Why Are White People So Mean To Black Women?

A tale as old as time entrenched in an ugly history of racism, sexism, and anti-Blackness.

While recently speaking with a fellow Black female faculty member, licking our wounds, and commiserating over living life as Black women faculty in the ivory tower, I could not help but think, “why are people so mean to Black women?” I realize I sound like my four-year-old daughter asking this question, and perhaps it is a bit infantile of me. But Black women undoubtedly face unique experiences of utter nastiness from their co-workers, strangers, and even other Black people that women from other racial and ethnic groups do not experience as routinely. By no means is this a woe is us rant, but the heinous experiences that many Black women sometimes face, point to a much larger issue in which Black women have been dehumanized and objectified. Therefore, devoid of feeling or any other emotion than what has been prescribed to us as acceptable to express and to experience. Yet often, when I speak to Black women about these experiences, they are drained and are simply seeking peace.

Shortly after wrapping up my conversation with my colleague about teaching while Black in higher ed, I read an article about some of the criticism that Viola Davis recently received for her role playing Michelle Obama in The First Lady. I don’t think that Viola Davis received…