Listen to Black Women

From Mantra to Movement

It's on t-shirts. It's on tote bags. It was everywhere on social media in 2020 when America was falling apart. “Listen to Black women.” But aside from one calendar year of hiring Black women to fix broken institutions, I'm not sure this sentence ever shifted from mantra to movement. 

And it ought to be a movement. 

Malcolm X said in 1969, “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.” And he wasn't lying. The stats are everywhere proving how Black women suffer disproportionately in a white supremacist society. The film and literary tropes regarding Black women are ubiquitous- the sexually insatiable Jezebel… the asexual, care-taking Mammy… the best friend/therapist who exists only to ask the white character are you okay? And that’s if there is a Black woman in the storyline at all. In fantasy and reality, Black women are rarely listened to. 

And yet we speak. The erasure we often experience, living as a group who get wedged into the problems of white women and Black men, has never stopped us from saying what needs to be said. But when we do, accusations often follow. We are accused of being aggressive, mean, short. We are chastised for our tone. We are told that it was the wrong time or the wrong place to speak. We are both too strong to need anything and too sensitive to be taken seriously. We are required to give grace but rarely is grace given to us. Our voices are buried under the needs, biases and racist expectations of those we hoped could hear us… this time. 

And so it was nice that for 6-12 months, we were taken seriously… sort of. We were hired to do the job. We were celebrated for our contributions. We were asked to share our experiences and ideas and plans and skills. But it turned out, few were actually listening. 

And I know this because America didn't actually interrupt the racist assumptions that underscore why weren't listened to in the first place. The reason for listening to Black women isn't just because we are tired (though we are), and not just because we are annoyed (though we are) and not just because we are right (though we are), but because we have something important to contribute to the ongoing development of this country. 

You see we are not just experts in our own, individual experience of being Black in America. We are the ones who have studied whiteness, have studied power, have studied oppression, have studied society, have studied access and opportunity, have studied hierarchy, have studied appropriation and devaluation, have studied communities, have studied corporations, have studied public spaces… because we have been expected to sacrifice our bodies in the service of others achieving their own greatness within each of these systems, structures and networks. 

Black women are reasoned, rational, grounded, wise participants in the life of our society and yet we hold little power to influence to society because we are not valued. Communities listen to the people they value. And if America started valuing Black women, listening to us would no longer by a cute mantra but a transformative movement. 

If America is ever going to be better, it will first have to value the voices of Black women. Because, contrary to popular belief, we are actually creating frameworks, ethics, values around which we hope to disrupt the oppressions that exist in a society that claims equality of persons. And that framework matters. Those principles and ethics and theories matter. Black women are not just here for a couple pithy quotes and a few sentences that momentarily snap people out of sleepwalking through life. Make sure you don’t turn us into the black bestie trope who exist only to ask if you are okay.

Love and Justice,

Austin