The Black Church Is Failing Black Women

From the womb, I’ve had to fight. I’ve been fighting all my life. The only place where I felt some sort of “safety” was in the black church. I remember attending my grandmother’s home church in a diminutive town in Townsville, South Carolina. I remember as a young girl, my great-uncle, Foster Earle, would pick my cousins and I up, in the blue church van, for youth choir practice and I would be so excited because church was my “happy place.” It was an escape from my mother, whom at the time, was dealing with an intense drug addiction. It was a haven of my black expression and individuality.

I remember standing in front of the church and leading songs and how the congregation would marvel at my vigorous voice. I remember how proud I felt seeing my grandmother, Willie Mae Earle, on the second row clapping her hands gleefully and smiling at me, ready to let anyone and everyone know that, “that’s my grandbaby!”

The black church, was indeed, my happy place.

Although the black church was my “happy place,” as a child, when I became older, my outlook on it changed. It slowly became a system of oppression and eventually I had no other choice but to disengage. The black church, for years, has tried to silence me into submission but because I am a proud unorthodox black feminist; it’ll be a cold day in July before it ever happens.

In my opinion the black church is failing black women. Instead of it being a safe space for black women to worship God freely and unapologetically it has become an oppressive institution that fails to unpack and unlearn its misogynoir.

The black church has become a habitation for sexual predators. It has become a place where black women are being sexually preyed on and even murdered at the hands of men who profess to know and love Jesus Christ; men who weaponize their “faith” for sexual gratification and sadistic perversion.

Yes, the black church fails black women when they refuse to acknowledge these truths. The black church fails black women when they gaslight and victimize us. The black church fails black women when they over-sexualize us. The black church fails black women when they hyper-sexualize us. The black church fails black women when they refuse to protect us. The black church fails black women when they use respectability politics to tone-police and control our narratives. The black church fails black women with these “how to be a wife in 90-days” symposiums. The black church fails black women with these mean girl gatherings disguised as “women empowerment” conferences. The black church fails black women when we are forced to “hide our babies” out of wedlock, while their fathers, still get to operate in ministry. The list is long and nefarious.

I have no doubt in my mind that the black church has the ability to be restored but in order for this to happen accountability must take place; honest conversations must be had. Black women’s platforms must expand in church; our testimonies cannot be tone-policed. The sexual predators, who have reigned for decades, in the pulpit and in the pews, must be removed and prosecuted. This, in my opinion, is the first step to regaining our respect for the black church.

The black church owes black women an apology and the greatest apology is changed behavior.