Even a Strong Black Woman Feels Tired Sometimes

Don’t Take Them For Granted

Photo by Troy wade on Unsplash

I ran across this piece I wrote a decade ago. I was horrified at the editing (since corrected) but not the sentiment.

If we are lucky, we know or have known strong Black women who can always be counted on when things get tough. What we fail to realize is that it always is an awfully long time and that depending on that strong Black woman can be draining because it so often results in them putting others before themselves. It would be nice to think she “don’t feel no ways tired,” but even the best of them have their days.

Strong Black women are under assault; they are exempt from none of the forces systemically aligned against Black people and have also assumed the responsibility of standing up for their children, their mates, their brothers, and sisters, whether family or not and have even extended themselves to other causes where the absence of justice and equality and rights threatens not just some but all.

It is easy sometimes to sit back and rely on the strong Black woman to fight the good fight, reaping the windfall of their efforts while doing little of the work. We rail against the slaughter of Black men, but with Black women, somehow not so much. We participate in judging and body shaming and trying to control what we ought not. Our…