Are Black Women Too Strong and Independent?

Or y’all just too weak?

Photo by Zach Vessels on Unsplash

Scrolling Instagram, I came across the video below. It is a Latino man explaining how Latina women are raised to be wives. The interviewer then asks him why black women are not raised the same way. His response is that most black women are raised to be strong and independent.

Most of the comments on Instagram and You Tube from both men and women were in agreeance. But I don’t think its so cut and dry. Yes there is some honesty in what he is saying which is like a stab to the heart as the first line questions our upbringing, morals, background, parenting, preparation for life, life skills and history. But replaying this video over and over my thoughts jumped from slavery to Jim Crow, The ‘Father’ of Gynecology Marion Sims, The Doll Study and just the general treatment and the lens in which society views black women.

From 1890 to 1950, black women had a higher marriage rate than white women. Keep in mind this is before slavery where these same women had their babies thrown to sharks from slave ships and watched their husbands limbs being ripped off by animals to set an example of what good slaves shouldn’t do while also being raped by slaveowners because they could. Let’s not forget the Father of Gynecology Marion Sims perform surgery on black slaved women with no anesthesia because according to him, black women didn’t feel pain.

Speaking of babies, my niece is practicing to become a doula and in recent years complained about the lack of black women breastfeeding, always citing the benefits and value that children receive from the mother. But during slavery while black women were nourishing the missus’ children with their milk, their own were dying due to the lack of mothers milk as well as being fed dirty drinking water and cow’s milk. This alone disgusted them enough to discard breastfeeding.

The 1960’s brought a decline in the rate of black marriages but it was still close to that of white marriages. Through the 70’s and 80’s depending on who you ask or your…