It has become ingrained in Black and Brown women to do the impossible: to betray ourselves over and over for men who do not reciprocate.
This complex reaction belongs to so many first-born daughters of immigrants, to so many women and femmes, to many of us who grew up in one-parent and/or unstable homes.
In a world where we have to lean on one another, this sounds normal — righteous— except the inheritance of colonialism has sullied it.