What defines a safe space for Black women?

"Black women are too loud."

"Black women are too aggressive."

"Black women are too masculine."

These are all the reasons we need safe spaces for ourselves. Everywhere black women go, we hear these comments and more. The world wants a black woman to explain why she does not feel like smiling or socializing. Society attacks everything about us, from how we wear our hair down to our choice not to marry or have children. I have even heard from other black women that we do not get along when the truth is we need us to heal us. Even as we stood with white women in the feminist movement, we were used as numbers and not as a valuable piece of a true partnership for the benefit of all women.

"No one heals a black woman better than another black woman!"

Iya Omi

When Black women come together, there are both spoken and unspoken conversations. We can have entire discussions with just our eyes. Our animated expressions, laughter, and tears fill the room. We take up space because we carry so much within us every day. We understand each other even when we don't smile, recognizing the need to retreat to our personal space to protect our peace. Despite coming from various walks of life, we share a bond that unites us.

Black women can make each other laugh when all we want to do is cry.

Black women are the definition of ride or die.

Black women can build you up when you are at your lowest.

Black women make music when they walk and talk.

We are loud because we have something to say, and we have been silent for too long. Our voices are the rallying cry for war, and our fists are the gavel for justice.

We pour our souls, sweat, tears, hopes, and dreams into those we love. We are the original feminine. We have been copied but never mastered.

We have had to fight to protect ourselves in our homes while simultaneously fighting to prove ourselves to the world.

We need sacred spaces because it is our energy they feed from going back to the slave women breastfeeding the enslaver's babies or forced to be his concubine.

We sometimes have to raise a little hell as we fight for our peace and encourage other sisters to do the same.

The black woman's safe space is not a place. Our safe space is in each other.