They say Black men are hard to love, but I couldn’t disagree more.
I find them the easiest to love, to understand, to want to build with, grow with, and allow to lead. Which is why, when some of them repeatedly fail Black women, it feels like a sense of defeat, a betrayal of the fantastical dream of Black love we once believed in.
To see a Black man is to see the depiction of beauty.
To converse with a Black man is to understand the intricacies of faith, wealth, growth, and spirituality, all combined with an urgency to hustle.
Black men love Black women.
Black men protect Black women.
But when Black men do not heal from the wounds that were branded on them and passed down from generation to generation, we end up here.
Black men become hard to love, not because love stopped existing, but because some Black men started to believe the narrative that they’ll never be enough.
So why not conform to what the world says you are?
It’s easier. That way, you don’t have to prove yourself.
And you can hide your hurt, pain, and sense of inadequacy behind Benjamin Franklin.
And for the ones who forgot their hustle, they hide behind making a woman feel inferior to them because they feel inferior in their day-to-day lives.
I wonder if Black men see themselves as the standard that they are.
As the leaders that they’ve always been.
Instead, the media would rather amplify depictions of Black men stripped of identity, morality, and intellectual depth as examples of who Black women must struggle to love.
Battle to love.
Oh, to love a Black man is hard, they say.
The hardest, in fact.
And maybe they are.
And they can’t all come with us to the land of great Black love stories.
Some we must leave behind.
For some are too far gone.
Too encaged in the bondage of not taking responsibility for creating Black homes, Black love stories, Black wealth.
But to tell a bad child they are bad does nothing more than speak life into a future that doesn’t have to be theirs.
So maybe, just maybe, they’ve become harder to love.
Harder to trust.
Harder to understand.
And just because one can gather an understanding of why does not mean one must settle for your difficulty.
But more than anything, I hope the ones who couldn’t care less about the disappointment they’ve bestowed upon Black Women get left by the wayside.
But the ones who understand,
That they rise in masses.
And love, guide, nurture, and uphold Black Women.
And allow them to experience the beauty of Black love.
Black joy.
Black abundance.
And hopefully change the narrative.
‘Cause apparently, right now, Black men are the hardest to love.
But I have faith it won’t stay that way.
