It’s that point of the 12 months once more when Black Historical past Month and Valentine’s Day all the time lead us to concentrate on Black Love. Every February, I see tons of emails and posts about celebrating Black love, quotes from historic Black figures on love, and methods to indicate the family members in your life how a lot you care. As a Black, couple and household therapist, I’m right here for it. I get pleasure from witnessing and celebrating all spectrums of Black Love. What I admire is that as a substitute of specializing in love solely within the romantic sense, these days there was extra appreciation for self-love, and friendship love as effectively within the type of “Galentine’s Day” celebrations. Throughout the previous few days, I’ve additionally heard a number of folks I do know point out that they re-read All About Love: New Visions by bell hooks every February as effectively. This reiterates that February symbolizes the significance of prioritizing love and paying homage to our Black ancestors. I’m normally not the kind of individual that re-reads books, and I all the time thought that Communion by bell hooks was the woman that deserved all of the hype. However in an effort to plan some content material, I began going over my highlights from All About Love, and I used to be reminded that bell hooks was dropping some gems. The very first spotlight I made was, “Our confusion about what we imply once we use the phrase ‘love’ is the supply of our issue in loving. If our society had a generally held understanding of the that means of affection, the act of loving wouldn’t be so mystifying.” This led me to ponder how our society portrays love, particularly Black love.
RELATED: Bonus, The Finest Man: Ultimate Chapters
In a earlier article that I wrote, “Love is Affected person…and Different Concepts Bought to Black Ladies About Relationships,” I mentioned two of the messages we are sometimes taught: to be affected person and to be the experience or die. To be truthful, I don’t assume these messages are solely offered to Black ladies; ladies obtain them typically. However I do consider they’re extra normalized in Black tradition. Consider your favourite Black Love film classics. Which characters and love tales come to thoughts? Odds are, the films depict some form of struggle-love– some message that Black ladies must endure or stick it by way of to finish up fortunately ever after. However what if we might have a look at these movies by way of a distinct lens that gives a reframe of the ladies characters, one which reveals their energy?
Love & Basketball
For me, my all-time favourite Black love traditional is “Love and Basketball.” I do know, I do know, it’s a controversial one. Individuals see Monica because the one down unhealthy, taking part in this man for his coronary heart in the course of the evening two weeks earlier than his marriage ceremony, which is truthful and correct. However I’m wondering if there’s one other perspective that hasn’t been mentioned. As a result of once I watch Love and Basketball, sure, I see the everyday woman subsequent door/highschool to school pipeline love story. However what I additionally see are two younger adults who’re making an attempt so exhausting to not repeat the behaviors they noticed their mother and father make. Was Quincy a jerk to Monica as soon as he discovered about his dad? Completely. And on the identical time, I think about discovering out that the individual you idolize and look as much as as a person has been mendacity to you and your loved ones for many of your life is a crushing blow to your beliefs and sense of self. And to be a freshman in faculty on the time? I don’t know many individuals who would have dealt with that effectively, not to mention an 18-year-old. How he selected to finish the connection was immature and petty, and so are lots of the endings of different faculty relationships. In terms of Monica, she witnessed her mother be a housewife and do no matter her dad wanted with none complaints. She talked about seeing her mother by no means converse up for herself, and that’s what embarrassed her. So when her mother tells her that she all the time admired the battle in her and that Quincy deserved higher, I believe Monica determined to not observe in her mother’s footsteps and battle for what she wished. She went again to the fundamentals, utilizing what she knew she was good at and what first introduced them collectively, basketball. Plus, the final scene reveals her with the person and the child, and she or he’s the one with knowledgeable basketball profession. So it looks like sis wins ultimately to me.
Brown Sugar
One other childhood love story traditional is Brown Sugar. This film is often a crowd favourite. There’s not a lot controversy round it, it’s pretty predictable, and there’s a cheerful ending with out an excessive amount of drama. What I admire about this film is Sidney’s skill to make use of her phrases to specific her love for Dre in such a delicate method. All through the film when she’s describing how she first fell in love with Hip-Hop and the way it has grown over time, she’s speaking about Dre concurrently the entire time. Their love story reveals us the ability of friendship and figuring out your individual effectively. Sidney and Dre noticed one another in methods their earlier companions didn’t. Reese noticed Dre’s ardour as a “report label factor” or passion. Sidney noticed it as him strolling in his goal, and she or he invested in him. Kelby by no means learn any of Sidney’s articles besides the one about him. Dre learn each single factor she ever wrote to really feel nearer to her when she was away. May they’ve found out their love for one another earlier earlier than committing to different folks? Positive. However typically, it’s exhausting for folks to see what’s taking place between them, even when everybody else round them can. And when Sidney did understand, she wrote it in her ebook; “my emotions have by no means been extra clear, and I do know they’ll by no means go away.” And when Dre realized this, he known as up the radio station to set the report straight and make his emotions recognized. Brown Sugar reminds us that typically the one which’s for you has been there all alongside. And it doesn’t must really feel like struggle-love. It feels pure and natural, typically so pure you don’t even discover at first.
The Finest Man
The Finest Man is a traditional that has so many love tales in a single. You see the love between pals, companions, and love for God. The story does contact on the sample of struggle-love we’ve been discussing. Robin stays with Harper regardless of him not being able to commit and even say I like you too. However what I do admire about Robin is as soon as she’s on the town for the marriage and will get an understanding of what has been taking place, she is able to go away him with none extra rationalization as a result of she understands that even when Harper didn’t bodily do the act of dishonest, he had the intention to. And when she does resolve to remain for the marriage, she states it not being for Harper however owing it to herself to fulfill Jordan. Mia stays with Lance by way of his sequence of dishonest all all through faculty. However the curveball of Mia deliberately selecting to sleep with Lance’s finest pal? Unsure I’d have advisable that when she might have simply left the connection as a substitute of making an attempt to get revenge. However now that I give it some thought, Lance would have by no means discovered about them if Harper hadn’t written his ebook. Years had handed, and Mia by no means advised Lance or threw it in his face. This leads me to consider that it wasn’t a lot about revenge for her however extra about her discovering a option to make peace along with his indiscretions by figuring out she had one in all her personal. Possibly it made her really feel extra balanced within the relationship. I’m unsure. I nonetheless don’t agree together with her habits, however I do assume it made her really feel as if she took her energy again. And on the finish of the film, they each get the “fortunately ever after” with the marriage and proposal. Nicely, should you watched the Finest Man Vacation or The Finest Man: Ultimate Chapters, perhaps it’s not that a lot of a fortunately ever after, however I’m simply specializing in the traditional. And in the case of what one, perhaps the takeaway message about love must be extra about deciphering what you will have the capability to deal with and the significance of forgiveness to make love work.
Love Jones
Surprisingly, Love Jones is my least favourite film out of all these classics. I keep in mind first watching it and considering there was simply a lot forwards and backwards, and their relationship might have been so easy, however they every determined to make it more durable than they wanted it to be. This film jogged my memory of the “proper individual, mistaken time” love story we hear. It’s not essentially a struggle-love within the sense of getting to be a ride-or-die, however it may be a wrestle to be on the identical web page on the identical time. It may be a wrestle for the connection to really feel safe and constant. This film additionally irritated me once I was youthful as a result of they have been each so targeted on making an attempt to play it cool as a substitute of being trustworthy with one another and themselves. Nina speaking to her woman, says, “that is nothing severe, that is no love factor.” Darius says, “this ain’t no love factor, we simply kickin’ it.” However now I acknowledge that what they skilled is definitely fairly frequent and boils all the way down to an absence of communication about their emotions. As I watch this film now, I believe what we will all stand to study from it’s the significance of being weak with these we love—saying what’s actually happening in our inside worlds and never anticipating them to be thoughts readers—addressing issues within the second, as a substitute of making an attempt to be nonchalant. And once we are capable of acknowledge we’re in love, be keen to place ourselves on the market, like Nina does on the finish of the film when she bares her soul doing spoken phrase hoping Darius is there to listen to it.
I’m certain there are many different Black love movies I might write about, however these are the highest ones that come to thoughts for me. In an effort to reimagine wrestle love, I’ll go away you with one in all my different fave gems from All About Love the place bell hooks states: “all too usually ladies consider it’s a signal of dedication, an expression of affection, to endure unkindness or cruelty, to forgive and overlook. Actually, once we love rightly we all know that the wholesome, loving response to cruelty and abuse is placing ourselves out of hurt’s method.”
