Stop It Pigeonholing Me Into A Stereotype Because 'Strong Black Women' Are NOT Invincible

The "Strong Black Woman" has given up meals so that her kids could have them.

The "Strong Black Woman" has overlooked, dealt with the complete disregard of her position by the black males that she has uplifted.

The "Strong Black Woman" has put strangers before herself because she knew that if she didn't it would hurt her community.

Consequently, the "Strong Black Woman" continues to suffer from emotional neglect, and everyone around her is blind to her emotions.

Don't get me wrong, black women are one of the strongest members of the African American community. We withstand through many things ranging from the hypersexualization of our bodies to the slick remark about our "anger" from our peers. But, the "Strong Black Women" trope is slowly making it acceptable for people to disregard our feelings because we are "used to it" or we can "get over it". The truth is, we have emotions.

First of all, weakness in the black community is non-existent. By that, I mean that nobody addresses it. Let's say that I do decide to confront my family about being mentally ill. One of these three things could happen.

1. They'll tell me to go pray about it.

2. Try to convince me that I'm not sick and that I'm just sad.

3. They'll ignore me.

This reaction doesn't come from evil intentions, nor does it come from laziness. You see, hundreds of years ago a little thing called "slavery" happened. We still suffer from it today in even ways that you might think that it wouldn't affect, like mental illness. Our ability to prevail through slavery and the possibility of encountering a situation in which we have to deal with racism has caused many us to not appear weak to anyone.

Second of all, the general public. To them, a black woman's personality is binary. You're either the "strong black woman" or the "angry black women." With no in between. This can be quite frustrating considering the fact that we have to deal with microaggressions, abuse, sexism, horrendous sociopolitical conditions, and potential mental health issues.

You can see this in modern media and especially black modern media all of the time in characters from shows like "Maritn," "American Horror Story," and "Atlanta" and so forth.

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But I guess that's light work, right? Nevertheless, it's hard to fit in when people think that you're a bitter person. So you do what anyone would do: hide your feelings until you inevitably explode (a bit dramatic, but you get what I mean). Now this happens a lot, and many don't even realize what they are doing, and it isn't everyone who possess this mentality. However, this issue is way too prevalent in society to ignore.

To sum it all up, black women, although extremely strong, are not invincible. It's true that we deal with issues that others turn away at the thought of, but that doesn't mean that those issues don't affect us at all. Some of us suffer from mental illnesses. Our issues exist and they don't just disappear with a prayer to the big man upstairs. When we confront you about our feelings we are neither angry nor crazy. We arehuman.