Megan Thee Stallion Deserves Better

About one month ago, Megan Thee Stallion was shot in the feet. This was obviously big news in the pop culture world because it was alleged that she was shot by another famous rapper, Tory Lanez. Megan initially did not confirm who the perpetrator was although we all suspected due to their obvious involvement that night- they were hanging out and we saw it on IG. For the past month, social media trolls and regular people alike have been accusing her of lying about the incident. The lies got so intense that Megan Thee Stallion decided to dispel the rumors and name Lanez as her alleged shooter, confirming what most people already thought.

The theme of the responses that I’ve seen have been as follows: either people STILL think she’s lying; people think she should have spoken up sooner or people are accusing her of being a snitch. I have a problem with all three, but I’ll focus on the notion that “she should have spoken up sooner.” This is the part where I am speaking directly to Black people of all genders: are we going to pretend that as Black women we are not taught to protect the black man at all costs? If you are a Black woman and something happens to you at the hands of a Black man, you wrestle with whether or not to say anything because you know that the world is already against Black men. That is hounded into our psyche from the beginning. The world is already against Black men, so why would you as a Black woman want to add to that? We are trained to put the Black man before ourselves because as they say, who else will? Technically speaking, Megan acted the way we were taught to act and PLEASE do not act like you have not at some point either. I personally know what it’s like to suffer at the hands of a Black man and decide to keep it to yourself because you don’t want to see anything bad happen to them or you don’t want to contribute to yet another negative statistic or headline. That is the plight of the Black woman. We are trained to be SO strong yet when we are strong, there’s a problem.

If you are mad at Megan the Stallion, you need to redirect that anger and focus on breaking the generational toxicity that we are stuck in. Focus your energy on teaching the young people in your life that abuse is never okay under any circumstance regardless of who your abuser is. Focus on creating a world where our kids can grow up and not have to fear each other.

The sad reality is that we’ve all failed Megan the Stallion and we are failing ourselves right now. This is an opportunity to finally have the real conversations that we need in the Black community. We have to address the toxic male culture and the very real impacts that they have on our women. We need to address the level of intense secrecy that exists in our community. We are taught not to tell anyone about anything. This is so ingrained in our culture that when someone has the nerve to do so, they are met with anger when they are simply doing the right thing. We HAVE to do better because our lives literally depend on it.