Advocacy for Black Women

How Can We Understand the Experience of Black Women?

In the last month, there’s been two big names as part of the movement against police brutality.

Breonna Taylor and George Floyd.

One person’s murderers were arrested and one’s weren’t. George Floyd was murdered on May 25th, and Derek Chauvin was arrested four days later. Breonna Taylor was murdered on March 13th, and her killers have still not been arrested.

If that’s not enough evidence for you:

Black women make up 13% of the female population in the United States.
While white women are more likely to have breast cancer, African American women have higher overall mortality rates from breast cancer. Every year, 1,722 African American women die from breast cancer—an average of five African American women per day.
Black women are four times more likely to die from pregnancy-related causes, such as embolism and pregnancy-related hypertension, than any other racial group.
African American women have the highest rates of premature births and are more likely to have infants with low or very low birth weights. African American infants are more than 2.4 times more likely as white infants to die in their first year of life.
Only 35 percent of African American lesbian and bisexual women have had a mammogram in the past two years, compared to 60 percent of white lesbian and bisexual women.
African American women held 8.58 percent of bachelor’s degrees held by women in 2012 though they constituted 12.7 percent of the female population.
The most current available data show that African American women only made African American women only earned $610 per week, whereas African American men made $666 and white women’s median usual weekly earnings were $718 in the second quarter of 2013.
The poverty rate of African American lesbian couples is 21.1 percent versus 4.3 percent for white lesbian couples.
64 cents to the dollar compared to white, non-Hispanic men in 2010. White women made 78.1 cents to the same dollar.
African American girls and women 12 years and older experienced higher rates of rape and sexual assault than White, Asian, and Latina girls and women from 2005-2010.

What Needs to Change To Support Black Women

We are not just fighting for police reform, for racial equality, or for black lives. We need to be fighting for justice for black women in every single discussion of these issues. Black women of all gender identities and sexualities as well. I will be following up this post with a discussion about black women that identify as trans and queer. I do not feel I can adequately and respectfully cover advocacy for this group in a post not specifically for them.

I cannot speak for black women. I cannot speak for every black women’s experience. Not everything I discuss in this post will apply to every black woman. Make sure to get to know each black woman’s individual experience just like you would do with any other identity. Here, I am taking what I have learned from my black women peers and close friends, from attending protests in the last month, and from my anti-racism education.

Many black women protested have shared the pain they have felt all their lives from having to constantly handle being seen as always being strong, from being left out of the racial justice movement, from experiencing fatal health care disparities, especially when pregnant.

All black lives matter, but they will not all matter until black women’s lives matter. Black women don’t just deserve to matter, they deserve to receive equitable healthcare, education, jobs, salary, and lives. So many women are losing their lives because they don’t get the healthcare they need and deserve, while their white female counterparts do. They deserve a life where they focus on achieving what they are striving for, not just fighting to survive. Not just constantly having to prove themselves and be perfect every step of the way.

I’ve heard and read black women say that in the workforce they feel the pressure to be perfect because if they mess up, the consequences are greater for them. This is something I will never relate to, but is articulated well is this article by a black speech-language pathologist. This experience is not unique to the author, Ingrid, but to black women in many fields.

In an article in Forbes, Luvvie Ajayi says “The people I’ve spoken with feel the responsibility to not fail because we don’t feel like we can afford to fail. Our success is considered the exception and our failure is considered the rule.”

Black women experience challenges and discrimination every single day. But we should not pity them. That is not productive and not acceptable. They deserve support and advocacy, not pity.

How Can We Advocate for Black Women?

Of course, no change will come until we take action. How can we make change?

Critically examine the portrayal of black women in storytelling. Search for media and literature that will portray many different kinds of black women. Many books included black women stereotypes as a Jezebel, or innately promiscuous and predatory, while white women were portrayed as models of self-respect, self-control, modesty and purity. Other stereotypes include the strong black woman, the independent black woman, the angry black woman. While not all of these portrayals are negative, they put even more pressure on the black woman to succeed and be perfect. It is important for black girls to consume media and books with many kinds of representation, so girls know they can be vulnerable and can achieve many different things. As advocates, we need to consume these stories as well so we can do our best to understand the black experience and make break down our unconscious bias and stereotypes of black women, especially in the workforce. Read these books to your children from a young age. Check out my Social Justice Book List for books that feature nuanced female protagonists. I recommend watching shows and movies like #blackAF, Little Fires Everywhere, Dear White People, Insecure, Akeelah and the Bee, The Princess and the Frog, and Hidden Figures.

2. If you are a non-black woman, especially a white woman, recognize the privileges you have and consider how you can use them to support black women. Listen to them and work to understand the systems that cause the oppression they face. Be honest with yourself about what black women experience, the part your privileges play into the systemic oppression of black women, your unconscious biases, and the origin of said biases. Bette Park Sacks, writer of Invisible Visits: Black Middle Class Women in the American Healthcare System writes that:

One way is to be honest about what is happening, and to train physicians and medical staff to see the patient who walks in the door not just as a collection of biological indicators and genes, but to understand the social environment that leads to poor health in the first place, and not to blame the patient for their health problems. Access to high-quality healthcare, free from discrimination, should be the baseline in the richest country in the world. Although we are a long way away from that, we must aspire to that ideal.”

3. Have uncomfortable conversations with black women. To truly change your unconscious biases, you need to have honest conversations with black women. Actively listen and validate their experiences. Make the conversations centered on their experience and struggles, not about your response to them. Additionally, think about how you as a white person contribute to the inequities black women face. Ask how you can help each person specifically- not every black women has the same experience and the same needs. Take what you have learned and use it to take action by educating others, challenging others that are racist or staying silent, making change in the systems you are apart of, and continue to self-educate about your personal unconscious bias.

How to Advocate for Black Women from Here

I know this blog post isn’t perfect. I have delayed and delayed writing it. I wanted to get it exactly right and not say anything incorrect or offensive. The thing is, it will never be perfect. Part of being an advocate as a white woman is being willing to make mistakes. I can never relate to the experience of being a black woman. Likely, something I said above is incorrect or unfair to say. That is part of my privilege and I am here to grow and learn from any mistakes I make. I am not here to be told I am a “good ally”. This is not about me, it’s not about praise. It’s about doing the work for black women because they have been doing the work likely since they were born.

Likely there will parts of the black female experience I exclude. I hope that if any black women feel in a place where they can give feedback, that it will help me move forward. However, it is not their job to correct me, it is my own. I will continue to educate myself to make sure I can be the most supportive advocate I can be.

Of course, my voice is not the one that needs to be here. If you take anything away from this, it’s to go listen to black women. Make sure your life includes black voices. In the books you read, the peers you engage with, the media you consume, the social media accounts you follow. I see one too many whitewashed social media accounts and feeds. Here are five black women you can follow right now:

Rachel Cargle, @rachel.cargle

Rachel Cargle is an Akron, Ohio born public academic, writer, and lecturer. Her activist and academic work are rooted in providing intellectual discourse, tools, and resources that explore the intersection of race and womanhood. Her social media platforms engage a community of over 1.8 million through which Rachel guides conversations, encourages critical thinking and nurtures meaningful engagement with people all over the world. Her upcoming book, I Don’t Want Your Love and Light with The Dial Press/Penguin Random House, is an examination of feminism through the lens of race and how we are in relationship with ourselves and one another.

Valencia De'La Clay, @valencia_valencia

Valencia De’La Clay is a teacher, but she does much more than that. She developed her following by crafting lesson plans designed to empower her eighth grade students and posting video clips of her classes on Instagram. In addition to insight into her teaching style, Valencia’s insta followers can see her musings on everything from her hairstyles to her struggle with depression, along with snippets of her daily life (one recent post highlighted her acceptance to the Johns Hopkins School of Education doctorate program). Offline, she also works to help her fellow educators develop more progressive, impactful lesson plans by leading local teaching workshops. She wrote a book called Soundless Cries Don’t Lead to Healing: A Critical Thinking to Cultural Consciousness.

Johnetta Elzie, @nettaaaaaaa

Johnetta Elzie is a co-writer for the newsletter This Is The Movement. Johnetta is most active on Twitter, if that’s your preferred social media site! She is a major voice in the Black Lives Matter Movement. As the list of black lives tragically lost to police violence grows, so does Johnetta’s voice for equal rights, now reaching hundreds of thousands on her social media feeds. As a proud young black woman, she fights for a future where police violence doesn’t have to be part of anyone’s reality.

Charlene Caruthers, @charlenecaruthers

Charlene A. Carruthers is a Black, queer feminist community organizer and writer with over 15 years of experience in racial justice, feminist and youth leadership development movement work. Charlene is author of the bestselling book, Unapologetic: A Black, Queer and Feminist Mandate for Radical Movements, available in English and Spanish languages (Beacon Press). As the founding national director of BYP100 (Black Youth Project 100), she has worked alongside hundreds of young Black activists to build a national base of activist member-led organization of Black 18-35 year olds dedicated to creating justice and freedom for all Black people.Charlene is the founder and executive director of the Chicago Center for Leadership and Transformation, a locally rooted and nationally connected learning community for political education, grassroots organizing, language and strategic communications capacity building. believer in telling more complete stories about the Black Radical Tradition, Charlene provides critical analysis, political education and leadership development training for activists across the globe.

Adwoa Aboah, @gurlstalk

Adwoa Aboah founded Gurls Talk — an online community for women to communicate about sensitive topics freely and candidly with a supportive, interactive audience. Women can share their personal stories about sex, self care, mental health, and gender dynamics freely. There also is a hotline for men experiencing challenges with mental health.

Adwoa is an activist and model and is using her platform to elevate black voices.