The Debt
A man who pays attention knows what he owes before anyone tells him.
Attention, sustained over time, produces understanding. And understanding produces an obligation that has nothing to do with guilt.
Black women built the infrastructure of this country’s survival twice: once in the fields and once in the voting booths. The first was taken. The second is contested every four years as if the question were still open.
It is not a question.
The confusion about what is owed comes from men who frame debt as charity. Give when moved, stop when inconvenient, call it generosity. This is not generosity. It is the performance of it.
A man who understands what he owes does not wait to feel generous. He arranges his life so that the debt is being paid continuously. In how he speaks about the women around him when they are not present. In where he places his endorsement.
The arrangement is not difficult. It requires only that he stop treating recognition as optional.
Most men treat it as optional. This is why the debt compounds.
— Lia