“When I liberate myself, I liberate others. If you don't speak out ain't nobody going to speak out for you.” ~ Fannie Lou Hamer
Hey everybody! Before we get into our entry today, I did want to take the time to acknowledge this special day. Happy 3rd Anniversary, Bird’s Eye View! B.E.V. literally feels like my child, and I really put my everything into its creation in 2020. Every time you all read my content, you are basically reading me as if I was a book. All of my thoughts, emotions, and entire being is poured into my blog and it has truly been such a joy that people even care enough to read it. From the bottom of my heart, thank you for taking the time to simply support me and my dream. I know I haven’t been the most active because life has not been easy. Graduate school has me in a complete chokehold! I am learning and experiencing so much that it’s a bit hard to keep up with myself or my blog. Consistency is something that I strive for and I kinda beat myself up about not being 100% as I would like for B.E.V. So much to the point that I have even considered just deleting my website entirely. But that just does not sit right with me, therefore, I will continue to move forward and push through it all! I would love for y’all to fly with me in pushing through all the barriers that may come our way.
Today, I wanna talk about the importance of creating space in the therapeutic room for Black women. This entry is actually based on the very first literature review that I submitted in my first semester of grad school. I hope y’all enjoy it!
I pray you catch a wave
That doesn't subside
This for the nappy heads in heaven
With a nappy head Christ by they side
May your streets be paved with gold
Hope my whole hood make it home
I hope you make it home
Make It Home - Tobe Nwigwe (2020)
As a people, Black women have learned to navigate the world as a “double minority”. The identity of a Black woman includes not only the social status of being Black but also the status of being a woman. As a “double minority”, Black women are left socially vulnerable to constant racial and gender discrimination. For example, as women, Black women can be exposed to increased workplace discrimination, sexual assault, intimate partner violence, poverty, housing insecurity, and complications with pregnancy and birth. Yet, when this gender discrimination is racialized, it emphasizes “a core dilemma for African American females [which] is cultural dissonance. Young women perceive at the onset of adolescence that they belong to a class of humans who are socially devalued” (Daughtery, 2011, p. 457). As a result of their unique identity within underrepresented groups, Black women must learn how to navigate within a world that has no regard or concern about their livelihood, seeking to eradicate Black women, their experience, and their longevity as both a race and gender.
Like I mentioned in To Be or Not to Be, we as Black people often code-switch to decrease the likelihood of being generalized by the stereotypes of our identity. In order to navigate society as safely as possible, Black women put on their best Hannah Montana persona and engage in their “double life”. We wear our best clothes, “fix” our hair, put on our “white people voice”, and carry on within a society that expects us to tone down our power for the comfort of other people. We take these actions as protective measures to ensure that our core identity as Black women is shielded at all costs. Yet, when we are surrounded around our friends, families, and communities of support, we shed our “double life” and disengage “shifting” (Spates et al., 2020, p. 514). With our people, we have the opportunity to remove our protective persona, engage authenticity, and be vulnerable without our safety at risk. In addition to our people, religious and spiritual practices like praying, meditating, and believing in a higher power also provide us with coping strategies to protect ourselves from gendered racism as Black women.
In a world where we are consistently targeted and disregarded, we need a home for Black women to feel safe, grow, and connect in. As a Black female therapist trainee, I have made it my mission to make this home within therapeutic spaces. Black female clients deserve therapists that stand tall with them in their whole experience without perpetuating the gendered racism that we experience. We deserve therapists that see our resilience, strength, pride, and beauty that make us who we are as Black women. We have been silenced, ignored, and attacked for far too long and it is time for society to take accountability for our lack of safe spaces/homes. We are far from “Angry Black Women”. We are women of the world without a single room to be ourselves safely in society.
I pride myself on the fact that I come from a long line of resilient people that did not take “no” from society as an answer and continued to excel beyond the previous limitations of our ancestors. Together, we will build our home from the ground up with the love and care that is needed to spread our wings over the horizon of the world.
~Cheyenne
Daughtery, L. (2011). Understanding identity development and spirituality in African American female adolescents through their foster care experience. Journal of African American Studies, 15(4), 455–468. https://doi-org.libproxy.csun.edu/10.1007/s12111-011-9183-0
Spates, K., Evans, N. M., Watts, B. C., Abubakar, N., & James, T. (2020). Keeping ourselves sane: A qualitative exploration of Black women’s coping strategies for gendered racism. Sex Roles, 82(9/10), 513–524. https://doi-org.libproxy.csun.edu/10.1007/s11199-019-01077-1
Stokes, M. N., Hope, E. C., Cryer-Coupet, Q. R., & Elliot, E. (2020). Black girl blues: The roles of racial socialization, gendered racial socialization, and racial identity on depressive symptoms.