MY TRUTH: Feeling Pain

By Cheryl Smith

I am traumatized. I am hurt.

For so l long I have talked about the abuse that women are subjected to; especially Black women. I’m not the first to call it as it is and won’t be the last because it does not appear that change is on the horizon.

But I will keep hope alive and also keep working because I have faith.

Which brings me to my truth.

As I viewed the recently released video of Cassie being kicked and stomped; each blow, was felt by me.

Not because anyone ever treated me that way, because no one has, but I felt her pain and the pain of so many others.

So many have been providing commentary on the brutal video of rap mogul Sean “P Diddy” Combs, stomping, kicking, and dragging his “girlfriend.”

Folks said that the lawsuit Cassie filed would provide triggering moments.

It absolutely did.

I recalled as a young child, watching a man beating my babysitter.

I was scared, but I also stayed in a child’s place and it wasn’t for me to do anything but get away so I wouldn’t get a taste of his rage.

To her credit, she got away from her abuser and never returned.

A few years later, I heard that the man was in prison. He beat a woman to death! I know my former babysitter said a prayer because she got away alive.

I remember going off to college and I had three roommates. I was the youngest, and I was pretty innocent. Well, one of the roommates always had her boyfriend over and they used to fight and fight and fight.

For me to accurately tell the story, I have to say that my roommate started many a fight and she acted like she loved the negative attention she received from her man.

One evening, two of my room-mates and I were sitting in the dining room, playing cards.

Of course at Florida A&M University they felt I needed to know how to play the popular card game, Bid Whist, so class was in session and we were enjoying the evening.

Next thing we knew we heard this loud pop like someone had been hit. Our other roommate came running out of the room, with boyfriend hot in pursuit. He threw her up against the wall. I was shocked. I didn’t know what to do.

I was the only teenager in the room and these grown women were doing nothing while he beat her.

They were used to their battles and said she was going to keep let- ting him back in so they stayed out of the fray.

Decades later, I hear they are still together, still fighting and I guess still loving one another.

Next, when I moved to Dallas in the 1980s, I was a mentor to Patrick, Sir Leland, Kamond, Chris, and Edmond at Lincoln Humanities and Communications Magnet High School.

I used to talk to these young brothers about respecting women, and not putting their hands on them. Instead, they should walk away before hitting a female.

These young brothers said “these girls are different. They are crazy. They will jack you up and try to fight you like a man. And if you act like you don’t want to talk to them, they try to call you gay.”

Still I continued to impress upon them the need to respect and love on Black women, and also to get away from situations that have the slightest potential of turning physical.

Sadly, Black women deal with so much hatred, disrespect, and so much pain that we turn around and inflict pain on one another.

And it’s not just physical pain that I am referring to.

When I tuned in to Tarrant County Commissioners Court and saw Commissioner Alisa Simmons being told by her equal on the commissioners court, County Judge Tim O’Hare to, ”sit there and be quiet,” I was enraged and glad to see that people spoke out in support of Commissioner Simmons.

Then to add insult to injury, U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) is playing victim after personally at- tacking U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX).

Rep. Greene gives new meaning to the word “gaslighting.” She tried to paint a picture of an out-of-control, over-emotional Rep. Crockett; which was definitely not the case.

In the meeting, when insulted by Greene, the freshman congresswoman asked, a hypothetical question of the chairman, “If someone on this committee then starts talking about somebody’s bleach blonde, bad-built butch body, that would not be engaging in personalities, correct?”

And while some are decrying the back and forth that ensued; social media has had a field day with memes and songs.

Please understand there’s a lot going on and there are too many who are silent.

Black women need more advocates.

We come to the aid of everyone while they are silent as we suffer.

Women have the power, and influence. We have to be our own advocates.

The more we speak up, the less we will hear or see from the likes of O’Hare, Greene and Combs.