Black Women Support Black Women
#HomeIsWhereWIArent
By Alexandria Millet, Culture Staff Writer
It’s hard being a woman. It is difficult being black. And it can be almost exhausting being both. It may be new to the rest of the world to discuss identity politics and intersectionality, but black women have lived at this cross-section for all of time.
This week, the University of Wisconsin-Madison Homecoming Committee released a video describing Madison as home, but conveniently left out all people of color. To make matters worse, a black sorority was promised to be in the video and spent their valuable time being filmed for the video, yet they did not make the cut.
In the pain of being continually erased and forgotten, there has been a forever need for black women to support each other, even when no one else does.
This is a celebration of black women supporting and sharing in the joy and hurt of other black women. It is in our shared struggles and moments of happiness that we can unite with our need to be seen and heard when the world silences our voices.
Last week, on a trip to South Africa, Duchess Meghan Markle reminded the world how black women go out of their way to see each other.
The Duchess, in full black apparel, bent down to console and kiss the hand of eight-year-old Amara Nenguke. With her glowing melanin skin and striped dress and white cardigan, Amara was face-to-face with royalty. But at that moment, all the world saw was a black woman loving the next generation.
The love of black women is intergenerational. The older women know what is to come in that young girl’s life, so she shows her as much love at that moment as possible.
Twitter is undeserving of witnessing the compassion between black women, but once again black women have abundant love for one another to share with the world.
This past August, Coco Gauff and Naomi Osaka, both black, female tennis players, competed against each other in the US Open. Osaka came out as the winner, but you would never know it from the humility she showed to support Gauff in sadness.
After the match, Gauff and Osaka embraced each other with tears running down Gauff’s face. Osaka took time out of her victory to console her opponent and convinced her to talk to the press alongside her. Not only do black women support each other, but they also make room for them to be fully human and feel every emotion.
There was no requirement for Osaka to encourage and comfort Gauff, but it is the nature of black women to stand by their sisters. Commentators have before when seeing black women support one another on the tennis court, “We’ve never seen anything like this, one player comforting another.” Maybe you would if more black women were let on stages of influence.
One more example of black women supporting one another came from my own community work. This summer, I was a counselor for the African American Female Institute at Concordia University. It was a week-long conference for high school-aged black girls that attended school in the suburbs of Milwaukee.
As the young girls sat around on the last night of the conference, one of the girls stood up to give some last words of encouragement before they went their separate ways. She said, “Don’t down yourself, crown yourself.” It was a call for them to remember the royalty she already saw within each of them.
Black women have supported each other through every trial and tribulation. No matter the field─medical, education, communications, law, athletics or any other space black women have historically been shut out of─when black women get there, they support one another.
Malcolm X said, “The most disrespected person in America is the black woman. The most unprotected person in America is the black woman. The most neglected person in America is the black woman.”
The erasure of black women is nothing new in this country, but neither is the community that black women create within themselves. The way that black women put themselves─and their bodies─on the frontlines for one another in the name of love and support is something the world should take notice of─and follow suit.