There’s a well-known parable, often told in African and interfaith traditions, that speaks volumes about human nature, abundance, and how we show up for each other when the solution requires collective care.

In the story, people are seated around a large circular table, and in the center sits a lavish feast. Everything anyone could want is right there — warm, fragrant, and more than enough for all. But there’s one catch: each person is given an impossibly long wooden spoon, firmly affixed to their arms, making it impossible to bend the utensil or grip it closer to the bowl. No one can feed themselves.

In one version of the tale, the room is tense. People are starving, frustrated, even hostile. Despite the abundance in front of them, they go hungry. Every attempt to feed themselves fails.

Then in another room — same setup, same spoons, same overflowing feast, but the energy is completely different. The people are nourished, joyful, even laughing. Because instead of struggling to feed themselves, they use their long spoons to feed the person across from them. And in return, they are fed too.

The difference isn’t in the resources — it’s in the mindset.

Note: the point isn’t to engineer a workaround — it’s to confront what happens when we refuse to reach beyond ourselves.

Nowhere is this metaphor more vital than in the story of Black women and men in America.

We have always needed each other. Through slavery, segregation, economic exclusion, redlining, and mass incarceration, our unity has been our resistance. Our love has been our power. Our cooperation — our ability to hold each other up when the world tried to push us down — has been the source of our survival. But somewhere along the way, fractures materialized through trauma and deepened. And now, in too many circles, we find ourselves sitting at that table — starving in the midst of plenty — because we’ve forgotten how to reach for each other.

A History of Division by Design

The targeting of the Black family in America was never accidental. It was strategic. It was about control.

During slavery, families were routinely torn apart. Husbands sold away from wives. Mothers separated from children. Emotional bonds were a threat to the system because they created loyalties stronger than fear. Even enslaved people’s marriages were labeled “unofficial” — a way to degrade and deny the sanctity of their union.

Later, during the civil rights era and beyond, Black families continued to face systemic sabotage. The war on drugs, discriminatory housing policies, and biased policies and policing disproportionately removed Black men from homes and communities. Media narratives painted Black women as “angry” and Black men as “absent.” All of it working to dissolve the trust and closeness that had once been our anchor.

Why were we targeted? Because together, we are immensely powerful. When Black men and women build together, love together, raise families together, and heal together, we create unshakable roots. The system knew that. Broken homes meant broken progress.

Letting Go of Ego, Pain, and Survival Myths

Today, we face the remnants of those divisions — mistrust, resentment, gender wars, and misplaced pain. The loudest voices online often come from places of deep hurt. But, we cannot heal what we won’t acknowledge. We must begin to listen to each other again.

Yes, Black women have had to be strong in ways they never should have. Yes, Black men have often been denied the right to express vulnerability and emotion. But strength is not stoicism. And survival is not the same as healing.

Healing requires discourse. Understanding. Accountability. It requires Black women and men to stop seeing each other as adversaries or abandoned allegiances to start seeing each other as partners in liberation. It’s not easy. Butterflies don’t just sprout wings — they quite literally rearrange their internal organs in the chrysalis. Transformation is painful, messy, and uncomfortable. But, it is the only way we ever hope to fly.

The End of the Story — Or Not

If we don’t do the work — the listening, the forgiving, the re-centering — we risk losing more than each other. We risk losing our legacy. The warm whispered stories passed from griot to child. The laughter of full tables. The building of generational wealth. The roots and wings of the Black family.

We are seated at the same table, still holding long spoons. What we do next will decide whether we feed each other — or starve.

We’ve always needed each other—and we still do. But this moment isn’t just about survival. It’s about legacy. It’s about building lives rich with love, power, joy, grace, and continuity. That kind of abundance doesn’t happen in isolation. It’s only possible when we choose to pour into each other.

So let’s choose that. Not out of desperation, but out of vision. Out of love. Out of knowing what’s possible when we remember who the *bleep* we are.

Sources:

Urban Institute. (2023). Black Family Thriving: A Pilot Study of Wealth Building among the Black Middle Class. https://www.urban.org/sites/default/files/2024-03/Black_Family_Thriving_A_Pilot_Study_of_Wealth_Building_among_the_Black_Middle_Class.pdfUrban Institute

Waymaker Journal. (2023). Family Ties: How Resilience, Community, and Faith Shape Black Families. https://www.waymakerjournal.com/family-ties-resilience-community-faith-black-families/waymakerjournal.com

Alexander, M. (2010). The new Jim Crow: Mass incarceration in the age of colorblindness. The New Press.

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Davis, A. Y. (1983). Women, race, & class. Vintage Books.

hooks, b. (2004). We real cool: Black men and masculinity. Routledge.

Roberts, D. (1997). Killing the Black body: Race, reproduction, and the meaning of liberty. Pantheon Books.

Rothstein, R. (2017). The color of law: A forgotten history of how our government segregated America. Liveright Publishing Corporation.

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Wilson, W. J. (1987). The truly disadvantaged: The inner city, the underclass, and public policy. University of Chicago Press.

Yancy, G. (Ed.). (2014). Black bodies, white gazes: The continuing significance of race. Rowman & Littlefield.