The “Boss B” Paradigm
There is a gentleman I follow on social media that has a show geared toward the Brown and Black primarily American experience. There has been a series of discussions around the whole “Boss B__” paradigm that is a hoisted as a badge of honor in today’s society. I will relay here what I chimed in with. First of all before I say anything further there is a difference between an opinion and an informed opinion, there is a difference there are all sorts of opinions out there in the world but that doesn’t make those opinions valid. An informed opinion on the glorified problem is this, the term is degrading because when Brown and Black Women were being raped, hung, tortured, mass murdered, enslaved, and fighting for the fundamental rights for human dignity and equality I don’t think that being a “Boss B__” or “Bad B__” was what what they had in mind for themselves nor for the future. It’s a reviling mentality and term that needs to die because what is a b__ but a female dog. I had also spoken of I don’t think it is coincidence that every female I’ve ever encountered that harbored that mentality of any ethnicity was not really a boss but rather a bluntly put a$$wipe of a being, a narcopathic if not egomaniacal, toxic, self obsessed bully, thought they were God’s gift to the planet, Jezebelish in all respects. That is no boss anything not to me not to anyone of any decency and respectability. If you came up on a well respected or self respecting Woman of color and called her a b__ you have a right to be knocked out flat. Would you go up to the Williams sisters or Michelle Obama and refer to them as “Boss B__es” in any form? No. Do you think they refer to themselves as such? Then why do so to self or about others mistaking it for a term of empowerment when it’s not? Not to mention a boss doesn’t go around saying they’re a boss, they just are. If you have to go about proclaiming it is “Who are trying to convince yourself or others?”
A real boss was someone like Coretta Scott King, Winona LaDuke, Sacheen Little Feather, Angela Davis, Pocahontas, Princess Kaʻiulani, Noora Khan, Madam C J Walker, and so on. These were real bosses in the body-ing group of our peoples who were rooted in the betterment and furthering of the people in some form NOT about themselves while operating as the most demeaned rudimentary version of Brown and Black femininity. There is more to life than self, getting money, who you smashed with, and the rampant perpetuating the stereotypical of stupidity. I went on to post as Maya Angelou once eloquently stated when you know better you do better. The truth is if we as Brown and Black Women especially want to be viewed better we have to act better, obtain a better mindset, THAT is what constitutes a boss.
