Strong Black Woman Blues - Review

Ebony, July, 1999 by Laura B. Randolph

THE eye-catching title of a fresh, funky, recently released book by a young (read: barely 30) Sister affirmed something I've suspected for a long time, something a lot of smart, successful Sisters have been telling me for a while: There's nothing super about being a superwoman.

On the contrary, Sisters say, trying to be all things to all people, striving to do everything for everybody, is not only physically, mentally and spiritually draining, the pressure is so killer, it fractures your emotional equilibrium to the point where you go through much of your life feeling down and out or up in arms.

The fresh and funky book I'm referring to is When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost. In it, author Joan Morgan, a self-described "hip hop feminist," does something daring and courageous, something many Sisters I know would dearly love to do: She says later, sayanora, hasta la vista, baby, to the superwoman lifestyle.

"This is not to be confused with being strong, Black, and a woman," Morgan writes, explaining her recent "retirement" as an SBW. "I'm still alia that ... What I kicked to the curb was the years of social conditioning that told me it was my destiny to live my life as BLACKSUPERWOMAN Emeritus. That by the sole virtues of my race and gender I was supposed to be the consummate professional, handle any life crisis, be the dependable rock for every soul who needed me, and yes, the classic--require less from my lovers than they did from me because after all, I was a STRONGBLACKWOMAN and they were just ENDANGEREDBLACKMEN. Retirement was ultimately an act of salvation. Being an SBW was killing me slowly."

As it is a lot of Sisters. In fact, when I read Morgan's "retirement letter" to several Sister-friends, I got one rousing, resounding, raise-the-roof, response: Amen! I am sure you are shocked by this. No, me neither. As most Black women will tell you, so much of our time and energy is spent taking care of everyone else's needs, there is precious little of either left to take care of our own. Worse, almost every message we're sent tells us that is exactly what we should be doing.

"When I'm running around like a crazy woman taking care of the job, the house, and the kids," says my friend Sharon, "everybody tells me what a strong Sister I am and how much they admire my strength."

Strength. For countless Black women, it's at the heart of the paradox that has so many of us suffering from the Strong Black Woman Blues. That's because we can't figure out how we should view our strength--as a friend or an enemy, an asset or a liability. We don't know if we should crave it or curse it.

"When you're raised to believe that the ability to kick adversity's ass is a birthright ... you tend to tackle life's afflictions tenaciously," Morgan writes, explaining the confusion. "However, this myth also tricks many of us into believing we can carry the weight of the world."

Newsflash: We can't. As statistics and studies continue to make clear, being an SBW is taking a serious toll on Sisters of all ages and the stress fractures are beginning to show. In, for example, a recent national survey of more than a million African-Americans by BET, The National Medical Association, the National Black Nurses Association and the National Dental Association, the overwhelming majority of female respondents --79 percent--said they have experienced mental health problems. If Black women are to survive, let alone thrive, we must learn to make ourselves a priority, to spend as much time taking care of ourselves as we do taking care of others without guilt or apology. We all--each one of us--must learn the lesson of the moon shell, which author Anne Morrow Lindbergh discovered on a spiritrenewing island vacation many years ago.

"I cannot live forever on my island," she writes, addressing the moon shell in her inspirational book, Gift from the Sea. "But I can take you back to my desk in Connecticut ... You will make me think of the island I lived on for a few weeks. You will say to me `solitude.' You will remind me that I must try to be alone for ... part of each day, even for an hour or a few minutes in order to keep my core, my center, my island-quality.

You will remind me that unless I keep the island-quality intact somewhere within me, I will have little to give my husband, my children, my friends or the world at large. You will remind me that woman must be ... the pioneer in achieving this stillness, not only for her own salvation, but for the salvation of family life, of society, perhaps even of our own civilization."

Can I get an amen for the moon shell?