WE CANNOT KEEP LOOSING THEM
On the Black women we have buried this month and the radical love it will take to stop the cycle.
From slowburnlove.com WE CANNOT KEEP LOOSING THEM: On the Black women we have buried this month and the radical love it will take to stop the cycle 4/19/2026#afrofuturism #SpiritandDom #SlowBurnLove #RomanceNovels #Booklover #BlackAuthors #GenderWars #BreakingCycles #BlackRomance #misogynoir
This has been a heavy week.
A heavy month.
Another name. Another vigil. Another story that ended inside what should have been the safest place in the world: a loving relationship. Black women are dying at the hands of the men they love, and as a community, we owe them more than grief. We owe them change.
These are not random tragedies. These situations sit inside a long history of misogynoir - the specific hatred and devaluation of Black women - that makes our pain easier to ignore and our safety easier to gamble with.
Black women are killed by intimate partners at nearly triple the rate of white women. According to the Violence Policy Center, 733 Black women and girls were killed by male perpetrators in a single recent reporting year, nearly a third of all female homicide victims in that category nationwide. Nine out of ten of those women knew their killers. Most of those women loved them.
Black women represent approximately 14% of the U.S. female population, yet account for 31% of intimate partner homicides. They are three and a half times more likely to be killed by a partner than white women. These are not statistics. They are our daughters, our sisters, our friends. (CDC, MMWR, August 2024)
We have to sit in that. We have to let it move us past posting and into practicing something different. Something more intentional, more sacred, more rooted in mutual care. The conversation we are not having loudly enough is about how we should be loving each other. That conversation begins with two words most people have not heard yet but need to.
Words we need right now
Philogynoir
fil·oh·JY·nwar
The love, deep admiration, and celebration of Black women in their full humanity. Coined in response to "misogynoir," the unique intersection of racism and misogyny directed at Black women, philogynoir names its opposite: the intentional, conscious practice of honoring, protecting, seeing, and elevating. It is active, vocal, embodied love.
Philandronoir
fil·AN·droh·nwar
The love, deep admiration, and compassionate regard for Black men in their full humanity. Black men must be held accountable for harm, but they must also be seen and loved in the fullness of who they are. Not as a monolith, as people shaped by their own wounds but capable of extraordinary tenderness and growth. Philandronoir is the refusal to write Black men off, paired with the insistence that they rise.
These two practices should never be in competition. They are the twin pillars of Black love done right. We need both of them - urgently.
For Black men
5 ways to practice philogynoir toward the women you love
These are not abstract ideals; they are daily practices Black men can choose in relationships with the Black women they love - romantic partners, family, and community.
Listen to understand, not to respond.
When a Black woman tells you she is hurting or scared, resist the urge to defend, dismiss, or fix. Simply be present. Deep listening says: your inner world matters, I am not going anywhere, and I love you because of it. Many of the women we have lost tried to communicate fear before the end. Being truly heard can be lifesaving.
Unlearn the need for control.
Coercive control, including monitoring her movements, isolating her from family, and making threats, is the documented pattern that precedes most intimate partner femicides. Controlling behavior is not love. If you feel the urge to control a woman rather than communicate with her, that is a sign you need support. Seek therapy, seek brotherhood, seek accountability.
Celebrate her publicly and protect her privately.
Philogynoir shows up in small moments: defending her when she is talked about sideways, telling her she is beautiful without being prompted, backing her vision without jealousy. It also shows up in hard moments: not weaponizing her vulnerabilities, not threatening her in anger, not making home a place she has to escape from.
Do your emotional work before it becomes her emergency.
Black men carry extraordinary pain: generational trauma, racial stress, and a culture that rarely permits grief. When that pain goes unprocessed, it finds a target. Going to therapy, building emotional vocabulary, and processing anger before it erupts is not weakness. It is the most loving thing a man can do for the woman in his life.
Let her leave without punishment.
Research consistently shows the most dangerous moment for a woman in an abusive relationship is when she tries to leave. If a woman decides a relationship is over, love means releasing her with dignity, even if it hurts. Her right to live free of harm is not negotiable. Honoring that is the final and highest act of philogynoir.
For Black women
5 ways to practice philandronoir toward the men you love
Honoring Black men's humanity does not mean tolerating abuse; boundaries and safety come first, always. Philandronoir is about how we love the Black men who are willing to love, grow, and be accountable in return.
See him, not just what you need him to be.
Philandronoir begins with truly seeing the man in front of you: his fears, his limits, his dreams, his wounds. Black men are often either idealized or demonized and neither is love. Ask him questions. Sit with his answers. Let him be fully human.
Create emotional safety so he can be honest.
Black men have been conditioned to suppress vulnerability. If every time he opens up his words are mocked or weaponized against him later, he will close. Philandronoir means building a space where a man can say "I am struggling" without it becoming a burden he carries alone.
Hold him accountable with love, not contempt.
There is a difference between saying "what you did was wrong and I need better from you" and treating someone as fundamentally irredeemable. Philandronoir is not about excusing harm. It is about believing a man is capable of growing from it. Speak truth firmly, but from a place of belief in who he can become.
Encourage him toward healing without becoming his therapist.
Loving a Black man well sometimes means pointing him toward professional support when he needs it rather than absorbing his unprocessed pain yourself. You can be his partner without being his entire emotional infrastructure. Encouraging therapy, community, and brotherhood is one of the most profound acts of philandronoir.
Know the difference between loving him and losing yourself.
True philandronoir is not martyrdom. You cannot love someone into wholeness at the cost of your safety or your life. Recognizing the signs of controlling behavior and taking them seriously is also an act of love. You deserve to be safe.