The Strong Black Woman

I often hear Black Women depicted as “strong.” The strong black woman is mentally, physically and emotionally strong. She can endure attacks on her womanhood, endure extreme physical pain, and even deal with the fact that she is not the standard of beauty in the society she lives. She is only one person, but many to all. She is mother, lover, friend, comforter and provider all in one. Many times she bears the burden of raising a family that she did not create alone; she must be mother and father to her children. Many times she cries at night, but you’d never know it because she is the strong Black woman. I know many in my family: a mother, a grandmother, cousins, myself.
Reading Katie Cannon’s Black Womanist Ethics more clearly articulated what I already know and live. The way of life for the Black woman comes out of her struggle to live in the midst of racism, sexism, and classism. Throughout history, the Black woman has been the mule of society, carrying the weight of everyone on her soldiers. During slavery, her body is exploited. She is only good for sexual exploitation and labor. After the Civil War, nothing changes but the context. Even in contemporary times, there is “still a situation of struggle to survive collectively and individually against the continuing harsh historical realities and pervasive adversities in today’s world” (65). Where do we go from here?
I like Canon’s suggestion of looking to Black women’s literary traditions as a source for ethics. I also add to that the continuing need for literary works among Black women as a source for ethics. Cannon says that Black women writers verbalize the ways in which Black people creatively affirm their humanity in the midst of external limits, and how they “balance the continual struggle and interplay of paradoxes” (77). In Toni Morrison’s Beloved, Sethe’s character shows us how one devoted mother deals with the trauma of slavery by deciding to kill her children before allowing them to experience the grief of slavery. Though Sethe’s decision to kill her children is problematical, it effectively illustrates Cannon’s point of literary works acting as sources for ethics. Sethe is not simply a crazed mother, but a Black woman trying to “balance the continual struggle and interplay of paradoxes” that make her life” (77). Free from slavery, but a slave to her own guilt. A giver of life, and a taker of life. Black women can look at Morrison’s Beloved, as well as other Black literary works, and find ways to deal with the problems that consistently make us strong – whether we want to be or not.