Welcome back to another episode, where I exploit my thoughts on black women as it relates to friendships. I speak a lot about friendships due to my own experiences with dealing with friends and friendships. As black women, I believe a lot of our dysfunction with one another comes from not understanding how to treat one another. The reasons we don’t know how to treat one another are, because gone are the times where we were a tribe, collective, community and acted as such regardless of our differences or disagreements. Am I romanticizing? I want to make sure I’m not romanticizing, because it’s easy to imagine a world where we as black women are actually empowering, nurturing, and supporting one another. By no means do I believe everyone liked each other and never had discrepancies but.. I don’t know.. I just feel like it was more of a sisterhood.
As much as we pretend it's sisterhood and empowerment, I’m shown otherwise. The black women empowerment brunches and events always gave me cliques, mean girls, and “you can’t sit with us” demeanor. And the irony is, even in the cliques and mean girls, it still was giving.. They didn’t really like each other either. Let’s not forget social media and how we comment on and to one another with no regards, respect, or empathy. Unless, however, we’re defending each other against men, then and only then we find a level of unity. But that’s so unfortunate and it really speaks on the foundation of the black community and the black women collectively. I always pose the question that, how can we expect black men or anyone outside of our tribe for that matter, to take us seriously when we’re so hypocritical in the matter of each other?
We can’t be a sisterhood without having the fundamentals of a friendship. I hear women who have younger sisters or older sisters speak on how having a sister was having their first friendship. So if we can’t establish solid friendships how can we grow collectively in having a sisterhood? I wonder if most of us even have good examples of what being a friend is? I for one can say I didn’t. My mother had friends but after a few years, they’d be gone and she’d be on to a new friend. There would be times when she wouldn’t be on speaking terms with her own sisters. I do have a theory that as black women we grow up looking at the relationships our mothers have with other women and most importantly with us. I know I know.. Your mama ain’t your little friends, but our mothers are the foundation or root to knowing how to interact and be social with other girls, as well as how to see the signs of someone who isn’t friend material.
Even when we watch tv as of late, there aren’t too many examples of healthy balanced friendships among black women. The reality shows, I believe, give a narrative that black women and friendships are riddled in chaos, drama, betrayal and jealousy. Now, I won’t say it started with reality shows. I personally believe that it’s a highlight and over dramatized perspective of how black women navigate with friendships. And I believe that’s what hinders us from having that true sisterhood.
I couldn’t think of too many examples of healthy and balanced friendships among black women publicly ( or personally for that matter) so please help me out and tell me some in the comments even if it’s you personally. However, I was able to think of negative ones, and I also spoke on 5 key components to look for, in navigating a healthy and balanced friendship. So make sure to check out Episode 2: What About Your Friends? and see if you agree or if you have a few you’d like to add.
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