50 Ways I See — Really See — Black Women

As a Black woman therapist and an anti-racist community advocate, I hear a lot. I’d like to acknowledge the sheer will and tenacity in the women I see.

I’ve long reflected upon the unseen, inequitable experiences that Black women often talk about — sometimes in whispers and sometimes in lawsuits. These experiences are all macro- and microaggressions that shouldn’t happen yet happen over and over again.

As a Black, biracial therapist, educator, and anti-racist activist myself, I have come to recognize that these experiences are a result of Black women existing at the intersectionality of sexism and racism. All of it institutionalized, invisible, and a remnant of slavery.

The human toll of these stressors is immeasurable. Our minds, bodies, souls, success, wealth, and health rise and fall depending upon how other people treat us. We are not in control even though we try to be. Yet we cope. On one hand, one of the strengths of being a Black woman is that it allows me — allows us — to be seen as the cornerstone of the family, community, and society. On the other hand, this type of stress and expectation inevitably causes chronic exhaustion and the onset of physical and mental illnesses.