One day I was scrolling my timeline on Twitter as per usual. As I was scrolling, I came across a video clip of a Black mother beating her daughter. As I watched the video, I learned that the mother was beating her child for “being a thot.” I was incredibly disturbed by the video but what I was almost more disturbed by was people’s reactions. Black Twitter was actually applauding this woman for beating her daughter, saying that the child shouldn’t have been “fast” in the first place. Her mother was just “teaching her a lesson.”
Hm.
“Fast.”
Remember when I said my mother told me that I didn’t need to be running around, being “fast” like other girls my age? Fast-tailed. A common adjective used in the Black community to describe young Black women and girls who are “promiscuous.” An adjective that does so much damage to a Black girl’s self-image and her relationship towards sex. It’s also a term that fuels rape culture within the Black community because it ignores how older cishet Black men prey upon these impressionable young girls. It allows statutory rape to thrive in our community.
When I saw the video of the Black mother beating her child for “being a thot”, of course I was disturbed but unfortunately, this wasn’t the first time I’ve seen a young Black girl get humiliated via social media by their very own parents for being sexually active.
A while back there was a picture of a Black father humiliating his daughter because he caught her “dating” a grown man. Again, people praised the father for “teaching” his daughter a “lesson” and that she shouldn’t have been a “little thot”, in their words. I just find this all so interesting and by interesting, I mean disturbing.
You found out that your daughter was having sex and your first reaction is to beat her and humiliate her publicly? Instead of opting to having an honest conversation with her about sex, contraceptives, and making well-informed choices? You found out that your daughter was “dating” a grown man and instead of holding the adult man responsible, you publicly punished your young daughter? That makes sense to you?
What happened between these Black parents and their daughters is a reason why the hashtag conversation, #FastTailedGirls, facilitated by Black women, was necessary and still is. When we refer to Black girls as “fast”, we’re fueling our very own intraracial rape culture. We’re neglecting to put the fault on the grown man for preying upon a young, vulnerable girl. We’re, instead, placing blame on her, creating an environment where young Black girls are afraid of coming forward about being sexually assaulted by men in their community.
What also trips me out is when older Black people call young Black girls “fast” for filling out and growing into their curves. Not only are we sexualizing young teens but, again, we’re teaching young girls to be ashamed of their bodies; that they should scale back and hide themselves. A girl’s growing body is not an invitation for grown men to prey on her and try to take advantage of her.
What’s incredibly sad is that we see no fault in reacting violently and abusively upon hearing that our young teen girls are being sexually active. What good does that do? Have we ever stopped to ask they’re sexually active? Does beating them help us get that answer? How is that fruitful for our community? All we’re doing is making our daughters not want to come to us with questions or concerns about sex. Now they’ll continue to go behind our back and unfortunately, make ill-informed choices.
Our daughters are not our property. They may be young but they are still afforded agency. Agency is a human right. Your daughter will make her own choices at the end of the day, regardless of what you’d like to believe. Instead of assuming that your daughter won’t have sex, why not have a conversation with her about taking care of herself sexually? Why not talk to her about condoms and birth control? Why not just be real about it?
We need to have honest conversations about sexual assault and statutory rape within our community. We need to work to ensure safety and comfort for young Black girls. We need to make sure they develop healthy relationships towards their bodies and sex. It’s time to be honest and it’s time to stop finding the easy way out--victim blaming and chastising our girls for their budding bodies and men in our community finding that as a green light to take advantage of them.