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The most disrespected person in America is the Black woman. The most unprotected person in America is the Black woman. The most neglected person in America is the Black woman.

—Malcolm X, Black Muslim minister and civil rights activist

SIX

Say Her Name: Black Women’s Fatigue

Malcolm X’s assessment has not changed since 1962 when he famously uttered these words. I live at the intersection of Blackness and womanhood. This intersection is fraught with its own unique manifestations of fatigue, some of which I have pointed out in previous chapters.

I shared in the introduction that as a cisgender, heterosexual, college-educated, able-bodied, middle-class Black woman I am in many ways privileged. I do not claim to have lived the experiences of my similarly hued sisters. I speak from my life and do not represent all who identify as Black women. I know that there are similarities from decades of relationships with Black women from different walks of life, and the stories we share with each other often carry similar threads. They are messages of pride and power often juxtaposed to deep feelings of self-doubt and helplessness. They are stories of achieving against all odds and stories of exasperation from not being able to find our way out of the perpetual maze of anti-Black racism unique to Black women. They are stories of faith, strength, resilience, and hope along with stories of neglect, abuse, and violence. They are stories of passion and “magic” against a backdrop of labels like “angry” and “less innocent.” Black women have amassed a treasure trove of wisdom from living with our identities, but too often our voices are silenced, ignored, or denied.

Even with these shared experiences, no two of us are exactly alike. I offer my stories and those of several other Black women in this chapter, acknowledging that this does not scratch the surface of characterizing who and what we are.

Beyond our skin color and often hair texture, what do Black women in the United States have in common? We know from chapter 4 that as a group we suffer disproportionately in health outcomes.

Black women also share a greater likelihood of being incarcerated (twice as likely as white women)1 and killed by law enforcement (1.3 times more likely), and they are more likely to live in poverty (21 percent of Black women versus 9.7 percent of white women),2 never marry (50 percent versus 33 percent for white women), be single mothers (54 percent), and fare worse in the workplace (underemployed and underpaid), all issues discussed in this chapter.

Sister Marjorie’s Story

Sister Marjorie, as she was affectionately called, was my sister-in-law. She was the sister of my late husband, whom I referenced in chapter 1. I loved her like a sister and marveled at her heart full of grace that never wavered, even in the wake of numerous challenges. Sister Marjorie identified as a Black woman. She passed away recently at age 67 after a seven-year battle with breast cancer. I don’t feel that I am exaggerating when I say that she lived her life in a way that would qualify her for sainthood. She embodied unwavering faith, strength, humility, intelligence, service, and resilience. Married young, she birthed four children in the span of 6 years, and even though she was married for 17 years before divorcing, her husband was in and out of the household during that time, providing inconsistent financial support to the family. They often lived at the front door of poverty.

Sister Marjorie grew up in urban Washington, DC, in the 1960s along with her four siblings, including my late husband, Joe, reared by a low-income single mother. Raised as a devout Catholic, Sister Marjorie even considered becoming a nun but wanted children. She converted to Islam in the early 1970s, attracted by its messages of self-love and liberation, and made the pilgrimage to Mecca five times. Life was not easy for Marjorie and her children. She had left college after her freshman year to marry. However, despite financial constraints, she was committed to being there for her children without giving up her dream of finishing her college education. Without a driver’s license or car, she returned to college part time in 1981 and made straight As while also tutoring students in computer programming. She completed her bachelor’s degree within five years and landed a project manager job with Bell South (which later became AT&T), from where she retired in 2015.

In her obituary, written by one of her daughters, Jamillah, who graduated with honors with an electrical engineering degree from Duke University and later a PhD in Islamic studies, she says of her mother:

She walked distances with us to catch the bus because she didn’t have a car. And when she finally did get one, she offered ride after ride to sisters in need. After saving to buy a house, she struggled to manage the needed repairs. She taught us to obey Allah, reminding us when we failed, holding us through the hardships, and lifting us when we turned back to God. My mother treated strangers as they were old friends, providing warm beds and unforgettable meals for extended family and new acquaintances. I remember her loading tables and trays of food into her car, even when she was ill, to transport to the homeless. Truly, in her deepest suffering, she did everything in her power to lighten the burdens of others, until she just couldn’t do it anymore.

Her four children, now all professionally successful, inherited the spirit of giving and service from their mother. When her youngest son committed robbery as a teenager, she was the one who turned him into authorities and then faithfully made the two-hour trip to visit him every other week for 15 years so that he would never forget that he was still loved. As a result of unsuccessful appeals for an early release based on good behavior, he served the entire sentence.

Within the Muslim community, she founded organizations to uplift youths and feed the hungry. My fondest memories of Sister Marjorie are our loving and engaging conversations in her kitchen as I watched her prepare meals for the homeless. She worked tirelessly, never complaining, in service of others and loved everyone in her path unconditionally. She never complained of being fatigued, but I know that she was.

To one degree or another, Sister Marjorie’s story is the story of many Black women. I know and have known many Sister Marjories who have simultaneously faced poverty and found themselves as single mothers attempting to protect their children while instilling strong values. I know others who have supported someone close who has been incarcerated, and others who have faced life-threatening diseases like cancer. Like Sister Marjorie, many of us are strong in our faith, as I mentioned in chapter 4. And many of us earnestly believe that it is our purpose to serve those in need, to give back, to share, to sacrifice, to care as much about others as we do ourselves, all without complaint and as best as possible, without letting the fatigue imperil us.

Say Her Name

As mentioned in chapter 3, Black women also are disproportionately targeted by law enforcement; however, these incidents receive little media attention. Black women are disproportionately killed, raped, and subjected to inhumane treatment. This lack of coverage was painfully evident when Nancy Grace, a former prosecutor turned media personality, reported on missing women. All of the women Grace reported about were white, and the obvious lack of coverage about missing Black women led the late PBS NewsHour anchor Gwen Ifill to coin the phrase “missing White woman syndrome” to describe the media’s exclusive focus on white women.

Even with the new focus on police killings of Black people, it is still difficult to find the stories about any of the known Black women mentioned in SayHerName reports.3 The SayHerName movement was started by the African American Policy Forum with a report coauthored by Andrea J. Ritchie and Kimberlé Crenshaw. Ritchie is a lawyer and activist for women of color, and Crenshaw is a full-time professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, School of Law and Columbia Law School known for introducing the concept of intersectionality specific to the intersection of race and gender. I referenced Crenshaw in chapter 5. The concept emerged from three legal cases that Crenshaw critiqued in a 1989 paper4 dealing with the issues of both racial discrimination and sex discrimination. The court had decided that efforts that combine both racial discrimination and sex discrimination claims were not valid. The judge ruled against the plaintiffs, saying that Black women could not be considered a separate, protected class within the law, or else it would risk opening a “Pandora’s box” of minorities who would demand to be heard based on intersections.

Years later, in 2015, the Say Her Name: Resisting Police Brutality against Black Women report was published, with the goal of bringing attention to the incidents involving Black women who are not often given the same spotlight as Black men. The report gathers stories of Black women who have been killed by police and who have experienced gender-specific forms of police violence and provides some analytical frames for understanding their experiences. Despite being 7 percent of the population, Black women have accounted for 20 percent of the unarmed people killed by police since 1999.5 Breonna Taylor’s 2020 murder by the police, mentioned in the preface, garned widespread attention along with the Ahmaud Arbery and George Floyd killings, which happened around the same time and sparked the Black Lives Matter protests.

Stand by Your Man

Black women experience domestic violence at higher rates than white women. According to the Blackburn Center, 40 percent of Black women will experience domestic violence in their lifetime, compared with 31 percent of white women, and are 2.5 times more likely to be killed by their partner than white women, causing the Black Women’s Health Project to declare domestic violence the number one health issue facing Black women.6 I explore the reasons for these disturbing statistics in chapter 7. I know women who have left abusive relationships. I know women who have stayed in abusive relationships. Black women are taught that they should protect Black men and boys at all costs. According to Tricia B. Bent-Goodley, professor of social work at Howard University, “Black women have been found to withstand abuse, subordinate feelings and concerns with safety, and make a conscious self-sacrifice for what is perceived as the greater good of the community, but to their own physical, psychological and spiritual detriment.”7

The reasons for the disturbing level of abuse and violence are complex and are captured by Joy DeGruy in Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome. She says, “The enslavement experience was one of continued violent attacks on the mind, body and spirit. Men, women and children were traumatized throughout their lives and the violent attacks during slavery persisted long after emancipation. In the face of these injuries, those traumatized adapted their attitudes and behaviors in order to simply survive and these adaptations continue to manifest today.”8

Strong Faith

Black women are more likely than Black men to turn to their faith to cope with abuse, racism, and sexism. While Black men and women are both more religious than white men and women, according to a Pew Research survey, 80 percent of Black women answered that religion was very important to them, compared with 69 percent of Black men. Moreover, 78 percent of Black men believe in God with absolute certainty, versus 86 percent of Black women.9 Results from a study published in the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion show that religious guidance and being active with a religious community moderate the effects of racism on psychological distress, offsetting but not buffering the effects of discrimination.10

“Just pray on it” is often the advice that Black women give each other and others to deal with their life’s burdens. Strong belief in an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent God who would never leave us or forsake us is how many of us endure. The Black church is a place of refuge where you know your Blackness is unconditionally accepted; you are uplifted and supported and leave Sunday service with the strength to survive another week. “Faith without works is dead” (James 2:26). It is the combination of our faith and persistent work for justice that has brought us this far. Black women are able to thrive in spite of centuries of denigration.

Black Women and Body Image

As in every other aspect of society, dominant culture defines beauty too. The Western world has a Eurocentric concept of beauty—thin, white or very light skin, long hair (preferably blond), and blue eyes. During slavery, Black women’s bodies were violated, and negative images surfaced of Black women as hyper-sexualized breeders whom slave owners used to populate their slave stock. The historical image of Black women in media was either that of an overweight “mammy” or that of a hypersexual “Jezebel.” During the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests for racial justice, Quaker Oats decided to discontinue its 130-year-old stereotypical Aunt Jemima mammy imagery and branding.11

Halle Berry is still the only Black woman to win an Oscar (2001) for Best Actress for her performance in Monster’s Ball. Some critics say that it was not her best performance and that it exploited the stereotype of the hypersexualized Black woman. Angela Bassett publicly stated that she turned down the role for that reason.

By and large, Black women do not fit the image of the dominant view of beauty. African features are considered ugly and less desirable. Michelle Obama and former Obama aide Valerie Jarrett have been likened to apes. In addition, Black women, unlike white women, are rarely characterized as feminine or delicate and needing protection. In chapter 8 I discuss how the perception of needing less protection starts during childhood.

There are a number of high-profile examples of “body shaming” directed at Black women. Here are three examples. When tennis phenom Serena Williams sported a catsuit-type outfit, it was banned by the French Open even though Anne White wore a similar outfit in 1985. White’s body type was thin, in contrast to Williams’s thick, curvy body type. Serena and her sister Venus have been subjected to numerous comments in the media about their body types. Misty Copeland was the first African American woman to be named principal dancer at the American Ballet Theatre, but when she was 13, she was turned down by a ballet academy for having the wrong body type—too muscular. Popular singer Lizzo, who has built a reputation for her unapologetic and positive body imaging and self-love messages, has been body shamed by fitness enthusiasts for her plus-size body type.

Even though 80 percent of Black women are classified as overweight according to body mass index standards,12 based on a number of studies, Black women are satisfied with their bodies and are motivated to lose weight based on health-related concerns, not Western standards of beauty.13 As a matter of fact, intraculturally, larger body frames are more often viewed positively than negatively. It is considered a compliment when a Black woman is described as “thick and curvy.” It is the white world (dominant culture) that has stamped “bad” on plus-size women. Beyoncé was recently criticized by the Black community for excluding plus sizes in her new line of athletic clothing, the Adidas X Ivy Park collection.

Another important example of the criticism of Black women for their looks is the controversy over natural hair. Based on a study conducted by Cornell University School of Industrial and Labor Relations students in 2016, while the corporate world “accepts” women with natural hair, it is considered less professional, especially by white women.14 I shared my hair experience from the 1970s in chapter 1. Then is now—in 2019, there were media accounts that actress Gabrielle Union was fired from America’s Got Talent after she reported racist remarks by show leaders. She said that she was also told on numerous occasions that her hairstyles were too Black.15 In the introduction, I mentioned the CROWN Act, recent legislation that was needed to protect the rights of Black people to wear our hair in its natural state as a result of numerous incidents over recent years in which schools and workplaces have attempted to ban such styles. This type of oppression is an example of white supremacy. As fatiguing is the all-too-common question asked by white people, “Can I touch your hair?” The stress associated with perhaps wanting to preserve the relationship with the inquirer while at the same time needing to correct this microaggression as totally inappropriate on several levels is yet something else that many Black women have to deal with as a part of their day-to-day journey.

Colorism is another issue for Black women. Lighter skin is often seen as “better than” dark skin, even intragroup. White and Black people are more favorably disposed toward people with lighter skin, rating them as smarter, wealthier, and happier in surveys. Black people used to discriminate against each other by denying membership to certain organizations if one could not pass the brown paper bag test. While colorism affects all Black people, intragroup, it is more prominent for women as Black women often perceive darker-skinned Black men as more desirable. The skin-lightening industry for women is estimated to be over $10 billion globally. Attention to this bias has mitigated it over the years and it is now more common to see dark-skinned Black women being included in the spectrum of what constitutes beauty, such as South Sudanese model Nyakim Gatwech, who was nonetheless told in 2016 by an Uber driver to bleach her skin.

Black Women and the Workforce

Black women, on average, earn sixty-two cents to every dollar that a white man earns. White women make eighty-two cents to every dollar a white man earns.16 The higher level of education does not change the wage gaps. Among doctorate degree holders, for instance, Black women earn 60 percent of what white men do, and white women earn 7 percent more than Black women.17

The median annual income for Black women is $34,008, compared with $42,484 for white women and $61,576 for white men.18 As mentioned in chapter 3, the net worth of a single Black woman without a bachelor’s degree is $500 and with a bachelor’s degree is $5,000.

In February 2019, the Economic Policy Institute posted a blog entry that started with this statement: “The black woman’s experience in America provides arguably the most overwhelming evidence of the persistent and ongoing drag from gender and race discrimination on the economic fate of workers and families.”19 The post asserts that since slavery, Black women have fared the worst in the labor market because of discriminatory practices, as well as demeaning perceptions of Black women and their role. Black women have been perceived as “workers” and not women who might choose to stay at home with children as white women did.

In 1880, 35.4 percent of married Black women and 73.3 percent of single Black women were in the labor force, compared with only 7.3 percent of married white women and 23.8 percent of single white women. These differences extended into the 1970s, when, even after marriage, white women would typically exit the labor force. Black women were forced to stay in the labor market, not just because it was an expectation but also because Black men could not find adequate employment (forced to take lower-paying, less stable jobs) because of discrimination and therefore Black women, often in domestic roles, became cobreadwinners in married households. Today over 80 percent of Black mothers are the primary breadwinners for their families, compared with 50 percent of white women.20

Black women have been and continue to be overrepresented in low-wage jobs with fewer legal protections. As an example, the Social Security Act of 1935 primarily excluded Black women until the 1960s. Caseworkers denied most poor Black women cash assistance under the act because they expected Black women to be employed mothers and not stay-at-home moms like white women. The New Deal minimum wage, overtime pay, and collective bargaining legislation excluded the main sectors where Black women worked—domestic service and farming. Corrections have been made since then, but there are still gaps that disadvantage Black women. Moreover, Black women continue to be overrepresented in low-paying jobs that do not provide benefits such as sick pay, health insurance, maternity leave, and retirement plans. For example, 36 percent of Black women workers have jobs that do not provide paid sick leave,21 compounding the health issues highlighted in chapter 4. These inequities were highlighted during the 2020 coronavirus pandemic. Black women were more likely to be in essential jobs that put them at greater risk of contracting the virus or in nonessential jobs where they faced furloughs or layoffs.

Workplace Experiences

Study after study confirms that Black women face a great deal of racism and sexism in the workplace. Navigating the intersection of race and gender in work environments with deep-seated cultural biases is fatiguing. Whether we work in an entry-level job or have made it into leadership, our identities as Black women shape narratives that are very different from those of other identity groups. For example, stereotypes that Black women must overcome in workplace include being aggressive, opinionated, and angry. We are criticized for our appearance, as pointed out earlier in this chapter. As I highlighted in chapter 1, when I was in the corporate world, I spent a lot of time trying not to be too aggressive, yet assertive enough so as not to be labeled too passive; both are characterizations that I received. As previously mentioned, I was told that I should straighten my hair when I sported a short Afro style. The fatigue of trying to change myself to fit some archetype of the corporate culture led me to leave the company. According to a survey by the Center for Talent Innovation, 36 percent of Black women said they intend to leave their current employment, versus 27 percent of white women.22

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Black women
Source: The Winters Group, Inc. Art by Krystle Nicholas.

The “angry Black woman” is probably the most fatiguing stereotype to manage. I contend that as Black women we have a lot to be angry about. Brittany J. Harris, vice president of learning and innovation at The Winters Group, put it this way in a post in our Inclusion Solution newsletter. “I find it fascinating how I’ve essentially learned (internalized) that suppressing my feelings, truth, and anger (despite how much studies show this can be a detriment to my health) is worth not being characterized as or associated with being an ‘Angry Black Woman.’” She goes on to ask, “What is wrong with anger? Anger is a very real and valid feeling. It is (or should be) an acceptable response to mistreatment and discrimination. It has been proven to be a powerful channel for action, change, and impact.”23

Expressing anger may lead to tone policing: If only you had said it with less anger, maybe you would have been heard. We have been socialized not to show too much emotion in the workplace, fearing that we will be negatively labeled. Continually suppressing authentic emotions is fatiguing and bad for our health. Those who are tempted to tone police, might pay more attention to the root of the anger rather than their discomfort with the tone.

These experiences can lead to internalized oppression, which is when we believe the negative stereotypes about our group that have been perpetuated by the dominant group. I think internalized oppression is more common than we know because there is little research on its widespread impact on feelings of self-doubt, its erosion of self-esteem and self-worth, and its generation of helplessness and hopelessness. Internalized oppression generated by systemic racism can lead to a feeling of needing constantly to be on guard and increase stress levels.

A 2018 report by Catalyst, an organization that researches workplace experiences for women, titled Day-to-Day Experiences of Emotional Tax among Women and Men of Color in the Workplace 24 found that as a result of, or in anticipation of, unfair treatment, professionals of color report a high number of instances of being “on guard” to protect themselves against racial and gender bias, causing what they describe as an emotional tax. An emotional tax is the combination of feeling different from peers at work because of gender, race, or ethnicity and the associated effects on health, well-being, and ability to thrive at work.25

Of the 1,569 professionals surveyed for the study, researchers found that across the board, more than half of all women of any given background reported being highly on guard. Black women led the group, with 58 percent saying that they felt on guard throughout their professional lives, followed by 56 percent of Latinas, 52 percent of multiracial women, and 51 percent of Asian women.

“Women of color continue to deal with some of the workplace’s most entrenched hurdles, such as pay inequities and near invisibility in top leadership roles, as well as daunting roadblocks that stifle the meaningful dialogue that would help make real progress,” according to the study authors. “Over time, these daily battles take a heavy toll on women of color, creating a damaging link between their health and the workplace.”26 Asian, Black, and Latinx respondents who reported higher levels of being on guard were also more likely to report sleep problems (58 percent) than those with lower levels of being on guard (12 percent).27

Confirming the results from the Catalyst study, Lean In and McKinsey and Company conduct an annual report on women in the workplace. According to the 2019 report, Black women continue to experience the worst workplace outcomes. For example, Black women are much less likely than any other group to feel they have an equal opportunity to grow and advance, that the best opportunities go to the most deserving employees, and that they are supported by their managers. They also report that they are less happy at work and more likely to leave their company than white women.28 This and other studies confirm that Black women are likely to report being just as ambitious as white women, if not more so, desiring higher-level roles in their organizations, but they are the least likely to be promoted. Black women represent 18 percent of the professional workforce, according to the Lean In and McKinsey and Company study, but occupy only 4 percent of the C-suite, compared with 30 percent and 18 percent for white women. The frustration of being passed over again and again is fatiguing and leads to a higher number of Black women leaving the corporate world and striking out on their own like I did. According to Inc. magazine,29 the number of white women–owned businesses grew 40 percent from 1997 to 2016, while those owned by Black and Hispanic women showed growth rates at 518 percent and 452 percent, respectively.

Black women (and men—see chapter 7) face daily microaggressions at work, defined as brief, sometimes subtle, everyday comments that either consciously or unconsciously disparage others based on their personal characteristics or perceived group membership.30 Three categories of microaggressions that can occur in everyday interactions are microassaults, microinsults, and microinvalidations. While “microaggressions” is the commonly used and understood term, I believe that the impact can be “macro” on Black people, not “micro.” I thus suggest we drop “micro” and call them aggressions.

Microassaults: Conscious, deliberate, and either subtly or explicitly biased attitudes, beliefs, or behaviors that are communicated to marginalized groups through verbalizations or behaviors.

Microinsults: Interpersonal communications that convey stereotypes, rudeness, and insensitivity and that demean a person’s identity. Unlike microassaults, microinsults are often committed unconsciously and may seem more subtle.

Microinvalidations: Communication cues that exclude, negate, or nullify the thoughts, feelings, or experiential realities of certain groups.

Microaggressions in the workplace are fatiguing to manage on a daily basis. When do you let them go? When do you speak up? What is the interpretation on the part of the aggressor—that you are being too sensitive? Will it affect your career chances if you say something?

Chief Counselor and Consoler Fatigue

Black women are often de facto chief counselors and consolers for other Black people in the workplace. Often there are so few Black people of influence in the organization that newer or lower-level hires do not know whom to turn to when they need to bare their souls about their less-than-inclusive experiences. My daughter had a chief counselor and consoler when she was in corporate America, another Black woman with whom she could share her frustrations. Once she retired, my daughter’s days were numbered in the corporate world.

In higher education, Black women professors, in particular, find themselves counseling students who are not even in their classes. In the business world, accounts of younger Black professionals seeking support from more seasoned employees are not uncommon. And if your formal role relates to diversity, equity, and inclusion in the organization, it takes its toll when you are not able to change systems for the better. The chief counselor and consoler role adds to the emotional burden and is fatiguing.

On Every Diversity Committee Fatigue

Black women and Black men are fatigued by being tokenized. As an example, we are often tapped for every committee that has “diversity” in the name. For some reason white people think that diversity, by default, means you pick the Black person. Recently, a client was sharing the list of people the company was selecting for a newly formed diversity committee, and the names she read mostly sounded like Black, Latino, or Asian ones. I asked how many white males would be on the committee, and she kept naming the same names. She thought I did not want white men on the committee and said, We only have four. Is that OK? When I explained that I asked because the committee should not just be people of color and women, she was surprised.

Black women who serve on these committees do it in addition to their functional responsibilities and attempts to balance work and life. It is most often uncompensated. Leaders should consider the additional labor (emotional and physical) needed to serve in these capacities and fairly compensate. It is fatiguing to be overworked, and it is even more fatiguing not to be compensated for it.

A Strained Sisterhood: Black Women and White Women

The archetype of “Karen” has recently become a popular meme to describe middle-aged white women who exploit their privilege, entitlement, and racism. “Karen” incidents that have gone viral on the internet, showing white women challenging Black people’s right to be where they are and doing what they are doing. For example, demanding to know if a family has the right to be barbecuing in a public park or building a deck in their yard or the right to be stenciling Black Lives Matter in chalk on their own property. Often, “Karen” calls 911 and/or claims that she is being physically assaulted. Amy Cooper’s Central Park attack against Christian Cooper, the bird watcher, referenced earlier, is a prime example of a “Karen” incident.

Throughout my career, my most difficult interpersonal relationships have been with white women who tend to minimize, patronize, and sympathize rather than empathize or acknowledge the differences that exist between us.

In 2001, academics Ella Edmonson Bell and Stella Nkomo wrote the book Our Separate Ways: Black and White Women and the Struggle for Professional Identity,31 a seminal work that put a spotlight on how Black women’s and white women’s work experiences differ. Even though gender is the common denominator, race and class were found in their research to drive wedges between us. They found that white women, even if unwittingly, more often aligned themselves with white men. Some 20 years later their findings hold true. The fact that 94 percent of Black women voted for Hillary Clinton and 47 percent of white women voted for Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election is a prime example of our significantly different world-views.32 Today Black women tend not to participate in marches and rallies organized by white women because our unique issues are often minimized or ignored. (History tidbit: While Black women were very active in the struggle for universal suffrage under the Nineteenth Amendment, they were primarily excluded from joining white women’s organizations or participating in marches for voting rights.)

Rachel Elizabeth Cargle, who writes and lectures on things that exist at the intersection of race and womanhood, wrote a piece in Harper’s Bazaar entitled “When White Feminism Is White Supremacy in Heels.”33 She asserts that instead of listening in order to understand the unique experiences of Black women, white women are often more concerned about their feelings and hurt, defined by Robin DeAngelo as white fragility;34 see any attempts to isolate the issues unique to women of color as disunifying; or resort to the white savior complex (“all the things I have done for Black people”).

I recently facilitated a session for a women’s leadership program at a large university. As part of the experience, we separated white women and Black women for a 30-minute caucus session. They were assigned a series of questions to explore, including the following:

Black women shared these observations: They are more apt to be supported by other BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and other people of color) women than white women; Black women are expected to be strong and not emotional. If a white woman cries, it is taken seriously and “someone’s head will roll”; and Oppression Olympics is not uncommon between white women and women of color. Some of the white women were concerned that we had separated the two groups, saying that they thought it would be better to talk about their shared experiences as women. There was an acknowledgment by others that race, especially their white race, is an uncomfortable discussion. They probed, without coming to recommendations, how they could be better allies to women of color, which felt a bit patronizing to me.

In From Sabotage to Support: A New Vision for Feminist Solidarity in the Workplace,35 authors Joy Wiggins and Kami Anderson say that “when white women undermine and dismiss the experiences of BIPOC women, it cuts those women down and takes away their power. It is important to understand the history of feminism and white feminism in particular. . . . The first step is to understand those sabotaging behaviors. Do your work and seek to educate yourself on how you can be a better ally.”

Black Woman to Black Woman

White women do not always support us as we would like to be supported, and we do not always support each other as we might. Again, historical racism has influenced this complicated relationship. Since slavery, Black people have been taught that we are inferior, and the intergenerational memory carries this belief on today for many of us.

If your information about Black women comes primarily from reality TV, you might get the impression that Black women do not support each other. We are portrayed as conniving, bitter, contentious, and hating each other. This, from my perspective, is not an accurate portrayal. However, negativity sells.

As with everything related to race, the relationship between Black women is complex. In part, our lack of support for each other is internalized oppression. When we do not feel good about ourselves, we project those feelings onto others like us. Other reasons for a lack of intragroup support in the workplace is self-preservation. Recognizing that Black women comprise two stigmatized identities, there may be an urge to distance ourselves from other Black women so as not to compound the already negative impact of these identities in the workplace. I have heard Black women say that they will not join the Black employee network group because they wish to lessen their identification with their race. Black women are also less likely to join the women’s employee network group but for the reason outlined in the previous section.

More than once, I have been told by Black women in a position to hire The Winters Group’s services that they had to hire a white organization instead because of “optics”—it might look like giving preferential treatment to a Black-owned company, and there is evidence that people are penalized for advocating for diversity. In a study conducted by David Heckman and colleagues and published in the Academy of Management Journal in 2016,36 they found clear and consistent evidence that women and people of color who promote diversity are penalized in terms of how others perceive their competence and effectiveness. Women and people of color are more apt to come under attack when they speak out for those in their identity group, in a way that white men are not.37

Joy DeGruy38 posits that jealousy and envy within the Black community, leading to the crab-in-the-barrel syndrome, can come from deep-seated beliefs of inferiority. For example, if another Black person is promoted over you and you believe that all Black people are at the bottom of the barrel, so to speak, then this must mean that you are even more inferior—“I am lower than the lowest.” If a white person is promoted, while you might think it unfair, it is expected. Navigating these often conflicting and compounding issues is stressful and fatiguing.

Notwithstanding these complexities, I think for the most part Black women are very supportive of each other. We share kindred experiences and often find it fatigue reducing to commiserate about them. I belong to several informal and formal groups for Black women where we can just be, with no judgments or expectations. Many Black women in positions of power have supported The Winters Group over the years without concern about how it would look. I am particularly interested in giving back by offering scholarships and employment and through The Winters Group’s social responsibility arm, Live Inclusively Actualized. In the past two years, we have donated over $150,000 to organizations that serve Black women and youths.

#BlackGirlsAreMagic

What do we do to survive and thrive in a world that too often denigrates us? We “keep on keeping on,” as my elders used to say. We make sure that the world knows about our “magic.” Black Girls Are Magic (abbreviated Black Girl Magic) is a movement that was started by CaShawn Thompson in 2013. “‘Black Girl Magic’ is a term used to illustrate the universal awesomeness of Black women. It’s about celebrating anything we deem particularly dope, inspiring, or mind-blowing about ourselves.”39 This movement, which has gained a huge following of Black women and girls, is designed to counteract all the negative stereotypes about Black women and to create a space where Black girls and women can affirm our power and unique beauty. According to Thompson, “When Black girls and women make the news, breaking barriers and making history, we highlight their accomplishments with these hashtags. When Black girls and women show up, for ourselves and for others, we want the world to know this is who we are and how we have always been. We do not have to be supernatural or superhuman to be magic—we just need to be.”40

There are a number of companies that are doing more to illustrate Black Girl Magic in their advertising, products, and awards and recognitions. There are more books written by and for Black girls, such as the Doc McStuffins series; there are many more Black dolls to choose from, such as the line from American Girl; and Black women are more often recognized for their work in movie roles that move away from the historical images of mammies and Jezebels, such as Lupita Nyong’o’s and Danai Gurira’s roles as strong women who chart their own paths in love and war in Disney’s Black Panther movie.

And, of course, beyond fictional characters, there are strong Black women role models throughout history and today in the likes of Michelle Obama, Oprah Winfrey, Ava DuVernay, Janet Mock (writer, producer, and transgender rights activist), Tarana Burke (who started the Me Too movement), Ruth Carter (costume designer for Black Panther), Sheila Johnson (cofounder of Black Entertainment Network and the first Black female billionaire), Venus and Serena Williams, Mae Jemison, and many more household names. And then there are the unsung “Black Girl Magicians” whom we call mamma, big mamma, auntie, sister, grandma, nanna, and a host of other terms of endearment because of the love they gave and the sacrifices they made to influence who we are.

SUMMARY

The compounding and complex conditions and issues that Black women face are especially fatiguing. Black women are stereotyped as “workers” and have internalized this characterization by overachieving, self-sacrificing, and neglecting our health and dismissing the need for self-care. Black women must unapologetically prioritize rest as a part of the movement toward equity and liberation.

We are not looking for saviors. We need authentic support from white women and men in the form of allyship and power brokering. We want our voices to be heard, accepted, and validated, and we want actions to be taken that are specifically intended to dismantle systems of racism for Black women. Some systems are harder to crack than others. Let’s tackle one, inequities in pay, because they are tangible, quantifiable, and fixable. If we started there, it would go a long way in eradicating other forms of injustice.

There is no Black woman archetype. Each of us is unique, coming from myriad circumstances with an infinite number of lived experiences. And even though we have been disproportionately used and abused throughout history, we have made and continue to make groundbreaking contributions to society. And we want you to know that we are fatigued from the struggle and we are asking you to listen to our call for justice and equity and despite it all, we are unstoppable.