Dated back from slavery, black women have been known for their exotic figures. Slave masters would use them for their sexual pleasures and impregnate them for their own financial gain. In 2016, black women are still being used as sexual props, not just for black men, but for all men of all different races. Black women are being talked about for our soft or kinky curly locks, and calling our bodies abnormal or manly. These are all negative comments to bring a black woman down. But, why? Why are black women being targeted as ugly, unlovable, aggressive, angry, and manly? Who started this and how do we fix this?

Black women are the strongest women I know. We put up with so much and get so little credit for it. We wear our hearts on our sleeves, and we don’t beg for help, we will find a way to do it ourselves. So how is that wrong? Since the white man split up African- American families through the slave trade, women as the birth mother had to do what they had to do to protect their children the best way that they could. They did not have a lot of resources to provide for their families so they improvised on whatever was in front of them for their survival. The white man used and abused our women to keep them from being worthy of love and protection.

We as black women use our bodies as leverage to get the love and protection that we so desire as human beings. Black women view themselves as a strong black woman because they can do it all by themselves without a man. Black women can provide for their children, put clothes on their back, food on the table, hold down a job, and still love a man that don’t love her. There is nothing powerful about a black woman having to provide for her children alone, but what makes us strong is that we can take a negative situation and turn it into a positive outcome.

Our black men have let us down because the white man has let them down. He took our men from us, beat them, shackled them, traded them, and over worked them into hard labor to make America great. During post slavery days we found the heart and the courage to build black families, black, business, black schools, and black churches. Black women would walk with their head up high and dress with class because they were respected in their homes, and in their communities. We were not only strong black women, but we were proud black women. We were proud to be black women and black men where proud to be with black women. Black women stood by their men in the fight for equal rights and they prayed over their men when they would leave from sun up to sun down.

During a time where a black man couldn’t find work, didn’t get approved for loans, and couldn’t provide for his family, the black man’s pride gave up on his self while the black woman’s heart and soul did what she needed to do to support and encourage her husband until he found work. A black man’s inability to provide for his family and make an honest living persuaded him to turn to drugs and violence, to get what he need to provide for his family by any means necessary. A black woman is still hopeful that her man will get that great job and go back to being a happy family, but his pride leaves for good knowing that he is in too deep. The black woman does what she needs to do to pick up where her man left off. With no formal education or job experience because she was a housewife, she is forced to live off of welfare, become a maid or become a prostitute. This is cycle has many variations that repeats poverty in black America.

The white man keeps stealing from us and we keep turning a negative into a positive. Black men gave up on black women because white men gave up on black women. Some black women are searching for love in all the wrong places just to get validation to the question as to why that black man left her without any traces of his return. As black women, we know what we have and we use it to our advantage to get what we want. We are walking systematic prostitutes even if we are not doing it for money. We are only good for one thing cause that’s what the slave master told us, right? Wrong!

Black people are naturally sexual beings; we have exploited our black women as sexual beings through our struggles. Black people are the most creative and influential race of people. We have a way of reinventing ourselves because we know the white man is going to steal it from us. We are diligent and determined individuals that will make something out of nothing and make it our own. Exploiting black women is not our own doing, it is a systematic enslavement to take away something that we so desperately need for our own survival. Generation after generation, black women have been owning their sexuality. Black women have empowered themselves to not remain a victim, but now sexual exploitation is a glorified way to make a living. Sex Sells, right?

Where does a black woman fit in, in a white man’s corporate world. Why are we being seen as aggressive and intimidating in a pants suite, but viewed as an exotic walking statue in a dress. How is having a big ass offensive in the corporate office, but desired in the bedroom. The white man still mentally operates as a slave master and we are all still enslaved in our minds. Physically, we have the free will to live our lives, but mentally we are all still operating as white masters and black slaves.

A white man will always desire a black woman because black women were easy to get to then and are easy to get to now. A white man’s power is masked by titles, money, and assets. You get him alone with his clothes off and he has nothing. Mentally he is a weak man who will give away all of his power to a black woman. Black women are one of the most powerful of all ethnicities. We’ve endured the most and we have survived the most. The more we get beat down, talked about, mistreated, the stronger we become. The stronger we become, the more powerful we become. So why are black women still looked as unlovable, aggressive, and ugly. If you give a person all they know, then that is what they will believe. I am here to say that black women are not weak and portraying black women as weak and unlovable woman just goes to show how threaten society is about a black woman’s mind and sexuality. My black women, you are strong beautiful and powerful and its time to show the world that you matter!