Unfortunately- Black Women are Gonna Save Us All

whether we want to or not.

Emerald AF

Nov 11, 2024

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a woman in a blue dress sitting on a couch — Photo by Fusco Studio on Unsplash

Many years ago, in 2008, I used to work for an education based nonprofit organization. I worked on a program that engaged middle schoolers on Saturdays to learn about social justice topics and get them out into their community to do a service project. At the time, I was living in New Hampshire, and while the organization I worked for had a fairly diverse staff and team, the racial demographics of the seacoast of New Hampshire was pretty homogenous and mostly White. Being a Black woman from Atlanta, there were so many things that felt like a cutlure shock, and the largest of them was the lack of diverse identities in the area.

At this job, on top of doing our Saturday program, we spent one day a week working in the local middle school, serving as mentors and some capacity of teaching assistant. I was put in a 7th grade social studies classsroom and was paired up with a 7th grade girl, Essence, who happened to be one of 10 Black students in the school (her brother was one of the others). Essence and I had a really great relationship, and her mother appreicated me, a young 20-something Black woman, being in her life and affirming her daughter in so many of the ways that she felt like an outsider and outcast in her everyday life.

I was happy to introduce Essence to music, and art, and writers, and fashion - culture, that was ours. To talk to her about how our culture was the bedrock of almost everything that she was expereincing around her. It had been watered down - white washed and boxed for mass consumption - but its genesis was our culture. Through our relationship, I got to learn about the needs of her and her family, surviving there on the seacoast of New Hampshire. It wasn’t so different than the survival stories of Black Americans across the country, but there was a different air of being cast aside due to them being a racial minority in their community (I’m sure many people can understand this nuance). Essence and her family, and for that matter -ME, lived on the margians of this community.

Me and Essence and her family, we were of the least important or typical parts of the community in which we lived. Nothing was ever truly for us, and that truth had started to infiltrate this 7th graders sense of self.

Being Black and from Atlanta, I wouldn’t call myself a ‘minority’. I understood that in the context of the entire state of Georgia and the United States, that I was. But try growing up in Dekalb county and thinking anything about your Blackness was on the margians of your everyday existence. You wouldn’t - Atlanta is a Black ass city. It wasn’t until I moved to New Hampshire that my perspective on what it meant to be margianalized changed. While working with Essence, I started to understand that if I could get her (and her brother’s) needs met, I would ultimately, be helping to elevate the needs of and better the lives of all the students in our programs.

What does this have to do with what’s happening in 2024? Well, everything. Last week was the 2024 presidential election, and the results led to Donald Trump being re-elected to the office of the presidency. And while there are ALOT of things I am feeling, processing, reconciling with concernng this election (as I’m sure you all are), there is one thing that has crystallized: if we continue to ignore those who are living on the margians of our society; namely Black girls, women, and femmes, we will continue to see the absolute decay and destruction of our collective and individual humanity - and that was out on full display with the election results.

“Black women bear the brunt of all bad decisions. Whether it’s economical or political, they don’t have a chance to mess around… {with a vote}”
- Trevor Noah

There are few people in the United States who understand what it means to be on the margians like Black Women ( I didn’t say there weren’t any others, but very few!). We are, more often than not, seen as the ultimate caretaker (Mammy), the ultimate sexpot (Jezebel) and the ultimate shrew (Sapphire)- most of the time all housed in one person, one body. Black women tend to be some of the most impacted with policy and legistlative decisions, especially those that cut social services funding (healthcare, education, infrastructure, etc.), and are usually the first to be villified for popular cultural phenomena (that we create) that challenges the puritanical ways of the White, Christian, Western world (fashion, dance trends, hair and nail aesthetic, etc.). Somehow we are at the very center of popular cutlure, yet continue to be at the margians of economic and social policy and legistlation.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge that I am not interested in participating in a political system or societal culture that has continued to oppress us (Black women). And I continue to find it hard to reconcile what to do with Black folk who’s highest aspiration is to be like the oppressor - and then to become the face of the oppressor. This is a struggle that I, like lots of Black radical feminists, wrestle with continuously, as we seek Black liberation. But this piece is about Black girls, women, and femmes, and I will speak up and out on our behalf every chance I get.

That being said, this most recent election was another glaring example of how Black women, those on the extreme margians of society, often regarded as the least important parts of society, expressed clear concern and intention for what would be ‘better’ for us as a society and were overwhelmingly ignored. Black women were looking to improve our lot, with benefits to the collective, and were subsequently silenced in the matter. But that’s not something new in this world - Black women and femmes being ignored when it comes to how to improve the world. We are often ignored, cast as too emotional, angry, and aggressive. When the reality is, because of our place on the margians, we are some of the only people who are expressing the adequate and appropriate reactions of the chaos around us.

In The Souls of Black Folk (1903), W.E.B. DuBois writes of a social philosophy termed ‘double consciousness’. The concept is an attempt to define the sense of ‘two-ness’ that Black Americans expereince due to racialized oppression and our devaluation in a white-centered society. It’s the reality that Black folk have to be aware of our own plights and interests, while also being well versed in the interests and needs of White America - and everyone else. This is especially true of Black women, who are also, now, holding sociaized understanding of and radical dismantling of gender norms. When Black women are making decisions, especially as the decision relates to society on a whole, we are often making those decisions with as many people as possible in mind. And, that is, simply and unfortunately, untrue for the majority of most any other identtity of people in the United States.

When Essence expressed to me that she needed transportation, meals for outside of our program time together, adequate shoes and clothing for the harsh New Hampshire winters, and access to school supplies, she unknowingly elevated the needs of every other student in our program. Most of which were white students, who’s parents wouldn’t have dared admit that they were having trouble providing those necessities for their children, for fear of leaning into the ideas of ‘handouts’. Essence’s life on the margian and her willingness to be vulnerable to ask for what she needed in her life, even when she’d been denied these requests before, allowed a path for ALL the students in our program to gain access to necessities. This is the reality of being a Black woman in America and yet, we are constantly ignored, betrayed, and lied to by those who are supposed to stand in allyship with us.

A Liberated Life- Musings of a Boujee Black Girl

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