As a black girl, I have always felt the weight of the world on me. The dismissal of my human right to break and feel vulnerable has always been an undeniable, yet unspoken, part of my reality. I grew up having to move between households, deal with abusive parental figures, endure mistreatment in my educational environment, and I felt burned out. But this was never enough to warrant the sympathy of the people around me. None of it mattered because I was expected to endure it all quietly and gracefully. I grew up reading romance novels of white women dating strong men who provided them with riches, love, and protection. I was naive enough to believe that the world would readily extend the same type of narrative to me. Instead I found myself struck in a different trope. I had to be a strong black woman from the time my little feet hit the ground. Strong black women do not get angry, strong black women do not cry, strong black women do not feel pain, strong black women are leaders, strong black women carry the burden of everyone around them, strong black women never hold anyone accountable for their pain, strong black women do not need protection, and strong black women do not need love. I knew deep down I was not equipped to truly embody any of those things. But much like my fellow black sisters, I am a master at facades. I can play the strong black woman who soothes your white guilt. However, I am not, and will never be the superhuman you expect me to be.
I had always silently suspected most people did not take my struggle with mental health seriously. I suppose most people believed I was too young to worry so deeply, or that it would pass, or that I was strong enough to endure it. I remember the occurrence that solidified my suspicions. My pediatrician urged my mother to take me to the hospital one afternoon. Once there, the indifferent nurses shoved a form in my shaky hands. It was a mental health check. My heart pounded in my chest, hopeful that this was the chance for someone to finally listen. They made me change into a robe and made me wait in the hospital room. The doctor came in and asked me his questions. I confirmed my mental ailments in a tiny voice. Based on my answers I knew it was bad, my mom sitting just behind the curtain knew it was bad, and the nurse sitting next to me with a look on her face as if her dog died knew it was bad. Yet, the words which left the doctor’s mouth was, “I think you’re smart enough to not do anything stupid.”
I was sent home. During a serious crisis, I was treated as though I had merely a scrape on my knee.
This is the story of so many black women across the globe. Many are under the illusion that, because black women have continuously been forced into positions where they have had to demonstrate an almost inhuman amount of strength, we do not need to be saved. This dismissal of our basic human need to be looked after and cared for has perpetuated our mistreatment, injury, and death in various forms. It is imperative for us to identify how these expectations affect black women in the everyday.
First, let’s address the daunting elephant in the room: the disgustingly high maternal mortality rate for black women. The maternal mortality rate for all races of women has increased significantly within the past decade. However, according to the American Heart Association, black women are three to four times more likely to die from pregnancy-related causes than white women. Medical negligence has been an ongoing issue for women and people of color since the beginning of medical practice. Although medical negligence can affect non-black women, the obvious gap requires us to ask the question as to why black women are more likely to die while giving birth in America than non-black women.
A significant factor is that black women are not receiving the same quality of care as white women are receiving. Dr. Ana Langer states, “It’s basically a public health and human rights emergency because it’s been estimated that a significant portion of these deaths could be prevented.” Langer goes on to state, “Basically, black women are undervalued. They are not monitored as closely as white women are. When they do present with symptoms, they are often dismissed.” The common medical stereotype that black people do not feel pain the way white people do is a significant contributing factor to the medical negligence that black women face. According to the National Library of Medicine, “A substantial number of white laypeople and medical students and residents hold false beliefs about biological differences between blacks and whites and demonstrate that these beliefs predict racial bias in pain perception and treatment recommendation accuracy.”
In America, we expect that when a loved one goes missing, the police will be the first person we can call for help. However, for black women that is not always a privilege afforded to us. As Kamila A. Alexander and Tiara C. Willie write in The Hill, “Black women: only 7 percent of the population yet nearly 20 percent of all missing persons cases.” In spite of these alarming numbers, the police are significantly less likely to search for missing black women–and this is only one of many ways in which law enforcement institutions continually fail them. In fact, black women are oftentimes an unspoken target for police brutality. We are all familiar with the practice of police brutalizing black men. However, we often turn a blind eye to the various ways police manhandle black women. Yet according to the Los Angeles Times, black women and girls are more likely than any other female demographic to be killed by the police and that includes those as young as seven and as old as ninety-three.
These violent acts against black women are only a few out of many ways in which society has systematically hurt them. Why do people believe this is acceptable? What is causing black women’s pain to be overlooked? What stereotypes are shaping social ideas about black women and how are they being perpetuated? These are urgent imperative questions we must ask ourselves if we want to absolve ourselves of these harmful beliefs. The media we watch is one of the most influential ways of programming our mindsets about marginalized groups. An article from PubMed states that movies significantly determine people’s opinions, stereotypes and attitudes especially with regard to gender, racial, and ethnic stereotypes. The portrayal of black women within American media has affected the social climate for many of them. The caricatures that have been created by white America of black women serve not only to desensitize the general American population, but to deprive black women of their identity. These stereotypes are so dominant that they even prevent people from viewing black women as people with basic human necessities, leading to the denial of medical care, intimate relationships, or even jobs.
This idea that black women are inherently stronger affects them from a young age–just as it did with me. The famous social experiment Girlhood Interrupted, which was done by the Georgetown Law Center, emphasizes the ways in which young black women are considered more mature than other young women even before they come of age. The experiment consisted of a survey which was taken by adults on their views of black girls, especially between the ages of 5-14. The results of the survey show that adults believe that compared to white girls, black girls need less nurturing, less protection, to be supported less, to be comforted less, and that they are more independent, know more about adult topics, and know more about sex. The harmfulness of this stereotype strips the young black girl of her innocence, and prevents her from receiving the support she may need. This renders the “strong black women” stereotype a social burden for black women.
Moreover, the strong black woman stereotype enables violence against black women because it inadvertently implies that black women are strong enough to endure abuse, and therefore do not need to be protected or cared for. Although the strong black woman was once a symbol of hope, it has now been turned into a vehicle for racism against her. In addition, American media denies black women of their femininity even as it grants it readily to white women. Images of black women being beautiful, being loved, or playing the damsel in distress in early Hollywood films are practically nonexistent.
Instead, the “strong black woman” trope that has permeated our movie screens has been advertised as empowering. However, this depiction has done more harm than good. The portrayal of the black woman on screen as unbeatable and almost superhuman strips her of her power to be vulnerable. For example, Michonne’s character in the award-winning show The Walking Dead (2010-2022) is that of a fierce woman with a no-nonsense attitude. While this depiction may seem empowering, the downside to Michonne’s character is her inability to take care of herself before she takes care of others. This character teeters between the demands of the “mammy” and “the strong black woman.” Her drive and strength overpower any sense of her unique and fully fleshed-out identity.
Viola Davis’s role in the Academy Award winning movie The Help (2011), in which she plays the protagonist, is a clear illustration of yet another character who oscillates between “mammy” and “strong black woman.” It is important to understand that these two stereotypes often go together, which is unsurprising when we realize that one assumes the other. In other words, it is okay that she is sacrificing her own well-being to take care of others, while being ignored by those around her, because she is strong enough to handle it all by herself. In the case of The Help, we see Davis’s character constantly being dehumanized, insulted, and ignored because of her race. However, she still continues to do her duties without complaint until the very end. She does this almost effortlessly while displaying an unnatural sense of strength for anyone in her situation. She did not receive any assistance, even from the white savior journalist who claimed to be helping her, nor was she ever given the space to feel disrespected or hurt. She was only praised for her herculean amount of strength in the midst of the abuse she endured from her employers. However, the film never acknowledges that the bystanders of this abuse should have intervened so she never had to withstand such cruel treatment. In this example, the responsibility is being placed on the black woman to remain strong in an abusive environment, instead of the responsibility being placed on those around her to do the right thing.
I am so used to this stereotype of the strong black woman that I am (pleasantly) surprised when I go to the movies and don’t encounter it. I remember sitting in the movie theater this summer next to my friend who convinced me to watch the new The Little Mermaid (2023) movie with Halle Bailey starring as Ariel. I was not too excited about seeing the movie, but went just to spend time with her. By the end of the movie, my heart felt like it was leaping out of my chest. I felt like for the first time in my twenty years of living, I saw myself on screen. Halle’s portrayal of Ariel was feminine, sweet, and courageous all at the same time. Her character was able to be brave without her femininity being stripped away from her. Most importantly, when she was in trouble, she had a support system. The movie did not normalize black women struggling alone and facing an immeasurable amount of trauma in the dark. When it came to light that Ariel had been attacked, Prince Eric immediately came to the rescue. Once the movie was over, my friend, who is not black, was crying. Although I did not display the level of emotion she did, I still felt the happiness, and most of all relief, that this depiction of black women is not impossible. Not only is it not impossible, but The Little Mermaid showed that this depiction of black women can be successful. Although Ariel was saved in the end by her prince, and had her support animals to guide her, black women have historically been denied the luxury of having either. Perhaps such demonstrations of black women being saved and supported may change the “strong black woman” narrative. Perhaps, black women can be acknowledged and valued after all.
Why are stereotypes important and how do they shape the minds of whole societies? Amos Tversky’s popular theory, the “availability heuristic,” can help explain this phenomenon. The availability heuristic is the mind’s tendency to use recent or past memories to make decisions about the future. For example, person A wants to get to Florida. They have the option of taking a plane or a car. Based on their previous memories of watching a plethora of movies that ended in plane crashes, person A decides that taking a car is safer. However, statistics show that people die in car crashes at a higher rate than people die in plane crashes. In other words, someone may form an opinion of a black woman’s capability or identity based on previous ideas that have been reinforced through stereotypes of black females represented in films even if their assumptions have no factual evidence. It is vital that we change our representations of black women to show their whole humanity for the sake of real black women navigating a world which expects them always to be strong at the expense of their own mental and physical health.