This Mother’s Day, there will be an overwhelming amount of "Letter to My Mom" and "Reasons Moms Are the Best" articles. Don’t get me wrong, they are heartwarming and sweet and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with them, but Mother’s Day isn’t just about mothers.
On Mother’s Day, we often not only celebrate mothers but aunts, grandmothers, godmothers, etc. Mother’s Day is a chance to celebrate all the woman in our lives and this Mother’s Day I’d like to take the chance to celebrate a very specific group of woman.
I’d like to celebrate the black woman.
In my last article, I talked about Beyoncé’s latest album, ‘Lemonade’, and how her songs and visual presentation of them celebrate and uplift the black woman. Now I’d like to take the chance to do the same.
Malcom X once said that “the most disrespected person in America is the Black woman, the most unprotected person in America is the Black woman. The most neglected person in America is the Black woman.” This quote sums up a lifetime’s worth of pent up emotions that not only myself but most black women I have encountered feel.
My mother once said to me that I was born with two strikes against me. Those two strikes are my skin color and my gender. I’m not sure if she remembers even telling me this but I’ve never forgotten. I’ve never forgotten the minute I finally understood that as black women we have to work harder, longer and stronger than most.
However, it was one thing to understand it and another to see it. I see it in my mother who works two jobs and excels at both and in my aunt who after having a serious medical problem is stronger than ever. I see it in my friends, some of the most beautiful girls I’ve ever seen, but because they don’t fit Eurocentric standards refuse to believe it.
As a black woman, you don’t get to believe you’re beautiful right away. It took me nineteen years to even consider that my skin wasn’t too dark, my nose too wide or lips too big. All we ever see is the continual praise of European feature or even worse, our features praised on anyone else but us. Kylie Jenner’s lips are sexy yet this dark skinned model for MAC Cosmetics with beautiful full lips is disgustingly ridiculed.
We suffer from mental illness that gets stigmatized and low self-esteem that’s been pounded into us from our teachers to our so-called “friends.” Our bodies are sexualized and our intelligence often devalued.
We’re the sassy black friend, single mother secretary, struggling stripper or rejected baby mama in films. Proper representation is such a foreign concept to us that when we get it, it can bring some of us to tears.
Scandal and How to Get Away With Murder were the very first time I ever saw myself in a black woman on screen and that was at the age of eighteen. I and many other black girls and woman had to wait their whole lives just to feel represented.
On screen isn’t the only place we can’t find representation. It’s in politics. In 2013 of the 98 women in Congress, 14 were African American.
It’s in the workplace. Did you know that despite job growth in America black woman are the demographic with almost stagnant job prospects? Even if we do get jobs while white women make about 78 cents to the dollar while we get about 64.
In the now growing feminist movement there’s hardly a place for us because the feminism that is usually highlighted by mainstream media is that of white feminism and it's always been this way. The fight for gender equality has historically left women of color behind in the dust.
Black women are so beaten down yet no matter how large our problem spans over society we are the only ones that see them. When we talk about them we’re brushed aside as being angry and unjustified in our dialogue.
However, this article’s sole purpose is not to call all this out because I haven’t even touched a fraction of it.
This is to celebrate the fact that despite all this, black woman are still stronger than fathomable.
This article is for the black single moms, the black women in Congress and the black girls who just can’t feel beautiful. This article is for black sex workers and LGBTQ+ black women. This article is for the black grandmothers who have lived to see a black man in the White House.
This article is for my mother, sister, aunts, grandmother, cousins and friends who struggle because of their skin color.
This article is for any and every black woman out there because you are all beautiful. You are all strong. You are all amazing. You are all the things society has repeatedly told you that you couldn’t be.
Today, on Mother’s Day, celebrate every women in your life but take the time to stop and ask the black women in it about their experiences. I’m sure they’ll be nothing less than warriors in your eyes by the time they’re done.
