Poem To Black Women

Black Woman I Been Trying to Tell You But You Aint Listening

I am an old-head wise Black man now.

Gray in my beard, history aches in my body,

war and stress inside my chest.

I've lived long enough

to watch presidents change,

songs change, Ebonics change,

technology change, and

still see the same white hand of

racial oppression resting heavy on

the necks of Blacks in America.

I've watched little Black boys

grow into tired Black men

before they even turned thirty.

Watched dreams dry up

like rivers in Mississippi heat.

Watched prison buses

ride through our neighborhoods

like school buses used to.

And all these years

I kept trying to explain something

to my sisters. Not because I resent them.

Lord knows I loved them.

Loved Black women enough

to survive some of the coldness

that came from them.

But many times

when I tried to speak about racism,

about what this country does

to the Black male spirit,

I was met with suspicion

instead of understanding.

As if I was the enemy.

As if the Black man

invented the hardships we face

instead of being born inside it too. 

I tried to explain

that a Black man denied power

is a man denied part of his manhood.

Not because masculinity means domination,

no - but because every man needs the

ability to provide, to protect,

and to progress; to stand

upright in dignity

without white systems

constantly placing boots on his back.

America studied the Black man

like white hunters’ study deer.

to break his confidence.

Destroy his image.

Turn his pain into pathology.

Turn survival into criminality.

Turn frustration into “toxicity.”

Turn unemployment into laziness.

Turn trauma into personal failure.

Then they whisper in the Black woman’s ear:

“Your man is the problem.” And too many believed  

it not all Black women. Never all.

But enough to wound generations.

I watched educated sisters

quote white institutions

more than they listened

to the cries of Black men

living under racial siege.

I watched Black boys

called “dangerous” at six years old,

then grow into men

who carried invisible funerals

inside themselves. Funerals for 

opportunity. Funerals for tenderness.

Funerals for innocence.

Because racism ain’t just economic.

It gets inside the nervous system.

Inside the bloodstream.

Inside the mirror. It makes a Black

man question his worth

every single day

in a society that profits

from his humiliation.

And when a man hurts long enough,

he changes. Sometimes he gets angry.

Sometimes distant.

Sometimes numb.

Sometimes self-destructive.

Not because he was born broken,

but because oppression

is psychological warfare. White 

supremacy don’t just attack the body.

It attacks identity. And I spent years

trying to explain this

without sounding bitter. 

But how do you speak softly

about centuries of spiritual assault?

How do you calmly explain

that many Black men walk around

with invisible emotional shrapnel

lodged in the soul? I wanted Black women

to understand that many Black men were never 

taught healthy emotional language

because survival became our first language.

Our fathers carried stress

like wet cement on their backs.

Many of them never hugged us

because nobody hugged them. 

Many worked themselves into graves

trying to prove they were men

in a country determined

to call them boys forever.

And somewhere along the line

too many conversations between us

became accusation instead of healing.

The Black woman saying:

“You need to do better.” The Black man saying:

“You don’t understand what I carry.”

And white supremacy sat 

quietly in the corner smiling

while we argued over the symptoms

instead of the disease, that’s the part

that broke my heart most. Watching us fight each

other while the system kept feeding

off both of us.

Because Black women suffer too.

Lord knows they do. I seen my mother clean 

white people’s homes with swollen feet

and tired eyes. Seen Black women carry families

through impossible conditions.

Seen them survive abandonment,

poverty, violence, disrespect,

and the loneliness

of always being “strong.”

But somewhere in this American nightmare,

many Black men and Black women

stopped seeing each other

as fellow survivors as

started seeing each other

as opposing political camps. And that ain’t natural.

That’s engineered. A divided people

are easier to control. A Black man disconnected 

from his woman is easier to destroy.

A Black woman taught to distrust her man

is easier to be emotionally manipulated. 

A divided people cannot build nations.

I wish some sisters understood

how racism humiliates Black men publicly

while demanding we privately remain unshaken. 

That’s a hard burden.

To be feared by police,

mocked and attacked by the media,

discriminated against at work,

over-policed in neighborhoods,

under-protected in society,

then come home

and be told your pain

doesn’t matter.

Some brothers broke under that weight. 

Some became angry.

Some became absent.

Some chased material things

trying to rebuild stolen dignity.

Some hid in addictions.

Some became emotionally unreachable.

And yes, some hurt

Black women deeply. I won’t lie about that.

Truth got to stand whole. But I also know

many Black men died emotionally

long before anybody noticed

they were bleeding internally.

I know brothers

who never heard the words

“I appreciate you.” 

Brothers who only received 

attention when they failed. 

Brothers who spent their whole

lives trying to prove

they were worthy of love

in a society that trained everybody

to suspect them first.

And now in my older years,

I no longer want war

between Black men and Black women.

I want understanding, I want us to finally admit

that racism damaged all of us differently. That the 

Black woman’s wounds are real.

That the Black man’s wounds are real too.

That neither healing nor

self-determination can

happen through blame-game.

I want Black women

to look at Black men

with deeper historical compassion.

And I want Black men

to stop drowning silently

behind pride and emotional fear.

Because we are all tired, tired of funerals.

Tired of prisons, tired of broken homes.

Tired of survival without peace.

Tired of carrying America’s racism

inside Black relationships.

I am an elder Black man now. And after all 

 these years, I still believe Black men and 

Black women belong beside each other

not beneath each other.

I still believe

our love can survive

if truth finally enters the room.

But truth requires courage. The courage to admit

that white supremacy

did not merely chain Black bodies—

it strained Black intimacy,

distorted Black identity,

and turned wounded people

against one another.

And until we confront that honestly,

we will keep inheriting pain

that was never ours to begin with. 

So listen to me now

while I still got breath in my lungs. 

The Black man is not the root

of all Black suffering.

The Black woman is not the enemy.

The real enemy

has always been the system

that profits when we forget

we're supposed to struggle and 

heal together.

 - Kenray Sunyaru