NonBlack Women Do Not Need Black Women's Protection

 

At the Singapore movie premiere for Wicked: For Good, a fan of Ariana Grande jumped over the barrier connected to the runway the cast was walking on. He proceeded to run up to Ariana and attempted to grab her arms. Despite there being two fully grown, able-bodied males right next to Ariana Grande, Cynthia Erivo, the Black female actress who plays Elphaba in the film, immediately went into mammy mode and turned into Ariana Grande’s impromptu bodyguard. The response to this situation has been absolutely horrible for Black women’s image. Hoards of people on TikTok have started making jokes about how "overprotective" Cynthia Erivo is of Ariana Grande with some even alluding to her actually being creepy or predatorial. There have been several tweets portraying Cynthia Erivo as this overly-aggressive, man-like protector of Ariana Grande. There is even one tweet referring to Cynthia as a stud, a term used to describe masculine Black lesbians who wear men’s clothing. A fan even made artwork depicting Cynthia as this hulk-adjacent ogre holding Ariana like a baby. All of these jokes, memes, and art pieces might not seem like much, but they heavily reinforce the narrative that Black women are masculine and undeserving of protection themselves.

Here is my main issue with this entire situation. Black women complain about being masculinized yet you all go out of your way to be a bodyguard on behalf of Black males and nonBlack people. If that crazy fan had run up to Cynthia instead of Ariana, Ariana would not have lifted a single finger to help Cynthia. She would have done what all white women are trained to do since birth. Sit there, look pretty, and let the males do the protecting. Ariana would have only worried about herself and her safety only. Black women should also take note of how Michelle Yeoh, another member of the Wicked cast who is of East Asian descent, did not go out of her way to help Ariana. It is not just white women who are trained to rest in their femininity. All races of women, except for Black women, understand that as a woman, you should rely on males for physical protection. 

While I understand that many Black women have internalized the “strong Black woman” trope pushed onto us by both Black men and white people in the media, I think we also need to acknowledge that a large portion of black women are narcissists with a savior complex. They take pride in “saving” someone, even when that someone did not ask for their help in the first place. These types of Black women are usually not physically attractive, and this part matters because physical beauty is the main way women receive attention in our society. Women like Cynthia Erivo try to gain visibility by laboring for other demographics besides Black women. These types of Black women truly believe they will be rewarded for their muling with praise and adoration the same way beautiful women are praised and adored for their looks. You see this a lot with Black women who are constantly going hard for Palestinians, transgenders, or Black men. They’re usually not conventionally attractive, and to cope with that, they go into full-on mammy mode. Cynthia Erivo fits this archetype of Black women perfectly.

 NonBlack women do not need nor deserve Black women’s protection. Unlike Black women, nonBlack women already receive both physical and social protection from their male counterparts. While Black men mock Black women’s features online and degrade our very existence for the entire world to see, nonBlack men pedestalize the features of their female counterparts and uphold these features as the pinnacle of beauty within their respective communities. For men who are not of African descent, one of the main pillars of manhood is to defend the femininity and beauty of the women that birth them. They view their mothers and daughters as being a part of themselves. This is why they build safe and thriving communities for their women to rest in. Black men are the complete opposite. Black men do not view themselves as being in community with Black women. They believe they are an entity completely separate from Black women and children and feel no obligation to protect us from harm. Black men deliberately ruin Black neighborhoods with petty gang wars and crime, they laugh when a Black woman has been murdered by her white male partner, and they actively refuse to pedestalize Black female beauty. To say they hate us would be an understatement, but that will be a blog post for another day.

 Black women are the main group of people that need protection but never receive it. We have the highest rates of sexual assault and physical abuse (courtesy of Black males). Statistically, we face the most online harassment. Furthermore, we are most likely to die during childbirth which is usually due to doctors not taking our pain seriously or thinking we do not feel pain at all. Why the hell would I, or any Black woman with a working brain for that matter, go out of our way to protect a nonBlack woman? If a nonBlack woman needs protection, she can count on the males in her community. Black women cannot. Cynthia Erivo should have stood there and let the two male bodyguards standing right beside Ariana Grande do their job. She had no business behaving like she was a superwoman. If that obnoxious fan had a gun, Cynthia Erivo could have very well lost her life that night, and let’s not play dumb, the Wicked fanbase would have forgotten about her in a week.

By choosing to act like a bodyguard on behalf of Ariana Grande, Cynthia Erivo reinforced the racist narrative that white women are these fragile beings who need protecting while Black women are strong, tough powerhouses that can handle being vulnerable and exposed. The fact that she decided the life of her white female costar was more important than her own speaks volumes. It demonstrates just how brainwashed many Black women still are. The situation at the Wicked: For Good premiere lets me know that despite all this talk online about Black women “putting down our capes”, Black women in real life still have not gotten the memo. If you want people to stop masculinizing Black women, then Black women need to stop masculinizing themselves first. Stop putting the safety of others before your own. Rid yourself of whatever savior complex has been instilled within you. If you see somebody in need of help, let an able-bodied man nearby help that person instead. I feel no guilt walking past a homeless person or someone struggling to hold all their groceries. If the roles were reversed, those people would not give a damn about me. Black women need to stop getting mad at divested Black women who refuse to mule for other demographics, especially those who come from extremely antiBlack cultures (ex: Latinos, Indians, and Palestinians). Quit going to pointless protests that just use our image to paint us as disruptors of society while being dating meet-ups for leftist Black men and nonBlack women. Most importantly, stop disregarding your own safety to protect or defend nonBlack women. NonBlack women already have the protection of racists, incels, Black men, doctors, the cops, and entire first world governments to do that job for them. They do not need yours.