Yesterday I shared a story about all of the Black women who are gone. 64,000 since 2010.

That’s like one Boko Haram raid has been performed on the Black girls and women of America, every week for the past four years. Only, no hashtags and very little discussion.

So, what do I do, as a father of two Black girls? I posed this question to someone on Facebook not long ago. The answer was not surprising. Teach them to fight.

I have a Facebook friend who has successfully demonstrated (on her son, naturally) that those long silver hairpins have are useful for more than maintaining a protective style. She’s clutched long seashells between her fingers like Wolverine, and she’s shown how to turn her head wrap into a garrote. I want her to be my girls’ sensei.

The neighborhood dojo is great if your child has the will to invest herself in the study of a martial art. But what about when your children are  mathematicians, painters or dancers (like my girls). They aren’t going to invest the years in the study of proper stance and execution.

Which is all good, because I don’t want them to square off against a male aggressor and put up their dukes. I don’t want them to feel like they have to transform themselves into Amazon warriors, unless that’s what they want.

That doesn’t mean they are allowed to give up. They still have to learn to protect themselves. They’ll just do it dirty.

I remember the stories of the girls in Philly, who used to spit razor blades. I’m not sure about the spitting part, but I know they held them in their mouths between their gums and their cheeks. If a man made the mistake of fighting one of them, it might be the last mistake they made.

I don’t advise this. Just thinking about it makes my throat hurt. But, let’s push past any notions of civility and lady like behavior aside when it comes down to a life and death struggle. You don’t have to learn how to do a spinning back kick, but you do have to keep your eyes open and be willing to be two times more gruesome than your attacker expects.

And even that might not work. Some of these abductions have been linked to human trafficking. It’s no coincidence that Atlanta Georgia is both the Strip Club and abduction capital of the dirty South. Some of these guys are professional kidnappers.

All the more reason to learn to fight dirty. Learn to handle a firearm. Carry a knife or three. Spit razor blades, jab with hat pins and wield weaponized sea shells.