I was having a discussion with someone about the validity of DEI hires, and I was explaining to them that both can exist. A DEI hire or person of color can also be the most qualified person in the room. I also went on to say that I always want to receive services from the most qualified person, but I will also go out of my way to make sure that that most qualified person is also a black woman. Anytime that I am in exchange with a black woman it is a wonderful experience. I was asked why that was so important to me.
It is an added bonus, a privilege, and a blessing for me to receive care from, collaborate with, and befriend another black woman because as a black woman myself, I have learned the history of what we have been through and overcome in America. I second Malcolm X’s notion that black women are the most underappreciated and undervalued group in America.
Black women have sacrificed raising their own children for the sake of raising white ones. We marched alongside and worked with white women for the right to vote and were pushed to the side and still denied the vote, even though the efforts were equal on both sides. Our maternal mortality rate is three times higher than other races due to medical racism, discrimination, and a history of medical exploitation and experimentation. You can research unethical experiments of enslaved black women and Henrietta Lacks. Society pushes us to be strong but not angry, and when we decide to be soft, feminine, and luxurious we are told that those things are above us and that we are undeserving it.
But despite all of this and more, we’ve gone from mammies and wet nurses to being the most educated gender-group in America. Our work in the women’s suffrage movement was not in vain, because now there are more black women in political positions on every level. Homebirths and doula education are on the rise in Black households and among black women so that we can live for our children and advocate for ourselves medically. We are redefining luxury and comfort for ourselves and inspiring the next generation of black women to be aware of their inner and outer worth. When I am in the presence of another black woman I am literally looking at someone who comes from a stock of people who have done everything that society has told them they could not do, and have overcome everything that society has implemented to hinder them. This is why it will always be us for me.
