“You need to be a STRONG black woman”! “Black Women are Strength”! “You don’t need nobody, be a Strong Black Woman”! And so on and so forth.
These are just some of the thinks I’ve heard my whole life. I am a black woman and sometimes I feel that society will only look at me in one of two ways: Strong or Whore. There seems to be no in between or middle ground. There are definitely no complexities that I might grasp onto to be seen as an individual. It is akin to when boys are taught at a young age that ‘boys don’t cry’. Well ‘black women are strong’ and there is no room for anything else.
So how do we change this? Is there a way to change this? Trudier Harris suggest that we must first recognized the label of strength when applied - when applied to black women as a positive thing - is really a disease. But in thinking of it this way we must understand that diseases are notoriously hard to cure and many will suffer before there is one available.
Harris, Trudier. “This Disease of Strength: Some Observations on the Compensating Construction of Black Female Character” The John Hopkins University Press (Literature and Medicine) 1995
www.yourblackeducation.com
She was the founder of For Brown Girls and, later, the #DarkSkinRedLip Project, as well as several online movements celebrating…
Suffering Alone
She Tried to withdraw as she’d been doing for weeks and weeks. Withdraw the self to a safe place where husband, lover, teacher, workers, no one could follow, probe.
All Velma could summon now before her eyes were the things of her kitchen, those things she’d sought while hunting for the end. Leaves, grasses, buds dry but alive and still in jars stuffed with cork, alive but inert on the shelf of oak, alive but arrested over the stove next to the match box she’s reached toward out of habit, forgetting she did not want the fire, she only wanted the gas.
In The Salt Eaters Velma seems to be a women of great strength. She’s a community activist, has a wonderful career, a husband and son who she loves and who loves her right? So in some peoples eyes she had a great life. However, Velma’s life was not all what it seemed. She was suffering from severe depression but no one noticed until it was too late and she ended up in an infirmary after trying to take her own life. Often in the African American Community things such as depression and mental illness go unnoticed until it is to late. For African American women who are supposed to be the pillar of strength, the mother figure, the one every body can depend on it can become too much. However, the African American women often have no help coping because if depression is mentioned they are told to pray and let God handle it. They are often discouraged from seeking the medical treatment they need. African American women are treated like superwomen and the article that I am sharing tells the sad story of how two African American women that everyone assumed had everything going right killed themselves. It it like when a black woman is depressed she has to find some type of way to deal with the problem as often she doesn’t want to be shunned by the people in her own community. I plan to obtain my PhD in Psychology and I have often had people in my family question my decision to become a psychologist, insisting that black people don’t believe in that mess. It is a sad shame that so many African American women have had to suffer alone and have even taken their own lives because they never sought help. I feel that African Americans really need to become aware that mental illness is real and that it is okay to seek help if they are suffering. But if they never seek the help we will continue to see suicide rates increase in the African American community.
When I look at this picture I envision Ursa up on stage belting out all her troubles. The image that I provided captures the raw essence of emotion and sorrow through song. Blues to me is pessimistic, depressing, misery, and downheartedness. Ursa suffered a lot of pain in her life. The pain of not knowing her father, the pain of not knowing motherhood, the pain of not knowing true love. The pain of being alone, even when she was with Mutt and Tadpole. In “Corregidora,” there was a mention of the late great Billie Holiday so I decided to use an image of her that reflected pain and suffering through a performance. I felt that Billie Holiday as Ursa had suffered a lot of pain and heartache throughout her life as well. And as Ms. Billie Holiday Ursa used her singing to let go of her pain. Throughout “Corregidora” she always was a night club singer because Ursa was a woman in pain. She expressed that when she performed. Singing was her outlet. It was the only thing she had that was truly hers. Something she could hold onto forever.
In the beginning of Mama Day we see the family tree of Sapphira Wade a family tree that begins with her name first. The family tree is of great importance especially in the black community where so much of our history, ancestry, and culture was lost during the Trans Atlantic Slave Trade. Also, during slavery children where often taken away from there mothers and sold so this would be one reason why the family tree would be of great importance. Once slave women gave birth to a child that child was often taken from them and sold. Another issue of the family tree was the fact that only Sapphira’s name was mentioned not her children’s father. Usually a family tree consists of the father, mother, and their children. However, since her children where fathered by her slave master who was also her husband as stated, (Naylor 3) he would never have allowed his name to be listed on the birth record of children mothered by a black slave. So I included an image of a family tree because I feel that a family tree is very important in any family as it gives future generations a glimpse of where they came from, but without the mention of the father part of that persons heritage is lost.
In the beginning of Mama Day we see the family tree of Sapphira Wade a family tree that begins with her name first. The family tree is of great importance especially in the black community where so much of our history, ancestry, and culture was lost during the Trans Atlantic Slave Trade. Also, during slavery children where often taken away from there mothers and sold so this would be one reason why the family tree would be of great importance. Once slave women gave birth to a child that child was often taken from them and sold. Another issue of the family tree was the fact that only Sapphira’s name was mentioned not her children’s father. Usually a family tree consists of the father, mother, and their children. However, since her children where fathered by her slave master who was also her husband as stated, (Naylor 3) he would never have allowed his name to be listed on the birth record of children mothered by a black slave. So I included an image of a family tree because I feel that a family tree is very important in any family as it gives future generations a glimpse of where they came from, but without the mention of the father part of that persons heritage is lost.
In the beginning of Mama Day we see the family tree of Sapphira Wade a family tree that begins with her name first. The family tree is of great importance especially in the black community where so much of our history, ancestry, and culture was lost during the Trans Atlantic Slave Trade. Also, during slavery children where often taken away from there mothers and sold so this would be one reason why the family tree would be of great importance. Once slave women gave birth to a child that child was often taken from them and sold. Another issue of the family tree was the fact that only Sapphira’s name was mentioned not her children’s father. Usually a family tree consists of the father, mother, and their children. However, since her children where fathered by her slave master who was also her husband as stated, (Naylor 3) he would never have allowed his name to be listed on the birth record of children mothered by a black slave. So I included an image of a family tree because I feel that a family tree is very important in any family as it gives future generations a glimpse of where they came from, but without the mention of the father part of that persons heritage is lost.
... if she had to go through the horror of her rape all over again...
Reading Breath, Eyes, Memory,we learn that Sophie is the product of a brutal rape so I decided to focus my piece on women who became pregnant and kept their child after a rape. I was deeply moved by this being a woman who was raped I don’t know if I could have been this strong had a pregnancy occurred. Sophie’s mother who lives in New York sends for her daughter after nine years and Sophie does not want to go because she barely knows her. Her Aunt Tante Atie tells her this is what is best. Once Sophie gets to New York and sees her mother they go back to her apartment. It is here that secrets are revealed to Sophie. She notices this picture on the night stand of her mother and auntie and questions the fact that she does not look like either one of them. This is when she learns that her mother was raped as a young girl and became pregnant with her. So here is this woman who had endured this brutal situation, became pregnant, and kept the child. The article “Raped And Pregnant At 12-Years-Old, This Girl Made A Remarkable Decision,” was about a women named Lianna Rebolledo who at the age of twelve had to endure this same horrific situation. Both of the women had to deal with the stigma’s of not only being raped but having to look at the children who were products of these rapes. They would have to wear the physical and emotional scars for the rest of their lives. There was a section inBreath, Eyes, Memorythat Sophie had to wake her mother from a bad dream. These were reoccurring nightmares that she suffered because of her rape. In the article Lianna has to wear the physical scars on her face and neck from her brutal attract. Sophie’s mother chose to leave her in Haiti when she moved to New York possible to get away from the pain or demons as she put it in her country. This was possibly her coping mechanism. Although she said it was to make a better way for her daughter, mother, and sister. In the article Lianna raised her daughter as best she could. And later started a nonprofit organization that she runs today that helps women who are raped and become pregnant deal with it. Both of these women had to deal with horrible situations but they still chose to have their babies. These women are very strong because I don’t think I could ever have done this.
When I look at this picture I envision Ursa up on stage belting out all her troubles. The image that I provided captures the raw essence of emotion and sorrow through song. Blues to me is pessimistic, depressing, misery, and downheartedness. Ursa suffered a lot of pain in her life. The pain of not knowing her father, the pain of not knowing motherhood, the pain of not knowing true love. The pain of being alone, even when she was with Mutt and Tadpole. In “Corregidora,” there was a mention of the late great Billie Holiday so I decided to use an image of her that reflected pain and suffering through a performance. I felt that Billie Holiday as Ursa had suffered a lot of pain and heartache throughout her life as well. And as Ms. Billie Holiday Ursa used her singing to let go of her pain. Throughout “Corregidora” she always was a night club singer because Ursa was a woman in pain. She expressed that when she performed. Singing was her outlet. It was the only thing she had that was truly hers. Something she could hold onto forever.
Im so glad that the entire post was posted because theres another post going around with just the first 2 parts and its just like a fucking fox news media cover where it painted the victim as a bad person.
When I look at this picture I envision Ursa up on stage belting out all her troubles. The image that I provided captures the raw essence of emotion and sorrow through song. Blues to me is pessimistic, depressing, misery, and downheartedness. Ursa suffered a lot of pain in her life. The pain of not knowing her father, the pain of not knowing motherhood, the pain of not knowing true love. The pain of being alone, even when she was with Mutt and Tadpole. In “Corregidora,” there was a mention of the late great Billie Holiday so I decided to use an image of her that reflected pain and suffering through a performance. I felt that Billie Holiday as Ursa had suffered a lot of pain and heartache throughout her life as well. And as Ms. Billie Holiday Ursa used her singing to let go of her pain. Throughout “Corregidora” she always was a night club singer because Ursa was a woman in pain. She expressed that when she performed. Singing was her outlet. It was the only thing she had that was truly hers. Something she could hold onto forever.
At the heart of Naomi Freeman's case is the question: Does a domestic violence survivor have the right to defend her own life?
This article discusses the circumstances and broader context of the case of Naomi Freeman, a pregnant African American mother of two young children who allegedly killed her abusive boyfriend after he severely assaulter her. Despite her boyfriend’s history of abuse and the fact of her pregnancy, Ms. Freeman was arrested and held on a $350,000.00 bond. As the article explains, the arrest of black women for defending themselves against their abusers is nothing new. The article thus discusses the case of Marissa Alexander and Project Nia’s “No Selves to Defend” anthology and exhibit, both meant to raise defense funds for Marissa Alexander and to raise awareness about the intersections between domestic abuse and incarceration of black women. The article also provides statistics about the disproportionate domestic abuse and incarceration suffered by black women.
An important question raised by the relationship between domestic violence and incarceration of black women is the question of what justice would look like. It’s because of this question that I connect this article with “Sweat” by Zora Neale Hurston. Even though Delia Jones does not directly kill her husband, and even though the story ends without her getting arrested for his murder, it seems clear at the end that her husband’s death was justified by his own actions. But like Naomi Freeman is quoted in the article stating she never meant to kill her boyfriend but she acted because she feared for her life, the ending of “Sweat” asks us to understand the impossibility of any “good” options for dealing with an abusive partner. And finally, though I don’t have space for it here, both the article and the story make me think about the role of the community in protecting the victim and then ensuring the victim can make a life after the death of the abuser.
When I look at this picture I envision Ursa up on stage belting out all her troubles. The image that I provided captures the raw essence of emotion and sorrow through song. Blues to me is pessimistic, depressing, misery, and downheartedness. Ursa suffered a lot of pain in her life. The pain of not knowing her father, the pain of not knowing motherhood, the pain of not knowing true love. The pain of being alone, even when she was with Mutt and Tadpole.The pain of her mother, grandmother, and great grandmother at the hands of her grandfather. In “Corregidora,” there was a mention of the late great Billie Holiday so I decided to use an image of her that reflected pain and suffering through a performance. I felt that Billie Holiday as Ursa had suffered a lot of pain and heartache throughout her life as well. And as Ms. Billie Holiday Ursa used her singing to let go of her pain. Throughout “Corregidora” she always was a night club singer because Ursa was a woman in pain. She expressed that when she performed. Singing was her outlet. It was the only thing she had that was truly hers. Something she could hold onto forever.
