Black love is a beautiful thing. It’s also a powerful thing. A thing that can bring you great joy and even bring you to tears. When you truly love someone, a person with whom you have years, a family, and a bond with, you are protective of them. (I notice this in myself when someone cops an attitude with my husband — I’m not having it!) Therefore, the idea of anyone doing actual harm to the man or woman you love can rouse strong emotions, like the kind many people saw rapper and entrepreneur Bun B, born Bernard Freeman, display in a courtroom recently. He was testifying in a case against a man who, in 2019, broke into his home and held his wife, Chalvalier Freeman, aka, Queenie, at gunpoint during an attempted robbery.
Emotional testimony was shared throughout the case, including from the family of the 25-year-old man, Demonte Jackson, who broke into the couple’s home. But no tears were more powerful than those shed by Queenie and Bun B. While Jackson didn’t get away with any items from the family’s home, receiving a gunshot wound to the shoulder after exchanging fire with Bun B, but he did take peace of mind and a feeling of safety away from Queenie that has changed her.
“Just the idea of seeing my wife in this state, hearing her voice in this state. I’m her husband, that’s my primary job, is to protect her and make her feel safe. And I wanted to know who’d done this to her,” he said when recalling that day in 2019.
It was shared that Queenie was never comfortable in their home again. The couple moved shortly after the incident and now has private security, but the trauma still haunts her. Even seeing Jackson in the courtroom when she took the stand for the first time overwhelmed Queenie to the point where a recess had to be called. When she returned to the stand, she shared her recollections of the home invasion.
“He put a gun in between my eyes, and it was cold,” she recalled through tears. “And he said ‘B–ch’ give me everything you’ve got.”
However, the rap icon’s tears seem to have had the most impact. People have been talking online, some ignorantly, focusing more on the tears he shed instead of the reason why he shed them while sharing his testimony.
“There are times where she gets closed off. She can’t communicate, and I just get so angry all over again because she didn’t deserve this,” Bun B said, attempting to talk through tears. “She didn’t ask for this.”
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He cried, not because he was scared or sad, but because Bernard, or Bun B, was angry to a point that most people can’t understand and don’t want to. And yet, I see comments online about him not presenting as the man he claims to be in his music, even some remarks about “snitching” because he was testifying against Jackson.
I don’t pay most comment sections mind because there are so many people who live in them, who prefer trolling over rational thought, and throw shade for likes and laughs. It’s sad to witness and scary to think about as a parent with children growing up in the social media era. But I wanted to speak on this because I was moved by Bun B’s tears, despite the mixed bag of responses. They showed a true love and desire to protect his wife of more than 20 years, because what use is success and the trappings that come with it if you can’t keep the ones you love most safe (mentally and physically)?
They also showed me true rage. People tend to get tears confused as a sign of weakness only, that you’re taking things to the heart, and that’s just not the case. We all experience anger differently, and sometimes tears fall because your face is hot and you want to get your hands on someone, but you know you can’t. You want to exact your own revenge, but that’s not possible. The fact that he started to cry when he shared the ways in which their ordeal had affected her and their marriage, and the mention of his anger, made that clear. The man who had turned Queenie’s life upside down was sitting across from him, looking for a way out of accountability for his crime.
Tears are the expression of stress. They are also an expression, as mentioned, of love. If Bun B didn’t truly adore his wife, he wouldn’t protect her privacy in the way that he does. He wouldn’t have come to her rescue on that fateful day. He wouldn’t be emotional recounting the fear he heard in her voice and what it led him to do. So how has the conversation turned so quickly from the horrific experience of this man and his wife to one about speaking to the police and not being the “gansta” folks believed him to be? Get a grip.
There are way too many people out there who clearly haven’t been through anything traumatic, who like to get on social media and pick apart people for the way they express themselves. Who say individuals should live and die by an image portrayed in rap lyrics and see an expression of emotions as frailty. Who haven’t been in a courtroom, staring at the person who did a loved one wrong. Who haven’t had a loved one forever impacted by the decisions of another. Snitching? Weak? How can one be so dense as to come to such a conclusion about a man’s expressions of love for his partner?
The standards we hold others to are not often the ones we hold ourselves to. The grace we would give ourselves for bawling over the pain and sadness of a loved one, we can’t seem to extend to others…because the Internet. But I feel for the Freemans. I feel for Queenie. I hope, with the proper support and therapy, and with Jackson sentenced to 40 years in prison, she can feel truly safe again. I feel for Bun B, having to watch the woman he loves change because of circumstances out of his control. Perhaps, with some justice done, he and his wife will be able to move forward with peace of mind. But I also feel for our culture, if people who were violated at gunpoint in a home they worked for and loved, share their hurt over it only to become part of a ridiculous debate on street cred and masculinity, as opposed to people we support and uplift. We must do better.
