Today’s Women Alliance and Black Girls Rock! Inc. are two non-profit youth empowerment and mentoring organizations that encourage young women of color to view themselves in a positive light, and strive to reach their full potential. Race, a socially constructed notion, plays an essential part in shaping the American Society. Many people believe that the United States is now a post-racial society simply because Barack Obama, a bi-racial man who identifies as black, is our president.
Too many times in our country’s history black women have been portrayed in stereotypical and often disparaging ways, as ignorant, lazy, buffoonish, hyper-sexual or sexless martyrs, welfare queens from the ghetto. Society has come a long way, however, though not as overt, these depictions still do linger on today.
Living in a society where we have been bombarded with negative stereotypes and images of black women, it is essential for me, as a black woman and a mother of two beautiful black girls, to seek out, project, and promote positive images of black women and other women of color. Yes, you may find us in the ghetto doing the best we can to hold our families together with limited resources. You can also find us in the more affluent parts of the cities, the suburbs, the board rooms, Wall Street, Main Street, and the White House.
Black women continue to break through mental chains of distorted images and messages bestowed upon us. Thank you to the likes of Oprah Winfred, Condoleezza Rice, Michelle Obama; giants like Nikki Giovanni, Maya Angelou, Tina Turner, and the countless every day intelligent, hard working, beautiful black women out there for igniting my psyche with optimism and giving me the audacity to walk every day with my head up high.
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