The sister’s response to the insult was right on point.
It was direct, humorous, and apropos:
“I will never let a man disrespect me; ever, ever, ever, especially a little white one,” declared WNBA star Liz Cambage.
Cambage’s dope dig came in response to Connecticut Sun coach Curt Miller’s insensitive and politically incorrect comment to a referee that Cambage should have been charged with a foul on a play because she was overweight and aggressive—two insults you don’t direct at a sister, particularly one who is 6”8′.
There’s no doubt that Cambage is a large sister, but she’s ‘only’ 235 pounds, not the 300 that Miller asserted during his tirade to the referee.
The malevolent coach was implying she was obese, which she is not.
In fact, I saw photos of Cambage in a tiny bikini while on an island vacation, and the sister is anything but obese. In fact, if shot from a distance, you’d probably think she was a model.
Miller’s remark cost him a fine and one-day suspension. It also may have permanently ruined his reputation and his ability to coach in a women’s basketball league.
If nothing else, Cambage’s slam-dunked retort made him look like a racist clown, or at the very least, a blind one. And he should be lucky that beautiful Amazon didn’t’ stuff him in the net.
But that’s not the issue in need of discussion here.
I was entirely behind Cambage’s rejoinder—laughing my behind off—until her following sentence in which she explained she is very “proud of being a big bitch.”
And she didn’t say ‘b-word.’
I don’t know about you, but I can’t put that adjective and noun together—pride and bitch.
It was only yesterday that we woke up to realize that we can be Black and Proud. We let the world know we finally recognized who we are or were.
I can’t fantom Angela Davis, Fannie Lou Hammer, or Elaine Brown substituting Black for bitch. Nor do I believe African American feminists dating back to Sojourner Truth fighting for sisters to become bitches.
Naw, being a ‘proud bitch’ (b-word) just doesn’t click. It’s nonsensical to me.
In fact, being a proud bitch (b-word) ranks right up there being a proud ‘nigger’ (n-word), or Neckbone, or carjacker, or urban terrorist.
I recall being called out many years ago when I criticized the ‘proud pimps’ holding a ‘player’s ball’ in Milwaukee. The only thing worse than being a proud pimp was being a proud ‘ho, I said.
Cambage could have said she was a proud diva, which is what I hope she meant. But, like so many Black Americans, Negroes, and former slaves, she cast herself in an entirely different light, taking on a negative and disingenuous persona, one I hope she doesn’t accept as her permanent reality.
Granted, many sisters use diva and bitch interchangeably…I assume.
Others see a value in being ‘bitchy,’ as it applies to being a strong, assertive, and aggressive woman, someone who takes on the challenges of single motherhood in a racist society. Or a career in corporate America, where they are qualified but unwanted, both because they are female and African American.
But I doubt if any one of them would be content to be called a bitch by a superior, much less an underling.
But can you have it both ways?
Like the penultimate insult—nigger (n-word)—bitch was created by people who sought to belittle and denigrate. In fact, the same White men who sought to demonize Africans (we didn’t become Americans until after the civil war, and not through the emancipation proclamation) were the misogynist who introduced the word bitch.
Put lipstick and perfume on it, and it’s still a derogatory term.
Unlike the ‘n-word (nigger), bitch (b-word) is gender-specific but has its roots in the same worldview used to justify the enslavement of millions and maintain control of them through socialization and indoctrination.
Whether you believe there was a Willie Lynch or not, the control methodology attributed to him included the simple but effective strategy of creating a sense of inferiority and self-hatred in the victims.
Teach them to hate each other and themselves while simultaneously undermining their culture and spiritual foundation, and as one historian posited, and you don’t have to lead them to the back door; they will find it on their own.
No matter how you try to ‘dress it up’ and make it smell good, the word ‘bitch’ describes, according to every dictionary on earth: a dog or an offensive term for an over(bear)ing woman.
For centuries the disingenuous word was used to disparage women, particularly those who stepped out of their place.
Sisters who now use the word bitch, believe it to be a ‘contranym,’ a word with two separate and distinct meanings. But, again, you can put lipstick on it and perfume on it, and it’s still a derogatory term.
Do you think if Miller had called Cambage a ‘big proud bitch’, she would be any less incensed?
Make no mistake, if Cambage referenced my mother, sister, wife, or daughter as a ‘pretty bitch’ there’s a 99.9% chance I would hit her in her kneecap.
Conversely, if she applied for a job in corporate America and put on the job application under the attributes of a ‘proud bitch,’ would she get hired?
Obviously, some of you—specifically those who consider themselves bitches and niggers—think I’m taking this out of context.
Then again, some of you probably think my repeated objection— disdain—for the noun/adjective/verb nigger (n-word) is misplaced. Well, I rank bitch right up there with it, and I don’t apologize for my concern.
I’ve been fighting for Black empowerment and cultural pride my entire adult life. Part of the war involves removing the chains of slavery from around our wrists and minds and replacing them with gold chains of pride and self-esteem.
Despite what they taught you in government schools, they were not brought here as slaves but as captives. And we weren’t savages or uncivilized spear chuckers.
Instead, our ancestors created the first civilization. They established the first college known to mankind when Europeans were living in caves.
Through our veins flows the blood of ancestors who invented math, science, medicine…even manned flight.
It was only natural that our ancestors were the first to recognize ‘monotheism,’ a belief in the one God, whether called Allah, Jehovah, or Nyame, because He/She created us in His/Her image.
We are the first.
Even white anthropologists acknowledge that fact, so it must be true.
Memories of those accomplishments, of our roots, were stripped away by the whip, the noose, and the stake.
They took our language, our culture, and even our religions and God. They created a new ‘Hue-man’ race, if you can identify with that false term, one that many view as superiors, demigods.
They beat us into submission and brainwashed us into believing we were animals.
And that process continues to this day. They miseducate our children if they provide them with education at all. They keep us ignorant, typecast us, flood us with negative images of ourselves. And we respond as they hoped.
Whether you are conscious enough to realize it or not, there are people on both sides of the aisles whose life, liberty, finances, and control depend on us viewing ourselves through the prisms of niggers and bitches.
Read Martin, Malcolm, or Marcus, and each will tell you both Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives benefit from our perceived inferiority, ignorance, and self-degradation.
Within my circle of progressive, Black Nationalists and Pan Africanists, nigger (n-word) and bitch (b-word) remain offensive, objectionable and hateful words.
Similarly, terms like ho (whore), slut, punk, gangster also carry similar disdain. Collectively, they are links in a chain that keeps us tied to inferiority and (mental) enslavement.
That said, I understand and embrace the fact that words and expressions change over time.
Back in my day, if you called someone a punk, it didn’t mean they were gay, but more so that they were weak or cowardly.
Conversely, some offensive terms have gained new definitions and acceptability, just as people do.
Malcolm X and Martin Luther King were both considered evil anarchists at their height of popularity in the Black community. Both once shared a place on the FBI’s terrorist list. Today White America think of them as icons; today, they are revered.
Snoop Doggy Dud was a mysogenistic, cop-hating drug advocate a decade ago. Today he is a spokesperson for a Mexican beer product and has a show with Martha Stewart.
In a related sense, I get a headache trying to keep up with the evolution of words and their meaning within the Black culture.
I remain confused, not only because bitch (b-word) and nigger (n-word) have contradictory meanings, but more so because while they have become acceptable to many of us, they nonetheless maintain their negative connotations, depending on who uses them, and under what circumstances.
I recently heard a brother on television saying he wasn’t worried about losing his woman because there were “plenty of bitches out there.”
Bow wow.
A couple of days later, I watched a reality show (for all of five minutes) when a sister told a brother she wasn’t like his ‘other bitches.’ Now that’s a disingenuous and contradictory use because she was displaying disdain for an individual by use of the word bitch, but then referring to herself as one.
Soprano Bow Wow.
Of course, I’ve never dared refer to a woman as a bitch (or b-word for that matter) because I view Black women as queens, God’s, and Nyame’s gift to us. I respect Black women and tacitly believe Nyame made them first.
They are mothers, our first teachers, our nurses, and our life guides. They are a godsend.
I am confused by women who belittle and denigrate themselves by considering themselves to be dogs. But then again, brothers continue to call themselves dogs, so I guess it is supposed to be a badge of honor.
In fact, the expression that a woman can act bitchy, is in itself nonsensical, for it is not only misogynistic but nonsensical, implying they are acting like dogs, even if a dog is a man’s best friend.
I guess I was either raised at the wrong time or was given bad advice by my parents, neither of whom were dogs, and would feel insulted if referenced as such.
My mother taught each of us to put God first, family second, and tribe third. She inspired my sisters, taught them to always act like queens. She also explained the difference between being a woman and being a lady, a term I don’t hear often enough.
Every girl grows up to be a woman. But not all of them grow up to be ladies. Apparently, midway to that process is a level of ‘bitchhood,’ but only the gullible land on that platform.
My generation shrugged off the shackles of slavery and its inherent psychological self-hatred. Legally, they can no longer put those chains around our ankles and wrists, but many of us continue to wear them around our brains.
African Americans are the only ethnicity, tribe, or community of people on this planet who see themselves through negative prisms. We are the only people and culture that looks at ourselves as animals, irreverent and uncivilized people.
Four hundred years of struggle, and this is where we ended up?
Or then again, maybe I should take solace in the words of the renown abolitionist Harriet Tubman: ‘”I freed a thousand slaves I could have freed a thousand more if only they knew they were slaves.”
Hotep.
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