I Am A Black Woman

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.

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

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.

Black Feminist Reflections on Activism

Often experienced but rarely theorized, black feminist activism can be exhausting and the emotional labor debilitating. Yet often in the name of being “good” and “strong” black women who are “down” for the cause and our people, we keep going even when it hurts. Doing so continues the legacy of domination by relentlessly caring for others at the expense of ourselves. To protect and preserve our physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual health as black women, we must ask: How can we repurpose our strength to lead and support demonstrations against social injustices without continually sacrificing our wellbeing? Focused on summer 2014, I explore how the aftermath of my mother's death and living amid the fires of Ferguson, MO—linked to the killing of Michael Brown—sparked the realization that self-care is critical for black feminist survival.

Rebellious and Strong Black Women in Paradise

The main aim of this paper is to apply black feminist tenets especially those of Bell Hooks and Alice Walker to demonstrate that unlike the passive black female characters of The Bluest Eye, and the resisting but finally victimized black women of Beloved, the wise and strong black women of Paradise who live in the Convent, are strong enough to recreate themselves as subjects, and to cultivate their own unique identity in a hegemonic environment which is replete with racial and gender discrimination. Black feminist actions and womanistic rituals help them accomplish this improvement. Consolata, and Mavis are two of such strong women of the Convent who not only succeed in healing themselves, but also in healing other black women as well. Black feminists claim in order to place black women at the center of stories about the American past, they must be depicted as subjects, that is, as creative change-agents, rather than as objects, or victims of hegemonic agency. In Paradise black women are depicted thus, have their own voices, and completely reject the patriarchal ideology.