“At just nine years old, I found myself thrust into an experience that would dramatically alter the trajectory of my life. On that fateful day, I bore witness to a vicious act of domestic violence, and something inside me withered away—not just due to the sheer brutality of the physical aggression but because the perpetrator was someone familiar. This man was not a member of my family but was allowed to have a central place in my life. Over time, I had grown to know him, I had come to love him, and then to grieve the loss of what I thought I'd known. . . .
This “god-fearing” Black man, a Bible-toting, foot-stomping preacher, appeared well-dressed, well-educated, and well-respected. Yet, he was completely debilitated. (I won't go into all the sordid details, but suffice it to say, I also witnessed some of his most brazen transgressions while he attended to the needs of vulnerable women who could be considered the Mary Magdalenes of the church, women in need of healing themselves.)
This was the same Black man I had once admired. He was the same Black man that introduced me to the teachings of the one called Jesus. Yet, my perception of him shifted drastically when I witnessed him callously standing over one of his victims, eerily indifferent, like some cruel and wicked king, intent on releasing his inner torment through the sheer force of his hands. . . .
This was a Black man whose duality I had been encouraged to observe, yet found utterly perplexing. Initially, I was taught to see him as both a monster and a man, then as a man and a pastor, as a pastor and then a savior, and finally, as the devil himself. . . . And I was left with that wicked impression. No one tried to help me process the pain, guilt and sorrow I felt while trying to protect his current victim—my mother. No one intervened to save me from the violence of my own hands, that forced me to become his Judas, calling the police and commanding him with the all the sternness of a fully grown woman, captured in the righteousness indignation of my nine-year-old voice, to “LEAVE NOW!” No one asked me how I felt to be left with this void, where only my memory of him remained.
Oddly, without ever receiving a lesson in direct instruction, I was taught to hate the Black man. . . . So, I hated him because that is what I was taught to do. . . . I was shown how to stabilize myself in a world where, as a woman, I would always be viewed as inferior to a man; the so-called weaker sex, yet possessing it, could be strongest of all. . . . I was trained never to fear a man’s hands, for they could never still or dispossess me of my own strength. I was conditioned to believe that I could be the master, and the Black man, the slave. I could force him to submit. I could talk back, be smarter, correct, chastise, command, treat him as the spectacle that he was and even ‘help’ him to know his place at all times - that he was beneath me. I was taught that he was not an equal and by no means, in any way, superior. . . .
If I only viewed him through the eyes of his female victims, those who had given me this real-life education, I could never regard the Black man as someone deserving of respect, admiration, encouragement or support…. From their perspective, I could only see him as what he truly was—a slave, enslaved by his own passions, enslaved by his own vices, and enslaved by the glaring hypocrisies he seemed to blissfully cherish. Yet, when seeing him this way, I could never truly love him…” (Smith, 2018, “The Black Man: A Slave”).
In the News: May 2024 (From X)
VIDEO FOOTAGE OF DIDDY ABUSING CASSIE IN A HOTEL IN LOS ANGELES pic.twitter.com/WttuaBW7TI
I hope every muthafckr that was quick discredited Cassie’s story. Is just as quick to retract the dumbsh*t they said.VIDEO FOOTAGE OF DIDDY ABUSING CASSIE IN A HOTEL IN LOS ANGELES pic.twitter.com/WttuaBW7TI— RoyalTea Podcast (@RoyalTea_Pod) May 17, 2024
See Also: "A White Boy, Named Todd"