The Invisible Black Woman

There is a particular lens of “invisibility” that is applied to Black Women and Black Girls in terms of not “seeing them” as someone who matters.

Black Women and Black Girls needs are not being met at an equal level, socially nor economically, and they are faced with seemingly insurmountable inequities that ignore the fact that research tells us, Black Women are among the highest educated in the United States: many with multiple degrees in higher education. “According to the National Center for Education Statistics, between 2009 and 2010, black women earned 68 percent of all associate degrees awarded to black students, as well as 66 percent of bachelor’s degrees, 71 percent of master’s degrees and 65 percent of all doctorates awarded to black students.” The Root (2016). Yet, Black Women remain for decades now since the 1970’s next to the bottom rung of the economic ladder in America. A recent study shows, “. . . black women may be the most highly educated, but also a recent study found that black women make up just 8 percent of private sector jobs and less than 2 percent of leadership roles.” (2016). Volumes of research show that Black Women’s children are among the poorest in almost every community in the United States. The ability to even maintain housing, for many, is a month-to-month challenge to not be homeless with their children.

Even among the multifaceted highly educated Black Women, many face the failures of an employment system that continues to refuse to make room for them. An employment system, that at best, provides extremely limited space for them or just don’t hire them at all regardless of qualification through education or experience. Black Women who are hired, it is not uncommon that they are paid far less than lesser qualified non-black women. Black Women are also hired predominantly, for lesser executive level management positions, despite their being qualified to do the job. Venture capital for entrepreneurship efforts is also a barrier for Black Women. However, they are welcomed to share their business visions and concepts.

Having spoken with various Black Women through focus groups, direct communications, and ethnographically living as and among Black Women all of my life; through my research, I discovered that some Black Women are reporting to be actually taking their higher education degrees off of their resumes. They are doing so in the belief that an employer seeing a lesser educated Black Woman, may be less intimidated by her and will hire her for the job. Many have reported that they are doing this just so they can feed and house themselves and their children if there are any. This is often counter-productive and continues low-wages for highly skilled Black Women and does not lift them and their children out of poverty.

This desperation by Black Women, speaks to just how far Black Women have been pushed into the margins, that some feel they must “shrink” in more ways than one, so that others may feel comfortable with them in the working environment, just to feed their families. Some Black Women report being told on the job that their cultural communication at work is too strong, and it makes the other non-black colleagues afraid of them, as these employers perpetuate the myth called the “angry black woman” upon her. Still, other Black Women have reported being told, they cannot wear their hair in twists or braids at work. It’s interesting to me, how these companies do not see such demands of these Black Women to “shrink” from who they are so that non-black employees are made to feel more comfortable, and the perpetuation of racist myths upon these Black Women, as being discriminatory of Black Women.

These are REAL case scenarios facing many Black Women every day, over many years and decades, in America. We all have seen this happening, although some pretend not to be paying attention. Society pretends not to see these women, but we do. Society ignores them, and the plight of their children as if their Black Lives Don’t Matter. We all see the impact of this type of systemic and economic violence upon these Black Women and their children’s lives in America. We see it in their health and well-being, their children being raised in poverty as a result of this type of economic violence, and the related high crimes due to the poverty this economic violence has created.

Economic restoration for Black Women is as important as every other kind of healing and restoration from violence. Poverty is violence. When we heal and restore a woman, we heal and restore her children; and her children’s children, down through the generations.

The Root (2016), retrieve. http://www.theroot.com/black-women-...