Obligation

Truth Be Told Presents: She Has A Name

American Public Media

True Crime, Personal Journals, Society & Culture

4.2 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 24 February 2022

⏱️ 35 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Black men have it hard in America.

And by and large, Black women have felt an obligation to show up, love, and support them. Is it too much to ask that they show up for us?

That’s the topic we’re taking on this week with writer and cultural critic Jamilah Lemieux. She recently wrote a piece for Vanity Fair where she coined the term “the Black Ass Lie,” pointing out the harm that comes from the ongoing narrative that straight Black men have it the worst in our society. She believes this lie is to the detriment of Black women, queer and trans people.

In this raw and unfiltered conversation, Jamilah unpacks the layers of obligation Black women have to Black men with writer and professor Kiese Laymon. We explore the use of the b-word used to rhetorically destroy Black women — and what holding Black cishet men accountable actually looks like.
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Transcript

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0:00.0	The other day I was flipping through the February issue of Vanity Fair when I came across an article
0:06.3	written by writer and cultural critic Jamila Lemieux. The piece is called The Blackass Lie,
0:14.1	Lie, and the foundation of it is grounded in a truth.
0:17.0	Black men have it hard in America.
0:19.5	And Black women, for the most part, believe it is our duty to stand by and support
0:24.4	them no matter what. If you stop the statement there that's a really noble thing
0:29.3	but it's like we're invested in protecting black men at all costs and the costs can be
0:36.0	black women and girls it can be people of other races that may have been
0:41.0	victimized by a black man because the assumption of all
0:45.5	black women and girls is that the lives of black men and boys are a project in
0:50.4	which we are to be invested that we have work to do that it matters and I don't
0:56.8	reject the project right it's the other part it's the at all at all cost. Is this here?
1:05.0	Hi.
1:07.0	Sorry.
1:08.0	Welcome.
1:09.0	I had Jamila over the other day to talk about this,
1:12.0	because I don't reject the project either.
1:15.0	Jamila and I grew up in the 90s when it was drilled into our heads that black men and boys were an endangered species.
1:22.0	And though that might have been a little bit of hyperbole,
1:25.0	there's also truth in it.
1:27.0	Black men have a life expectancy rate
1:31.0	lower than any other population in our country.
	...

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