scholarly journals I Am A Black Woman

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 78-80
Author(s):  
Rheanna Rookwood
Keyword(s):  
Black Women ◽  
Black Woman ◽  
Strong Black Women

I am a Black Woman. I am proud of who I am and I have great admiration for strong Black Women who do not put themselves in a box and conform to what society wants them to be. They are in control of their own lives and have voices. They believe in change and are setting standards that represent what I strive to achieve.

The Role of Coping in the Relationship Between Endorsement of the Strong Black Woman Schema and Depressive Symptoms Among Black Women

2021 ◽  
pp. 009579842110212
Author(s):  
Martinque K. Jones ◽  
Tanisha G. Hill-Jarrett ◽  
Kyjeila Latimer ◽  
Akilah Reynolds ◽  
Nekya Garrett ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Depressive Symptoms ◽  
Black Women ◽  
Health Outcomes ◽  
Black Woman ◽  
Coping Styles ◽  
Mental Health Outcomes ◽  
Multiple Mediation ◽  
Strong Black Woman

The Strong Black Woman (SBW) schema has been consistently linked to negative mental health outcomes among Black women. However, few have begun to explicate the mechanisms by which the endorsement of the SBW schema may influence mental health outcomes. Accordingly, the current study examined coping styles (social support, disengagement, spirituality, and problem-oriented/engagement) as mediators in the association between endorsement of the SBW schema and depressive symptoms in a sample of Black women. Data from 240 Black women ( Mage = 22.0, SD = 4.0 years) were collected assessing SBW schema endorsement, coping styles, and depressive symptoms. Parallel multiple mediation analysis was conducted using PROCESS Macro. Of the four coping styles examined, disengagement coping partially mediated the association between greater endorsement of the SBW schema and greater depressive symptoms. Study findings add depth to our understanding of the association between the SBW schema and mental health outcomes and lend themselves to research and clinical implications.

scholarly journals African American Women and Domestic Violence: Addressing their Voice of Silence

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bernice Kennedy ◽  
Chalice Rhodes (Former Jenkins)
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Domestic Violence ◽  
African American ◽  
Black Women ◽  
African American Women ◽  
White Women ◽  
The United States ◽  
Slave Owner ◽  
American Women ◽  
Strong Black Women

Abstract Historically, during slavery, the international slave trade promoted normalization of violence against African American women. During slavery, African American women endured inhuman conditions because of the majority race views of them as being over-sexualized, physically strong, and immoral. This perception of the African American women as being highly sexual and more sexual than white women results in slave owner justifying their sexual violation and degrading of the African American women. The stereotypical representations of African American women as strong, controlling, dangerous, fearless, and invulnerable may interfere with the African American women receiving the needed services for domestic violence in the community. The Strong Black Women Archetype has been dated back to slavery describing their coping mechanism in dealing with oppression by developing a strong, less traditionally female role. The authors developed a model: The Multidimensional Perspectives of Factors Contributing to Domestic Violence of African American Women in the United States. This model depicts historically, the factors contributing to domestic violence of African American women in the United States. Also, this model addressed the African American women subscribing to the Strong Black Women Archetype to cope with domestic violence. Despite the increase in domestic violence in African American women, they focused more on the issue of racism instead of sexism in America. African American women have experienced the two obstacles of racism and sexism in America. However, African American women and men believe racism is more critical than sexism. Therefore, domestic violence in the African American population may remain silent because of cultural loyalty. However, the voice of silence of African American females is gradually changing with the upcoming generations.

“I Just Wanted a World That Looked Like the One I Know”

2018 ◽  
pp. 83-107
Author(s):  
Ralina L. Joseph
Keyword(s):  
Black Women ◽  
Black Woman ◽  
Black Female ◽  
First Century ◽  
Strategic Ambiguity ◽  
The Press ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
The One

Chapter 3 examines showrunner Shonda Rhimes’ twenty-first century Black respectability politics through the form of strategic ambiguity. Joseph traces Rhimes’ performance of strategic ambiguity first in the pre-Obama era when she stuck to a script of colorblindness, and a second in the #BlackLivesMatter moment when she called out racialized sexism and redefined Black female respectability. In the shift from the pre-Obama era to the #BlackLivesMatter era, this chapter asks: how did Rhimes’ careful negotiation of the press demonstrate that, in the former moment, to be a respectable Black woman was to perform strategic ambiguity, or not speak frankly about race, while in the latter, respectable Black women could and must engage in racialized self-expression, and redefine the bounds of respectability?

From Blaxploitation to Black Macho

2019 ◽  
pp. 183-201
Author(s):  
Terrion L. Williamson
Keyword(s):  
Women Writers ◽  
Popular Culture ◽  
Black Women ◽  
Black Woman ◽  
Cultural Production ◽  
Reality Television ◽  
Feminist Movement ◽  
Ntozake Shange ◽  
Black Feminist ◽  
Black Women Writers

For commentators concerned with black cultural production in the contemporary era, there are few images more controversial than the angry black woman, particularly as it is reproduced within the confines of reality television. This chapter traces the lineage of the angry black woman back to key black feminist texts of the 1970s, arguing that the trope emerges out of a distinct sociopolitical history that was codified within both public policy and popular culture throughout the decade. Blaxploitation films became the site where black women’s anger was most visibly commodified, even as black women involved in an emergent black feminist movement worked to combat withering social commentaries that included Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s matriarchy thesis and sexist takedowns of black women writers like Ntozake Shange and Michele Wallace.

A Second hand Kind of Terror

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alisha Gaines
Keyword(s):  
Black Women ◽  
Black Woman ◽  
House Staff ◽  
The Political ◽  
Johnson Administration ◽  
White House ◽  
Black Womanhood ◽  
Black Sexuality ◽  
John Howard ◽  
Previous Scholarship

Chapter Three considers the political, racial, and social crises plaguing the late 1960s by reading Soul Sister, Grace Halsell’s 1969 memoir. A freelance journalist and a White House staff writer for the Lyndon B. Johnson administration, Halsell was also a protégé of John Howard Griffin, who famously passed for black in 1959. While previous scholarship on Griffin has wrestled with his place as an enduring icon of racial empathy, this chapter details Griffin’s previously unknown mentorship of Halsell. Bolstered by extensive archival research, this chapter demonstrates how Halsell prepared for her performance of black womanhood by relying exclusively on Griffin’s instruction without any advice from black women. The chapter also situates Halsell’s blackness within important discussions around the contentious relationship between racial equality and 2nd wave feminism. Ultimately, Halsell’s six-months as a black woman in Harlem and Mississippi during the burgeoning black power movement ironically reveals grotesque assumptions about black sexuality, authenticity, and class.

scholarly journals 3278 Gendered racism, psychological distress, and the strong Black woman

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (s1) ◽  
pp. 107-107
Author(s):  
Maha Baalbaki
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Psychological Distress ◽  
Black Women ◽  
Health Outcomes ◽  
Black Woman ◽  
Pearson Correlation ◽  
Mental Health Outcomes ◽  
Strong Black Woman ◽  
Gendered Racism ◽  
Cultural Construct

OBJECTIVES/SPECIFIC AIMS: Black women experience discrimination that targets their intersecting gender and ethnic identities, termed gendered racism (Essed, 1991). The gendered racism Black women experience has been linked to negative mental health outcomes (Thomas etal., 2008). The ‘strong Black woman’ is a cultural symbol of strength depicting the Black woman as unwavered by hardships, such as gendered racism (Shorter-Gooden & Washington, 1996). However, recent research suggests that belief in the strong Black woman cultural construct is associated with negative mental health outcomes (Watson & Hunter, 2015). The goals of the current study were to (1) replicate previous findings suggesting that experiences with gendered racism is positively correlated with psychological distress, (2) replicate previous findings suggesting that belief in the strong Black woman construct is positively correlated with psychological distress, and (3) explore how experiences with gendered racism and belief in the strong Black woman construct might interact to predict distress. METHODS/STUDY POPULATION: A national sample of 112 Black women completed an online survey via MTurk. Survey measures included the Gendered Racial Microaggressions Scale, Strong Black Woman Cultural Construct Scale, and Psychological Distress Scale. RESULTS/ANTICIPATED RESULTS: Pearson correlation revealed that experiences with gendered racism was positively correlated with psychological distress, r = 0.23, p = .02. Pearson correlation also revealed that belief in the strong Black woman cultural construct was positively correlated with psychological distress, r = 0.39, p < .001. Multiple linear regression revealed an interaction between experiences with gendered racism and belief in the strong Black woman construct (β = -0.18, p = .04) that predicted psychological distress, R2 = .20, F(3,108) = 8.63, p < .01. Namely, for those with high belief in the strong Black woman construct, experiences with gendered racism did not predict distress, β = -0.31, t = -0.29, p = .78. However, for those with low belief in the construct, experiences with gendered racism positively predicted distress, β = -2.57, t = 2.31, p = .02. DISCUSSION/SIGNIFICANCE OF IMPACT: The results underscore the harmful effects of gendered racism and gendered racial stereotypes on Black women’s mental health outcomes. Striving to appear as the strong Black woman is not likely to help Black women overcome daily hardships. In fact, belief in the strong Black woman construct is likely to add extra difficulties.

scholarly journals Set Thine House in Order: Black Feminism and the Sermon as Sonic Art in The Amen Corner

Religions ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 271
Author(s):  
Melanie R. Hill
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
African American ◽  
Black Women ◽  
American Literature ◽  
Black Woman ◽  
African American Literature ◽  
Women's Spirituality ◽  
Cultural Resistance ◽  
Sonic Art ◽  
Women Preachers

In The Souls of Black Folk, W.E.B. DuBois discusses the historical and cultural beginnings of the black preacher as “the most unique personality developed on American soil.” He writes, “[the black preacher] found his functions as the healer of the sick, the interpreter of the Unknown, the comforter of the sorrowing, the supernatural avenger of wrong…Thus as bard, physician, judge, and priest within the narrow limits allowed by the slave system rose the Negro preacher.” Far from being a monolith, the preacher figure embodies many complexities and variances on how the preached Word can be delivered. This begs the question, in what ways can we reimagine DuBois’s black preacher figure in his words, “the most unique personality developed on American soil,” as a black woman? What remains to be seen in scholarship of the mid-twentieth century is an articulation of the black woman preacher in African American literature. By reimagining and refiguring a response to DuBois’s assertion above, how is the role of the black woman preacher and impact of her sermons portrayed in African American literature? Using the art of the sermon, the intersection of music, and James Baldwin’s The Amen Corner as a central text, this article examines the black woman preacher in character and African American women’s spirituality in twentieth century literature. I argue that the way in which Margaret Alexander, as a black woman preacher in the text, creates sermonic spaces of healing and restoration (exegetically and eschatologically) for herself and others outside of the church becomes a new mode of social and cultural resistance. This article works to re-envision the black woman and reposition her in the center of religious discourse on our way to unearthing the modes of transfiguration black women preachers evoke in and out of the pulpit.

Wayward Travels

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 12-29
Author(s):  
Ayanna Dozier
Keyword(s):  
Black Women ◽  
Black Woman ◽  
Gender Discrimination ◽  
Jim Crow ◽  
Comic Books ◽  
Narrative Structure ◽  
Comic Strip ◽  
Women Readers ◽  
The World ◽  
Racialized Gender

Golden Age cartoonist Jackie Ormes created dramatic narratives in her comic strip Torchy in Heartbeats (Pittsburgh Courier, 1950–54) that were unique, in that they were created by a Black woman cartoonist for Black women readers. Ormes skillfully manipulated the typical strip's narrative structure to creatively depict a single Black woman freely traveling the world in the era of Jim Crow. This essay examines two specific Torchy in Heartbeats strips from 1951–52 to reveal how Ormes worked within the then-dominant framework of respectability politics—not to challenge it, but to present a Black woman navigating racialized gender discrimination and pursuing her desires despite her “respectable status,” with sometimes terrifying results. In the process, it works to redress the paucity of scholarship on Black women's contributions to comic books and strips.

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