Black Girls are Bulletproof
- Daijha Thompson
- Feb 25, 2019
- 6 min read
Updated: Mar 24, 2019
Disclaimer: This blog is longer than most.
Welcome Back, Everyone!
I have been waiting to write this blog for a few weeks because I have had too many emotions about this topic and I needed time to, as my mom would say, separate my feelings from the facts.
Today’s topic is all about Black women working in the professional world and still dealing with the struggles and stresses of being Black. On a daily basis, Black women face racism, discrimination and sexism, but they are still expected to be attentive and lively in their work and that can be exhausting. When it feels like you are carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders and you don’t feel like you have the proper support that you need, but you have to continue to wear a smile on your face and greet the world with pleasantries, it becomes hard and almost impossible to even want to get out of bed.
I think Evelyn Ngugi, who is a humor writer, digital storyteller and popular YouTuber, captured my message clearly in her YouTube video, “Calling in Black.” She said, “Watching the same narrative play out over and over and over and over and over and over again takes a toll.” Being Black and dealing with police killing unarmed Black people every day, coping with the fact that people are always going to judge you based on your skin and coming to grips with the feeling of not being safe to just exist in the world is and can be emotionally taxing on a person.
Maura Cheeks writes, “There was a general disillusionment among these women about how their colleagues view the world versus how they experience it. One woman described crying in her hotel bed after reading about a police officer killing a person of color…That same day a Hollywood couple had also broken up and the conversation on the text chain [with coworkers] focused on the Hollywood gossip, never addressing the shooting. She said, ‘I remember watching [a shooting] and crying in my hotel bed. And then having to go to work. And no one checked in for your wellbeing.’ This is the reality for many Black women at work in America. They care deeply about the issues affecting the Black community but that feeling isn’t generally supported or acknowledged in the workplace.”
Whether or not organizations have made a stride to create programs or groups for people who feel left out or unsupported becomes almost irrelevant and obsolete if the people those programs and groups are supposed to benefit still feel disillusioned.
According to Charles Marsh, David W. Guth and Bonnie Poovy Short, who collectively wrote, “Strategic Writing: Multimedia Writing for Public Relations, Advertising and More,” “Fewer than half of public relations practitioners in a 2016 worldwide survey believed that their organizations reflected the diversity of the cultures within which they operated.” And this number is only reflective of public relations practitioners. I am sure there are Black people, especially Black women, in other professions that also don’t feel the diversity of cultures represented in their workplace.
On the educational level, just recently, on Syracuse University’s campus, three students of color were assaulted by a group of three Caucasian males and one Caucasian female at the closing of a birthday gathering. According to the victims, as they were exiting the party, one of the male perpetrators yelled, “What’s up n**ger,” and struck one of the students of color in the face. The three students of color were then pistol-whipped by the female assailant, who threatened to shoot them. They all sustained contusions, bruises, concussions and more.
While this event on campus was troubling within itself, it was even more upsetting the way that the university handled it. The Department of Public Safety (DPS), when releasing its initial statement, downplayed the severity of the occurrence and failed to mention that the incident was racially charged. The Office of Student Life did not release a statement until a week later, after a large number of the students on campus urged them to do so, and, now 16 days later, Chancellor Syverud still has yet to release an official statement.
As a student of color on campus, I was outraged at the lack of response to the incident and the nonchalant attitude being paid to the investigation. I did not feel safe on campus knowing that DPS was handling the incident with such carefree attitudes while the assailants still roamed free. But, most of all, I was upset that the university did not immediately offer or make students aware of the resources and services that they have available to them if they feel unsafe, wish to seek counseling, or would like to find additional support groups. How is it that Syracuse University’s buzzwords this year are “diversity” and “inclusion,” but when a violent and life-threatening incident involving students of color occurs, there is a lack of urgency to provide accurate information and help students feel safe?
When you live in a world that makes you feel like you always have to be on high alert and ready to defend yourself, you want to feel like you have a safe space that goes beyond your home, and it’s difficult to learn that those places are limited. It becomes even harder when you come to the realization that not only do you not have those spaces, but you are expected to just deal with your feelings and “suck it up.”
Even in Black communities, there is a negative stigma surrounding mental health and counseling. According to the National Alliance of Mental Illness, “Instead of seeking professional help for conditions such as depression and anxiety, many in the [Black] community resort to self-medication (drugs, opioids, alcohol, etc.) or isolation in an attempt to solve their problems on their own.”
But, in any case, it is important for Black people, especially Black women, especially Black women who work in any demanding field, to find the support that they need in order to be successful.
So, my advice to other Black women in the professional world, but especially those communications industry, is three-fold.
First, you will always have a duty to yourself and an obligation to follow your heart before you are bound to the responsibilities of your job. My favorite message from Disney’s “Mulan II” is that when you are faced with the decision to choose between your duty, or job, and what you know to be true in your heart, it is important to remember that your duty IS to your heart.” Now, I must say that I agree with the Public Relations Society of America’s Code of Ethics that says, the job of a public relations professional, or any professional for that matter, is “to build trust with the public by avoiding or ending situations that put one’s personal or professional interests in conflict with society’s interests.” If you feel as though your personal opinions and beliefs will put your job at risk, it may be a good idea to pursue work at other organizations. But, it’s important to find a place where you can feel free to speak your mind and feel like you have a safe space to say that you are not okay and have the opportunity to find resources and services to help you cope with your life struggles.
Second, use your platform. Alice Walker once said, “The most common way people give up their power is by believing they don’t have any.” You have so much power in your voice and people want to hear what you have to say. Use your tools and your following, whether it be 10 people or 100, to let your voice be heard and to stand up for what you believe.
Lastly, it is okay to not be okay and voice that you are not okay. Be comfortable asking for help or taking a personal day to sort out your feelings and emotions. I know at times it feels like you carry the weight of the world on your shoulders but know that there are Black women out there just like you who are willing to catch you when you fall and help you get back on your feet.
To give us all some inspiration on using our platform to give our perspective and better our communities, I present Angela Rye, political commentator for CNN and CEO of IMPACT Strategies. Angela Rye is known for using her platform as a political commentator for CNN to voice her opinion and the opinion of most Black Americans. She created and still promotes her hashtag #workWoke that is meant to encourage people to not only realize and understand the racially and sexually targeted events that happen around them but to work to improve the conditions that have made the occurrence of those events possible. She inspires budding young, Black professionals to never sacrifice their personal integrity for the sake of a job or for the comfortability of anyone else.
The intersectionality of mental illness is an often-overlooked dynamic for many marginalized communities. Stigma surrounding mental disease affects all groups throughout society, but when individuals feel socially compelled to be more “put together” because of biases they already actively need to combat, it might be even harder for them to speak out on their most personal issues.
This isn’t to detract from the struggle of those with privilege who similarly struggle every day with mental illness, but rather to add to the emerging and developing mainstream dialogue that is developing around mental health.
I think among the most important things to recognize is that everyone will experience personal and public events differently, and no one’s feelings are more or less…