I hate the term conspiracy theory.

Historically, especially as it relates to the Black community, the term conspiracy theory was used to gaslight and delegitimize valid and provable claims of abuse against minority groups. Whether it was the planned FBI assassination of Fred Hampton, or the government having a hand in flooding the projects with drugs, those claims were dismissively labelled conspiracy theories – and then a mountain of evidence came out to suggest that they both are more likely than not.

But the other reason I hate the term conspiracy theory is because it has become a catchall for crazy-bullshit that isn’t actually rooted in any legitimate theory at all. Some of the shit that is called a conspiracy theory in 2022 is inane, anti-intellectual bullshit. You try to squeeze your ass into tight pants and the pants rip, it’s because of a multi-layered conspiracy by Zara and Goodlife Fitness to increase gym memberships. Hell, the amount of so-called conspiracy theories I found myself subject to throughout the course of the pandemic has made me never want to hear that term again.

But while many of today’s alleged conspiracies run the gamut of annoying to amusing, sometimes they cross the line of amusement into straight-up toxicity. And recently, there hasn’t been a more disgusting conflation of conspiracy within the Black community that the idea that every Black male who is accused of assaulting women, especially Black women, is somehow the victim of a targeted attack.

Ray Rice, Deshaun Watson, Bill Cosby, R. Kelly, Russell Simmons, T.I., Nas, Nelly, Tory Lanez, the nigga that bags groceries at Kroger’s or No Frills, the Soundcloud rapper who posts mixtape links in your LinkedIn inbox. Whether it’s a famous Black man, or just a random dude, the first thing Black men reflexively do whenever we hear that a Black man has assaulted a Black woman is instantaneously question the overarching motives behind her allegations, and ready ourselves to tear her the fuck down for alleging some false shit. Shit, I used to be just like that too.

At the root of this reaction is a historic conspiracy theory stating that Black men were falsely accused of predatory behaviour so that they could be jailed and killed (a theory that, much like the other historical conspiracies of anti-Blackness, have proven to be more true than not). But, like many modern conspiracy claims, the problem with today’s conspiracy is that many of the alleged victims of Black male violence are Black women, and many of the men who assault Black women are actually facing little-to-no consequence for their actions.

Deshaun Watson allegedly assaulted around two dozen Black and white women, and his punishment is becoming the highest paid football player in NFL history. The idea that he and his peers in alleged abuse are somehow the 2020 versions of Emmett Till is fucking abhorrent. And the idea that all alleged Black male abusers are somehow the real victims after Black female survivors of assault step forward to recount their ordeals, flies in the face of a startling statistical reality.

By almost every single measure of abuse, Black women absorb more than any other demographic. Black women endure a higher rate of psychological abuse than any other group of women. 40% of Black women will experience domestic violence in their lifetime which is about 10% higher than the rate for all other women. Black women are more than 2.5 times more likely to be killed by a man than white women. 92% of those murders occur at the hands of a Black man.

Yet, with those facts in place, when a Black man brutally assaults a Black woman, Black men rally together demanding to know ‘what she did to provoke him’. When a Black man is accused of sexually assaulting multiple Black women, Black men rally together to ask ‘why are they only coming forward now?’ and then to assert ‘this shit is just a conspiracy’. And when a Black man murders a Black woman, Black men rally together like white Republicans after a school shooting: we give our thoughts and prayers to the victim(s), and keep it moving (and that’s only if we decide that the Black woman isn’t responsible for her own death). But the one thing Black men won’t do is offer a teaspoon of compassion to Black women because no matter what violence befalls them, we kinda feel like they deserve it.

And the funny thing is, Black men know how to offer compassion without details. We do it every single day when another rapper gets shot or killed in the neighbourhood they grew up in. Even when male rappers get hit after presenting themselves as gangstas and murderers and going out in the world doing fuck-shit, we endlessly honour the value of Black male life, and voraciously decry violence in all its forms. So we know how to lift up victims of violence, but when it comes to Black women, we simply just don’t give a fuck.

But the net result of us not giving a fuck is seen and felt in our inability to even begin to address the avalanche of violence our women are suffering at our hands.

April 3rd, at 7pm, bree Robinson was shot and killed by her child father when going to pick up her son from his house. pic.twitter.com/9MmzauLIJs

— Alexandria (@AllyJaee7) April 5, 2022

Are there concerted efforts in our white supremacist society to tear Black men down? Undoubtedly. Should we by cynical of how Black men are piled on as being villainous? Of course. But that does not mean that we should go around propping up every nigga accused of assault like he’s the fucking modern equivalent of Medgar Evers.

The problem with the Tory Lanez discourse is that far too many Black men have already made this a referendum on the truthfulness of Black woman’s allegations of assault. Black men don’t want Tory to be innocent so he can be exonerated, Black men want Tory to be innocent so we can collectively be exonerated and released from any accountability in improving how we treat our women.

But, maybe there actually is a conspiracy here. Maybe the conspiracy is that decades after his death, a lot of the white voices and corporations that control Black social media spaces and Black news outlets are working to actively destroy the teachings of Malcolm X to keep Black women disrespected and unprotected?!

Or, simply, maybe us Black men have just become allergic to accountability.

This Is Your Conscience