Why Death of the Ride or Die Chick?
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Let’s get right to it. Why death of the ride or die chick? Because it isn’t working, being the one to hold the relationship down, the household and children down, show up on the job and in school and then find a sliver of time for ourselves isn’t working. The messages put into the world about women having it all, are coming from who? And, what if I don’t want it all?
Often the Ride or Die chick is glorified for holding HIM up when he was down, whether that was by systems and institutions of oppression OR whether it was his own upbringing and personal choice and more often than not, to Black women’s detriment. A recent example of this being the murder of Breonna Taylor by police, when they allegedly believed Breonna was receiving packages on behalf of her ex-boyfriend
To layer in hip-hop culture we have recently witnessed the ladies doing recent interviews sharing their inability to be vulnerable and the ways they have often receive criticism and down right bullying via online platforms. I’m talking Cardi B’s recent interview with Jason Lee, Megan THEE Stallion on how she felt after the traumatic incident with Tory Lanez and her friend, Kelsey. Let’s not leave out Lizzo and the constant bullying and criticism she has received for being a bigger bodied woman who LOVES herself out loud. When is enough enough?
Black women need spaces where our vulnerability is okay because we live in a world that often criticizes us for our hard or masculine exterior without criticizing the ways in which we have had to move throughout this world and society protecting ourselves just to survive. Without there being a death to the Ride or Die, in the same way we culturally wanted a death to the n-word or to autotune, there needs to be a death to the expectation for women to be the mules of the world and carry the load. Its giving, uh uh GET SOMEBODY ELSE TO DO IT.
Women do have a responsibility to ourselves and each other (sisterhood) to remove any bias and barriers that do not allow our sisters to show up as their whole ass selves without having to carry the burden of what it means to their families, culture and society as a whole. This means we have to dismantle the internalized misogyny, and pick-me within ourselves to dive deep around the healing of WHY we feel a need to criticize another woman for living her life. I’ve defeated a little bit here but the Ride or Die chick is the same chick that rides for her man, or the male gaze or viewpoint of the world without actually finding herself and her own thoughts within. The ride or die chick is the definition of accepting struggle love.
Reposite Magazine shares, “Struggle love is a term that has been popularlised in the last ten years to describe a relationship where one partner endures multiple hardships, unhealthy and toxic behaviour at the hands of another—in the hope that they’ll be “rewarded” with the love and affection of their partner once their loyalty has ben tested.”
Again in the words of India Arie, we are worthy of love, dignity and respect because we exist. We do not have to prove it. We do not have to earn it. We do not have to suffer through toxicity or abuse to provide validation to why we are worthy of love or respect. Where did we get this idea that we need to struggle or bear it all for struggle love, uh duh! The Ride or Die chick. It’s the Granny we know that put up with Grandads drinking problem or womanizing ways, its the boyfriend that reminds us that his momma stayed with his daddy even when he had a baby on her. It’s the working mother pulling extra shifts and second jobs to cover the household bills while dad or stepdad is making home a living hell. I again would point to the learned behaviors and conditioning from enslavement, oppression and the church where women are taught to win him over with sweet words. Add in society and Hollywood here.
Over on USA Today, writer Jenna Ryu asks, “Why are we so enamored with struggle love?” Because after all why does love need to be toxic, painful and endure suffering to prove or qualify for love? Ryu is challenging us to really look at why we think we deserve struggle love and the ways we witness struggle love playing out in celebrity culture before our eyes. Khloe and Tristan. Beyonce and Jay-Z. Kirk and Rasheeda and the countless others on Love and Hip Hop and the never ending social shares about Chrisean Rock and Blueface. WOW!
In some ways many Black women feel they deserve struggle love because it has been how we have been conditioned in our society. It could be because we have not seen healthy models of love, witnessing the older women in our lives and on screens. Some Black women feel we deserve what is being presented as if that is all there is because it is better to share a man or have a temporary man than no man at all. I mean after all Sza told us we can share him and just have him for the weekend. This idea comes from hearing our friends and other women we know tell us their struggles to find love while meeting potential partners in person or swiping on the apps. Some Black women believe we cannot or will not find anything better because we may come with our own insecurities, traumas, baggage or multiple children.
Whatever the belief, the answer is no! You do not deserve nor have you earned struggle love. Struggle love is detrimental to Black women’s health and thus our communities because the increased rates of Black femicide, increase in low income or one-parent homes effecting the health, growth and development of children and well of course the development of our communities. When we began to agree that we deserve love, dignity and respect because we exist we will be better healed for ourselves, our children and our communities as a whole and from a place of our fullness and healed sleeves, NOT our wounding. BUT you don’t have to believe me, from a clinical therapist standpoint, here’s what they share can be detrimental to Black women’s mental health.
Sis, choose YOU!