Why We Need To Stop The “Strong Black Woman” Trope, It Is Not A Compliment.
The strong Black Woman Trope is a myth that perpetuates the idea that Black Women have an inhumane toughness and are uniquely indestructible.
For the past hundreds of years, black women have been given compliments about how “strong” they are and how they can easily combat any difficulty and how we can easily solve problems with no doubt. It’s like a mask we’ve been trained to put on and wear for the rest of our lives, however, this is simply unrealistic and unfair and damaging to our mental health and wellbeing. This needs to come to an end.
Calling us strong, enforces the idea that we manage to be okay despite living through the immense amounts of trauma we have had to experience due to the colour of our skin. It is time to recognize that not all of us are okay and are not in a good headspace because for many of us we experienced racial prejudice ever since we were young girls up until our adult life. Being told that we are strong essentially dehumanizes us, it results in black women feeling worse when we do feel normal human emotions and it makes others feel guilty about ignoring our pain and sadness or right to feel upset.
Historically
Some historical texts regard black women as individuals with a “supernatural ability” to bare…
