Written by Nicole J.

Back in February, I wrote about Valencia Love, the restaurateur and child-care service provider who coughed up R. Kelly’s bail to the tune of $100,000. Now, upon more charges being filed against him, it was reported that she apparently can’t/won’t get her money back.

I guess that money believed it could fly.

We can now add “down six figures over an abuser” to the list of downsides of the blind loyalty of black women. Why she even did that in the first place is beyond me, but that chicken has come home to roost. But why am I talking about this?

This is the kind of thing that can happen when you do clearly dumb things for dumb reasons.

Now, I doubt the readers of this blog would wantonly spend a huge wad of cash to bail out a pedophile or other criminal element. But you don’t have to spend a lot of money to find yourself in a similar position, either. To describe this phenomenon, I have coined the term “pulling a Valencia”. What do I mean by that?

You’re pulling a Valencia when you keep giving that same dude (of any race) a second, tenth, and fifty-eleventh chance when he has shown you in word and in deed that he doesn’t deserve it.

You’re pulling a Valencia when you accept maltreatment from “family” or from the community because you believe that being black like you or being blood relatives means they automatically have your best interests at heart.

When you continue to support anything and anyone that doesn’t serve you? Letting your new bae drive you to work in your car when he is off gallivanting doing who knows what while you’re at your 9 to 5? Willfully having children in abject circumstances? You got it, pulling a Valencia.

My hope is that one day, black women collectively start putting our best foot forward in all that they do. I want us all to do away with behaviors, customs, and people that don’t add value to our lives. This is beyond interracial dating or cancel culture or whatever thing is trending that week.

This would be a fundamental shift of the way black women relate to the world. It’d be hard work, but I believe that the collective of black women can, and should, rise to that occasion.

Until then, though, don’t be like Valencia.