The Problem with Black Resiliency

Mass media often perpetuate the trope of the “strong Black woman,” someone who perseveres through cycles of hardship and struggle. But new research is showing that celebrating the resiliency of Black women and girls has a cost.

 The study, co-authored by Keisha Bentley-Edwards, Ph.D., an associate professor in the Duke School of Medicine and an affiliate of the Duke Global Health Institute, links the constant demand for Black women and girls to be resilient to lasting adverse effects on health including higher rates of maternal mortality.

 “There’s a price paid on our health and relationships when we are in constant ‘fight or flight’ mode,” says Bentley-Edwards, the associate director of research for the Samuel DuBois Cook Center on Social Equity at Duke. “If Black women didn’t have to fight for everyday life victories or survival, imagine the even greater level of creativity and innovation that could happen.”

 As Black girls transition into adulthood, their health outcomes don’t parallel their educational and career successes, writes Bentley-Edwards in an article published this week in The American Psychologist. The study notes that pregnancy-related death rates among college-educated Black women are 5.2 times higher than White women, and 1.6 times higher than white women who didn’t complete high school.

Terms such as “Black Girl Magic” and “Strong Black Woman” can undermine health interventions by glorifying struggle, the paper notes. For example, a young, black woman who is pregnant and attending college may be praised for exhausting herself in her efforts to succeed, rather than be offered tangible support like housing or employment assistance.

Nurturing resiliency among Black youth was intended to provide a stop-gap measure to deal with societal ills, but it should not be a substitute for addressing systemic problems, says Bentley-Edwards, who wrote the paper with Valerie N. Adams-Bass, Ph.D., an assistant professor of childhood studies at Rutgers University.

 “This is a critique of why society relies on Black women to be resilient,” says Bentley-Edwards. “Often times, we focus on just changing people’s behaviors and habits and not the systems that put these inequalities in place. We need to ease that burden. Otherwise, it’s people always adjusting to chaos.”

Expectations of resiliency begin for many Black girls in school, where they are often pressured to be better than Black boys, but not their White classmates. Black girls are often regarded as older than their actual age, the researchers say, which strips them of innocence and causes them to receive less protection from adults. Without that shield, many Black girls become victims of bullying, but they are often punished when attempting to defend themselves.

 “A lot of times, Black [girls] and women are disregarded based on their volume, tone and accents,” Bentley-Edwards explains. “People concentrate more on the presentation of what they’re saying and not the content of their concerns.”

Black girls and women deserve to feel safe, be vulnerable and heard, the authors say. “We have to think about the ways we raise Black girls so they don’t have to recover from their childhood,” she says. “Black women should still be healthy adults whether they had a healthy childhood or not. These are good starting points to support us in our health and wellbeing.”

Instead of romanticizing constant struggle, the authors urge a shift toward more resources and support for Black girls and women to manage multiple responsibilities and reduce stress. The paper notes, for example, that mothers working as health professionals showed lower levels of cortisol, a hormone associated with stress, when they were offered safe spaces for dialogue and sharing resources.

Simply put, the pressure to show superhuman resiliency has left many Black women tired and stressed, Bentley-Edwards says. What they need now is support, not praise for doing it alone.

 “It’s okay to be strong, and we love the concept of ‘Black Girl Magic,’ but we want people to come back happy and healthy after facing adversity,” she says. “We didn’t want this paper to be just a critique, but to create a path forward in health for Black girls and women that encourages and supports them.”