THE PSYCHE OF THE BLACK WOMAN: CONNECTING SELF AND COMMUNITY (Pt. 1)

I have been engaged in an online discussion with a regular contributor to this round table and I would like to share the conversation that we have been having because I believe that it is vitally important that black women begin to look at the condition of our psyche, individually and collectively.

For several months, I have been thinking a great deal about the "Open Door Syndrome" that is exhibited by countless black women. We seem to have left the door unopened to our psyche. As a result, everything around us has begun to assault us mentally and emotionally. Whenever I am in the midst of a group of black women, and the discussion shifts to their lives, their struggles, or their self-esteem, many frayed emotions are displayed.

I was in a blog discussion last week and it was clear to me that some black women believe that any media attack on Michelle Obama is a direct attack against every black woman in America. The emotional reactions that some black women have expressed about attacks against Michelle Obama seem to demonstrate a lack of understanding of the difference between demonstrating gender solidarity and internalizing external attacks. Many women do not know the difference between internalizing attacks and being empathetic about attacks against other black women. There is an enormous difference between the identification with a person or persons and the internalization of another's experiences. Michelle Obama does not represent black women simply because she is a black woman who has a public role. Jackie Onassis was not the personification of every white woman in America. Michelle should not become the definition of black womanhood - to white America or to black women.

The white media wants to point to one black criminal as the representative for all blacks or point to one black man as the representative for all black men, or point to one black leader as the mind of all black people. In many discussions that I have participated in, I have noticed many black women condoning this mentality - this belief that one person in the race represents the entire race to the majority culture. This mentality fuels dynamics of "messiah representation" within the black community that we need to dismantle.

In a conversation on this blog on June 17, 2008, a fellow blogger, Khadija, made an observation that was very profound and I'd like to share it with you:
"...I share your lack of interest in promoting "victimhood." However, there's a difference between being a victim & acknowleging that one is under attack. I believe that Black women's spirits in addition to our very lives are currently under heavy assault. From all angles. I'm not saying that our thoughts or analyses should end on the note of acknowleging that we are under attack. We have to move forward despite the attack. My primary concern is that many [most?] Black women seem extremely confused about the fact that we are under attack. We know that many painful things are happening, but we aren't making the mental connections..."

We need to enter the battlefield with strong minds and healthy emotional states. There are many assaults on black women. Few black women feel safe. Black women know that the justice system will not protect us. Few black women feel emotionally nurtured. Few black women have anyone who is caring for them on a regular basis. We have people who care about us but we don't always have people in our support network who care for us.

Ask any black woman: "Who attends to your needs?" You will receive a blank stare. What saddens me is that so many of us believe that no one should attend to our needs, even as we attend to everyone's needs around us.

I wrote a post about "The Cost of Pushing a Black Man to the Throne" two months ago because I wanted to share some perspectives about how black men receive assistance for their own advancement in the way that black women often do not. In that post, I mentioned that black women ministers often see black men with an entourage and sneer, "why are all those black women helping that brotha?" and I said the question that must be answered is "why do I insist on doing everything myself?" I have seen black women sneer when I mention that I don't do housework and that I do not cook (although I know how) and that I have a stylist who decides what I should look like when I leave the house. I have an armor bearer who has served God in her service to me for the past five years. She will do anything that I need.

Often, I have observed black women scoffing at other black women who refuse to accept a life pattern of being overworked and overscheduled and overtaxed and overdone. I have no problems having someone shop for me, drive for me, do my hair for me, do my nails for me, or take care of my feet for me. I hate to be in malls and would rather pay a designer to create my wardrobe. There are some things I do not want to spend time doing. Women who accept assistance from others are often viewed as egotistical prima donnas. The reason why there is such widespread scoffing when a black woman who could be fully self-reliant chooses not to be is because there is something in our psyche that wants to embrace the notion that being overworked is admirable. I have heard so many black women tell me that their mothers and grandmothers told them not to depend on anyone for anything in life. This motherly advice, while well-intentioned, promotes many pathologies.

When black women are taught to rely on no one for anything and are being conditioned to place the fulfillment of their own needs behind everyone else's, this paradox establishes a dysfunctional and fragmented mentality that produces emotional cripples.

I see the damaged psyche of so many. There are some women who desperately want to embrace the notion that I am exploited, that every black woman they encounter is exploited or victimized, simply because they see their own lives through a lens of exploitation and victimization. I don't allow women to paint a false portrait of the working relationship that I have with the leader of our organization, simply because they want to view all black men in power in a negative light. The image of the exploitative black man/disempowered black woman is familiar in their experience and, some unconsciously attempt to project that image on to others. It is surprising to them that I don't have stories about being subjugated and oppressed in the black church. I find that many women I meet ask numerous questions about the ministry leader I work with. It seem that they want to "undercover" anything that supports the negative expectations that they want to embrace about black men in power. This reflects a battered psyche.

Often, women who are not attempting to uncover victimization in every slight are seen as naive, when actually, there is something deeply imbalanced about constantly seeking to view oneself and seeking to view others as victims of the transgressions of other people. Is victimization the only lens with which to view oneself? Is the personhood of a black woman ever detached from exploitation?

I would like to share the audio tracks of bell hooks' presentation: "Love: Connecting Self and Community".

In the four-minute track titled "Critique of the Strong Black Woman", bell hooks observes that black women are addicted to over-functioning. I have noticed this to be very true. Most professional black women I know believe it is a norm to be overwhelmed, overworked, overscheduled, overcommitted. bell hooks says: "We have to stop making excuses for the dysfunctional behavior of what we have traditionally talked about as the strong black woman." She said that "many black women refuse to let in any window of possibility of soul restoration."

We do not recognize the degree to which this constant assault on our own minds and the constant drain on our spirits provides all of the required elements for perpetuating emotional brokenness. I keep reading on many blogs where women dialogue online that the assaults are coming to us externally. The assaults are also coming to us internally. We are complicit in our own depletion and deterioration. How can we address this complicity?

A contributor to this blog, Mac Walton, asked the women in a discussion we had a month ago about how black women release their anger. He wasn't absolving black men of any scrutiny about their own anger issues, of course, but the post was not about black men and anger. The post, "Lost Absolution: White Men and Their Horrid History With Black Women" was about dealing with historical baggage. I suspect that one reason why many women did not want to closely examine our collective anger is because we don't want to accept full accountability for the toxicity that exists at its core. I wrote a post titled, "The Reconciling Black Woman" and I outlined six steps towards self-reconciliation. I seek to provide concrete actions steps as we engage in this process of examination and recovery.

In the two-minute track titled "Black Woman Spectacle" , bell hooks says that "too long our activism has been riddled with dysfunction" and she says, "this is the hour for us to attend to the restoration of our souls." I agree with her. I spend a lot of time at this blog asking us to dig deeper into the well so that we can bring out more solutions that will empower all of us.

In the three-minute track titled "The Individual Toll" , bell hooks mentioned Dr. Martin L. King's sex addiction and she spoke about the impact that revolutionary work has on the psyche and on the spirit. I believe that many black women have an idealistic notion about what the battle entails. So many of us don't understand that we can not enter the battlefield as battered women. I spend a lot of time on this blog engaging in discussions about our thinking, about our dynamics and about our interior construction. It is part of our preparation to go into battle. We are fooling ourselves if we believe that we are fully prepared to wage war on the battlefield. The majority of us are not prepared to go to war without winding up casualties of war. We will be very shortly. We will be!

I do not sound a trumpet to call all black women to the battle field. I believe it is irresponsible for black women to call all women into warfare. The U.S. military does not bring any troops into war without a process of diligent preparation. This roundtable is a place for us to prepare one another to skillfully use the weaponry of war. The mind of a black woman is a fierce weapon.

It will benefit us to intently focus on the internal forces that what we are in direct control of. There are external assaults against us but I want to encourage us to critically examine the aspects of the sociological equation that we can redirect and redefine. We have discussed the dysfunctional dynamics that black women have with each other because we are empowered to act on that. We have discussed the dysfunctional dynamics that we have with our brothas because we are empowered to act on that too. I am not casting aside the impact of racism and sexism inflicted upon us by white America by encouraging us to invest time in examining what we control about our own reality.

In the two-minute track titled, "Ego and Sisterhood", bell hooks mentions a person who wrote scathing comments about her ideology and personhood and she reflects upon that period in her life when everyone was calling her on the phone to tell her about what they had read. She said that she chose not to read the venom that was poured out on her by another black woman because she knew that if she did, she would have lost appreciation for that woman's scholarship. I believe that is a lesson for all black women. It is so important that we choose not to engage with the toxicity that other women may harbor and unleash in order to maintain our respect of them. How often do we choose to meander in another's toxicity? As I have matured, I have learned how noble it is to decide that I do not need to have the last word.

In the three-minute track titled, "Triumph of the Will", bell hooks speaks about the need for us to define community so that we do not fall into the trap of believing that healing takes place in isolation. She said that we must surrender into the arms of community. I believe that is vitally important. We have a lot of barriers that we erect with one another as a form of self-protection. It amazes me how much black women have protected ourselves emotionally from each other's assaults, but how little we guard ourselves from the assaults of the dominant and oppressive culture. I see this very often in the church setting when women congregate. There is a permeating dynamic of superficiality that is fostered in the incessant need to appear to be more whole, more together, more constructed than we actually are. I wrote a post three months ago titled, "Will The Real You Please Stand Up?" because I wanted to have an honest dialogue about the barriers that we place in our own path of embracing our authenticity. I knew that I would be leading discussions about redefining gender and redefining femininity and redefining class and I realized that those discussions could not be initiated until we understood the importance of embracing our authenticity and until we were committed to encouraging and affirming the authentic self of each of our sistas.

As I listened to these tracks where bell hooks was sharing her insights, I realized that black women must become connected to self and must begin to repair and restore the collective psyche before we can move forward on many of the core issues that are deeply important to us.

One thing that I notice repeatedly is that whenever someone disagrees with whatever I have presented, they chose not to engage. This, to me, reflects a mentality that is not prepared to foster community with other black women. They choose to discard what they disagree with. They walk away from whatever doesn't align with their own experience. If I discard the thoughts that I disagree with then it will be easy to discard the person who is attached to the thoughts that I disagree with. This is why I often ask those who I know will disagree with me to engage with me. Some black women, in their desire to be polite (I guess), have sent me notes to disagree with whatever I have written on this blog or in the comments section. My response to them is brief: "Thank you for sharing with me but I would prefer if you'd disagree with me out in the open".

Anyone who requires ideological comformity in order to participate in community is not going to be a participant in furthering black solidarity. I've seen some women post a comment to express what they disagree with, do not engage with other women and do not return to the conversation. In her poignant presentation, bell hooks mentioned that black women must understand the importance of being in community. The emotional health and the intellectual wealth of our community as black women depends upon the level of engagement and the level of empowerment that we undertake with one another.

I look forward to presenting Part Two of this examination tomorrow.