If You Want to Kill a Nation, Destroy the Women

For generations, the story has been painfully familiar: they come for our brothers, our fathers, our sons. Systems of power built on white misanthropy have tried to erase Black men from the narrative of this nation. This erasure came through the form of enslavement, through lynching, through mass incarceration, through economic exclusion, and relentless criminalization. But while the world watched those assaults unfold, Black women were not merely witnesses. We were the ones who buried the bodies and raised the children. We organized the marches and fed the movement. We held the line. We always have.

And now, they’ve turned their gaze on us.

Over the past several years, the attacks on Black women leaders have escalated, marking these last two years the most egregious, and they are not coincidental. They are coordinated. School board members, city councilwomen, superintendents, nonprofit executives, political organizers, clergy, entrepreneurs, and community protectors are all under siege. We have been doxxed, disrespected, defunded, dismissed, and demonized. And this is not because we are doing something wrong. It is because we are doing something right. Because when Black women lead with authenticity, accountability, and audacity, systems tremble.

This is not new. From Sojourner to Shirley, Fannie to Fredrika, Coretta to Claudia, Black women have been the moral spine and strategic muscle of every liberation movement we’ve had. But where our brothers were often the visible targets, the system quietly worked to diminish us through erasure, silencing, hyper-surveillance, and emotional exhaustion. Today, that quiet war has become so damn loud.

And it makes sense. If you truly wanted to dismantle a people, you’d go after the ones who carried the culture in their womb and kept the community on their backs. You’d go after the ones who voted in record numbers, who built civic coalitions from scratch, who challenged systems with data in one hand and their child in the other. You’d go after the ones who raised generations, built institutions, and still had the nerve to show up to the boardroom, the classroom, or the statehouse demanding justice. That’s who you’d come for.

And without shame, that’s exactly what’s unfolding before our eyes. The stories of Maleeka Jihad, CU Regent Wanda James, Niecy Murray, Danielle Shoots, and hell even MiDian Shofner are chapters in a book of envy authored by the hands of misanthropy and fear. We cannot have an honest, holistic conversation about the attacks on Black women without also lifting the names of the mothers who are burying their children who were victims of police brutality and systemic violence. We must hold sacred space for LaRonda Jones, mother of Kilyn Lewis; Veronica Seabron, mother of Jalin Seabron; and Krystal Cleveland, mother of Kamiaya Cleveland, to name a few, because those are attacks, too. And we’ve watched this pattern repeat at every level, from local platforms to federal corridors of power, using the same exhausted playbook: discredit, isolate, dehumanize, and destroy.

By no means is this a dismissal of our Black men. We do not throw our brothers away. We know that the system still targets them with equal venom and violent precision. We grieve their loss, march for their justice, and raise our voices in their honor. In the same breath and with the same fight, we must say that we, too, are being hunted. And if our communities don’t see it, if our hearts and minds don’t name it, and if we don’t protect each other, we will lose the very foundation that has held us all up.

So what do we do?

As a Black community, we must stop waiting until after the fallout to say we support our sisters. We must protect Black women publicly, not just privately. That means showing up when we are under attack, believing us when we say we’re being harassed, and standing next to us, not just behind us, when we lead. It means interrupting the misogynoir in our own communities. It means holding institutions accountable when they try to use our presence as a prop but silence our power.

To our non-Black partners in this work, the call is clear: solidarity must look like action. It is not enough to post hashtags or host listening sessions. Use your privilege to challenge the system from within. Name the racism and the sexism out loud. Provide resources. Share your platforms. Fund our work. Amplify our voices. And most importantly, don’t just “believe in” Black women, believe Black women.

And to my fellow Black women and Black female-presenting individuals: I see you. I feel your fatigue. I honor your brilliance. This work is hard, and it often feels thankless. But we were never built for the temporary. We are not a trend or a tool. We are the blueprint. And when they come for us, as they have and will, may they find a circle so tight, a resistance so fierce, and a legacy so unshakable that even the system reconsiders.

They thought targeting us would end the story. They didn’t know we were the authors.