Black Educated Women

Writing a dissertation is a slow, lonely journey that feels endless. It’s a reshaping of who you are.

You’re different intellectually, for sure, but not because you know any more or less than anyone (although you most likely know more about your topic in that moment than most people). It’s because the writing and thinking and analyzing involved transform the way you think and communicate. Your resilience and resolve change as well. It takes chutzpah to write new knowledge into existence and publicly defend your ideas to a panel of experts.

According to The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, “black women now earn 65 percent of all new doctorates awarded to African Americans” (News and views, 2020, July 7). Despite the stereotypes consigned to us — Mammy, Sapphire, Jezebel, Matriarch, Welfare Queen, Angry Black Woman, Tragic Mulatto — we rise to the pinnacles of educational attainment.

That amazes me.

From 1620 to 1820, we were chattel who could only obtain education illegally.

But between 1920 and 1950, African American women earning college degrees increased “dramatically” (Bertaux & Anderson, 2006, p. 16).

And that’s America to me, a country designed to oppress yet filled with people willing to support.

I didn’t earn my Ph.D. on my own. People paved my way; people supported me; people funded me. My journey wasn’t without drama (I’ll write about that another day), but the US is a flawed place that, often because of those flaws, yields excellence from unlikely sources.

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I wrote this as a part of a writing challenge “America Me & Mine.” Check it out and join in!