bell hooks and Melissa Harris Perry

These two women gave me LIFE today. bell hooks and Melissa Harris-Perry were at the New School discussing Black Womanity.

It was interesting to hear some of the theory I've been reading referenced and discussed. It made me realize that it would be engaging to read theory and apply it to things I'm interested in, like Black Studies and theology.

I'm almost 50 and every time I go to school to study something, I always dance around these two subjects--the two subjects I'm most interested in. Duh.

Another reason I enjoyed seeing these two discuss Black women and the things we care about is because I spend so little time in the company of Black women. It's always me and one other Black girl and we are, on some level, aware of our trophy-like status. You know, whatever company, department, or program we're in gets to check off its diversity efforts with a Black and female twofer. Women befriend one another. Trophies eye each other suspiciously, aware of the precarious nature of their status. That's more than lonely; it's stressful.

I love that hooks said we must find ways to revere and honor masculinity that exists outside the patriarchy. I love the thinking this woman has done about Black on Black love. How to put that theory into practice--that's the question. And they spoke of the individual, personal, human costs of being a Black woman. Don't get it wrong, there are joys—we are the funniest, lovingest, laughingest, silk-out-of-a-sow's-ear folk ever in existence. But needing that tear wiped, and that shoulder rubbed, and that forehead kissed.

I was driving home and my chest was hurting and I thought about stopping to buy myself some flowers, you know that, I don't need a man I can buy my own flowers bull shit they tell you you're supposed to do when you're single and not feeling it. And it came to me as clear as day: it's not the buying, it's the giving; it's not the cumming, it's the caring. It's not marriage; it's being chosen. That is what is missing and what is making this experience feel barren and grey.

I don't know.