I hate black women because we know she’s the Alpha not Adam and we can’t stand being second. We hate black women because ultimately we have to compromise with her and although I am dealing, she's already seen my card.

When I suggest that I am checking for Polly Ann she knows I ain’t really going nowhere.  She knows her historical nurturing has no rival. She won't let me forget she birthed me, if I had a dollar for every time my momma told me that she knows me better than me. I ‘d be rich.

Another reason I hate black women is because I am highly educated and a former spelling bee champion of my 8th grade class and now she got me spelling all crazy, changing words like FAT to PHAT. She makes a hypocrite of me. I know it ain’t right to objectify her in videos or turn around and watch her backside as she passes me. But Serena isn’t the only sista built like a brick house. In fact she ain't even the baddest from Compton, but she’s one hell of a representative, even with the blonde shag.

I believe in change gradually, but she forces it on me overnight. I mean we was never watching no tennis until 2 sistas from the hood revolutionized everything we thought we knew about that “sissy sport”.

I hate black women cause she knows all my strengths and weaknesses and I am only supposed to  have up one for display. I hate the black woman cause she knows I don’t even like the concept of Valentine's Day. Yet she got me in the Hallmark store anyway. I mean the heart pumps blood, nothing more, nothing less. No emotions or feelings in the heart as the holiday would  suggest. All the emotions, feelings. memories, etc have their genesis in the mind. That’s why Doctors can do a heart transplant but not a brain transplant. A heart is a simple organ that pumps blood.

 I mean Valentine's day to me is so phony besides I ain’t fond of too many holidays where I don’t get the day off (Except April Fool’s day). Then again so much myth and legend goes into the origin of Valentine's Day and most of it gotta be fake I mean who really believes a saint named Valentine cured his jailer's daughter of blindness and thus Emperor Claudius jailed him and then killed him. Or the other version whereby claiming that Valentine fell in love with the jailer's daughter and wrote her letters that were signed "From your Valentine.” If so what’s the big deal to that . I mean everybody claims to be in love or want to get married to a woman when they get locked down. I guess this inconsistency is a by product of Valentine's history. That is what happens when you mix apples and pears because Valentine's Day, as we know it today, has it's origins in both Christian and ancient Roman traditions.

Who was this  Holiday  really named after. While it can't be proven historically, there were 7 men named Valentine or Valentinus who were honored with feasts on February 14th. Most of them were martyred and you know the saying “Your nobody till somebody kills you” All of the seven Valentines eventually evolved into one. In 496 Pope Gelasius  who by the way was a brother (one of the 4 Black popes) who had taken the papal chair on 492 declared the day in honor of St. Valentine. So I guess since a brotha actually started it we might as well finish it.

Besides  brotha Gelasius done initiated something bigger than us, a practice which has momentum beyond its origin and a history now. In the Middle Ages, young men and women drew names from a bowl to see who their valentines would be. They would wear these names on their sleeves for one week. To wear your heart on your sleeve now means that it is easy for other people to know how you are feeling. That slogan comes out of V-day. In 2003 an estimated one billion valentine cards are sent on Valentine's Day, making Valentine's Day the second largest card-sending holiday of the year. Approximately 85 % of all valentines are purchased by women. Which is odd since in all the different tales of its origins it was for men to do for women. Black women, who are the most neglected women on the planet probably purchase cards at a higher clip than the 85%. So I don’t want to bring the hatin' to this holiday. Because sadly enough many are using the day to define themselves or their current relationships. 

In the 1840s, Esther A. Howland  a pudgy  woman from Worchester Massachusetts began to sell the first mass-produced valentines in America. She is the pioneer of the American Valentine manufacturing industry. Now V-day is celebrated in Canada, Mexico, the United Kingdom, France, and Australia also. Esther herself was probably an un appreciated lady because her extra girth. So today I send a  BIG UP to Esther Howland, all; under appreciated Black women; all over appreciated black women and all the sistas who heard  some negativity about this day. We brothas only be hatin' cause we cheap or got another woman beside you, whom we have to get something for. The last possibility is that if you get something from us, you make make too much out of it. But SO WHAT, the truth is that we have not made enough out of YOU or your presence in our lives side by side. We don’t really care about its ambiguous origin, that’s just an excuse - Nuff said!

Suggested Reading:

Sertima, Ivan Van.  African Presence in Early Europe Transaction Publishers, 1993.

Suggested Websites:

http://www.milehimall.com/holiday/valentines-day-history.html

Reference Materials

Bruscher,Joseph s.  Popes through the Ages Princeton, 1959.

"African Popes" a 30 minute feature broadcast by the British Broadcasting System

The views and opinions expressed herein by the author do not necessarily represent the opinions or position of Playahata.com.