The Mules of the World: The Unfair Sacrifice of Black Women

We are bombarded with news cycles, social media posts, and daily exposure to injustices within our community, the United States, and the larger world. Some of these local, national, and world events directly involve harm to Black women. Yet, many of them do not. However, as Black women, we are keenly aware of the impact of oppression and marginalization of even those who do not look like us, will and have been used at points in time to justify our own mistreatment.

Oppression does not end with others who are historically and currently marginalized and excluded. Even in those moments when many will insist that “this does not pertain to you”, Black women recognize that society’s willingness to victimize others is a scary foreshadowing of what has and is to come for them…if they remain silent.

Many of us are familiar with the idea that “your silence will not protect you”. Yet, for Black women, there is nothing but us that will protect us. It was Zora Neale Hurston in her book “Their Eyes Were Watching God” who reminded us that “Black women are the mules of the earth”. No matter how we see ourselves, the world often deems us as the least valuable but the most acceptable to be used. In this time, throughout my social media feeds and within various conversations/platforms, Black women are risking their livelihoods and relationships in their addressing what many are defining as trauma, harm, and injustices.

There is such privilege in being able to speak up without fear of being ostracized, or in experiencing long-lasting damage.

Black women have never had that privilege.

Recently, I wrote a piece that I hesitated to and then chose not to post. In part because I knew that, although I was speaking out about injustices I was seeing, there would be no protection for me or my livelihood by doing so. The painful decision Black women must face to decide to engage in self-preservation or to continue to martyr themselves for just causes is an unfair and unwinnable one.

We have seen in many issue-driven dialogues, and movement spaces that Black women will often be the most vocal in calling out wrongs. They will do it to their own detriment and for what will likely benefit them the least (if at all).

Throughout media platforms, I have consistently witnessed Black women stand up for causes for which others have been complacent or will minimize.

Even as these same Black women frustratingly question where everyone is when they are the ones suffering.

I have watched as these same Black women acknowledge that speaking up on various issues may result in loss of business, support, jobs, etc., but that they must do it.

Anyway.

I feel the constriction of my own chest as I grapple with the ongoing expectation that we put so much on the line with punishment being the likely outcome.

Whether one chooses to agree with the arguments that Black women are making in these racial/gender/sexual orientation/policy brutality/world issue/war moments, we cannot fail to recognize the truth in their fear.

Their mule status is their glaring reality.

Black women are aware that they cannot win.

In any space.

Yet, they show up.

They own their beliefs/convictions, even when it is unpopular to do so.

They demand that we see what is happening.

Whether in our own backyards

Or on the world stage.

Black women have been putting their bodies, their voices, and their careers on the line because they deem it necessary that they do so.

Yet, this necessity is a burden that is unfair and difficult to sustain. There is a space between making room for Black women to show up and expecting them to fill the entire room because of your own self-preservation.

We argue that we should “believe and trust Black women”, until the atrocities that they condemn are those with which we agree, or state do not exist.

We insist that we “support Black women”, until doing so means truly supporting the anti-oppressive beliefs that they have always held…even the ones that may hit close to home.

Dr. Tyffani is a licensed psychologist who centers the needs of Black Women and Girls in her work. She is working on balancing her needs to speak up with the understanding that very few will do the same for her. She continues to love and support Black women and wishes for a time when others will consistently do the same.

#DrTyffani #LoveBlackWomen #SocialJustice #amplifyvoices

Photo Credit: Dr. Tyffani. Pictures taken at the March for Black Women in 2018.