If I were pregnant and informed that my fetus had Down syndrome I would absolutely abort. No amount of social media romanticizing of profound disability would change my mind. Contrary to popular opinion, you need more than love to care for a disabled child.
After 21 I used to ask my mom to go out late at night and she’d still say no. One day i practiced “informing” her that I will be going out with my friends and not coming back and got an “Okay”. 😭👍🏿
We heard Nandi loud and clear. Her point was that Black men deserve grace because the system crushes them hardest: no money, no government support, 400 years of stacked odds, and constant pressure to succeed.
Our point is this: that same system hits Black women just as hard, often harder. Patriarchy. Single motherhood. Unpaid care work. Higher poverty rates. Sky high GBV risks but when women survive those exact conditions through informal hustles or sex work just to feed their families, they are shamed. Insulted. Called slurs. Told they have no dignity.
So men deserve grace for trying, but women are humiliated for trying to survive? You cannot demand grace from women while denying it to them in the same breath. That is selective empathy.
Grace is not a one way demand from women to men. It has to be mutual. Otherwise it is just another burden placed on the group that is already carrying the most.