By Sanaa Mirz

For a lot of my life, I tried my best to twist myself into the shape of a ‘strong black woman’. No matter what was going on in my life, I had to be the ‘strong black woman’. While I now know that I am in fact a strong woman, I know too that this was a mask I wore because I had no clue of who I actually was. Being a black woman, there are only certain roles society tells you that you can fill. For the most part, individuality is a privilege only granted to those who fit into ‘mainstream’ society, those seen as the norm: essentially those white, cis, and heterosexual. 

What black child can be their own person when they constantly have to fight against stereotypes and racist behaviors? You find yourself fighting so much at a young age about things you don’t yet have words for until you are left wondering who it is you really are. You become so distracted by the hate that you no longer know who it is that stares back at you in the mirror. 

There are so many stereotypes of black women that it would be near impossible to name them all. Some of the most common ones I’ve seen are the Sassy Black Woman, the Angry Black Woman, the Strong Black woman, the Nice Black Woman and the Hypersexual Black Woman. As being the ‘angry’ black woman is frowned upon, I tried my best to be a combination of the ‘strong’ black woman and the ‘nice’ black woman. As a child, I learned early that while my white peers could afford to ‘find themselves’, I had to build myself. I had to choose what caricature of myself to present to the world before that was decided for me. Therefore, through watching TV and observing the adults around me, I chose to be the ‘nice’ black woman. It seemed to me that being the ‘nice’ black woman would afford me the opportunity to ‘fit in’ with my white peers. I thought that I could just be nice to people because being nice was something girls had to be. As I grew older I realized that being the ‘nice’ black woman was exhausting. The pressure to smile and make everyone around myself feel comfortable while I lost respect for myself was far too much for me. So I decided to become the nice, strong black woman because I believe in kindness but wanted to be respected.

What people don’t tell young black girls when they have no other choice than to become the ‘strong’ black woman is that it could destroy you. Being the ‘strong’ black woman meant pretending to be confident even when I didn’t feel like it, for the sake of appearances. It meant I could never let my guard down around people I was with because they thought I was strong. While being strong is regarded as a good thing, who picks up the strong person when they are down? Who looks at a strong person and tells them that they can cry? Being the ‘strong’ black woman was a double edged sword. While it seemed to be the highest compliment a black woman could be paid, it offered little room for vulnerability and the freedom to mess up, two things I sorely wanted as a young black girl. So no, I no longer want to be the ‘strong’ black woman because it has taken far too much of my mental wellbeing. I would wish that we eventually create a society where young black girls are afforded the privilege to be able to grow into the person they want to be, rather than having to choose to become someone with the fear of being told that she is ‘too much’ or ‘not enough’.