Even though our last daughter graduated with her Masters in 2015, and all three of them are grown and out of the house, we still get all the college magazines coming to the house. I was leafing through one of them today before recycling and came across an article about a young sister that is doing psychological research on the “Strong Black Woman” persona.
The student is developing a program that helps Black women practice guilt-free self-care and learn that they shouldn’t have to take care of everybody else at their own expense. It’s instructive what the student has undertaken, but my beef is with the term itself. It seems like the adjective “strong” must always precede “Black” when referring to our women. What’s up with that?
It bothers me when I hear that term over and over again because it posits that, unlike other communities, our women HAVE to be strong out of necessity because our men are weak. This characterization is accompanied by “independent woman” and “girl, you don’t need no man” or Tyler Perry’s “I can do bad all by myself “. And this persona persists.
I am also painfully aware that my line of thinking may sound paternalistic or misogynistic, or blaming Black women for being victims of society. Indeed, Black women have been hurt the most by the events of the last 400 years. But my penchant for self-determination leads me to believe that we all can take our destiny into our own hands. My hope for Black women is that they too will stop perpetuating this myth that the Black woman needs to be strong enough for Black men too.
It’s a Jungle out There
You may say: it’s a woman thing, you don’t understand. We’ll, as a man with lived experience of daughters, ten sisters, a mother and mother-in-law that are Black women, I’ve got something to say about that (I am looking at you TP). I contend that you can do best with a man by your side — if you choose a good man that is. So, what’s a good man you may ask? Well, I can tell you one thing for sure: the fact that I am 6’2” tall, dark, and handsome doesn’t make me a good man. We can learn a lot from the natural selection in the animal kingdom. In order to ensure the best chance for her cubs to survive the jungle, the lioness picks the strongest lion in the Pride.
Don’t get me wrong, you could do really well by yourself too. But don’t let anybody declare to you that you are better off by yourself because you are strong enough for you and your children.
“It’s a jungle out there and life is unfair
for the ones left to scrap for the scrapes
Generations have grown in the same situation:
tribal warfare, chattel slavery and now taxes
The people never have enough and children are born fatherless
and families have no one to rely on
so from blood sweat and tears the solution appears the pride needs defending by a lion
“Jungle” by Jah9
A Few Good Lions… With the Mettle…
I am certainly not letting the men off the hook either. In fact, I have a lot to say about Black men, but in a separate post. This post is about our women. Remember the line in “Oh Girl” by the Chi-lites that went like this:
“All my friends call me a fool
They say, “Let the woman take care of you”…”
I’ve got good news for our women. A male will not be taken care of by a woman unless that woman chooses to take care of him.
It’s sad that many Black men are okay with being taken care of by women. Remember that old-school saying about the difference between men and women when it comes to sex? “A woman is looking for a reason but a man is looking for a place.”
Just getting this off my chest. As mentioned earlier, I have always had a lot of women around me growing up. I watched my mom, some of my sisters and later my mother-in-law work their behinds off to take care of their children virtually by themselves. I’ve always prayed and wished that none of them have to carry the load by themselves to perpetuate the periodicity of proving that they are strong Black women.
