandmothers cooked with love that you could taste in every bite of mac n cheese and pound cake. I love the we can rock a sundress like no one else. I love the way Black women celebrate each other every day. I love our softness and our strength. It is the divineness of our being that I love so much. I love that in the face of the world telling us we shouldn’t, we continue to stand up and fight for a better tomorrow.

While my love for Black women could be written on endless pages, my love requires me to acknowledge certain realities that Black women face. On June 19th, 1865, the Black women, men, and children in Galveston, Texas were the last to be told that they were free. For 155 years, Juneteenth has been a day to celebrate the freedom of Black people in America. This is a worthy cause for celebration.

But I ask, are we free? Specifically, I ponder, are Black women free?

Has our freedom been as delayed as the nearly two and a half years late message to our ancestors in Texas was? Have Black women truly been freed from the violence of racism, sexism, patriarchy, and misogyny? Can we call ourselves free if we still must fight to this day to have our voices heard?

To be clear, the answer to these questions is no.

What the last 155 years, nay 400 years, has taught me is that Black Women are fighting multiple fights. In Discovering our Connections: Reflections on Race, Gender and the Other Tales of Difference, Madelyn C. Squire writes, “The oppressor is a patriarchal society where power resides in white males, but black women suffer oppression on multidimensional levels.” Thus, Black women are forced to fight against both racism and sexism. bell hooks expands on this complicated intersection of the Black Woman’s experience in her book Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center:

White women and black men have it both ways. They can act as oppressor or be oppressed. Black men may be victimized by racism, but sexism allows them to act as exploiters and oppressors of women. White women may be victimized by sexism, but racism enables them to act as exploiters and oppressors of black people. Both groups have led liberation movements that favor their interests and support the continued oppression of other groups.

Black women—in America and globally—fight the twin evils of racism and sexism daily. Some days I contend with comments such as, “Wow! You’re so articulate!” and other days it is the lingering gaze and inappropriate touch of a male colleague. Some days I find myself yelling out to the world that “Black Lives Matter” and in the same breath screaming to our community that Oluwatoyin Salau deserved more than the world gave her.

I said at the beginning of this letter that I am both Black and Woman. It is this twoness that led me to write this love letter. To be a Black Woman in this world is to be in a constant struggle between the oppressive factions that wish to subject Black Women to multidimensional violence. It is tiring. It is exhausting. It is heartbreaking. Black women are asked within our own community to stand 10 steps back and let Black men take center stage. We are asked to organize, march, pray, and nurture our community, but when we ask in return to take the specific violence that Black women experience seriously, we are silenced. We’re no longer your “Queens” and “Sisters”, but now, we are divisive agents of the plot to emasculate Black Men. Well, today, I will be divisive. I’m saying loudly and as clearly as possible:

STOP KILLING BLACK WOMEN!

Thus, I’ve written this love letter specifically and intentionally for Black Women. As we celebrate Juneteenth, I must ask that we celebrate the lives of Black women—both living and dead—in our eternal struggle for Black history, Black freedom, and Black futures. As I give my love and celebration to Black Women, I ask that you show your love by listening to Black women when we speak. Show your love by saying her name. Show your love by acknowledging that Black women, while fighting against oppressive evils, continue to build, support, and love our community. On Juneteenth and every day, give your love, respect, praise, and support to the Black Women that have done so much with so little. As Mother Hattie White said, “I was served lemons, but I made lemonade.”

These times call for a love letter for Black Women. I’ve written mine. Will you write yours?