Accountability Is NOT An Attack. Protection is NOT Pandering.

Everyone should agree that our community should be safe, that the people within our community deserve “safety” in every sense of the word. It’s something we want for our families, our friends, for our elders, for our children, for ourselves. When asked, many of us would not only agree to wanting safety in our communities, but also be willing to do what we can to keep our communities safe.

So why is it that when people within our community bring up allegations of harassment or abuse by another member of our community, the immediate reaction is attacking the victim or emasculating protectors rather than examining the alleged perpetrator? Yet this happens too often when women in the community attempt to address the frequent harassment and abuse they endure.

A clip of the podcast Grits and Eggs went viral when show host and content creator Deante Kyle brought up this very point while talking to other Black men. “You may not harass women,” he says. “You may know how to take rejection. The majority of men that most women deal with do not and you are accountable for that as well.”

Deante then pivots the conversation to what many Black men do understand, racism. Deante cites how Black people, when put in perilous situations with white people, often aren’t afforded the opportunity to parse out which white person may or may not be safe for them. “I have to go on the actions of the group,” Deante says. “The group as a whole and the history of that group as a whole tells me that they are a danger to me and they are not to be trusted. If you can understand that as a Black man in your stance towards white people, then you should absolutely be able to understand women's stance towards you. It's not a war on you waged by women.”

Deante is not alone. There is a rising chorus of Black men who have been voicing their concerns about this issue. Creator Dante Bastien backed Deante, saying “If that statement offends you, it's because you're abusive and misogynistic. If you think that a man is pandering or a simp for saying that “men need to respect women and treat them like humans,” it's because you're abusive and misogynistic.” Creator Justin Scott said “You're not being blamed, you're being named.” Creator Just Wayne said “I shouldn't only treat the women I'm related to or I'm romantic with as humans. I should see all women as humans. And that actually takes the deconstruction of the toxicity and the stupidity of what masculinity has become.”

Yet, despite a very sober and accurate takes on this topic, Deante and many other men are met with vitriolic comments, attacking their sexuality, their strength, and reducing their comments to “pandering” to Black women. Creator Raeon Artez went viral mocking these comments simply by reenacting them.

But comments like these aren't simply mean. They serve a purpose, to uphold patriarchal systems that put women and girls below men and boys. They reduce the humanity of women and girls to mere objects of service and pleasure rather than fellow humans, worthy of respect and equality.

These comments also blame victims of harassment and abuse, with even one commenter asking “if women don’t feel safe, why do they come outside?” Yes, now women, girls, and femmes shouldn't even leave our homes in order to merely feel “safe.” But these aren’t mere mean things folks say, they reflect the overall sentiment of parts of our community.

Halle Bailey’s restraining order revealed evidence of the harm she endured at the hands of her former partner, streamer DDG, and folks on the internet are terrorizing her. Despite a court of law finding that rapper Tory Lanez shot Meg The Stallion, folks on social media are terrorizing her. Singer Cassie was federally subpoenaed to testify against Sean “Diddy” Combs and revealed the horrific violence, kidnapping, trafficking, and terror she endured, folks accuse her of ‘mutual abuse’. Victims of R. Kelly’s abuse told what harm happened to them, often as children, in courts of law only to be shredded apart in courts of public opinion.

This need to protect abusers doesn’t just happen with celebrities, but in our own everyday places of work, play, rest, even worship. There is a sentiment that every woman knows someone that has been abused, assaulted, or violated, but oddly, no man knows anyone who abuses, assaults, or violates.

Worse, when women even try to bring up the conversation towards a plan of accountability, too many in our community,men and women alike, try to combat that action. Many reduce the conversation to mere “gender wars.” Some, despite evidence and even trials, ignore the glaring evidence to defend the abuser. Others will say that these victims were “just trying to bring a Black man down.” Too many go on the defensive and terrorize the victims, scrutinizing their every decision and move, from what they were wearing to why they were out so late to why they didn’t scream and so on. These attacks not only silence victims who speak out, they also silence any future victims and they allow those who do abuse to keep doing so without accountability.

The #MeToo movement started in our community. Tarana Burke, who formerly served here in Philadelphia as an activist, bravely shared her experiences and opened the dialogue for other survivors of abuse. We watched that movement take off and achieve accountability for so many, men and women, elderly and children alike. And yet the slowest accountability is within our own community.

I ask, is that the kind of community you want to live in? Where parts of your community can’t even walk to the bus stop or go to school or pick up groceries without harassment? Where little girls are taught to thread their housekeys between their fingers when walking home with constant fear of attack? Where swaths of our community live in fear not just of the harassment we could face, but the retribution that will follow should we say anything?

No. It is beyond time we address these systems of harm in our own communities. It is beyond time to empower victims, dispel the red pill, and cultivate a culture of mutual respect. And it starts by admitting that accountability is not an attack, but an expression of love for our community and the members in it. It starts by affirming that protecting members of our community is not pandering, it is an act of love that assures each other’s safety. So, let’s have this conversation.